9.28.2005

And As We Wind On Down The Road...

So here it is... My 27th birthday.

My friend Mike was kind enough to call me earlier today, and kinder enough to remind me I'm lucky to not be a rock star. 27 is the death age for rock stars. So I suppose it's a good thing neither my rock group nor my hip hop group has blown up.

YET.

I'll worry if it happens before I hit 28.

So instead of dead rock stars, I get to focus on the good aspects of my birthday, things like calls from friends and family, cake, and the super-ass party we're throwing at The House Of Ideas this weekend. Also, I get to reminisce on how this past weekend, Cait helped me to fulfill my lifelong dream of swimming with sharks. No joke. MUCH more on that, and the party, in forthcoming posts.

But for now, all this dead rock star talk had me thinking... I've been meaning to compile my Led Zeppelin Greatest Hits collection for some time now, so as a gift to myself (besides my new DAWKINS JERSEY!), I decided to do that today. Those who know me well can tell you Zeppelin is my lifelong favorite band. They're pretty much the reason I started listening to music, and so I feel like I owe my whole musical sensibility to them. I go on these Zeppelin binges... I'll wind up not listening to them much for months on end, and then some switch will flip in my brain, and I'll listen to them exclusively for days.

Clocking in at around 3 hours and 15 minutes, this list comprises my favorites, and also represents the ideal concert set in the perfect hypothetical world (of course they'd extend "Dazed And Confused" into a 30-minute psych-out jam, so it would be closer to four hours). In said perfect hypothetical world, I'd be seeing them from the 10th row of an enormous amphitheater, John Bonham would still be alive, Robert Plant would still have a voice, Sandy Denny would be there to sing "The Battle of Evermore," and this asshole wouldn't exist. Before "In The Light," Robert would kindly wish me a happy birthday.

Enjoy the list, and thanks to all family, friends, and well-wishers who have called or written to wish us here at NTG a happy 27th.

Stay Inspired...


***************

1. Immigrant Song
2. Good Times Bad Times
3. Heartbreaker
4. Living Loving Maid
5. Since I've Been Loving You
6. Ramble On
7. Out On The Tiles
8. The Ocean
9. Down By The Seaside
10. In The Evening
11. The Wanton Song
12. Over The Hills And Far Away
13. Communication Breakdown
14. Misty Mountain Hop
15. Trampled Under Foot
16. In The Light
17. The Battle Of Evermore
18. Achilles Last Stand
19. Dazed And Confused
20. Whole Lotta Love
21. Nobody's Fault But Mine
22. The Song Remains The Same
23. Sick Again [* JMP note: slot 23 has been changed to Moby Dick]
24. Houses Of The Holy
25. In My Time Of Dying
26. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
27. What Is And What Should Never Be
28. Bring It On Home
29. The Lemon Song
30. How Many More Times
31. Four Sticks
32. Going To California
33. No Quarter
34. Stairway To Heaven
35. When The Levee Breaks


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9.27.2005

Eagles Pic Of The Week




This is an attempt at a regular weekly post here on NTG!

Let's hope this doesn't go the way of the G-Stop Graffiti Watch and the Karate Belt Status Update posts. In defense of the KBSU, I didn't realize at posting time that it would take months upon months to advance belts. So it still could technically qualify as a regular post, once I make orange and Issue 2 hits the page.

Ahhh, those were the old days of blogging... So innocent and fay...

But now onto the real shit. This real shit will last because it's the Eagles, man. If you don't get siked by that, you must not have the capacity to feel anything. You wouldn't even cry at your mother's funeral.

Each week, I will post a fantastic Eagles pic from the week. This week's (top of post) is from the instant right after hamstring-injury-stricken kicker David Akers narrowly made a game-winning 23-yard field goal, after which he collapsed in a heap on the field, smiling and laughing in agony.

That's just the thing about Akers. He's one of those athletes who just won't ever quit when it matters. Like Chase Utley*, only with a shaved head.

[READER: Uh, Akers is sitting next week, JMP...]

JMP: And he deserves it, damn it! Brava, Akers.

And just for good measure, I'm posting this one. Those of you who know me know the whole story behind it.




[* - check out this CHASE UTLEY FAN PAGE I found in my late-night internet meanderings.]


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9.22.2005

Rollie Fingers: REDUX!



Yes indeed! A mere day after expressing my anger and disillusionment with MLB.COM, they send the correct shirt. Finally. Only took them 6 weeks and four separate orders.

See? This proves my theory: Nothing Terribly Grandiose is the most powerful blog in the galaxy. MLB.COM fell to my mighty whim, and if they are not immune to my wrath, who can be?

I'm coming for you next, Republicans! None of you is safe!

[Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct. Don't argue with me.]


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9.21.2005

NTG Backlog Catch-Up #2!

The Rollie Fingers T-Shirt Saga



Flashback to August 9th, 2005...

While sitting at home bullshitting with Zack and Cait about life, baseball, Bush being a dick, and the like, we got on the topic (as is by no means uncommon) of old-skool baseball uniform color schemes. Two color schemes of which I'm a big fan are the 80's Phillies powder blue and maroon, as modeled here by the most-pimpin'-est of venerable Phillies greats, Von Hayes:



...and the San Diego Padres' brown/yellow/orange scheme, represented by the pic at the top of this post.

Well, my impulse buying instinct kicked in, so I checked out MLB.COM to see what kind of gear I could get. After searching around a bit, I settled for the San Diego Padres Hometown Legend #34 t-shirt. Rollie Fingers, man.

Now, I'm not gonna front like I'm a huge Rollie Fingers fan, but there are two reasons I went with this shirt. One, his name is ROLLIE FINGERS. I don't care who you are, but that's a cool ass name. Anyone who disagrees with that must not have a soul. It's the kind of name that sticks in your head, that makes you like the dude just because his name is what it is. It's the same principle by which Zack loves Jose Canseco. Seriously, ask him sometime: "Yo, why do you love Jose Canseco so much?" And his answer will be: "Because he's JOSE FUCKING CANSECO, man!" Same principle applies for Dolph Lundgren.

AND Rollie Fingers. Reason two, Rollie rocked the BEST handlebar mustache of any ball player. Ever. Check it:



Rollie was adamant about keeping his 'stache, against all odds. According to one source:

"Fingers turned down a chance to continue his career with the Reds in 1986, when he refused to shave his trademark handlebar mustache to comply with club owner Marge Schott's policy against facial hair. Fingers said he would shave his mustache if Schott shaved her dog."

~http://www.padresnation.com


So, my buying this shirt is a fitting tribute to Mr. Fingers, a steadfast baseballer who knew the meaning of principle.

The problem, however, is that SHOP.MLB.COM seems hell-bent on not allowing me to own this shirt. I initially ordered the shirt that night, August 9th. It arrived a number of days later, and to my dismay I found it was the wrong shirt. It was a Padres shirt, but it was a sickly shade of mustard yellow, with a white and brown circular logo on the front.

"That sucks," I thought. "But I'll send it back and it'll be fine."

Called the site and explained what happened, sent the shirt back on their dime. No problem. Then I went camping.

When I got back, my first day into work I found a package waiting for me. Tore it open, and what did I find? The SAME wrong shirt, mustard yellow with the brown and white logo. Now I was pissed.

This meant I was on my THIRD time ordering this shirt, and I told the phone rep I was none too pleased. He gave me the usual cloying response and told me they wanted to keep me as a customer, blah blah blah. So I placed order #3 with a discount. Fine.

Time passed. No shirt. After 10 days or so, I checked my delivery status online, and according to the delivery tracker, the package had been sent back to their warehouse. In the words of so many Craig's List Rants and Raves posters, WTF?!

Seriously, man, WTF?!?!

Turns out DHL just happened to conveniently forget to include the street name and building number on the address, so the package was simply addressed to "Joe Pisch, New York, NY, 10036." Thanks, DHL. Really, thanks.

Due to SHOP.MLB.COM's ass-backwards return policy, I had to YET AGAIN order this shirt. I all but cracked up when the phone rep told me this. Placed order #4.

After all that, I got the order confirmation email about two hours later. They had the right shirt listed, but the wrong size. Once again, got on the phone with an MLB.COM phone rep, and prepared to place order #5 while laughing half-maniacally and probably scaring the poor girl on the other end. She sounded kinda cute too. Sorry, "Jessica," if I scared you.

Jessica kindly informed me that they were all out of everything but extra large, which was probably why my order for a large got changed. So, thankfully, order #5 was unnecessary. I have yet to receive the shirt, but delivery is slated for this Friday, September 23rd. We'll see what actually happens. I'll keep you all posted.

In the meantime, here's a great source of info for our friend, Rollie.

But yo, for real, MLB.COM, is this any way to treat customers? I've been buying stuff online for a good number of years now, and this could rank as my single worst experience. Of course, my new-found respect for Rollie Fingers has reminded me of keeping the right principles in perspective; will the earth stop turning if I never receive this shirt? No, it won't. So I have to sit back and laugh at the absurdity of the whole ordeal. And you might think "Well, just don't ever order anything from SHOP.MLB.COM again." But it's not that simple. They also have THIS.

CURSE YOU, MLB.COM!!!

You may have won this round, but the war isn't over!


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9.20.2005

NTG Backlog Catch-Up #1!



YO!

Yo, I know what you're saying. "It's about time you catch up on that expansive backlog of posts that are looooong overdue!"

Actually, I'm saying that to myself. That and "SHUT UP!" Actually, I just said that to Suzy Kolber. That lady's annoying as hell.

Here's installment #1: a short photo essay of my trip to Ellis Island.

My story? I'm not a bum... I'm a jerk.

That aside, my mom was in town for a weekend last month, and she specifically wanted to hit Ellis Island to look up her grandparents' names on the wall. She knew they emigrated from Italy, but she didn't know in what year, on what ship, etc. So off we went to check the registry.

Enjizzz-oy the snizzz-aps!


***************

After the tiringly long odyssey (which is redundant, I suppose... is there such a thing as a short odyssey?) to get to Battery Park, we wound up on the ferry.



On the way, we passed Lady Liberty. I yelled to her, asked what she thought about that fact that Bush is a genocidal war-mongering asshole. She didn't answer.







This is the entrance to the Ellis Island Museum. Note Cait's ass in the foreground.

Hi honey!



I like the composition in this one a lot. I snapped it just before the pigeon took off. Check the smiley face, too.



Once we got in, we checked the registry for my great-grandfather, Antonio Tedesco.



On our way out to the wall to look for his name, we passed this. From the one direction it looks as such:



Then from the other direction...



We made our way outside to the name wall.



The computer kindly told us where we could find his name on the massive wall, with its hundreds of thousands of names:



After finding his name, Mom and I swore to find out more about what year he and his wife arrived, what ship, etc. [Ed. Note: we've recently found out, Antonio emigrated in 1914, and we're still tracking down distant relatives to see if they any more info.]

Here's the requisite skyline picture:



On our way back in, we passed this display... I kind of like the color scheme of the people. It's so true-to-life; all men are green, and all women are orange. Pure and simple! Also, check Mom in the upper-left corner.



From there we hit the Registry Room, which, according to this sign, processed 5,000 people a day for almost 25 years. That's a lotta-ass people. It also, not according to the sign, processed Vito Andolini, who would become Vito Corleone, who would become the Don of all Dons.



The registry room ceiling provided an outlet for my "photographing things from directly beneath" fetish:





From the Registry Room Balcony:



These semi-circular windows are at either end of the Registry Room. Here it is today:



And in 1907. Check the reflection of the ceiling, and Pentax at the bottom of the frame. I like this one a lot:



Before we left we checked out this photography exhibit. The photographer, Augustus Frederick Sherman, was a clerk at Ellis, and an amateur photographer. His photos of immigrants at Ellis in the early 1900's are some of the most well-known. It's pretty inspiring to see an amateur photographer have such an impact.



Needless to say, I love the reflection in this one.



Inscription: "Russian baby - 11 mos., 55 pounds."



I could not stop looking at this kid. His face just has so much character. According to the inscription (not shown), he's one of 8 orphans.



This was one of my favorites from the photo gallery, specifically for the inscription:

"Peter Meyer - 5'7" Denmark. 'Mauretania' Apr 30 '09.
Wealthy Dane in search of pleasure."



Yo, if I ever emigrate, that's the reason I'm giving.

"And why do you want to move to Ireland, Mr. JMP?"

"Why, in search of pleasure, of course. That, and our president is a brain-dead fool."

***************

You probably can't tell, but this post took me three days to compile and finish. See? I work hard on this thing! That Suzy Kolber joke was from a game Zack and I watched two nights ago!

I promise, I'll try to get back on some kind of real track. If only work hadn't become so... work-y.

Yes, that is now officially a word, and I own ALL rights to it. If you use it in print or speech, you must pay me.

Handsomely.


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9.17.2005

Where The Hell Have I Been?

I've been asking myself that same question, readers.

These past two weeks have been really hectic. Ever since I got back from camping, I've found myself slammed at work and unproductive at home. See, most of the writing and maintenance for NTG has been happening during the work hours. This is possible because I have not been consistently busy at work for several months, so I've mostly wiled away the hours with self-indulgent daily postings.

These past two weeks have not followed that pattern. I've been busy every day with clients from SpikeTV working on two different campaigns. If you happen to watch Spike, pay attention for spots advertising "Spike's Most Irresistible Women" and spots celebrating Latino Heritage Month. Between the two campaigns there should be about 12 spots, and I've been editing all of them.

But life hasn't been all irresistible women and Latino heritage... Life at home has been very relaxed, mainly because I'm exhausted when I come home, so I wind up vegging on the couch watching cable with Zack and Cait. This is by no means un-enjoyable, but it has been detremental to productive activities like managing this albatross that is NTG. You people demand so much of me! I'm only one man!

Of course I'm kidding, I love you all and would marry you all if you would all simply move with me to Utah.

Watching this much TV has at least kept me informed on some of today's recent issues. The three shows to which I've been most recently introduced, and what I've learned from them, are:

Real Time with Bill Maher - Bill and his guest panelists have taught me that Republicans are all a festering pile of human waste, concerned only with their own financial and social status, at the expense of the poor, the meek, the underprivileged, and all the people Jesus claims will inherit the world in his Beatitudes. The leader of this throng of heartless, soulless fuckers is the King Of All Fuckers himself, George W. Bush, whose goal in life seems to be to meander about the planet systematically fucking up life for everyone but him and remaining blissfully ignorrant to the fact that he represents everything that is wrong with this country, the Church, and humankind in general. Not to turn this into a Fuck Bush post, but... um... yeah, FUCK BUSH. To paraphrase a quote by Eminem: "Fuck [Bush] with the free-est of speech this Divided States of Embarrassment will allow me to have." I think Bush should be strapped to a chair and slapped in the face every ten seconds by a never-ending procession of Iraqi citizens and residents of the Gulf Coast. I'm with you, Kanye.

And YES, I'll have you know, Kanye does read this blog. I'm actually rather good friends with Kanye. I laid down the bassline on "Get 'Em High."

Entourage - The (mis)adventures of Vinnie, E, Drama, and Turtle have taught me that if I become an actor, I'll be able to spend my mid-twenties in carefree perpetual adolescence, frequenting high-class brothels, smoking copious amounts of ganja, sleeping until whenever I want, working on feature films with James Cameron, casually dating Mandy Moore, and having sex with any woman who looks at me twice.

Mandy Moore's kinda hot. I guess.

Punk'd - Seeing celebrities humiliated can be really hilarious.

That's... ummm... what I... learned.

???

Here's a picture I took recently...



I call it Poz At Work.


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9.06.2005

The Best Food In The World...

...is cooked on sticks.

I'm convinced of that now after my first ever camping trip. Of course, as promised, there are extensive snaps. Here's a not-so-brief rundown of the adventure in the woods:


***************

The first night of camping was at Dolly Copp campground in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. To get there, we passed through three states in which I had never been before: Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire (or as I like to call it, "New CAMPshire") itself.


Fischer managing the fire at Dolly Copp.


Remember that "food on sticks" thing? Yeah, from the title of this very post. I can't tell you how many hot dogs on sticks we ate. They were nothing short of delicious.


Ben busted out the classic Jiffy Pop, too.


The signature beverage of the trip: luke warm cans of Bud. It's funny how tasty things like that become when the only other option is boiled pond water!


Fischer, in mid-fireside-introspection.


Ben dubbed this picture "roughing it." Yeah, s'mores, Bud and food cooked in tinfoil is how the cavemen used to survive.


This was our "ceiling" at Dolly Copp.


The first (of many) camping lessons I learned was how to light a fire. The second was how to tie up the "bear bag" and hang it from a tree.


The second day we arrived at Baxter State Park in Maine.

Camping is something I wasn't sure I'd love, but didn't expect to love that much. It totally feeds my "separation from everything" anxiety, which fuels my need to get away from New York, away from the job, the chaos, from EVERYTHING, good & bad. To be able to be truly distant, just think & relax.

But this trip wasn't all Budweiser and relaxing. The first full day at Baxter, we did a 10.7 mile hike. We started at 8:52AM. Fischer and I finished around 7 that night, Ben and Aimee came in shortly after.


This was just the beginning. Don't they look happy and energetic?


Fischer, overlooking our two ponds. The one further in the distance is where our campsites were.


Aimee, Ben, and Fischer take a break on the way up the first peak.


This was the look on my face after about two hours, when Ben laughed and said "welcome to the brutally un-fun world of hiking."


Parts of the hike were EXACTLY what I have the urge to do in the city: climb around on rocks! There were giant fields of rocks and boulders of all sizes along the hike trail, walls of rock that we had to scramble & run over, following the tiny little blue paint marks that kept us on the trail. Other parts were dense forests with a small path through it, with sticks and leaves slapping your legs (if you choose to wear shorts like I did you feel them a lot more). Sometimes you're running over bare dirt, sloped at an angle that causes you to slip on little mini-landslides, and at other spots there are fields and patches of delicious blueberries. You can pick them and eat them right off the bushes. Of course none of us expected the hike to be as brutal as it was, and none of us packed enough water. Some parts of the trail, especially at the beginning, were gruelling in their simplicity, but after a few hours my body practically went on auto-pilot. Sometimes it was actually easier to jog than to slow down... it's the loss of momentum that can kill you.

But the reward for all the hiking and exhaustion is breathtaking views of nothing but silence as far as the eye can see. Mountain ranges of Maine, the sky, the sparse clouds, trees, rivers & lakes, the home of hundreds of thousands of animals and plants, the rest of life that I forget about at home. We're visiting their collective home. It's beautiful and tranquil, so silent that a scraping leaf sounds thunderous.


Ben, after we reached our first peak, the Peak of the Ridges, elevation 3225 feet.


Yours truly, at the peak.


The four of us at the peak.


Our "guides" along the way.


Fischer, after scaling one of the precarious rock walls.


Note my shoe at the bottom of this snap. I was hoping to give some semblance of the angle of this rock hill.


This was another peak, the Traveler, Maine's highest volcanic mountain.


After the hike while we cooked dinner, this little guy decided to come say hi.


Ben, morning after the hike.


My/Fischer's tent, outside...


...and inside.


Here's some natives of South Branch Pond:






Every night we sat around the fire, cooked dinner, drank Budweisers, told stories. We ate a lot of hot dogs, corn on the cob, potatoes. The night of the hike we made rice & beans & beef stew. I've realized that the principle of relativity constantly comes into play when camping: relative clean-ness, for example. When you fill a small plastic cup with boiled pond water, and there are little pieces of dirt and sticks and shit floating in it, you look at it and think "meh... clean enough," and you slug it down and it's delicious. Same goes for the food: when you've been hiking for 10 hours, rice & beans & beef stew in a little aluminum bowl is like ambrosia. Most meals we'd stand around shoveling food in our mouths, so hungry that the eating itself only takes two or three minutes.

We also canoed all the time at Baxter. Both of our campsites were on the edge of South Branch Pond, and it's either a short hike from the ranger's station, or a short canoe. More often than not, we'd canoe. One afternoon Ben and Fischer and I canoed over to the adjacent pond, connected to ours via a rocky stream. I had no sandals or aquasocks or anything, and walking across the jagged rocks was nothing terribly enjoyable. To get myself across, I wound up having to "Samurai Jack" myself to get the mental strength to do it. It was painful, especially considering the almost-11 miles of hiking the day before. At one point, I stopped walking and told myself out loud, "Be Zen. Just walk." Once I told myself that, my posture straightened, my feet got stronger, and I just walked. I made it much faster and more gracefully, until Ben was able to float his sandals downstream to me. From that point we could canoe, and we made our way through the other pond to a rock jump that some kindly Maine hippies tipped us off to. We jumped a couple times from about 25 feet, jumping OUT to avoid the rocks on the way down. My second jump took about 30 minutes, just sitting on the edge of the rocks. I sat and thought about everything and nothing, and when my body and mind agreed it was a good idea and they were ready, I slowly pushed myself off the edge. It was really hard. I don't exactly know why. The next day, Aimee and Ben and I went back. I didn't jump.


Ben, overlooking the jump.

These were taken with my repeat-shot feature:










The last two nights at Baxter we stayed in a lean-to. It was different than being in the tent, namely because the entire front wall is open to the world. It made it a bit more communal though. We spent much of the last day in various states of exhaustion, sitting around playing Yahtzee and card games.


Our lean-to.


Lunch: sardines. I refrained. Check out the sunburn on Aimee's arm, a testament to the fact that she should have used my SPF 45 Panama Jack.


Needless to say, the fire was always a worthy snap subject:













Fischer and I. Check the beard growth! I came home looking like Grizzly Adams.


Our source of light, other than flashlights.


This was my waking view from the lean-to.


This was the other one.


One afternoon while we relaxed and ate, this enormous bug paid us a visit. I don't know exactly what he was, but he was bigger than any roach I've ever seen in New York. He was friendly though, just checking us out. He was also kind enough to pose while Fischer & I snapped him. Afterward, Ben picked him up and dropped him back in the forest.












I passed all kinds of little personal tests on this trip: the rocky stream, the jump, the hikes, even sleeping outside was new to me. Learning to start a good fire, live in the woods, set up a tent, use those valuable canoeing skills I got in college. Seriously, it was a gym elective, and I learned to canoe in the campus pool and the Yellow Breeches Creek behind Messiah College. I was officially a certified canoeist, and I still proved myself to still be somewhere between competent and good, both solo and tandem.


Fischer and I went out on a photo expedition one morning.


This is one of mine.


This is one of his.


The morning of our last full Baxter day, I went out for a little solo hike. Ben told me of a short hike to some waterfalls he and Aimee had done last year, so I set out to find them.



Find them, I did not. BUT, I did find this narrow river of cascades, about 30 feet below the hiking trail beneath a rock wall. Again, my climbing urge took over and I scaled down the wall to dunk my head in the stream. I expected the water to be ice cold, but it was actually perfectly swimmable, and had it been deep enough I would have gone in. It was nice to go on a short hike alone.


The cascades from above.


Yours truly before scaling down the rock wall.


Easily the biggest caterpillar I've ever seen, inching along the road on the way back.


For the whole trip, I was sore all over, my arms and back from canoeing, and everything else from the hikes. Sleep was so deep out there. Everything shuts up and just lives. The fire slowly dies & the burning embers tell stories. I saw entire worlds form and die in seconds in those embers. When darkness falls completely, the stars are out in the thousands. I wish I knew the constellations better, because there's a whole soap opera going on up there. The stories of hundreds of lives are painted there for us if we can only decipher them.




As a final send-off to the vacation, on our final night we enjoyed some fine cigars Fischer brought back from his recent trip to the Dominican Republic.




I got to see so much of the rest of life that I forget in my day-to-day. I needed to slow things down & escape. I know my sanity is at risk if every now and then I don't get away from EVERYTHING around me. Plus, I had been meaning to find legitimate uses for my Swiss Army Knife. Using it around the apartment doesn't count!

I think what I'm getting at with all this is, I'm doing really well. As long as I can take small moments to just turn everything else off, I can relax & restore. It's like karate class: 90 minutes to relax and focus, but also physically exhaust myself. This whole trip was like an 8-day karate class. I got to infuse total chill-ness with gruelling physical activity. Although camping is a bit less violent.

And I still came home exhausted, but restored.


***************


That's the rundown, thanks for sticking with me! As usual, these snaps are my faves from what I took (which crested 250 pictures). Look for some of them in the 2005 Favorites, coming in February!


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