And I Feel Fine

Posted by Jim - 12/11/08 at 08:11:29 am

A great bit of perspective from Phil this morning.

Halloween 08 recap

Posted by Jim - 01/11/08 at 08:11:05 am

We had, as expected, a good turnout for trick-or-treating last night. This is the first year Kathryn and I have been in a house, so it was fun to have all of the neighborhood kids coming by. I’d say our doorbell rang around 20 - 25 times and the peak was definitely between 7:00 - 8:00. I’m glad we live in a neighborhood where it’s still safe for kids to go door to door on Halloween.

The popular costumes of the night were princesses and fairies for the girls and knights for the boys. We also had visits from Buzz Lightyear, Darth Vader, a couple of zombies, several Batman variations and even a visit from Jesus.

Pumpkin Paw

Posted by Jim - 26/10/08 at 09:10:29 pm

Here’s one of the pumpkins in front of our house for Halloween. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would and it looks great from the street.

Sound off South

Posted by Jim - 23/10/08 at 07:10:06 am

This website contacted me yesterday to let me know that I’ve been included in their collection of local blogs. I was a little skeptical at first, but once I went to the website and took a look around, I realized that this is an effort by WYFF4 (a local news station) to promote bloggers in the area. So that’s cool.

Anyway, go by and check out the website and also go browse through the collection of blogs that are written by folks right around these parts.

Ref or Blocker?

Posted by Jim - 20/10/08 at 07:10:33 pm

Ref Blocking Garcia

This is dispecable, and it’s coming from a Clemson fan. Nothing this ref said could convince me that he didn’t step up and hit Garcia purposefully. He moved laterally with Garcia and then stepped up to deliver a hit. I hope this guy never officiates another football game at no matter what level.

The end of an era

Posted by Jim - 16/10/08 at 07:10:13 am

I’ve had a few days to digest the news that Tommy Bowden has stepped down as the head coach at Clemson. I have to say that I’m not surprised that Tommy and Clemson are parting ways, though I didn’t expect it to happen in the middle of the season. I was also not surprised that, in the aftermath, offensive coordinator Rob Spence was not retained. In fact, in my opinion, I think that those two events should have occurred in reverse order.

I have never really considered myself a “Bowden basher” or a “Tommy apologist.” There are plenty of each floating around the TigerNet boards and other sites, though it seems that there are less and less of the latter in recent days. There are things I like about Tommy and then there are also things about him that I’m not so fond of.

One thing that always bugged me about him was that he never seemed to adapt to the game events or adjust the game plan. If we went into a game with a strategy, that was it - whether it worked or not. I guess you call it pride, I don’t know. A former player from the Frank Howard era told me at church just last week that this would be his ultimate downfall. Playing just “not to lose” is very frustrating to watch. Another thing that was characteristically annoying was the inability to win games that we needed to win. I’m not talking about games against the toughest opponents, I’m talking about ACC teams that we should have beaten, but somehow found a way to lose. The games where the team came out flat and anemic looking were absolutely miserable to watch - this is the inability to motivate that you hear folks talking about.

I like that, for the most part, Bowden has done his part to keep kids out of trouble at Clemson. I like that players have consistently earned their degree and graduated under Bowden. I like the fact that our coaches have been open about their faith. He seems to be a good PR guy and has always represented the University well.

I honestly can’t think back to a time when Tommy wasn’t the head football coach. Sure, I was around back in the pre-Bowden days, but I guess he’s at Clemson so long that it just seems natural. I think Tommy is generally a good guy and will probably make a good athletic director somewhere one day. I wish him nothing but the best in the future.

Moving forward, I am really anxious to see what Dabo Swinney can do. I really like what I’m hearing out of Clemson so far surrounding some minor, yet team-unifying changes. We’ll see how things go on Saturday vs. GA Tech with Dabo at head coach and Willy Korn with the reins on offense.

Checking in

Posted by Jim - 12/10/08 at 08:10:05 pm

Well, Kathryn and I have moved into our new house here in Simpsonville and I have started my new job with Drum Creative. We’re working on a brand new website for the company, so I’ll be linking to that as soon as it’s completed. It’s been great being back in town for good and running into a lot of our friends while we’re out and about. We’re also excited to be able to get more involved with Lifepoint.

I haven’t had a lot of time lately for personal photography, but I did shoot the wedding of one of my college roommates last weekend. I’m still processing all of the shots from that, but it was good to see a lot of the Clemson gang.

I should be updating more often now that life is starting to settle down a little bit. That’s all for now.

Native Tongue News

Posted by Jim - 24/09/08 at 08:09:38 pm

Good news coming out of the Native Tongue camp today. Japanese Pink Sauce is starting to spread across the Southeast US and beyond! See all three updates over on his blog.

Moving

Posted by Jim - 02/09/08 at 12:09:43 pm

Just wanted to give a quick update that Kathryn and I are moving to Greenville. As you can imagine, we’re busy packing, househunting and doing all of the other stuff that comes with making a move, so there probably won’t be a lot of updates from me until things are settled. The plan is to ride Hurricane Tropical Storm Hanna up I-26 and I-385 this weekend and be back in the upstate for good starting next week. We’re both really excited to be getting back “home” and closer to family and friends.

Shooting the Olympics

Posted by Jim - 19/08/08 at 02:08:17 pm

I found this link earlier on the flickr forums showing the gear photographer Vincent Laforet took to photograph the Olympics . It sure does take a lot of equipment (expensive equipment, at that) to shoot the games and I’m sure it isn’t easy to pack.

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