11-3-2005

My neighbors are my friends. Actually, my neighbors on the west side were my friends before they were my neighbors. And there's not much to say about this photo except that it was taken on my big, green, corduroy, falling-apart-but-oh-so-comfortable couch. Another one here.

10-4-2005

I just saw this photo flash on my screensaver (I have it scroll through all my website photos) and it's a good one.

For whatever reason Brooke is sleeping with Bob. This occurred at the Soens' Compound in Ventura, CA while we were up for Thanksgiving 2004. Good times. Let's do it again.

6-13-2005

Brooke took this photo on New Year's day 2001. We were staying at Ali's house, which was right off of Market (I think?) and we woke up to the sounds of the Mummers. I--being the ever-so-artsy-new-photographer-wanna-be--brought my camera along to capture the toughest of the tough Philadelphian working class dressing up in feathery costumes and prancing like birds. I got no good photos that day.

But Brooke grabbed my camera to take a picture of this little mummer. She got the only good photo on the whole roll. She should shoot more photos.

12-04-04

Damn, this house party was off the chizzle! We was getting crunk! (thanks to Chris White for introducing me to the vocab of the dirty south).

Ok, I thought this was from a party after the 2002 Brendan Borek Beef and Beer, but I was wrong... it was Paul Logan's birthday party. I don't know how old he was, but it was fun. There's a picture on this site somewhere where I am dressed like a cowboy because it was a theme party. I like this photo.

Let me tell you what this image brings to my mind... the smell of wet wood. That house was rotten! Oh, let me explain, this was a house in St. Augustine, FL that some kids from Cape May County moved to for the winter. This photo was taken when Brian Herron and I drove down from NJ for spring break (Clockwise from Top: Shaun Bacon, BHerron, Bob Mack Allure, Zeus Zuccato, Cristen and Charlene Seymour, and Jill). Shaun, Bob, and Zeus lived there with Mark Carlson, Dave Dunbar,and Atwood. Craziness. There was another house a little bit down the road where Brian Brown once told me the "rats need dune buggies to get across the carpet" because there was so much dog hair. That's gross. Anyway, I have an outside shot of this house somewhere, you have to see it to believe it. Originally a one story house, the guy added a second floor with a spiral staircase up to it. Very sketchy.

If they hadn't moved to that house many of our lives would be different. For instance, I probably wouldn't know several good friends of mine, Chris White and Kevin Mack, John DiGenni, Seth Stafford, Ryan Miller, and Ryan "Leosgnarly" Leonardy. I'm not sure, but perhaps the Seymour twins (see photo) might not have met their significant others at this moldy location, which may have resulted in them never opening Yum Yum's! Ahh! I wasn't even in Florida at this time (took a year off), but I still have a lot of good stories from this place. But most of all, I remember how dark it was inside... made you want to take a nap at all times. I wouldn't be surprised that there was some fungus in the air that was responsible for this narcolepsy also. There was a nursery on one side and a guy with a three-legged cat on the other. The St. Augustine lighthouse was due east from the house. A very interesting place, but it was abandoned soon after the winter was over.

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Check out this crazy photo of the infamous 10th Street, Avalon: the "Avalon Pipeline". Actually, no one ever called it that, but there used to be some good waves down at 10th street. Ahh, the days. I have to apologize, but I had the crappiest cameras back then (this is about 1990). And see that pipe on right? When they took the pipe out, a piece of my heart was also removed. And then that stupid artificial reef, which didn't cut down on the size of the waves, but did screw them up a lot.

A little trivia, the first photo of me published in a surf magazine was?.... Me walking along that damn pipe on a pretty big day. Ok, so I wasn't surfing in the photo, but at least I was in the magazine, right? Well, actually, the photographer asked Brian Heritage who it was and he said it was Mike McFarland. So, my first shot in the mag and wrong name. Enough of that, are those specks out there people having a good time? I wish I could see it break like this again.

Am I totally insane when I say that I would rather take a surf trip to Nova Scotia than to somewhere warm and tropical? That might not be true, but it might be "accurate". To find out what the heck that means, ask Ari Fleischer. Anyway, the story behind this picture is that Bob, Jaime, and I was driving back from checking the waves at all these different spots we had to hike to. We decided not to go out and we were driving back to our campsite. If you look at the

Man, that looks cold. That was a little over a year ago. How my life has changed since then. Damn. I got some fun barrels that day. You can see the page with more photos from that day here. That was definitely some good times. But I was damn near broke! Trying to paint houses for a living. That is not good times. Anyway, it's fun to look at that empty east coast beach.

Brooke just graduated from UNCW, I've got to give her another photo of the week. I love this photos of her, I don't know if she likes it, but anyone who knows her can see that this pretty much tells you a lot about her. That devilish grin... sometimes, she can be a trouble maker, but usually it's just good fun. Especially when she acquires her "Whiskey Finger". No, I didn't go there did I? The people I live with have to be wondering about all those late night phone calls, at least there's the time change or else I would be getting many 3 am wake ups. She's one of my best friends and here we are again, freezing our asses off in a New York City subway. This is right down the street from her cousin Carrie and Jason's apartment. I think we were going to try to find the mysterious best bagel I've ever had in my life or "shopping" as she likes to call it, down around broadway. I never did find that bagel, where the hell is that place?

Isn't that nice? I mean, I know I talked a lot of trash about California and all, but you wouldn't mind seeing that all winter long would you? Oh, I should explain for people who aren't in the know. This is the pier that is in front of my office, Scripps Pier. The original pier was made of wood back in 1916 and Ansel Adams made a nice picture of it sometime in the '50s (I think). It's kind of famous I guess. I need to take a photo in the same spot Ansel did.

Since I have to walk / ride my bike home up a really steep wooded hill I try to get home before dark. Which means I'm usually leaving right at sunset and get to see these nice sunsets fairly often. I even once saw the "Green Flash," but I still don't believe in them. So, it's not too bad out here. Not at all. And there are more job opportunities out here than in Wilmington, NC. And then you can take your experience out here and move back to NC and make lots of cash. And you can see me out here. Every day if you want. bye.

So, like I was saying, I was thinking about how my brother's kids might not really know who I am. Actually, I was talking to Scott Soens about it a little while ago, too. Wow, I just found this photo of Taylor Ohntrup. Little kids are just on my brain today.

We were eating at this place Haleiwa Joe's. We tried eating at this other place with a really cool old Packard out front, but they didn't have a single vegetarian thing to eat. Joe's was the place to be because they had some Hawaiian peeps playing some sweet music not-unlike Brudda Iz. Food was Ok and Brooke made someone take this picture of us. We got tired of being in Hawaii really fast, but as soon as we were gone we wanted to go back. I think it was because we only got to hang out with Seth and Chucky for a day. But the Thai guy made life very good. You can tell we're not very good at posing. See, that shirt I'm wearing, she made me bring it. Bye.

The first is this photo Seth Stafford took in the winter of 2000 This day was so fun, Ant Scrocca, Seth, Chucky, and I drove down to Waimea from the Ke Iki road house. What a piece of crap that house was. And they had the meanest dog ever. There weren't any real Bay waves, just some big whompers. Probably about 1 foot to flat Hawaiian scale, but about 8 foot shorepound for people from the mainland. It was my first time getting whomped, which means you go out and let yourself get thrown around by the wave. I remember getting to the beach and watching Seth running straight up to the edge of the water where this wave (which was about 8-9 feet off the ground) just nailed him. The wave pushed Seth up the beach about 15 feet before it sucked back out. I couldn't believe he was alright, but he was loving it (the sand there isn't that dense, so when you hit, it absorbs a lot of the impact. I tried a couple smaller ones, realized I wasn't getting hurt at all and jumped into the bigger ones. It was so fun, we'd all run up to this big old wave and get crushed, pushed up the beach (the beach was pretty steep) and laugh so hard. We then jumped off this big rock and went bodysurfing. Seth tried to get some photos of Ant and I bodysurfing, but we never connected on any of them. But he did get this shot, which is a really weird shot of someone floating behind this big old barrel. This was my favorite day in the month I spent in Hawaii by far. I don't know where Darren Cefalu was this day. Ant likes to rub it in that I missed the best whomping day because I was feeling sick. Oh well, next time I won't miss any whompings.

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