life is SO hard
but pay enough attention and you see that it's AMAZING.
look around. this is your only life
don't let it slip by unnoticed.

i'd forgotten about this funny email exchange from last year:

- Marty Boman (WKU KAP director, to the SIFE leadership)
KAP is tryig toc omplete its Newsletter for last month and would greatly appreciate including some photos of the Bird house building project. Could we please get some photos from you. 3-4 would be great!!!!!
Marty Boman

- me (to the SIFE student leaders)
wow, marty boman sure can't write worth a crap. i can send her some pics basically immediately, because not being for sife and not needing to put forward any kind of sife-related message i can just send the ones i like the best.
is that ok, or should i do something else?
dave

- SIFE student leader (to me)
Dave,
Next time make sure who you are sending your emails to. This email
below, you actually sent to marty boman. Ooops..
John

- me (to marty boman)
Hi,
I'm Dave Taylor, the one from whom you'll be getting the photos of the birdhouse project. You might also remember me as the guy who sent an email to you and three others saying your message was written terribly. I'm sorry about that, and I wasn't being malicious in saying it. I am a journalism major and I've had the idea drummed in my head for four years that writing is super important and speaks volumes about us. Clearly your errors were simply typos from writing quickly, and no one believes you actually spell by running words together or by leaving out letters. I really do apologize and it was meant in jest. As for photos, I have 40+ that I could send, or I could send a tight edit of about five. I am not sure how well Western's webmail handles attachments, so I can post them online and send you links, where you could then save them without filling your inbox, or if you wish I can send one per message so they're easier to handle. Let me know which you prefer, and I'm sorry again for my flippant comment. Thanks!
Dave Taylor

- marty (to me)
David,
I was truly offended by your remarks!
Regardless if you are in the field of journalism or not, professionalism is something that is highly valued in the workplace. If you review your email, I see more errors than in mine, but, that is not the issue here. I really viewed this as insult, even if you meant it in jest.
If the journalism department is drumming this into your head, please evaluate your writing first before judging others. We also need to learn the appropriate time and place to correct someone. I hope that you will learn from this experience! We can talk further Dave if you like
I truly respect the SIFE team as their work is "top notch". They have done so much for the participants in our program!
In the past, I have received a CD of all the photos that they took so that the Kelly Autism Program would have them for our archives. Immediately, I would appreciate it if you would pick 3-4 that you think are great. Krist also wanted one that showed the team as they received their award at the competition! Please forward them to jennifer.hutcherson@wku.edu
Dr. Marty Boman, KAP Director

- me (to marty)
Dr. Boman,
I truly have learned a lesson about professionalism from this experience, and I hope it doesn't reflect on SIFE, as I'm really more their photographer than anything. I reviewed my emails and found zero errors, so could you point out the ones you mentioned? Bad writing is one of my pet peeves, and I don't wish to send out anything with errors in it. As for photos, I will send three or four to Jennifer as soon as I finish this email. I did not go to the SIFE competition because of photo assignments, so I don't have pictures of them receiving awards, but presumably someone there took photos. I took a large number of photos of the birdhouse project, and there might be so many they will have to go on more than one CD. The other option is a single DVD, so just let me know which is better for you. Dave Taylor

- marty (to me)
David,
This does not reflect on SIFE at all.
Capitalization, punctuation, etc. are writing errors, but this is not the issue.
I just wanted you to know the impact that your remarks have on people. It seems that we feel that we can say anything in an email, sometimes things that we would never say face-to-face to that person. I follow the rule that if I wouldn't say the remark directly to the person, then I shouldn't put it in an email. This is something to remember!
Sincerely,
Dr. Boman

i could have sworn i wrote another one after that, but i can't find it. it would've gone something like this: "you're dumb." i had to be nice though because SIFE was hardcore about appearances and thank you notes and such. 'twas fun still.

Current Location: high horse
Current Music: king of the hill

Current Music: duh

http://www.wku.edu/~david.taylor2/lgc/




more news at 11...

		I will marry jo.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in chicago in our fabulous Mansion.
		We will have 5 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a blue vw westphalia.
		I will spend my days as a photojournalist, and live happily ever after.

yay today! and i don't even know why.

things i love today:
freaks
cold pizza
possibility
memories
images
excessive nudity
shiny things
GOD
nature
slippery things
cookies
creativity
breaking out
light
new places
colorful language
fast
slow
close
love

Current Location: alllllllll over
Current Music: ching ching, law and order

look at the headline:


it was a cut off n, but still HILARIOUS.

Current Location: in the rear
Current Mood: fabulous
Current Music: scissor sisters

i just finished shooting a pretty cool band for our entertainment magazine thing and apparently one of the women in it teaches photography at a local junior college. when i arrived she had lights set up for a portrait, which was boring and wasn't what i wanted to shoot, but i figured that's the idea they wanted so i shot it. throughout the night i heard her say:

1.) oh, he's not going with what we wanted (when i moved a light)
2.) please tell me he's not going to shoot us with a wide angle. if he's shooting us with a wide angle i'm going to kick him! whoever's in the center is going to look huge! (there were 10 of them so that's not even true)
3.) i helped you light the portrait, and you have no idea how hard that is (when asking for free photos)

thanks for your annoying input, miss jr college woman, but i went to one of the best photo schools in the nation and i do this for a living. shuuuuuuuuuut up!

Current Location: cushion number 2
Current Music: monster love sounds

i want to write more, but they'll pile on. adam had to write 13 stories in 3 days. no thanks.
this got bumped :-(


DAVE TAYLOR / FOR THE SOUTHERN

Once a year quiet Steeleville, Ill., home to a scant 2,200 people, swells to a celebrating 10,000-15,000 as folks from all over Southern Illinois flock to the small town for the Steeleville Fourth of July Picnic.

Held every year since 1866, the celebration envelopes downtown with a craft fair, a 3k run, a car show, a carnival, and the pièce de résistance, the parade.

With 85 entries featuring the marching bands, church floats and classic cars Americans expect, the parade has been drawing crowds for generations.

“It’s a mix of tradition and it’s a little bit nostalgic for us. This is what we did when we were kids and then we come and we watch our kids enjoy it,” said Nathan Hicks, of Cutler, who came out with his wife and three kids and his nieces and nephews.

The parade turns locals into showmen and sends kids clamoring for anything flung from a slow-moving vehicle.

“They’ll rush to get anything, a pencil, a refrigerator magnet, a piece of paper… They were fighting over a business card earlier,” said Hicks.

The celebration will wrap up Friday night with a fireworks display at 10 p.m., followed by a raffle giveaway of a Pontiac G6.

Current Location: tv adjacent