Day 365/365 - La Fin, Enfin

And so my 365 project ends as it began, with me standing in front of the Capitol building and sticking out my tongue. When I started this project I fully expected to get bored and give up after a month. Then, when I hit the 3 month point, it started to become a grind. There was no way I was giving up then, however, and rendering the three months of effort to that point worthless. Oddly enough, I think I'm more pleased with myself for not missing a single day than I am for completing the project.

Here's the tally of the photos I took over the course of my project (although given how bad I am at math these numbers are probably more approximate than they are accurate):

Shots featuring me, in whole, in part, or in reflection - 100
Shots taken in restaurants/bars - 25
Shots about plays - 24
Shots at baseball games - 21
Shots including books/magazines/newspapers - 20
Shots about movies - 15
Shots about concerts - 13
Shots in museums/galleries - 12

Plus 4 Navy football games, 2 parades, 2 kickball games, 2 operas, 1 Navy basketball game, 1 circus, 1 carnival, 1 roller derby, 1 Cirque du Soleil and a week in Venice, an Alaskan cruise, four trips to New York City, and one trip to Houston.

No partridge in a pear tree, though. Still, it was a pretty damn good year. Thanks for letting me share it with you.

The End

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 362/365 - The Man in the Mirror

For the final 'self-portrait of the week' of my 365 project, we have this shot of me taken in the lobby of my apartment building. It took me forever to realize that those lilies weren't real. It was the fake water that threw me.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 355/365 - In the Dishwasher

For this week's self-portrait, I decided to revisit my shtick of putting my camera inside various appliances (i.e., fridge, oven, and clothes dryer) and do a shot from inside my dishwasher. Squeaky clean!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 347/365 - Shaving Self-Portrait

For this week's self-portrait we have me shaving. Oooh, thrilling. During the week I use my Braun electric razor, but on Sundays (or sometimes Mondays) I go the old-fashioned blade and shaving cream route to start with a clean slate. When I was in college and for ten years after I got out of the Navy, I had a beard. Then I got tired of messing with it and shaved it off a few years back. When I get tired of shaving every day, I'll probably grow it back again.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 341/365 - Cylon Self-Portrait

These are my eyes on allergies. I had thought hayfever season was over for the year, but mine flared up today with a vengeance. My eyes are puffy and itchy, my nose is running like a faucet, and I'm sneezing like a machine gun. All that despite the fact that I took an allergy pill and put drops in my eyes right after I got up this morning. Some days nothing works.

Today is apparently one of those days. I only lasted two hours at work today before I gave up and came home. Now I'm really wishing I hadn't already purchased a ticket to a seminar on the ancient Maya at the Smithsonian tonight.

I haven't always had hayfever. It's something that first cropped up when I was in high school. Prior to that I'd thought allergies were something you had to be born with. I didn't realize you could develop them at any age. Hopefully one of these years I'll grow out of mine just like I grew into it.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 336/365 - Muffin Man

For this week's self-portrait we have a shot of me standing in the kitchen of my apartment with a batch of apple ginger muffins fresh from the oven. We're having a little breakfast get-together at my office tomorrow morning to welcome a new attorney into the fold. Various members of the office will be baking/buying treats to bring into work and I decided to make a batch of muffins. They turned out to be pretty good, although you can't really taste the ginger in them.

p.s. - the recipe I used can be found here.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 329/365 - Iron Man

For this week's self-portrait we have me reflected in the soleplate of my iron. I hate ironing. The only downside to casual Friday is having to iron my shirts. My dress shirts for the rest of the workweek are all wrinkle-free, so that's not an issue. Someone needs to make wrinkle-free casual shirts.

It's not bad during fall/winter because then I can just throw on a sweatshirt along with my khakis and be good to go. But summer/spring require ironing. Or just saying 'the hell with it' and leaving the house all wrinkledy. I am known to do that as well.

Okay, time to quit stalling and go iron up this batch of shirts in a steam-powered frenzy of flattening.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 325/365 - Freshly Shorn

For this week's self-portrait we have the nape of my neck not long after I'd gotten a haircut. I've been needing one for the past couple weeks, but I had other stuff I wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon so I kept putting off getting an appointment. My hair had gotten pretty wild and woolly in the meantime. When it gets that long it's like having a tumbleweed on your head. Now it's short enough on the sides and back that it will lay flat and the only curly part is on top. It's much easier to deal with when it's this short.

I'm the only person in my immediate family with curly hair. Everyone else's locks are straight as an arrow. I'm not the milkman's kid, though. My maternal grandfather and both uncles on my mom's side had/have curly hair. I used to try and fight it and brush it out straight, but the best I could ever do was get it to be bushy and wavy. Eventually I just gave up and let it be curly.

I started life out as a blond before I wised up and my hair started turning brown :P It's been getting steadily darker ever since about the second grade and now it's damn near black. I never tried dying my hair any funky colors, although I did toy around with the notion of putting a white streak down the side when I was in high school. Then one of my sisters pointed out that if I did I'd look like a skunk, so that put the kibosh on that idea.

For most of the time that I was in the Navy I kept my hair cut in a "high and tight," which means it was shaved on the side and back and there was a patch about the size of a paperback book that was short enough to lay flat on top. That was the easiest haircut in the world to deal with. Didn't even have to comb it. I could just run my hand over the top and I was good to go. After I got out of the Navy, I let my hair grow out and didn't get the back of it cut for over a year just because I could.

Generally I hate having to mess with my hair and from time to time I've mulled over the idea of shaving it off. Problem is, I had it shaved off when I entered boot camp and it turns out that when it is bereft of cover, my head is not very aesthetically pleasing. It sorta bulges out over my ears and there's a dip in the top of it. Basically, it looks like a big fat kidney bean laying on its back. Not the best look in the world.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 322/365 - Kilroy Was Here

For this week's self-portrait we have me sitting in my office behind the sixty-two grant files currently piled on my desk awaiting legal review. To be honest, I had to hunker down a little to get the "Kilroy" effect. When I sat up straight my chin rested on the stack. Hmm, it's looking like I should've put my camera in the 'backlighting' mode.

This is my busiest time of year at work. The government's fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. The bulk of the money Congress appropriates to each agency (it's sort of like our allowance) is categorized as one-year money. That means you only have until the end of the fiscal year to spend it or it all goes back into the Treasury. Congress can also appropriate multi-year money, which is good for a fixed period of years, and no-year money, which is good forever. Everybody wants no-year money. It's the holy grail of appropriated funds. The only no-year money my agency gets is for our loan programs.

Because the bulk of our money expires at the end of the fiscal year, there is always a mad rush in August and September to hurry up and spend it before we lose it. Each file stacked in front of me in the photo above represents one earmark grant and each is funded with one-year money. These are special grants mandated by Congress that are added to our appropriations bill every year. They are the "pork" projects you hear people complaining about. They funnel federal funds to various congressperson's districts for a host of projects, some of which have some relationship to my agency's mission and some of which have nothing to do with nothing.

In the past, we have been directed to provide grants for such diverse projects as an aquarium on Long Island, a museum of jazz in New York City, a fiber optic cabling project in the Pacific Northwest, a storefront and on-line catalog featuring products made by local craftspeople in West Virginia, and an effort to promote sites related to the feud between Hatfields and McCoys to potential tourists. When I first started practicing grants law, my agency would only get 30-40 earmark grants a year, but the number has steadily increased. This year we received over 240 grants totalling in excess of $80 million.

We hate these things. They're a pain in the ass and Congress doesn't give us any extra money to administer them, so we just keep getting stretched thinner and thinner. There was a moratorium on them in 2007 and we were soooooo happy. Most of the organizations that receive these earmarks have no idea what they are doing when it comes to the federal grant process, so getting them to the point where they are legally sufficient can be pretty labor intensive. In addition to the ones currently piled up on my desk, there are still about 130 more that I'm going to have to clear by September 30th that haven't made their way over to my office yet. This is why I can never take vacation in August or September. I'm the only grants law attorney we've got. Oh well, it keeps me employed anyhow.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 313/365 - Not a Work of Art

For this week's self-portrait, I took a shot of myself with my D90 and then ran it through the watercolor effect on an old version of Microsoft Photo Editor to give it the look of a painting rather than a photograph. This is me tired after a busy day at work.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 309/365 - (Ex) Sailor

It's not Halloween, I'm not going to a costume party, I haven't reenlisted, and I haven't completely lost my mind. This is just my self-portrait for the week. I thought I'd see if I could still squeeze into my old Navy dress white uniform.

Squeeze was definitely the operative word here. Fourteen years after being discharged from the Navy, I could barely fit into the jumper. The pants didn't come close to fitting. Even the hat felt small. Oh well, I think I'm happier being fat and free.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 299/365 - Anti-Matter Me

For this week's self-portrait I decided to play around a bit and run a shot of me in a 'screaming maniac' pose through the negative effect on an old version of Microsoft Photo Editor just to see how it turned out. I can't tell whether I look more like a poltergeist or a pissed off Smurf.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 291/365 - Quick, Take a Shot of Something

I've done nothing all day but read a magazine and watch tv. Then I remembered I needed to take a shot for the 365 project, so I decided to photograph me doing what I did best today -- sitting on my butt. Hope your Sunday was as restful (although hopefully more productive).

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 286/365 - Belgian/Baseball Self-Portrait

In honor of Belgian Independence Day, this week's self-portrait is an homage to Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte's painting The Son of Man. Given that I don't own a bowler hat I decided to put an American twist on it and substitute a baseball cap and then, in keeping with that theme, I swapped out a baseball for the green apple.

Happy Independence Day, Belgium!

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 278/365 - The Sum of My Parts

For this week's self-portrait I decided to play around with the mulitple exposure mode on my camera. I extended my zoom all the way, held my camera out at arm's length, and tried to get close-up shots of one eye, one ear, and my mouth.

Looks like my aim was off a little, but it still turned out all right. I like how the curve of my ear blends into the line of both shots of my nose.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 272/365 - I Am a Camera

For this week's self-portrait we have a silly shot of me transformed into a cyborg twin lens reflex camera, courtesy of a Tokina 12-24mm lens and a Nikkor 18-80mm lens. Hmm, I probably should've figured out a way to balance my flash unit on top my head as well.

The outtakes for this shot are here and here. As you can see, my timing remains dreadful.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 265/365 - Warhol Self-Portrait

For this week's self-portrait I decided to do an Andy Warhol-style piece. I took a self-portrait with my Nikon D90, used the stamp effect on an old version of Microsoft Photo Editor, ran it through Picasa to add the tints, and then put the four versions together with Microsoft Publisher and saved it as a jpeg. Voila!

Day 251/365 - Tying One On

This week's self-portrait is a shot of me standing in my office at work trying to tie my tie before heading off to a meeting. If I don't tie it standing in front of a mirror, then I have to look up at the ceiling and kind of zone out while I try to remember how it goes. Hence the vapid, vacant expression on my face. BTW, this is the tie I bought to go with my Dick Tracy Halloween costume from a couple years back.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 243/365 - Scruffy Looking Nerfherder

This week's self-portrait is a shot of me sporting a week's worth of vacation stubble. I haven't shaved since last Tuesday morning before my cruise ship docked in Juneau. My face hasn't been this hairy since I shaved my beard off about three years ago. If I'd given it any thought beforehand, I wouldn't even have packed my razor and just gone the whole cruise without shaving. After all, if you can't be scruffy in Alaska then where can you be scruffy?

BTW - The title is a geeky Star Wars reference.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 236/365 - Self Portrait at Sea

We are currently steaming our way toward Juneau, Alaska. We’re going to be at sea this entire day. I spent the first part of the day sitting near various windows in sundry parts of the ship looking out at the passing scenery, listening to old radio programs on my iPod, and reading (as you can see in this week’s self-portrait). It was deeeelicious. Then this afternoon, my brother and I went bowling (there are four bowling lanes in one of the bars onboard the ship) and played a game of Scrabble whilst seated at the stern as the mountains rolled past on either side. We have port calls the next two days and then another full day at sea, followed by two more port calls before debarking in Seattle. I think my brother and I will try out the rock climbing wall on our next day at sea. Gotta do something to burn off the steady stream of desserts.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)