No sugar tonight

Mike Rocket has served as an inspiration for fellow weight-watchers who participated in this year's Pound Plunge weight loss challenge. Rocket posted videos of his progress and efforts on Youtube, granting him the "most spirited" award during the competition. "My wife kept me in line this year," he said. "She's kind of my moral compass on that."

Turtle staredown

Quinten Fuson, 5, has a staring competition with a box turtle during the Arbor Day celebration at the Missouri Department of Conservation office on Saturday. The event featured education about plants and animals for visitors, as well as a free tree giveaway. Even Smokey the Bear made an appearance to greet participants at the door.

Earth day in Columbia

Went down to the earth day celebration in Columbia today. It happened a week late due to a rain delay last weekend. Either way, it was a great time as always — flowers in bloom, lots of people, makes me miss Columbia.

Bad boys of the BNSF

I was on assignment at the rail yard. In case you ever entertained the idea of listening to a safety seminar, listening to one about ethanol when you know next to nothing about it is almost as engaging as watching paint dry, except lacking the sense of accomplishment afterward. Luckily the guys got to climb in, on, and around the trains and they were all very friendly. Here are a few images from the shoot.

Trash can on the roof, man...

What do you get when you mix too much early-afternoon drinking with a task your wife said she expects done before dinner?
This guy.

The battle of 1863

This was easily the most difficult and challenging photo assignments I've had so far. I spent several days with Civil War reenactors from throughout the U.S. They set up camp, established military order and prepared for battle. I spent the first day watching them set up. Then I returned at about 5 a.m. to make sure I was there fore reveille. Then it rained... a lot. I had to keep shooting though, using a plastic bag over my camera and hoping for the best. Throughout the time I was there, these guys were some of the friendliest most hospitable people I've worked with. So if any of you see this, thank you for helping me out. They really do live as close as possible to the reality they're portraying for a few days, something I would have a hard time doing I think.
Unfortunately after all of this I only had a few hours to put together a multimedia slideshow. Looking back, there was audio I had, but didn't include, photos that I would have put in, but really I was just too tired to do all of that in time. That's one of the drawbacks of our fast-paced, "need it now" mentality in this culture. By rushing things, they get put out there, but at a great cost...quality. So, with that, HERE is a link to the slideshow and the story written by Jimmy Myers (who helped me with Final Cut when I really needed it.) Above are a couple that made it in, and one that didn't.

Clean Room

A shot from a recent tour of the technology incubator near the Missouri Western campus. Two suits in the mock clean room.

Burning man

Well, not really, just an outtake I liked from a feature hunt dealing with open burning season.

St. Joseph City Track Meet

First time shooting track. Got my first sunburn of the year and some more sports experience. Here are a few images from the event.

Flinging dirt

A scene I found while driving around the other day...
Jeffrey Epps, 7, rides his mini 4-wheeler around his backyard during a sunny afternoon. With the ups and downs of the weather, it was the second time this year Jeffrey could take it out to ride. "It's my favorite Christmas present I got," he said.

Bring us, an egging...

Every year, we dye Easter eggs and I take a picture. This is 2009's contribution.

Easter egg hunt...or...How I almost lost my legs to a horde of toddlers

I started to get worried when they started showing up by the dozens. Then the event organizer came up to me and after chatting for a minute said, "You've never done this before have you?" Then he said it would be safest for me to stand at least 40 feet away from the starting line. When the siren sounded, they came. Like a swarm of locusts with a thirst for blood they descended on this photographer. In a matter of seconds an entire baseball field full of candy was gone, and I just barely got away unscathed. On a side note, whoever the Easter bunny was...you might want to try to not look like you're gonna saw someone's face off with a fork if you want the kids not to scream. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have nightmares about yesterday.

McFire

Firefighters work to extinguish a grease fire at the McDonald's restaurant at 601 N. Belt Hwy on Thursday. The fire began underneath a french fry frier and firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze before the building was compromised.

A splash of color

Some students from a local high school started an art project at the Salvation Army shelter a few weeks ago. They turned the drab grey walls of the family room into an underwater mural. Great work for a good cause, it was a fun assignment to work on.

Senior Service Center

A shot from a story I worked on a few days ago. If a tax is not renewed, two senior service centers could shut down and also drastically cut back on their meals-on-wheels program.

Mad Hatters

I got sent out on a feature hunt a few days ago with not too much time to find one. I heard some women laughing across the street and figured it could be worth checking out. It turns out, the theater was throwing away a bunch of old props and hats, etc. to make their storage area less of a fire hazard. These women from KC were stopping by in St. Joe and found these big bags of hats. They were trying them all on and having a grand time with them. I stayed for a while and they loved it. They were all a lot of fun and one of the clown mask photos (not pictured) made for a decent standalone in the Midland section. Sometimes the best features can be found less than a block away.

No place to call home

HERE is a link to my latest multimedia piece. It was a story I found thanks to Judy, a great woman who runs the local food kitchen for the homeless. I wish I could have had more time to work on it and shoot, but things don't always work out like that. Let me know what you think in the comments. The above photo is an outtake from the shoot. He came back to the shelter right as it was closing. According to him, he went down to the river to sleep and got jumped by three gang members as an initiation. After he got two of them down, the other hit him in the face with a brick. The cut was still bleeding several hours later, but he didn't want to get stitches. I'll never stop thinking stories like this are important. No matter how much some people may think this has been done, or there's nothing new, as long as there are homeless people there is a problem with society. I hope I get more opportunities to show that with my camera.

Self test

I'm starting to get a pretty big backlog of stuff to post, but things have been very busy up here lately. Not enough time to sleep, let alone update the blog enough. Hopefully things will slow down a bit soon. Anyway, here is a shot from a feature hunt a few days ago. It started snowing pretty hard and icing intermittently. I drove past the Noyes complex at saw Conger Beasley (real name) walking on the track. He said he was out there to test his "mettle." I like it when people use the word mettle. So I submitted the photo.