While walking back to the photo tent under the stands at Memorial Stadium after the Illinois game Saturday  night Rick suggested I do a snowangel in the endzone for a fun photo. Sounded like a good idea at the time, but I’m still pulling black rubber pellets out of my pockets, shoes, jacket, etc.

Oh well… I got a new Facebook photo out of it.

Umm… so this was freaking hilarious.

Watch it. Now.

Some of my favorite lines from Poehler’s rap:

Can I get a ‘what what’ from the senior section

I’m Jeremiah Wright cause tonight I’m the preacha

In Wasilla we just chill baby chilla // but when I see oil let’s drill baby drilla

All the mavericks in the house put your hands up // All the plumbers in the house pull your pants up

(See the lyrics for the whole thing at About.com)

Tonight’s game on my schedule was Paris at Mount Zion. Mount Zion came into the game undefeated and Paris needed an upset to become eligible for playoffs.

I’m not going to analyze the plays or anything… mostly because I have no idea what I’m talking about. I still just spout out a bunch of things my roommates taught me to say in college.

“They sure committed to the run tonight.”

“They have to have a great game for their team to win.”

“They have to make plays on both sides of the ball.”

“They really have to take it to them.”

“He’s some kind of player.”

I’ve got a ton of them. Sure, I know more now than I did when I was in school… in all fairness I can have a pretty decent sports conversation with someone now and not sound like an idiot. I don’t the starting lineup for the Dodgers on the third Tuesday in August of 1978 like some of my friends, but I know who’s winning in baseball right now. I know which Big Ten teams are playing each other this weekend. I have an idea of what’s going on in the NFL…

Anyway… here are a few of my photos from the game. If you really want to know more, you can read the story from our sports section (the link is at the bottom of this post).

But, if you really want to know, I think Mt. Zion really committed to the run tonight.

More after the jump »

I did some stripping around the house today… weather stripping, that is. That’s daylight you see coming through the door and door frame. Apparently you aren’t supposed to be able to slip an envelope to the mailman without opening the door.

And before somebody calls me stupid for waiting until now to do this, there was already some old foam strips around the door, this is after I removed the old stuff.

The top and sides are all nice and sealed now. I am going to have to buy a new threshold or door sweep (or maybe both with how bad our door is) to seal off the bottom.

My love affair with marching band hats and empty space continues…

Here’s Mount Zion’s marching band waiting to enter the field just before halftime.

Do the fluffy parts have a purpose besides making me photograph them? Can the kids take their hats off and clean out their trumpets with them? Surely there’s a reason…

Right?

Oops… this is what happens when you think you’re shooting on AV mode but the camera dial accidentally got bumped to your manual settings from the night before.

I think I need to tape down the control dial on my 40D, because I am getting really tired of having it move whenever it rubs against my leg.

Oh well… if you ever wondered what ISO 320 1/200th @ f/2.8 looks like on a bright sunny day, here you go.

The saying goes “You’re only as old as you feel.”

I feel like I’m getting older, but not old-old . But seriously, people… I get it. I’m getting older. Apparently someone has been trying to pound that in my head.

Earlier last week, while photographing 18 & 19-year-olds at the Macon County Clerk’s office registering to vote for the first time, the registrar behind the counter asked if I was documenting my son becoming an adult. The mother did look pretty young, but do I look old enough to have an 18-year-old son?!?

I’m 27 now… so I would have been nine when I had him? I know I was a cute kid, and naturally the ladies loved me… but at that age I was too busy taking my parents’ household electronics apart or tying G.I. Joe figures to plastic bags and making them parachute out of my second-floor bedroom window. I couldn’t squeeze in the time to father a child as a child myself.

Mal and I went to Chili’s last weekend and I didn’t get carded when I ordered my beer. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, but we had a discussion about how I miss looking young.

The worst part of the night came when we went to the theatre to see How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which by the way was a pretty good movie. They carded my wife to get into an R-rated movie.

Seriously?

Granted, my wife is a few years younger than me… and she is small and looks younger than she is, but getting carded for a movie? That’s just rubbing my face in it. My old, wrinkly face…

Things went a little better at an assignment yesterday. Annie, one of the reporters at the paper, was doing an interview with a kid and asked how old he was… he answered ten and then tried to guess our ages. He guessed that I was 20.

Of course he is mostly blind… oh well.

So here’s my plan… I think I’m going to use my Lowe’s gift card I got for my birthday to buy a paint sprayer. I’m going to suspend the nozzle above my bed and fill the chamber with Oil of Olay. Sure, I might drown by the end of the night, but my skin will have a radiant, youthful glow.

I had to take Oscar to the vet already… he was biting and scratching his butt and dragging his hind end across the floor repeatedly. Add that to the fact that his breath smelled like poop and Google told me that he had a problem.

Apparently have scent-making glands called anal sacs… kind of like a skunk, but on a smaller scale. I’m not going to get into details of this thing, but if you want to know more you can use Google.

We were in and out in just a few minutes, and he seems to be feeling a lot better already. Hopefully everything heals up in the next few days.

With the election less than three weeks away some people still might not know who to vote for.

I came across a link to Glassbooth, an online quiz that lets you pick the issues important to you, answer some questions about those issues and gives you a matching candidate followed by a second and third choice. Some sites I’ve seen do similar things, but this one will explain what the candidates think about the issues you choose.

Interestingly, the candidate I match up with most (85% according to my answers) is not who you probably expect. I’ll probably go with the number two (79%) suggestion.

Anyway… take the quiz yourself and see who you should vote for.

• Glassbooth (via Lifehacker)

I thought this just-say-no-to-drugs-style ad by MoveOn.org was kind of funny… Apparently these people are actors. I’ve heard of Gossip Girl, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about it or any of the cast.

And Dad, just because people your age are doing it doesn’t make it cool.