My roommate Cal from last year won a video contest for Pepsi and last week he got to go to London for three days for the awards show. Here is the link for the video:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxvsx6fOPqc&feature=youtu.be&hd=1

Happy birthday to my mother, Mrs. Mary D. Martin!!!!!!!!

 

I’m watching a documentary called 9/11: 10 Years Later on CBS that is incredible. Two French filmmaker brothers happened to be following one of the NYFD companies around when the events took place on September 11th. The captains allowed them to accompany them to what became Ground Zero and they were there from the beginning, one brother actually caught video of the first plane hitting the tower, until both towers had fallen. If you have a chance, I strongly recommend watching this documentary. It provided a perspective that I thought I would never see, what was actually going on inside. I will definitely purchase it if it becomes available.

I heard a statistic today that 97% of Americans can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when the planes hit the towers. I had just started my junior year of high school and was walking to my Spanish class with friends when we heard the news that a plane hit the towers. I figured that it had been a small single-engine plane or something like that, nothing big. 45-50 minutes later when class was over, we realized the severity of what had happened and what was going on. Once I arrived to my Human Biology class Mrs. J. brought in a TV and we were able to see what was going on. We all were pretty much sitting there speechless. I immediately began to think about my dad who was in New Jersey for business. We then left the class and the entire school met in the auditorium where we were updated on the situation and told to go home. I came home and sat on the coach, glued to the TV for the next seven or eight hours. My dad was okay, just stuck in New Jersey. He and his co-workers got one of very few rental cars that were available and made the long drive back to Tennessee.

I had the chance to travel to New York for the first time in 2006. There were many places and things that I wanted to see but Ground Zero was not necessarily on that list. While walking to a meet a friend at his hotel, we accidently ran across Ground Zero. We wondered what this massive fence covered by tarps was, and when we looked in, we realized what it was. A chill shot through my body and I stood speechless with my mouth wide open. Once in my friend’s hotel, he showed us the view from his room. It was looking down on Ground Zero. Also, while we were up there, they found the remains of three victims. Five years later and they were still finding remains.

Today, 10 years later, I enjoyed church and lunch with my parents and later spending some time with friends at a park. Thoughts and prayers to all those who lost someone or were involved in the search and rescue after the attacks and all military personnel and their families .

I had another great and successful rental from borrowlenses.com this past week. This time I rented the Canon 70-200mm f4L telephoto lens. I have my own 70-210mm lens but I wanted to rent a professional lens and this was going to be my last opportunity before I return to Spain. I shot my friends softball game first before I headed to Florida for the weekend for my niece's soccer tournament, which turned out to be a little bit difficult with all the rain. Here are a few of the photos from the long Labor Day weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lost Sea. The largest underground lake in the United States and 2nd largesst in the world.

 

I'm glad to finally have my car back. It was in the shop for almost 2 months after getting demolished by the hail storm in April. I also didn't have it for the 8 previous months because I was in Spain. Now I get to enjoy it for about 2 months before I am car-less again.

Not too much going on this summer besides working a little bit and spending time friends and family. Needless to say, I have some free time on my hands. So tonight I got my basketball, camera, tripod and remote control for my camera and headed outside. I sat up the tripod in several different positions and starting taking pics while shooting around. I put my camera on a two second delay and had the remote in my pocket so it wouldn't show up in the pics. So after 30 mins I had about 60 pics and here are a few of my favorites.

 

 

 

Here's a video of one of my classes saying goodbye. This was my second year with this group. They weren't usually excited for class, unless we were doing karaoke, but they are a good group of kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PlFH181pVM

Another site with my pictures. pretty much all the places I traveled to over the past year. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamal424/

 

Norris Lake. This was taken at 2:30 am with only the light from the moon.

Had a great weekend with the 50mm lens. I definitely enjoyed it but did not fall in love with it. I will buy it at some point but it is nothing that I necessarily need right away. I am sad to send it back to borrowlenses.com tomorrow however I will use their services again soon.

I'm renting a lens for my camera so I'm exciting about getting to play around with it this weekend. I've heard nothing but good things about the lens so hopefully I will be able to make some good things happen! If it goes well, I'm pretty sure I am going to buy this lens and probably do away with my kit lens.

 

the sunsphere

 

interesting flowers at the World's Fair Park

 

el pato

 

Concord Park

 

Concord Park

Time for an update and a break from the photos. Last week I received an email saying that I was accepted to participate for another year in Spain as a cultural language assistant. This means that yes, I will be heading back to Spain again. I will not be in Aguilas this time, but in the capital city of Murcia. I'm looking forward to my fourth trip to España!

 

working hard with the medicine ball

 

Exhaustion

 

 

tennis ball workout

 

The trainer

 

Dre's workout session

 

Teo, my landlord's dog

 

Spanish churros!