Day 5

Day 5

Fun fact re: camera --
using the USB plug
don't charge battery.

Learning this hard way
means I cannot take sweet pic
of 80's CD.

But fortunately,
still have three hundred sixty
days to get it. Yay!

Day 4

Day 4

Best film thought ever:
Hal Jordan vs. Voltron.
They'll prob'ly team up.

(I'm actually amused by this idea, and kind of want to geekily expound on it, but I'm probably better off leaving it alone.)

Day 3

Day 3

It's probably worth noting that I haven't intended to necessarily take the time to post each picture each day, but I plan on updating every few days. For the record.

Today's entry:

Here's what it looks like
when you don't renew your tabs.
Tempting fate, bad news!

Day 2

Day 2

...and here's the problem with the Project 365 thing for me. I'd even considered this as an issue, but had more or less figured I'd "creative" my way out of it -- my life? Kind of dull. Today, did some cleaning, played some Crackdown on the 360, went grocery shopping.

I even took my camera with me to the grocery store, and was debating taking a picture of some flowers or something. Mainly, I don't want to start taking pictures of everyday junk, like... Hey! This can of Dr Pepper! It's cool, because I like Dr Pepper. Or... Yet another picture of my cat! While I'm sure the real Justy will turn up from time to time, I think my goal is to not have to resort to those pics.

Who knows, maybe I'd be wiser to take baby steps here and do a project 52, 'cause surely I can find interesting things on a weekly basis... right?

However, just to keep the dull pics marginally interesting (to me, at least), henceforth they will be accompanied by a haiku:

Oh, well played, sucker!
You forgot your life is dull.
Better luck next time!

Dunzo.

Dunzo.

So. I've been pretty much done with the 101/1001 thing for a while. The point at which it became abundantly clear that I would not complete a decent number of these (I'm looking at you, 24, 67, 83 and 94) I kind of lost interest in pursuing the rest of them.

There's still some degree of interest in doing this again -- had it not been for #74, there would have been no St Paddy's Day road trip to Vancouver for the Red Wings game, for instance. Jason and I wouldn't have gone camping last August and seen a freaking amazing display of the Perseids. And almost certainly we wouldn't have had family Christmas morning at my apartment a year and a half ago, and that was really quite fun.

All that being said, however, I just feel profoundly unmotivated to work on a 101 list that I know with absolute certainty will not be finished (or even anywhere near finished. So, with 101 days left (unplanned, but seems appropriate), I'm shifting my focus: instead of the 101/1001 deal, I'm going to convert this blog to a Project 365.

I've been thinking about trying to do that for a while now; that's part of the reason I got a new camera a week or two ago. Since then I've been looking for a good time to start it, and figured June 1 would be as good a time as any. However, given the events of the evening, starting it off a day early seemed like the only prudent move:


It's not every day you're sitting in the 4th row to watch Brazil not beat the stuffings out of Canadia (they actually acquitted themselves quite well).

Also, two bonus pictures from the day. First of all, I'd like to introduce you all to the future Mrs. Justy Tylor (she's the one in green; not the greatest picture, sure, but damn can she move):


And lastly, this picture just seems somehow representative of so many elements of my life:

17. Make it through my Netflix queue; 79. Throw a Snowball; 80. See a Stage Play; 93. Post a journal entry every day for a month

17. Make it through my Netflix queue;
79. Throw a Snowball;
80. See a Stage Play;
93. Post a journal entry every day for a month

A few general updates. I've been through with #17 for a while, just haven't gotten around to updating. It's definitely good that I established a set number; when I first started, I had 95 or so movies in my queue. Now that I've made it through 100, I have about 120 in my queue. They just keep making movies, it turns out.

Throwing a snowball was yesterday after coming home from work; didn't really have anything good to throw it at, so should that opportunity present itself, I reserve the right to recross it off. #80, stage play, my dad actually took me to a production (Once Upon A Time in New Jersey) a few months back, I just completely forgot it was an item on my list.

And #93 was done in October.

25. Watch the Perseids out in the country; 97. Go camping

25. Watch the Perseids out in the country;
97. Go camping

Little late on the updating, sad to say. I started a draft of this back when it was fresh news, didn't possess the attention span to finish it, and it sat in drafts for over a month. But as a wise man once said, "know thine enemy." It's not specifically applicable, but it's good advice, regardless.

But I digress.

So, Jason and I went camping in August. There were supposed to be more people going with us, but that's all we'll say about that. Suffice it to say, however, that a good time was had by both (in this case, 'all').

Here's a tip, though, for anyone inclined to go camping on a weekend in August, and don't plan on hiking five miles to get to your site: either go somewhere that takes reservations (which translates into a site that will probably be overpopulated by kids and people with RVs [why do people 'camp' in an RV? if you want to see nature but not really experience it, well, there's always the Discovery Channel]), or plan on getting to your campsite as early as possible on Friday. If you intend to show up Saturday morning, even early Saturday morning, well, you'll end up spending about five hours trolling for somewhere (pretty much anywhere) you'll be allowed to set up a tent.

We ended up spending Saturday night at Lake Easton State Park. I'm not a big fan of camping at state parks, and here's why: we spent roughly half our time watching kids on bikes almost running into Jason's car. Also, there was the major road a couple hundred yards behind our campsite, so from an auditory point of view, it was like camping next to Hwy 99 (without the hookers). Not ideal. On the bright side, at least we didn't have to turn around and come home, as we got the last campsite at this park (and possibly the last site in western Washington).

Then on Sunday morning, we got up early, packed up, and were out by 10am. Because virtually everyone goes home early Sunday, we made our way back to our first choice camping location, Cooper Lake. Man, talk about night and day comparisons. We got there at around 11am, and the place was deserted (a stark contrast to the day prior, when it was virtually overrun). We found this excellent little campsite that was reasonably isolated from the rest of the area, and even had its own private access trail to the lake itself.

On a completely unrelated tangent, it was perfect if, say, we had needed room for two more tents. You know, if we had needed them.

The only problem we were looking at, however, was the fact that the temperature had cooled a bit from the sunny first day, and the skies had gone completely overcast. Given that the timing of the trip (and the reason we were camping until Monday) was set to coincide with the Perseids, that was acting as a bit of a spirit dampener for me, though I was trying to keep a positive, "well, if it's out of our control, there's no sense letting it bother me" type vibe. Every so often, blue skies would threaten to start breaking through. That would last about fifteen minutes, before the clouds closed back up and seemed even denser than before. Finally, we ended up going to bed a little after dark, and on a near whim, set an alarm to get back up a few hours after sundown, just in case.

Damn good thing we did, too. Go to bed at about 9, dense cloud cover. Get up at about 11pm, stick head out of tent, skies are damn near crystal clear. One of the main reasons we wanted to get far out of the city for this, as well, is that this year the Perseids also happened to coincide exactly with a new moon. Meant almost zero light pollution. Having been so long since I'd been camping in the first place, I'd really forgotten what an amazing sight the night sky is, when you get up in the mountains. Add onto that a spectacular cosmic fireworks show, well, words like 'spectacular' and 'incredible' just don't seem sufficient.

Suffice to say, it was a good trip. :)