So, took a field trip to Chicago. Had way too much fun. We scared the people on the Skydeck. 
Had some epic food, saw some great sights, so on and so forth!
I’ll refrain from jabbering on. Would repeat again. View the photos here.
So, today was a pretty busy day at work. The last hour was filled with training meetings, etc..
You’d think that I would be mindful of where my keys were right? They were in a file cabinet. I’d left them there after unlocking it for some supplies. I even saw them and told myself “don’t forget your keys.” I promptly ran off to my meeting.
Meeting over. Ran back to desk. Packed bag. Made secondary shuttle, GREAT! Caught express train, GREAT! Caught a 2 train back to Harlem, GREAT! Still daylight when I left the train, GREAT! I even had time to run to the supermarket and buy some additional groceries! Absolutely splendid!
Hopped in front door, got to mailbox, search for keys in pocket! Coat pockets, no…. Pants, no… ….. flashback. Image of keys, in file cabinet!
.. I’m surprisingly calm, muttering the word “Fuck” over and over but not loudly as I stare around, then stare at the doorman (the slow one who’s grumpy and sleepy and barely functional), think about the last time I had to bother the same guy to call the super, think about the notice that had gone out instructing tenants that due to abuse the super would no longer open locked doors, mutter the word “FUCK” again and go out the front door.
Now.
Lets talk logic here. Logic would say that I should call up a backup who might happen to have a spare key that…. Nope, don’t have a current backup. Anyone I trust would be at minimum an hour away anyway. Go to parents? Nope, same keyring, and they’re off to dinner tonight. Besides, pride and stubborness come into play…
Hey, when you want to sleep in your own bed, you want to sleep in your own bed..
Look at time, look at sky, kick the pavement a little bit like a 5 year old, pack my groceries into my backpack, and head back out to Jersey.
Fastforward 3.5 hours later, I’ve gotten to Jersey, got my keys, got back to the train, got back to Manhattan, gotten some bad for me but oh so tasty fried chicken, and am reading the last few pages of a book I bought yesterday while I eat myself into the itis.
3.5 hours, lost evening, and 20 dollars. A cheap enough stupidity-tax for being forgetful tonight. Whoops.
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So, no other updates. I’m still writing up my thoughts on my trip to the West Coast, its turning into a ramble so until then, here’s the photo gallery.
And a photo of fish tacos. Mmmmmm..
Behind a bit, and I promise to post some photos and thoughts from my trip to the West Coast in the next day or two. Until then, here’s a full gallery of pics from the weekend after Chinese New Year..
Some photos after the cut. 
Originally uploaded by Doc Stampede
Took a quick trip up to Boston this weekend, because the absence was a wee bit too much to take, and because hey there’s life outside your apartment.
Wandered a bit, then watched too much TV, then wandered a bit more. And ate. Quite a bit. Then got home and crashed. A nice relaxing weekend.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/docstampede/sets/72157623232742838/
So here I was on Sunday, sitting in my apartment, staring out the window at the bright, crisp blue sky. The light was streaming into my apartment, and I took a few photos of that. But I couldn’t help staring out the window, looking at the way the world just gleamed.
…
And then I couldn’t stay inside anymore.
First, a walk through East Harlem…
Followed up by a stroll in my old stomping grounds, the Lower East Side…
Ended with candy, lots and lots and lots and lots of candy…
It was a good walk, but then as the sun went down the temp dropped, and my knees, my hips, all of my body decided I’d done enough for one day, and I hobbled home to visit my parents…
This is a multiple post, because it was a long week and weekend, and there are some images to share.
First, its great what you’ll see in NYC some days…
And the busking in NYC Subways never gets old..
Oh, and since this was a holiday weekend, there were houseguests, some exploring of the city, and a party….
The full flickr gallery of photos from the weekend is of course, over here.
Enjoy, and welcome to 2010!
NYC-Snow-2009-29
Originally uploaded by Doc Stampede
So I woke up at 7am today, no alarm or anything, just randomly woke up. I staggered out of bed, took a look outside, and decided that I couldn’t leave it alone, it absolutely required a walk outside with the cameras to play.
Gallery of my 90 minute walk here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/docstampede/sets/72157623037459572/
Afterwards, Hot chocolate was absolutely called for… And then I fell asleep in the beanbag chair for two hours. ^_^;;
Testing out a new workflow, so decided to try using Lightroom 2 for the entire gallery. I’m starting to get a feel for how it’ll speed up some of my more casual galleries, and it will definitely make generating galleries easier (with automatic watermarking and border making as provided by LRMogrify — thanks Scott) but its definitely got some… quirks.
Still need to see if I can get Noise Ninja to play nicely with it too. And I’m already thinking I’m going to adjust the border and add some contact information or maybe other info to the bottom.
But for now, some quick pics from my Boston trip – here on Flickr.
Latest_BBF_Previews_01
Originally uploaded by Doc Stampede
So when I went to Boston, there was a cannon. Anna and I posed on the cannon, and Ollie went to take a picture with my BBF for us.
… Biker!
So, Biker Photobomber, we salute you!
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And there are preview pics of the photos I’ll edit from the BBF, when I find some time… Cross processing slide film – definitely not for faint of heart.. *stares at photos that didn’t come out..*
http://www.flickr.com/photos/docstampede/sets/72157622491809078/
Central Park Ariel 03
Originally uploaded by Doc Stampede
I came home, and despite having work to do tonight I had to get away from “real life work” for a little while to post a few pics from Saturday.
This one took my breath away when I first viewed the preview, and I’m glad the post-processed photo didn’t let us down. As always with me, I tried to avoid doing an outrageous amount of work, but this one kind of begged for some tweaking and softening that I normally don’t indulge in.
Stunning.
A few more pics at the flickr page, and I’ll update there as I post more.
