EPKPhoto’s Tidbits

Yet another year at RIT has come to an end. After an adventurous time storing furniture in Rochester and loading my car to its brim, my Dad and I are on our way back home to Virginia. Overall, my third year at RIT was an excellent one. Now that summer is about to begin, I am ramping up for a 10 week experience working for the FBI. In about a week, I will be moving again to Alexandria, VA. From there I will be able to commute to FBI headquarters in DC and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico. I am truly looking forward to this experience working for another goverment agency, which may eventually turn into a career.

I also have quite a few personal projects planned for the summer. I want to make a couple of my web development projects publicly accessible, do some more remote work for NASA and the RIT Honors Program, experiment with all sorts of things on my Linux servers, and better develop my photo printing skills and choice of inkjet papers.

If you had not guessed, I returned safely from my 10 day spring break leadership trip to four cities in Europe. I have been editing my photos from the trip as I have had the chance. Sorry for the delay, but to say the least I've had a lot going on lately ;-). As I finish them, I am posting the photos in this gallery: CIAS Honors in Europe. Right now, the first 2 days worth are there for your viewing pleasure. Eventually, I hope to leverage the functionality of my hand-coded gallery system to include tags or descriptions under most of the images to give you an idea of what we saw. The trip was amazing, so keep checking back for new photos to be added!

This is a quick post since I'm about to head out the door. I'm going to be traveling in Europe for the next 10 days. If you need to reach me, it will probably have to wait. I will return on March 10th, and that is the first time I can guarantee I'll be able to check email and voicemails. This trip is sure to be a blast. A group of us from the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences are going to Prague, Dresden, Krakow, and Budapest. I'll be sure to take tons of photos and tell you all about the trip when I get back! In the meantime, I'm going to be off the grid, so wish me luck

For the record, I'm back home in Virginia, and it was a somewhat humid and partly rainy day in the low 70s. That's quite a departure from the frozen tundra I left in Rochester (intentional exaggeration, of course ). Christmas and my 21st birthday are just around the corner, so I'm looking forward to this week!

Another gallery on the site: photos from National Portfolio Day 2007 at RIT. This past Saturday a group of us CIAS Honors students sold concessions at the event that garners hundreds of visitors from high schools in the western New York for portfolio reviews. Our honors group was selling food, drinks, and candy to raise money for a trip to several cities in Europe this coming spring. We plan on visiting any alumni we can and studying culture and architecture in Prague, Krakow, and Budapest. In the meantime, it's exam week here at RIT. In just a few more days I'll be heading home for the Fall/Thanksgiving break. It has been a busy quarter, and I have plenty planned for the break…so not much will change

Summer flew by as usual. Here's a quick note to let people know I'm heading back to Rochester tomorrow. I'm still packing and preparing for the day on the road. I'm excited to see everybody at RIT again, especially since classes don't start for another two weeks. After I write this, the computer is the next thing to be packed…so if you need to get a hold of me, I advise calling my cell.

As I mentioned in my last couple posts, I was in Princeton, West Virginia this past weekend. I had the opportunity to photograph my great aunt and uncle's house and property as well as the house once inhabited by my grandfather, great grandmother, and great-great aunt. I just uploaded them all to four galleries of photos from West Virginia. The photos turned out quite well, and I am looking forward to making some hard copies to send off to the family. Also, take note that I snapped a couple photos of my new car (the blue Pontiac Vibe you'll see in the first gallery). Enjoy the photos, and let me know how you like them.

I'm finally back home in Virginia, and I just posted a gallery of miscellaneous photos from RIT during this past spring quarter. The photos include people sliding in the mud after a rainy spring day, playing Kan-Jam outside Baker, getting food from The Commons, experimenting with a cheap airplane from Sol's, and discovering the illuminating properties of lava lamps. I am really looking forward to editing the photos I took in West Virginia. Some turned out quite well, so there's something to look forward to!

RIT's spring quarter ended this past week…a time that brings feelings of both happiness for classes ending, and sadness for friends separating. I certainly felt that combination of emotions. Yesterday, I left RIT with my father to travel to West Virginia. Here I am currently staying in the beautiful home of my great aunt and uncle while we work on some renovations of the Princeton, WV house of my grandfather, who passed away a few weeks ago. My mother traveled to meet us earlier today and drove up my new (used) car for me to see for the first time.

We're still traveling and visiting family for Christmas and my birthday. I do have to say that I appreciate technology so much more when I am somewhat separated from it. Fortunately, I now at all times have my Palm Treo 700p with me. Not only does this provide access to various Internet services and web browsing (with a small screen, of course), but it allows me to connect to the Internet on my PowerBook anywhere I have a Sprint signal. I do this with the fantastic USB Modem utility that utilizes the phone's data plan we are already paying for. This kind of stuff makes me happy ;).