I can't think of one

It’s been a bit like trying to separate a lion from a still-warm, recently deceased gazelle – Honey does not relinquish the computer easily. He’s gone to play darts at the neighbors so I probably have a few minutes.

Over the weekend we did three photo shoots, one a spontaneous add-on. Terrell’s Art Models Group met for the first time since his new job took over his life. It was a beautiful day up at Cold Springs with heavy clouds and cooler temps. The inmates at the prison there get better weather than we common city dwellers. The model, Brittany, is a second timer for the group. We missed her first session due to a fishing trip – it’s been so long since we fished that my boat is feeling neglected. Anyway, the shoot went well and lasted about three hours. I sat on a water jug and finished my most recent Terry Pratchett novel (I highly recommend everyone take trip to Discworld soon). The model is moving to New Orleans next month and is pretty much over the modeling thing – she’s been doing it to eat for the past three years and it hasn’t developed into anything serious, so I don’t blame her.

Monday turned out to be a very busy day. Honey got a last minute call from model and friend, Alethea, who discovered a free afternoon and called to see if we’d like to shoot. –Can I just vent here for a moment? There are a few things that suck about living with Mom, and the worst is that my stuff gets continually moved and regularly lost. Currently I’m looking for my long-lost computer glasses to no avail. -Anyway, we jetted to the far north end of town to shoot in Alethea’s living room, doing some creative silhouettes. Unfortunately, those shots aren’t ready yet. It was a good time though. We met her new boyfriend, Darrin, who’s a professional clown (of all things). We’re working on a shoot with the two of them together.

Later that night, we went to the Strip to shoot Ysania, a friend and co-worker of Sara from the bike shoot. She was late, which is a huge pet peeve of mine (thanks Dad). To her credit, she got dropped off so we didn’t have to wait for her to park, and was made-up, dressed, and ready to shoot. Quite a lot of attention was paid to a girl in a pink mini dress being photographed by a big Mexican guy; some of it was the drunken and belligerent kind, but Honey can convince four men at a time to move along by just giving them “the Look”. I ended up holding a heavy snake skin forearm bag (or whatever you call them) so it wouldn’t be left unattended on the ground. I’ll never own one. The shoot went well, lasting about 2 and half hours due to crowds and walking. The model said it was her best shoot so far in Vegas (she’s from Hollywood). Last night she emailed wanting to know how TF worked and if she could see all the pictures and choose what she liked…

Let me clarify for those whom this is not common sense. Models, you never ever get all the shots (or your photog is an idiot). When you trade for pics, the photographer is working for free. In theory, both parties get something useful to add to their portfolios to help them grow, expand their repertoire, etc. The photographer goes through, selects the best shots, edits them, and delivers 15-20 to the model, usually in web resolution for promotional purposes. Not all shots are worth keeping or putting in the extra work to bring them up to quality standards. And a good photog never lets anything leave his hands that are unfinished.

This is Bubba. He's helping to break up this post so you don't stop reading from sheer exhaustion.

Tomorrow is the figure drawing session Terrell has put together. Honey is participating; he’s been an artist since long before I knew him and is one still, though the medium has changed. My presence has been requested, as it is for all the nude workshops. Having another woman present, even if we’re still outnumbered, makes a model more comfortable than if she were the lone female. I was really hoping it was a special skill I have, but I think it’s just human nature or something. I can’t think of the word, but it’s certainly less inspiring.

I should go to bed. I’ve been dragging tail since Monday night and need to gear up for tomorrow and Friday. I’m sure something will come up on Saturday; it usually does.

Would you like some Devious? Why yes, thank you.

I’m alone and unsupervised. And I had an energy drink several hours ago that hasn’t worn off yet. It’s a great combination for deviousness.

I should be dead on my feet. We went bowling last night with the neighbors and stayed out until 2am…on my Monday mind you. The neighbor, Bugoy (it means bad child in Pilipino and he still is) took his son Wiggy (nickname) whose four years old. Wiggy beat Honey’s score in the last game (92 to 85). I’m sure he’ll never hear the end of it. There were also two 12-yr olds…I’m overwhelmed by their energy and immaturity. I hope I wasn’t that bad at that age (not much hope though).

Tonight is Dart Night. We took Mom shopping, got home and Honey stayed long enough to unload and collect sliced limes before dashing across the street. So I’m awake when I should be running on fumes. Zipfizz is freaking amazing stuff. If you’ve never tried it, you should. I found some at CVS today (thankfully). Its a little tube of vitamin powder you put in water, it fizzes, and without any sugar keeps you focused and running for several hours, thanks in part to over 41,000x the amount of daily recommended vitamin B-12. Works best if you sip instead of chug – makes the effects gentle (instead of launching to Mach 2) and lasts longer. My fav flavor is citrus. It’s also easy on the stomach since coffee and I aren’t friendly.

So what should I do with myself? I tried to hook up with my oldest friend, who of course is out with her boy toy. I called his phone (remember he called me Saturday from the bowling alley when bowling never happened) and asked for her. There was a pause long enough to where I almost asked if he was still there and then he said ‘yeah’ with negative enthusiasm (that’s worse than no enthusiasm for folks who don’t know the scale). I got a chuckle out of it. Annoying him is pretty high on my priority list since his mere presence requires me to strongly suppress the urge to throttle and/or otherwise beat him senseless. He’s 24 going on probably 12 but thinks he’s Einstein and will try to educate you at every turn. Doesn’t strangling sound reasonable now?

A little photo flash back to Portland with Jen and Ivy Slime. :)

I've also noticed that my feed tracker now says I'm in Henderson, which I'm not. Clarification for anyone who cares, I'm in Las Vegas. Hendo is for richer folks than I.

Food, Boobs, Bowling, and Snow Cones

Busy weekend.
Friday night we had a little get together, mostly to see our friend Terrell who’s basically dropped off the face of the planet between his new job and new girlfriend. Darryl was there too – the man appreciates food on a level close to my own so any time there’s good food involved, he’s there. We grilled some corn and carne asada, Mom made charro beans and rice; I bought tiramisu dream cake from the local market that we didn’t even get to. Beer was plentiful as was inappropriate necking, groping, and dry humping (you know who you are and I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that at my house anymore :) ). I stayed up until midnight and then hit the wall and went to bed.

Saturday I’d set up a bowling date with my friend Beth, who’s also dropped off the face of the planet due to her new boy toy. While I was working, Honey called to tell me we’d been gifted with tickets to see Peep Show at Planet Hollywood that night, so I pushed back bowling till after that (Beth doesn’t sleep).

The show was…I’m not sure how to describe it. There were parts that were amazing: all the singers could actually sing and belted it the whole night, the live band was right on key, there were a few performers who shined above the rest (especially the hard body doing the rope work while dripping wet – yummy!). Then there were parts I thought could have been done better, and I thought Holly Madison had a flabby ass and looked awkward most of the performance. Granted, you get to see her boobs at the end, but in three words she strikes me as top heavy, cute, and stupid.

Hugh Hefner was in the house that night. Apparently they were filming that episode of the Girls Next Door in the theater. He got roaring applause every time he stood up, including once when I’m sure he was just going to the men’s room.

In a nutshell, I’m glad I didn’t pay $100 per ticket, but the wet guy doing rope acrobatics made it worthwhile for me. The peanut butter gelato after the show was really good too.


Unfortunately, the evening fell apart after that. We stopped to eat and then headed for the bowling alley. The league tournament hadn’t ended on time. I took a number and stood around for an hour; my girlfriend never showed up. As I was driving home on the freeway she calls me to say she’s at the alley – over two hours after I got out of the show. It’s only a 20 minute drive people. Haven’t found out what happened, not sure I will.

This morning we woke up surprisingly early and decided to visit the outdoor flea market before it got really hot. For those not in the Vegas area, it’s been hovering around 112°F all this week. We got snow cones and wandered around for about an hour and a half. Nothing jumped out and begged me to buy it, so we came home.

I’ve still got the rest of today and tomorrow to get in trouble. J

Babes and Bikes

Here are the girls from the bike shoot:

Rossalyn (Roz)

Sara

Heather (with Sara)

Real Quick while Half Naked

Alright, real quick before I dash to work. You know, this whole gainfully employed thing kinda sucks - I have more stress now then when I could simply say "I'm unemployed. Do what you gotta do". I can still say the second part, but it seems less care free.

We had a photo shoot last Saturday with Sazzy. A shoot for a friends' motorcycle turned into 5 bikes, 3 models, 2 guys in full leathers, and a crowd of other biker guys (though not the traditional sort that you'd think of) who seemed to drool and oggle a lot. It was insanely hot - surpirsed the make-up didn't run right off, but we all managed. There was a generator, 3 assistants including myself, one groupie who changed clothes more than the models, and a random crowd of bicyclists that rode by twice. It also happened to be free slurpie day at 7-11 because of the date, so there was sugar too. Pictures will be up sortly (meaning this afternoon hopefully) because nothing is resized and I have to leave for work in 4 minutes and am not fully dressed yet.

Unfortunately, the UFC 100 fight was that same night and we missed it. We shot until midnight; I think Sazzy was done at 10pm. It was a lot longer than we're used to, but right on target for our 2 hours per model limit. I'll give the girls their kuddos in the next post with links to their other stuff. And off I go!!

4th of July in my Neighborhood

Hope everyone who celebrates it had a happy 4th of July. Personally, I think we had the best fireworks show in Vegas. Our neighbors had done three separate 2am trips to Pahrump to buy the good stuff over the last two months – and believe me, they really dropped some cash. There were enough fireworks to sell to friends and still shoot off rockets continuously from 8pm until 2am the morning of the 5th.

There was plenty of food (steaks, crab legs, pork kabobs, grilled corn, chicken), plenty of booze (Bud Light, Tecate, and Hennessey) – probably shouldn’t have mixed the booze and illegal fireworks, but nobody was seriously hurt…even after a few rockets were put in their launch tubes pointing down and exploded out towards the crowd at ground level. All in good fun. :) The only casualty was a rather tall, untrimmed palm tree one street over – it went up in huge flames when a stray spark landed on it. The owner wasn’t even setting off fireworks, but we definitely weren’t the only ones in the neighborhood with high-flying illegal sparks.

I party-pooped around midnight. I’m told I missed some of the biggest displays – they started wiring rockets together so 4 or 5 would go off in succession (apparently you have to be rather drunk to do this). The street looked like a war zone the next day. I think a few neighbors pitching in a few bucks each so the local do-anything-for-cash guy would clean up. Honey was hung over, which means he drank A LOT of beer. I made pancakes and we lounged about the rest of the day. (Mmmm, pancakes.)

In photo news, we’ve done two test shoots lately. (Test shoots are for trying something you haven’t done before with all parties understanding nothing usable may come from it.) The ‘Lolita’ shoot with Eve wasn’t bad and also wasn’t amazing. I guess the shoot to familiarize a fellow photog with lighting at night went well – I stayed inside to work on a piece for guerilla knitting (see examples here or Google to your heart’s content).