graduation

Some Things to Get Excited About

My long awaited photo book is coming out on Friday.

Rain :: Volume 2
34.0 mm || 1/160 || f/4.2 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70
Golden, Colorado, United States

I graduate soon! The “M” which normally lights the mountain is been temporarily converted into the words largest graduation countdown timer. It currently shows “4” and that makes me super excited.

DSC_8324
55.0 mm || 1.6 sec || f/5.0 || ISO640 || NIKON D70
Golden, Colorado, United States

I am going to miss views like this though. However, as a student I never really found the time to stop and smell the roses; so I do look forward to doing that, in whatever capacity that may be.

DSC_8329
18.0 mm || 1.6 sec || f/4.0 || ISO640 || NIKON D70
Golden, Colorado, United States

And coming back to Seattle. I feel it’s been to long. Not since I last visited, but since I last lived there. I’m looking forward to being back and being able to do the things I love.

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The Incubator

Just writing out what I know I need to accomplish in the next 15-45 days. I don’t think I’ve ever had this many projects go supernovae1 on me in such a short period of time.

  • Codename Shakespeare
  • Finish up and publish Rain :: Volume II
  • Finish School/Graduate
    • USOC Project
    • 3-ish short essays
    • 2-ish exams
    • 2-ish finals
    • 10-ish hw assignments
  • Graduation Party
    • Colorado
    • Seattle
  • Plan a two month trip to Europe
    • Visa
    • Lodging
    • Airplane tickets

Will update as needed.

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  1. when a project goes supernova, it’s basically near completion, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. very near the deadline, the projects looks like it’s going to fail, but it ends up not. instead, the all the different parts of the project instanteously coalesce into a superdense point and spontaneously eject the completed project in all it’s glory, more or less ↩

Update on Rain :: Volume II

Some updates on the photography book I’m working on:

Obviously January 31st has come and gone with no book, this means that the release date will be May 8th. I’ve also got an ISBN number for my birthday from my Uncle, so I’ll be joining the Big Boys™! I was actually thinking about this the other day, my desire to play with the big boys. I remember in 2nd grade when we had to write “books”, I tried really hard to make my books look like the real thing. I’d have the blank pages, and the about the author page, and one time I think I even had some sort of coupon you could send in. Some things never change.

Anyway, May 8th will be the date. I’m glad I’m waiting because I think I will be able to put some amazing pictures in that I take this semester. I’m also thinking about preordering some books and selling them at my graduation party.

There’s also a chance that the book may be more than 40 pages. Unfortunately, this will add $5 to the cost. The good news is that I get up to 40 more pages with that $5, so the book could theoretically end up being 80 pages (yikes).

I’ll leave you with this picture of Dan Fluharty that I took a couple weeks ago at The Feed. The Feed is this awesome event we do every other week where we eat dinner and then go roast s’mores outside. If you’ve ever tried to take pictures around a campfire, you probably noticed how they end up appearing white and the glow of the fire is completely lost. Well, I had this idea to use a CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel on my flash. It’s really just an orange sheet of translucent plastic that makes the light look like a tungsten lamp (which is 3200K…daylight is 5600K-ish). As it turns out, CTO is pretty close to the color of a campfire. The net effect is that I can now use my flash to supplement the light of the campfire. Don’t forget that the goal isn’t to blast the subject, just provide some fill light. I thought the pictures turned out pretty well for this experiment:

DSC_6555
Nikkor 50mm || 1/60 || f/1.8 || ISO1600

As always, check out the rest of the photos on Flickr: The Feed

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Countdown to Graduation

  • Mines

[fergcorp_cdt_single date=”Fri, 08 May 2009 9:30:00 -600″]

I started college [fergcorp_cdt_single date=”Tue, 24 Aug 2004 11:00:00 -700″]

Note: This is a sticky post

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The $490,452 Question

Adam Smiley called today to inform me that over break he proposed to Natalie and will be getting married this summer. This, along with the other people in my life who are married or dating, requires me to contemplate my own status as a single and unattached bachelor (that’s actually redundant, whatever).

Specifically, with only 4 months before I graduate, is now really the time to begin seeking out a relationship? If not now, when? I could theoretically come up with a reason to put off romance for the rest of my life, I think, with one excuse after another precluding me from ever having to become engaged.

At some point, you just have to jump and now seems as good a time as any. Maybe.

(All of this is not to say that I’m going to spend 100% of my time seeking a relationship. But, perhaps, entertain the idea of maybe dating someone.)

Update: Also worth adding:
friends

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You’re Gonna Want to Read All of This

Today is the beginning of fall semester; my last fall semester. I’m aware that this is monumental moment, however I can’t quite bring myself to really believe that this is it: the beginning of the end of 17+ years worth of education1.

And yet it is.

This past summer has been amazing in many ways. I had some amazing conversations with some amazing people, both in my personal life and at work. I still don’t have the future planned out, but that’s okay.

At the end of my high school graduation speech, I quoted a famous Churchill line, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” I think I was about four and a half years too soon on that remark.

This, my friends, really is it. I’m getting ready to write the last chapter in a book I like to call Andrew Ferguson: The First 23 Years.

Thus I think it’s fitting that while I work on closing this chapter and book in my life, I am able to announce the title of my next book – Andrew Ferguson: The Boeing Years.

As my third internship with them was coming to an end, Boeing elected to offer me a job for after graduation.

I accepted.

After some time off to catch a breather, I’ll be returning to my group sometime in the late summer of 2009.

So, stick around. This year is going to be crazy-awesome and as Frank Sinatra sang,
The best is yet to come, and, babe, won’t that be fine,
You think you’ve seen the sun, but you ain’t seen it shine

1 I would actually argue that learning is a lifelong adventure. I hope to never stop being educated. So really, this is the end of my formal education – at least for the time being.

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My Ticket Out: Undergraduate Application to Graduate

I’ve completed more then 90 credit hours and thus I’ve reached the point at my time at Mines when I can submit my Undergraduate Application to Graduate. It’s actually a pretty simple form. Two sides. Takes less then five minutes to fill out. I envisioned it being a climactic event with my paperwork undergoing rigorous scrutiny.

It wasn’t.

The registrar asked how she could help.
I said that I was turning in my Undergraduate Application to Graduate.
I handed my form over and she quickly looked at both sides, proclaimed that it looked complete and stamped it with her giant “Paperwork Received” stamp.

I hope the actual graduation ceremony is more exciting than this.

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