Watch That Muzzle

Earlier this week I finally had a day off on the same day as some of my friends. It is depressing to realize that only once every few weeks are we actually able to have the same days off. To take advantage of the beautiful day off (ok kidding aside it rained on my day off as usual), we decided to go shoot some guns. So the night before I went to get some ammo, and the next morning we headed out to “the range”. As I somewhat explained earlier, the weather was not that great. It sprinkled almost the whole time, and eventually turned into an all out downpour. I wish I could say this rarely happens on my day off, but then I would be lying. I honestly can not remember the last time I had a day off in which the weather was somewhat tolerable. Those days are only for when I am inside at work.

Anyways, it was the first time I have probably got to shoot in probably over a year. So it was a great time getting to hang out with my old college roommates. It was also the first time I have seen Terry since his wedding in November. It took about 45 minutes to set everything up, but it was an awesome setup. Since the wind was bad, and it was raining, Terry set up a tent for us to shoot under. So we ended up not having to worry about either. After about an hour or so of shooting the weather started to look bad so we packed up, and not a minute to soon. Overall it was a great day, and hopefully I will get to have more of these. But I guess with growing up, it becomes more and more difficult to find time to hang out with friends.

Our target. We had a 25 yard target for siting in the guns, and then this was set up about 190 yards away. Nothing better than hearing the ting sound when you hit the steel.

 

GoPro camera mounted on AR15 to get a different angle.

 

Looking Back At O-Eleven (2nd Half)

Hello again. Now to talk about the ending of my time in Columbus. Like I mentioned in the last post, that experience was amazing. I enjoyed every bit of the internship. Everything from working with each department, doing the dirty work on the DC floor, sitting in on meetings with 3rd parties, or meetings with designers was an amazing time. I got to work with some great people on an incredible campus. If anyone ever has a chance to see their home office, then I recommend it. It may of been flat there, and awful weather for mountain biking, but one thing I miss about the city was the bike riding. It is weird, but one thing I greatly miss about Knoxville/UT was riding my bike there. I guess it is something I become attached to, and yes riding in one city is not very different than another. I am sitting on the same bike, but when I think of riding I have memories attached to each one. So when I think about riding in Columbus I think about my experiences in the city. Riding is Knoxville was not my favorite memory, but it is the one thing that allowed me to see the city and what it is about. Riding is not just a mode of exercise for me, it is how I experience and explore the cities.

Back on track Eric…..

JUNE

Being in Columbus, allowed for me to hang out with a friend I have had for years through the accord scene. He is a great photographer, so it was nice to be able to meet up with him a few times. He allowed for me to go with him for some photoshoots which was an incredible experience, and I was even able to test about his alienbees on his BMW. AlienBees are studio lights that many people use because of their quality and affordability. If there is one thing I would love to own for photography, it would be these. This picture was not taken with them since we did not hook my camera up to them. To this day I still regret not taking my accord to shoot.

The ending of my times with AnF involved one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. They had me do multiple mock interviews with different departments, along with a final presentation to around 15 people. The mock interviews were something that really improved my interviewing skills, and with the help of my intern mentor Mary I was able to develop a great resume. After the interviews I had to do a final presentation to some VPs, and senior management. Before this my longest presentation was a group project consisting of 6 people doing a 45 min presentation. EASY compared to a 45 minute solo presentation. Now I felt that I hit a home run on this since I prepared for it lots, and since I enjoyed my time there it made it much easier to talk about. After this god forsaken presentation ended I said my goodbyes to some people and headed to the horse barn with my Columbus mom. She was wanting me to take pictures for the organization she was working with there. It was the first time I had been around horses in awhile, so I had a great time being able to take some pictures at the barn.

Since I was in Columbus and about to leave for Nashville, I realized that it would be the perfect time to visit my cousins in Chicago. So I took the 7 hour(yeah you read that right) Megabus ride over and spent about a week with them. I am pretty sure I could never live in Chicago, but I certainly love visiting there. My only complaint is that I never get to spend lots of time in the city. When I go there all I want to do is walk around and admire the skyscrapers.However, with that being said I still had a great time there. The weather was good until my last day. So I was able to bike ride all around Chicago, fly kites at the park, and just enjoy the days with family.

This picture makes Chicago look very inviting.

JULY

July was a huge month for me in a few ways. I was back in Nashville and jobless. So once again I was facing the stress of being a college grad with no income, but thankfully not for long. It also was when the Import Alliance meet was held. This year, like each year, brings more people and more problems. It will be interesting to see what they do in the coming years since the Speedway is closing.

The Accord scene was represented well last year. It was great getting to cruise around town with fellow accord owners.

If one person could be personally thanked for what he has done for my blog/flickr it would be Michael Burroughs. His cars are always a hit in the car scene, so they obviously attract a large online following. TN lost a great local guy, but I am sure Socal is treating him well.

Since I was still unemployed I had some time on my hands. So I thankfully was able to attend some Bike Crit races downtown. It was great being able to see people that I had not seen in months.

Another highlight of my summer was getting to hang out with some people I used to work with at Bike Pedlar. We all decided to head out to a local technical trail, so I decided to bring my camera to take some pics.It was a muggy morning, but I had a great time getting to hang out with people I used to spend every day with.The day started out with some great riding by my friends, and I think we all had a good time even with the bad crash at the end.

AUGUST

August was the beginning of my career after college. On August 15 I started my job with Kroger. I do not feel like I have been there 6 months already. The past 6 months have been pretty hectic since I have been learning something new each day. Like most new jobs, I entered there wondering how I could ever remember everything I need to do. But a few months in I can say I have gotten the hang of things. Since I am the router for Atlanta, I think I know that area better than Nashville. Well I know the different towns better than I do Nashville since I have to route for them every day.The sad part about the job is that starting there was when the decline in photos started. A new job meant less free time. So once I started there I was not able to take very many pictures the rest of the year.

The day before I started with Kroger we had some incredible weather. So I spent the day with my camera and bike. Those two easily are the best combination for me.

SEPTEMBER

September was another big month for me. The internship was one life changing moment, but selling Selene after 9 years was another challenge. It was something I was not sure I wanted to do, and some days I do miss having a car. But pulling up to an office building in a modded 10 year old import felt very unprofessional. So that month I bought myself a new vehicle, which is still unnamed.

September was also when some of my friends played in their softball league. So I tried to go to a few games to take some pictures for them. It was probably the first time I was able to test my camera at night with action photos.

One event that I had a great time attending was the Warrior Dash. Rocky was signed up for two runs in it. So we all headed out to watch him during his morning run. I have never seen so many muddy people in my life.

OCTOBER

This was a big month in that it started my depression. It is sad to look at how nice the Fall is, but how much daylight savings and shorter days ruins it. I have spent the past few months cursing the world for getting dark so early. So what is the best way to treat yourself when you have no time to ride? Well buy a bike you can never use of course!

Nashville also had a zombie outbreak. So being the journalist I am, not really, I decided to take my camera for some coverage of the end of the world.

NOVEMBER

This month started out with some big changes for a great friend of mine and college roommate. November 5th was the wedding day for Terry and his wife Ali. This weekend had it all. Night spent with friends, wedding, pictures, community, and a realization that my friends are better than yours.

Driving home from the wedding……Fun times

As expected, November also meant Thanksgiving was around the corner. Now I am not a big fan of this holiday, but now I hate it even more since I work at Kroger. Wow was that a stressful few weeks.

DECEMBER

I wish I had lots of pictures from the Christmas Holidays. But it came so fast that I never got around to really enjoy it. I think this was the only Christmas where I only picked up my camera a few times.

I do not really know of a good way to end this. I wish the end of the year provided for more pictures. I actually wish 2011 had more opportunities. It was a great year since I was able to finally get a career. I am looking forward to what 2012 will bring. I hope it will allow for me to continue to post on here. I have a new video camera that will come in handy for mountain biking, so hopefully that will provide some great posts for you all. Each year has brought more activity to my site. I had a 45% increase in views in 2011 when compared to 2010. So without delaying the end I will just get it over with. I hope everyone had a great 2011. I thank you all for continuing to come to my blog! Have a great 2012.

Looking Back At O-Eleven (1st Half)

It is very weird to think that it is already 2012. Last year really went by fast now that I look back at all of the pictures I took, or did not take for that matter. Twenty-Eleven was probably my worst year when it came to taking pictures. I guess the fact of being on 3 different computers, and living in two cities made it really difficult. I had tons of pictures on my parent’s computer before I left for Columbus, but it died while I was gone and I never had them backed up. While I was in Columbus I did not have my own computer, so all of the pictures I did take are on the family’s computer that I stayed with. So long story short, I am lacking some material. Which is sad since last year involved, living in Nashville, moving to Columbus, and then spending time in Sarasota, Orlando, Cincy, and Chicago.

One thing I decided to do when I started this blog, wow that sounds nerdy, was to post my favorite/most popular pictures from each year. It was easier the past few years since I posted many of my pictures on flickr. They do a great job at ranking photos, and keeping stats for each picture.  Well this year I did not spend much time updating my flickr, and it is hard to tell what is popular on this blog.

As expected, my most popular post was involving the car scene. The past few years I have gone to the Import Alliance meet. This meet  has around 5-10K people attend each year. So those pictures always have a huge following, which meant that the two posts involving that meet blew away all other posts. But I will talk about that in my next post. (I am off today and tom, hence the large posts on here)

So keeping away from the car scene, Feb. 17th was my most viewed day. This was the day after I posted pictures of my cousin’s kid Will. I guess it just goes to show how much people like babies.

After spending some time looking over photos, I realized this may be a two post ordeal. So I am just going to start at the beginning of the year and pick out my favorites, or the popular ones by the viewers.  To start it off would be one of the first pictures I took in 2011 which happens to be the pic on my mouse pad. This picture was taken of Copper on a cold morning. It was freezing outside so Copper did not feel like going outside, but that did not stop him from keeping an eye on things.

JANUARY

One of my highest viewed photos on flickr for 2011 (I did use it at the start of the year) was taken while I still worked at Bike Pedlar. It was a snowy afternoon, which meant a boring day at work. So Justin and I decided to take advantage of it by going for a bike ride around the parking lot on the new Trek Earl.

FEBRUARY

Thankfully before I headed off to Columbus I was able to attend my good friend Braden’s graduation ceremony from the Police Academy. This was taken as they were walking out into the sanctuary.

Looking back at last year made me realize how many times it snowed last year. Since I was still driving my Accord back then I chose to ride my mountain bike to work a few times when the snow was bad. It sounds awful, but I LOVED doing it.

The 2nd highest viewed bike picture was of this Madone. It was in the shop getting lots of new goodies installed. Oh I loved that part of the job. Another bike probably worth more than the accord I used to drive.

I had a period of about a month where I did not take pictures. This was because of my move to Columbus. Even with moving to a new city  for 4 years to attend UT could not even begin to compare to how much my internship with AnF changed my life. It was one of the most nerve racking decisions I have made in my life, but it was also the best thing that could of happened to me. It confirmed my hatred for Ohio(mainly the buckeyes), but more so allowed for me to grow as a person more than ever. Each day was a test to strengthen me as an individual and employee. I could not convey my appreciation/gratitude enough for everyone involved in my life those months. I think I spend more time thinking about them and the experiences I had there than I do about my time at UT.

MARCH

Neyland’s little brother…The Shoe

These are not great pictures, but they mean a lot to me since I cherished those months with AnF and my second family.

The Singleton’s home during a snowstorm. If you do not have a family like them in your lives, then I am sorry. They are the two greatest 2nd parents anyone could ever ask for. And I am sure they would say I am the son they always wanted…….especially since they always wanted a child that bleeds orange.

APRIL

The one million square foot AnF DC I spent a few months working at.( Yes poor weather was a common theme) Driving 30 miles to work in my accord in this weather drastically reduced my life a few years. If it says anything about how busy and awful the weather was there. This was the ONLY picture I uploaded/took for a month.

Thankfully May involved some better weather. So on Mother’s Day I went to the Columbus Zoo. If there is one good thing about that city, it would be their zoo. Wow is all I can say. Below are my two favorite pictures from that day.

MAY

In May I also have the privilege of getting to go to Florida with my family. I would classify myself as a family man. So it was great getting to spend a week with them after being away for a few months. Not to mention I got to spend a day in my dream city, aka The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I better skip talking about this before I geek out.

This makes me laugh….

After returning home from Sarasota I got to see my family again in Cincinnati about two weeks later. Cincy was a great time since it was a new city, but I could of done without the horrible service at one of the restaurants we ate at.Very cool city, especially since it is where Kroger’s home office is.

I think this would be a great time to stop. My next post will start out with the a trip to visit my cousins, along with the end of my time with Abercrombie and Fitch.