Administrative matter

My mother would have complained about last year's christmas photo. She would have commented on how you couldn't see anyone. I would have defended the pic saying that it was neat how everyone was reflected off the ski goggle. She would have said she doesn't care about neat. She just wants to see her grandbabies (and her baby--me!). So these pics are for my mother and anyone else who might share her position about the disadvantages of 'neat' photography.

Baya, Aleo, Anfer, Troy

Marta

And we might have to do this dance again as I don't know how much my mother would have liked this year's holiday photo (coming Friday).

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUGUST 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JULY 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. APRIL 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAR 2018

bella's short-lived modeling career

a few years back our car broke down in sidney nebraska. we were en route to utah for our spring break holiday. we left sidney with a surprising number of good memories and warm feelings having made the most of our two days in the small town.

a perfect example. one day while out for a walk (to the original Cabelas superstore), we saw this statue honoring the pony express. as the family read the related plaques that circled the impressive monument, bella climbed onto the horse and then called to me to take her picture. as i set up, marty snuck into the background and photo-bombed the shoot. then the boys joined in. and then, well it is just how things tend to unfold around here ...






























in the end, we were able to pull out a decent family photo but those never seem to come at a simple trajectory.

and this episode reminds me of a story that marty tells of when she was a young girl. she grew up in a house with three older brothers. the few times she would bounce downstairs wearing any sort of makeup she would get mercilessly taunted by her brothers. a popular one was for them to ask who beat her up and if she would just give them their name they would go give them a good pounding. this constant jibing kept marty from ever drifting too far into the it-girl lane (it-girl/it-guy being what my family calls the fashion-governed, opinion-driven in-crowd). i'm thankful for this because i share marty's brothers sentiments about makeup on marty (but probably for different reasons)--for me it is not just that it doesn't look right on her, but i think it makes her look less beautiful, or rather, she is always more fetching without the 'enhancements', however minimal she claims they are. marty has no prayer with me because there has never been a day where i haven't thought marty looked her best in the first moments of the day where she is minutes out of bed, wonky hair and all. she hates my position on that but i stand by my claim. this is the life of a natural beauty.

but back to my other natural beauty, bella. i've seen some moments where bella has begun the slide into the it-girl world but each and every time our family tugs her back to the ground and keeps her from ever taking that part of the game too seriously.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. FEB 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JAN 2018

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DEC 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOV 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCT 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEP 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUG 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUL 2017

trust fall fail

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUN 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MARCH 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. FEBRURARY 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JANUARY 2017

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUGUST 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JULY 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUNE 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAY 2016

ansel aleo

below are a few more pictures from aleo's first four rolls of film.

his first shot was discussed here yesterday.


dad's famous breakfast scrumble


anthony and dad's morning chess game


arcadia!!!


impressive, tight focus on the scope, the real story of the picture, which is throwing a curious reflection.


pretty brave to try a jump-shot on your first outing--i thought it turned out quite well for a first cut at the technique.


now that is just dang cool for a timer-shot.


old country men at the old country store


spooky anthony, and according to anthony, visual evidence that i am a black man.


if you study this one, you can spot the photog in the window.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. APRIL 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MARCH 2016

the party-what?

for my birthday bookpimp sent me a dvd of a tv series called Going Deep with David Rees. he said he thought my family might enjoy it. he was right. my family does enjoy it. but my wife enjoys it more than all of us combined. there is something about david's manner and delivery that absolutley destroys my wife so much so she has almost (1) spit out her drink (2) passed out from not being able to get her breath from laughing and (3) even coming dang close to peeing herself from laughter. so thanks bookpimp for hooking us up so. and for the record when marty gets laughing that hard we pause the show (because her laughing so is distracting) and we all just turn and watch her reeling on the couch holding her stomach (or her other parts).

in honor of marty's birthday today i'm sharing part of her all-time-favorite episode: the party hole.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. FEBRUARY 2016

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JANUARY 2016

the kids are alright

in case you were worrying for alex based on his sour demeanor in yesterday's family gallery entry, worry not. our aleo is fine and well. he was just mean-mugging the camera before his first day of middle school. in evidence.







anfer is also fine and well.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2015

the 2016 everyman is underway

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUGUST 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JULY 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUNE 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAY 2015

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2014

that time of year again

believe

for those wondering about the back story with the last gallery posting, it is this.

it was the day of bella's annual save the children carnival, her third. she did her recruiting. she completed her planning. she hung her flyers. on the morning of, when we pulled into the lot where the carnival happens, there were three large construction dumpsters on the blacktop of her space, consuming more than a third of the lot and blocking the spaces reserved for half of her booths. upon seeing this i turned to her. her unblinking face was frozen in disbelief at what she was seeing. then, her face began to soften. it continued to sag until tears were seconds away. i put my hand on her knee and said it would be ok. we still had lots of space and would adjust. predictably, she said space or not it was still ruined with these giant, ugly things right in the space. her sound logic continued as she quickly adding strong observations like "who wants their children playing on a construction site" or "they're taking all the shady spots".

after stopping the car, we walked to the dumpsters to see what was in them. after climbing up and peering over the edge we were greeted by this (see photo). the carnival was on the day before father's day and that cardboard box was front and center. i nudged bella with my elbow, pointed at the box and said, "you're all good. grandma nyla has your back."

i could see bella, still rather flummoxed at the luck, dismissed my comment. as we hopped down from the dumpsters i stopped her and said: i don't know if she ever believed me or not but things did go just fine.

you may not believe me either. if so, how many people have you met in your life named nyla?

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MARCH 2014

hands down, or perhaps it should be hands up (in joy)

LIFE magazine recently asked the question "is this the happiest photo ever made?" (link). the suggesting winning image was taken by one Alfred Eisenstaedt, picture below.



given a daily ritual i have of looking at another photo, my answer of no came quick as my preference quickly turns to the below photo, Burst of Joy taken by Slava "Sal" Veder, on March 17, 1973 and is captioned, "Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, is greeted by his family, returning home after more than five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam." (fuller back story).



upon digging further i was glad (and affirmed) to see time's more exhaustive list included my Burst of Joy choice as part of their fuller list of 20 timeless, joyful photos.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. FEBRUARY 2014

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JANUARY 2014

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2013

a few historical exhibits

in honor of the everyman release, i'm devoting the week to everyman related matters (that add to details missed in the everyman story told a few months back). today i'm sharing two of the most noteworthy bits of history:

1. the original photograph
i can put hands on every single image ever entered into the photo contest, but miserably, i have lost the image that began it all—the image from chris mcgrath's coffee table taken of his brother in law taking a giant bite from a plum. the only remnant i have from what i sometimes call "the original entry" that sparked it all is from the 1st everyman where i used the image in the masthead.



2. the kottke explosion
then there was the post heard around the web. every time i the tell the story i obviously mention how simple and unadorned the mention that brought the everyman to the world was. jason kottke's wonderful brevity allows me to repeat it, verbatim, in each re-telling. what that pithy three-word link did for the everyman speaks to the power and potential of the world wide web which can still surprise when we see it flex its muscles in ways we weren't expecting.

the wait is over.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2013

geriatric

i somehow forgot to mention one of my favorite everyman moments. in 2011 i was contacted by a company looking to obtain rights for one of the from the attic entries. i sent the inquiry on to the original entrant and a few months later saw the image used in a chevy add during the 2011 world series. it's the image at the 40 second mark and was the 2008's 3rd place from the attic winner. never before was the mission of the everyman, to get images out there that otherwise weren't out there, ever more succintcly realized. pretty dang neat.



further, i've since found out it caused a bit of a stir as the commercial's creators were accused of lifting the concept from a website. Did Chevy Steal This Commercial Idea From a Popular Blog?. noting they used the everyman image in demostration.

the everyman story - part 4. the future

part three is over here

my dining room is collaged with photography from around the world. occasionally a visitor to our home will stroll through this room and exit asking wondrously if the same person took all of those photos. laughingly, we explain the source. i will then add that if a single eye captured that wildly diverse collection of imagery they would be one of the best regarded photographers of our time. sometimes at dinner we play a game where someone will say something like, "how many frogs?" or "how many airplanes" and without looking at the walls everyone at the table has to guess how many pictures containing the noted item are on display. after everyone guesses, a eye-scanning inventory is made. also, a for sure favorite for my kids is to point out all the naked people pictures to visiting kids.

truth is i now have enough photography i could cover virtually every bare space of my home. i've been trying to convince marty to let me do themes throughout the house, like, i'm dying to decopauge the bathroom with photos of bathrooms from around the world, wallpapering every inch of plastered space, including the ceiling with images of toilets and people using toilets (yep, i got 'em). she's held consistently resistant to this design direction over the years. i've promised her that were she to green light collaging the full home, we could be on our city's house tour and be known as 'that picture house'. this surprisingly holds zero appeal for her (i think she imagines the expense of replacing all the broken frames from the kids knocking them off their nails in their rough and tumble way of life). so instead of consuming the entire house, i continue to tweak the display in the dining room, the one room marty has given me full control over, adding more photos each year as well as rotating what is displayed from year to year, pulling new photos from boxes that hold the overflow.

given the laughable overstock of great imagery, around 30,000 images at this time, it has become a near annual tradition to contemplate winding the operation down. i mean is there really going to be a twentieth annual everyman? a thirtieth? each time i walk down this path i of course pull up the site and spin through its pages. this activity sucks me in like it has done to many a web tourist before. i marvel at the range and creativity and vividness of the images. the activity inevitably makes me remember the numerous random compliments i've received in my inbox many of which express their adoration of the everyman and how it is their favorite contest. my all-time favorite email came from a former student who was studying abroad. she said she was sitting in a cabin (somewhere in europe, i can't recall where) talking with other students from around the world. one of them told the group of this great photo contest they loved called the everyman. my student was giddy to share that she not only knew the creator but had seen 'the dining room' that showcased the imagery. and every now and again i recall what was probably the most significant email to ever appear in the everyman inbox. it came from a woman who described an office ritual where she and a group of co-workers gathered around a desk at lunchtime and looked through the entries. she explained that the next image in the gallery would be pulled up and the group would take it in and then make their comments about it, discussing the merits or weaknesses of the image and/or title. she said they protected the pace in which they moved only doing so many each day as to not run out of images for the next day, week, month. this email curiously arrived when i was closer than ever to ending the contest. i was dreading the amount of work and effort i was about to undertake in announcing another year. that one crazily-timed note saved the everyman that year (and thus every subsequent year). speaking of timing, i just received an email yesterday day while crafting this post asking if i ran any more photo contests because they liked this contest better than the others for amatuers they were finding and hoped that i ran or knew of others like it. so between the love of the imagery and the supportive audience, this annual ritual of contemplating ending the everyman becomes a more futile exercise with every passing year which i guess means there probably will be a twentieth and even thirtieth everyman. especially as long as i have viable candidates for the everyman spirit award.

but to be fully honest, the biggest reason to push on is the quiet faith i have that one year marty will break down and let me take over the bathroom.

the everyman story - part 3. the early years

part two is over here

every day i walked the bare, lifeless walls of my home. and every day i had more samples of curious photography i'd seen casually existing in other people's homes swimming through my brain's art gallery. unfortunately, the moment i decided to announce i was holding a photo contest is not very crisp in my mind. i just remember saying on my personal website that i was holding a photo contest. the contest parameters stated that whoever sent me the best picture, as judged by me and few friends, in the next sixty days would win a hundred dollars. and by entering, you retain ownership of your photo but allow me to hang it up in my home. those few sentences pretty well sum of the extent of the early definition.

the first year received forty-two entries. all coming from people who had eaten dinner in my home. i asked two friends if they would look at the photos and tell me their favorites. together, the three of us juried the entries and picked our favorites. i compiled the results and announced the winners. i sent the number one guy a hundred bucks and hung a dozen pictures up in my dining room.

a year later i received an email from someone asking if i would be holding the photo contest again. it hadn't even occurred to me to do it twice but in thinking on it for three minutes, thought why not and announced the 2nd annual everyman. this time i received 80 entries, almost a perfect doubling of the first year, and most excitingly, a few from folks who i didn't know, from far west as california and as far east as new york.

now this year, i did something that would forever change the everyman. i emailed a guy whose website i read. he occasionally posted photographs, some of which were quite spectacular by my eye and right in the wheelhouse of my modest affair. i didn't hear back from him but hours before the deadline, my inbox chimed with an email from him that contained two entries. i can't verbalize the quiet, fist-pumping thrill this produced in my dark, lonely office (oh internet!).

me and my two pals again evaluated the entries and i announced the results. the fella from new york, one jason kottke, took third place. later that day on his personal website he made a post that said, "Third place, woo!. the 2nd place entry is my favorite." the post included a link to my results page. before this link, my site on the day of the big reveal had 37 visitors. they next day saw more the 1,500. and the day after that more than 3,500. seven days after the link the everyman was on the front page of the usa today, named the site of the day. granted the by line with the honor said, "some crazy guy in st. louis is giving away his own money to collect art for his new home." not exactly how my mother would have written it up. the next year saw 1,200 hundred entries. and the next saw 2,000. this continued for awhile until i received an email from spain asking if they could enter. on that day the everyman went international and the entries continued to climb, peaking at 7,700 entries from 80 countries a few years later.

this volume proved too much work for me and my judges and i had to dial it back a bit. these days, the contest has a 2,000 entry cap which seems to be a happy number for all involved.

part 4. the future

the everyman story - part 2. conception

part one is over here

some months after buying my house, i stopped at a friend's place to pick him up. after being let in, he asked me to wait a few moments while he finished getting ready. we talked, loudly between the rooms we were in. during the several minutes we did this, i walked around the living room taking in the books and baubles in the space. after scanning the bookshelves and walls, a snapshot on the coffee table caught my eye. it showed a close-up shot of a guy taking a large bite out of a plum. much of what would usually be captured in such a composition was tightly cropped, removing most of the extraneous details. but the unusual photo possessed a surprising amount of mood and emotion. i envisioned it blown up, fifteen feet tall, thirty feet wide in an urban art gallery framed by a stark expanse of concrete wall, people with wine glasses milling before it, discussing the merits and gestalt of the photo.

TROY
hey. this is a great picture.

CHRIS
what? which one.

TROY
the one on the coffee table.

CHRIS
what?

TROY
the guy eating the plum.

CHRIS
oh. that's a goof. we pulled it from the set to throw it out.

TROY
what?! you're throwing this out?

CHRIS
yes. it was an accident.

TROY
but it's a great shot.

CHRIS
you think so?

TROY
yeah i do.

CHRIS
well, you can have it. like i said we are just going to throw it out.

TROY
really? i can i have it?

this marks the moment the first two neurons joined and with help from complementary neurons sitting in the wings giving it mass is when the everyman truly first came into being. after this chance moment, the act of studying photography anywhere i went, whether properly framed, magneted to the fridge or messily strewn about a desk became an official pastime of mine. in little time i came to realize that great, or interesting at least, photography quietly existed everywhere, but was being seen virtually nowhere.

part 3. the early years

the everyman story - part 1. inception

over the years i've been asked a time or two about how the everyman photo contest got started. just about every time i've recounted the tale i've told a highly abbreviated version. now, as it's more than a decade mature and the memories are in peril of being handed their walking papers, i thought i should capture the history as i recall it before my brittle synapses lose the ability to recall it. so, this week, in honor of the 13th public opening of the galleries, i will recount how my 2nd most prized digital creation came into being. the first soil got turned ...

after marty and i moved from our apartment into our house. once settled, my single largest complaint about home ownership did not deal in lawn-care, failed wiring, or leaky faucets but with empty walls. the apartment we had just left had a ridiculous number of windows with essentially three of the four walls consisting of nothing but window after window, the only plastered wall in the 1920's structure being the one running down the middle of the building separating the side by side apartments. so after years of a windowed apartment, the unexpected sprawl of bland, soulless walls made our first home not warm and inviting as i'd hoped for but sad and bleak. when i asked marty about it, she gazed about as if seeing it for the first time and confessed she hadn't noticed, not one bit. at the time, i still possessed enough youthful marital optimism that i thought by simply raising the point i planted a seed of discontent in my wife but the green stalk never broke ground. even today, marty could care less if our walls and halls were as stark as they were in our first twenty four hours of possession. i reckon this adds to why marriage will always hold an element of unpredictability.

as you'd expect, just as my zeal did not move her, her lack of interest did not sway me from my vision (e.g. marital deadlock) so when i saw the flyer for an art fair in a nearby huey-huey suburb, i pitched it to marty as a way to get out on a nice day. after walking the tents on blocked-off streets, i brought marty back to my favorite display and began talking up the work. with her prior zeal she said the photos were 'nice'. sensing no love-affair on the horizon i told her i thought we should get a couple images for the house. being an understanding partner, she agreed. so i procured two large images for a startling sum of five hundred dollars and left feeling like i was about to repair the struggling mood of my house forever.

moments after walking through the door i set to finding the perfect spot for my grandiose exhibit. i found it and immediately moved to the framing and hanging and when complete stood back and took it in. the wall was spectacular, alive even. but as i turned and surveyed the surrounding space, which is another way of saying 'the rest of the house', the message stood every bit as bleak as before my renovation. as i walked the rooms and hallways and contemplated how much i just spent to cover the one little nook, and did the quick math of what it would take to cover all the other little nooks, the reality of my bland and boring house set in. unhealthy as the confession sounds, i found the situation surprisingly unsettling.

part 2. conception

some people's favorite day of the year

ms150 2013 photo recap

day 1 start


middle game


refueling


end of day 1 smile


end of day 1 selfie


end of day 1 stats


end of day 2 smiles

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUGUST 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JULY 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUNE 2013

no child left behind, except those that can't read.

below find the slips the family filled out for the test mentioned in tuesday's story. and the original sticker in question.

and anthony's contribution was verbal and exposed what an ass i was for giving a reading comprehension and writing test to his child who can not yet do either of those things. had you heard his angst you would know he would have used the d-word instead of the a-word but thankfully that is another thing he is not yet up to practical speed on.

and i love that bella added her answer, "pop them", to the life-riddle.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAY 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. APRIL 2013

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MARCH 2013

mancation 2013 debrief

this year's ski boondoggle had a few remember-worthy facets and given how remember-challenged my mind seems to be getting (dang checklist!) i thought it prudent to capture the highlights here and now before they fall to the ether.

i've already mentioned the first striking part of the trip is that it restored a lapsed ritual. the situation brought to mind the words of some great writer about the power of ritual. he also supported stepping away from them, rituals, when life demanded but he did so with the solitary caution of making sure you return to the program as soon as humanly possible. done.

usually the weather-personality of a ski trip has some sort of common thread. you're looking at winter-skiing, spring-skiing, freezing north-east skiing, powder-skiing, or something of the like. this year proved one of the most schizophrenic condition-wise weeks i can recall.

the first day was pretty normal spring skiing for colorado which is to say the skies were blue, the sun was out, the morning was solid and you exited the mountain on a bed of grey slush.

the second day saw a storm move in the minute, literally, we arrived to the backside. the lifts were closed due to winds and we were advised to seek shelter until they could see what the storm was likely to do. by the time we worked our way back to the top of the gondola, winds were hitting 90mph and visibility was less than 10 feet for a period of time. within the hour they closed the mountain for the day, largely because of falling trees, and advised us that snow cats were en route to evacuate the staff and skiers still up-mountain. this would be my first mountain evacuation and ride in the back basket of a snow cat. the first time you head downhill and feel your weight press against the metal grating of the cage given the steep pitch is a most unique sensation.



the next day treated us to fresh snow, clear skies, and about twenty degree weather which kept the afternoon slush at bay.



our fourth day began with more fresh snow. then the day saw an additional seven inches dropped on the higher mountain. we were spared the winds but the visibility was quite low (around 10 feet) at times. by this point though we knew the trails well enough to not have to worry about skiing off a cliff or dropping into a mogul-rich, double black diamond. for a number of reasons, i think this last day provided the best skiing. surely the way you want to end a ski week.



another memorable part of this trip dealt with the absence of virtually all people on the mountain given we arrived so late in the season, the mountain proved to be nearly all ours. in fact, when we drove in town sunday night it seemed like we were pulling into a deserted movie set or as if an apocalypse had occurred while we wended through the mountains or that plague-infested zombies cleaned the place of all living flesh and bone. obviously, the upside here is the zero-wait lift lines and the pristine and un-crowded runs.



that last bit leads into the added benefit of the empty runs since i was nursing a severe case of damaged confidence at the start of the week given my separated shoulder i suffered two week earlier at deer valley in park city, utah.

and a surprising first for matt and i, largely due to a banned-mountain, were movies. in all the times we've travelled and spent sitting in mountain lodges i don't think we'd ever taken in a film. this time, we took in several: zero-dark thirty, red dawn (new one), flight, and an espn 30 on 30 documentary about allen iverson. we also tried to watch the tom cruise movie the last samurai but only made it about seven minutes in.

may i interest you in some ...

for any of you dissastified with their easter weekend offerings i have an alternative for you. in my first step towards digging out of my three month professional drubbing and subsequent slacking here, i describe your next spiritual journey possibility in the february gallery.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2012

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2012

a favorite day for fans of the everyman photo contest.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2012

courtesy call

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2012

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. AUG 2012

scenes from the first day of the 2012-2013 school year

the thirty pound junior high backpack


walking to the bus


anthony's waiting smirk


anthony hamming, aleo perfecting


proud and relived parents with their kindergartner

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUNE 2012

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAY 2012 (belated)

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. APRIL 2012

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MARCH 2012

after a six year special gallery drought

over a decade ago i made the decision to close my kid's dedicated photo galleries after their fifth birthday (and one hundred photos). now that anthony has crested both of those milestones i find myself without an outlet to capture and share the occasional image of my people. while maintaining this website over the past twelve years has tortured me in a number of ways, it has also spoiled me in many more. my expedient ability to fix this sudden case of the jitters being one of the good sides. thus, allow me to introduce you to our family scrapbook.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. FEBRUARY 2012

as his parent, i'm mildly curious if he deemed his button-job 'close enough' or 'too far-gone for help'

in looking for anthony's hundredth, and final, image for his personal gallery, i scanned my picture archives, wanting this last one to be solidly representative of his personality which i thought i managed for both baya and aleo. a few of his pics along the way have captured his spirit like here or here. after spinning through my folders though i didn't find any that hit the mark. so this last weekend i called him to the foyer asked him to stand on the landing thinking i had the chops to capture my son's essence, which is always about him.

what you're about to see is one of anthony's more peculiar takes on the world. he has it in his mind that when someone says they are going to take his picture, he, the subject, is supposed to strike and hold a series of poses, a different one for each picture. and as you'll see each and every one of his poses are without argument bizarre. i'm not sure what input or stimulus led him to create this repertoire of poses but whatever it was, i've never met a person who came to the same conclusion.

below are a few of the shots taken that day on the landing. after each beep from the camera he quickly and precisely re-contorts his body to the next chosen position. at the conclusion of the shoot, i didn't feel any of these hit the special mark i was looking for and i thought yesterday's image better captured the mood of our boy. but just because they weren't suitable to close out his gallery doesn't mean they're too highbrow for the monorail.

that's a wrap!

to round out this year's content, i'll leave you with my favorite photo from our colorado trip (since i've been chatting it up all week). i still remember when bella walked back from rinsing her hands, she commented on how ice cold the water was, and this in august. i'm thankful marty and i had a year with enough health and friendship and opportunity for our children to feel the cool bite of a rocky mountain lake. it is a small mark of many other fortunes. may next year prove as fruitful. best to you all.



click to enlarge

colorado 2012

yesterday i shared my thank you note in our hosts' guest book. today i'm sharing the thank yous the kids left.

him climbing the mountain




all of us climbing the mountain








part a : thank you
part b : family drawing
part c : us climbing the mountain
part d : us at the drive in (for as good of an artist as bella is, her rendition of our van is most curious)

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we're a decently dashing lot via bella's eye/pen ... although i fear marty isn't wearing any pants.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. DECEMBER 2011

a lovely friday diversion

may i direct your attention this way where this year's everyman winners have been named. may you enjoy the vivid distraction.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. NOVEMBER 2011

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. OCTOBER 2011

you know the drill

from the attic representin'!

back in august i was contacted by an agency who licenses photos for commercials and film projects. the woman in the email asked if i would put her in contact with a past everyman winner as they would like to use her image in a chevy commercial. as i occasionally get these sorts of emails for everyman entrants, i thanked the woman for the inquiry and passed her info on to the entrant. i never heard anything back from either party and assumed my email for the entrant was dated. then last night while watching game six of the world series (amazing!!!), i saw a chevy commercial and in it i saw the photo i was asked about. few things could have made that game more enjoyable, but that surely rates.

the original photo, a third place from the attic winner back in 08.

and the commercial it was used in (photo is at the 40 second mark).

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. SEPTEMBER 2011

in it to win it!

for those left unconvinced after yesterday's evidence.



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just another day at the museum

if you ever see marty or i and we look fatigued, the below image will begin to explain why.



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a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JULY 2011

it wouldn't take this long on sesame street. sheesh.

after returning from our hike i went to string up a clothes line to hang our wet and sweaty clothes. in searching out a suitable tree trunk for my first tie i happened upon a cicada emerging from its shell. the kids have found a crazy number of the spent brown carcasses and even plenty of the meaty, green cicadas, but we've never seen one in transition. excited at the find i called the kids over to watch, which they exuberantly did, but when it took more than three minutes for the hatching to occur they slowly fell away one after another until it was just again me watching.

knowing my only alternative time-killer was hanging a bunch of foul and soiled clothes, most of which were not even mine, i milked the slow-moving entertainment. when i first saw the guy, he was struggling to pull his tail end out of the shell. i was most excited to see him free his wings and pump them with blood (that being part of the process as far i know). when i first noticed him, there was a solitary ant racing up and down the length of his body, dashing about as if looking for lost keys or something. i found the ant annoying and was sure the cicada did as well in this moment of birth and triumph. five minutes later there were ten to fifteen ants frenetically traversing the poor fellow's frame. within ten minutes the images below show the scene. i honestly couldn't tell if the cicada's movements were in attempt to free himself from the shell or shake the ants from his body. they looked so small and innocuous next to his large and seemingly armored skin to do him harm beyond perturbing him. but they definitely caught him with his pants down and in time the poor hatchling proved to not have enough energy in his nubile frame to contend with the ant swarm and his flailing slowed and then stopped altogether. nature is beastly.

i term this series, ALMOST.



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rural hammertime

i was trying, ineffectually, to photograph the sunny shimmer of spiderweb we came upon during a trail-hike. apparently the waiting kids lost their patience for my craft and began entertaining themselves. i proved so focused on the elusive web that i didn't even notice the hijinks in the background. fortunately my camera proved more aware than its owner to know where the better picture was to be had.



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from the smiles you'd think we were somewhere more exotic than a missoura campground

at the camp outing we recently took, i only broke my camera out once. it was after lunch while taking a break from the water. the below collection of shots were captured in a time span of less than five minutes amidst a flurry of laughter and goofiness. the kids who are not our kids are friends of ours who are our camping mentors and make it look both easy and fun, which i'm ever thankful for.

time to get your picture on.

it's one of those few times a year the everyman sees some motion. this time it's the reveal of the winners on the professional contest.

today also rings the starting bell for the 2011 amateur contest so if you've been thinking of getting in the mix, now is the time.

and i'm thrilled to announce the return of the from the attic category. it may not get the most entries, but it almost always has some of the best.

you may start the walking tour here

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. JUNE 2011

kooky people in a kooky tree

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a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. MAY 2011

the latest bella-beware ... or rather beware-bella ... sign.

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TRANSCRIBED:
Bella DeArmitt or Bella D lives here!

No Anthony's!!!
home of 1,000,000 animals.

only come in if have permission and dressed properly.

if unsure of rules:

1. no anthonys!
2. need permission to come in.
3. need heavy clothing, helmet, hiking boots, and nose plug to come in!

( all rules listed above. )

i have no idea what the nose-plug bit is about. perhaps it is to scare folks off. unsure.

the results of this one should be interesting.

the happening place to be today is over the everyman way where the entrants to the 3rd annual everyman pro have been released.

this is not a year to envy being an everyman judge. that lot of folks have their work cut out for them this round.

A L E O ! ! !

aleo turns 8 tomorrow. in reflecting on his year i find myself marveling at his unassuming courage, relentless effort and genuine kindness. my favorite story from his seventh year happened earlier in the school year. alex's music teacher had just learned that one of her former students was in the hospital. she was understandably upset but was at work and doing her best to get through the day. when the first grade class filed in for their hour of music, they acted like a first grade class who was about to partake in an hour of music class, they were loud and rambunctious. she asked them to be quiet and that she needed them to listen and cooperate on this day. they quieted down and she stood at the front of the room collecting herself for a moment. then a student's hand went up. the teacher, with a sigh, said, "yes alex." alex said, "mrs k. you look like you need a middle of the day hug. do you need a middle of the day hug?" her body sagged at the words and after a pause she said she did need a middle of the day hug. alex excused himself through his classmates, walked across the room and gave his music teacher a middle of the day hug.

and here are a few images from his 7th year.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. APRIL 2011

two minutes from my vantage point.

the pipe-fitters of america have a pony-tailed apprentice in training

there was this water table that had water bubbling up at four points. the object was to use these pipes and connectors to divert the water from their sources to other parts of the table. bella got the thought to lead two water sources to each other to see what would happen. she quickly discovered how hard it is to get two tubes, both of which were dispelling water to connect. people around her proved to be quite annoyed or tickled by her efforts. i couldn't help but be fascinated by her persistence to stymy the contraption as the first drop to hit my skin or clothes would have ended my curiosity. so i did what any grown man would have done - stood at a safe distance and took pictures of the animated struggle.

with alex's help she/they finally did persevere.

bella bella

two pictures, both un-staged, that do much to show the breadth of bella.


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a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. March 2011

snow day !!!

i haven't even scratched the surface

for those who doubted i was one of the most impeccably dressed little people in whatever zip code we occupied


but it was such a infinitely small price to pay in exchange for her diligence, love, consistency, and lifelong dedication.

mom as mom

nyla the newlywed


nyla the new mom


and if there was a burden of being my mom's only child, it was shouldering her love of dressing me in smart and fancy outfits.
i assure you i have more photographic evidence of this, not that you'd need it, but for now, this will need to suffice.

mom in youth

south carolina


saturday bath


school photos


may day


atlantic city, nj


mom and brother


mamma oakley


senior picture

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. September 2010

another from the "lots of questions. scant few answers." series

all anfer, all week.

in honor of anthony's first week of school, let's keep the anthony roll running. i mentioned (i think) that we had been doing some last minute potty training with him to get him ready for school. that went well and good and thankfully fast. the best part is i can round out our picture series of our family using the rest room.

please note the complete set is only viewable in our bathroom. i thought i had posted more of them but a quick search says otherwise (just aleo). so sorry but i think that a picture of me moving my bowels would probably be counter-productive to my employability but i figure if you're a guest in my home, you can deal.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. August 2010

when anthony elects to do something, he's full in.

a picture of anfer and i from our neighborhood's fourth of july party someone just recently passed on.

first day of first and fourth grade

i hear four is the year they start wearing clothes

anthony turns four today. when marty asked him what he would like for his birthday dinner, he said, "meat with a bone." at four years of age he's already challenging his father for the title of most manly member of the home.

and i don't know what's more telling. that anthony asked for meat with a bone for his dinner or that i interpreted that as porterhouse or that marty interpreted it as a chicken leg. i guess it's easy to see who pays the bills in our house.

beatnik and hollywood

bella and i snuck in our father-daughter day on the last weekday of summer. now that she and alex are going to the same school, and it was alex's first year at the school, bella let him have his day out on the last day of school and said she'd take hers later. later almost didn't happen.

we again went to six flags and then longhorn steakhouse at day's end. my favorite ride was the tidal wave. hers was the tony hawk roller coaster. the best food of the day was the porterhouse, easily, given how famished we were after a day in the ninety degree heat and our sack lunches. the best piece of advice dispensed during the day: always be friendly with bullies but never be their friend. the only problem with the advice was it was bella who dished it to me. we were soaking wet and excitedly walking up to get back on the tidal wave ride. i'm not even sure why the topic came up but she just said it with me trotting behind her and lapping it up like some adolescent fan-boy.

BELLA
always be friendly with bullies but never be their friend.

TROY
always be friendly with bullies but never be their friend? i like that. that's good. where'd you learn that?

BELLA
horse camp.

TROY (contemplatively)
hmm. can you explain why this is true?

BELLA
well you don't want to be their friend because then they will expect you to do bully things with them. and you don't want to be their enemy because then they will bully you. so you just act friendly and all (smiley face) 'hey there' and then they'll leave you alone.

you would think on a nine hour father-daughter day outing, the more mature, more experienced, more educated father might be the one delivering sage counsel to the child but i can't honestly be expected to compete with tutelage as insightful as that, can i?

i'm the better for the day. i only hope bella benefitted and enjoyed her time a fraction as much.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. July 2010

summer 2010 vacation - photo vomit

fin

summer 2010 vacation - most surprising

after a long family road trip and a week in a space that is not our home, the thing i found most surprising from this year's trip is how well our kids travel. they fare far better than i did as at their age(s) and i can't help but think they're better passengers than the seven kids packed into marty's family's wood-paneled station wagon, cage-match style. marty and i tried to dissect what it was that made our ilk so amenable to repeated twelve hour stretches in the car. i suggested that it was because they didn't routinely watch tv so their stimulus requirements haven't been unfairly "adjusted" thus making the notion of sitting in car for hours and hours untenable (we don't have a tv in our home so we obviously don't have one in our car, portable or otherwise).

but then there is also all the preliminary work marty does up front with their bins. here she goes out and buys a lot of dime store trinkets and activity books and travel games before the trip. she then sets each kid up with a bin or backpack of stuff they can do and throughout the trip sneaks new things into their stashes. although the older kids are now wise to her game and ask before we even leave if they can have a new thing now and if not when. also, with each new thing they get, alex is quick to ask if there are more new things or if the new thing supply has been depleted. hearing there might be another bauble or two in the wings creates a christmas eve like jittery anticipation.

this year i did something new and bought one thing to be worked into each kid's rotation. the one that got the most play was a license plate tracker game. it was a sturdy wooden plaque with the map of the us. on top of each state was a small block of wood that could be flipped. to start, you flip all the states to a text description of the state and its capital (after the kids learn the states, there is also a blank side option so you have to pick/find the state as well). when you see a car with a plate from that state, you call it out and whoever has the board will find the state, quiz the car on the capital and then flip it over, revealing a graphical representation of the state's license plate. the state capitals is something i never knew and would like to so i thought this would be a good way for me (and inadvertently my children) to learn them. it proved to be a great distraction and added a sporting element to our car time.

the other game i got for the trip and liked was a hangman game by the same company who made the license plate game, melissa and doug. although we only played a few actual games of hangman on it, it was mostly used by anthony to practice writing letters in the dry-erase part. what he would do is flip all the letters and body parts face down and then randomly turn the letters over one at a time. after flipping a letter he would draw it with the pen, and then erase it with his finger and go onto the next. i never quite figured out what criteria he used for flipping the body parts but there was some sort of logic at play in his head. in testament of how effective this was, before the trip anthony couldn't write a single letter, aside from the occasional, incidental capital i, and now the dude has written the entire alphabet many times, and with startling improvement.

another thing marty added this year, which i think started last year, was the kids get to pick one thing out at every gas stop. while the initial downside is it adds a small expense to the bottom line, the great upside is that they no longer clamor for mcdonalds which we only would ever eat at on vacation but have learned that they just want the toys and never eat more than six bites of the food and wind up starving again within the hour. and i've come to a point in my life where i can no longer stomach mcdonalds at all. and back in my work-traveling days, because of routine twenty minute lunches, there would be times i'd eat mcdonalds every day of the week, multiple weeks in a row ... and even liked it fine. but the best thing about the gas station allowance is watching the sorts of things the kids pick, the regrets they have about lesser picks, and how their choices fluctuate, sometimes wildly, seeing everything from bubble gum tape to a bottle of gatorade. the child's mind is a fascinating thing to watch, especially when it is confronted with selecting a single item in a labyrinth of florescent-lit of shiny, shrink-wrapped treats and eats.

summer vacation 2010 - personas

on last year's vacation, you may recall, we issued vacation moniker's to the kids based on a prominent behavior we observed given all the time we spent in and around each other. this year we did the same. this is the result:

• isabella 'bella daddy say whhaatttt??' walter dearmitt because of the mannerism she picked up from her hannah montana/miley cyrus marathon on one of the five televisions at our house rental. this is apparently something miley/hannah says at least once in every show using a funny, sing-songy affect which bella seemed to have perfectly captured.
  
  
• alexander 'nuts and weiners' walter dearmitt because of how silly he got running around with a friend close to his age that stayed with us in the house. these games rapidly devolved into the boys (via alex's tutelage) constantly referring to, singing songs about, or threatening to karate chop everyone's nuts and weiners in the house. i couldn't be prouder that my boy was the one to teach their boy this lovely and becoming mannerism.
  
  
• anthony 'pee-face' walter dearmitt because this is how he tries to keep up with his nuts and weiners older brother by calling everyone a pee-face. in mulling this over i've come to consider this an impressively effective and entirely under-used phraseology and one i will be introducing to my corner of society in the near future. which i guess ultimately means that in this cycle alex influences anthony and anthony influences me and this would be just about where i've always fallen on the trend-setting train my entire life.
  
  

and i reckon if we can brand the kids with personality-illuminating nicknames, there is no reason the courtesy shouldn't be extended to the parental units that allow the obnoxious behavior noted above to happen.

• marty 'twin bed' jean walter because even though our room had a spacious and inviting king sized bed with an expansive ocean view, marty slept on a twin mattress on the floor (with an obstructed view of the window) because she couldn't deal with sleeping with more than one person in the bed (anthony and i) regardless of its size. by the end of the week, marty was blissfully alone on her twin mattress on the floor while i slept with not one, not two, but all three of our children in what proved to be a veritable tangle of humanity and limbs.
  
  
• and i think i would have been branded troy "georges" lane dearmitt in honor of the book i was obsessively reading every free moment i could steal. the severity of my condition was fully exposed when i was caught reading in the corner of the toilet nook in our master suite's bathroom. i could see how an outsider might call it a bit off but this stool sitting beneath a skylight even if smack between the comode and the two-head, walk-in shower was made for a private moment and a good book, which georges by dumas so completely was!
  
  

summer vacation 2010

you hopefully didn't notice but i was away last week. as for where i was, i was at the beach. as for which beach, it was one south carolina way, just south of myrtle.

as for the week ... simply put ... it was great. it was eight days shorter than our 2009 outing but in the end proved more relaxing. i only left the beach house, for non-beach business, once. i never pulled my laptop out of its bag. i only had to respond to three emails (via an iphone). and, i read an entire book with days to spare. for a guy who enjoys time at home with family and who predominately sits in front of a computer and never gets as much time in his books as he'd like, i'd say the week was everything an over-committed, into-his-kids, introvert could ask for.

oh, and marty and i got some ok minutes together as well.

From way back in September of twenty-aught-four

a friend and former neighbor sent me the below email and pictures she recently happened upon.
this moment happened as i was driving home from work. a mess of neighborhood kids, including my two, were playing a few doors down from our house. all the moms were in huddles and sitting on steps chatting and commiserating. i pulled to the curb to say hello to the group. with the alacrity of a military operation, my car was besieged by the little ones (which was most likely set in motion by a war-like cry from bella). as suggested in the above note, my now-twenty-year-old car was (and is) treated as a playground apparatus. much of the coolness of this was lost on my children who climbed on my car in front of our house all the time, the same could not be said of the other kids who weren't allowed to climb on and in and around their parents cars so for them it was still pretty cool stuff.

i thank miss anne for (1) capturing these images back in the day and (2) taking the time to pass them along now. taking them in, and seeing a mini-bella and a tiny-aleo, reproduced the smile seen in the first image below. thank you miss anne.

and as a side note, i think had she told me she was in possession of a directory of images titled FUN WITH TROY that was from my past and didn't tell me the nature of subject matter, she may have been able to blackmail a pretty penny from my uncertainty. i guess i owe anne another thank you for not cleaning out the $64 in my savings account.



allow me to direct your attention to the girl in the passenger seat, who is not my child,
who is taking a giant pull from my water bottle.



the only surprise here is that drew beat bella to the top of the car,
via the sunroof of course.



that roof-spot is for a number of reasons, considered the catbird seat



i don't know what they're are pointing and laughing at,
but odds are it is not something in my favor.
good money could be put down on it being vomit or feces related.



one look at bella's face confirms that children come without guile or deception.
kids come to us clean and pristine. the uncertainty and insecurities come from the adults.



while i was fully prepared to do a lap with them glued hooey-blooey to all parts of the car,
a few of the moms thought that may not be prudent.

(and look at how close the side mirror is to completely capturing aleo's adorable little face.
how perfect would that have been.)

thanks again anne! you made my day!
you also made the day's posting much more colorful than what was originally planned. hat tipped.

that reflective shield almost gave us more than we bargained for

someone who knew i adored this picture, was kind enough to send me this picture.

pretty pretty.

the 2nd annual everyman pro galleries opened today.

lots of questions. scant few answers.

they say a picture is worth a thousand words. rarely does it seem this true.

like shooting money in a barrel

the everyman pro deadline has been extended by two weeks. if you or anyone you know are thinking of entering, hop to it.

for what it's worth, at the time of this writing, there are currently 28 entrants who have submitted 71 photos. i've begun displaying these metrics on the everyman site. they will continue to be updated as things develop. for those that are as awesome at math as i am, this means 28 people are competing for $3,000 dollars in prize money. and there is no limit to how much one person can win. there's not many even-thinking places that are going to give you those kinds of odds. not many at all.

time to go skiing, eh?

ok, now that i got my bitching out of the way, let's talk about the good things of the latest vacation.

the day before the trip, a girl who works in my office sent me off by saying, "enjoy your man-cation". it is just not humanly possible for me to love this colorful phrase any more and all the good things that go with it.

i don't know that they've made the camera that can capture just how massive and stunning and wicked cool this particular span of mountains are. it's beyond bewildering and banff national park, where bookguy and i traveled this year, is really something diverse and special.

canadians build castle's in their mountains. i thought the stanley manor of estes park was impressive but this hotel, built in 1888, is as unbelievable and awe-inspiring as the mountains that completely surround it. truthfully, it makes the stanley look like a metal tool shed in a suburban back yard.

spring skiing in colorado involves sunscreen and t-shirts. spring skiing in canada means temperatures may get above zero degrees. when commenting on the low temps on a lift to a local, i was told that this same hill in january registered negative thirty and this here near-zero business was deemed a for sure heat wave for the region.

after soaking in the canadian hospitality and breathtaking vistas, i asked bookguy why he thought more americans didn't move north. he said it probably had something to do with the nine-month winters. i reckon this is a sound take and probably why you see canadians making the most of things, frigid as they may be. talent-wise the small boy in this picture would easily make most high school hockey teams in the states. and watching this man work with his son so made me extra-homesick for my youngins (not to mention watching them play on this wild lake made me miss skating on colorado mountain ponds when i was a kid).

banff national park is definitely a place that holds appeal for a summer or winter sojourn and i was taking diligent notes about the ways my family would enjoy this region. i have already discussed the matter with marty and the start of a road trip north is taking form. i imagine a mix of camping and hotels while we wend our way to the obvious attractions (e.g. rushmore, the badlands, custer's last stand) making banff the termination or turning point for our great north american adventure. too kewl.

(all photo credits go to my long-time mancation cohort, bookguy)

i cannot tell you how much i wish i took this picture.

i know not one but two of the fellas in this picture which makes me one acquaintance shy of knowing all three people in one of the best-ever photos chronicling american society.

hallmark's days are numbered

if you came by early yesterday you may have not seen the day's post. i made a mistake entering the date and it didn't show up until later in the morning. so if you missed it, you may want to read yesterday's valentines post before reading this one.

regarding yesterday's post, more than one person wondered what marty's card looked like. and more than one person wondered if there was a reason i didn't share hers and was it because it was better than mine or that it was way NOT better than mine or that i'm self-centered or pouty or selfish or i want all the attention to myself and the answer is, yes.

and for those who thought that the thoughtfulness and sentiment contained in my card couldn't be beaten, prepare to stand corrected.




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everything but a hot stone massage

sunday morning i was brought from sleep at 7:15 with a kiss on my forehead and the words "happy valentines day dad." it was bella. she then whispered, as to not wake up alex who was sleeping next to me, that my breakfast was sitting on the windowsill next to me for when i woke up "for real". she then quietly exited the room. some minutes later i cracked my eyes and lifted my head to peer at the window she referenced. on it rested a tupperware platter with two pieces of freshly made french toast, a puddle of syrup, and a glass of sweet tea with hand-crushed ice.

marty who was sleeping with anthony in our bed down the hall received a similar treatment. on each of our trays was a highly detailed, bella-drawn card. on this valentines day my eight year old daughter woke up before 7am, went downstairs by herself and silently made her mother and father french toast, from scratch, and adorned the platters with hand-drawn cards she secretly made earlier in the week.

there have been multiple occasions bella has left me speechless, but never more so than with this completely unexpected and unforeseen gesture of love and kindness. at multiple points throughout the day, i found myself staring at her, in wonder and curiosity and gratitude. at times like this marty calls her a paradox. i don't know that i ever could justly verbalize my thoughts on bella and the way she approaches life. i just know i'm thankful to have the front row seat that i do to watch her wend her way through it.






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welcome to the weekend

for those that thought yesterday's homage to life with anthony was tame for one of our children, you were impressively right. i wasn't implying that that was an example of true anthony chaos. not at all. that was actually an example of anthony being cute.

if i wanted to tell of an anthony-disaster, i would have told of last friday when i came home from work. the first thing i found upon walking in the door was marty and alex curled up on the chair and a half, under a blanket, talking quietly. this was one of the closest and warmest moments i can recall seeing them share. i gave them a wave, dropped my bag on the bench and bounced upstairs to change clothes. when i arrived to the top step i was met with a haphazard trail of white viscous fluid that travelled the entire length of the hallway and turned into every doorway it passed. it looked like a giant Jurassic slug had been slithering the halls, leaving its telling trail behind. upon further investigation i learned that it was anthony walking around with a full liquid soap dispenser pinned to his chest with one forearm while pumping it effortfully with his free hand. obviously this close body technique meant he had smears of the white liquid covering his forearm and pantlegs. fact is, given how hard he had to work to manage the awkward (and now slippery) pumper, an impressive amount of the soap was clearing his body and making it onto the hardwood.

when he saw me enter the room he gave me a big toothy grin. i began scolding his choice, grabbed the bottle from him with one hand and picked him up by the armpit with the other. i carried him at arms length while tiptoeing over the soap smears to the bathtub and dropped him in there. hearing the ruckus, marty appeared. she put a hand on my shoulder and told me to go change and go downstairs and set up for movie night. i looked at her for a moment and then decided to take her up on this smart offer. when marty and anthony later joined us downstairs for the start of the movie, she said when those things happen, you just have to calmly explain the rule, clean it up, and move on. this varies considerably from my solution of yelling loudly, beating children randomly, and creating moments my kids would go on to talk to shrinks about for unforeseen decades to come.

in my defense, here's another bit of anthony's handi-work. and when this happened, bella and alex, owners of the wagons, would have firmly voted for my yelling and beating program in this particular instance

like, don't ya know

in the event you don't follow such things, the everyman pro is under way and accepting submissions.

and for those who didn't keep score last year, it was anyone's game. especially the macro/abstract category.

so don't play at your own risk. but if you choose to, details may be seen here.

aleo!

photo by aunt missy.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. December 2009

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. November 2009

did i mention that bella is a girl scout

if you're looking for me, i'm sleeping

this is not the webpage you're looking for.

the webpage you are looking for is over here.

recycle friday

two things that have come up in the last 24 hours that i thought were worth revisiting.

first someone asked me to find the link to this previously posted video from 2006 for them.


and this second one came up at a dinner party last night.

click for the extended story

brace yourself

it may or may not surprise you to learn that the most zealous and enthusiastic participant of bella's girl scout troop is our very own alexander.

with anthony coming in a very close second.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. October 2009

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. September 2009

making the rounds

i spent the week in michigan for work. i spent most of my time at michigan university but had lunch with a friend at michigan state on the way out. here are a few iphone images from along the way.

a spliced view of university of michigan's campus from my hotel window (the big house is in the upper right corner)

a shot from one of my two meals at blimpy burger

my view from the office i worked in at michU

dan brown and pepper-bacon macaroni from zingerman's road house

my view while working in michU's law library. (absolutely breathtaking)

and just a few shots from the very different feeling michigan state campus.

colors beginning to turn over the river running through campus

it's that time of year again.

what you want is not here. it is over here.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. August 2009

startling

in case you wondering where bella has been this week, she's around. she's our veteran student and going into the third grade. i figured that with her it was all business as usual. and then i found an old picture someone gave us of bella when she started kindergarten. i was shocked at how different she looked. at the time of that photo alex was three and anthony had just been born. she is almost unrecognizable to her current day self. so much for business as usual.

bella in her kindergarten days

and bella a deceptive three years later.

some images from yesterday's milestones

aleo and i moments before walking up to his first day of school

anfer getting some individual attention while his siblings are at school (and he isn't)

we operate a clothing optional breakfast bar

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 7

marty found a state park which had old cave dwellings which you could walk through. the experience began with a short walk through a forest and field to the main cave system. a few of the rooms were accessible via home-spun ladders. while the spaces looked spacious for a hole in the side of a cliff, they felt less cavernous once you crammed five people into them. and we didn't even have any of our stuff. like, where would i put my chinese teapot collection?



after working your way through the initial set of caves you hit a fork in the trail. one arrow points you back in the direction of the visitor center and the other sends you on an additional 1.5 mile hike through more woods to the community's defensive lodging. still feeling good, we opted for the extra leg.



when we arrived at the base of the defensive stronghold, you couldn't really see where it was situated in the cliff. but by the placement of the first ladder you got the sense that it was 'up thataway'. we ascended this first ladder and then wended our way through some tight walkways carved out in the stone. we hit the second wood and rope ladder. this one was twice the height of the first one and was bolted to a stone face that was more sheer and ominous than the first. in the below picture, it was about were that man was standing, facing out, with his arms in the air that i lost it. i blame him.



bella went first. then alex. then marty. then anthony. then me. on that ascent at about the point where the man was waving his arms the first wave of nausea hit me, then sweat. i was close in on anthony essentially looking at his butt. when the dizziness hit me i called up to marty saying i wasn't feeling right. marty is well aware of my issues with heights and immediately started talking to me, "ok troy. it's ok. you're almost here. just a few more. just keep looking straight." as soon as my body took in her words of encouragement. anthony let go of the ladder with his left hand swung out so he could turn and look down at me and said

ANTHONY
go pee daddy

TROY
no pee anthony. not now anthony. turn around anthony.

MARTY
anthony. not now keep climbing buddy.

TROY
go anthony! go now!

as of late anthony is playing this game where he likes to announce when he's going to go pee. when you ask him if he wants to go in the toilet he says no. i think he's just rubbing our nose in the fact that we're about to have some work to do. at seeing anthony hanging precariously off the ladder, holding on with just one hand, i was done and officially worthless. my sweaty hands tightened their grip on the uneven rungs and i pulled myself in closer to the ladder. marty coaxed anthony up the next few rungs and pulled him off the ladder and then talked me up the last few rungs. at this landing was another equally tall and sheer ladder. i looked at it then at marty. she put a hand on the my shoulder and said it was ok and she could handle the kids. which was good because while she was dealing with me, bella and alex already jetted up that ladder and were waiting to climb the next. marty followed anthony up and they continued onto the large cutout above while i sat on the ledge staring at the cliff wall.



marty and the kids returned after about twenty minutes. marty asked how i was doing. i said ok. i had been steeling myself for this moment and was prepared to get back down the evil ladder without issue. this time, alex went first, then marty, then anthony, then me, and then bella. marty was making sure anthony got down ok and was again talking to me. seeing what marty was doing once i was on the ladder, bella jumped in, as is her way.

BELLA
ok dad. it's ok. imagine that you're climbing on a ladder and that ladder is flying through the air.

TROY
oh jesus bella!

MARTY (in a hurried tone)
bella! you need to tell him things that make him feel strong. confident.

BELLA
ok. ok dad. dad. you're strong. very strong. you're as strong as a dinosaur.

amazingly, i got off that cliff without the aid of a helicopter.



in these woods that led to, and more importantly away from, the hell-cave we found that the trees smelled of cinnamon which for our family made them smell like french toast. bella sniffed the tree. bella hugged the tree. bella said the tree smelled so good she could marry the tree. and she doesn't even like cinnamon. that's my girl, amazingly unpredictable to the end.

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 6

the dearmitt clan on television
OR
why we don't own a television

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 5

one of the boys we're staying with is on his high school's swim team. i told him that i was trying to learn how to do flip turns. he eagerly launched into a tutorial starting by asking if i could do a flip. i said yes. he said show me. i did. he then went through the mechanics of the approach, the flip and the subsequent push off the wall. i took my place a few paces from the wall, launched into my stroke and took my first crack at the maneuver. after having actually achieved the approach, the flip and a partial push off the wall i rose out of the water knowing it could be better but amazed it at all resembled what i was after. he was standing ready to deliver his critique, "that ... was ... really ... terrible. i mean it was a complete failure."






speak with your heart and not your mouth and you will be loved.

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 4

the only time we eat mcdonalds is on vacations. to listen to our children it is 51% of the reason they like or agree to go on vacations. we are in the tenth day of vacation and have yet to partake in the golden arches. this has mostly been facilitated by the point that we are staying in places too remote for even ronald to hang out.


the good side of this means you get to encounter some of the most unique and quaint eateries you could ever imagine finding. if there's a downside, it is that such places don't do fast food, but the speed factor is nullified in that these roadside diners are so interesting and full of character, they are every bit as fascinating as the destination.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. July 2009

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 3

the family we were staying with were going away for the day. we asked if we should lock up if we left the house.

THEM
we'd prefer not because we don't know where our house keys are.

US
oh.

THEM
actually we're not even sure we have house keys. we didn't realize that until we went on a trip to new mexico.

US
and you left the house open for the weekend.

THEM
no, we left the house open for the week.

US
oh.

i guess that's mountain life.

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 2

on our second day on the road we gave nicknames to the children. they fell out as follows.

• bella 'really' walter dearmitt because of how she always says "really" after people say things to her she doesn't like or believe.
  
• alex 'no funniness' walter dearmitt because of how he always screams I WANT NO FUNNINESS when you try to play/mess with him when he's not in the mood for it.
  
• anthony 'showpop' walter dearmitt because of how he walks around the house all morning, day and night saying "showpop now. i want showpop now" which is what he calls my stovetop popcorn.
  

our first destination had a house-load of kids before we even arrived. most were teenagers and i learned the tenet of teenagers not finding younger kids cute was still alive and well with this current generation as could be confirmed by a conversation overheard by marty between two of them.

BOY 1
man those kids are loud.

BOY 2
yeah, and what's up with them. one is, like, american and the other one is, like, arabian or something.

poor aleo. and kids who have dogs look quite oddly upon kids who don't have dogs and like playing in the dog crates.



and we also got a taste of our future by watching a fifteen year old girl in summer mode, listlessly move about the house. one morning, or early afternoon, i overheard the following after the girl stumbled downstairs after waking up:

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL
i feel like it's incredibly early

FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL'S BROTHER
it's 11:30

marty commented on the grace with which the parents shoulder the teenage daughters angst, which is another way of saying it was impressive that they didn't jump all over her when she said things like the above. the dad said that there were a few hard years, especially for the mother and the daughter. one day after observing a battle between the two the dad said to the wife, "you're working too hard. your job is not to run their life, it is to guide them and point them to opportunities." this notion went on to make a large difference and is probably something most parents could be reminded of time and again.

summer vacation 09 pics and notes 1

we're holidaying. it looked like we were going to skip this year and then a few things came up and now we're not. so as i'm able, i'm going to give you glimpses into our days as they happen so in case you are skipping this year's vacation like we planned to, you can live a bit through us.



a vacation ritual of marty's is to get a couple entertainment magazines, like Us, People, or Entertainment Weekly. then during a week of vacation, she'll methodically pour over them until they're entirely tattered and torn. you'd be surprised how comical it is to watch someone attempt to stay abreast of such free-flowing information only once every 12-14 months. for instance, such a discontinuous regiment fosters comments like from her:

i thought she just left him but here it says she's been artificially inseminated. but it doesn't say by who.

man look at this guy. he used to be pudgy. he looks pretty good now. but jeez, i think my treasure trail is more prominent than his.

we checked into the hotel at about 1am and immediately went to sleep. in the morning, we rose and packed getting ready to leave. as soon as the kids realized we were preparing to get back in the car, they freaked out thinking we were leaving without letting them watch any television. marty, reactionist extraordinaire, took the kids out to the lobby, got each of them a travel cereal boxes and marched them back to the room, each of them balancing their milk laden bowls. she then pulled a table to the end of the bed directly in front of the television, lined them up sitting on the foot of the bed, cereals in front of each and grabbed the remote. when she turned the television on, there was an image of an untanned meat-back flexing his oiled muscles in front of the camera sans shirt. that was all that was happening. nothing in the background, no sound, no voice-over, no nothing. just this smirking guy from the waist up. all five of us just sat mesmerized by this image that invaded our room for about ten seconds. then the inanity of the moment hit me and i started belly laughing. what struck me as so funny was not that this was on television (nothing will surprise me there) but that this is the the first glimpse of television my family got dealt on this vacation. after i started laughing, marty depressed the channel button. the next channel had just started credits for some animated dog show. alex immediately said, "oh i love this show" even though i'm quite certain he's never seen it before. so marty set the remote down, got her people magazine out and i opened my laptop and started typing this note. after about ten minutes we looked up to find all three children completely transfixed. bella's cereal was gone. the boys' was untouched. it looked like a scene out of one flew over the cookoo's nest. it took three calls of alex's name for him to even acknowledge anyone else was in the room. there's little doubt that marty and i could have been half way across the state before any of children even noticed or cared they'd been left behind.




and, in case it wasn't apparent enough in the pictures above, alex is wearing a tie. a tie he chose and tied himself.

more family photo fun

i received several comments on the awkward family photos site i linked to a few weeks back. one person (thx dionna) even sent me a link to another, similar site.

i find the key factor to success for funny picture sites is not just the picture itself but the commentary the host attaches to a photograph. without the proper wit, the full potential is not met. here's an image/caption example from the site dionna sent my way:


It's a vagina, madam, not a clown car.

i don't know that you're going to do any better than that. if this were the olympics, that would be a solid 10.0. check out his other work.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. May 2009

i've got a bad-ish feeling about this

saturday anthony, alex, a neighbor boy and i biked up to a local park for some ogre play. when we returned to the house i was approached by bella and a mess of neighborhood girls asking if i would like a spa treatment. slightly startled at the option i asked what the spa treatment entailed. i was told it entailed all sorts of things. things like back rubs, head scratches, uninterrupted reading time (that was a marty suggestion), cuddle time with stuffies (stuffed animals), pet sitting (which i think meant you got to have our hermit crabs sit on you). i asked how much all this cost. bella said six dollars for your pick of one. she then eyed me a little more closely and said it was nine dollars if the person was sweaty.

the spa's front entry


the spa's front entry detail.
the main sing reads, "SPA-GET-AWAY they are awesome because people come often / $3 child / $9 adult / activities: recreation space, stuffies, uninterrupted reading time / come right now (kids will love it!)". the handwritten supplement sign reads, "its free today because its mothers day, so you don't have to pay, so why don't you stay".


this is the first sign/arrow leading upstairs


second directional pointer


the front counter


the register/till


and last but not least, the spa. scary but not in the usual $9 spa kinda scary.

it really happened

the everyman pro galleries open today. for those who don't recall or haven't been paying attention, this is the first year of the professional version of my everyman photo contest. in the end, i was ten entrants shy of my goal but ended up with twice the images i had in the first year of the amateur version of the contest. more importantly, i'm confident that next year will show increases in interest and participation given a couple of observations i've made through the process.

enough blather, go look at a small but neat sampling of photography and see if you can pick who you think will win the $1,000 grand prize.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. April 2009

while we're on the subject

click to enlarge

in stumbling upon the latest anthony pic (beach tough), i found the above image of the family at the beach last summer which somehow never got pinned to the wall. and given these teasing glances we're getting at warm weather, it felt doubly right to share now.

my camera worked better before we started

the settings on my camera got jacked up and i was trying to get things back to where they should be. to help with the focus settings i called bella and alex up and asked told them i needed to take a couple of pictures and could they stand there for me. this was the result.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. March 2009

kinda ready

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. February 2009

from the archives (1 in a series)

bella has always been bright-eyed, but alex was only briefly pudgy

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. January 2009

now twice as good

here's a little something i slipped into internet waters last week when no one was looking.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. December 2008

shouldn't there be trumpets, streamers and shit?

once again it is not with a boom but with a whimper that the everyman sounds its annual roar.

more sadly yet, scillions of 1's and 0's screaming down a broadband flume doesn't even rate a whimper. how anti-climactic that.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. November 2008

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. October 2008

the ever shrinking everything

no one is going to accuse the bomb pop people of shaving the size of their product from year to year. if anything, the bomb pop may be the only commercial item that is actually getting bigger over time. i recently noticed that breyer's changed the shape of their ice cream containers. i haven't taken the time to compare the ounce count between the old and the new but this move has surely given me the sense that i'm getting less than i used to. so if the container's seeming dimensions are nothing more than a mirage and they aren't ripping me off, the new design choice is a rookie move because it's surely sending the wrong message. lucky for them their rocky road kicks the ass of everyone else's rocky road. and lucky for me bella doesn't like the chocolate covered nuts that are part of the mix and spits hers into my bowl whenever one makes it into her mouth. granted most that i get from her are bitten and broken and come with bonus food debris clinging to them.

anfer's latest antic

it begins with a full-frontal flash of any college co-ed's walking by our house.



then, the freefall.



nothin' but air baby.



the revelry



the recovery



verify audience acknowledgement



the return



wave to the fans



invite your father to disrobe and join you



flex for the cameras



resume



repeat

once again

the 2008 everyman games are underway

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. September 2008

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. August 2008

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. July 2008

a photographic triptych

THE SCENE

THE SMILES

THE SLUGGER

gone fishing

it is that time of year again. that time, when i step away and devote my time to my second love, making latch-hook rugs. this is probably the first time i've taken a break where i don't feel i need one, but as my tennis coach has always said, never change a winning game, and this has been working for me so far, so continue it must.

for now, i leave you with this little piece of troy, which for many will be much more troy than you were ever prepared for.

i'll see you all again on july 1st 7th.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. june 2008

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. may 2008

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. april 2008

i need a new camera ... and possibly an eyebrow waxing too.

props to david lienemann for the fine qDoba portrait

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. march 2008

if you beat me, you gotta take me to lunch with your winnings.

i'm going to do something i don't think i've ever done before. plug a photo contest that isn't my own.

a new one called snapmission recently came online. it cycles monthly and works off a theme. payout is $25 and i'm thinking unless someone can best the photo i just submitted, the jack is all mine, or i guess it's marty's since she officially took the shot. but i told her to.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. february 2008

bellatine '08

that's not how mom does it

marty is the maker of breakfast in the morning. while i finish getting ready for work i can tell what kind of day it is by the smells wafting up the stairs. many times it is oatmeal or fresh bran muffins with yogurt. sometimes it's plain ole cereal. but on lucky days french toast or pancakes make the cut. i descended the stairs on a french toast day, speared a couple of slices and readied my plate. bella soon followed doing the same. marty was upstairs finishing with the boys. before bella dug in she said:

mom usually ties my hair back before i eat syrupy things.

oh. what does she use?

i don't know.

as it turns out, i don't know either, which marty was quick to smirkingly observe when she entered the room.

imagine what he/she could do with some duct tape

a disappointment regarding this month's gallery photo is that my image does not reveal that the figures on the wall were made out of nothing more than masking tape. in posting i had to choose between showing the whole scene or a detailed shot which would better reveal the artist's medium. obviously i opted for the full display but in doing so felt the need to still share the uniquity of the technique. so here are a few images that better represent, or at least more honestly represent, the work:

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. january 2008

more from the lens of alex's new camera

i call this two-shot series photographed by alex "EVIDENCE".

it's all about the angles

alex got a fisher price digital camera for christmas. on christmas day he took 231 pictures. since then it's been like living with a three foot tall paparazzi. it also makes me sensitive to how often i'm naked. and he could not be a worse height to be taking pictures of me naked.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. december 2007

some days i like computers a whole lot more than other days

historically, i've spent between 150 and 200 hours in the month of november producing my everyman photo contest. this year saw a 400% increase in submissions (to 8k) yet, through some custom-built web enhancements, i spent less than twenty hours end to end overseeing the 2007 affair. this is by no means a reflection on the mix because there is some really remarkable photos this year. although, based on the usual varied opinions of my judges, not many folks can agree on what those remarkable photos are. or, they don't often agree with me at least (proof of this can be found in the scorecards, i'm judge #1).

see who ultimately won and how they match up with your taste.

and make sure to check out this year's most discussed photo. it is noteworthy for two reasons. the first is that this is the first year (in seven) my great friend bookpimp hasn't won that acclaim. the second reason is, well, i think i'll let that part speak for itself (may not be suitable for work or those with good visual memories). and for those wondering what the title, the samsara, means, it is a buddhist term dealing with rebirth, some definitions citing it specifically as a rebirth from the earth.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. november 2007

smile today ... and tomorrow.

hope you have fresh batteries in your wireless mouse

on mondays i usually post a picture of either anthony or alexander. on this monday i'm instead posting 8,000 pictures of people who aren't anthony or alexander so it may take you a few more minutes to go through them.

so for those who complain that i don't post enough, it's payback time. i hope you find some entertainment in the 2007 everyman.

the brood

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. october 2007

the polls have closed and ...

this year's everyman submission deadline just hit. the current numbers stand at:

entrants: 4,174

photos: 8,122

largest category : landscape & nature (3,199)

smallest category : from the attic (599)

one might say the figures are slightly up this year. if i'm more dodgy this month than most, you'll please understand and forgive.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. september 2007

the little contest that could

five years ago the everyman photo contest was ranked #837 by google when searching the phrase "photo contest". today it moves between the number 1 and 2 slots. this is a totally organic ranking meaning it has been achieved with zero advertising or search engine trickery. quite a feat for a contest that offers a $50 prize.

i also believe that this ranking has helped raise the submission count from 2,100 last year to 5,500 (and counting) this year. and this with still a whole month left. and that was my subtle reminder to any of you who have notions of entering this year's mix. tick-tock, tick-tock.

UPDATE: and a mailing list nearly 2,000 names long! of the 20 entrants in the first year's contest, 17 had eaten at my dinner table. those days seem to be long gone.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. august 2007

i know plenty of men who would appreciate such a cake.

as mentioned last week, anthony turned one. for each of her children on their birthday marty bakes and decorates a cake of their choosing for them. so far this year marty has produced spiderman and superman cakes for alex and bella respectively. for marty, these kitchen sessions usually run late into the night and if you listen very closely you may hear a naughty word or two ring through the dark and quiet house before the work is done. but this celebration, anthony's one year, would possibly be a swear-free event because being just one he couldn't request some exotic and complex animated character. additionally, our thirteen year old niece, emma, was spending the week with us so marta actually had kitchen staff.

when i arrived home from work the day before the party there was a pan cake cooling on the counter. it wasn't one of marty's typical molds. this cake was made of two simple round cakes. a larger one for the base and a smaller one, about half the size in diameter, for the top.

TROY
what is that?

EMMA
it's anthony's birthday cake.

TROY
why'd you make him a giant nipple?

EMMA
it's not a nipple.

TROY
then what is it?

MARTY
just ignore him emma. that's what everyone else around here does.

TROY
this is not a criticism. i think a gigantic nipple for a nursing one-year old is quite thoughtful.

by the time the cake was presented the next night, the nipple-part of the nipple-cake had been lopped off and was being fobbed off as a second, sister cake. it was a worthy attempt, but insiders knew.



for all their efforts of deception, anthony still seemed keenly attuned to what was what.


and then there is the ritual i most dislike where the birthday child is allowed to eat their personal cake using nothing but their hands.


... and then even worse, feed their party guests, with those same sticky and soiled hands.


lastly, we finish the one-year birthday with a big-ole group shower. this detail usually gets left off the party invites because hallmark seems to be too fancy and proper to produce the one-year-old birthday slash group bathing party cards. hallmark, get over yourself already. it's 2007, the year of the nipple-cake.

pout for me daddy.

i'm leaning in the corner of my morning shower and am extra foggy because of a long night with a sick anthony. i notice someone enter the room which in a single bathroom home is not all that uncommon. moments later a young falsetto voice behind me says, "hey dad, say cheese so i can take your picture." this part would not be so common.

i did say cheese. i did not smile. then i offered a little lecture about how taking pictures of naked people when they shower is considered, by some in society, to be an inconsiderate and rude gesture. they left and i figured i would throw the disposable camera away, never having it developed. later that day, my thirteen-year old niece who was staying the week with us came to me and said, "uncle troy. have you seen my camera? it's one of those green disposables."

suck.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. july 2007

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. june 2007

a memorable day for me and hopefully little man as well

click to enlarge

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. april 2007

so it's a few days late. you can't rush mediocrity.

in 2001 i held a photo contest. there were 40 entrants. these were all people who had at one point or another sat at my dinner table. in 2004 the website hosting this same contest crested one million request in the month the photos were made public. last month, a dormant period for the everyman, the logs show requests nearing the one million mark. given the continued growth of this hobby-site i've had to change up how i handle the affair and today marks a major milestone for me and it; online submissions. it also marks the opening of the 2007 contest. check it out.

and, don't miss the happy, time-zapping image shuffler.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. march 2007

for those who guessed salt lake city, utah, you were spot on

in reviewing the photos from this year's ski adventure (none of which were taken by me), i pulled a few out of the stack that i thought made this trip unique. in what i suppose is not an unexpected move, of all these photos, the last one is my absolute favorite and is oddly the one that takes me back to the mountain more than the others. the mind is a curious, and sometimes twisted, thing. you can click on any of the images to enlarge.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. february 2007

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. january 2007

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. december 2006

and this shall be deemed a day of rest

i'm more than a little bit lucky to have gotten the everyman uploaded this evening. saint louis got racked with an ice-storm and for the last five hours i've been listening to ice-heavy branches snap and crunchily fall through other ice-laden branches before painfully slamming into the ice-solid ground. after each limbs tumble through the night, i reload a web page testing my internet connection. i know there is a branch or pole somewhere in this city with my internet connection's name on it and i'm in a race with that piece of timber. at this 4am moment, it looks like i'm going to best my swaying foe, on this blustery night at least.

so if you are lucky enough to possess a healthy connection i invite you to visit my seventh love in life, the everyman photo contest, because today is a special day in the world of the everyman.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. november 2006

once again

and the sixth annual everyman competition is underway.

the only space in my home that i can call my own

in readying the everyman galleries, i don't think i'll be able to hang out with you all this week.

last time i checked out i shared a picture of where i'd be spending lion-share of that time so it feels kind of appropriate to again give you such a glimpse. this time though, instead of sitting in this office, i'll be up through the nights in this, my other office.

hope you all have a nice week. make sure to get a lot done so you can squander your time walking around the everyman exhibition.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. october 2006

dump those compact flash cards

last day, last reminder. the everyman deadline is tonight @ midnight. central standard time.

entries will be put on public display wednesday, november 1st.

winners will be announced monday, december 4th.

good luck to all who play.

honesty is a pre-requisite to knowing me

excerpt from the website of friend of mine who is, professionally, a historical archivist.

I've been pretty obsessed with taking pictures of my toy collection and posting them to Flickr. My girlfriend's nerd alarm went off yesterday, I'm suprised I haven't worn it out.

but were he not setting off such alarms, wherever would we get great photography the likes of this ...

and, before you answer, consider that without people who enjoy the above, you may never benefit from the likes of these ...
and, i super-love this sort of stuff, which he seems to have tons of ...

i hope to see chavez at the pending everyman. which as i just consulted the website, and then my desktop calendar i see deadlines this monday. not exactly a good sign when the host gets caught by surprise. so, if you got 'em, bring 'em. time is rapidly dwindling away.



and, given the everyman's approach, our house is about to enter the time of year marty's nerd alarm gets chucked against every wall of our house, viciously.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. september 2006

can you please spell that for me?

the day after sassafras was born, i took the kids to the hospital to meet their younger brother. bella immediately latched onto the newborn making various cooing and gooing noises at him while waggling a finger over his face and belly. alex immediately went to marty taking his rightful spot on her lap. about five minutes into the visit bella spoke up and said she knew what we should name the baby. we asked what, preparing our poker faces for the worst. she confidently announced Abrey. after her proclamation she turned and hunched back over the infant as if the matter were resolved. marty and i both made faces, but they were different.

TROY
i kinda like it.

MARTY
what did she even say, avery?

TROY
no, abrey.

MARTY
spell it.

TROY
A-B-R-E-Y.

MARTY
abrey? that's not even a name.

TROY
sure it is. everything is a name.

MARTY
well, i don't like it.

TROY
and if i do?

MARTY
i'm not naming a child abrey.

TROY
it's two against one.

MARTY
alex, come here.

here's a thing to know when negotiating with the human who just spat another, smaller human out of their special hole; they always possess more stock in the business at hand than you. so abrey was out. after a brief bout of panic and uncertainty a name was unanimously agreed upon ... anthony. anthony walter dearmitt.

that said, everyone in our house calls him something different. marta calls him anthony. i call him antonio. bella calls him abrey. and alex calls him sassafras. no reason to not get a quick jump on the schizophrenia his world is sure to bring.


click here peggy

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. aug 2006

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. july 2006

silverware is for chumps and rookies

i've previously commented on the totally schizophrenic nature of children but have never really exposed the same trait in the keepers of those children. the below three shots represent a sub-sixty second block of time during last week's spiritual outing. i like this series because it does much to illuminate the dramatic shifts possible in one's state when little humans are constantly in your grill.

additionally, twenty minutes before these snaps, i was asleep in the ultra-bed. when i stirred naturally from my slumber and opened my eyes, i found bella's round face inches from my own, studying me intently. her expression changed slightly when my eyes opened. we silently looked at one another for a few seconds before she raised her arm, patted me on the head and brightly said "your hair is crunchy dad". she then rolled out of bed and marched off. i share this incident because i feel understanding how my day began may help to explain my impressively alert and welcoming glances below.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. june 2006

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. april 2006

are you this guy?

about a year ago, my family attended a carnival put on by a university near our home. we just kicked around and rode some rides and had a pleasant family afternoon. about two months later while walking through another part of our community this young guy stopped us and asked if we had been at that carnival. we told him we had. he said he thought he had a picture of me and my son he thought was pretty good and wanted to share it with us. i gave him my email address but never heard from him (i think what i wrote on the scrap of paper, later proved unintelligible to him ... shocking that).

last weekend, and almost a full year later, we were at another university function and he appeared again. he confirmed we were still those folks and said the previous mailing was returned but he still wanted to get it to us. this time i let him do the writing and good to his word this showed up in my inbox the very next day.

turns out he is a student photographer working for the school's paper. in additionally looking at his other work it is clear he has some serious skills. rachit, i sincerely thank you for making the effort to place in my hands a moment that will always warm me. hat tipped.


click to enlarge

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. march 2006

taking bella off the grid

now that bella is five i've decided to close, or at least stop updating her gallery, rockefeller center, so yesterday's post will be the last made.

i've a few reasons for doing this and for once don't feel the need to iterate through my logic. i hope you've enjoyed watching our first child go from the womb to a shining and confident young girl as much as i've enjoyed capturing and sharing the images. in the name of equity, the same will happen with alex on his fifth.

the page will continue to be available and the stories of her impact, uhhm, i mean contribution, to our family will continue. it's just the consistent photographic updates that will cease.

and for those who never knew what the rockefeller or captain monikers even meant, they are what walt and i called them in utero (that's means pre-birth for my three guy friends).

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. february 2006

i'd wallpaper my home with the image if my wife would let me

there's no way this everyman entry received enough attention the first time around (note the submitter's occupation).

how that photo did not win first in its category AND best of show confounds me to this moment.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. january 2006

this is really the last time i'm going to talk about it ... this year.

at the conclusion of each year's everyman photo contest, i invite the judges to my home for dinner and discussion. this year, every judge within a six-hour driving radius attended. that number gets to be so great because of one fella who trekked in from kentucky. add to that, i've never met him and he'd never met me which makes the gesture that much more noteworthy.

in addition to my kentucky boondoggler, one of my international judges, the one representing italy, called my home during the party to discuss the contest and give his feedback. it was a very neat moment for me. and this guy lives, of all places, in the region of italy i consider the most beautiful piece of the world i've ever stood upon, la spezia, which is in northwestern italy and part of the cinqua terra stretch of coastline. he was also kind enough to open his home to my family should we ever be in the region again. i hope he is serious because there is little doubt we will one day be darkening his doorway.

another contest-related thought; i've noticed since i've increased the number of judges, i no longer get hate-mail when winners are announced. i'm going to take that as a positive sign (it did occur to me that maybe no one was chatting because no one was looking, but november bested the everyman's previous traffic record, racking up 1.2 million requests.)

and, i'll leave you with the partygoer's highlight of the evening. alex woke up from his nap and descended the steps wearing one of bella's black velour dresses. since it was his older sisters', it went all the way to the floor and for-sure looked like an evening gown. earlier he had been wearing a really festive pair of red overalls but insisted on the dress for his nap. i intended on changing him before his grand appearance but was tied up in the kitchen and didn't know he woke up. marty was talking with one of the judges when they saw alex round the corner:

joe : hey look at alex in his basketball jersey.
marty : that's not a basketball jersey joe, it's a dress.
joe: i know. i was just trying to help you out.

and lastly, everyone i owe work, email, money or affection to can it expect it in the near future now that my life is again my life. thanks to all who supported, tolerated and enjoyed this year's event. as always, i'm in your debt.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. december 2005

stick a fork in me, i'm done

365 days in the making, the 2005 everyman is finally a done deal.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. november 2005

the everyman is older than bella

the fifth annual everyman is a reality.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. october 2005

tic-toc, tic-toc

only one (1) week left to get your everyman entries in.

so if you want to dance, get off your duff.

p.s. the from the attic category seems to again be woefully under-represented.

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. september 2005

my from the attic contribution

tonight marty confided in me that she was concerned i may have run out of embarrassing things to say about myself and have moved onto her, since the last few posts have been greatly marty-centric (her breasts specifically, but her all the same).

she of all people should know that i haven't even gotten to the embarrassing parts of my life yet.

your father acts like he's never done this before

BELLA
do you want me to roast a marshmallow for you father?

TROY
uhm. no bell. i'm good.

(short pause)

MARTY
bella, your dad thinks it weird that his family is sitting around the stove in the middle of july roasting mini-marshmallows over one of the burners.

BELLA
why does he think it's weird?

MARTY
he just does. what he doesn't know though is my sister, your aunt cheri, once roasted marshmallows over an electric skillet so this is not nearly as odd as he may think it is.

---

i'm not completely sure if marty is trying to refute or support my position on this matter.

nor am i entirely certain how it is that i remain to be considered the odd one living in this home, especially after i repeatedly document tendencies such as this.

the cutting room floor

for yesterday's rockefeller post, i waffled between the three shots below. i'm usually more confident with the images i select but this time i couldn't get the other ones out of my head so decided to share all three. what is most curious to me is that these photos were taken within a two minute time frame and the mood of each is so markedly unique. these images do a lot to visually convey the uncertainty and unpredictability of life with children.

and now that i think about it, the girl did have a prominent adam's apple

a detail i forgot to include in this month's gallery essay is that the day after getting the software, marty mocked me because i had stayed up all night working on my computer and was exhausted the next day. i told her to be nice to me and my new software because Apple's Tiger saved her marriage. she, like the gas-station clerk, indifferently shrugged her shoulders before turning away.

perhaps it's just that everyone but me knows that my seductress was really a prostitute trying to salvage a slow night.

i'm sure your household will survive w/out that extra gallon of milk

as people moved through this traveling museum looking in on some of the most terrifying of human moments and while paying homage to the craftsmen who have devoted their lives, occasionally literally, to capturing these unique and momentary events, you'd think, you would just think for a moment that out of respect of this event and those trying to experience it, you could turn your fricken cell phone off for 60 minutes. or hows about a compromise and we just say set it to vibrate you self-absorbed hard-on(s).

please have your paperwork ready people

between now and tomorrow i will be changed.

and by changed i mean in ways other than the usual. i'm not referring to weighing a fraction more or my skin having a touch less elasticity or even being 24 hours closer to existing underground. the change i'm talking about is far more significant. you see, darkman and i are going to the pulitzer prize photography exhibit this evening and i have a haunting suspicion the walls of my brain are going to get stamped more in a two-hour block than chris mcgrath's passport did in all of two thousand and one.

predictably, i'm hearing not many of these stamps have those circular smiley faces on them.

tee-hee-hee

if you've walked by me in the last 36 hours and heard me tittering privately, it just means i'm looking at this picture again.

i'm not sure if marty finds it endearing or embarrassing that i laugh uncontrollably at things like this.

and let us not forget these other great moments in sports.
every expression in this picture is priceless
and will we ever forget this poor, poor girl