Finally! Sunday! My only day off of the week!

I must say, it's weird not working after six days of doing so. Still, no complaints!

Saturday was one of those days where I was able to complete my route in a very fast time, only to have much more work on other routes when I finished. I did get to do some walking delivery in a nice neighborhood in southern Bloomington, but by that point, I was ready to crash. I ended up going to bed at an early 11:30 pm to sleep a solid 12 hours--I believe that was my body saying that it was lacking a certain something this past week.

                                                      

I encountered some wildlife Saturday as well. Deer love roaming Bloomington and can even be seen in the most residential areas or even on IU campus. You have to keep in mind that Bloomington was once mostly forest before it slowly became the large college town it is. With that in mind, the deer apparently still haven't realized that Bloomington is not the forest it was before and still reside in the midst of the city. It's neat actually to see deer here and there, especially while on a route--this one was particularly not very skittish as I was able to get within 15 feet of it. Unfortunately with all these deer, Bloomington residents like to install gadgetry in their yard to keep away the large rat-like herbivores, such as this motion-activated sprinkler system:

                                                      

The unfortunate thing is that mail carriers, such as myself, are suspect to falling into said traps as well as we love to cut through yards. I am shamed to say that I got soaked one day by said sprinkler in the about photo because I momentarily blanked about the existence of said water gadget. I guess the sprinklers are an effective yard defense though for I no longer cross said yard and instead take the extra five seconds taking the sidewalk.

Man, today was a short day! Given that I can only work 56 hours a week, I was only allowed to work 7.5 hours today. Well actually I can work more than 56 hours in a week but that would put me in double-time, something management would not want. I don't mind though--an early day is awesome! Got a nap in, did some laundry, and got a haircut--time well spent!

Today was slightly uneventful though I did run into an old friend I used to work with back in the day! I used to work back at Read Quad food court and was constantly placed in the hectic dish room there during lunch. Another guy in there, Danny, worked the dish unloader and he and I became pals. He obviously had some sort of developmental disability but was a great guy--he would always go on about IU sports and how he thought the women's basketball team was much better than the guy's team (this was when this was true, during the early Tom Crean days). I went to a couple of games with the guy and had a blast--as life goes though I lost track of Danny after I moved in life.

So you could imagine my surprise when I saw him again during my first mail stop on my route today. I chatted with him about IU sports and we then went our separate ways. I don't know if he remembers me--it'd be neat if he did--but I'm glad to have seen good ole' Danny again. What a nice guy!

Nothing else of note today. A fallen tree branch, some sub-par mulberries, and a super-friendly dog at a barber shop I delivered to. Oh, and there's this sign on the door of  student-rental home on the route I've been carrying that cracks me up every time I pass it.

Hehe, go Hoosiers!

So I've almost been a mail carrier in Bloomington, Indiana, for three months now. Its been a wild ride, but I've been hitting a snag--it's hard for me to prevent my days from molding into one. It's hard to pick out certain parts or events I found entertaining during my postal adventures cause, as I said, my days tend to mold together.

I hope to remedy that with this blog, writing about my daily occurrences and musings bout my life in the Postal Service. Some may be funny, some may be "meh", but that's not the point exactly. I want to avoid my experiences getting lost in the unfortunate redundancy of work and life, that way I can look back on them and enjoy them and you can, too!

With that being said, first post, GO!

Worked on route 33 today and had to deliver the Red Plum adverts. Ugh.... did I mention how I hated those things? Obviously not since this is my first post on the matter. Great little adverts, nice coupons, they are all good. Carrying them is another thing. The weight of them can add up in your satchel if you have at least 10 of them. Plus it's just another extra thing to carry, adding to your mail-load as it is already.

Anyways, didn't get that much sleep last night. Plus I arrived at work to discover bird shit on my shirt. As a co-worker noticed, it looked like a bird ate a raspberry and then pooped the remnants on my shirt. Ha! Not a usual start to a day, eh?

The highlight of my day was the robin's nest I usually walk under while delivering mail to a box on Atwater. I dubbed the bird Momma Robin, as she was always in her nest nursing her young when I approached. Of course, as the nest is right above the mailbox on the porch, I inherently make her quite angry every time I deliver the mail. She was a sight to see! Momma Robin would start chirping at me madly, flying around near some trees, and then would just perch on a branch and give me the evil eye all while chirping madly at me.

Today however I was greeted with silence when I approached the mailbox. The nest was empty and Momma Robin and her young have moved on. I couldn't help but feel a little sad--the usual encounter I had with the proud momma became routine and to have that cease, well yeah.... that's nature for ya and the circle of life and all that crap. I'm sure I'll have many other notable encounters with wildlife in the future while out delivering.

Here is a picture of the baby robins before they all grew up and flew off. No pics of Momma Robin on my phone--just imagine her in a nearby branch chirping wildly at me while I took this picture. My camera on my phone is pretty bad compared to most phones--I may get a better phone eventually but in the meantime, just gonna have to settle with my current phone and it's bad camera.

Well, post #1 down. Hopefully I can keep this updated daily--that'd be nice (in a perfect world). Who knows but I hope to have at least a daily entry or once every couple of days. Anyways, hope you enjoy this and take pleasure from viewing life as a postal carrier through my experiences. Lata!

The Product of Boredom

Oh gosh, it's a post on a blog I barely write on anymore! What is there to blog about nowadays if I have no photos to brag about? I will say, I have photo ideas fly through my head time and time again but they are a mere passing than anything. It would be cool to bring about some of them though... thinking something along the lines of drawing with penlights with the use of a fill-flash. Nothing fancy really, but something nevertheless.

Hobbies are weird how the temptation to exercise them come and go. There was a good quote in a Stephen King book explaining that all talents want is to be used, to be put into practice. If you do not, they become nothing more than pestering thoughts that entertain you time to time when your mind wanders. Finding the energy, time, and effort to put said things into practice is another thing however. It may be a form of procrastination, but I figure it is a mixture of that with the fear of negative judgement, mainly from myself, and me being slightly self-conscious about my thoughts and work.

I do that sometimes, you see... there is a small little dude inside of my head with a big voice nay-saying all my ideas. Sometimes I go along with it, sometimes I think the dude is freaking stupid and annoying as hell. I am not really saying that dude is all that bad, it just appears to enjoy nay-saying more than yay-saying.

Well maybe this weekend I can put my idea into creation. I have too many ideas that roam in my head and it is not doing me any good to keep them in there. A bottled up imagination, I dare-say sounds scarier than having someone judge an idea of mine made into fruition.

I don't post on this thing anymore...

Time and time again, I enjoy randomly remembering that I have a blog and viewing it after months of inactivity. Nothing bets going back and remembering the multiple photos and adventures that my life consisted of over two years ago. From walking home two miles in the rain at 10pm after an IU track meet to the time I broke my wrist and took pictures at the 2008 Little 500 races the day I got out of the hospital.

Crazy times, crazy times...

Now I am a full-time working person at a place called Centerstone, a community non-for-profit mental health center that provides mental health services to low income families, primarily those who have Medicaid. Funny how you can go from wanting to be a photojournalist at one point to be working at a mental health center as a case manager for adolescents down the road...

Anyways, yeah... I never really had a big plan for this blog, and well, I still do not. It was one of those things I decided to make back in my "glory days of photography" in order to show off my work. I still do the photos and I still have my camera, and despite its many dings and scratches, it still can help me make some pretty good photos. My drive is not the same as it was awhile ago and my results may not compare to many of the other photos out there today, but I am still conscious when I press the shutter to not simply make a candid photo but a real photo. That is something that will never go away.

New Year's four months late

I used to be big on the whole photography thing. Really big. Something then caused it go fizzle out. It was a culmination of many things, things that I still am not sure of. But that does not matter anymore.

I do not take as many pictures anymore under the pretense that I focused for too long taking photos of people living instead of living myself. But on occasion, I do find those days in which I find myself wanting to live through a camera lens, even if for a little while.

There is something powerful about being an observer, a captor of things usually unseen and unappreciated, that draws me back to my camera. It is almost as if you are invisible, a shade, a ghost, and it is exciting. It is exciting to see things from a point of view that barely anyone gets to see and then, when returning from the eyepiece of the camera, mulling over your results.

Here are some of my more recent results from the 2010 New Years...



These photos were taken right after New Years--everyone was enjoying a celebratory cigar outside in the freezing cold. With the perfect light, smoke, an elliptical, and slightly drunken atmosphere, conditions were perfect for me.

I am going to try to start putting more things up on this thing as time goes by, so continue to check this blog out periodically!

Retirement... sort of...

Yeah, so I just realized I left this site idle for quite a long time.

Many things have happened since my last post... many many things...

First off, I have switched my major from journalism to psychology. Yeap. I know. Big change, huh? I realize it was kind of sudden, but I know it was the right thing to do. There are a lot of motivations behind doing so, mainly personal, but I feel burnt out when it comes to photography.

Sigh... the bad thing about writing something like this is that I can only write so much about my decision and what I do not write, those who read it will fill in the blanks I failed to address with assumptions and other speculations that may or may not be true.

All I have to say is this--I finally feel happy where I am at. The future is uncertain for me, but I know I am heading down a path--a path that is new--a path I actually feel excited about traveling on.

I may post more photos on this site as time progresses, but photos are not my priority anymore. All I can say is that I am glad I realized this now before I majored in journalism and realized, once out of college, that photography was not my thing. Whew... would that have been disastrous...