--== Class Interrupted by Minor Fire ==--

There was a small fire in the building adjoining Corcoran College's H St NW campus. I was sitting in class. We were just getting into this video about Buddhist dance from India. It appeared it might have been a very interesting video. The fire alarm rang. We all gathered our stuff and walked out to the sidewalk. After about five minutes we were back in class watching the video. A couple minutes later, after seven fire trucks pulled up and blocked the street off, we were all back on the sidewalk. I guess they were responding to a minor fire in the connecting building bacause we could smell smoke but afternoon classes resumed. We never got to watch that video. We had to leave class early.

[I made it to the darkroom for the first time in almost two years today. Made some negatives from my Argus Model A. The lens is more badly scratched than I guessed. It is also uncoated and seventy-five years old.]

**Getting to the Liquor Store Before it Closes**

Mike Wilson, known as Army Mike, grabs some cash from the belongings he sleeps on to make a last minute beer run. I met up with him on the way home from my digital darkroom class tonight. "The liquor store is going to close in 15 minutes," said Army Mike. I walked part of the way to the liquor store with him til I got to my bus stop. He always likes to make a dramatic exit. He took-off running backward down the sidewalk yelling good-byes and see-you-laters. When he swung around to start his full trot, I had to yell "Look out," as he almost ran into a street sign.

[Army Mike enlisted in 1976 with no diploma. Not long after his enlistment as a radioman he returned to his hometown of Danville, Va. He had a job washing dishes at a Holiday Inn. Some people there didn't like him. They poured bleach in the dish water. This irritated Mike's hands to the point of infection. When he asked for workmen's compensation he said they told him, "Prove it happened at work." His sister, Gwen kicked him out of their house in late 2001. Mike has been living on the streets of D.C. since.]

==> Lift This Work Off My Back <==

I Did a lot today but for some reason I'm still falling behind. I have a paper due for a class and I can't find the interest or concentration to get it done. I'll pull through. I talked to the photo editor of Esquire Magazine today. It was an interview for my photojournalism class. Well, now I can't find the paper I wrote the interview on. Along with that I'm missing an envelope with a $200 check and some other important papers. Wish me luck finding them!

[This picture was taken using a 500mm mirror lens. Maybe someday I'll find time to pursue an interesting photo story on towercrane operators. The angle makes my stomach a little woozy. At least the weather was nice today, as usual.]

== Photographic Intuition Leads to Cheap Booty ==

I remember going to the Swap Meet in Pomona when I was a kid. To me, the Swap Meet held the same weight as a trip to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, or even Lion Country Safari (yeah, I go back that far). Among other articles there were acres and acres of other people's unwanted junk. I remember a lot of first-purchases at the Swap Meet; a metal Honda push scooter, my three first bootleg tapes, License to Ill, the Fat Boys are Back, and King of Rock, I think possibly my first camera too. I can remember a Voltron 110 camera made to look like an SLR purchased form there and the majority of my lost keychain 110 camera collection.
My mom first took me to the Swap Meet as a 6-year-old, now I'm nearly 26 and find D.C.'s Eastern Market to be another another-man's-treasure outlet. The executor of my father's estate, Paul Dodds, once tried to insult me by telling me I spend money like a woman. (He was mad because the gravestone I bought my Dad cost more than he recommended.) Maybe I inherited it from my Mom?
Some of my favorite purchases at Eastern Market have been African masks from Mali, a strange, metal feline-representation straight out of Americana, and a too-much-meat sandwich from the produce market. My most favorite purchase from Eastern Market? ... a $5 Argus Model A camera. (It sold for $12.50 new in the late '30s.) I bought it a few months ago but didn't realize its importance to photographic history until yesterday ... in fact, until then I didn't even know it was a 35mm camera. It turns out, when it was made, way back in the '30's, it was one of the first cameras to accept Kodak's new 35mm cartridge, the same 35mm film you can buy today.


[This is my Argus Model A camera. Its body was made from the popular plastic material bakelite between 1936 and 1941. It was also around this time African art and cultural artifacts were becoming more and more popular among trendy Westerners.]

- "Only Got Time for One Game. Anyone for Tenni?" -

Ben Olsen, D.C. United Soccer Club superstar, prepares to return the tennis ball to his brother Jeremy. The two get some family time together while visiting friends in the District. The brothers, hailing from Harrisburg, Pa., play at 18th St NW in Adams-Morgan, shadowed by the Washington Monument. Both attend Temple University in Philadelphia. Their father introduced both of them to tennis as children.

[Went to eat with my friends Andrew and Maris. Went to a mall and bought some new pants. The old ones started to wear out and were deemed unprofessional by my inner voice.]

)) Cheap 500mm Fun ((

I went down to school to register for next semester, still have to go back Monday to finish. I bought a Phoenix/Samyang 500mm mirror lens for $40 today off a friend. It only has one aperture, f8. It's fun changing the iso and shutter speed to compensate for no aperture. And because I have a digital camera, the magnification of the lens is multiplied to approximately equal an 800mm lens! It doesn't focus clearly. It's a very compact lens (4 1/2 in. long) and I'm told they sell for around $70 new on ebay.

[My locker is somewhere around the strange, almost-focused point. Shoddy equipment and materials are sometimes used to create a fine arts look. (Why is that?)]

=-- Man Blows Own Horn, Feels No Remorse --=

Ted Jacobson plays his trumpet in the small park across from the Henry J. Daly Building at 300 Indiana Ave NW. He said he's there 5 days a week, from 2:30-3:30pm. He works much of the day as an assistant operations technician in a government reproduction office. Ted first started playing the instrument in 4th grade ... and he just turned 60. During his first run on the trumpet he played in several Jazz and Blues bands. After setting his horn down for some years his wife made the suggestion he should pick it up again for the musical enrichment of their children. "You know," said Ted, trying not to blow his own horn, " ... But sometimes people will walk by and say, "Thank you, you really made my day.'" Ted is a featured musician on the child music CD Growing Tunes available through Amazon.

[I don't know how long Ted was putting smiles on peoples' faces today. While me and a friend were talking with him the wind started blowing over metal newspaper boxes.]

}}Metro Man Has Honest Claim to Fame{{

This is Edward Hill a Metro analyst. I guess he was analyzing the 42 route home when I saw him earlier today. He proclaimed his real job to be making music. "I played up at Madam's Organ a couple nights ago," said Hill, referring to a popular Adams-Morgan bar. Hill also reminisced about a time he opened for country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter in DuPont Circle.

[Eddie Hill has also written the Metro Ballad ... appearing soon at a bus stop near you!]

** A Veterans' Day Reflection **

There were numerous Veterans' Day celebrations around the Capitol today. I took this photo of Army 1st Lt. Alan Reich (ret.) coming from a reception at the Paralyzed Veterans' of America. Reich is also president and founder of the National Organization on Disability, a lifetime member of the PVA, and was a Korean War-era infantryman. Uncalculable respect.

[I tried to go get a police media pass today ... the station was closed for Veterans' Day.]

~~ Joe Armstrong Says Coffee is Blood ~~

I got a lot accomplished today, which I owe partially to coffee, partially to networking. My problems seem on their way to being solved. And I heard some great news from Joe Armstrong, a contract worker for Hardesty, Inc. He said they're opening another coffee shop in the White House area. Caribou Coffee, right at Pennsylvania and 17th NW, across the street from Starbucks, a block from the other Starbucks at 18th and H St NW, and a half block from M.E. Swings at 17th and G St NW (Which has been distributing coffee to the area since 1916).

[Joe Armstrong and other crew workers carry duct work into an old investment banking office, starting the renovation for a Caribou Coffee. The shop should be operating well before Christmas.]

}} Return of the Mystic Ready Ape{{

Yesterday I picked up a old Veiwlex negative projector. The last time I saw a negative projector was in a photojournalism class at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I took the class in early '98 as a Visual Communications major. I picked up this old soviet helmet in Kandahar. The negative is a pic I took of Marine Meduim Helicopter Squadron-263's Vietnam-era mascot, Ready Ape. His name comes from the crew chiefs' verbal verification to the pilot that the helicopter is ready to start. The crew chief would stand at the rear of the helo and shout to the pilot, "Ready APU (auxillary power unit)!"

[This is the image that appears to me when I have post-traumatic flashbacks. Unlike other vets who duck for cover, cry or end up mute and go crazy, I just kinda' stare at this old soviet helmet in my living room and a fortune-telling monkey appears.]