Arizona

Meyerson symphony center

My view every night

I never I would like a smitty tour, but its really good

Baltmore, MD

Redding, PA

New coat

Wonder if this works?

Well here goes nothing.

Vegas Motor speedway

Never been to a Nascar race. So freakin' loud. It was a very cool setting though. About 10 min from the strip with some beautiful mountain behind the track. These events are so huge. The scale of the production was massive. So many staff, all with big headsets. I have no idea how massive their Comm center had to be to pull this off. 

07-07-07 The Call

Absolutly amazing! Like a crazy person I was there 14 hours. The walk in the morning was amazing. 10,000 or so people walking completely silent down church street. The church in Nashville might finally be realizing we're on the same team. We all serve the same God.

The Call gathering after the walk was life changing. A congressmen publicly apologized to several ethnicities for things the US government has done. Like slavery, kicking the the indians off they're land, that sort of thing. It was powerful. There was prayer, worship, crying, sweating, passing out, and fasting. I'm thankful I survived the whole day.

Mom & Dad!

Since my mother is the only one who reads this blog, I'd like to give her mad props (not sure, heard it from James).

South Africa (Reworked)

I decided to go back through the South Africa pictures. After looking through Bono's Africa book I was inspired.

www.jon-allen.net/africa

Nighttime Country Road

So Kirk and I decided to do a little evening shooting. Just for the fun of it. I want to get some other photographers together to work along side each other. Shoots that are just fun, no stress of making sure the client is happy. We're just there to laugh at stupid mistakes and compliment a good eye.

I'd love to see a community of creative people working to better each other without the selfish attitudes of personal gain. Each of us has unique talents that good easily better another.

Main Street Festival

Some how I got two of my pictures in a booth at Main Street Festival this year. Jeff from VAA and Prophetik clothing let me throw them in a booth. Hopefully they will both sell.

iTunes & Momentary Mute

The latest version of iTunes (7.1.0.59) causes the mute in windows to be momentary! While iTunes is open the mute command from a keyboard only mutes the audio while the key is depressed. When the key is released the audio comes through.

What the heck!?! Maybe it's a feature that I didn't read about. It drives me nuts.

Un-Screwed!

After a morning a full anesthesia I'm sleepy and screwless. It's about time too. There's a lot more mobility now. Thankfully they cleaned off the screws before giving them to me.

Extreme Societal Juxtaposition

I've never been to a hockey game before. Sad I know. If I had known it would have been such an education in cultural diversity I would have done it a long time ago.

The good, the bad, and strangely ugly.

As I understand the purpose of this gathering is to watch padded men slap a frozen piece of rubber around with sticks, while gracefully gliding across frozen water to smash their opponents into the plexiglass. Sounds like a simply enough principle. But somehow that simple idea merits a massive event complex that seemed to me to be quite full. Due to the violent nature of the game I sadly assumed that the contents of the seats would be slightly less educated country dwellers accompanied by women who where there against their will. That was a gross miscalculation.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the game, it was the 17min break between periods that really peaked my interest. Dave and I circled the GEC soaking in all the wonderful sights and smells. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t gotten out much lately but I was surprised that the cultural diversity of the ticket holders. Dave explained the class based society of the stadium. The further away from the rink the less expensive the tickets are. Reversely the energy level starts near the roof and bottoms out by the glass. Those who are truly committed tend not to have the money and those with money are “Too cool for school.” The only exception being the boxes in the middle. Those are the suited people who had there own “club level” around the outside that the steerage couldn’t get to. Sort of the Bourgeoisie plateaus looking down on the proletariat masses. Or at least that’s how it felt.

The juxtaposition of the people seemed to cover nearly every contingent.

• Young | Old
• Fat men in ugly jerseys | slim business men in suits
• Women | men (strangely in almost equal numbers)
• Those intensely passionate about “their” team | the casual onlooker.
• The “too cool for school” crowd | that guy who ripped off his shirt because the camera was on him.
• Half naked cheerleaders | little kids in head to toe winter gear.
• Infants strapped onto dad | A very old man that looked like Willie Nelson with a young female on either arm.
• Wood sticks slapping rubber | the latest HD cameras broadcasting that action all over the world.

Love and/or Money
Somehow the love of this sport drives people to spend way more money for simple services. I assume the bean counters behind this operation have to bury the massive overhead in the food prices. But $9 for nachos?! That’s worse than friggin Disney world. But for some reason after the second quarter I found my self getting a massive Mountain Dew and a bag of Twizzlers. I guess somehow the excitement in the air allowed my normally money conscious mind to justify buying the equivalent of three bags of groceries.

Over all I had a wonderful time. I’m not sure I would go back a repeated basis.

New Packaging Idea

So I was running errands today and had an idea for packaging the DVDs. I think the client needs to get something in the mail with a little substance to it. A little trip to hobby lobby and a few prototypes and here it is...

Grandpa Ray

In light of my Grandfather's passing I compiled some things about him.

Ray Allen
A Life Lived to the Fullest

Regan library

The whole fleet of vehicles that Regan used. I love going to museums with my mom. It's like my own personal tour guide that can actually answer all my questions.

Bulkhead

Wasting time in denver airport. Wish I was here under better conditions.

Lost Thailand Aventures

I finally got some pictures of a crazy night in Chang Mai Thailand. I had rented a scooter for the week. Grant and I followed some new found friends to a local restaurant.

Josh Report 3

Why did I do all this?

So i'm sitting here at 1:43am wondering why I spend all this time? I'm pretty sure no one reads this blog. I've noticed that I didn't grow up in the Blogger, Myspace era, where all my friends have a blog and all read each others. I'm afraid to mention that I have a blog as I will be ridiculed to tears, i'm sure. I think my only frequent reader doesn't know where this blog is now (my mother). I've put a ton of effort into changing my whole site around so it looks more professional and hopefully gets me some business.
Do I really think this will work? Is it possible for some one like me to just pull a photography world out of my booty? People tell me my pictures are wonderful. They could feel the need to tell me that because their my close friends. Oh, I know. I need outside opinions. Where do I get that from?

I suppose I should stop the cry for affirmation and go to bed.
If you actually read this, please leave a comment

The Josh Report 2