uh, I don't think there's anything wrong with the action on this piano

Well it finally happened; it got really cold here. OK, so it didn’t just happen, but it’s finally effected me. I went for a long run last week with my brother. It wasn’t super long for him, but it was for me, and the longest I’d ever run non-stop. Well tonight, I was ready to get back into my routine, so I decided I’d do it again. I knew it was cold, so I bundled up and headed out. I hadn’t run this route before, so I didn’t realize it was pretty much uphill the entire route until the very end, where it was a steep downhill run. That wouldn’t have been very satisfying to run uphill all that way and not get to enjoy a long downhill, so instead of calling it good, I turned around at the peak and doubled my distance. That was all good until I hit this wide open part (I’m in the burbs – no trees sometimes) and was hit straight in the face with a 17 to 28mph wind. When I finally got home I checked the temp and it said it felt like 22 degrees and confirmed the wind speeds. All I can say is this weather is ridiculous; completely ridiculous. It’s way out of line.

So now I’ve finally warmed up a bit and can use my fingers effectively enough to ramble for a couple paragraphs on this blog. I tried to keep it short, because really, who wants to read all about my run tonight? Anyway, I also played around with some new close-up filters I got; they fit my 50mm, so they’re perfect! Check these out. They’re a little soft, but what do you expect? First one is with the lightest magnification, second one is all three stacked, and the third is what I believe to be just my 50.

pictures from today

Today I did a lot of moving. Walking, hiking, running; I did it all. The hiking lasted the longest, and most of it was in tall grass. Some of it was in trees that were way too close together. I decided that in areas where people have to walk, trees aren’t allowed to be that close together. I figure I need to talk to the US Forestry Service about that most likely. These trees, bushes, brush, and streams made me pretty angry at times. Like the time I jumped over a stream successfully… until the mud I landed on slid into the stream… with my foot on it. D’oh! Stupid mud. All in all it really wasn’t bad. It was definitely better than being in the office, and I probably burned a ton of calories. I also got to swear at nature for a few hours; it totally deserved it. When I wasn’t busy giving nature the what for, I managed to take a few pictures.

tennis!

Traveling and staying in hotels is nice sometimes because it gives me an evening to sit around and write... if I'm not too tired from the day. Luckily tonight I'm tired, but not too tired. I've been thinking about tennis lately. Tennis is a great sport. I love playing it and I love watching it. I started playing tennis when I was pretty young, but then stopped and didn’t pick it up again until I was in college. These days I generally play until I’m physically too tired to continue; I can’t get enough. It’s a good lifelong sport too; something you can play for your whole life. I wish I played more often than I do right now. I need to work on that. I also need to work on being better at tennis. Anyway, here are some tennis related pictures I’ve taken over the years.

Oh but first, how about a little pro tennis? Who's your favorite? Rafa is clearly mine. One year I listened to the French Open on the radio at work. It was a lot more entertaining than you'd think, because there were these two guys commentating, Eli Weinstein and Araz Gulekjian. These guys were a couple of the most entertaining color commentator guys I've ever heard. Unfortunately they're not on Roland Garros radio anymore, so it's not worth listening next time around. Anyway, they took a lot of letters from listeners, and the one that has always stuck out in my head was someone comparing Rafael Nadal to Roger Federer. Now this writer was a Federer fan, and was writing to explain why Federer was better. He explained that in his mind Federer was far more graceful; a maestro on the court. He proceeded to characterize Rafa as far less refined; "a fist pumping farmer" were his exact words. This was back in the good old days of Rafa. The days of him wearing capri pants and tank tops. Classic Rafa. I think he needs to go back to that wardrobe.

Oh and did you see this? Pro Robby Ginepri will miss the rest of the season due to a squirrel attack. He was riding his bike and swerved to avoid running one over and fell and broke his elbow. I've never been attacked by a squirrel, but strangely know a few people who have; one of whom has been attacked multiple times. Pffft, squirrels.

Ok enough of that, here's this:







(holy crap, I took that one in 2005!)


(film! and california!!)

3 things wrong with this dock

I don’t really know why this dock is here. Well, that’s not entirely true; it’s clearly for boats to tie up to, but when you really examine this dock you have to wonder what it’s doing.

First of all, it was amazingly hard to get to the dock from the road and cabin area. Someone had cut down a tree, and was in the process of very slowly burning it, so perhaps normally there is a path down. But as it was, you had to climb around this tree, down some serious rocks, and through shin deep ash. That’s the first problem of many.

The second problem is that there is no protection for the boats tied to it. They’re just sitting there in the open water, getting slammed by wakes. It would be far more effective if it had a slip, or was configured differently to offer protection.
Although this next problem is not normally a problem, right now it is. The water is unusually low because of dam maintenance, so even driving to this dock is probably somewhat dangerous in anything but a WaveRunner.

Other than this dock being questionably placed, everything about the cabin at Toronto lake was great!

Have a good day. See you tomorrow.



(I already posted this one, but this is the "path" down to the dock)

welcome home(?)

So I've done a terrible job of blogging lately. I've been really busy, what with traveling all over the place. First I went to Alaska for vacation. Then when I got back I spent a day in town before going to Oklahoma for work. When I got back from there, I spent two days in town, and then went to the Chicago area. I was supposed to stay there for 7-10 days, but we wrapped up the portion of the project I was working on early, so I got to come home early. I wouldn't have minded staying longer, because it was reasonably easy work and I was getting a pretty good amount of overtime, but it was nice to get home early because I was missing my girlfriend. Oh yeah, and I have a girlfriend now. So that's nice. Anyway, I wanted to give a little update, and let you know I was still alive. I’m going to make a good effort to blog more often; maybe some random thoughts and whatnot? Now please to enjoy these photographs.

bicicleta

Bikes are fun vehicles, and I’m intrigued by the different types of bikes out there. In California everyone had sweet beach cruisers (I spent a lot of time in places those were practical). Around here there are a lot of general bikes, like mountain bikes and road bikes. Then you’ve got your hipsters with fixies, like my dad, who just built a cool custom one from scratch. In Minneapolis you can rent community bikes from little stations all around town; freaking sweet. I think after I get settled here I might want to build a fixie too. I’ll give my dad’s a try next time I’m home to see how I like riding it before deciding, but I can imagine it’ll be pretty cool. There are a lot of really sweet looking bikes on Flickr, and that only serves as more motivation to build my own. There’s something about a fixed gear bike that looks especially cool. That short chain going straight from one cog to the other, with no derailleur hanging down is so clean and simple looking. They look even cooler with custom handle bars, like bullhorn handlebars, or some drop handlebars with a nice smooth arc to them. Then when you color coordinate certain parts, it just brings it all together in one sweet looking piece.

new site!

Welcome to my new site. I felt like the old one was too stuffy. jeremyjewell Photography? What am I, a business? No, I'm just a guy with some cameras. Lots of cameras. Speaking of cameras.. I bought this freaking sweet Hasselblad a couple weeks ago. This is one hell of a camera. The first time I played with one in the camera shop in Irvine, I had no clue what I was doing. Luckily the fella behind the counter showed me how it worked a little bit. I almost bought a really janky one that day at an amazing price, but it had some mechanical issues, so I said no thanks. I finally found one at a good price and jumped on it. After I got it, I met this really nice lady named Rachel for lunch and she showed me the in's and out's of it. I'm sure this is all very boring, so I'm sorry, but I need to give credit where credit is due. So I'd also like to thank my friend hannah for first of all, making me do film photography, then urging me to get a Hassy, then introducing me to Rachel.

Sorry for the boringness, really. Here are some pictures I took with it. The first one was not at the lake, the rest were at the lake. Except for the last one; that one also was not at the lake.

Oh yeah, before the pictures I'd suggest you check out my Flickr from time to time. I probably won't post all my Flickr pictures on here. I will however give sneak peaks of pictures on here before they can be seen on Flickr, so there's your incentive to visit here. Plus you get to read my thoughts. No matter how boring they may be. Usually they'll be exciting and entertaining.. Entertaining at least. Also if you want to see these baby's bigger, just click on them! If it says you can't see it, it's just because it's one of the sneak preview ones, so wait a few days and come back to see it big.

Oh one more thing, my cousin told me the other week that my aunt didn't know I was doing a 365 project (where I take and share a picture every day for a year). Well, I am, and I post them ALL on my Flickr, so check that out already. There's always a link at the top of this site. There's also a nifty thing at the bottom that shows my last 9 uploads to Flickr.

Oh sorry, but one last thing, I imported all my old posts, so the archive is still alive and well. Sadly, the email notification feature will not be joining my new site. Unless there is overwhelming demand, in which case I can shoot you an email every time I post. If you want it, just email me, call me, or yell at me.




Josh was skipping some rocks on the water, so I was all "hey huck a big rock in there" so he did.








And of course, me!

Oregon's Waterfalls: Latourell Falls

This is it.  The waterfall that got me soaked.  OK, it’s not the waterfall’s fault.  And I didn’t get completely soaked, but I did get pretty wet.  It wasn’t raining when we got out of the car, so my dad and I walked down to the base.  On the way down it started raining a little bit, but nothing serious.  Then we got to the base and I got a few pictures with my wide lens.  We were heading back up when I decided I needed a picture of myself.  That’s when it really started raining.  My dad shot a couple pictures, and the downpour started.  I put my camera under my jacket and we ran back up the hill to the car.  It was too late though; the damage was done.  We were pretty wet.  It was worth it though, and my camera survived.



I’m usually the one taking pictures.  I don’t take too many self-portraits when I’m out shooting at pretty places, so when I had the opportunity to have my dad take a picture of me with a cool background I jumped on it.

Oregon's Waterfalls: Horsetail Falls and Wahkeena Falls

Next on the tour is Horsetail Falls.  See that?  It looks kind of like a horse’s tail.  





Let’s take a moment and enjoy a calmer, more peaceful waterfall; Wahkeena Falls.  Almost a babbling brook, if you will.  The actual falling part of this one is upstream, but it was rainy and we didn’t want to make the trek up.

Oregon's Waterfalls: Multnomah Falls

The first full day I was in Portland last month we took a nice drive up the Colombia River Gorge to check out the sights.  Along the way we stopped at a few waterfalls, including the ones featured here; Multnomah Falls, Horsetail Falls, Wahkeena Falls, and Latourell Falls.  It rained much of the day, and it had been raining a lot prior to our arrival, and while it made for a few wet situations (like when my dad and I walked to the base of Latourell Falls and got caught in a downpour) it made for a lot of water flowing through each of the falls.  As I’ve mentioned before, waterfalls kind of amaze me; they’re made of a seemingly infinite amount of water flowing so furiously.  
First up: Multnomah Falls.  Sure, you’ve seen it on film.  Well now, you’ll see it digitally and wide.

California Love

I've had a lot of mixed feelings the last few weeks.  So take a look at these California love based pictures.  On film.  As they should be.  Courtesy of my Olympus OM-2n.

Multnomah Falls

Waterfalls really fascinate me. &nmsp;There is so much water flowing so fast, practically infinitely. &nmsp;I don’t think I had ever had the chance to see huge waterfalls before going to Portland. &nmsp;And while in Portland, I got to see a few. &nmsp;The largest was Multnomah Falls, which also happens to be the highest in Oregon. &nmsp;It was pretty spectacular. &nmsp;Here it is via my Olympus OM-2n and Holga.










I got pictures of the others we saw too, so stay tuned.