Back from New York City

Being over 3,000 miles away from home I stayed on the east coast for Thanksgiving break. My best friend Charlie came up north to Colby on the 19th and chilled for a couple of days. In Maine we explored northwest of Colby and ended up at a lake near Bigelow, ME. On the 23rd we boarded a bus and began our nine hour trek to the big apple. It was excited to get out of the routine college life and explore new territory. At 9pm on Tuesday Charlie and I arrived somewhere in Chinatown. We spent the next three days walking miles around Manhattan and Brooklyn. We ate pizza at Pizza Suprema, pastrami sandwiches at Artie's Delicatessen, and ate everything but college cafeteria food. Although NYC made me miss home I loved seeing all of my friends from Portland. It was a memorable trip and the most enjoyable time I've had on the east coast. I came back to Maine to find snow and ice covering the ground. In three weeks I leave Maine to go home for one and a half months and I can not wait.

Love Life Maine

My day to day experiences at Colby are very different from my experiences in Maine. I've tried my best to leave Mayflower Hill and explore Maine. From my backpacking trip with my dad in the 100 mile wilderness to eating lobster on the coast, I think I've seen a good share of what Maine has to offer. Two of my best friends are with me in Maine so it's been great to see them. Charlie and I have visited each other multiple times both at Bates and Colby. Erica and I had a wild time exploring Boston during fall break and I surprised her last Friday with a random visit to Bowdoin. It's weird to be so far from home but still have my friends near by. While I am excited and eager to spend time in Portland and Seattle from mid December to the end of January, I want to continue to see Maine. From hunting moose to walking on snowy beaches I want to experience it all.

Summer 2010

It's hard to believe it is already November. Here in Waterville, ME a majority of the leaves have fallen and I now wake up to frost covering the grass. It's been my first fall in New England and in college. I've had an interesting time so far but it's always great to look back on pictures. Here are some pictures of my great summer in the Pacific Northwest. I can't wait to return home in less than two months. I feel like I've been in college a year. I came to Colby College when it was 100 degrees and very humid and now it is freezing.

For Spring break I went rock climbing in Alabama Hills, CA.
















Charlie and I singing "Going to Maine" by the Mountain Goats.
















One of the vans I rode in everyday to go climbing.
















The Shark's Fin.












Lots of movies have been filmed here.
















The Sierras.
















The Willamette.
















For Memorial Day weekend I went to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
















Molly looking through her binoculars.









































Molly.

















Enjoying the view.









































Distracting Molly as she reads.

Wilco Concert Tonight

Tonight at 8PM I am seeing Wilco which is one of my top bands. Here is one of my favorite Wilco songs titled Poor Places:

Digging

Seamus Heaney (1939-)















Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

- from Death of a Naturalist (1966)

This Time Tomorrow

R.I.P. J.D. Salinger

"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose."

- J.D. Salinger

Smith Rock in December

On December 18 and 19 we went rock climbing at Smith Rock. Although I didn't take too many pictures and I missed the most memorable parts of the trip, I still captured a few pictures that are interesting to compare to the past Smith trips I have been on.

Carter, Peter, and Sam


Sam on a pretty difficult climb


Carter near the crux


A more experienced Charlie

Long Exposure Pictures

A ten second exposure of Charlie


A ten second exposure of Portland which reminds me of Gothom City

Both of these were taken without a tripod. Something I should maybe get.

Train Hopping

Tonight Charlie and I had nothing to do.We took a few 10 sec long exposure pictures of Portland around the Vista bridge. After awhile we became bored, drove, and then got out of our cars and started walking. We were so bored that we switched off calling friends but no one answered so we continued walking. We came upon a freight train in the Northwest area of Portland that blocked our way toward the river. After a bit Charlie hopped on and off but as we walked away I decided we had to go back and ride it. We jumped on and rode it for five minutes. We were cold and scared. I worried about what could happen as I thought about Paranoid Park which is a book by Blake Nelson that we had to read in school and a movie by Gus Van Sant. We rode undisturbed and eventually decided to jump off. Maybe someday I will get on again and stay a bit longer for the ride wherever it takes me.

F100

In June 2007 I bought a Nikon F100 film camera. It was and still is the only camera I have ever owned. While my use of it has been sporadic, the camera has documented various moments of my life when I got around to taking time to use it. Unlike a digital camera where you are free to take tons of pictures, I learned to try to get the best out of the 25 shots available in roll of film. The F100 brings to mind the Ford pickup truck. The camera is built like a tank and has taken abuse from leaving it in a car for days during a hot Nevada summer to dropping it down the stairs of my house but it still works perfectly. I have taken terrible pictures from when I first got the camera and I was unintentionally messing with the ISO setting of the camera to what I think of as great pictures. Regardless of the quality of my photography I still have many pictures that I love. It is difficult to keep all of my pictures together as some of them are printed and in small brown bags while others are on my computer. In the future even when I do get a nice digital camera I will always come back and use my F100 or at least until the camera does not make the real noise a camera should when taking a picture which for me is half the reason of using it.

Below are some pictures that I found on my computer:

Joshua Trees

Ian Wayne climbing at Smith Rock in November of 2007

A less experienced Charlie Grant

A lifeless tree at Smith Rock

A silhouette

A younger Abby Conyers

The woods behind my house

Eddie Friedman at Tieton River Rocks in November 2008

Belaying

Chris Potts and his shadow

Big Ed

My backyard last winter

A picture taken by Charlie last summer. We biked from his house and spontaneously decided to go to Sauvie Island.