Back at my pet building tonight. On the way home from the gym I poked my head in to see if the door to the 2nd floor was open...it was! I ran home and grabbed my camera and headed back. They are really ripping up the 1st floor with a vengance. They knocked a big ol' hole in the back wall so they could drive some heavy machinary in there. I didn't mind too much since I used said hole to get in. I skipped the 2nd floor, heading straight to the 3rd floor. Again, not too much different here. On the 4th floor I discovered some things that I had never seen before, either because they weren't there when I was last there in November or so, or because I simply didn't see them. When Tyler and I were here for the 1st time back in November or so, we found a couch and some graff on the wall that said, "home sweet illegal home." We also heard (or thought we heard) something behind a closed door on that floor so we didn't spend too much time of that floor. Up to this point I had always prided myself in that I was probably the most knowledgeable person in the whole city about this building, but tonight I was humbled. I found several tags by the squatters one reading, "chief pack...barfield squaters (sic) 2003" I don't know how long the Chief Pack lived in this building or how many the Pack consisted of, but surely they know that building better than anyone. I'd love to meet them and find out what it was like to live there, and how they got in, as there was only one entrance (as far as I know) during 2003. I went up to the 4th and 5th floors as well but the Pack's presence was pretty much limited to the 3rd floor, where they did alot of graf and "decorations" (like painting TV's, clocks, and boomboxes on the walls). Anyway, I got hungry and called it quits without seeing the whole building, but it's just an excuse to keep going back. It's pretty fun to watch a building change right before your eyes on a daily basis.

I found a really awesome atlas of the road maps of texas this weekend so I wanted to drive around and see how good it was this Saturday. I ended up driving to Pampa, about an hour northeast of here. I found some grain elevators I need to check out at nighttime on the way there, and I found an old hospital in Pampa as well. For those intersted, the map is really good too. It shows grain elevators, mines, power stations and transmitting towers, along with the dumb stuff like rest areas.

Here's the hospital:

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I couldn't get inside, it was locked up pretty tight.

I got my camera back from Olympus today. I had to send it off for repairs back in April. I prolly won't be using this one much anymore, with the Rebel and the old SLR doing the majority of the work, but at least if any of my friends wanna go with me, they can use that camera to take pictures if they are so inclined.

After my workout, I stopped by my pet building to check the progress. There were still dudes working there at 7:30 pm. Dang, and I had my camera too. More to come. Maybe tommorow.

I should be getting a certificate in the mail soon stating that I am indeed a moron. Yesterday I was driving around with a couple friends and I ran out of gas. Again. This happened a few months ago, with CMH and Dirtbag. It's not my fault though 'cause the gas guage is all fuX0red up, and it said I still had about 1/32nd of a tank left....the needle wasn't even in the red! So we Rene called his wife and she came and I went with her to go get a gallon of gas. Then we went to Rene's house and his wife made us a kickass dinner of fajitas, beans, and the best Mexican rice on Earth. Then we just sat around and watched the Olympics. Not UE related, but meh...

Holy ASS! Tonight was awesome! Tonight was the Polk Street Block Party downtown, and I conned my friend Felix to leave the party we were at to go try and take some pics from the roof of my pet building, as it lies smack in the middle of the festivities. When we got there, we were gonna slide between the fence (of the building), but we noticed this morbidly obese man working in the building, on the 1st floor. I called him over to us and asked if he could let us up on the roof as I was a *ahem* "freelance photographer." He said we'd have to ask "that guy" as he pointed over to some guy sleeping in a pickup truck. Fatty went over to the truck to wake up "that guy" and asked for us. "That Guy" said we couldn't as it was dark and not safe. I informed them that we had our own flashlights, but to no avail. We went back to the party; I would have to wait a couple hours for them to leave. Around 10 pm, Felix and I left the party again, to try again. We walked up to the building and Fatty and That Guy were gone. Good. I was pulling at the fence when I saw a flashlight on me. I started to walk away when Felix called out to me. I walked over to Felix and the police officer.
"What are ya'll doin'?" The cop asked.
"Taking pictures." As I raised my tripod and camera.
"Oh. C'mon." He said.
What?! This cop is gonna let us into the festival?! For free?! Sweet! (It was $10 for the non-cool kids to get in) He lead us to a fence blocking the alley, and opened it for us, letting us into the festival. I walked up to behind a stage where a Tejano band was playing and began taking some shots. That got old, so we walked on down the street, pointing the various buildings I'd been on top of to Felix, wishing I could get on one of them again tonight. We walked on down the street till I saw a parking garage we could get onto the upper level of, though only 3 levels up. It was fenced off to cars, so we had to go around back into the alley and climb up to the 2nd level. We walked the rest of the way up to the 3rd level and I started shooting. I only taken a few pictures when some guy with a event pass came out of the stairwell connecting the parking garage and the adjacent building (the Fisk building, which I roofed about a month ago). I tried my best to act normal since I figured he was here to tell us to leave. He came up and asked if I was getting some cool pictures. I nodded affirmatively and he sidled up next to us and watched the busy street below. After a few minutes he asked, "Ya'll wanna go up on the roof and take some pictures?"
I couldn't believe it. I looked at Felix, looked at the dude and stammered, "Yeah!" He led us down the stairwell and into the building lobby. It was there we found out he was the building engineer, as he used a coat hanger to pry open the elevator doors. We went up to the 10th floor, through some service doors, up some stairs and out a little half door onto the roof.
Out on the roof were about 7 other people, some were the buildings engineers, and the rest were college kids; all enjoying the view. One of the engineers asked who I worked for and if I had a card because he wanted some of my pictures. I *didn't have my cards on me* and took his card, promising to e-mail him my pics as soon as I got home. We were in all likelyhood; the highest people in Amarillo (at least in terms of altitude), enjoying a helluva view as thousands of people pounded the pavement on the street below. I took a few group shots of all the people on the roof, collecting another e-mail address to send pics to afterwards. After a while, I guess the view got old for a few of the college kids and they went back through the half door inside. Felix was chatting with one of the engineers who was telling Felix of how he comes up here at night during the lightning storms and just, "chills and get drunk." I asked if I might be able to chill with him, to which he replied, "Send me those pictures and we'll talk." I used a bit of social engineering and was able to find out from the engineer that he is responsible for about 60% of the hi-rises in downtown Amarillo. He pointed over to the Bank One Tower; the tallest building in Amarillo, and perhaps the entire Panhandle, and says, "You should see the storms from up there. It's badass."
I told him that indeed I would like to see the view from up there, to which he echoed his previous sentiment, "Send me those pictures and we'll talk." Holy cow. If he can get me up there....I dunno....
With that, we went inside took the stairs back down to the 10th floor, which was empty, and haunted according to the 3 engineers. We walked around and he implored me to take lots of pictues, to try to get orbs and whatnot. I humored them and played along with the ghosthunter mentality, oohing and aahhing at his stories of seeing ghosts and shadows. He walked me around, showing me an A/C unit that he always saw stuff outta the corner of his eye when he was working on it. He also showed me where he thought the examination table and the autopsy room were, as this building was at one point in it's history a hospital. I took some pictures, but to my chagrin, I didn't get any ghostly evidence. What a suprise. We got back into the service elevator and headed down to floor 6, which was also "haunted" and I took some more pictures to capture the ghouls. One of the college girls asked to see my pictures, as she was an "expert" at finding ghosts in photos. All I could do was bite my tongue as I showed her the pictures. Back in the elevator, as we were shutting the door, the head engineer stepped out and we headed down without him. From the 6th floor he pushed floor buttons at random sending us up and down the elevator shaft. On top of that, one of the engineers in the elevator turned off the lights in the elevator. Between the darkness and the up and down, the college girls and their boyfriends were getting scared. One of the girls ordered the engineer to "stop fucking around" and take us to the 1st floor because her boyfriend had to take a shit. HAHA! That was all it took to get us to the 1st floor pretty quickly. Once in the lobby, we all stepped out into the parking garage, where I thanked my guides and again expressed my interest in accessing the Bank One Tower. I got the same response as before, so I guess that's a good sign. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Pics from last night.

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That last one def. has an evil demon in it.

Here's a small update for the site that I don't think deserves to be in the website updates forum. It's the writeup and pics from the crane I apexed about a month ago.

http://texploration.org/crane.htm

Questions, comments, dead links?

Alright, I'm back from the banned. Friday I drove to Oklahoma to see if I could find anything to explore in Guymon. There was indeed alot there, but it was all secured pretty tight and would require some more scouting. On my drive back I discovered some seriously cool stuff. An old electric power plant and a small neighborhood next to it where the workers lived; all abandoned and crawling with cows. I didn't get to check the plant out, but I peeked into a couple of the houses. It's only an hour away so I'll be back.
Today, I got to visit my pet building for the 1st time in daylight. Heh. That sentence reminds me of all the jokes about girls being 10s at 2 and 2s at 10. But my building still looked good in the daylight. They are doing alot of work to the upper floors now, and I found some more stuff from the squatter that lived there, a note from some girl, and a to do list. I got pics, I'll post here maybe tomorow. On this trip, I tried focusing on humans relationship with the building. Lots of little notes and grafitti...all telling a story. After all, buildings are nothing more than stages for the drama of human life. We just go around after the show and look at the stage props and backdrop and try to figure out what the show was about.

Yeah, enough philosophy.

Here's the power plant I found on the way home from OK.

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Yesterday when I was leaving school, I stopped to ask this dude about the classified abandoned town next to the above powerplant; as he used to live close by. He knew what I was talking about, but didn't really know anything about it. Being polite, I asked him if he wanted to go, and braced for the usual rejection. Whoa, this time someone wanted to go with me to check this place out. So after a 3 hour shift at work, I picked up SJB and we drove to the town. Man, this place is cool. There are about a dozen (maybe more...didn't explore the whole grounds) old farm houses along old streets that have been losing a battle to the vegetation for the past 60 years. We really barely scratched the surface of this place, not to mention we didn't even get to look at the powerplant. Lots of fun to be had here.

Today at work my boss, who is on vacation in the mountains in NM, called to talk to my other boss. I answered the phone and she told me she had found me some old abandoned mines/caves up in the mountains and that when she got back she'd show me on the map where they are. How cool is that? My boss gives me scouting information! That got my other boss and I talking about the classified town and he told me of a tangentially related ghost town nearby. Score! I've got 1 bad ass ghost town an hour from me, and maybe another one, about the same distance away. This new one is more recently abandoned too, because my boss remembered that that town had a badass sports HS program when he was a kid.

I also went to a football game tonight, but I'm tired, so I'll talk about that tomorow.

Oh crap, I completely forgot. Yeah, so after it got dark yesterday, we left the classified town and as we were heading home I mentioned my pet building downtown to see if SJB were interested in checking it out. Again, he was game. We didn't really mess much with the inside of the building, just stopping on a few floors to look around, and for the most part heading straight up the stairs to the roof. Heh. SJB was amazed at the view and the coolness of it all. I could tell he was really enjoying it and I love seeing that enjoyment in someone who has never UEed before. I explained him the essence of light painting and he was suddenly entranced by the idea so we spent alot of time up there just doing experiments with my flashlights and the flash. He is trying to get into photography as well, and was just having a great time experimenting up on a rooftop in downtown Amarillo.

Yeah, the football game was fun. It was the IFL (intense football league) championship, Lubbock vs. Amarillo. My friend and I tried to sneak into the lockerrooms, so we told the girl guarding the stairs down to the locker room that the "man in the stands" said we could go down there, that we had won backstage access when our seats were randomly selected. She wasn't really sure, but we kept trying to convince her, and she finally said, "Okay, go ahead." As we were walking down the stairs her boss came from behind and stopped us. He was a bit smarter and didn't buy the "man in the stands" story and told us to go get the "man in the stands" to tell him that we had won. We told him we'd be right back and walked off. Incidentally, we later found the "man in the stands" and he gave me some cookies. We also tried to trade in our ticket stub for a new car that was being shown off there. That girl was alot sharper and not nearly as cool as the other girl, she didn't give us a car. What a bitch. Then we tried to trade our ticket stubs for some backstage passes, but that didn't go well either.

So after work today I went back to the classified town. Man, this place is awesome. It's ALOT bigger than I 1st thought, and I still haven't seen it all, as I ran out of daylight again, and I'm scared of cows at night. Cows during the day are not scary, but cows at night are. I'll post pics when I get them developed.

All your buffalo are belong to us.

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Saw these dudes on the way to the classified ghost town.

Some pics of the ghost town.

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More pics from the ghost town. These are my film pics. I shot on Tri-X 400 pushed to 1600. They came out like ass. They are all way underexposed, I dunno what happened, but I'm sure it's operator error. If any of you photogeeks have any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em. Oh, and the city pics are from my pet building.

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^^Is that not the most contrasty film you've ever seen?

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I went back to my ghostown again. Holy cow, this place is big. Sitting here, I can count about 20 sperate farm houses. And I know there are more, there are still 2 roads I haven't been down yet. Highlight of this trip was an old church way back in the back. This place is absolutely begging for night shots, especially some good ol' light painting. I just know it's gonna be all but impossible to find someone to go out there with me at night and stand around for 20 minutes while the film is exposing. This place reminds me of some pics I saw online, maybe on this site....I know they were taken by one of the Minnie Camera Crew (I'm thinking it was either Ben or ETMJ) where there was a bunch of Slim Jims in all the various windows of some old farm house. Oh yeah, I also found an old oil derrick out there. Wicked awesome. ("wicked awesome" is always to be said in a Boston accent btw).

Oh yeah, for those interested in knowing a little more about the town, PM me. I can provide a link giving a little info about the town and it's history. I just don't want to say it here for fear of the robots.

Meh, I've been kinda bummed lately. I've been uber busy with school and haven't had any time to go exploring. I went out to Garvey grain today and just kinda walked around the perimeter and found a way to get up on the other elevator, but I'll need a rope. And though it's not required, I'd like to have someone to go with. Going by myself is getting a bit old, and none of my friends seem interested in going. I don't know why I've been wanting to explore with other people so much lately, but I have. I think part of it is that it's fun to experiment with pictures with other people around and having them around seems to stimulate the creative process. Not to mention that I love putting people in pictures, I think it makes a picture a hundred times more interesting 95% of the time. That, and it's just nice to have someone to talk to while doing long exposures, and to have someone to be excited about the subtle joys of life with. I dunno. At least on the bright side, the MF camera I bought from Servo is sitting at the post office waiting for me to pick it up when they open tommorow, and I just got about 8 rolls of MF film from BH in the mail...I just hope I can figure out how to load it.

Thanksgiving=soon.