Dance After Dark Photography

Mount it on the walls!

Walker — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:51:26 +0000

I’m tired, but I can’t sleep. I dozed for about an hour and a half, but I’m a little wired from something. Maybe I waited too long after taking the hydrocodone cough syrup. If I take NyQuil and go to bed, I’ll fall asleep. If I take too long puttering around, it makes me hyper instead. After kicking my sheets around entirely too long, I gave up. Now I’m waiting for the hardware store to open. I’ve got 3 hours.I hate waiting. After yesterday’s activity and in my weakened state I wasn’t up to much on the home improvement front, but I’ve been bitten by the bug. Thus I hung a few more pictures and a pin-board that was supposed to be part of my desk. I also threw out a lot of junk and a couple of boxes left over from previous home improvement kicks. When you buy something with a lifetime warranty, it’s a good idea to stash the manual and the receipt somewhere. You do not, however, need to keep the box for a few months, shuffling it around as it gets in your way and then ultimately forgetting that it’s under that pile you keep stumbling over. In fact, it’s the reason for the pile. Oh! Well, I’d better get rid of that.So I didn’t really do much, but there’s a lot less on my floor now. I had several stacks of boxes up against the wall, along with shelving that’s been sitting around for a year. One of the shelves was finally mounted the other day. The remaining two will go up today, and I think I’m going to add two more floating shelves to mount my two sword racks. My problem is that I’ve got a lot of stuff in a very small bedroom. I had 2.5 rooms to myself at the old house, when the entire upstairs was my domain. For a guy who likes empty space, I have a bad habit of accumulating crap and filling that space. My solution in this tiny environment (now that I’m in a house rather than a rental) is to mount everything on the walls. As more time passes, I realize that I can expand my definition of “everything.” At first I just wanted some shelves to put up pictures and a few books. Ah, but now there’s much more happening.Steff and I found some great wall-mounted drawers at Ikea. They call them a shoe rack; I call it a godsend. Instead of having a bulky and inadequate dresser fighting for floor space, I’m going to mount 9 slimline drawers directly on the wall. Not only will I triple my clothing storage, but I’ll also be able to move some of the boxes into the closet that up to this point has been overfilled with shirts, jeans, slacks, sweatpants, etc. I’ve got 3 rollaway bins under my bed, and the theory is that everything important will go under there. Dress shirts, dress slacks, etc. Work attire that has to be folded. Not that I iron anyway, but on some things wrinkles look worse.Everything else is going to get rolled into a cylinder and stacked in my new drawers. I’m even thinking about making plastic cylinders to help things hold their shape & stay organized. It wouldn’t take much. Two dowel rods mounted on a swivel, one end open. Tuck part of a shirt in between, roll it to make it cylindrical. Slide on the sleeve I’ll make, slide off the whole thing. I might even mount it on my wall over the drawers themselves. It’d rock if I could make it spring-loaded so I can wind it up a little and then let the device do the “folding” for me. That’ll be a project for another time, but I really like the idea. Heck, I don’t even need to premake the sleeves. I can use wax paper and masking tape. I’d just take the shirt bundle off the device first, use a little pressure to roll it tighter on a flat surface, and then cut & tape to seal it. Even better if it’ll be transparent enough to let me see which shirt is which.This is the real reason I started this post. Brainstorming. I just came up with that. My next big issue, and I do mean big, is my djembe. It’s big & heavy, and it usually sits on the floor. The top is natural skin, so I have to resist the urge to use it as a table. I usually wind up putting papers on it, and then from there it’s a natural progression to light boxes and random effluvia. Not anymore! I’m going to mount it high on the wall, over just about everything else. I’ll finally do what I thought about a long time ago and mount the djembe with my didgeridoo, & native american flute. It might even look pretty when I’m done. Last, but not least, the HUGE wardrobe is going away. It was a great investment when I lived with Berlin in a converted garage with no closet. This room has a tiny closet, so I needed it for a while. Not anymore, and it’s the main reason I feel cramped in here (though putting up those dark blue denim curtains really do make the room feel bigger.) I’ll take a picture before I take it apart. I’ll wind up selling it because I’ll need the money after all these doctor bills and all the time I’ve had to take off work. If I remember correctly, I paid over $80 for it. It’s solid, heavy, and sturdy with a smooth-rolling drawer at the bottom. I’ll probably ask half the original price. All of this is an effort not to give up my beautiful 4-post queen-size bed. It’s part of a bedroom set my mother’s had for a long time, so when she gave it to me she expected to give me the rest of the furniture eventually. That hasn’t been necessary or practical, and I really do like the bed. I just need more room!

Cumin-Crusted Sirloin

Walker — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:27:17 +0000

Wow. I repeat, wow! Tonight I strutted my stuff bigtime. Publix had top sirloin on sale for $3.99/lb, so I bought a huge 3.5 lb steak — two inches thick and beautiful! Coated it with kosher salt, cumin, mustard flour, smoked paprika, & cracked black pepper. Rub on a little canola oil, sear ludicrously 4-5 minutes per side, then pop into a 400º oven for 10 minutes. It came out crusty, medium-done inside, and juicy like you wouldn’t believe. Let the meat rest 5 minutes, and then sliced into thin, tender, gloriously beefy slices. I served the sirloin with caramelized red onions that I cooked in the post-sear steak juices. In retrospect, I recommend using something a little spicy. Maybe a few red pepper flakes or a dash of hot sauce rubbed on before the spices. Still, it was damn tasty. I might eat the leftovers with some good horseradish mustard. I roasted a butternut squash. (400º for 45 minutes, drizzled with olive oil & sprinkled with kosher salt and pumpkin pie spice.) I also roasted red potatoes with vidalia onions and carrots. (400º for an hour; salt, pepper, five spice powder, and the remainder of my dry spices from the steak.) Last, but not least, we had a fresh arugula salad with thinly sliced red onions and thick, hearty slices of Irish brown barley bread that I toasted in the oven for a few minutes. I think I’ll be full for a week.

Tangerine & Cider Glazed Chicken

Walker — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:38:27 +0000

I experimented a bit in the kitchen tonight. I started with the intention of doing my usual pan-seared chicken with various vegetables. Then I thought I’d make some kind of chicken wrap, initially to be made with tortillas. Then I decided to use the butter lettuce in the fridge instead of tortillas, but alas the lettuce is past its prime.After much deliberation over a period of hours, I settled on pan-seared chicken with various vegetables. I know, I know. I really went out on a limb.The chicken was covered with smoked paprika, lots of cumin, kosher salt, and a bit of Chinese five spice powder. The veggies wound up being sweet caramelized onions and organic baby carrots. (Does the fact that they’re organic ameliorate some of the evil inherent in plucking them from the ground before they’ve really had a chance to live?) I also chopped up some fresh (also organic but this time adult) spinach. Mix in some leftover basmati rice, and we’re good.When I picked up the chicken at the grocery store, I also picked up some Woodchuck cider. I used a bit of the cider to deglaze the chicken pan and then squeezed in the juice of an organic tangerine. Add a little chicken broth and corn starch, and voila! Tangerine & cider glaze for the chicken. Pretty groovy, if I do say so myself. Then Kimberly, mom, grandma, and I were disturbed by the first half hour of Last Tango in Paris. It’s one of those movies I always thought I should see but apparently knew nothing about. I was expecting an old B&W movie. Way off base. We gave up on the movie and switched to The Whole Nine Yards with Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Amanda Peet. The horrible accents by Rosanna Arquette and Kevin Pollack were quite painful to hear, but it was still a very funny movie.

Adventures in Kayaking: Chapter 11

Walker — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:09:38 +0000

Today Patty and I set off to kayak the 5-mile route from the Ocklawaha to Silver Springs. This is the same trip I tried to make a month or two ago, when the geography creatively realigned itself and I wound up kayaking the Lower Wekiva instead (because I know where that one is.)Guess what! Same thing!We were on track for almost half of our trip. We had directions this time. Unfortunately, we forgot a turn and wound up driving 30 minutes out of the way. In our defense, we were supposed to make two turns onto Highway 44 because it jogs along with several other roads. Because it was the same road name, we forgot that we hadn’t made the second turn. We wound up on 441 in exactly the same spot that I hit on my first attempt. After half an hour of trying to get back on track without actually backtracking, we gave up and headed back.We put in at Katie’s Landing on the Wekiva and headed upriver toward the springs. We didn’t really have an objective, so we kept going until we were tired. As we progressed, I hoped we’d hit a landmark that would help me judge the distance we covered. Eventually we hit the two big fields of water lilies that are a mile north of the Wekiva Marina. At that point, we had to turn around both because we were nearly exhausted and because we were pushing our luck to get back by sunset.The trip was fun. It may also have been the longest trip I’ve made yet. We didn’t really have any of the hair-raising experiences I seem to engender when I hit the water. All of that happened en route, apparently. I’ve already mentioned the geographic instability, but my car died 3 times before we even left Sanford. It didn’t reoccur, so I think everything should be fine. Figures that something would happen, though. It’s just out of warranty. Distance: approx 15 miles, round tripCalories burned: approx 4400

This is not the update you’re looking for.

Walker — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:09:28 +0000

It’s been quite a while since my last update. In theory, I’ve been sorting and editing pictures from my two weeks in Arizona. In practice, I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen and not accomplishing much.

I think I took too many pictures. It’s overwhelming. I’ve gotten rid of most of the outtakes. I edited all of Stacey’s pictures. (She’s a Phoenix-based model who met up with me for a TFP shoot. Time For Prints - an even trade between photographer & model.) I’ve already printed several of my favorite shots from the South Maricopa Mountain Wilderness, Camelback Mountain, and the Tonto Natural Bridge. The problem is the remaining mass of photos from Camelback, Besh Ba Gowa, the Superstition Mountains, Globe, etc.

Tonight I’ll begin with the photos of Empty and the Pimplet. I should’ve had those done by now, so they make a good starting point. At least cute kid photos are easy to edit.

In other news, I’ve watched several movies lately. Some of them were even worthwhile. The one that stands out in my memory is Rise: Blood Hunter, starring Lucy Liu. Be afraid. This movie is a horrible waste of time. Sure, she’s half-naked in several scenes. Go for it if semi-anorexic spine protrusion is your thing.

Best line was between Michael Chiklis and Lucy Liu. She’s already become a vampire at this point, but she’s been drained of blood. She wakes up and asks, “Am I dead?” He says, “I’m not sure how to answer that.” This sucked pretty hard (no pun intended) for a movie with Lucy Liu, Michael Chiklis, and Mako. I’ll blame it on very poor direction and a horrible script - both of which can be laid at the feet of Sebastian Gutierrez. Remember this name. Never watch his movies.

In an effort to revive Family Movie Night, we watched Surf’s Up and Ratatouille. I was disappointed with Surf’s Up. The kid penguins were cute, and there were some good lines. Overall, the movie wasn’t worth it. It was cliché, of course, and the dialogue wasn’t clever enough to make up for the formulaic approach. Ratatouille was better, but it’s still not on par with Flushed Away or Toy Story.

Come Together

Walker — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:23:34 +0000

I asked my co-worker today why she had Penny Lane written on the back of whatever it is that sticks up past the edge of my desk. She explained that it’s a photo of her niece, and her name is Penny Lane. Then she pulled out a photo of her nephew.

“What’s his name? Sergeant Pepper?”

Can you imagine that family reunion? “This is my niece Penny Lane and my nephew Sgt. Pepper. I am the Walrus. Have you met my son the Carpenter?”

Knocked Up

Walker — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 05:04:58 +0000

I hate to admit it, but Knocked Up is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time. Seth Rogan cracks me up. I just stayed up entirely too late because I had to watch all the deleted scenes, and I get the feeling I’m going to watch them again before I return the DVD.

All this because it was the least unappealing thing on the shelf at Blockbuster. I got Surf’s Up because I know the family will want to see it, and I still had another movie to trade in. I’m curious, but I can’t make myself rent Black Snake Moan. It sounds too much like porn.

Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes

Walker — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:58:14 +0000

This is yet another example of why it can be bad to know music & lyrics as well as I do. Sometimes all it takes is a word or two to get me started. The co-worker across from me has a note tacked up. I don’t know what the front says, but the back side shows just a little above my desk. It says “Penny Lane 3/2005.” Now I have the Beatles running through my head every time I happen to glance at the paper.

Yarrr! (Halloween 2007)

Walker — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:07:42 +0000

So, what DO you do with a drunken sailor?

And it’s official: Not as bad as I imagine it could be, but I’m still experiencing my first real hangover.

I say “real” hangover because when I worked in the Keys for a month I played drinking games with some co-workers after going snorkeling the same day. I thought I had a hangover then, except the nausea & ringing ears stuck with me for 3 days. The doc I was working with at the time told me I’d put a pinhole in my right eardrum. Oops! Aside from that, my worst drinking experiences involve tequila and a sour stomach afterward.

More than you all wanted to know, I’m sure, but I’m the King of Over-Sharing.

What amuses me most about this photo is the fact that Jenn and I came upon a group in the parking lot of Homme as we were leaving for the night. I don’t know how the conversation started, but Michael and I were talking about the versatility and freedom of kilts. Jenn snapped this photo of Adam, myself, and Michael. As we were leaving, I swept off my hat and bowed to the ladies, to a chorus of “Oh my god he’s bald!” *chuckles*

Photos from Phoenix!

Walker — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:04:25 +0000

I was going to wait until I got back before editing any of my photos, but I had some free time today when, despite a promising 80-degree morning, the sun decided to bake the city once again.

That’s my favorite so far, and I think the reason is obvious. Prettier pictures below:

Sunset over the South Maricopa Mountain Wilderness

First Baptist Church, or what’s left of it after fire damage

Statue atop the Orpheum Theater