danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, and I look forward to it every year because we generally do something fun, like travel.  This year, however, we were home for the holiday, and I went to work. 

In the evening, however, Kathleen picked me up and we went up to the Alachua County Fairgrounds, where the Gainesville Roller Rebels now have practice space.  It is just about ideal.  The building is enormous–many, many thousands of square feet–with a smooth, polished concrete floor.  The lighting is excellent, since there’s a garage door the size of a house on one end, and a wall of windows on two sides.  At the other end are bathrooms described as adequate.  Really, the only thing missing (and it’s kind of a big thing) is air conditioning.  The openness seems to keep it from being a furnace, but I wasn’t on skates.  The girls who were, obviously, were drenched.  We may have to get one of those big fans that have wheels.

Following the abbreviated practice, run by Ms. Rebel, GRR held a meet and greet, and a bunch of girls came out to watch the practice and sit in on the information session.  They asked good questions, and seemed genuinely interested, which I suppose was already obvious from their coming in on a holiday.  Some of them were acquainted with GRR players, but some were randoms, i.e., girls who had just seen a poster at Big Lou’s, for example.  Even if a quarter of them turn out to make the team, that’d still be good.  Patsy Clotheslineshowed me the article about her that was just published in a glossy magazine, complete with a photo of her I tookduring GRR’s bout with Jacksonville in April.

Some of the derby widows (the husbands and boyfriends of the players) had set up a barbecue out back, and there was chicken and hotdogs and hamburgers and assorted chips and soft-drinks and beer.  When everything was finished we went outside and chowed down, and it was awesome.  I declare hotdogs to be the ideal barbecue food, and here’s why: you can make underwhelming chicken, and you can botch hamburgers, but unless you burn them, hotdogs are always good. 

So, my Memorial Day came to the same conclusion as millions of other Americans’, with food and friends.

Filed under: Gainesville, Photography, Special Occasions, Sports on May 28th, 2008 | No Comments »

As you may have read yesterday, Monday witnessed two significant technological catastrophes at home: a broken air conditioner and computer.  And, as you may have read, Kathleen helped solve the former on Tuesday afternoon. 

On Wednesday afternoon (her birthday!) she called me at work and told me she’d see if she could wrangle me a loaner computer to use until Miriam and I could get a new laptop.  And, sure enough, at 8:30 last night she and Steve came by with a computer and a CD-ROM of Windows XP with all the significant security updates and such.  It was incredible and entirely undeserved.  There’s kindness and generosity, and then there’s this.

So, Miriam and I will try perhaps this evening to shop for a laptop computer, and I am going to attempt to salvage the data from the hard disk of our deceased computer, but it isn’t looking good.  When I plugged it in to our loaner, it immediately recognized the drive, but 90% of the data was missing, including all of my pictures and MP3s.  I’m going to try and run some file-recovery software, but it’s a nerve-wracking process.  The only consolation I have is that I have made DVD backups of my images going back several years, so the only total losses will be the most recent images – those from March and April, perhaps.  Many of these have already been uploaded to Flickr, but many more haven’t, and they may be gone.  Also possibly lost are the outtakes of photoshoots with GRR girls Patsy Clothesline, Ms. Rebel, and Demonomia and the outtakes from their first bout, too, though the Flickr galleries are safe, of course.

Filed under: Friends, Photography, Technology on May 15th, 2008 | No Comments »

I have been deriving a great deal of enjoyment from Miriam’s participation in the Gainesville Roller Rebels. Sure, it is exciting watching fast skating, but another pleasant result of her involvement in the team is that we now have an expanded pool of friends.

Making friends has never been particularly easy for me, since, in general, I hate leaving the house. I have maintained steady, long-lasting relationships with a small number of intimate friends, but several of them have moved away, and, though we communicate and see each other when we can, time with them is still scarce. So, to have access to a team of very nice people who enjoy having fun is a wonderful luxury, especially since I didn’t have to do any of the work of going out and meeting them on my own; they are Miriam’s teammates.

One such teammate came over last night with her beau and we watched a TV show I had never heard of called It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Ruby Typhoon is a fan of the program and has the DVDs, so we ordered pizza and watched five or six episodes in a row, and it was a hilarious delight. What amused me most was how no opportunity to be offensive was wasted. The program involves three buddies who own a dive bar and have assorted misadventures. It seems very low on budget, but rich in laughs.

Last week we had a visit from two other derby girls, Matriarch and Terror A. Part, who insisted that there be arm wrestling.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to take portraits of the GRR girls, and that is fun and I am endlessly impressed with their creativity. Demonomia came last Tuesday, and Ruby Typhoon did her makeup and hair. We use a simple black paper backdrop and I have the most basic flash and white umbrella, but the pictures always turn out very well. Demonomia didn’t have a ton of ideas for poses, but she’s good on skates and very flexible, and her pictures are great. Diamonds and Rust is next in line, and probably more to follow, leading up to the GRR’s first local bout some time in July.

Filed under: Friends, General, Photography, Sports, Television on May 5th, 2008 | No Comments »

I have been taking a lot of portraits lately, and am enjoying doing so. 

I don’t want to be presumptuous and call myself the “official photographer” of the Gainesville Roller Rebels, but I have taken pictures at many of their practices and promotional events, and this month began a series of individual player portraits.  It began with Evey Slammond, then last week was the extremely photogenic Patsy Clothesline, and last night I photographed Ms. Rebel herself.

Kathleen–aka Snow White–was on hand to do Ms. Rebel’s makeup, and the shoot was fun.  I still have to organize and edit last night’s pictures before I post them, but I am really loving the way each derby girl is bringing her personality to the fore in the photographs.  There are many ideas still to be explored, and I will post more about upcoming sessions in the future.

Filed under: Gainesville, Photography, Sports on March 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

Happy Vernal Equinox!

I love spring because it means the cold days are almost over, and cold has become my enemy. Alas, it also means the windy days are here, but it’s a fair trade. Still, the days are getting longer, and that, coupled with the early introduction of daylight saving time, makes me happy.

Most of my appreciation of the outdoors comes from my time on campus these days, and it is actually quite pleasant. The azaleas are just about finished, and leaves are replacing flowers on dogwoods and Japanese magnolias. But the orange trees are still blooming like mad, and before too long the confederate jasmine will flower. Those are two magnificent aromas.

On the Reitz Union lawn this morning I was walking my bicycle (the seat was wet from a rain last night), and as I passed a sweet gum tree I heard a squirrel barking. I looked all around the branches but couldn’t see the critter. Finally I found him; his little head was poking through a hole in the bark where a limb had been. It was adorable. Of course, it only happened because I left my camera at home, and awesome things always happen when I don’t have my camera, like the time this one girl riding a bike was wearing ass-less pants.

Above you can see a series of photos I took of the Shumard Oaks on the Reitz Lawn as they got their leaves.

Filed under: Animals, Current Events, Gainesville, Meteorology, Photography, School on March 20th, 2008 | No Comments »