Sunday - December 28th, 2008

Not sure what you consider early, but on a Sunday over winter break, I consider anything before 10am to be early.  Got up at 8am this morning, checked emails and fun things on the computer, took almost another hour to finally wake up fully - then drove to my moms friends - daughters (Allison Shuster) - apartment in Butchersville, Baltimore (near Patterson Park) to take pics from her balcony of the city.  Got there around 10am.  Went in, got a tour of the apartment, which was extremely nice & roomy by the way - and showed me where the balcony entrance was.  

Pretty windy up on the Balcony, luckily my camera has a neckstrap so it won't blow away!

In the distance, you can see the entrance/exit of the port of Baltimore

Looked up and saw some birds flying overhead

After taking some pics, I talked with Allison for 30 mins or so and then headed out to Christopher Daniel's restaurant in Timonium for my Great Aunt Rose's 90th birthday brunch.

Milt & Rose Schwartz   

After eating about 4 different plates of amazing brunched buffet food (at least thats how much I ate) we all watched Aunt Rose blow out the birthday cake (cake & Aunt Rose not in this pic, oops)

Norman, on left (Aunt Roses son) gave a nice speech on the level of amazing-ness that his mother has brought to the family and the world.  It looks like Uncle Milt (on left) is having a wonderful time!

Now was the fun time, the opening of presents!  Or reading of the cards it looks like!

More presents!  Is that a new table cloth I see??

and onto more cards!

After present opening and a nice talk from Aunt Rose thanking everyone for coming, we all huddled against the wall for a big - small family portrait.  Reason I said small is because majority of our family is extremely vertically challenged...but as my grandmother always says

 "Good things always come in small packages"

Our waitress took this pic!  Which means I'm actually in it!

top row - left to right; 

Jerry Moffet, Michael Stuck, Jeff Moffet, Scott Moffet

middle row - left to right; 

David Stuck, Sandy Moffet, Bev Stuck, Jen, Norman & Mary Ellen Schwartz, Stacy Moffet

bottow row - left to right; 

Mary Ehrlich, Milton & Rose Schwartz. Reba, Gertrude Stuck

Here's the photo I took, notice how I'm not in the pic...

After the group photos, we did smaller pics...

After taking all the photos, we all headed home.  

As always, it was great seeing the family.  Especially good to see Norman and Mary Ellen who flew in from California for the 90th birthday!   Hope they will have a safe trip back tomorrow!

I was waiting for Aunt Ellen and Andre to come in for the party brunch...but something tells me that their somewhere in Canada...Next year!

I stayed in tonight to upload some photos from last Friday and email them out.  Tomorrow I'm headed to work with my mother to take some photos of her class at Shock Trauma then off to take some pics of Lexi - if she's feeling better!

Saturday - December 27th, 2008

El Padre woke me up before he went to work - I was supposed to get up early and go through the "needs to be sorted" folder on my hard-drive, yet I fell back to sleep instantly.  Before I dozed off again, he mentioned that it was foggy out.  I figured I would get up later, take pics of the fog, and add to the "needs to be sorted" folder...bad idea.  I have somewhere around 8,000 pics that I have yet to look through, dating back to last summer...maybe I should get on that!  

Around 2pm I finally got out of the house to take the fog pics

Off of Bonita Ave.  in the woods

Drove around for a while, found this spot off of Ridge Ave, a nice little field area next to a nice housing developement

Trees next to the field

Driving on Greenspring Ave. was super duper fun with all of the fog

Farther down Ridge ave. next to a cemetary

the cemetery 

Ended my little trip with some pics of the barn off of Greenspring Ave.

After taking some barn pics, I headed back to the house, got prettied up, then went with my parents, grandmother, cousins Norman and Mary Ellen to Sabatino's restaurant in Little Italy.  There, we met up with cousins Stacy and Scott for a nice dinner to celebrate my great Aunt Rose's 90th birthday party....but she and her husband weren't in attendance due to a cold.

Hopefully they will be at the 90th bday brunch tomorrow!

Friday - December 26th, 2008

Planned on skating today for a while, glad it could actually come together.  Got up around 10:30am, checked emails and such, woke up, then headed over to Ridge in Parkville to meet up with Shawn Wixted, Ryan Boblits, Sam Heird, Hugh "Mungus" Little & possey(spelling?)...and then go out and do some street skating.  

While at ridge, I saw some other homies - Carl Schmidt, Freddy Obrecht, some guys who knows Aaron Munich (amazing photographer near Columbia), and some of the Ridge locals.  

Had some time to get a sequence of Carl on the 1/4 pipe before we headed out to go skate some other spots.

1st spot on the list was Taco Bell for some genuine amazingly classy American dining.

kidding of course! 

After chowin' down,  we headed to some flat bars where Ryan Boblits looked good standing next to them - instead of skating them

kidding again, oh so funny.

Snap, there he is not on a skateboard...again

Zach Dykes drove back to MD from DC and stopped by to come skate with us.

After walking around, Ryan Boblits grabbed the camera and took some pics.

Here's Shawn, Zach, and Mungus

Photo by Ryan Boblits

Zach found a bottle of illegal substances and wanted a pic with it

Photo by Hugh Little

After playing with the bottle, he went the opposite way of earth's gravitational pull and did a handplant.

Sam Heird did some feables for days before he had to peace out

Ryan and Hugh Mungus checkin' some footy.

Hugh Mungus and his Hugh Mungus Shirt

Hugh grabbed the camera....you can tell because everyone has to look up to see him!

Photo by Hugh Little

Boblits grabbed the camera from Hugh and snapped a pic of Hugh doing a hippie jump

Photo by Ryan Boblits

Hugh had the camera again, and got a pic of Boblits and I

Photo by Hugh Little

After having some fun at the flatbars, we headed over to a ledge spot in Towson, MD - Zach had a trick to do, but apparently it was a little too cold to land.  So we opted out for random pics instead

Hugh Mungus Little, and I

Zachs lurkin'

Photo by Ryan Boblits

Hugh, Shawn, Zach, and I

Photo by Ryan Boblits

Zach and his unlanded trick with a hand spazzm

Photo by Hugh Little

Went to the final spot of the night, down the street in Towson, MD - James Munk and Jason Spivey met up with us, same with Steve Batton, and Kendal Ishie.  

James Munk with an ollie to 50 grind into the wallride

I headed out from the session a little early to stop by Vu and say hello how are ya' to Gary.  Then headed home for dinner with el madre y' padre.

Sunday - December 21st, 2008

Happy 1st day of Charmanukah!!!!!!

Today was the annual family Hannukah party which was held at our house this year.  18 people total, lots of presents, lots of food, lots of smiles, and lots of paper wrapping all over the place after the presents were exchanged!  

After exchanging presents everyone talked and watched the foozball game

Momma Stuck putting away the leftovers!

The guys opening their presents, which were mainly books!

Grandma Gert and the beginning stages of her presents!

Poppa Stuck handing me a Happy Hannukah card, bottom left hand of the photo is my hand grabbing the card!

Fun fun fun, fun fun, fun.  

Favorite holiday by far.  Seeing the family is always fun, having amazing meals is always fun, and getting presents is always fun!

Leftover's tomorrow, yum!

Saturday - December 20th, 2008

Slept in until 1pm or something odd like that.  Should probably get into a better sleep routine...neat.  Anyway on play for today's agenda, all I had to do was stop by Vu skateshop and drop off a harddrive of skate photos there for Rowe from www.interstatemag.com.    Plan accomplished...and while I was there I picked up some new Mobtown wheels and reflex bearings because the last time I changed wheels and bearings was around 2-3 years ago, oops.

After the bearinglywheelish swap, I was asked by old pal Gary Smith and Ryan Boblits to go to SOC Skatepark from 5-8pm.  Since everything on today's agenda was finished, why not?  Grabbed some late lunch with them then Jetty'd off (yeah Ryan Boblits, that's for you) to SOC.  Park was fun, was my 1st time there, their box is amazing!  Gary ripped the miniramp and Ryan demolished the euro ramp thang.  Sean Powderly was there ripping, didn't know how good he was until I saw him skate in person - definitely one to look out for!

Got home around 10:30pm to some sushi that madre picked up, deliciouso.  I had some extra time on my hands so I went through some pics from Pennhurst that I took earlier in December... 

Temperature

I tried washing my hands in the left sink, but it wasn't happening

Myspace link on the bulletin board

Someone needs to put the window down

Windows are fun

Yeah, I climbed up it then down it, fun.

Went up and down this too...

And I wasn't the only one!  Erin was right behind me!

Open the door and come in...

Well hello glass.

Hmmm....So Ashley Carnamaham.     Comparison?  I think not.

Friday - December 19th, 2008

Went to my old high school this morning,  Jemicy/Valley.  I'm not a fan at all of the school, nor of anyone on the administration board.  Whoever runs that school is out of his mind and should find a more suitable job - maybe as a janitor or pizza delivery boy, that sounds a lot more fitting.  Anyway, I went to the school to say some Hi, Hello, How are you's to to some old teachers who I've tried to keep in touch with over the past two years.  Definitely went to see Mr. Emmons and Mrs. Savage - the art/designer teachers who love everything artsy and photographish.  Mr. Emmons is putting together a new photo curriculem for the school, so I was able give some insight on the assignments I've had in photo school.  Talked with Mr. Davis, my psychology teacher who was a former photographer, he always has good advice to make more creative photos.  Ran into Mr. Moses, the college prep teacher, who is also a fan of photos.  Talked with him on how I took some of the photos that I brought to share with the teachers.

Felt good to re-connect with the teachers, show them that whatever they've taught me about life and living and all that good stuff has payed off and I have some fun pics to show from it.

While hanging out with Mr. Emmons and talking about photo ideas, Mrs. Savage came up with a box of dead flowers and let me take some pics of them.  

Funny lookin' things them butterflies is!

Thursday - December 18th, 2008

Dank?  What is Dank???  Dank is the title of a Baltimore skate video that was created by Chad Butler & Dan Corrigan and first released in 2006.  It was made aa fun video with mainly filler tricks, all filmed for the fun of skating!  It was a pretty big hit, I have to admit I watched it like a broken record for 3 hours straight one day (and selfishly counted how many times I was lurking in the video - 56 times).  Since the release of Dank(#1) in 2006, Dan and Chad have been on a mission to make another fun Dank video - with better tricks, a wider variety of skaters from Baltimore/East Coast, and to hype everyone up on how fun skating is!  

The outcome is Dank II, and it premiered tonight at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore.  I'd say it was a huge success, easily over 200 people showed and it seemed everyone was stoked on the video!  

I was honored to be the announcer to begin Chad's part (you'll have to see the video to understand it).  Chad had the first part, along with an amazing song which I've never heard before - but it's just as good as his part!  Not sure what order the next skater's have, but I'll throw out some names of people who were in the video;   Gary Smith, Alex Johns, Josh Schlappich, Dave Morris, Tm Schlappich, Steve Batton, Sean Georguire, Ryan Boblits, Tyrone Henderson, Kevin Fox, Zach Lyons, Sam Heird, Adam Sweitzer, and Jason Spivey.  Dan Corrigan had a 7 minute last part, definitely deserved every second of it!  

If your down with skating, good editing, Baltimore/East Coast, or looking at me lurk around in the background of clips - then you have to see this movie!

Got to the premiere to find 2 of the 4 skater's off of Focus' Friday Face Off sitting next to each other, about to fist fight to see who will win the reader's poll!   It's Ryan Boblits and Sean Powderly.

Kevin Scott was lurkin' in the crowd with the Glen Burnie crew

A view of the theatre a few minutes after people started to arrive

Is that an Allen Beers popping his head through the doorway?

As people were still taking their seats, Dan Corrigan stole the microphone and put on his own show!   Nice leather jacket Dan!

I sat in back of Ryan Boblits, I think he fell asleep through the whole movie!

Ecofriendly Green

After the video ended, I ran up to the front to get a pic of everyone in their seats to show how crowded it was - sadly I was a little late and people have already left.

Before I left, I found Alex Johns and his significant other in the crowd

After the video premiere, I headed over to the Ottobar for the after party.  Gary Smith got a hold of my camera and took a pic of he and I

Photo by Gary Smith

And took a pic of Ryan Boblits and I

Photo by Gary Smith

After getting my camera back, it looked like Steve was pulling a nerd card and playing one of those computer games on his phone

The band that was playing

Peoples watching the band

After sticking around the Ottobar a little - Ryan Boblits and I headed out to go on a 1/4 mile walk to our cars on 21st st.  Definitely had a great time at the premiere - great to see all the homies.

To get a copy of the video, email

mergemediaproduction@gmail.com

Friday - December 5th, 2008

December, years already over.  Haven't posted pics lately due to the fact that I still haven't figured out why my Blogger is cropping all of my uploaded pics....not cool.  Anyhow, it's time to have a recap of what I've been up to lately...

Pic of a green leaf for my mini-portfolio for my color photo class on the veiny texture of the undersides of flowers

Another flower for the mini-portfolio on flowery veins

And another veiny flower pic

Went to an abandoned hospital, somewhere in the heard of PA with classmates, Tim Waltman, Conor Kuhn, and Erin Schellenhammer this past Tuesday for some pics.  Pennhurst is a pretty intriguing place, 16 abandoned hospital buildings - being torn apart inside out by east coast weather.

Looks like the desks got raided, or the cleaning staff forgot to go in this room...

A pic for my fashion class' catalog assignment.  I chose the brand, Ergophobia, since I know Chris Donmoyer (Ergo's East Coast rep) and one of their pro rider's, Gary Smith.  Chris let me borrow some ladies Ergo shirts and his significant other, Jayme - and here's a pic of her in an Ergo tee.

Went out skating with Gary a few times since the last post, here's a non-landed bluntslide on a bank to rail near the Towson, MD area.

From the same day as Gary's unlanded trickery, here's Zach Dykes doing a wall walker

Or a noseslide wallride?

Gary Smith with a flipperyish trick at the Towson, MD's bump over flat

Can you guess the trick??

This past Thanksgiving weekend I was back in MD and met up with Ryan Bixler, Seth Levin, and Vince Crocker.  I was friends with these guys before I got into skating in 2003.  On a not-so-busy-Saturday, I went out with Seth to get some pics of him in the city.  Found his long lost never possessed car too!

Took a tour of the Baltimore port, some major trespassing, thankfully we were invisible and wasn't caught.

Walking on the dock

Taller than the building behind him...yet he's only 4 inches taller than me.

While setting up for a mid-key photo, Erin Schellenhammer decided to walk through a frame

After Erin was finished getting framed, Ashley Carnahan stepped in with some mid-keyish clothes on.  Finally figured out that I'm not too fond of posing, and definitely need to brush up on some posing techniques!  

Thank golly gosh that Ashley's amazing a put up with me while I was awkwardly trying to find poses to try.  Thanks again Ms. Carnahan!