Big Johnny Photo

The ingredients for a really good Saturday: 

1.     Wake up.

2.     Engage in the morning ritual that involves Big Dummy waking up, smashing his nose in your face and stomping on you in anticipation of breakfast.

3.     Watch Big Dummy dance around for his food.

4.     Make coffee.

5.     Drink said coffee while having an absolutely stupid online conversation about candy with one of your best friends.

6.     Get psyched, put a few cameras in your pocket and prepare to go downtown with Big Dummy and wander around taking photos.

7.     Check email and find message from someone that wants to buy something you have listed on craigslist.

8.     Call said someone, and figure out that not only are they not some dipshit that wants to offer you ten bucks for the item you listed for a hundred, It’s someone you’ve known for a long time but haven’t seen forever. It also helps if said someone is a little nuts and is super fun to visit.

9.     Go to said someone’s house, get a tour of an awesome garage chock full of incredible bikes and adventure gear, and have an hour long insanity tinged conversation about life and growing up and growing older in Santa Fe.

10. Finally go downtown and walk around in the sun with Big Dummy for a few hours, only having to pick up poo once.

11. Go visit two of your friends that are downtown business owners that you haven’t seen in a while. Not only do you get good feedback on the projects you’re entertaining, you are reminded you have a ton of really, really good friends.

12. Randomly run into another friend who just happens to be hilarious and never gives you any slack. Foolishly mention that you’re thinking about getting a gorilla suit (you know, just for fun) and have them look you in the eye and deadpan “I don’t know, it seems kind of redundant” before cackling hysterically. Dick.

13. Got to the grocery store and buy stuff to cook an awesome dinner. Run into another friend you haven’t seen in YEARS and his awesome wife. Talk to them for a half an hour in the dairy section. Exchange phone numbers and again remember how many awesome friends you have.

14. Discover PBR is on sale at the store.

15.  Realize you have only had coffee and good vibes today, and you’re getting kind of dizzy. Pick up to go food, go home, put groceries away and snarf said to go food, swearing that it must be magic because you feel so much better. You can cook tomorrow.

16. Watch Big Dummy dance around for his food again.

17. Walk Big Dummy around the ‘hood in the sun again. Laugh at the fact that he’s obviously just as psyched about said sun as you are.

18.  Finally sit down and crack one of those sale PBR’s and realize that you did not take a single photo, but you could redeem that if you went fishing tomorrow.

19. Go through photo stash to find one for this post since you fucked up and didn’t turn your camera on all day. Smile as you remember past adventures.

20. Grin as you go into the other room to grab all of your fishing gear so you can go through it as you watch The Dirty Dozen and revel in the fact that it’s only Saturday…

I haven’t fished at all this winter, and it’s sucked. Mix in perfect amounts of work, illness, holidays, bad weather, and the usual suspects being unable to connect, and you get a restless, landlubber whiner…

One of the only things that’s saved me lately is taking on the project of finally going through ALL of my photos from the last five years and organizing them. To put into perspective, I’ve been just dumping memory cards-worth of field trip photos into the laptop for half a decade and not deleting anything. To be clear; You should not do this,  you might end up with over thirty thousand images to sift through.

On the plus side, it’s like an Easter egg hunt for good memories.. Like the end of a fantastically long fall day on the Rio Grande with four of your best friends that just happen to fish too. Brain movies of cold water and camaraderie will get me through for now…

It’s been a while since I posted anything here. Not big on resolutions, but I’d like to be better about that in 2013. It’s fun to play Eye Spy, even more fun to share it, we’ll see what happens! The moon should be peeking out from behind the mountains pretty quick here, put a hat on and go check it out. You know, if you wanna…

This concludes our fun for the weekend… Here’s to clear skies and crisp evenings, wish you were here…

Entrance to Mom’s house. More words will just mess it up…

I was walking from one fishing spot to another Saturday, and I came across a group of German tourists milling around, blocking the small bridge I needed to cross. Most of them had their backs turned to me, and they weren’t moving out of the way. If I was in town this would bug the ever-loving shit out of me, but I’m wearin’ the funny pants, fishing with one of my best bro’s, chomping on a bag of Sour Skittles, and the October sun feels really, really, frigging good… It went kinda like this..

Me: (In my best, most soothing, happy “I promise I won’t kill you” voice, with a big smile) “Good Morning!”

German Tourist/Husband Type Guy: (somewhat startled by my size) “Good morning! How are you today?”

Me: (Smiling and chuckling, Skittles in hand) “Well… I’m fishin’ and eatin’ candy, so pretty much fantastic!”

German Tourist/Wife Type Lady: “You are like a big happy child!”

Me (Again, chuckling and smiling as I walk away towards the next spot) You are correct!

I’m a pretty damn good angler, but I’m far from the best. I will however, take the Pepsi Challenge as to who has the most fun out there, any day of the week. I will crush you…

Hard to convince myself that I needed to be somewhere else but here this morning. 

Forgot about this batch of images from “The Summer of Field Trips With Katie”. The Rio Grande running like butterscotch pudding after a huge storm a few years ago. 

In the Eyes of My Friends

I really didn’t want the next photo posted to be one of the moon. There should be more in between… Truth is, I’ve let life get in the way of me taking pictures. I’ve let things (and people) get in my head and distract me from having that head-on-a-swivel that is always, always, looking at things, searching for light, color, texture, and motion. All it takes is one cluster fuck of a day to make you realize you’re doing it wrong, and putting your energy in the wrong place. Then you get a glimpse of a beautiful crescent moon, and you’re reminded that leaves are changing, fall fishing is here, and you can reel (pun fully intended) everything in and get it right. Let’s do this…