Back From Vacation

Last week we took our first vacation in about six years.  It was a week of a lot of firsts-- Molly's first trip on a plane, first vacation, first time seeing the ocean, etc.  What a great great time!!!  I'm just now starting to wade through all the hundreds (literally) of photos that I took, so hopefully I'll get some galleries put together soon.  I know I'm definitely going to be putting together a book and some fine-art prints for sale of some of the landscapes, but that's probably a few weeks (at least) off, as they're going to get a pretty extensive processing before they see the light of day, and I've got two wedding shoots to finish up first. 

Big Changes Coming...

Just an FYI...

I'm at the start of some major overhauls to pretty much every aspect of our web presence.  First, the main whiteshark photography site (http://www.whitesharkphoto.com) is going to change drastically.  We're switching to an all-flash-based design.  Not sure yet when the cutover for that will be, but this change will make it much easier for us to update content on the main site and gather metrics about visitors so we can see what we need to improve on.

Second, we're switching our content / ecommerce provider from Exposure Manager to ZenFolio.  There are several reasons for this switch, but most are on the back-end to help provide images back to the team easier and quicker.  On the front-side, our visitors will notice a much nicer, cleaner interface and more importantly, some new products!

So look for these changes coming in the next month or so.  We're very excited and can't wait to see these changes go into place...

Soccer Schedule

Nothing to see here. ;-)

Sorry for the totally off-subject post, but just needed a place to get a calendar up for a soccer team that I play on.

John and Ann -- Teaser #2

Time for another teaser!!

Mr. & Mrs. Whelan... the teaser

Still in the midst of editing John and Ann's wedding, but thought I'd toss this image out there (mostly to drive them nuts while I work on the rest of the photos)...

The Run to the Cup

I'm sure those few of you that are actively following the blog are wondering where the heck the Clark Cup photos are!  Well truth be told, we've just been so busy processing them, going to the next shoot, and handling all the photo requests, getting a few up on the blog has been a somewhat low priority, especially considering the full sets have been up on the galleries for quite some time.

Rather than break them down like we usually do, I'm just going to post a whole series of our favorite images from the homecoming and celebrations...











































That's it for now!  See you at camp in a few weeks!!

Home-Ice

The finals have come to Indy for the first time in several years. I'll be honest...I'm kind of burnt out on hockey by this time in the spring. It's been a long run, starting at the summer camp in June, then the team picnic in September, then kicking off the season in October.

By April I'm ready for a break.

But if I'm still standing in the box in May it's a whole different story. If I'm in the box in May it means we're playing for the Clark Cup. No, it's not Lord Stanley's Cup, and though the locker rooms are smaller, the equipment not as new, the will to win is still burning.

The Fargo Force was in town, and again if I'm being honest, I think we all took Game 1 for granted. I know I did. To use my exact words in describing it to my co-workers... "We'd beaten the snot out of Fargo three of four times we played them in the regular season." In my head, we were already lifting the Cup and starting the celebration.



And then the Fargo goaltender stood on his head and put on an absolute clinic in net. This was a Fargo team that was worlds away from the hapless expansion club we saw back in October. Not nearly the offensive weapons that we have, but the old sports cliche really is true-- 'Offense fills seats; defense wins championships.' Fargo shut the Ice down in front of their net, and crashed the hell out of our net. Eventually it paid off, and the Ice skated off 2-1 losers in the first game.


game two
The Ice came out determined to play their game instead of Fargo's in game two of the series. Home-ice-advantage nullified, this was going to be an out-and-out war.


Gone from the locker room was any kind of joking. No laughter. No pre-game giddiness. Just adrenaline, focus, and lots of taped-up playoff injuries.







Back after a night off was Sebastian Geoffrion, and he brought his normal style of game...




After two of the most brutal, hard-hitting periods of hockey I've seen in four years in the box, the Ice's offense finally started to fire on all cylinders, and we came out with a 5-2 win. Next up, games 3 and 4 in Fargo later this week, with a game 5 if necessary back in Indy on Sunday afternoon.

Time to Use the 'Force'

I think this photo pretty much sums it up, yeah?



Two powerplay goals against in the first period and this is how Phil Wilson, reporter for the Indianapolis Star, described the mood: "A humbling two-goal deficit after one period of hockey had the Indiana Ice locker room silent. Some players stared at the Pepsi Coliseum floor, others gawked at the ceiling. Doubt crept in, for a few moments." (LINK)

The second period brought out a different Indiana Ice team, though. Here are a couple shots of the period that turned the season...






And by far the coolest tradition in any sport. These guys spend the better part of a week trying to find new and exciting ways to kill each other on the ice, and at the end of all those hours of sweat and aggression, they line up and shake hands, from the players all the way through the ranks to the trainers. I absolutely love the handshake line. I wish I had been able to be there to shoot it, but this was Kelly's game from start to finish; I was at soccer and then home with the tot.



And finally for now, the post-game celebration in the locker room. I'm glad the guys had a moment to enjoy this accomplishment, but Mike Cichy pegged it... "It's still unfinished right now." We've got one more series to win. Look out Fargo, the Ice is coming...

Game 3

If the game were on ESPN, the commentator would say something that was supposed to be witty but said absolutely nothing.  Something like, "While it's not a must-win game for the Ice, this Game 3 is almost a must-win," or, "The Ice really need to grab this series by the scruff of the neck tonight." 

Game 3.  Series tied 1-1.  Winner goes into a situation of needing to only win one more to head to the Clark Cup Finals against Fargo. 

I usually try to duck into the locker room prior to warm-ups for a few minutes to say hi to the guys and pick up a cup of coffee.  Usually the locker room is pretty raucous--loud music, guys grab-assing and joking around, the usual dudes' locker room kind of mentality.

This was the locker room before Game 3...


Quiet.  Tense.  The guys have a laptop loaded with music to listen to while they dress.  A song ended and no one got up to start another for several seconds.  One of the guys walked through in a towel.  Nobody tried to yank it or snap him with their own towel.  I'd never seen this team with their game faces on so early.  I knew we were in for a battle.


Kind of like a shot shattering a pane of glass behind the goalie, this is something you see in the NHL from time to time, but I've never seen it in the USHL.  One of the Ice players did this.  With a shot.



And the big hero of the night...Max Cook with the game winning goal and first star of the night.




Nice to see the local media finally taking an interest in the Ice, as well.  Several of the local network affiliates were out shooting some footage of the game, and Fox-59 stayed around to interview the coach and players.

Way too fast

(Lookit my little south-paw writing!)

<<sigh>> I know it's cliche. I know it's maudlin. But I know it's my little girl, and she's growing up way too fast. I remember like it was yesterday the night she was born. The doctors telling us the labor was too long and she was having difficulty breathing. Me spending five exhausted minutes at midnight next to this tiny, gasping being before they put her into the pediatric ICU ambulance to transport her to a Level-4 NICU forty minutes away. Finally taking her home a week later, happy and healthy, if still a little tired.

Now here we are, four and a half years later and she's writing, reading simple words, and throwing the most hideous tantrums when she wants a pudding cup for dinner instead of the chicken and green beans we made. She's a decent photographer (for a four-year-old), a budding computer geek, and just got her first iPod (mom's hand-me-down) yesterday. (Kidz Bop 15 all the way to the zoo!)

I can't even put into words the roller coaster of joys and worries and achievements and moments our Molly has brought us.

Playoffs, baybeeee

Heard a good quote the other day that sums it up. I forget which coach it was, but after getting absolutely demolished in his first NHL playoffs game by a much lower-seeded team, the coach was asked about his team's preparedness. He said something like, I had no idea. I thought I'd been running them hard for the last three weeks and they were ready. They'd been playing at 100%. I had no idea that they'd need to step up the intensity _another_ 20% beyond that.


Yeah. That's playoff hockey. And it's come to Indy, not in the form of the NHL, but in our USHL Indiana Ice. Finishing the season 3 points out of the top spot in the league and better than any team in the other division, the Ice were ready to hit the ice and make a statement after an early playoff exit last season.

Still, that extra 20% is hard to come by when it's 70 degrees outside and the season started the _last_ time it was 70 degrees outside, with a full winter in between. The Ice's first round best-of-five playoff series against the Cedar Rapid RoughRiders went the full distance, finishing with a 7-6 shooting gallery in Cedar Rapids. The series winner was scored with 00:15 (that's fifteen seconds) left on the clock.

Here are just a couple of our favorite photos from the two games played in Indy in the first round series.

!! Geek Alert !!

My almost year-long flirtation with the dark side (or with the side of goodness and happiness, if you listen to my buddy, Whelan) is over. I sold my 24" iMac and went back to using my custom-built (read: 'home-built') server/workstation. Installed the 7057 build of Windows 7 and moved in. Well, moved in with a 'minor' upgrade. ;-) Instead of the previous 22" HP monitor, I got a pair of matching 23" Acers. Mmmmm, prettyyyyyyy.

This series of photos is of the monitors going in. Got another series of the wall-mounts (mmmm, prettierrrrr).

Note that you can still see the old HP on its wall-mount. I'm considering picking up a cheapie video card and running it as a 3rd display. What do you think?? I've got an open PCI-E16 slot in the beast...

Bunny-day happiness

Ok, so I've been a bit absent again lately. Several things have been going on. One, work has been absolutely kicking my butt with business. All kinds of deadlines and projects and the usual conflux of crazy. Two, I dislocated my right index finger a couple weeks ago, so it's actually been pretty painful to type or even run the mouse (and god help me, Call of Duty online is absolutely out. I tried playing a few matches last week and my trigger finger is so slow and painful I got my arse handed to me. Repeatedly. I finally shut it down, quite saddened).

So really, that's been about it. I'm going to try to blog more words, and more pictures too. I realized after reading some friends' blogs and getting thoroughly hooked on Wil Wheaton's blog that I really do miss writing. I used to write all the time--non-fiction, poetry, short stories. Then over the years just kind of fell away from it. I need to get back to it and find my voice again. Anyway, enough sentimentalizing.

Recent goings on include getting up at the crack of oh-my-god-it's-still-dark-out to eat chocoate and hunt easter eggs. Here are some photos of the kid, all suited up in her easter best (actually, it's last year's easter best, since the dress she picked out this year (and just HAD to have) she won't even put on for five minutes in the studio since "it's itchy, Dad!". Grr.).