It's snowing! The cold is finally worthwhile.

Here's another big photo post. Some new. Some from October that got lost in the shuffle of things. It's snowed a little bit today. Enough that my car had some snow on it when I went out earlier. It's not very fun to have to wear giant coats on assignment. It's like wearing huge marshmallows and trying to take pictures.

This is a very sad Santa. This guy had been Santa at one of the malls since 1991. That's way back when I was going to go see Santa! Anyways, he got fired in October without any notice and not much of an explanation other then that they were worried about his health. Which didn't make too much sense to him and his family b/c he's been Santa even with broken ribs and cancer. He's in good health now and loves his job. Right now he's writing a book about the things kids tell him. He's had kids tell them they were being abused. I had no idea kids would tell Santa that kind of thing.

Spent the other day at a training session for firefighters. Man firefighters are cute. They let me go upstairs when they were burning a barrel full of straw in the attic. I had no idea rooms filled up with smoke so fast. I got laughed at pretty good when I was coughing and my eyes were burning. But it's like hey, you guys have masks and oxygen, give me a break. It was a lot of fun. Really cool to see how they look for fires and navigate around rooms that are filled with smoke. Plus, it was awesome to get that kind of access. And the camera guy from the TV station that was there got his lens totally fogged up. I had no such problems.







Earth Wind and Fire. Or as I said all day that day.. "Whoooo?" I had heard of these guys but I couldn't name a song if my life depended on it. All day people were saying, ohhh you'll know who they are. I didn't.



We had some awesome winds the other day. Gusts up to 60mph. The temp was in the 60s in the morning and then at about 3 it dropped about 40 degrees. I could barely walk down the street. My cameras were whipping around and all sorts of crap was flying around in the air. The town Xmas tree was uprooted by all the winds. These guys were trying to secure it so it didn't topple over into the street.





A group at YSU walked to Pittsburgh to raise money for the Children's Hospital. This is the start of their walk.

A couple of firefighters were sworn in the other day by the mayor. This is a few of them signing their oaths.

A local artist who is a finalist in a national art competition. Her and I both liked the painting on the floor in the center better then the one on the easel (that was the one that got picked). She had a lot of neat stuff in her studio.

A few of our local teams made it to the State Championships. This is one of the teams who unfortunately lost. Kinda crappy game. Bob and I were both hoping for better action.











Here's a FUN PIX of Bob (r) and Oz in the end-zone waiting around for action.

A pep rally for Mooney who DID win a State Championship.

A prize for a school that collected a ton of canned food.. teachers got their hair cut and a few kids got pies to the face. Check out the hottie getting his hair cut. Who knew teachers could be so cute?



A parent/PTA discussion on what to improve throughout the school district. This is the moderator and her assistant asking questions.

A few more pics from the autism school.







Here's the stuff from October. I can't remember if I ever posted the picture with the bike in it or not. Anyways, this is from a feature hunt that I did at a trailer park north of here. The kids were out playing football and I pulled over to check it out. Took some pictures of them, let them take pictures of each other and had a lot of fun hanging out with them. I brought them some prints later that week which they were totally stoked on. It was a lot of fun.















I like to get group shots of kids sometimes so then when I go back and look at my notes and it says "kid in shirt with thing on it" or whatever it is then I can go back and be like oooh that kid. Plus, it made for a funny picture to give to them.

RUDY RUDY.

Barber shop feature. They had a picture package on the wall that Bill shot before I was even born. He totally nailed it. Me, not so much.

And last but not least, a few shots from some features I did on a double-dutch group at an after school program. Nothing cooler than a bunch of girls singing DO IT TO IT and jump-roping. They were so much fun.