I had a craving for some cookies while grocery shopping yesterday evening. I was going to grab a tube of the pre-made dough that you just throw in the oven and call it a night, but my awesome wife decided to make a batch for me…

I love her in that apron… hopefully she still loves me when I gain fifty pounds this week from eating her cookies.

I got to shoot at Warrensburg-Latham’s field for the first time this year during their homecoming game against Central A&M Friday night.

Something about the way that these two teams ran the ball… I had the hardest time keeping track of who was running with it in their hands.

Here’s what I saw in the half that I shot…

I don’t know what my problem is… I have some sort of love affair with the fluffy hats worn by the area marching bands.

For the photo nerds, photos were shot somewhere around ISO 6400, 1/320 @ f/4 without flash.

• Cardinals near playoffs with victory (Herald & Review)

We now officially have a dog… and his name is Oscar. Mal and I were racking our brains trying to figure something out. He wouldn’t even acknowledge some of the names we tried… I really wanted to go with Maverick, since he is as stubborn and stupid as some people I have seen recently that call themselves “mavericks”, but he didn’t respond to that one either. Maybe he just marches to a different beat.

Mal’s dad suggested Oscar, only after I vetoed Payton. Payton probably would have fit… he has a huge forehead, runs funny and walks with his tail between his legs when anything else comes near him. I couldn’t live with all of the other neighborhood dogs making fun of him, so I thought it was in his best interest to go with something besides Payton.

Oscar actually seems to respond to his new name. We’ll see how it goes.

Everytime I think of his name it reminds me of the University of Illinois Fight Song, Oskee Wow-Wow… so I like to call the dog Oscar Bow-Wow for fun.

Here’s a clip of the song from the Illinois Marching Bands website:

Thanks to everybody for the name suggestions… some of them gave us a good chuckle. I really liked Jay’s Dr. Death idea… but then my AP-style nerdiness came out and I couldn’t call him Doctor if he wasn’t a medical doctor, and then his name would just be Death.

I know… I need a life.

Here’s OB-W tracking down a squirrel in the yard this afternoon…

I saw this ad on my Facebook profile this morning. I didn’t know there was a problem with birdwatchers using small birds for pornographic purposes.

Just because I’m into taking pictures of things like Blue-Footed Boobies, White-Breasted Nuthatches, White-Rumped Sandpipers, Bushtits and the occasional Tufted Titmouse doesn’t make me some kind of freak…

Sometimes I even get excited when I see Western Wood-Pewees, Red-Headed Woodpeckers, American Woodcocks and maybe a Dickcissel or two. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me.

Ok… maybe birdwatching does sound kind of dirty.

Matt sent me this video tonight… freaking hilarious. Not far from what watching FOX News is really like.

I brought Dexter home from the Animal Hospital to try out for the weekend. I was already in love with the little guy, but we wanted to see how he did at home with a new environment and Furry McBitchface our cat, Max.

He loved the ride in the car… hopped right up from the hatch to the back seat and stuck his head out the window.

I wasn’t sure how Max would act when I brought a new animal home. I spent the first half-hour or so walking around the yard with the dog. Max just glared through the windows… he would watch from the living room while we were in the front yard and the kitchen when we were in the back yard. It was kind of funny.

I wish I could hear what animals thought… Max looked like he was pissed/jealous all at once. I imagine him having a French accent… I don’t know why, it just seems to fit in my head.

There wasn’t much drama when I came inside. Max came up and sniffed him and walked away. He has been getting braver as the day goes on… I think he’s trying to play with the dog, but he likes to come up and bat the dog in the face with his paw.

Mal came home and got to see the dog for the first time. We hung out in the yard for a while…

Max is definitely jealous, but Mal is doinga  good job of giving attention to both animals. Maybe I should sit and sulk to see if I can get a backrub too…

The vet named the dog Dexter, but he doesn’t seem to respond to it at all… and we aren’t a huge fan of the name, so we’re trying to come up with something new. Any suggestions?

So he’s here at the house now, and if all goes well I can go fill out the paperwork Monday morning.

I got to shoot MacArthur and Danville in a game Friday night. Both teams were undefeated coming into the game…

The first half was a pretty tight game, tied 7-7 at halftime. MacArthur wore Danville’s defense out in the second half, and pulled out a 35-7 win making them 6-0 on the year and in sole posession of first place in their conference.

The light was awful, but I made do with what I had.

Here are a few photos from the night…

The clouds over the field before teh game looked pretty neat. I should have worked it more, but I was trying to figure out the lighting situation.

The field was dark… for my photo friends it was 1/160 - f/2.8 @ ISO 6400… not ideal. I ended up taping two 580EXII flashes to the end of my lens set as slaves and firing them with the ST-E2 transmitter. It looked pretty ghetto, but the results looked decent. I was able to crank it up to 1/400 - f/2.8 @ ISO6400 and mostly avoid the blasted out flash look that I hate.

I asked Adam to take a photo of my sweet ghetto-flash. Pure class…

• First feels so good: MacArthur ‘D’ leads way to Big 12 lead (Herald & Review)

After shooting the first half of the MacArthur-Eisenhower game I hurried over to Millikin to shoot what was left of their game against Albion College. I barely made it. I think I had eight minutes left on the clock in the fourth quarter.

Here are a few from those eight minutes…

• Millikin defense turns Albion Black, (Big) blue in win (Herald & Review)

I got to shoot a game a couple weeks ago between the two city schools, MacArthur and Eisenhower. If it weren’t for the fact that I’d have to work weekend shifts all the time I’d love to always have high-school football on Saturday afternoons. Daylight games, especially on this MacArthur field, are pretty fun to shoot.

Night games, not so much. Their field is so dark it looks like a few Indiglo watches taped onto telephone poles. It’s bad.

MacArthur is undefeated this year, and they play Danville, who is also undefeated, tonight. I’ll be shooting the whole game thinking about how nice it would be if there was daylight.

Anyway, MacArthur demolished Eisenhower a couple weeks ago, here are a few photos from the first half…

• It’s Generals’ town: MacArthur now 4-0 after romping past Eisenhower (Herald & Review)

When I took Max to the vet last month one of the women working there said she would keep me in mind if any small to medium dogs came in for adoption. I said thanks and never really thought I’d hear much from them. I was shocked when we had a voicemail saying they had a dog that she thought I’d like…

I stopped by the animal hospital to check out Dexter, a small beagle that was brought in as a stray out in the country.

He’s freaking adorable — almost as cute and lovable as me — and very friendly… so I’m picking him up tomorrow morning to bring home for the weekend and see how he gets along with Mal and make sure Max doesn’t try to intimidate him to death.

Anybody want to come over and check out the potential new dog this weekend?

• Dexter (Animal Hospital of Monticello)