the sky is falling

so here's the thing. i went to a Thunder game with my family. i sat in the second level behind one of the goals. i took pictures with a 40 year old fixed prime lens. Sometimes i took pictures of my mother through the car window via the rearview mirror through the car window. Or of people in front of me rockin hard.

For those who care, the Thunder blew out the Spurs. The final score was just 108-96, but Cole Aldrich and Royal Ivey got some great run. And if i remember right, Durant ended up scoring in photo 11.























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Hi Sam,
In case Paula didn't tell you, the Department has approved 2K for your fieldwork on Nyangi,
Zygmunt

Of Browns

Sometimes i'm at the Brown's house, and there are delicious coffees, delicious cookies, and marauding childs.













‘That both ladies were in the end fully convinced of what they had at first assumed as a mere supposition is nothing out of the way. We learned people, as we call ourselves, behave in almost the same way, and our learned theories are a proof of it. At first our savants approach them in almost a cringing spirit, they begin timidly, discreetly, they begin with the humblest suggestion: “Is not this the origin? Does not such a country derive its name from such and such a spot?” or, “Is not this document connected with another of a later period?” or, “Should we not take such and such a people to mean this or that other people?” He immediately quotes such and such ancient writers, and if he can only detect a hint or what he takes for a hint, he grows audacious and confident, talks to the writers of antiquity without ceremony, asks them questions and himself supplies the answers, quite forgetting that he had begun with a timid hypothesis; he soon fancies that he sees it, that it is clear, and his argument is concluded with the words, “This is how it was: so this is the people that is meant by this name! This is how we must look at the subject!” Then it is proclaimed to all from the platform—and the newly discovered truth is sent on its travels round the world, gathering to itself followers and disciples.”
--Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

The Doings of Hidden Valley

When beers are all in one place, and when that place is Oklahoma, we tend to try to go live the high life out at the land.

Although sometimes that comes after a little bit of lounging on the couch at 1:30am on Christmas and short dusky walks at the Bluff Creek mountain bike trails.

While living the high life out at the land, dogs ride on top of cars, grown men are featured in senior pictures redux redux redux, girls hold dogs lovingly, brothers lose themselves in thought, mothers split 24-inch diameter logs into veritable kindlings (yes, kindlings!), fathers provide mothers with such logs, brothers provide mother-providing fathers with such logs, and beers stand in between me and the sun, at which point i shoot them (often after unintentionally taking cover in the long grass, myself).









































'Basic research is not typically driven by the possibility of applications. Although looking for results that will be useful in the short term might be the best strategy for someone seeking personal fortune, it wouldn't be the best strategy for a society looking for long-term benefit from the scientific research it supports. Basic scientific investigation has proven over the centuries to have long-term payoffs, even when the applications were not evident at the time the research was carried out...we don't believe there is any need for linguistic research to be justified on the basis of its foreseeable uses.'
--Sag et al (2003) (shortly before explaining some foreseeable uses of linguistic research)

i missed the cold

and alone is the easiest way to poke around the foothills around NCAR or Chautauqua. So i should have been reading/writing/cleaning/packing/socializing/drinking coffee/jogging/thinking, but i went for a short hike around NCAR two days before i returned to Oklahoma for Christmas.

i took panoramas of the evening light illuminating the trees on a gentle ridge. i saw people, and they were small. i took panoramas of Bear Peak looking bearly, and trees and stuff, and the sun. Or Mount Sanitas through some brush. Or rocks or plants or crooked trees or cars driving down from NCAR.

i shot a wedding today. it was very nice.

i'm shooting another gig tomorrow--the first worship service held by City Presbyterian Church in Oklahoma City, being started by my friends Doug Serven and Bobby Griffith. All the best of good things to them.

i will be swimming in new pictures forever, and will surely never survive.

more eggnog needed.

Surprise of surprises! i was social once (one particular time--not one stage of life).

i went to GCF's Christmas party. There were foods, there were drinks, there were singings, there were two then-future-former students.