I chose the yellow kayak so I could represent GT lol. What an Idiot I am. Right before we shoved off, one of the kayak outfitters look at my kayak and say “most of our boats are very stable… oh except for that one”  and point right at my boat.  When I shoved off the kayak tipped left and right very very easily. The trick was that you had to keep your center of gravity completely straight the whole time otherwise the kayak will dump you. I was mildly nervous since I’ve never been kayaking so god knows what was going to happen to me the next four hours.

Look, I actually look triumphant and sort of like I know what I’m doing!

After we got going it was pretty fun though. The water was deep the first half of the trip. I was able to figure out my oar so that I could move fast. It was awesome! I was having the best time ever. The boys were having a fight in their kayaks and a couple toppled but since the water was slow and deep it was fine, they just swam to shore with their boats in tow and got back on. The weather was absolutely fantastic. Beautiful clouds with lush tall greenery on either side. We came across a stretch of the river which was flanked with beautiful homes. Some very modern, some very traditional. We waved at the people on the bank and just took it all in. Once we passed the Johnsons Ferry Bridge and the I-285 bridge, which took about two and a half hours, the river changed. There were stretches of rocky shelves with huge rocks just barely under the surface, which would stick your kayak and topple you. They were dark and creepy under the water.

I hit one of these rock shelves. Since the water was more shallow but the same fluid volume as before, it was way faster. I was propelled into a rock straight on and was pushed by the water behind me until I flipped over. I had a moment of panic and that was all that was needed for me to completely lose my boat to the rushing river. I swam to a rock and pulled myself up, just me and  my oar. Ever heard of “Up the creek without a paddle”? Well up the creek with a paddle but no boat is even worse. This old white guy in a tube managed to grab my boat downriver and another young white guy really helped me out. He asked me to throw my oar at him and he would kayak my boat back upriver. So that’s what we did. I was smack in the middle of the river with a bunch of rocks on either side so I really wasn’t going to go anywhere fast. He kayaked it back up and I got in. It was so awesome of him!!!

Look at my sorry butt in the middle of the water with just my oar. The picture is a little misguiding as I was nowhere near the shore. I’m in the middle of the river.

Sana and Mohammed hung around in their two-person kayak until they thought I was safe. They were panicking at least 2 or 3 times as much as I was. I kept having to tell them it was going to be okay, the water’s shallow, I’m fine, while they looked at me like I had two heads. Once I was back in the kayak, we three tried to catch up to the other kayakers. We did eventually catch up with them but the rest of the river trip was full of rocks and tough maneuvering.

I toppled a second time when my kayak lodged into a rock sideways and  rolled over. This time, since I had done it once, I wasn’t  panicking about the fall, and freed myself from the boat, without letting go of either my oar or my boat. The unfortunate thing was that I didn’t flip my kayak back quickly and the river current started filling it with water and it was so hard to keep a hold on it. I didn’t let it go though and instead wedged it in between two rocks before my arm gave out. Paz floated back towards me and wedged his kayak before getting out and then helping me pick up the kayak and tip it horizontally on the slippery rock. Kayaks are heavy! Once it was empty I plugged it again and got back in. I scraped up my legs on the rocks when the water threw me into them but thankfully they were covered with thick river vegetation which helped keep the damage level on my legs low. If we had been on the river before the vegetation had the chance to get nice and thick like it does in the summer, I would have had deeper gashes in my legs.  That was the last time I fell out. I learned a little more about how to handle falling the second time and I only had a few close calls. By this time four and a half hours have passed and we’re rushing to make the 6pm pickup. Each time I fell we wasted at least 20 minutes. Same for every time everyone else capsized. Once we passed the 75 bridge we had made it to the takeout. My muscles felt really weird. Numb and mild pain in my right forearm, where I had strained fighting the river to keep my boat.

Anyway. I didn’t die, and I feel awesome! Sore as hell but awesome!

I’m looking forward to at least one more trip this summer in a Kayak. Maybe this time, I’ll leave my GT pride behind and just pick a stable boat.

Both images are wallpaper size, if you’re so inclined to use them.

I only like that last photo because it’s got an ant butt in it. You can tell I’ve been leaning towards vintage washes in my photos.

I’ve been working 11+ hour days at work. Sounds like it sucks. Probably because it does. One good thing about staying late is that I catch the sunset coming back from work. These are just crappy phonecam pictures taken while driving but … Georgia has beautiful sunsets.  Since my drive is less than 10 minutes ( and now, about 4 hours before sunset ), I barely ever see them.

Also. I can’t stop listening to this. It’s my dance in my cube alone song.

Yeah this post was really about nothing.

Happy Wednesday!

I guess I should be flattered but uh… it’s still kind of odd. I know all they based their recommendation from is what I look like and I guess the status my family has. That’s about it.  I guess that’s my biggest beef with the whole thing. How do you build a relationship from a few e-mails and a visit or two?  Anyway, I don’t have any shortage of indian men ogling me at work and it makes me feel awkward.

I guess they’ll all have to be surprised when I bring someone I do like home because he’s going to not really be … indian. Anyway, I promised my mom that if I didn’t have someone to marry by the time I hit 27(which is apparently old and decrepit by Indian standards) , she could list me on Shaadi.com. I guess it seems way old to her because she was married when she was 21 and was already pregnant with me by my age now!

Oh well. Another day in the life of an Indian girl.

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In other totally random news, I found a new webcomic (and anyone who knows me knows I looooove comics) about zombies. Also, why, why, why, is the new DLC for Left4Dead2 still not out? Valve time is like Desi time. Late and infuriating!

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Oh, and, Spring is totally kicking ass outside. Between my fits of sneezing I can see beautiful flowers. I ventured outside today to see some of the pink blooms. Happy with the results!

My neighbor has tulip trees.. so beautiful this season..

The Cherry Blossoms are pretty epic.

The balmy Saturday meant the animals were out and so was my camera.  Results?

Spider stalking!

So.. I tried looking the spider up… but I started freaking myself out with all the spider pictures.  For now he can be the mystery spider (Araneus anonymous) . This shot took a bit of setup. It’s a 28-300mm macro w/ 2 extension tubes and a full power flash to get enough light since he was in his dark hole and I was shooting at f/16 on top of that to try and increase my DOF since the little crapper was so tiny.  30 pics later, voila! Totally worth it though!

The lizards are out sunning themselves too… and aren’t too bad at posing. He looked me straight in the lens the whole time. I coaxed him onto my hand after he let me bug him for about 2o minutes.

The amazing part about this lizard is that he was brown on brown things and green on basically everything else. I thought only chameleons did that!

Anyway. even the riverside was springing with color, sun dazzling below its bank:

It was just a gorgeous day overall and I had plenty of opportunity to get out and shoot.  Lately things have been going well for the business side of my photography hobby too. I went out and shot some art pieces for a local studio and it was really fun to photograph such lovely pieces of art.

I’ll leave you with one more photo; my nephew Joshua’s birthday cupcake, as it was being blown out, from his party Sunday!

Looks good right?

1. There will be (at minimum) 365 photos in the course of a year in this project. They may be erratically posted in batches but there will be one for each day of the year. They must also all be square.

2. I am to use nothing but my mobile phone to take and process these photos. If I use my computer, it’s only to upload the photos.

Here’s one of the examples from the project page:

I’ve actually been doing this for a bit now, to figure out whether it would be a viable project to which I will commit myself. I think it is!

So check it out! Anyone else doing a project365? What have you commited to doing for 365 days?

Doing what I do best on the road, which is really almost rear ending someone while I try to capture the sunrise at 55mph, I was able to capture these:

Right at sunrise:

After about an hour:

The workday went on as usual but when I left around 5:30, the sun was fading but the flakes that were falling were large and well formed; their six sided patterns visible to the naked eye. I had a point and shoot camera on me whose battery was almost dead but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Here’s the one shot that came out well :

I usually complain about the cold but I stood out in 20 degree (feels like 13!) weather for a good long while trying to get this one. I guess it shows you where my priorities are. That one shot made my entire day. Such tiny grandeur!

Anyone else have a snow picture to share?