:: For the record I happen to mostly agree with FSJ
One of my classmates is on a quest to shadow Steve Jobs and asked me to take a picture of him and some others holding Macs, presumably because Steve is a "visual learner". The infamous "Fake Steve Jobs" blog found out and linked to it - which means, since the real McCoy is said to read the ersatz, that there is a possibility His Steveness has directed His divine gaze upon a photo of my shooting. Which ultimately means little, but I'm trying to be better about keeping this blog up to date, so there's your weekly filler.
As one of my classmates said: if the school just invited prospective students to Tattoo, they wouldn't have to spend a dime on marketing. This was honestly one of the most enjoyable parties I've ever been to - a thousand happy people sharing their local cultures, gorging on every type of food, and branding each other with water-activated LBS decals. Fine, call me a let's-hold-hands-and-all-sing-together Pollyanna, but when you have a community as internationally heterogeneous as this it actually works.
I spent the day volunteering as one of the event photographers, so I took an absurd amount of pictures. I've separated them out by daytime event and lumped the main evening shindig into one set.
Until my early twenties I was lucky enough not to have to deal with death in almost any intimate form. That changed during a frightful week junior year of college in which my grandfather suffered a stroke and wavered between life and death before eventually pulling through. The state he was left in though tested the definition of living, and it was clear very soon after that his remaining days were few.
I learned more about my grandfather after he became unable to speak and comprehend than I did when he could; he was a reticent man almost fanatically dedicated to not talking about himself. In the years he lay in that bed I listened to my grandmother talk about his past, about individual Depression-era struggles and shared post-war successes, until he outlived her and I could learn no more. When she passed I could not eulogize her without also doing so for him.
While he continued to lay in his long-term acute ward not truly alive I experienced the odd sensation of grieving for someone not yet dead. Over the past three years however, I've felt the more traditional kind of grief - for the immediately departed - a fewtoomanytimes.
Now he is gone as well, and the beginning and end of his seven-year exit serve as bookends for a painful era I hope is over.
Paddle Boat Regatta
Volleyball
Ultimate Frisbee
Kids' Party
Soccer/football
Rugby
Tattoo proper - the main event