Funny photography story.

Here’s a funny photography story from the Vikings game yesterday. There was four seconds left in regulation and the Vikings were three points behind. They kicked a super long field goal and the crowd and team went wild. It’s the sort of moment we photographers rush the field after the game winning last second play to get close up photos. Except in this case it was just a game TYING play. Luckily I

 realized this, as did every other photographer–except one. Andy King, who was shooting for Getty (and who said it was fine for me to post about this), raced onto the field to get wonderful close-up photos of the star kicker and the coach. He was moving with great speed and agility, weaving between celebrating players to get the best shot. I watched him in amazement, thinking “does he work for the team now?” I soon realized what was going on and couldn’t help laughing. Slowly, after a minute of getting what were likely some of the best photos of the day, he started to look around and realized he was the ONLY photographer on the field. I finally made eye contact with him from the sideline and gestured to him. He walked off an immediately buckled over in laughter. It was the sort of moment every photographer has, and yesterday was his turn. 

Here’s a shot he took of me laughing moments after it happened (with Strib photographer Jeff Wheeler in the background).

Best date night ever.

Well, that not may true, since we’ve actually had a BUTTLOAD of dates over the past many years. But this was up there. I first had to talk a reluctant Jessica into going to the State Fair. She poopooed it for a few days, it’s so big and overwhelming, yada yada. So the way I got around that is I didn’t as if she “wanted” to go to the state fair, I asked if she “would” go there with me. That got a reluctant yes. And she had more fun than I did! Before we went to the fair we stopped for a wonderful Ethiopian dinner, then headed to the fair.

Since I didn’t work out at the fair much this year it was especially fun to be there and wander around with a beautiful and intelligent woman. She’s both. It’s just crazy.

Here we are with our treats sitting among the Christmas trees. I had a beer sampler, she had key lime pie on stick.

We saw crop art, big ass pumpkins, creative activities stuff like pickles and poundcake, rode the skyway thing, saw some wonderful chickens and thought of Bubbe, listened to a little bit of the unimpressive New Standards and, on our way out, lucked out and saw Hookers and Blow, a pretty spectacular cover band. Super tight, musical, fun, loud, talented. That was a good time. As Jessica mentioned, a good cover band can be great fun since pretty much every song they play is really good.

Anyway, that was the sum of it. And all that fun was made possible by my visiting mother who watched the kids. Thanks, Ma!

A few more photos from our recent trip to the cottage.

I splurged and bought the boys each a decent fishing pole from Fleet Farm. We tried using corn and bread for a day and no bites. The next day I got some worms and BAM. You couldn’t leave the hook in the water for 10 seconds without getting a lot of bites. I was pretty funny. I remember at one point BOTH boys were reeling in their poles yelling, “I got one, I got one Papa!” That was 30 seconds before this photo above was taken, after the same thing happened a second time. Later, a fish swallowed the hook and I had the end his little life. So we ate him.

Arthur eating a chip in Nora’s memorial garden. “I like Nora’s garden,” Art said.

An odd porch scene with crazed baby in background.
Closeup of said baby.

“Ben, take a picture,” said Jessica when we saw Netta ‘looking’ through trashy magazines. 
The folks at the neighboring cottage have a super fancy jet speed boat. They gave us a terrifcally fast and fun boat ride. We also jumped in the water from the thing.

Some photos Lewis took.

Reading books before bedtime.

Something truly spectacular.

There’s a 21-year-old kid in St. Paul named Austin who has made a pretty spectacular marble roll thing from Kinex pieces in his room. This photo shows less than a third of the entire contraption, which circles his room entirely. There’s even a big crane that travels overhead. Nance, Jessica’s aunt, lives in their neighborhood and got an email notice about an open house, which she forwarded to us. And I’m certain he’s open to having more people come. So if you wanna see this, send an e-mail to them here or email me and I’ll pass along their number. I don’t think it’ll be up much longer.

Our North Carolinian family.

Cynthia, my step mother and mama to Jenny, my step sister, just sent me this lovely photo. It’s of Jenny and Sujit and their children Mira and Zach. We don’t see them often but love them dearly. They live in Chapel Hill, my father and Cynthia in Durham. We are already planning (in our head) an epic vacation next summer, a road trip to Myrtle Beach to the Meher Baba spiritual center, a place that always brings great joy and peace. And a place for us all to be together and play. Three years ago we took Bubbe, I still smile thinking about how wonderful that trip was. Here’s a little video from it.