Ok so I hate the idea of leaving this blog behind after 3 faithful years dedicated to it... im bringing the pages from the other blog back to here and keeping this one alive. stay tuned for new blogs. It feels good to be back.

change...

Im changing to a new blog... in the interest of stating reasons once, go to my new blog here http://thelifeofbrian.blog.com/ to check out the new blog and add me to your feed.

The turning of the leaves changes my blues

ok... so... long summer.... finally over. This must be the feeling people up north get after a long snowy winter. Well the temps are finally down and the humidity isnt attacking with quite the same intensity. I have started a new job working with the Y, I am a youth specialist with my own class of 4th graders. They are perhaps the whiniest group of kids I have ever had to work with, but they are good kids. I have a full set of classes this semester, which will be my last semester pursueing my AA degree before I get into my Bachelors program. I have been riding my bike more in the past week then I had all summer due to the fact that I have no gas in the truck, and I have been needing to get to work... I put in over 50 miles last week, it feels liberating.
I have planned a hiking trip to return to my beloved Pisgah National Forest; a friend and I are hiking the Art Loeb trail starting in the Shining Rock Wilderness and ending at Davidson River Campground, where I stayed when I did the Pisgah Mountain Bike Adventure Race last year. This time the plans are set and the plane tickets are already purchased, so backing out would mean losing money, and a very sad bRiaN. I am really looking forward to spending sometime with mother Earth and just being out in the wild.
I am hoping that this very depressing summer will meet a very happy end in this hiking trip.

grr

Another summer gone and classes are starting again... I had many plans this summer that got pushed off due to heat and depression. This state can be ridiculously hot this time of year and it wore on me more this summer than i can ever remember. I haven't spent a whole lot of time outdoors this summer and I have been longing for adventure. Im hoping that with the turn of the seasons I will spend some more time getting out and doing things rather than being stuck in this house.

Tooting my own horn

I have always considered myself, with great hubris, to be a renaissance man. I am in constant search of physical, intellectual, and artistic pursuits to please my insatiable palate for humanities. I am ever the athlete competing in running and cycling races, i like to consider myself an intelligent guy as I am pursuing my bachelors degree and read constantly, and my artistic pursuits have included playing the guitar and most recently photography. Well I have one more to add to the list of the arts. For a long time I have wanted to learn how to paint... since i was a kid actually. I always thought i would need to take a class to learn how to handle the brush and know what to buy. I got tired of waiting to find a decent local class and decided to just go for it. I finally got myself a cheap set of watercolor paints, a set of brushes, and some watercolor paper. Over the last two days I have been playing with different techniques and getting to know my brushes and different strokes. I have used some of the bird photos that I have taken as models for my new found hobby. The pictures I am posting are of pictures I have painted so far. There should be plenty more to follow the few I have painted already. The first is my first painting since the finger paintings and paint by numbers I did as a kid, it is a yellow crowned night heron. The second is a brown pelican near the Skyway bridge, and the last there is a tricolored heron. I am getting better with the brush strokes and details such as feather definition and shading. We'll see how things progress as i learn to paint more. :)

Going native

Few of you may know this about me, but I am part Penobscot. The Penobscot native Americans are a canoeing people from what is now Maine and parts of Canada. I really dont know how much of me is native or really who it was in my family that was but I have been told by my family that the herritage is there. And though it may be very little, I still take pride in my canoeing bretheren of the north. Recently I borrowed, with eventual intent to buy (and restore) an Old Town Camper from a friend. I have been out on the canoe 4 times in the last couple of weeks and it has proven to be an adventurous endeavor. I have gotten some great photo opportunites that I would never have imagined on foot, and getting into those tight spots has been quite fun. Nothing beats getting up before the sun and silently paddling out into the reeds or mangroves searching for nesting egrets, roosting night herons, and other wading birds. But as I have AADD (Adventure Attention Deficit Disorder) I am constantly in need of new things to do to have fun, and a vessel such as my canoe is a great platform for adventuring and camping and photography... I think my Penobscot blood is coursing through my veins happier then before i had the canoe and it is certainly a nice addition to the adventure quiver which I use to constantly seek new means of outdoor fun. These are some pictures I have taken on some of my trips on the Camper so far.

Summer SAD

With the end of a very stressful summer semester looming I am hoping to be able to get out and do something worthy of posting here in my blog. I have been out and taken a few pictures in the last couple weeks but for the most part I have been locked inside trying to keep up with classwork.



I am planning a trip to JB Starkey Wilderness Park in New Port Richey for some riding and some hiking and some photography. I will hopefully go within the next couple weeks. I want to try to take it easy along the route there so as not to upset my knee as it has been some time since I have taken a longer trip. well in the mean time... here are some pics ove taken locally recently.