Catching Up (AKA: Boy its Been a While!)

Hola, all.  No way am I gonna be able to catch everyone up on everything.  But this blog posting might be a bit on the long side, so settle in and enjoy or give up now.  It is really up to you.

First off, I am in the process of writing a book.  If anyone knows a good literary agent or someone at a publishing company, please let me know.  For those of you who've been saddled with reading it for me and offering suggestions... Thank you and I am sorry!  Anyhoo, the book has eaten up a great deal of my time but I shall attempt to be better at blogging too.  It won't happen of course.

So... lets see.  I am still in Seattle.  Last fall Cameron and Annie came to visit and we headed over to the Olympic Peninsula to see the areas where the Twilight Series is supposed to be from.  Unfortunately, thanks to unions and the such it is way too expensive to shoot the movie in the amazing landscape in which it was created, so it is shot in Canada.  As Yakov Smirnov would say... I love this country.  Anyhoo, we toured the rainforest and met some really freaking big trees!  (Insert National Geographic music here.)

We had fun walking through the forest and seeing the land of werewolves and vampires and the such.  But as I had warned them going in, Forks itself is a dump.  I believe they will both agree having now been through it all!  We had to drive like the wind to make it back to the ferry terminal before the last boat left or we would have been driving all night to make it back to the city.  Annie's friend was waiting for her to return, and thanks to a lack of State Patrol Troopers, we arrived just in time.

Cam and I hung out for a couple more days before he headed back to Colorado with Annie.  It was great getting to show my city off.  It is a pretty awesome place.

I also had a visit from a former co-worker from KUSA in Denver last fall.  JD Downing (no, not him, the other one) came to town to see some baseball and catch me up on the horrible things Gannett was doing to its employees.  It was great getting to hear some stories and enjoy time with an old friend.

We had to go to the Market...  On a weekend.  With a few thousand of our closest friends.

We checked out Seattle from the other side of Elliot Bay.

And we even saw a dude take a line drive off Big Papi's bat straight to the nose.  Good times!

All the fans wanted a picture of JD...  He's kinda a big deal it turns out.

We ended up seeing a couple good baseball games and having a really fun time.  And, there is even evidence the Mariners managed to beat the Red Sox.  It isn't hell freezing over, but it was close.

Last year was a good year for catching up with friends.  I also had some time with family.  My nephew Cody turned 16 back in June and I wanted him to have an adventure.  Since Cam was coming to see me instead of my going to Hawaii, I decided the best plan was for my sister, Cody and I to head off to Mexico.  It was a great time.  Other than the poor decision to ride the bus into the heart of Cancun and nearly get beheaded.  That part was less than fabulous.  But the trip as a whole was delightful!

Looking back, 2011 was a pretty good year indeed.  Along with all the visitors and international travel, I also dipped my toes into the world of reality TV production.  I really enjoyed some parts of it.  Meeting the Alaska State Troopers was great.  An amazing group of people that love what they do and overcome some of the biggest obstacles you can imagine.  And some you can't even fathom.  But I only took a few trips to Alaska to work on the show.  I didn't fit in real well with the production company I had jumped on board with.  As fate would have it, during my final trip up to the MatSu Valley, I got a phone call asking me to return to Seattle and work fulltime for KOMO.  I couldn't pass it up.  More time at home with my kitty in the city I love.  So, I bid adieu to the frozen north as the snow was creeping down and the days becoming short and returned to a new (old) life of shooting news in Seattle.  And I am truly happy with that choice.

At KOMO, we just won the National Press Photographers Assoc. Regional Station of the Year Award.  Basically it means that we are a great group of photographers.  Coming from KUSA I know a thing or two about a great group of shooters, and this is a great group.  Winning the Regional SOY Award means KOMO will compete for the National Award against KING and KUSA and a couple other stations.  It is really a big deal and something no one saw coming when I left Denver two years ago.  Now, it turns out, I was right to look west and toward Seattle.  We are making some pretty good TV up here.

I just got home from a long weekend in New York City.  It was my first time actually getting to see the Big Apple.  I will tell you all about it coming up.  For now, hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane.