My Neck Hurts from Rock Music

It's been awhile since I've coherently updated. Looking back, I promised pictures from graduation, posted a 2am rant, and then went on to advertise something based on an entirely different site. Not the way to win readers' hearts. But, I figure, if I'm going to stay up this late on a work-night, I might as well get something useful done tonight so that I can feel good about it.

It's a strange thing, really. I didn't really notice my high school graduation. I was so busy, so stressed by the immenent death of the school, so focused on getting those last good grades, that when the moment came, I really didn't notice it. Summer, since then, has been going by rather fast, too. When I'm in an office for eight hours a day, I'm focusing more on that night than the time that I'm in, and when I'm home at night, I'm more focused on getting to the weekend, and stuffing as much fun as I can into the four hours between when I get home and when I have to go to sleep (which was, incedentially, two hours ago). During the school year I want it to be summer, and during the summer I want it to be the weekend.

Changing topics now.

At the beginning of the summer, my parents, my friend Sam, and I all went and stayed at the Jersey Jim fire tower in Mancos, CO. It's a fire lookout tower from before they had fancy satellites to track smoke and infrared - rangers would hang out in the tower and watch for smoke all day.

A picture (alebeit stylized) of the tower:

While I was there, I also took some other pictures of the surrounding area - some from the tower, some while I was on a walk in the woods. My favorites:

A picture of some trees about a mile from the tower. I liked the combination of backlit and frontlit leaves.

My personal favorite, a sunset from (I think) the second day:

At the top of the tower were hummingbirds, sipping sugar water from the feeder at the top of the tower and zipping around peoples heads like little green meteors. They seemed to know what they were doing. Becasue the sunlight was pouring down, I managed to grab a few shots of the little creatures in flight, only to find their wings captured as an unrecognizable blur. This placid fellow, however, I snapped a photo of, moments before it buzzed off to find more unsuspecting flowers.

My friend Sam Golon came with me on the trip, since my sister opted out. Here he is (Sam, not my sister :) \)

We found a strange structure in the forest. Actually, my family and I had found it years before (We've been to the firetower a fair many times), but this time Sam and I explored it (and I had a camera with me). There are no electronics inside, and the best guess is that it's a strange sculpture for geocachers or the like. Around the sculpture is a large patch of strange cabbage-like leafy plants, that grow in all the bogs surrounding the area.

My parents, at the foot of the firetower:

As a parting shot, the front and back of my rock (tradition: Seniors place a rock on campus bearing their name and a [usually inspirational] word):

It's right outside the admin wing.

--Erty

24-hour comic

For those of you who follow me here, I've just put up my 24-hour comic from 2006. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a 24-page comic (plus cover) that I wrote and drew in 24 hours.

Link -> YAY!

Check it out!

--Erty

The Day Before

I realized today that I am walking some of the Conserve School trails for the last time ever, and that there is not a relaxed moment that I will have until probably tomorrow night.

However, I will be able to have Swedish Pancakes (You may know them by another name, they're basically crepes) tomorrow morning, made by my grandmother.

Also I learned today that I have Arabic ancestors way way way back (like 800 or 900 CE), which is pretty cool. Apparently some of the people near Persia moved up to Sweden and became reindeer salesmen. I'm also related to Eric the Red, who was a viking, and Leif Ericsson, who was an early discoverer of America.

Aaaanyway, Today (technically, since it's like 12:30 in the morning), is my high school graduation. Yeah. Wow. It's slowly getting to me, like some sort of five-gigabyte download over dialup, that this is my last night at Conserve. I may return as an alumni, but we'll see.

The leaves are just amazing here. Last year around graduation, there was only a light fuzz on the trees, and I was dissapointed. This year, however, I asked the trees really nicely if they would have leaves for me by the time I left, and they did. Some pictures from this Thursday:





Amazing. Greta and I went for a walk in the woods to hang a sign in a special spot which I will tell you about once I have my diploma safely in hand, and to take some pictures of the leaves.





And some newer plants are pushing themselves up, too:





Good depth of field, yes? I like macro shots of things like this. One day, perhaps, I will own a lens that will allow me to do really really close up shots of things. Maybe I'll put some of my graduation money toward that.

There were a lot of alumni on campus this weekend, which has led to some very wild running around. Most of them are used to the freedom of college (or a year off) and so coming back here, where girls aren't allowed in guys dorms, etc., is kind of strange to them. Mischief is planned, which I of course know nothing about...

This crazy man is on campus, and I managed to grab a good shot of him on top of the swing set.



He, in return, took this amazing motion shot of me from that same vantage point on the swingset.





This past Thursday night was also the end of school dance. Some pictures:






I'll post pictures from graduation tomorrow, hopefully. Also, I have a new G1 Google Phone with Android! Woo! Thanks Uncle Steve and Aunt Barbara!

--Erty