But then I learned the virtue of self-confidence (without betraying my devotion to self-deprecation), turned 24, took a three week trip home to Ridgecrest, and everything changed–forever. This is where the courtship story truly begins.

The entire ordeal of getting from my home in Keansburg, New Jersey to Long Island’s Islip airport and ultimately to Ridgecrest, California is quite a story in itself. Perhaps another time.

I arrived at Islip airport with time to spare, so took the opportunity to indulge in another shot to add to a disturbing public restroom self-portraiture series I’ve flirted with over the years.

After a delayed flight and several frustrating conversations with Delta Airlines, I found myself in Las Vegas, Nevada, just a few hours behind my ride. I would have to wait until the next morning to make the final leg of the trip home, so I hailed a cab to the Palace Station, hired a room and said good night.

My youngest brother Chad picked me up the next morning and we headed south on Interstate 15, passing familiar landmarks Zzyzx Road and the Kramer Junction Solar Power Plant.

Over the next few days, I accomplished much: I sang karaoke with my sister and Cassie, tried out a ridiculous haircut, ate copious chicken quesadillas from Del Taco and visited my old high school parking space.

It was this trip to Ridgecrest Tracy Nutter and I both arrived in the same town at the same time, free from relational attachment. We were both home and both looking for the other. We met at Casa Java, and despite being called Wolverine by Tracy, we hit it off remarkably well.

On several occasions we posed for pictures on Chad and Jenny’s living room couch.

Cute, yes?

After spending nearly three weeks with Tracy, I knew I wanted to move back home permanently. I wanted to be with her, everything else be damned.

I returned to New Jersey to find my 1998 Dodge Stratus had been repossessed. This had been a long time coming after catastrophic engine failure and general undriveability resulted in me no longer desiring to make the required loan payment. It was the only real material attachment I had to Keansburg, so its loss was hardly felt. I had been laid off just after the previous Thanksgiving, so there was no job keeping me put.

Car and job lost, there were really only two things keeping me tied to New Jersey: a girl named Nikko and a boy named Ian. To state it so plainly might imply they were easy to leave behind, but that’s just not the case. The decision to move away from little Ian was without a doubt the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make in my life. It was not made lightly.

But the decision was made. I tied up my affairs, kissed my son good bye and headed west.

Fin.

In case you were wondering, yes, the camera adds about five pounds directly to my head.

In a dinner revolt at the thought of molesting our freshly made pasta with canned red sauce, River tossed both jars of Classico into the clothes hamper. Only one survived.

Since I missed Halloween (and since a favorite pastime of any child anywhere is to dress up in Halloween costumes), the kids threw an impromptu fashion show for me. Buzz Lightyear and Little Ladybug attended.

Without further explanation, this is a picture of four Taco Bell Fire Sauce packets in the back of a toy dump truck in the backyard.

And a shot of a hornet building a nest. NOT ON MY WATCH! Unfortunately for him, the hornet was unable to escape my deadly precise aim as I bathed him in RAID.

And another picture of my fat head with my delicious 50mm f/1.8. I love how you can really see the open shutter on this one.

And not to go all Georgia O’Keefe on you, but here’s a shot of Tracy’s blooming orchids. Beautiful.

Because chronic forgetfulness and time constraints often impede our ability to actually bake cakes, we had cupcakes for River’s 2nd birthday. It is worth noting the only thing in focus in this picture is the light switch in background center.

While home, and thanks largely to a significant tax return, I started the large task of covering up the amateur tattoos on my right arm. I entered the tattoo studio armed with (get it?) little more than a single word, and the project built from there.

Jesse Perrin, the artist from 808 Tatoo in Kaneohe who took the word “phoenix” and turned it into a beautiful, free-hand, custom piece of artwork, seemed to know exactly where I wanted to go with the project, and I am extremely pleased with its progress.

In all I spent about twelve hours under the gun, with at least another twelve to go until completion. Unfortunately Jesse is moving back home to Iowa in June. To finish the work, I either need to hop a flight to Sioux City or rely on another artist.

Funny side-note: the old tattoos on my forearm are bits and pieces of artifacts from the Legend of Zelda franchise. Well-intentioned but poorly-executed, I found no way to really complete the picture. This is why I ultimately decided to proceed with a cover-up. During the second session, just as my Triforce was being covered in black and green ink, a young man with a NES cartridge-adorned t-shirt reading “Blow Me” came into the shop. About an hour and a half later I saw him leave with a fresh and excellent Hylian Shield tattoo on his shoulder. The Universe does, indeed, keep itself in balance.

So photographically speaking, that’s it. Sure, we did more than is pictured above, like going to the mall, dinner at Chili’s, breakfast at Anna Miller’s, and renting a few kayaks and taking the kids out to Lanakai to paddle to a small island, but not all of it was caught on film.

The Mazda had been in desperate need of some minor mechanical work for ages, so we decided to finally get it taken care of. Tracy and I worked together to get the starter out of a very tight spot, despite the completely pointless act of removing an apparently fully-functional starter.

Live and learn.

Pants-shitting excitement is a frequent occurrence in our family, and an unexpected evening trip to the beach provided the perfect opportunity for more. Rather than head to one of the beaches we’ve seen so many times, we decided to go north near Dillingham Airfield. I’ve been by those beaches a few times on my own, and remember the water being calm enough for the kids. The late afternoon breeze begged to differ, but still, we had plenty of sand and crabs to keep everyone entertained.

Plus Tracy totally learned how to walk on water.

Also she learned how to look dead sexy while entering a vehicle.

So, we’ve done fake Christmas, the zoo, the car, the beach … what next? How about something else we’ve been meaning to do for the last three years or so? If you said Diamond Head, give yourself a gold star.

We dropped Raden off at daycare, stocked up the baby backpack with food and a baby, and headed up the trail. We were greeted by Happy Trashcan.

Happy Trashcan is happy. Even little River recognized the smiley face welcoming us to the trail.

I’m a big fan of signage in general, and the Diamond Head hike did not disappoint.

Here we can see the clear admonition, in order to make our hike enjoyable, to not cause fires.

At the peak you can find this sign, scrawled upon by visitors as far away as Perth, Australia and as far back as 2004.

This next sign entertains me for a few reasons: first, the heading “No Hiking” in the middle of a hiking trail is funny. Granted, the intention is to not hike beyond the signed area, but still. Funny. Secondly, someone took the time to draw a bicycle around the pictured hiker and add the words “Mahalo, fixed” in a word bubble. Apparently the whole thing was done in white-out. Who hikes with white-out in their pocket?

Allegedly the same white-out-wielding wayfarer attacked a sign with the word “jive” that had previously been marked with the tag “handy.” Handy jive. Again, funny.

OK I’ll be quiet for a few seconds and let you enjoy the views.

To wrap up the Diamond Head trip, just before we headed back down the hill, we stumbled upon a young man right in the middle of a marriage proposition! I snuck a few pictures of them, only to later realize they had friends up the hill also taking pictures. (Fine, jerks, I didn’t want to give you my pictures of you, anyway!)

(She said yes.)

We purchased the new lens at the soon-to-be defunct Circuit City. While I believe their business practices to be sound and ethically straight, that’s not what it takes to be thrown a life raft from Big Brother. Perhaps if the City had a shady underbelly they might still be afloat.

At any rate the Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0 VR was reasonably priced and even included a sun hood, which I must say yields fantastic results. Very happy with the tonal quality of these first two shots:

Cool how the colors of these two images unexpectedly complement each other so well. (Her name is, of course, Franchesca.)

As many times as we’ve been to the Honolulu Zoo, we’ve never actually seen The Bear. So here, captured for the first time EVER in the history of Terry family zoo outings, is the bear:

One of the great things Tracy has taught our kids is respect for nature. Everyone knows you go to the zoo for the animals, but it never ceases to impress me how the kids always want to stop by the small botanical garden, as well. Here they admire some cacti:

Garden tour complete, we headed toward the hippo home. In another zoological first, the hippos were actually awake! Not only were they awake, they were active and playing with a huge ball, right up against the glass. The kids nearly shit their pants with excitement.

Animals, botanical gardens and hippos aside, one of my favorite things to do at the zoo (and most public places, for that matter) is to people watch. Hawaii is in general a great place to people watch due largely in part to the enormous concentration of tourists.

Not to be outdone by other camera-toting couples, this young family decided to film their entire zoo trip in video. Seriously. She just followed them around, video taping every step.

Raden met another little boy at the hippo tank, and as social as he is, it never takes him long to end up holding hands with his new best friend. Today was no different.

Only slightly less anticipated than the required visit to the Keiki Zoo is the pre-snack stop by the fake giraffe. Every visit they climb higher and higher until one day … well, Rad’s going to be standing on Gerry’s head.

Another fantastic thing about my sweet wife Tracy is her honest modesty. As beautiful as she is in her heart, she also has a pretty amazing exterior, yet she refuses to acknowledge it (in a genuine way, not in the typical “OMG I’m so fat” kind of way).

A typical end-of-day photo review session inevitably includes Tracy’s “ew look how old I look” comments. Anticipating my desire to capture as much as possible while home on leave, Tracy took a particular effort to “pretty up” each day. Even fake Christmas morning–scroll back up and look how pretty she is, even before breakfast!

Her atypical attention to outward appearance resulted in greater willingness to tolerate the camera being pointed in her direction. Exhibit A:

Delicious.

Since Tracy felt the desire to dress up fancy like, I decided to follow in kind. (In truth, I was partially motivated by my fresh tattoo ink, which really needed to stay out of the sun. Hence, the fancy pants long-sleeved button down.)

The Keiki Zoo is great. It combines the free-range feel of a petting zoo with an educational touch of excessive signage.

The goats are by far the most entertaining for us all.

River was having a grand old time watching the zookeepers carry around a tortoise:

The excitement quickly turned to terror when the tortoise was set free on the ground:

Finally, we visited a rooster.

Our zoo adventures took us through the day, and we all headed home for dinner and early bedtime.

I stood around the seating area for a bit, looked up and down the terminal, and finally walked downstairs to the baggage claim area. Maybe she just didn’t have the paperwork she needed to meet me at the gate, I assured myself. She’s probably waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator! Hmph. Nope. Oh well, she’ll be here soon.

So I paced through the baggage claim area for a bit, waiting on (you guessed it) my baggage, all the while peeking outside the doors to see if I could catch Tracy circling around the pick-up area. As it was, my single piece of luggage was the absolute last thing to emerge from the claim belt, so I spent quite a bit of time pacing and peeking. Curious, then, that I managed to miss Tracy driving by a total of six times before she saw me and my bag emerge. Even then, it took a long double-take (thanks, deaf right ear) before I realized someone was shouting my name.

Had I bothered to spend the $5.95 for internet access in Los Angeles, I would have read the email Tracy sent me explaining the kids weren’t feeling well, they weren’t going to be getting all dressed up, and could you please meet us on the curb outside baggage claim because we’re not going to be able to meet you at the gate, please?

Tracy looked beautiful in a pink, flowered sun dress, and I tossed my bag in the bed of the truck and hugged and kissed her tight.

Now what happened next nearly made me drop dead (it wasn’t her birthday, it was mine, instead!). After we loosed our grip from each other I opened the truck door to say hello to little River. She cried. I nearly died. It took most of the trip home for her to figure out who I was and realized she didn’t need to cry when I looked at her. That was hard for me. Seriously.

Raden, on the other hand, was ecstatic to see me, and that softened the blow a bit. He spent most of the trip home telling me about what he’d been up to the last few days, and reminding me that tomorrow was Christmas! (We delayed Christmas a bit so we could justify a whole week of gift-opening parties between Christmas, New Year’s and three birthdays).

We arrived home, unloaded the car, and Tracy put the kids to bed while I washed off a week’s worth of travel in the shower.

After … some other things, Tracy and I stayed up late wrapping the last of the Christmas presents. Tomorrow’s fake Christmas!

On Christmas morning before opening any presents, I (of course) requested a picture. River patiently folded her hands while Raden checked to make sure he still had a belly button.

Before we continue documenting the festivities, check out the Christmas tree star and the tiny cobwebs that have formed between the points. Oh, how I’ve missed you, my sweet 50mm f/1.8.

On to the stockings!

The kids tore at their wrapping paper both individually and as a team. When united by a common goal, they do, indeed, make quite a team. This year’s theme was apparently Super Awesome Things and People That Are Super Awesome. (Basically anything or anyone that could be used to rescue someone: helicopters, fire trucks, super heroes, wooden fruit.)

As far as my gifts for Tracy, it should be known I have historically been known as a giver of crappy gifts. Whether crappy by design or simply by lack of want by the other party, I tend to fail at gift giving. (If you doubt these claims, I have a once-used Foreman grill, and seldom-used juicer and a few never-used Liberator shapes that beg to differ.)

This year was something altogether different. Rather than rely on items I assumed to have value as useful appliances, I swung to the other side and grabbed some artsy accouterments for my hippie wife. In a word: Etsy. God bless you, Etsy.

The fauxhawk beanie and scarf didn’t receive quite as much acclaim as I’d hoped, but I think they’re 100% kickass. In addition to the fauxhawk, Tracy donned a pair of blue-jewel earrings, a small daisy ring, and a copper butterfly bracelet.

See? 100% awesome. I was told this Christmas was an epic success. (Let’s never speak of last Christmas again, OK?)

After we finished making a mess of the living room, it was time for breakfast. Everyone knows the traditional after-presents fake Christmas breakfast is a store-bought muffin with Oreos, and that’s just what we enjoyed.

The traditional breakfast pictures were taken with one of my gifts: a new Nikkor 55-200mm VR lens!

Not exactly the best picture to showcase the look and feel of the new lens, but I’m actually quite fond of taking pictures of me taking pictures of me.

While it seems quite a long time to go, knowing I’m already over one third of the way through gives me solace. Even still, it’s going to be a rough eight months.

But let’s forget the next eight months for now and instead focus on the last one month. The day before the beginning of R&R through the day after its completion: January 18th to February 18th.

The first 90 days in Iraq our battalion saw little enemy contact. Tragically, we still lost one Soldier. In a non-combat-related incident, Pfc. Sean McCune died. The incident is still under investigation.

The day before I began my week-long trek home, we held a memorial ceremony for Sean. It should go without saying that it never gets any easier, attending such ceremonies. The last memorial I attended was in Kirkuk, Iraq, last deployment. Two months into our three-month surprise deployment extension (go to hell, Robert Gates), a Blackhawk helicopter suffered mechanical failure and went down, killing eleven Soldiers, all of whom I knew, a handful of whom were close friends.

War, even when you never see the enemy, is hell. Rest in peace, brothers.

The day after the memorial ceremony, I, along with five other Soldiers, boarded a Blackhawk bound for COB Speicher. I am grateful to the crew from Charlie Company, 2-10 Aviation, Fort Drum, NY, for getting us safely to our interim destination.

I spent the next four days in “tent city” on COB Speicher awaiting transportation to Kuwait. I spent much of that time watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Doctor Who (circa the Tom Baker years), and eating foot-long BMT’s from Subway. I spent $10 for a single day of Sniper Hill internet access, primarily to watch President Obama’s inauguration speech. I was moved to tears.

The flight from Speicher to Kuwait City was quick and easy, even after making four stops along the way. I sat in the same spot on the C-130 as I had my first trip to Iraq. You may recall the story about the EXTREME DANGER - LAST DITCH USE ONLY - OMG DON’T OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR adventure?

The in / out processing procedure in Kuwait has been greatly streamlined since my last visit, and I was pleased to be through the system and on my way home in such good time.

To say the flight from Kuwait City to Atlanta was overcrowded is to say Amy Winehouse is in need of an intervention. My well-formulated plan to write, read McSweeney’s and watch more Doctor Who on the plane was stifled by my four centimeters of elbow room and three inches of leg room. It took all my dexterity to wrangle enough space to put headphones in my ears and fall asleep. In-flight meals? Yeah, right.

Our midway-to-Atlanta stop turned out to be Shannon, Ireland.

Every other passage I’ve ended up in Leipsig, Germany, so this was a pleasant change of pace. Unfortunately, the Man was very clear about alcohol consumption and purchase. In a word, “NO!”

So no Irish Guinness for me. The best I could pull off was a breakfast tea and a picture of a duty-free bottle of Jameson.

Most things European impress me, not the least of which are the size of the health warnings emblazoned on their tobacco products.

Unlike American cigarettes, who hide their Surgeon General’s warnings on the bottom of the pack in tiny letters, the European varieties leave no question whatever about the harmful effects of smoking. SMOKING KILLS. SMOKING SERIOUSLY HARMS YOU AND THOSE AROUND YOU. SMOKERS DIE YOUNGER. Good for them, boo for us, America.

The flights from Shannon to Atlanta, Atlanta to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to Honolulu were largely uneventful. They will not be mentioned further.

With just one hour to spare before commencement, I emerged from The Wiz electronics store in Holmdel, New Jersey with an item that would eventually change my life completely: a Sony Cybershot DSC-P100 digital camera. At 1.3 megapixels, the P100 Cybershot was a middle-of-the-road model for 2001, but had a “great lens” and included a “plenty good” 4 megabyte Sony Memory Stick. (It would later be revealed 4 megs, even at a paltry 1.3 megapixels, I could only store a handful of images at “high” resolution. Hence, the first several months of images were shot in 640×480.)

I would say I chose that camera because it hit my price point, but back in those days, despite my healthy New York salary, everything was above my price point. The night before, however, I told Nikko I was heading back down to Jersey to go with Ian on his Tutor Time(R) Halloween Hay Ride and All Around Great Time Party. Always one to look out for my well-being, she asked if I had a camera for the event. Ian had been in day care for only a short time, and this was his very first field trip.

“Nope,” I said. “But I’ll get one first thing tomorrow morning!” And I did.

Box in hand, I sat in the driver’s seat of my Dark Cranberry 1998 Dodge Stratus and began unpacking. With utter disregard for proper electronic procedure, I did not first charge the battery for “four to six hours,” but instead threw the model directly into operation. Without taking my eyes off the LCD or even bothering to move any muscle but my shutter finger, I snapped the first shot.

Man I loved those shoes.

It has definitely taken the better part of the decade for me to really find my style as a photographer, and certainly just as long to grasp the technical concepts involved, but back in ‘01, art wasn’t my goal–documentation was.

So here we have it, the first documentative picture of little Ian’s very first Pre-preschool field trip. Spiderman: Holmdel, NJ, circa Halloween, 2001 (with SuperFriend Lucas).

Enjoying the novelty of having a digital camera, I carried it with me everywhere. Indeed, living in New Jersey and commuting to New York City every day practically required it.

Studio and posed photographs have never been of much interest to me. I like covert, candid, unexpected shots, which I suppose is what ultimately drew me into the journalism world. As such, and when I had the nerve, I would sneak shots of people on the subway (ten years ago and still a relative newcomer to Manhattan, I was actually intimidated by most people on the subway). (The astute observer may notice this is not actually the New York MTA, but the New Jersey PATH train. Quite a commute I had back then.)

The realization that documentation could masquerade as art occurred to me one day at Holmdel Park, where Ian, Nikko and I were spending a cool Sunday morning in November. Ian was breaking the rules and climbing up the slide, but we were the only ones at the park, but if you break the rules and nobody’s around to catch you, is it still a crime? (OK I promise I won’t do that again, OK?)

Later, when we were looking through pictures from that day and I explained to Ian why we don’t climb up the slides, he responded just as one might expect a New Jersey native to:

Self-portraiture is something I’ve never really been very creative with. Here’s my head, here’s part of my arm, here’s me sitting on a public toilet in the airport–that’s about the extent of my creativity as far as turning the lens on myself goes. Even so, sometimes it’s not about who we are, but where we are.

Here I can be seen standing between cars on a very crowded New Jersey Transit train. (If, perchance, you feel the desire to inform me it’s against the rules to stand between cars, please see the above picture.)

While neither a food stylist nor critic, sometimes when your food comes out and it looks this good, you just have to capture that memory. This was my Country Breakfast from a diner in Oceanside, CA whose name eludes me. Perhaps Chad or Jenny remember?

2001, as it turned out, was a year of many technological firsts for me. First digital camera, first layoff from a technology firm, first MP3 player. If any tech device has changed my life as much as my first camera, it would undoubtedly be this one. A Christmas gift, the Compaq iPAQ PA-2 was small, rugged, quite advanced for its time, and served me well for years. The 64 meg monster had the uncanny ability to take a hell of a beating and continue working after a sufficient rest period. Even after being completely submerged in water during a slight mishap in U.S. Army Airborne school in 2004, all it took was a few days to dry out, and it worked just like new again.

Ultimately, battery corrosion from long-term non-usage led to its demise. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that if I took the effort to clean it up a bit, I would hear the Beatles again. (Moderately entertaining side-note: before I was given the iPAQ, I used to queue up a playlist served through WinAmp on my laptop stuffed in my backpack. Hugest walkman ever.)

One of the great things about young kids is their ability to be complete goofballs, at any moment, just because. little Ian was certainly no exception here, both before bath time:

And after, ready for bed:

What a cool dude.

Without a doubt, the most character-building exercise in my post-graduate youth (post high school graduation, that is) was the two-hour commute I endured involving, at times, a bus, three trains and a cab ride.

In truth, the trip from Keansburg, NJ to lower Manhattan is not nearly as complicated as I often made it. But then, those were simpler times, and I was a glutton for punishment.

First I would head out of the house, lock the door behind me and walk down the street to the bus stop.

The bus would, after fourteen hours and 342 local stops, drop me off below Times Square, at the 42nd Street Port Authority. Long-time listeners may remember I was arrested at the Port Authority the year before for attempting, quite successfully, to estimate the shatter strength of a Port Authority ticket booth window.

The following self-portrait is included not only because I look so incredibly handsome, but because it just might be the only portrait I have of the actual camera. (Look how far away my finger is from the shutter–how’s that for lag time?)

Between 1999 and early 2002, in addition to death and taxes, one could count on me either drinking whiskey and playing Playstation2 or me drinking Guinness and playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Leonardwood, NJ.

Without a doubt, those were amazing years for me. Despite the personal turmoil and the deep, dark holes I often dove head-first into, the countless hours of escape therapy provided by gaming saved my life. On the D&D side, I owe that refuge to Rod, the best DM it’s ever been my fortune to play under. Seriously, I can’t over-state the creativity and detail Rod put into his campaigns. Simply amazing.

While I wasn’t busy living life as Shi, the re-incarnated-as-a-troglodyte monk, I was tag-teaming Final Fantasy X with my roommate and brother-in-law Charlie. We killed about as many ounces of Jack Daniels as we did monsters in those days.

After five years on the east coast and an increasingly fruitless job-search (thanks, 9/11 hijackers), I decided to take a trip back home.

As Man-at-Arms says, “Live the journey, for every destination is but a doorway to a new one.” Such a sentiment perfectly captures what happened on this final and fateful journey to Ridgecrest, CA.

Before we continue with the main course, let’s take a last quick appetizing bite of public restroom goodness, courtesy of a Las Vegas International Airport restroom.

There’s a street sign just past Kramer Junction on the way from Vegas to Ridgecrest that I have always made me laugh. It’s allegedly a cul-de-sac sign, but I’d swear it’s actually a disgruntled state employee’s depiction of a penis on a road sign. (Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word for it this time.)

Two things happened during that fateful trip to Ridgecrest, one of which caused me great pain.

When I left home in 1996 for the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, I left behind a 1969 Ford Fairlane 500, affectionately named Betty. She was left in the care of nobody in particular, and eventually found herself parked on the street with an expired registration, and was towed.

Eight years later when I’d once again moved back home and was in need of a vehicle, I went searching for her. After hours of sleuthful detective work (actually it was one phone call that lasted less than five minutes), I was led to the junkyard at the edge of town. Betty was … not as I left her.

My good friends Jason, Frank and I put hours of blood, sweat and tears into restoring that car, and when I left her, she may not have been pretty, but she and her well-aged 302 cubic-inch engine ran like a dream.

I was tragically optimistic in my hopes for future development of the Betty Project, and when I first caught sight of her in the junkyard, my heart dropped, my knees buckled and I may have even shed a few tears.

As I said, she was not as I left her.

Her last gift to me, as it turned out, was a piece of mail, addressed to me, that still sat on her floorboard, eight years later.

If anything can soften the blow of a lost love, it’s the discovery of a new one. How apt, then, that on my 100th day, I would capture a picture, the first picture, of me and Tracy, together and smiling, on Chad’s couch.

The rest, as they say, is history.