Tip top stuff. I'll ecxpet more now.

Just missing you and perusing your site....looking back at your comment about wanting to move and wondering what you would miss if you left and what would you miss if you stayed....Now that you have actually done it, can you begin to answer these questions?  I find myself wondering if you will ever return (yes I know you just left!!)...is there something...anything that draws you back? Loved looking at all the photos you just posted and thinking and feeling the simple beauty of your old apartment and then looking at the road trip and thinking and feeling all the joy and adventure you are experiencing.  Becka looks so happy and I imagine you on the other end of the camera also smiling...thinking "we finally did it!"

I haven't had a vacation like that in a while.

There's an odd melancholy that sank in when I arrived at the government center T-station, the bright blue of the gulf replaced by all this gray. The feeling is still here. But I'm repeating myself, I wrote about this same sentiment last time I was here.

I went to a wedding for some old friends. At the reception we ate and drank on the beach and I thought about how happy they look. These are people that I miss, people that have probably supported all the crap I put up here more than anyone else, and I only wish that I still lived next door to them, and that we still saw each other every day, and that our biggest concern was the how we had ruined an iron by putting it on the carpet.

Stephen King said it better, but I guess I just miss my friends. They make me feel like a better person than I probably am, even in the distance that separates us. That, and they know how to throw a hell of a wedding.

The bullet point list of the six day trip is as follows: Rise. Beach. Eat. Drink. Sleep.

Sometimes we would feign interest in doing some activity the next day, but by morning time there we all were, in our assigned beach chairs, under our umbrellas, sipping our frozen drinks and not wanting anything more. Idleness can be beautiful.

I sat and I thought a lot and just looked out at the ocean. I heard words in my head and when something particularly beautiful was in front of me I felt myself start re-imagining it in black and white, tracing the outline, erasing the faces. At night I would slip on my headphones and drift off to Max Richter, and feel the piano in the lobby calling my name. Maybe these things haven't left me yet.

I came home and pulled out the canvas I've been trying to attack for weeks, months. I pulled the cover off the typewriter and wrote the things that I can't write here. I started sorting through the old photos I never put online.

I wish I was able to clear my head like this more often. I wish I was able to write and draw like I used to. I wish I could be near to all these people that I love, all at once, all the time.

Just got back from a visit to San Diego.

Sometimes on trips like this I return home and there's a odd pang of depression that sinks in. Inevitably, the escapism of the vacation ends, and the time spent seems to short, too well spent, and the reality of everyday life in all it's bores come to the forefront too fast.

What am I missing?

At this moment, I really just want to move. The thought is scary and enticing. I wonder when I'd wake up and regret not doing it, how long would that take, and at the same time I wonder when how long I'd last away. We are bound to our homes in a funny way. There's always a desire to leave them, to seek new ground, but they are forever calling us back.

If I leave, what will I miss? If I stay what will I miss?

It would make me sad if you stopped taking pictures.....I myself have been overdue to stop by at your website and check out your new work.  When I do remember, I am reminded of how great of an eye you have.  I can't take a picture of my bathroom and have it convey any feeling or meaning...it just looks like a picture of a stupid bathroom.  Now your bathroom picture has a freekin story..and so do all the rest of your photos.  The thumbnails on your splash pages look like a beautiful quilt. You manage to put yourself in all the photos you take especially the ones of random objects.  I love them.  Please Don't stop.

It's been a while.

Here goes.

I recently (yesterday) purchased my very own film negative scanner. It ran me about $150 but should cut down a lot on my bill at the local camera shop and pay itself off in no time at all. Hopefully, now all that I'll have to do is pay for the developing.

In addition, this will hopefully help to motivate me to go back and rescan a lot of the older photos that were poorly scanned/cropped/dirty. I'll admit that I battle with this a bit; it might sound crazy, but a part of me wants to keep them as they are. There's a weird charm to that, the progress of the quality. However, I do think that for the large part, it's detrimental to a lot of the photos here, so I think I'm going to go ahead and start replacing a lot of the old scans with new ones.

My photo project has become work. More and more often I find myself approaching the end of the day and just trying to find anything to take a picture of just to go through the motions, to cross off that day. To then get these developed and look at the results is disheartening, and admittedly, I've given a lot of consideration to just throwing in the towel on the whole thing. There's not much motivation to feel forced to take a picture everyday and only end up with a stack of photos of random things that were lying around my house.

I fear though, that if I were to stop I'd regret it, and wonder if even these photos will someday gather meaning. I wonder if there are trends like this throughout the photos sometimes. If I were able to somehow step back, and look at them all at once, would I notice periods of color, times where I looked closely at things or myself, or points where I was surrounded by people? Are the white walls and dishes of my apartment going to remind me of the slow, mundane calmness of my life? Is that important to capture? Maybe, but a lot of times it just feels like a waste of film.

In any case, I'll keep with it, for a bit longer at least, if only because I've gone so far with it that it's hard to stop at this point.

Tim is slacking on the Ireland pics!
I don't know why it is taking so long he had to filter out about 90% of them due to inappropriate content anyways.

I had almost forgotten this site existed... it seems as though its been a bit dormant. Tim, you should add a music composition feature, either that or i'll have to write/take more pictures... you'll be hearing from me real soon!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

PS> I thirst for new content

We flew in about 4 months ago.

Back home, once again.

It was a good month. We came back smelly and dirty, unshaven, with a load of green stained laundry on our backs. I don't envy those who sat near us on the plane.

We did so much, saw so much, met so many people. You want stories? I've got stories. I've got small-world stories, wild-night stories, scenic-view stories, fist-fight stories. The whole gambit. I've sailed the Mediterranean in a busted laser. I've sang drunkenly with fifteen strangers around a vat of sangria like we were old friends. I'm up in Monte Carlo. I've walked across Rome, several times now. I've been lost in so many strange places that I think the situation no longer frightens me at all.

And in spite of all of this, upon returning home I felt like something was missing. Before embarking on endeavors such as this, it will undoubtedly be brought to your attention by some old gent that this is going to teach you something, make your grow. You sure as shit won't be the same when you get back. Upon hearing this, I suppose I assumed that there would be moments where I could later pinpoint and say that yes, that one moment made me different. And maybe it really works that way for some people, but when I got home I felt nothing different. No wiser, just the same. This is what I wanted, this growth, and I came home with nothing but a slew of pictures, some stories from what one might call a pretty great vacation and strong desire to cure some homesickness. More than anything, I felt worried that I had spent all this time away and missed something important that so many had grasped before me.

For days this troubled me. I felt isolated and sometimes worried about where I had gone wrong, if I had missed paths I should have taken. But after a few weeks, these feelings faded out, replaced by my everyday life.

Here's where it turns around.

As time moves on, I find myself in these situations where I'm at home alone, and I have nothing to do. I pick up a book and don't feel like reading. I turn on the TV and remember I hate TV. It's in moments like these, were life starts to feel stagnant and mundane that I wish more than anything else I could go back. I miss it. I want to grab my bag and call Will and just pack up and leave. I want to be out of here with nothing to do but roam. I want my biggest concern of my day to be if I should go to the beach or go see a cathedral. It's then, when I feel the most trapped and suffocated by idleness, that I miss it, then when I feel like I didn't skip a beat the whole time I was there, then that I feel that there was not a thing I would have changed, then when I can pick apart the important moments for what they really were. It was happiness in it's most packed down form, and I wouldn't change a bit of it if I could only have it again.

And perhaps thats what people were talking about. Not the little moments that happen along the way or even the grander picture, but the feeling you get once it's all gone. On returning you've learned what life can really be, but are stuck in the mix of responsibility and duty. Theres beauty in that too, to be sure, but it still feels so limiting in comparison.

In many ways, the trip brought back the same feelings I had when I growing out of youth. I yearned for so many years to be older, only to miss being young as soon as I realized it was gone. I'll admit, I've gone back to old places where I used to play, kicked the dirt around, in hopes of stirring up the old sensations I once had, but all I've gotten is that feeling of nostalgia, the hurt of wishing for something that will never come around again. And the trip was like that too. While gone, I would miss home and sometimes wonder how anyone could possibly backpack for any longer than we. Now I wish I stayed twice as long. The only difference between the two that I can reassure myself with is that while my youth is long gone, I'll always be able to hop on a plane and do it all again. While I know that it won't be the same experience, at least I know a way to make a new one. Everything will be lost and gone eventually, but there is always something new to be found.

But as were flying in, I know none of this.

The captain comes over the PA and stirs me out of sleep. I pull open my shade to see Boston, and the sunset greets us and silhouettes the city that is now my home. It looks uncharacteristically wonderful and I feel happy to be back, happy to see those that I've missed while I was away. I stare out and hold my face in the square of light the window provides. I look over at Will and smile, and he points out and the orange sky, smiles and says "That's where the credits roll out for our trip". I laugh cause I like that. And I can picture it too, a long list of anonymous names and faces, places we saw, things we did all trapped only briefly in my memory, never to experience or see or feel again, but always, always missed.