Welcome to My World

First 10k

Tish — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:15:31 GMT

Killer. I can't believe it. My morning runs have sucked. Every step torture. My evening runs have been paced at over 10 or 11 minute miles. Even those have been difficult; arguing with myself to get just one more mile, ok half-mile, ok one more lap etc. Sure my goal was to do this in under an hour, but as long as it was under a 10 minute mile, and I didn't have to walk any of it, I'd be satisfied. This chick ran beside me like she knew me. I thought it was kinda weird, but guess it's common for people to find someone close to their pace and keep with them. She and I leap-frogged the whole time. Until I tried to push near the end when I saw the bridges but it was too soon and I gassed out. Wrong bridge. My running "buddy" pulled away as I fell back. She beat me by a minute but I looked her up and she's 15 years younger than me. Sick of people hinting that this age thing matters. F that. 1:00:50 9:48 Not bad. Think I'll try the one in September with all of the hills...... Thanks for all the encouragement, kind words, and patience with me on this. I truly have the best friends anyone could ask for..

Speed is a gift. Endurance is earned.

Tish — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:59:22 GMT

Speed is a gift given to you by your parents. You can increase innate running speed only marginally, then can hold it only briefly -- both in terms of distances run at that rate and years of racing at top speed. Endurance is a gift you give yourself. It is largely earned, and is available to any runner to tap and increase through extended effort. Not everyone can run faster, but anyone can go longer -- both in miles and years. Joe Henderson Runner's World magazine Jan 7, 2000

Well I've Succeeded...

Tish — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:48:22 GMT

....in not being any faster this year. :( Not my worst time, but not my best. Running in the morning nearly killed me. Every step was torture. On such a short run too. I can't figure it out. Had a good night's sleep and no alcohol the night before. Jeez, I probably should have gone to a party or a bar instead. Maybe it would have felt like a normal morning that way. My company has a policy that if ten employees are involved in a charity, the company will donate $500 to the cause. It took two departments but we made the 10! I've succeeded in something else, though. I've signed myself up for the 10k next month. I've proven to myself that I am able to run that far. Just haven't trained in the morning. Holy crap, this is gonna suck.

I'm addicted to Ghost Hunters, but I'm afraid of ghosts.

Tish — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:43:25 GMT

When I was about 12 or 13, I spent a couple of summers hanging out with my cousin who spent the weekends in my neighborhood babysitting her younger half-brothers. The boys' grandmother passed away earlier in the spring in a nursing home after staying with the family for about a year. While she was staying there, she complained about having to share a room with the younger boy because he couldn't get to sleep with out his little record player playing. That summer we FREAKED when the record player stopped for no reason. Then the light in the bedroom, still switched on, went out. The record player stopped again a few more times that summer, until the boy stopped turning it on altogether. The family kept saying that Grandma finally got her way. 20 years later, we bought a house that we knew was built in 1951 by Italian immigrants. They ran a corner store on the first floor and lived on the second floor. The husband died several years earlier and the children were grown and had houses of their own. The wife lived alone until she fell on the stairs and her daughter insisted that she sell the house and move in with her. Or cat Charlie used to reach up and yell at the wall in the big, open downstairs room and always in the same spot. At our first Halloween party, Tyreena took a photo in that corner of someone and it had this wide, smoky streak across the image. I blew it off as cigarette smoke until ChrisP asked me if I ever tried to shoot smoke in photography school. When I told him that I hadn't, he said that you HAVE to light it from behind, it cannot be lit by a little on-camera flash, and that he didn't want to talk about it anymore. I smudged the house and things were quiet for years. Recently, I fell asleep on the couch and was awakened by an older woman's voice saying someone's name in kind of a bitchy tone. When I told ChrisP about it, he said he thought he'd heard something similar when he'd slept on the couch, but blew it off as a dream. Putting the new floor down on the first floor made a lot of dust. Charlie passed away a few years ago. But then I noticed these paw prints on the wall. One of the other cats is now yelling in the same corner.

I had no part of this shoot

Tish — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:26:46 GMT

But it's a cool thing anyway. I shot this through the 50' square hole in the floor. The girl holding the silver card and the guy with the globe in front of his feet are fresh out of photography school. Wish my first job had been this awesome.

Big Shots and Gossip

Tish — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:41:30 GMT

Between the other model Chelsea and the stylist Montie flirting with Chad relentlessly, we almost got behind schedule. We were a half-day ahead yesterday. By the way, what's up with girls flirting so violently anymore? Holy crap, she nearly beat the snot out of him. I can see a guy respecting a strong woman but sheesh...what's so cool about bruising someone? Later he kinda blew her off when she asked him to the movies and he said "only if you bring your mom." I don't know his age but she's only 17. Still, mom's six months older than me. Hehe. Yeah, yeah, I suppose I shoud post a shot of Chelsea in the itty-bitty triangle bikini sometime, but whatever.....

Um. Wow.

Tish — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:36:17 GMT

I mentioned to my future sister-in-law that we were using some D&G model for the spring on-body shoot. She squealed. She's a 6-foot railroad engineer. She NEVER squeals. She knew his name and showed me the google image search on him. Um. Wow. So glad my boss is still letting me multi task instead if choosing to be only a photographer or image handler yet. Um. Wow.

Underwear Models & Miss Pennsylvania

Tish — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:12:33 GMT

I never imagined that I would end up shooting models. Hell, I never thought I could make a living taking pictures. The Back to School “floorset” has been online for a few weeks. We ended up shooting the jewelry and bags on models two weeks afterwards. It’s unusual for us to do this kind of thing after a deadline, but there was no way it could happen any sooner. Ahhh, the indecisiveness of it all. I swear this company succeeds in spite of itself. The model was Miss Pennsylvania 2006. Unfortunately, the way that the servers worked depended on internet traffic. So sometimes you got the on-body page and other times you got the regular page. I was fortunate enough to shoot them both ways myself. Lighting, styling and all. Oh yeah, and the boxer brief was this 17 year-old model who thought I was 27. It doesn’t suck to be me.

She's Gone...

Tish — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:48:59 GMT

Stephen King wrote a short story called Mrs. Todd's Shortcut. It was a pretty cool story but I loved the fact that they called her convertible roadster her little Go-Devil. I was always admiring old roadsters and muscle cars. Especially my neighbor's 1969 Mustang Mach 1 which I almost bought. The deal fell through when we found that the floorboards were rusting out pretty badly. Sadly I ended up driving my dad's rusty Chevy Cavalier for what seemed like forever. With my first paycheck from my first salaried position, I put the downpayment on a one-year-old Mazda Miata. She only had 12,000 miles on her and she was in great shape. She's a limited edition 'R' type, bare bones but with a little extra Hp. My first car. *sigh* Damn I had fun downshifting through the curves on those winding back roads under the canopy of trees. Even cooler in the fall driving to and from the stable. When I got laid off I opened a gym at 5:30 a.m. In the winter the roads were never plowed or salted yet. I bought the Jeep when I'd had enough of the white knuckle rides to work. The Jeep was more comfortable and the commute to my new job was all highway. Too chilly in the mornings to put the top down. No cargo space for events. I hardly drove it and told myself to sell it for years. At least she went to a Miata fan. This will be his third and he said he should have never sold the first two. Love this photo. Scotty was leaning out of the back of ChrisP's truck in the oncoming traffic lane shooting wide angle. I got as close to the corner of his bumper as I could. Fun being stunt drivers. I watched her drive down the hill for the last time. I'm going to miss her. My Little Go-Devil.

I have THE worst job in the world.

Tish — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:30:14 GMT

Open casting call today. We were looking for local talent for a change. They had us shoot quick and dirty stuff to see if we could find someone for the jeans and for the underwear shoot for the upcoming season. My boss had me handle this one. Damn.

Sunshine and Running Shoes

Tish — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 20:40:37 GMT

About time the weather broke. I was finally able to run outside instead of on the stupid treadmill. I started to train on hills again. Not quite the hills we do in the Race for the Cure, but enough to remind me of the difference. I don’t think I’ll ever be very fast. I’m just grateful that I can even think of running a 5K. I think I was 54th out of 300 women in my age group last year. Hehe 54. Not bad for the weirdo chick that was always picked last in gym class. I’d still like to beat my time from last year. Training consistently with mild hangovers is always a challenge too. Now if I can just refrain from drinking with Beest the night before, I should be golden.

I love this game! I hate this game!

Tish — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 03:33:05 GMT

So me & ol' ChrisP have this semi-bet going on. We usually play 9-ball just for fun at the local bar for free as long as we're drinking. We're both pretty evenly matched but sometimes one of us is having an off night here or there. ChrisP wants a morotcycle, not quite in the budget yet but he still wants to work something out. O.k. now let's play for money. We'll play $20 a game, double or nothing. It'll take 8 wins in a row for him to win enough for the bike he recently saw on Craigslist. Evenings go by with us winning back and forth up or down by $40 - $80 bucks. Then it starts to get serious. The Hustler quotes start flying around. "You better not miss, friend." "I don't rattle, kid." "But just for that, I'm going to beat you flat." Game on. He wins the first three. I stop drinking and start playing. 8 wins later, I whisper "Where's my motorcycle, Bitch?" Ty and Luna will get the joke.

Now I know why I hated the punk scene

Tish — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:59:41 GMT

I saw the Legendary Hucklebucks again last night and the tore the fuckin' house down. Going to local rockabilly shows reminds me why I used to go to see bands at least every other weekend in high school and college. But then I'd go home. I hated the after-parties and house parties. What a bunch of fucking morons. From the let's-fight-for-no-reason-and-then-whine-about-it guys, to the falling-down-drunk chicks, to the what's-it-like-to-fuck-a-punk-chick jocks who crashed the parties, I gave up. Last night was a blast. When I came back to my corner of the dance floor, I told some girl that I was going to take my spot by the wall back, she offered me the chair back too! No drama, even the guys were smiling and / or dancing. Not that these people don't get into fights once in a while, because they do, you just don't have to spend the whole time watching for flying fists or bottles. AND being 30-something-that's-none-of-you're-business doesn't make me the oldest person at the show! Oh yeah, and the music kicks ass all day. I went to a Hucklebucks show a year or two ago and Rath and Little Sister were there with friends. Rath had never heard anything like them. Granted he was REALLY drunk, but he was up there front and center, looking totally out of place, bobbin' his head and stompin' his feet having the BEST time. Check them out: http://www.podshow.com/music/?artist_id=4418 http://www.myspace.com/hucklebucks

I love to run.

Tish — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 22:01:10 GMT

Went for a run today. I’ve missed too many workouts this week. AND the reunion is tonight. Had to pull some strength from somewhere. I’m gonna need it. Thank God for the abnormally warm days of fall and winter. I’ve even been called “solar powered” before. The sun on my face today was amazing. I didn’t get as far as I wanted to, but I’ve been trying to be careful with this older-than-I-think body of mine. The endorphin rush is worth every step. I can get lost in myself when I run. Not as much as dancing, but I can really go somewhere else in my head. I have been back at Pennsic, dancing around a fire, countless times even though I’m really just doing laps around a track. Nothing like a good angry running mix on my mp3 player to keep me moving. Misfits, Metallica, Motorhead, Kid Rock, Offspring, and especially Clutch are the best for this. He he. Feels like I could kick somebody’s ass after that. I threw in some new stuff like Muse and Kasabian to mix it up some. I hope I can keep this up. Especially before that seasonal depression sets in.

Gainful Employment

Tish — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:07:34 GMT

I’ve had a few friends ask about this so I thought I’d share it here. It actually pays better to fix another photographer’s fucked up shots than it does to shoot them. Or to fix green-complected, freakishly tall, bad-skinned, strung-out, bulimic models than to shoot them. For this last photo shoot, they hired the same photographer who couldn’t expose an image correctly if her life depended on it, that they did this past spring. The company paid me thousands of dollars to do “image rescue” for that shoot. How this photographer was hired again is beyond my comprehension. Last spring’s job included a model with so much peach fuzz all over her body, we called her the wooly mammoth. This time, they hired a model with her belly-button in the wrong place. I’m not kidding. As long as they keep hiring these models and photographers, I’ll be able to make a good living. Thank GOD for Photoshop.

Shameless Plug

Tish — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:17:36 GMT

Yeah, I know this is in with my photos too. This was part of the photo shoot that I thought I wouldn't have time to do. I'm glad I made the time to shoot it. The images turned out great and I got to meet Maria from Zafira Dance Company. I've worked with Maria from Bodiography for three years now and she's one of my favorite clients. Gotta love a woman who knows what she wants! These are some crazy talented people and I can't wait to see them perform.

Keep on grinnin'!

Tish — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:38:40 GMT

I Like a Man Who Grins When He Fights Too

Tish — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:59:21 GMT

THIS isn't a grimace!

I Love My Dog Brothers

Tish — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 13:43:44 GMT

"I like a man who grins when he fights." - Sir Winston Churchill Photo courtesy Ursus from Anglessey