Moving right along ...

This afternoon I had to force myself to leave the office to do some clubhouse photos. I've been wanting to go over there for a while, but things have been crazy busy. It was a beautiful, blue sky day, but pretty cold. I'm not just being a wimpy Floridian ... it was 32 degrees when I woke up! The clubhouse is massive! Once inside, it's a little hard to find your way out since a lot of the stairwells are closed off. I guess I should have dropped some popcorn along the way. I think EVERYBODY will get lost during the PLAYERS.

Hey, is anybody in there?

I was diggin' the smoke & the yellow hard hat! I shot this guy from every angle with every lens.

Lookin' good!

Some fixtures are hung, but there's still a lot to do.

Huh?!? This was scribbled on the drywall inside the clubhouse.

Food for Thought

One of the responsibilities that comes with my promotion is to do performance reviews & objectives for the 3 people I supervise. I was dreading it, but like John said, it really wasn't that bad. Now that all of my 2006 Performance Reviews & 2007 Performance Objectives are complete, I've gone back to reading my management books.

One of my favorites so far is ... First, Break All The Rules

"You can be anything you want to be if you hold on to your dreams & work hard. The person you feel yourself to be every day is not the real You. No, the real You is deep inside, hidden by your fears & discouragements. If you could free yourself of these fears, if you could truly believe in yourself, then the real You would be released. Your potential would burst out. The giant would awaken."
Thanks John, Bob, Teenya & Mary for your encouragement!

Another weekend in Weston

As a kid, I grew up (in Lawrence, NY) in a 3 family house, literally. Two cousins, an aunt, uncle & his dentist office "lived" in the downstairs unit. Next door to our apartment on the upper level, were three more cousins, Aunt Pauline & Uncle Ike. It was a really big house that was inhabited by various family members over the course of 4+ decades. After I graduated from nursery school, I forced my parents to move since I thought the house was haunted by Felix the Cat. Felix STILL gives me the creeps today! Click on the link above if you wanna get creeped out. In France he's called "Felix le Chat" and he's equally creepy!

A few years ago, our "family" sold the house & before it was demolished to build a condo complex, we decided to hunt for hidden treasures in the basement & attic. We found a bunch of great stuff including a couple of tables from Uncle Ike's boat that featured nautical maps of Long Island & some very cool light fixtures that are hanging in my dining room. Mary uncovered this bowling trophy that was engraved with my Aunt Pauline's name. If you knew Aunt Pauline, you wouldn't imagine that she ever picked up a bowling ball, let alone won a trophy.

I was in Weston again for the holiday weekend to work on my BRUTAL never-ending packing project. The window light made a nice pattern on the wall so I sprung up to shoot the trophy.

Tally wasn't in the mood to be photographed this weekend, so I decided not to torture her.

She was however, interested in checking out the stuff I was photographing to sell online.

Creepy!!!

I guess it was a bad idea to be out of the office last week. Jana kept her promise to retaliate against our "Dancing with the Stars" prank (see Nov 16th blog post). I got to work early to get a head start & cracked up as soon as I walked into my office. I felt myself smiling ear-to-ear! Needless to say I didn't get any work done until I photographed my office for my blog.

Jana knows that Celine Dion gives me the creeps! She completely covered my office with REALLY creepy pictures. They were inside my cabinets & drawers, under my Wacom, on my phone & apparently many other places that I haven't found yet. If that wasn't bad enough, she replaced my desktop wallpaper with Celine & there were a couple of Celine jpgs hidden on my messy monitor. Chris told me that I was lucky that no one in the office had any Celine CDs, or Jana would have loaded up my iTunes.

Since I'll probably be finding more pix for months, it's the gift that keeps on giving. So far I found 38 Celines. Jana was SO proud of herself! Look at the workmanship. She should definitely get credit for this on her performance review!

Did I mention I love my job? Our office sure knows how to have fun!

Look out Jana ... payback's a bitch! ;o)

Oh yeah ... one more thing ... I was working late & the cleaning man came to clean our office. To avoid embarrassment, I had to greet him before he got to my office to warn & assure him that I HATE Celine. He smirked & said he saw it last week. He said that he just figured whomever worked in my office must REALLY love Celine. Then he shook his head & said, "she (Jana) got you good!" He couldn't stop smiling every time he walked past my door.

Duck U ... School of Photography

I'm back in Ponte Vedra Beach after spending 2 weeks in Weston. Yesterday I drove 350 miles without stopping, in record time.

The Duck has some new merchandise showcasing "Duck U, School of Photography." I think that's gonna be a big seller.

Aaron has submitted the strip to 6 major syndicates. This cast of characters was at the bottom of his cover letter.

Sunday

Tally woke me up at 7am for an early morning walk.
The light was beautiful.

Tally is VERY picky about her treats. Dogwiches are the ONLY ones she likes. It's a cute doggie Oreo with beef flavored cream. Purina stopped making them awhile ago but I had a pack in the fridge. Today Tally went bonkers when I photographed the last one on the patio table. Mary says it's like doggie crack. Apparently, a lot of dogs were addicted to them. Maybe that's why they were taken off the market. Here's a movie I made awhile ago called Tally Raids the Fridge, starring Tally & her favorite snack.

We brought Tally home then went to Bogarts Bagels for breakfast with Sandy & Patty (Bobby & Larry were playing golf). Mary spotted this well-behaved deer in a Volvo wearing a seatbelt. I sure hope they didn't think they could use the carpool lane. The antlers are a dead giveaway!

Saturday

Today I went to Clearsight Opticians to pick up my new glasses. I had a hard time trying to decide which frame to get.

I ended up getting Oakley Titanium CHAIN™ 6.0 frames for my glasses & I had polarized VR28 prescription lenses put in my old Oakley frames.

Clearsight is very close to my favorite old-style neon McDonald's sign (featuring "Speedee"). Speedee retired as McDonald's mascot in 1961.

Chris' blog photo of Shelby with antlers inspired me to photograph Tally wearing bunny ears. Surprisingly, Tally didn't seem to mind.

Tally wasn't impressed with today's photos from the Mercedes-Benz Championship.

Donation

Today the guys from Miami Rescue Mission came by to pick up a bunch of stuff we were donating. We gave them a small fridge, a microwave cart, 10 huge drum liner Hefty bags of clothes, and about 6 boxes of miscellaneous stuff.

Over the course of the 2 weeks I was home, we threw out about 35 drum liner bags of stuff. The garbage men weren't too happy, but we sure were.

Screenhouse repair

Today I finally had the screenhouse repaired from the Hurricane Wilma damage we had in Oct 2005. The gutter had to be removed & 6 large panels replaced. Here's the "before" photo.

Weston Yoga Shoot

Today I assisted Mary on her shoot for Weston Yoga. She shot silhouettes of yoga poses for some big Alphalams.
Rosie helps Brian & Robyn get into position.


Robyn posed like this without my asking. It was pretty funny.

Everybody gathers around to see Mary's pix. They came out awesome.

Here's a winner!

Weston Yoga Test

Today we shot a test for a shoot Mary's doing at Phylice's new yoga studio.

Brian liked looking at the pictures.

After the shoot we went out for pizza.