Ellensburg Flood slideshow

Ive got some extra time today, no class and a day off, a rare combination. heres a slideshow of the flooding we had a couple weeks ago in Ellensburg.

A bit of a delay

So yeah Sorry I haven't posted in a couple days, I was going to put one up on Thursday, but I had to restore the computer, mine apparently didn't like service pack 3. I'm not totally sure that was it But I suspect it was. So lets see here, Thursday I had class and then shot CWU's budget meeting, here is what we ran online. I will post a pdf of the front page when I get it, It looked better in the paper. The meeting went over the budget cuts that have been asked by the gov. Gregoire and the possibility of more to come by the legislator. The state is in the hole money wise so sate ran universities are directly affected. Following the meeting I grabbed some lunch and then headed to take a photo of a local doctor who is attending Obama's inauguration in D.C. on Tuesday. I had to wait about an hour for him from or scheduled time to meet. But he was nice and I was in no hurry since I still had CWU mens basketball to shoot later that night.

After the dr. photo I headed to the basketball game and got some fairly good shots, again don't have them here sorry. On a positive note CWU beat SPU which was cool. The men's team is pretty good this year, they are predicted to win the GNAC, which I hope they do. I then went and dropped in the photos, it made for a long day.

Friday went pretty quick, I took a photo of a high school kid who is also going to the inauguration, he got invited because he was involved in a previous conference in D.C. before. Pretty cool thing for him to do especially only being 17 and getting to witness the event. After that it was off to class, where we watched hero, It was an interesting movie, kinda slow for my taste. Its amazing how in films like it gravity does not exist. We were watching the movie to see how it dealt with and used color. Which it does well. Ive got a paper to write on it so I'm not gonna go any further about the movie.

Following class It was off the Cle Elum to shoot high school basketball, The girls photo I used is here. Both the boys and girls teams lost to Granger. After that it was back to the office to drop in the photos. Following work I went out with some friends the rest of the night.

Saturday came and it was wrestling which was to be shot for the day, Ellensburg had its annual Westberg invitational which has 6 mats going constantly for the first couple round then two four and two mats until the finals when its down to one mat. Its kind of like a mini state tourney, that's what it reminds me of. Then it was off to another CWU mens basketball game, They won again over Northwest Nazarene. This time they were behind and came back which was good to watch.
I had a couple drinks with some Friends that evening and got some news which I knew was coming, what can you do though.

Sunday which ended about a half hour ago, I watched some football and looked for jobs online and helped a coworker edit some video. Nothing to exciting. That's about it from here.

Feeding Elk with beautiful light

The title of this blog is pretty self explanatory. Early this morning I got the pleasure of going out to Joe Watt Canyon to take some images of wildlife personal feeding a herd of Elk, It was small since the snow is melting, so only 400 or so elk were there. I'm not a morning person, I value sleep alot, but these photos made getting up early worth while.




The natural light was beautiful, Its normally not recommended to shoot into the sun, but it worked out OK here, I think. The drop hey off the back of a truck and the elk follow behind eating. And yeas I know the lens was dirty, did get a chance to clean it prior to using it this morning. Here is another shot from this morning.

These two bull almost challenged each other, but no such luck, That would have made a good image. This images shows one running from another after they stood an looked at each other for a while. Not that they have bad odds I think I maybe saw a total of ten Bulls to the rest being female. 40-1 odds, not too shabby. Alright that wasn't so funny, but I tried.

After they were done feeding I headed back to the office and took a couple photos of a man golfing, It struck me as odd since it was in the mid thirties this morning and he was golfing nevertheless. I guess if you want to play you take every opportunity you get. The rest of the day consisted of making the Internet work at work and getting my entries finalized for our company photo contest. Pioneer newspapers which owns the Daily Record owns 12 papers total. The contest is our annual one, and it was cut to four categories this year down from 10 last year. So the competition is gonna be tight. So I'm hoping for the best, since there are some great photographers at the other papers. So time will tell on How I do. After dropping the contest entries and the elk photos I headed home. Tonight is the only night this week without a night assignment so that was/is nice. Well That's about it. Here is a map to Joe Watt Canyon.

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A relaxing weekend and Roslyn City Council

So this weekend was pretty relaxing Which was much needed, I did basically nothing on Sunday and it was wonderful other then watch some playoff games. Which I might Add the Eagles won theirs. Th giants offense looked awful against the birds. Even after the Superbowl last year I'm sure some giants fans will call for Eli's head because of his performance in the game. Especially since they had the bye being the number one seed in the NFC and all. Ok I take back the doing absolutely nothing on Sunday I also went into work for a bit to drop some photos in and then went grocery shopping. Oh and I also worked on Old man mikes myspace profile. Its pretty hilarious, hopefully he finds it as funny as me and Casey do. Well that about sums up Sunday.

Monday I went to Jerrolls and bought an advertising text book for my advertising class, its called "Hey Wipple: Squeeze this" its about making ads from concepts and whatnot. The first couple chapters have been pretty good. I might post some ads that I make for the class. So I headed to Starbucks on Monday after buying the book, and Sammy happens to be there so we start talking and Tyler showed up, he doesn't live in the burg anymore but was here to console a friend. I lost a bet with Sammy over where Tyler stayed, so I owe him coffee. After talking for a bit Sammy and I headed off to our class for the day. We ended up playing madden at his house for a while after class, it was good to hang out with them. Then it was off to the roadhouse for Dusty's bday dinner which fer invited me to. Beer and a burger later and my Sunday, really Monday was complete. Not a bad weekend.

Today was kinda busy as I went into work then had class for 3 hours then back to work to get some flooding damage art and then it was off to Roslyn for the city council meeting up there. It makes Ellensburg's meetings look good. The room is small and there are not many angles to get in it for photos, plus it has a old stove on one side which sticks out several feet, its cool looking but its positioning doest help the photo cause. One the good side of things though it was over in under 30 minutes. Super exciting night life I lead.

This coming weekend will be somewhat busy, With brewfest and the Westberg invite at Ellensburg High School, They are both on Saturday One starts earlier so that's nice. Then CWU bball Saturday night. I think Tomorrow night is the only night this week I don't have a night assignment. Tomorrow I have to bee at Joe Watt Canyon at 8:30 so in like 8.5 hours from now to get photos of the Elk being fed. Should be interesting, Ill post some of the photos from it tomorrow evening. So yeah that's pretty much it for now. Oh and now some shameless self promotion, I need some more readers people, let people know about this blog. Thanks

A super exciting Saturday evening

That's how lively I am tonight, its a Saturday evening and what am I doing, writing this. Fun times, its cool though Sometimes its nice to have me time, I hear women say that all the time and its sounds funny, but I understand where they are coming from when they say that, its nice to have. Today was fairly low key, I slept in for once in a long while, which was awesome, I needed it. I shot some CWU women's hoops earlier tonight which was good, I was having an "on" day shooting which is good. I found this out a while ago by shooting photos everyday, photography is like anything else , you have your on and off days, today was an on day, which was good.

Here's one or two to look at. Ive started adding water marks to them sorry if they are distracting

CWU lost to Northwest Nazarene by 15 or so points. But they had a good effort.

On a personal not I applied for graduation Friday which I'm uber excited about. I'm really glad I went back, Ill give that person credit for pushing me into it. Probably why they were brought into my life, to get me back in school. Its kind of funny The charge you a fee to apply to graduate, to look at the same report you can run online for free. I guess the school needs as much money as they can get with the budget cuts being imposed. At least they are not dropping football like Western Washington University, that was a shocker. So not really sure what life will bring past June, as my lease is up then, I might sign another one or who knows. I just need to have an source of income, and if its not here then somewhere. Anyone got any ideas?

So what else, Oh I heard a great quote in a movie on TV today, it was from "Mooseport" It went something along the lines of this as gene Hackman and Ray Romano were talking, Hackman to Romano: "do you thing I got to be president by laying up." If refered to taking risks in a golf game earlier in the movie, but it stuck with me some 10 hours later. Its something I don't do often due to the fear of failure, which I don't like. But I think its one of those things that I will have to do, start taking some risks, within reason obviously, but what will change if I don't take them. I don't want to look back at my life in so many years and wonder what if I did this or that. I'm comfortable where I am now, and I'm not so sure that is a good thing. Its good in the sense that I'm comfortable with who I am, just not with what I have done, I guess. I'm capable of so much more. I guess when it comes down to it I think I would have accomplished more then I have at this age. Yes I have a job doing what I love, and I'm almost done with school. But honestly what do I have to show for it. Sorry for the rant, The quote stuck with me.

Seattle PI

This was announced today, not good for those of us looking for a job in the near future in journalism



I'm off to shoot some Ellensburg High School basketball, girls first then boys, Ill post some tommorow. Oh and check this out, a flooding photo I shot also made the Satesman journal in Oregon.

Falling down a hill and missing class

That's right today I fell partially down a hill, a muddy one at that with two cameras around my shoulder. For the hoards of people reading this everyday, they know its been wet around here, if you haven't been reading then see the previous blog on flooding. That being said I as headed down the hill on my feet to take some photos for a story on Central Washington University grad students working with local kids to teach them about water shed stuff.



Part way down the hill, my speed increased, not on purpose and the slip ans sliding began. after falling on my rear in mud, I got up and somehow managed to keep the cameras from the mud. They are the important things, I can be fixed, that's what Ive always been told. After getting my photos I tried to get back up the hill, and found out something I should have known. This is a very tough math equation so stay with me here people.



Mud+ steep Hill slope + sketchers brown shoes =

mud on clothes and entertainment for those watching you



I eventually got up the hill with the aid of a stick for balance, my shoes were waited down with mud by the time I got to the top. I pretty sure I was being laughed at by middle schoolers, brings me back to middle school. So being muddy and going to class wasn't going to happen for the sake of others in the class so I went home and changed then headed to the other class.



Following class I went back to work and worked on website stuff, here and here and here for the rest of the day. Were still dealing with road closures and flood stuff so the updating was pretty frequent. Then its was off to see the national championship and keeping with my tradition I rooted for Oklahoma and they lost. Every team Ive hoped would win in games that I have watched this post season has lost.



Penn State Lost

Atlanta Falcons Lost

Indianapolis Colts Lost

Oklahoma Lost



I'm 0-fer people, well at least I didn't have any money on them. That's alright the Thunder are loosing (they are 5 and 31 as of today) and that makes it all better, take that Clay. (for those of you who don't know the thunder used to be the Seattle SuperSonics, until Bennett bought them and moved them to Oklahoma City.) Anyways now that I'm off that tangent thanks for bearing with me on it, Ive got an email to write for reasons I'm not going to discuss here, other then to say I should have won an Oscar for my performance related to the incident that the email is about. Oh One other thing Some of the flood photos got picked up by a paper in bremerton, I haven't seen them but was told about them from tow friends, so that's cool.

Flooding and a great day for photos

Today was weird, I'm torn on two things that happened today. First off let me say that I wish what happened today on no one, that being said Today was a great day to be a photographer in Ellensburg. You may ask why and hopefully the following image will show you.

We have had a fair amount of snow in the past couple weeks, well the temps have been going up and last night it rained, well those two things combined with an area that has a lower elevation equals..... you guessed it flooding.

Today started off with a call from the boss (jeff) asking me to go to the West interchange of I-90 in ellensburg as there was some flooding at one of the gas stations. So following a quick shower I was of to check it out and see what I could images I could acquire. Little did I know my shower would be the first part of dealing with water today.

So I get down to the west interchange and this is what I see.

I doesn't take me long to decide this could be a better piece of main art then what I had shot the day before of Kittitas. So I call in and let Jeff know about it and continue to shoot, we end up running this as our main art.

So I'm thinking that not much more flooding is going to go on, Yeah not a good guess on my part. After our meeting we and some updating of our website, (which I might ad got over 25k hits today) I went out and found this.

This guy had gotten his truck stuck in I would say about 2-3 feet of water and was being pulled out by a front loader. He got pulled out and drove off in the truck. He was nice though and gave me his name, even though the front loader operator wouldn't. (little does that guy know this blog would make him famous to the 4 poeple who might look at this)

I headed back to the office and downloaded the images and then grabbed some lunch I had ordered about an hour and a half before. I got laughed at when I picked it up. After some more web updating and eating in between I was asked to see about the possibility of going up to snoqualmie because they just had an avalanche which knocked a condo several feet off its foundation. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I-90 was closed for avalanche control. so that was a no go.

I then was told there was some flooding in dogtown or West Ellensburg as it is also known as. So after some quick asking/convincing I got the OK to go by some waders from Ranch and Home a store the paper has an account at. So I grabbed the camera stuff and went to buy them. Apparently I bought some nice ones I later found out. I then headed down to west Ellensburg, I got close then was told I could only go so far by a parking officer. So I jumped in my sweet waders and headed to where he said I could go. Let me premise this next part by saying that you should always obey an officer of the law. Today just wasn't going to work for that, so I started talking to a guy who worked for the City of Ellensburg and walked across the 2-3 foot deep stream which was normally Dollarway. This would be the start of a wading experience, no pun intended. The whole neighborhood was at least 2 feet deep in water. I found some people placing sandbags around a home and then another man carrying his cat in a kennel looking at a neighbors home. I was genuinally surprised that people were friendly with all this going on to them. After walking on a bit another man and his wife saw me walking with the cameras and called me over and invited me in to see their house. I had 6-8 inches of water in every room. The couch was on wood blocks along with other appliances. I got some shots of their home and kept walking.

That's when I ran in to the man in the first photo.

He was just leaning on his fence as vehicles passed.

He told me he lost everything, and that this flood was alot worse then the one in 1996. Not really sure how to react I ask If he minds if I get some photos while he talks to me, he agrees. I got the above image while talking to him. It also got sent to the AP, since we belong to them its our duty to send them stuff. I really think this photo is moving, I'm usually very critical of my photos, but this one hits the feeling of the neighborhood squarely on the head of the nail.

Its kinda getting darker at this point so I keep walking and run into two EPD officers who are going door to door evacuating people. I decide to hang with them for a bit, turns out I'm glad I did. We put a photo page together and lead with this.

I also like this photo as it shows action but gives a good sense of place as the home is surrounded by water with no possible footpath visible. Many homes are like this one, yard completely buried under water. Following the walk with the officers, we catch a ride with a brush truck from the fire department to the Emergency operations center. I walk back to my car from there and then its back to the office to drop in all the photos I shot in the last 3 hours wandering through the flooded streets. I also get some crap for the look of the waders, which makes me want to wear them into the office tomorrow morning. Following a couple hours at the office, its home time. All in all work was a 12 hour adventure today, which felt like a workout. I made some good photos today, but like I said earlier I would not wish the flooding on anyone. I'm just glad that the people whom I talked with saw the bigger picture if you will as to why I was there and not think I was trying to exploit their situation. I think that gets lost on some people sometimes.

Holidays and stuff

So first off Sorry for the long delay on posting this, So hence this might be a little on the long side. Ill try to condense the last two weeks.

Christmas eve=Chaotic

The reason it was chaotic was the simple fact that I got stuck three times on it, once in the blazer and twice in a tow truck.

This one in fact.

We got it unstuck once without the aid of another truck, the second time however I was not so lucky.

We had to use this to get the smaller one unstuck.

If I can get the picture Ill put it up, my dad couldn't resist taking one with me after we pulled out the smaller of the two trucks. I'm just glad we had the equipment to do it ourselves otherwise it wold have been a damn expensive night.

The next day was Christmas which I got to celebrate with my mom and her boyfriend at her home. It was nice to be able to relax, which I did. Then back to the burg it was as I had to work the next day. Didn't get a chance to do the Christmas thing with my day on Christmas itself as he was busy towing.

The next couple days were usual at work, nothing super special. I did get a funny photo of a sheep with its face covered in snow after it was looking for food in a field, with a couple hundred of its closest friends.

That brings us to the 29th and 30th which I was scrambling to get my work done for the next week as my new years vacation was coming up quick. I managed to get things ready so I could go.

The New years trip was to las vegas with a group of friends, I had a great time. Its always good to get together with friends who you don't see that often. I think we might have to make new years there an annual thing. I think 5 days there was just a tad long though. I managed to get an earlier flight home by a couple hours which saved me a layover in Portland. Its funny as I was being put on standby for the earlier flight at the Alaska counter in Vegas, another passenger (she shall remain nameless for now) was having fun to say the least with her return flight home, the reservation had been canceled. And because I will talk to anyone I look over and say its Murphy's law that something like that would happen, and then I walk off.

After getting through security, I met up with my friend Casey and bought an expensive lunch, Shouldn't have been expensive but airports always are. After joking about the funny things that happened in Vegas specifically our friend who was with us who we now call Uncle Rico. You should check out the link and add him as a friend. He has no control over the page as I do and so does Casey.

Anyways I go gamble a bit while waiting for my plane, didn't quite have the luck. So after gambling and sitting for a bit, I hear my name over the intercom thing and manage to get on the earlier flight which I was on standby for. So I'm the third last on the plane and get put in the middle seat, row 12 to be exact. As I get to the seat, who happens to be sitting next to me but the girl from the ticket counter earlier. Anyways we talked for most of the flight, turns out shes pretty cool.

Following the flight we exchanged email addresses and I went on my way. I got a ride from the mom and her boyfriend to her house where my car was parked, The plane was to then head back to the burg. Mother nature was not going to help out though, Snoqualmie pass stayed closed through the evening and into the afternoon of the next day. I made it back about 6 pm the next day, Monday.

That brings us to today, Which just happened to be the first day of classes for winter quarter, I'm in three classes this quarter, they are all my favorites, why you may ask, because they are my last three for my BA. Its been a long road so I'm just a bit excited to be done. So I went to classes today and then went to Kittitas to get some photos for a update story were running tomorrow on the the city and how its doing, which in my opinion is not great. They have a protem mayor, no fire chief, are down to two police officers and may be one soon. The cities only little grocery store/ market closed a couple weeks ago because the owner didn't pay their taxes. Good times for the city. Although the people inside the bar I went in wee nice, I wanted to get up on their roof to get an overall shot of the store that was closed. They let me which was nice.

Then it was back to the office time to edit the photos and Then head home, which is where I am now. I'm gonna get better at updating this sooner. Any suggestions or comments are always welcome