Hard to believe...

youth group 1, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

... that trips like this one with my church group were such a huge part of my youth. Oh, youth.

From the vaults: Neon

neon signs, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

An experiment from back in my Red House days. These signs are long gone from The Drag.

Forgotten photos: Watching Dad watch sports

dad's sports-watching face, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Let's continue with tight shots of disembodied heads, shall we? This funny face is from an A&M-Army football game we all went to in San Antonio last year.

Forgotten photos: Smoking on Labor Day

seemay smoking, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

I have 119 folders with images from different events I've shot with JUST my 20d. Every one of them contains at least one image, I'd say, as good as this. I wish I had the time for them all. This is from Labor Day at Long's nearly two years ago.

From the vaults: What I wouldn't give

grady what?, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Old picture of Grady on one of our formerly annual ski trips, every spring break with the church youth group. Grady went skiing again this spring break with some friends. I worked too much. I need a vacation.

From the vaults: Lilly at Hirshhorn Gallery

sophisticate, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

From the vaults: At the original Red House

kriston galactus jump, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Capps came to town last week. We did some drinking at a nice new bar here in town called, oddly, Red House. It's literally an old, remodeled, red house attached to the back of a restaurant, over on the east side. Recommended.

Shortly after our evening at the Red House, Capps decided to ruin the rest of his weekend by getting food poisoning. That's what happens when you let your stomach gets all gentrified on District food and art-gallery noshes.

Y'all might remember Galactus, the big, black, impertinent cat who showed up on our porch demanding to be fed as much food as we could afford. As you can see, he was a jerk, but he could also be endearing.

Dirt — in HD!

chat pile in progress, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

A while ago, I got a new laptop with an HD widescreen monitor. I gotta say, highly recommended, especially if you do a lot of photography. Recently I've been reexamining some of my old shots for the insane level of detail that the new screen brings out. Tiny specks are crisper than I imagined, especially when I view them at the large size on Flickr. The photo above is a good example, and so's this one. Although, I guess it doesn't make much sense to link to the images since you can't see them on my screen. Come on back when you upgrade, I guess.

Found while cleaning up

picher church, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Came across the photos from when I went to Picher, Oklahoma to do a story on that dying mining town. They're now up in a set on Flickr.

Also found this old conversation jotted down from when Amanda and I were moving in:

As the song "Chocolate Jesus" plays

Amanda: This is my favorite Tom Waits song.

Me: I thought you didn't like church.

Amanda: This is about the opposite of church. It's about chocolate.

SXSW madness

wayne coyne interviews some weirdo, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips, interviewing a guy from the band Hug who totally jocked Leslie's style. More details and a video on Austinist. SXSW is crazy.

From the Turtle Pond, sans turtles

turtle pond lightpost, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Got some good turtle action shots that I'll get up eventually.

From the vaults: Spamtruck

on top of the spam truck, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Someone just fav'd this on Flickr and looking at it for the first time in months, I gotta say, it appreciates in value, especially out of context. So I'll leave it that way.

Where the buffalo — gross!

girls love the buffalo, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

This is what it looks like when you feed a buffalo. Believe me, that slimer is terrifying. Amanda got a huge kick out of it, though.

Still working on ripping off Edward Weston

R cable, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Full fawning imitation will be achieved when bland inanimate objects seem perfectly suited for still lifes.

RIP, DJ

RIP, DJ, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Austin Toros coach Dennis Johnson died of a heart attack not too long ago. I'd forgotten about all the pictures I took at a game a couple weeks before until I found them on a spare memory card. Sure enough, there were a few frames of Johnson, which is both eerie and sad. The Sports Guy explains DJ's career better than I ever could.

Gunner? I hardly know her.

My god. He just burned through what would have been something like 10 rolls of film. Those pulses at the end are due to the camera's internal memory filling up as it dumps images to the card, and even that's happening at an amazing rate. Apparently Canon set out to build the equivalent to one of those stereo systems that threatens to explode right out of a hooptie's trunk. Lord knows there's no practical purpose, but everyone wants one.

Via Strobist.

That Edwards smile

that edwards smile, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

J-Ed was in Austin this morning for a taping of an interview show. Couldn't get him to put on a cowboy hat, unfortunately.

Blogged it for the Observer. I wish the post were funnier. That's always a no-win situation: sitting there looking at your writing thinking, this needs more jokes. That's like trying to put the juice back in an overcooked steak. Nothing really comes from forcing it, and you're still left with blandness.

From the vaults: '80s Prom Party

matt goofy, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Going to try to hold myself to posting a photo a day, and using those days when I have nothing new to bring back golden oldies who never got prominent blog attention before. I tend to forget that all of my friend may not have, you know, seen every one of the 4,000 pictures I have online.

Eye on the prize

llama eye, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Feeding time on the exotic zoo tour. A lucky shot before I had time to switch from the zoom lens.

A zoo by any other name would smell like a zoo

what's a manlier word for cute?, originally uploaded by Mr. Wright.

Been a while since I posted, which is lucky because I've been in a foul mood. Working too much, dealing with the various jack-asses of the world, etc. Wanted to put this up as a protest post, against the political tit-tat that dominates my work. Last weekend, Amanda and I made the hour-long journey back to the Exotic Resort Zoo in Johnson City to play with the tiny goats. It was a needed break that ended with unfortunately symbolic timing when the zoo closed promptly at 5 o'clock.