A cute assignment

This shoot was fun. I had to photograph a vietnemese baby named Lydia, adobted by a family from Flushing.
It was funny because whenever I crouched to line up a shot, she would plow into me for a hug.

I mean c'mon. It was adorable.
Kids tend to like me, and I have no idea why.

It also gave me an idea for family portraits. They don't have to be cheesy, posed and canned. This was shot journalist-style, and her mother Becky helped me make sure she'd be making cute expressions.

I especially like the one on the left with Lydia being held as she looks into the camera. Something is really beautiful about it.

The one in the middle was published last week in the Flushing News.

D.C.

My D.C. trip proved that history is difficult to see from the middle of it.

Whether critical, supported, excited, or disappointed by Obama's election, suffice to say history was made. Lisa told me not since LBJ has there been so many to flock to an inauguration.

To get a run down of the day, go to my twitter account, www.twitter.com/timdjagielo

My phone died right at the Washington Monument, and it was really too cold to take the gloves off and thumb-type.

The day is easy to describe. We arrived in the D.C. compound at 4:30 a.m. and were off the bus by 6:30. I loaded myself down with equipment. I probably looked like a combat photographer with two cameras, lenses, a strobe, a voice recorder and pen and paper. It was surreal with all the police lights flashing through the night, and catching glimpses of the outlines of military humvees at checkpoints.

We were on our feet and outside until we returned to the bus at about 6p.m. that night.

My friend John and I were either working on heading towards the inauguration, or getting out of it after it ended.

We flocked with people towards gates we couldn't enter and were turned away, we stood beside 2.8 million people watching a screen shivering with our cameras, while being jostled by the impatient.

We witnessed a protest by a conservative group, and have never seen a presidents face on so many buttons, hats, bags, and coats, bejeweled and in print.

We were probably 20% of the populatation of attendees as whites, demographically.

Despite the discomfort, people really tried to work together and be patient. It could have easily been a massive disaster with that many people, and that few restrooms and access to water food and heat.

I recorded an hour of sound, shot about 30 minutes of video, and took over a thousand pictures. My camera weighed about 30 pounds by the time I met my releif back on the bus, and my teeth stopped chatering and my body stopped hurting.

Poor John would have like to have been carried by the end of the day.

I learned that the ends make the whole trip worth it. I couldn't have gotten these pictures from my couch at home on TV (I actually don't have a couch or TV.)

It's worth discomfort and getting your hands dirty when your life is enriched in the long-run and you have a testament to the ability to handle an historic situation.

Mr Jagielo goes to Washington

I'm about to head via bus with UM-Flint to the Inauguration- It's a cliche' by now, but this is history- something to tell the kids about someday.

I'll be doing regular mini-blogs at

www.twitter.com/timdjagielo

I'll be taking 3 cameras, a voice recorder, and hopefully enough batteries.

I bought a field coat for the pockets, as bags aren't allowed on the parade route or the National Mall.

I've got toiletries, a book, MP3 player, extra socks etc, and cash.

I hope to get some portfolio-quality stuff.

After sleeping on a couch and even the floor for a week, I'm hoping sleeping on a bus for two days won't be too bad... actually I forgot a pillow, damnitt.

Pictured is John and I about to board the buses...

God, get me running

I really, really need to move.

I really really need to make a lot of things happen, fast.
I need to pull a career out of thin air in 15 weeks.

I need to make something of myself.
I can make enough to pay rent, but I need to work on the rest of my life.

I see the other students around me and I feel... behind, sometimes.
Whenever I feel like this, it's literally time for me to run, and run, and run, until my lungs burn, and put myself through enough to feel good about pausing, and sitting.

There is so much to do, and I feel like I don't know where to start. This is the trough of my moods, when I feel cold, like my feet, and the weight of what needs to be done is stopping me from doing what needs to be done.

I have a story to write, I have interviews to do, I have assignments, I have to change my address, I have to pay my insurance bill on time for once.

I have to feel complete where I am.
Where I am is 27, a server, almost done with a BA.
Living with a roommate, with a band I have dreams of living off of.
I'm waiting, and I'm working, but am I working hard enough? Sometimes I wonder just what the hell I'm doing. Like now.

Does this stuff get to anyone else?
Of course it does.

There is an expression, that if everyone was standing together in a circle, and we all agreed to throw our problems into the center of the room to maybe pick someone else's, we would immediately grab up our problems and worries when we see what other's are dealing with.

One of our servers at Lonestar wore a neck brace because she just had an accident, as did a friend from school. We're not even going to talk about Gaza.

Normally I'm pretty unsinkable. I guess negativity to me is like 5 or so shots on New Years Eve- you feel better when you let it out.

That was a joke.

So, if any one feels like I do ( I think only like two people ever occasionally even read this) When I need to run, I need to find my shoes, find my (clean) shorts, and walk my ass over to the rec center. Symbolically, and run, and run, and run.

Trina-Belle: Iguana, vicious hunter of cut bananas, roomate.

So I have a four foot long common green iguana.

She's how I got my last girlfriend, so I don't think it's a bad thing.
She eats bananas, spinach, cauliflower, broccolli, and ferrets, if she could.

At my last apartment, she spent about half the time in her cage, the other half atop the radiators where she took her meals. Towards the end, she was actually using the bathroom for a bathroom. Hitting the toilet would have taken a little more training.

Now she sleeps in my room, on my pillow if I'd let her. She'll have to settle for the carpet with a space heater.

The reason is, the basement, even with heat, is too damn cold for a wire cage. I had glass cut to insulate it, but not only did I measure wrong, but the company left everything an inch too wide.

So until I get the cage set up, I have a roomate, and her name is Trina, named after a rapper of subtelty and tact: The Baddest Bitch.

Change, change, change

Isn't easy.

Even as my life changed to a very good thing, I resisted. A little. Then I gave in 100% and it was great, like being in a warm room, where nothing can touch you, everything negative comes flipped and positive.

Everyday things are more fun, when shared. Everything is a little brighter. Your mind can drift on currents of recent memories and look forward to making new ones. We can go to heights never experienced before, as was my experience, and see how great simple things in life can be.
These heights sting the memory, and set the bar painfully high. These heights can make the stomach sick, and force the mind away from thoughts that once held warmth and fulfillment.

Change can give you the best you've ever had. But despite what you may want, you may not be able to keep it.

We have to welcome change because you never know what it will bring. If we remain stagnant, we also know what we will always get: more of the same. Change brings in great things, and change takes them away.

Sometimes we know why they happen, and it doesn't matter because it's out of our hands, and sometimes we're in the dark, shaking our heads, wondering what the hell hit us.

We can't ask, "Why did this happen?"
We can't say, "But it would have been so great..." because those thoughts lead to rot. We can never move on.

I deserved the experience, and inversely, I don't deserve to sit and ask the aforementioned questions. In plain English, I don't get to be a little whiny bitch about anything.

We don't need it.

I appreciated every moment Lisa, I really did. I stand by everything I said, though I have one regret, and that is you deserved red roses from me, because of what they mean, and because one beautiful thing deserves another.

Take care, I'm still here.