So recently, I went up to visit Heather, and we spent some time volunteering at the Ronald McDonald house in the suburban area of Albany, NY. Heather and her fraternity made some food for the local hospital, whipping up some tacos and Mexican dishes.

I spent a lot of time walking around the house and taking photos of the old mansion. It was a pretty shocking experience, seeing this beautiful place. I mean, McDonalds is a pretty terrible company, right? They’re responsible for a wealth of economic problems, the fattening of America, they are THE example of globalization, and a list of other things that I’m probably not educated enough to comment on. Afterall, I’m an English major.

But after seeing this, maybe they aren’t so bad.

Or perhaps that’s what they want me to think.

*shrug*

I’m the big squirrel. She’s the little squirrel.

I love the way you grumble when I wake you up at 11:00am. I love how we talk like Cuteoverload writers in public. I love how our respective nicknames for each other are based on the pets we own. I love that I don’t care about spending $200 on a train ticket, just as long as I can get a $3 slice of pizza with you. I love how you tell people I’m taking you to the prom in public, making me look like a creepy old guy, when it’s really your sorority’s formal. I love that you’re painfully out of my league, but still give me the time of day anyway. I love how we look as cartoons.

Most of all, I love that you’re probably going to make fun of me for writing this.

Thanks to Sara for helping me pick this cute Valentine’s Day gift out, and to Marnie for making it!

So after the amazing amount of web traffic I received from Cuteoverload, and the overwhelming response to my photos via email / AIM / Myspace, I decided it was time to start uploading my bunny and kitten photos somewhere. You can now find them on my Flickr. I just uploaded a couple dozen photos from this weekend. Enjoy and smile.

I also finally uploaded a majority of the Over & Out Tour that I went on back in May, with Forever The Sickest Kids (Universal), Farewell (Epitaph), and Upper Class Trash. You can get there via the photos section. Those are also in Flickr, as those photosets are wonderfully easy to upload. I plan on moving most of my tour images onto Flickr. Simply way easier to share and maintain.

I’ll be doing most of my photo editing on a glorious eMac G4 that I scored off eBay for $150, shipping included. Man, I am good.

Arcadia has officially taken over my life again. Medivial Literature, seven books. Writing Fiction Workshop, two short stories, three books. History of Rhetoric, five books. It’s a good kind of busy though.

I’m helping out two of my good friends, Brett and Seabass, with their clothing company, Dazzle Me Formal. I’m pretty psyched about it, and they’ve been working with some fun artists, like Cute Is What We Aim For, David Melillo, The Higher, and Sherwood. While I know the first two personally, the other two I’ve never met, and I really dig them. The Higher have a great pop-punk-fused-with-R&B sound, while Sherwood is just straight up happy pop rock.

It’s an exciting half-of-the-year. Work is busy, school is intense, and personal projects are keeping me active. Life is good.

Amtrak, please get to work on making this option available as soon as possible. Thanks. And yes, I know, you wish you had my level of Photoshop skills, especially my ability to make absolutely perfect circles in magenta.

Off to Albany to see the girlfriend. See you all next week.

Expect to see photography updates galore next week, including live photos of Bang Camero, Echo Screen, Maxeen, Racing Kites, The Mile After, and We Are The Fury, as well as press photos of Belafonte and Someday Never. And who knows, maybe some still photography from the secret music related website I’m launching later this year. *wink*

I know, it’s an insane concept, having updates on my website that have to do with my portfolio and photography.

While visiting the wifey on my vacation, I came across this awesome hippie van on one of our many long walks. Now, all of my friends know my stance on hippies, especially the ones that I catch protesting outside the Reading Terminal Market. I’d like to put them in a sack, toss the sack in a river, and hurl the river into space.

But I do like hippie vans.

And this one was a doozie.

Objects in mirror…

Where The Wild Things Are?!? Amazing.

Did you know that Where The Wild Things Are is being made into a movie? Kinda psyched, especially with someone like Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) directing and Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) writing the screenplay. How can it NOT be good?

Ah hippies. Please spend more time making awesome looking vans and less time wasting your lives protesting. Thanks.

So, I’ve had off from school the past three weeks and this past week, I took off from work. I spent my vacation time in three cities. Philadelphia (mostly playing Bioshock), New Jersey (causing ruckus with friends and family), and in Albany with the little lady and our grandchildren.

And by grandchildren, I mean baby bunnies.

Adorable. They’re all quite precious, even the little angry brown bunny who likes to bite absolutely everything. The black and white speckled one is my personal favorite.

This all black bun is The Dark Lord and will be coming home with me to Philadelphia, to be adopted by my friends Tim and Megan.

I also spent a good portion of my time playing fetch with these two crazy puppies, running up and down a huge field of lush, bright green alfalfa, taking in all the fresh air I could while scoping out some seriously beautiful mountain scenery.

And of course, spent lots of time with this beautiful girl.

Semester starts soon. Writing Fiction Workshop (yay!), The History of Rhetoric (ugh), and Medieval Literature (yay!). Should be an interesting semester. Just one more after this, and I’ll have my MFA. Where does the time go?

So I took the Amtrak up to Albany to spend some quality time with the wifey. I apologize in advance for the horrific quality of the photos. These were taken on my Sidekick III. While it is a fantastic phone that lets me talk on AIM, use email, and check Craigslist all day, the camera is absolutely heinous. We went on a hike up Vroman’s Nose, a historic trail in Albany that leaves you on this beautiful mountain, the cliff overlooking a valley of farms below. The cliffs are incredibly steep and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous walking around up there.

We spent a lot of time running around on her father’s farm, which had horses, elk, sheep, bunnies (bunnahs!), and, as pictured here, picking alfafa for my favorite…

Llamas!

Anyone who knows me knows that I believe The Emperor’s New Groove is the best Disney movie ever made. Eff those “classics” like Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty & The Beast… it’s all about Kuzko over here. If you’ve never seen this movie, go purchase the two disc special edition and possibly a lifesize cardboard cut out of Kronk, because seriously, you’re going to love it that much.

A super exciting part of the farm was this guy right here. It reminded me of the Warthog (”It looks more like a puma!“) in the Halo video game series. And although Heather continued to remind me it was called a Rhino, I insisted upon it being a warthog. End of story. It was like living out a childhood fantasy, zipping around on that thing. And yes, I realize Halo came out in 2001, thus making me 19 at the time. Shush.

Here’s Heather driving the Warthog, because um… I had to operate the machine gun turrets! And by “operate machine gun turrets” I mean “I was too scared”. Plus come on guys, who doesn’t want to see their foxy girlfriend driving an all terrain vehicle? *swoon!*

One of the coolest things about the farm was this little carving we found up on Vroman’s Nose. Here in Philadelphia we have graffiti and our famous Toynbee Tiles (if you want some more personal hands on stuff on these, check out Ben’s blog). On Heather’s farm, the graffiti and carvings into stone are a bit different.

It might be hard to make out on this crude cell phone photo (curse you T-Mobile!), but it’s a carving into the side of the cliff up on Vroman’s Nose that says June 6th, 1868. Bits and pieces of the etching were broken off as a result of time and weather, but it still moved me to see something that a couple carved into the face of a rock almost 150 years ago still proclaiming their love.

I want our love to trascend space and time too, damn it.

Next time, I’m bringing a chisel.