From the category of "hahahaha... what a knob!", here are a few retro images my dad sent me in an email tonight.  Hilariosity. My hair looks scariously similar to George W's in this first one...

I can't figure out in the image below if I'm more honked off that I look like I have a flowbee hair cut, or that I'm dressed with my obviously rad Spiderman t-shirt tucked into my tan super short shorts.  With a belt.  While my brother gets to be Out Of This World.

Ahh... circa 1997ish.  A black leather jacket and a grown man on a teeter-totter... an obvious Kodak moment.  Or was that Olan Mills?  Nice white socks with black shoes, too, Versace.

Another '97ish flashback.  Me and my bro... or should I say Richie and Chachi.

Just recently we spent some time with the McGaheys at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in Frisco, and we had an amazing day of weather, smiles, fun, and boy scouts.  That's right.  Boy scouts.  When we got there, there was nary a parking spot to be found. (I believe that might be the first time in my life I've actually typed or spoken the word 'nary').  Apparently every boy scout in Frisco was there for a cook out.  Wonder if - in old school boy scout fashion - they started the fire for the hot dogs by rubbing two sticks together?  I digress. We managed to escape the masses and had a great time playing with the boys and capturing a few memoirs in the plethora of trails, trees and open fields.  When Phyllis came in for a pre-session consultation, she described her oldest son Connor as having "off-the-wall energy" and "constantly moving" and her younger son Sean as "Mr. Mellow" with a sweet personality and "very affectionate".  She nailed 'em to a T.  This first image below is one of the few times Connor was motionless for more than a couple seconds all afternoon...

... while Sean was typically more quiet with pensive, penetrating looks.

And finally here's mom (Phyllis) & dad (John) enjoying a little together time while the boys were off being boys.

More to come after Phyllis & John have had a chance to come in and see the rest of their images this weekend.

Check 123.  Check 123.  Is this thing on?  Wow, the blog has been silent for almost a week now.   Much like the [unintended] image below from a recent session (an image I rather like by the way), my life seems unfocused right now.  You ever feel like you're trying to get so many of the details just right that you're missing the big picture?  Me, too.  (I'm hoping someone at their in internetosphere answered 'yes' to that rhetorical question.)

I feel a little like Fred Flinstone right now; my feet seem to be moving pretty fast, but - at least initially - I'm not really going anywhere.  Anyway, I'm trying to get caught up, so I can get refocused as I head into 2010, and I've get several things - including some awesome client sessions - to blog in the near future. In the meantime, here's one reason I haven't had time to blog lately... (taken with my iPhone)

What?  Somebody's gotta rummage through the Halloween closeout section at Michael's.  These sweet hats aren't gonna hang around forever at only a $1.99.

I was editing some client images this evening and caem across this image Kylie took at the end of a session.  Good call on the clothing choice, genius.  Note to self: white sleeves are a less than ideal choice when rolling on the ground photographing kiddos. Besides, don't you know it's after labor day?

Ahhh, back in the USA, and workin' to get caught up.  If you've followed the last couple days, you know we were in Cancun celebrating my friend Tina's 40th birthday as well as a handful of other November birthdays amongst friends, and you know the weather was, well, IDA'ish.  I ate enough resort food for the next year... for 3 people.  My elbow and ankle are on the mend from my [not-so] graceful Segway mishap.  And my camera is likely rusting away as we speak from all the salt water spray she encountered while trying to get a few beach images in 40mph winds.  Oh, and one of the more impressive and embarrassing factoids about the trip was that Kylie polished off two lengthy books in the span of three and a half days while we were there... impressive because in total she read about 900 pages; embarrassing because I managed to read a total of about 4 dinner menus. I'll finish off the Cancun trip with a random collection of images from the last couple days.

Looking up at one of the chandeliers in the lobby.

A summary of our stay in Cancun.

Here's the gang.  These next two were taken by an airline pilot.

These next three shots were inspired my the photographic genius of my buddy Jeff (pictured in the image below).  I had set my camera down and walked away after doing a 3 second exposure of the resort theater where we did Tina's surprise birthday celebration (see next to last photo below), and he had picked it up and started firing off a few images not realizing it was set in manual and for such a long exposure time.  Most of the images were a whole lotta blurry (I mean art, Jeff), but in one frame someone had taken a photo in the background with a point-n-shoot camera, and the flash from that shot had temporarily frozen the action in one of Jeff's shots.  The result was pretty serendipitously cool, so I had my friend Laurie come over with her point-n-shoot camera and we recreated the set-up... again and again and again...  (Sorry I drained your battery, Laurie, but hey, you did end up with about 20 random profile shots of a couple people!)  To recap, I had Laurie stand about to one side or the other of the subject, and after I pressed the shutter release for a three second exposure while hand-holding the camera, I told Laurie to fire her camera so I could use her flash to light the subjects.   First up, Jeff and his gangst look.

Then the birthday star, Tina.

And finally back to Jeff moving in on Kylie.

Here's the theater Jerry and Tammy talked the hotel into letting us use for a pre-dinner party for Tina at no cost, with a DJ and bartender included.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering since i did have a few questions about this on Facebook, we stayed at the Hotel Riu Palace Las Americas.