Arizona | Daily Plog

December 17, 2009

Great news

Filed under: Nikon D90, People, Updates — Tags: Arizona, Beautiful, Chandra, D90, future, Happiness, hopefulness, Nikon, People, site, update, Updates, woop woop — Jacob Crosby @ 3:15 am

I have a great deal of good news to share with everyone this post and it does not even involve some deliciously edited photo… I have recently come into a certain amount of assistance from someone to which I am eternally grateful. As it stands recently I have been unimaginably hopeful with regards to my future. I will say this, and I wll keep it ‘relatively’ short, I had recently lost someone in my life in which I believed had absolutelty no replacement the world over.

It seems not only did I find a replacement for this person, I found that this person never really deserved to be in my life in the first place. I thought my life would be terrible and I would be lost without her, and he truth is, my life has been unfathomable leagues better since she lost me. I have been blessed not only with realization that I have had MEGA great friends the whole time, and that I may have lost one person, but I have gained two great new friends and an amazing family that make it very clear that she always needed to be replaced. Much like a broken piece of office equipment, you do not dwell on the fact that it is broken and “gone”, you simply replace it, and forget it ever existed in the first place because the replacement unit functions better on it’s worst day than the previous unit did when it was brand new….

I have always heard the best revenge is living well, hehe, well, that I am doing, and not that I would ever wish ill upon Chandra (or most people for that matter) as I do still love her so very much, I reently heard she is doing worse since she lost me… If there is such a thing as karma I am confident some just got dished up, shaken, not stirred.

Having given that tidbit of “grandtastic” news, I want to inform everyone of my first purchases towards my new business as well as the basic premise behind my new venture.

My very first purchases towards the business were a new air compressor and a new brad nail gun. Essentially I intend to process my photographs as usual, and get them printed in varying sizes. The second step in my overall process is to construct my own unique frames that I will be able to design around the photograph that will be going inside the frame. Now that you can see why I would need an air compressor and a nail gun when working with photographs… hehe. My third purchase was my dream camera. I have been dissatisfied with my camera for shooting HDR photographs for some time now. Ultimately, I found a great deal for a Nikon D90 online, I purchased the D90 with a few lenses and some additional equipment that will help me transfer from my Canon to a Nikon as all the connections are different, as well as the threading of the lenses.

Now that everyone knows why I have a great level of confidence in my future I am ready to go out and sell my photographs and frames. I would like to involve my friends and family in the process of building this, and doing so from the beginning, so if you have an ideas that you think would be beneficial, please do let me know.

Sorry for the lack of a photo today.

“Real life is the hardest impression, it’s always moving so I let it come through.”

~Little Texas

Rating: 9.5/10 (2 votes cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

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November 30, 2009

Rose…

Filed under: Arizona, Nature, Outdooors, People, Phoenix, Rebel XT/350D, Sedona, Travel — Tags: Arizona, Wilderness — Jacob Crosby @ 12:32 pm

Don’t disturb the beast, the temperamental goat, the snail,
While he’s feeding on the rose,
Stay frozen compromise,
What I will, I am…

Bend around the wind,
Silently blown about again,
I’m treading so soft and lightly,
Compromising my will, I am…

I am, I will, so no longer
Will I lay down, play dead,
Play your doe,
In the headlights,
Locked down and terrified,
Your deer in the headlights,
Shot down and horrified,

When push comes to pull,
Comes to shove,
Comes to step around,
This self-destructive dance,
That never would’ve mattered,
Until I rose, I roared aloud here,
I will, I am…

I am,
I will,
So no longer,
Will I,
Lay down,
Play dead,
Play this,
Knee down,
Gunshy,
Martyr,
Pitiful,
I rose,
I roared,
I will,
I am….

Within the words above I find a certain level of comfort. It seems that in this song the notion that we are able to endure precludes itself. I found that my level of endurance, tolerance, and patience, with regards to the lies, untruths, and injustices of another is finite and is not everlasting as I previously thought it was. It seems that, just as in the words above, there came a point in which “Compromising my will” was just no longer possible and as such, “I rose, I roared aloud here!… So no longer, will I lay down, play dead, play this.” I did whatever I deemed necessary to stop the “Self-destructive dance” that was indeed occurring. I was not able to focus on anything short of what the end outcome would be. My approach wrong, perhaps… Is the outcome what was most necessary, yes, without doubt, and in the same, there is an amount of remorse that penetrates me. Though not enough to cause regret, just enough to, on occasion, cause my spine to tingle, my heart to race, my thought process reduced to what might have been. Though after the abundance of effort and time on my part put forth, it seems that, inherently, people are incapable of change.

We are all faced with challenges, some as simple as getting out of bed, some unimaginable. In the end, we make our decisions based on the rules we have set for our lives, the guidelines to which we tailor our existence. Sometimes, our emotions interfere with a logic that is evident and ultimately undeniable. Perhaps if we could take the emotional variable out of the equation, the decisions we must make would be a great deal easier, but nobody ever said the easy choice was always the right choice, and as I have found, it rarely is.

I have made my bed, and I am fully prepared to sleep in it, and a certain level of confidence burns through me, that I will rest well, and may you also, with all of your regrets and remorse for what you have done to those around you, and what you will continue to do. Only you know the extent to which your behaviors reach, and the irreparable damage you have caused. May you sleep well indeed Chandra.

Since this post was built around a “quote” in the song above, there will be no quote today.

Rating: 10.0/10 (3 votes cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

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November 21, 2009

All the Fire in the Sky

Filed under: Arizona, Fire, Nature, Nature Preserve, Outdooors, Phoenix, Rebel XT/350D, Sunset, Travel — Tags: Arizona, Beautiful, Fire, Painted, Phoenix, Sky, Sunset — Jacob Crosby @ 12:22 am

The good news, perhaps the best news short of my recent trip to Arizona, is that I had a job interview today. I have been applying at a plethora of places looking for an IT position, and it seems that my level of experience and knowledge is either not enough or far surpassing that of the desired candidate for most positions. Fortunately, Apple seems to think differently (No pun intended) , because I actually had an interview with a company for a helpdesk position troubleshooting Apple products. I feel extremely confident that I will get the position.

The bad news (That is actually good news), I recently lost someone that was a huge part of my life. Don’t worry, she is very much alive. Regardless of the circumstances with which things ended, it seems that it is a great sigh of relief to be able to breathe again. I was so overwhelmed with constantly having to repair everything that went wrong, both emotionally and physically. Constantly needing to be there to pick up the pieces, but every moment a new “toy” came along, I was immediately of no use. Every instant, walking on egg shells, worried that the most innocent of sentences could spark a fire that could not be put out and would become a raging inferno. Ultimately, this is the best week I have had in almost exactly one year. Thank you for freeing me from your undying abuse…

As previously stated I was granted the opportunity to visit a friend in the Phoenix area of Arizona. In Minnesota we have the beautiful reds that turn orange and yellow, the deep blues that fade into purples and pinks…. In Arizona it seems the sunsets are someone setting fire to the sky. When there are clouds in the sky (Which is certainly a rarity), it is a violent torrent of rich orange, red, yellow and mix perfectly with the swirling clouds in the sky. Having said that, there are the beautiful multi-colored sunsets that we experience here, but I did not see them until I went to Sedona.

This photo was taken after a short hike through Lost Dutchman State Park to an area called Flat Iron Peak, and The Praying Hands. Chandra and I had hiked up the mountain top the highest point, which was and area between Flat Iron Peak and the first set of Praying Hands. We got to the top and took some photos of each other, horsed around a bit, and kind of relaxed together and sat down and just cuddled. After about twenty of minutes of that we started heading back down the mountain.

Once about halfway down and having made it partially around the side of the mountain the sky opened up and the name struck me, All the Fire in the Sky. Actually lyrics from a song, it was the first thing that came to mind the moment I saw it. I began running down the mountain, camera and tripod in tow, which, given my medical condition, was probably not in the top three list of “Things I should do to get a nice photo”. However, I knew that at the bottom was my backpack with all of my gear, and fortunately my pain medication. Not that they were necessary as I made sure to take enough prior to starting the hike. I was somewhat out of it during taking most of my photos as any time we had gone hiking I made sure that I took enough to endure the pain of carrying my gear. Due to the fact that I was on pain medication I was not entirely in the best mental state to focus on camera settings and taking good photos. As such, many of the photos I had taken during my stay in Arizona are not suitable for HDR… Sadly.

This photo is not an automated HDR, I actually mapped the photo manually in Photoshop just to see how difficult it would be, of all photos, please comment and rate this one.

Well, after my long story about Lost Dutchman State Park and All the Fire in the Sky of an Arizona sunset, here is the aforementioned photo in all of it’s illustrious glory!

Rating: 9.5/10 (2 votes cast)

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