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It was Tuesday, and I never know what to take pictures of on Tuesday. Katie the Ex (as opposited to Katie the Redhead) challenged me to go take a picture of a cute animal, so after work, I headed off to Carondelet Park in the hopes of catching some people walking their dogs. When I got there, there was a bicycle race happening. So I decided that would make a better subject for my picture of the day. I did get some random animal pictures too, though.

This was a bit of a technical challenge to shoot. For reasons somewhere between "Complicated" and "Silly", the camera gear I had on me was:
1. My 5D Mark III
2. An UG-quality Tamron 28-200 superzoom I got for like a nickel
3. My Nikon D70
4. My Nikon 50/1.8
5. My UG-quality Sigma 400mm f/5.6 for Nikon mount.

None of these were really the best of all possible lenses for shooting a bike race. Ideal would have been my Canon 70-300, but I'd loaned that out to my friend Molly. So I ended up mostly shooting with the 400mm on the D70, which is not a great combo for a fast moving bike race in the relatively low light of sunset.

Convinced Katie to let me burn some film on her on Memorial Day. Finished off the roll that had been sitting in my Mamiya 645 since about 2008, and finished off a roll in my Mamiya RB67 that had been in there a few weeks. I really hope the M645 roll develops properly, since that camera had spent a heck of a lot of time sitting in a hot car after I took the first few shots on that roll.

It was balls hot, even with the extremely small amount of clothing I convinced Katie to wear for the shoot, so she was quite happy to get back into the air conditioned apartment afterwards.

The title of this photograph is highly inappropriate.

Caroline came down for a visit, and I hung out with her and Kate last night. We went to Plush for dinner and I was privy to a certain amount of Girl Talk about which I have conflicted emotions.

The lovely miss Ginger Bangalore removing her bra all sexy-like with one hand at Last Saturday Strip.

Well this was a day.

What kind of a day was it?
1. Took a last hike around PVR to get my final pictures in before getting a taxi to the aeropuerta. Bought some trinkets and baubles for various pretty girls with similar names because I had some pesos to burn. They're the sorts of trinkets that you'd buy in resort towns in the US and they'd be crappy and inauthentic and made in Mexico, so I think it's a little more okay that I bought them since I was actually in Mexico.
2. PVR's airport requires you to walk through at least three duty free shops to get to the gate. Not past, actually through. Mexico: Exit through the gift shop.
3. PVR to DFW flight was uneventful. Let us speak no more of it.
4. I had a SIX HOUR layover at Dallas-Ft. Worth.
4a. Hour #1 was spent getting through customs and border patrol. The line was insane. It was a five minute walk to get through the line that got you to the start of the line to get to the point where you could line up to actually talk to a customs guy.
4b. Next half hour was spent charging up my phone and eating some McDonald's. Normally I shy away from McDonald's, but I wanted to America for a bit. That's right--I just used 'America' as a verb. I'm allowed to verb nouns, because I am an American.
4c. The rest of the time was spent riding the SKYLINK! There's this train that goes all the way around DFW because it's a huge airport and I think some of the terminals aren't even connected to each other. I got a little taste of it on the STL=>DFW=>PVR flight down, and I wanted more. So I just road the Skylink for like five hours, occasionally switching back and forth between the counterclockwise and clockwise trains and hopping to different train cars and liveblogging the whole thing on Instagram. If you're not following me on Instagram, I'm @allankcrain.
5. The flight from DFW to STL was uneventful. You know, right up until the point where ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.
5a. First, pic related. The woman in 12C had a seizure or something and flopped over in her seat and they turned on all of the lights and called for any doctors on board (there were a couple, one of whom is pictured under the stewardess's armpit there).
5b. Then we felt the plane clearly start its descent, despite being about a half hour away from St. Louis still. At first everyone assumed it was because of the medical emergency. But then the pilot comes over the intercom and mentions we're making a precautionary diversion to Tulsa because of engine trouble. Apparently they were losing oil pressure in one engine.
5c. Eventually we got the medical emergency woman off the plane, then everyone else got to get off, then we all got onto a fresh plane, and it was another hour to St. Louis. Got in around 2am, instead of the 12:05 we'd been scheduled. Kate, who was my ride, was less than enthusiastic about this development

On the plus side, there was a pretty redhead sleeping in my apartment when I got home, and that's a happy thing.