Category: Pictures

Went to the Circus with my friends, pictures are below.

I have a bit of a story about it at /2007/02/15/vday-2007/

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Christmas and New Years was good for me, just saw my family, hung out with all my friends. I did get the new camera I was wanting, a FujiFilm f30 model. Sample pics are below:

Gadita the Tiger

Christmas Day Puppies

Me with Chloe

New Years Eve night O games

More Gadita

A girl and her banana

Tim pondering

Other than wasting time taking pictures, I’ve wasted a lot more time on all the personal sites again. Whoring myself out there, another doll on the shelf. Already met some great people, but nothing consistent. If you ladies are playing the hard to get game you’ve already won as I won’t play. It’s hard for me to tell if a lady’s flirting or just being friendly. It’s got to be pretty obvious to me. Is the waitress taking extra special care of me because she’s interested, or she’s hoping for a good tip? So, let me know, or I’ll assume otherwise and move on. Of course I’ve already been in touch with several scammers. You know, those ‘Russian brides’ who profess their love to you then ask for money to help their sick momma. Or the hot girls who want to chat, if you get on their for-pay webcam. The occasional dude who says ‘if you don’t find what you’re looking for I’m available’. No thanks guy. I got lonely, knew the game already from past experience, and decided to play with Russian bride game this time. She emailed introducing herself, of course including some incredibly hot pictures. I googled up a known Russian blacklist site, found the next already written e-mail that she would be sending and I sent that to her as my reply. She didn’t catch on, she fired off another email to me, to which I have yet to reply. I’ve gotten a few follow up e-mails asking how I am and why haven’t I written. I’m going to write back and say my family had an emergency and I need some money, baby. Or maybe I’ll say I have a business trip to Russia and am ready to meet. Anyway, I’ll play the game for a little while just to waste their time. Here’s the last e-mail she sent:

Dear Phil! Thanks for your e-mail . I did not inform you earlier Phil
the address because it is not enough knew you. I live in average area
of Russia, in city Obninsk. To regret it is far from you, differently
it was not necessary for us much e-mail, to find out each other. We
could meet, talk, to spend some time together and it is quite good to
find out each other. But for us it will be not a fast way. But I hope,
that it will not be problem for us if we shall decide to make it in
the future. I already made some travel to other countries. I
travelled, as the tourist, to Europe. Therefore Phil , you should not
have excitements of that is present distance between us. I such woman,
that if I shall like the person for a meeting with him, I shall reach
even on the moon. In our days is not a problem to make such travel. I
not I worry about it and even I have devoted feelings, having got
acquainted with The person on the other hand. For me it is very
interesting feelings- To find out the person with other culture,
thinking, traditions. It One of things - which draws me to you. Not
the main thing,- But new and interesting. Probably if our relations
will be strong and you Phil, you can find out the mysterious Russian
woman. I hope, that for you it is interesting to find out and test
love of such woman? I think, dear Phil That you cannot resist to mine
for a long time female magic, If happen so, that we shall be the
person to To the person.On it I finish my message to you Phil. I to
send you other my photo.

I wait for your messages. Yours Olga.

Otherwise, haven’t been doing a whole lot, my mind is too preoccupied. Lots of ideas of things to create, but just can’t get into that phase. The ideal thing for me is to have a partner who can help me, be with me, entice and inspire me to create. Someone that understands the tools of creation, not be jealous of them. If that doesn’t happen soon I’m sure I’ll get comfortable where I am and create anyway just as before. The content would be different I’m sure. But, that’s ok. Been playing the piano and guitar a lot more too, maybe I can catch back up on years of neglect and write some music again. Well, all for now. Time for bed.

today i went shopping and bought a bunch of stuff to replace the things i had to remove from my house. there’s a big pile of junk in the den now of stuff i dont want, that’s not mine. it would be even bigger if i hadn’t of got tired, and am basically running out of space. hopefully it will magically disappear soon. i wanted to set a fire in my fireplace for christmas but now i cant get to it. i haven’t been allotted my christmas decorations so i don’t have anything but christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped for christmas scenery. i already sold the digital camera i had bought for a present. it was a nice fuji a500 or something. i would of kept it, but i’ve got my eye on a fuji f30.

i hate the feeling of losing someone, but i also hate just as much the process of someone new. don’t get me wrong, it’s exciting and fun, but i have the hardest time finding someone i like, thats single, and i think would actually be interested. i also hate asking for a date even if i do see someone. i hardly ever do it. i bet i could sit here and think of all the times i’ve actually asked someone for a date.

hmm, there was that girl in the mall that gave out the sweet potato sticks, oh wait i never asked her out, i only asked her for her number. then i never called. i’m sorry.

then there was one of my now ex’s. it was all part of an elaborate plan where i had wrote a letter to my friend and let her read it. in the letter i wrote about me finding someone i liked, but never mentioned the name. then, one day i told her that person in the letter she read was her.

hmmm let’s see there was the one girl that just didn’t see me as religious enough to date. although for that one i did a pretty stupid thing that turned out all wrong, but it was a really good plan in my head, and she admitted it was very sweet. i went to the store, bought a tub of ice cream, bowls, spoons, and drove to her work. waited for her to get off work then i’d catch her outside and we’d have ice cream in the car. problem was she got off work early, and had already left. unbeknownst to me, i was still waiting outside in the parking lot until like 30 minutes after close. i called her to see when she’d be leaving, and she was already home. but she humored me and came to meet me there, but then she decided she wasn’t hungry.

hm ok maybe i can’t think of every single time. i’m not including ones where someone else hooked us up on a date, or where she initiated it. well, ya i probably can think of every single time actually, but most of them don’t have elaborate stories to tell about. or i dont want to embarrass anyone, or myself. ok i’m just blabbering. nothing gets me in the mood more to write than the mood i’m in now. which is alone.

anyway i guess my point to all this is that i actually had the nerve to ask a lady for lunch yesterday. i just felt comfortable enough to do so. she declined, but only declined for that day and said we could another day. i’m acceptable with that. will let you know how it goes as i’m definitely interested in her.

if you havent been following my flickr stream, i’ve got a new cell phone with a camera. and although the idea seemed really great, the more pictures i take the less i like it. the quality just isn’t there like my real camera. but i guess that’s not the point, the point is to have some sort of set of interesting pictures from impromptu moments wherever i am. when you see one of these pictures on my flickr, i probably just took and uploaded it the date and time it says, so if you see a new one pop up that’s more than likely where i am right then, or had just been. i’m tagging them with cameraphone so you can search my stream for cameraphone to see them. anyway, here’s a few:

well i’m off to bed. need to check to see if my new bedsheets are dry so i can make the bed.

Alan’s set of troubadours Down By Avalon played at The Cave in Chapel Hill last night. Here’s selected pictures. And yes, they even have myspace.

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Thanks to everyone who has viewed my photos from Nekocon 2006 and many other things, just 2 weeks after my trip to Nekocon, my flickr photostream views more than doubled. I’m now right at 7,859 photos and 21,355 views. This is my favorite set of anime con pictures, maybe I’m finally figuring out this picture taking thing. I had many people tell me great picture, or asking for me to take their picture, or saying how envious they are of my camera (Fujifilm S7000) and even one guy that was upset because he used to have a camera just like mine but lost it. Anyway, here’s some of my personal favorites from the trip.

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Good friend Jonathan Hawkins film studies has forced him to undertake a more true-to-life short than the little stuff we’ve been doing ourselves. Introducing Jonatha’s film project – Salesman vs Salesman. So, here comes the multiple-thousands-of-dollars German-made Arriflex 16 from Arri. 16mm film camera, some more info on the camera can be found here, I couldn’t find a really good page for this camera, as the camera is over 40 years old now.

I’d have to say the first step in making a film is to insert the film. Jonathan and Alison both had a class on how to load the film and use the camera, however, it ended up taking almost 2 hours to get the camera to a working on position.

Unlike our previous self-inflicted ventures, Jonathan already had a storyboard.

Here’s me, the vacuum salesman.

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I have neglected this site for a while now, because I’m so busy with my other sites and personal and business projects.  I rarely write anymore, however I do not like that fact and would like to write more again.  But I have decided that this site, not including my writing and other nonsense I post here needs to be an aggregate for all things about me.  whootah.com, flickr, life in general, when I update something somewhere, I will try my best to put it here.

That said, my most recent update I have is my flickr.com photostream.  You may view my pictures here, over 6000 in fact, including last weeks trip me and Lisa took to the mountains of North Carolina.  I love comments on my pictures, so feel free to signin and post. 

Thanks for staying in touch.

Lisa and I took to the mountains of North Carolina. Here’s the top viewed pics

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After the NAS Oceana air show, there was an additional, optional event going on at the beach later that night. So we hiked it back to the car, drove from the base to the beachfront, and enjoyed some time on the sand.

At the beach, they had erected a huge King Neptune statue. The festivities of the night were to include a crowning of King Neptune, which was some guy from the local community….

A flyover of one of the air show jets with its afterburner on….

And a twilight parachute from—if I remember right—over a mile or two high? I dunno, it was really high.

And their goal was to land inside of a small marked-off area on the beach.

Which, of course, they all did perfectly. To help us see them as they came down, they had little glow sticks all over their body. So when they landed, they began to take off all the glow sticks and throw them into the crowd. Of course everyone was loving this and trying to grab them and all the kids were running out into the landing area when the guys were still coming down and they had to be taken away so they didn’t get bonked in the head.

So, there we all are right at the landing area and one of the guys throws a glow stick our way. Everyone jumps up to catch it. To my right there was a little kid and an older girl, and the kid jumped for it, but the girl caught it. I looked over at her and saw she had caught it and when she looked at me I bet my mouth inhaled about a ton of sand, sea water and bird poop from my jaw dropping due to her beauty. Wow, I mean she was just gorgeous, long curly brown hair, beautiful eyes, smile, just about perfect. And I just had to think of something to say so I mustered up the only thing I could reasonably say to such a beautiful stranger which was “I didn’t hit you upside the head with my camera did I?” She looked at me, gave me her beautiful smile, placed her hand on mine and said “No, of course not”. Or something like that. I can’t possibly remember exactly what she said as I was stunned, I’m sure. She continued to gather her other belongings, and also the little kid as he was apparently with her. The kid wanted to stick around to get his own glow stick. I thought about it and thought, and finally I decided to ask for her picture. Oh, what a wonderful picture it would be. I finally got the nerve to ask, whipped out my camera, turned it on, got ready to set it up and it shut back off. Batteries dead. I try again, same thing. I shake it, same deal. I had given my extra batteries away, hence had no other backups. I stood there growing more upset as to the ordeal. Eventually, she nodded goodbye and took off into the darkness.

Afterwards, I couldn’t help but to kick my own ass for the stupidity of the situation. What a perfect picture of a beautiful girl it could have been. I would post it up on flickr on the Beautiful Girls, Picturing the Woman, or 10 group. Her face lit up by the surrounding lights, the beach and stars in the background, hair blowing in the beach breeze, holding up the glowstick proudly, giving her wonderful smile. I can picture that scene to this day as one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve never taken. I even went as far as to post on craigslist in that area asking around for her. There would be no way to re-create that shot. The moment was right there, the lighting, the mood, the surroundings, everything was just right. Yet, I can see it clearly in my mind. I resorted to just drawing my own rendition of the scene. But, of course the lack of artist that I am has absolutely no resemblance whatsoever.

However. My entire point to all of this follows. Yes, I love to string along stories.

If I DID actually get the picture at that time, place, subject, everything. If my batteries did work as intended, and the camera did work, and I still gathered the nerves to ask for her photo, I’m almost sure the resulting picture could never look as perfect as it does in my mind now. And maybe that’s intended. The fantasy in the mind is perfect. There’s no specks on the lens, no glare from the street lights, her hair isn’t blocking her face, the flash wouldn’t overexpose her body, yet you could still see the beach and stars in the background.

No matter how much thinking and fantasizing I do, what if I did end up following through with it and it really did happen? And all the imperfections stood out like red-eye. The end result would be disappointing, unsatisfying, filled with problems and issues that can’t be undone. Maybe the fantasy is better than the reality. And knowing that, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get the picture. And I can just revel in her beautiful image in my mind forever. Maybe, next time, I should just keep the fantasy, afraid of what the reality may bring.

In 2025 I asked AI to recreate the image for me, and this is what we came up with.

Myself along with good buddy Steve, April and Brent took a road trip to the NAS Oceana Air Show in Virginia Beach, VA. Half the day was wasted driving, or sitting in the car simply waiting to park. But once there, we took an almost 2 mile hike and infiltrated the Air Force base itself. Walked right out onto the runway.

Of course, so did thousands of other people.

Luckily for the spectators, they had this super strong, highly visible red plastic fence to separate us from the multiple-ton planes taking off, landing, and performing unbelievable acrobatic feats at several hundreds of miles an hour only a few feet away from us.

We saw lots of cool planes, doing lots of cool things.

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