Hi again, everyone.

Yes, I know. I haven’t posted anything for a while. I had actually planned to make a posting this past weekend titled “A Busy Week,” but unfortunately some more problems cropped up with my new computer and I’ve had to spend several hours on the phone with tech support people in India, the Philippines and – would you believe it? – the United States (!) trying to get the problems sorted out.

As of now, they are still not all worked out, but they are to the extent that I can take a few days off from conversing with people on the other side of the world. More on this later.

The action began a couple of weeks ago when I made a weekend trip to Las Vegas to visit family. As has become the norm for a Vegas visit, I got together with my good friend Terrell “Big T” Neasley for breakfast on Saturday morning. After I downed my pancakes and he finished his eggs benedict, we drove on over to a camera store where Terrell and some of his buddies like to hang out on Saturday mornings. That’s a photo of Big T in the store at the top.

I returned to New York on Monday, December 6, but as it was a late afternoon departure from Las Vegas, my plane didn’t get into JFK until around 12:45 a.m., I didn’t get home until around 2:00 and I didn’t get to bed until around 3:00. If that weren’t bad enough, it was up at 5:30 a.m. to head into work as usual.

There wasn’t much time to rest after work, either, as that Tuesday evening was the annual benefit photo auction for Friends Without a Border, which I wrote about last time. This is always a nice event to attend, helping to raise money for a childrens’ hospital in Cambodia. The difference this year was that one of my own photos was being auctioned off, so I was happy to contribute in another way.

So how did my photo do? Well, it sold for $200 to a woman who told me that she really liked it a great deal, but quite honestly I was hoping that it would go for a bit more. Still, $200 can buy a lot of medicine to help the needy, so I am happy that it sold for what it did. Hopefully I’ll be able to contribute another print next year.

Here are some photos from the event.

At the end of last week, on Friday, I decided to go after work to the holiday party being held at the New York Academy of Art in TriBeCa. I wanted to get some dinner first, so I used it as an opportunity to finally eat at a place called the Square Diner (even though it’s on a roughly triangular shaped piece of land) a couple of blocks from the school. There are plenty of diners in New York, but I've wanted to try this one as it seems to be one of the few railroad car style diners left in the city, so it was an interesting visit. (The food was decent, too.)

Here are a few photos.

After dinner it was off to the art school, where the event was held in the main gallery on the ground floor. The walls were covered with small, relatively inexpensive artworks for sale to benefit the school, and there were a lot of wonderful paintings, prints and drawings. Among the people I met and spoke with were John Cichowski, who runs the school’s continuing education department (perhaps I’ll sign up for a figure drawing class one day when I have time) and an art student named Lisa Benson, whose website can be seen here and blog here.

There was art being created, too, as several artists were making drawings and paintings of the models who occupied the center of the room – several young guys covered in a glittery covering, wearing nothing but white undershorts and white angel wings. (It would be great if they could have some female angels dressed that way next year, but somehow I don’t think that will happen!)

Again, some photos.

************************************************************************
As to my computer problems, where shall I begin??? Come to think of it, I’ve probably posted enough for one day, so I’ll hold off until my next post to deal with that. Perhaps I’ll even be able to get something resolved between now and then.

Before I end, though, here’s a You Tube link that every American citizen should watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7q5F2u1I_Q&feature=related

Stay tuned and stay warm.