Here's a story for ya!

The England Picture, originally uploaded by bookemdano1978.

I met Ross in 2002, right before the Olympics started. He worked for SLOC (Salt Lake Organizing Committee) and thought that he was going to manage events for the rest of his life. In June of 2002, he accepted a job to spend the summer in Manchester, England working the Commonwealth Games.

By the time he left, I had decided that I really liked him and was extrememly bummed that he was leaving for the WHOLE summer! What was I supposed to do? Oh yeah, redesign my curriculum for the upcoming school year.

Anyway, he asked for a picture of me to take with him to England. I wasn't a fan of the idea, but I obliged none-the-less. At the time, I refused to have someone take my picture and I had a camera (film) with a remote control. I spent the week before he was to leave taking a roll of self-portraits with my camera.

Ross was to leave on a Sunday morning and was coming to say goodbye on his way. I took my perfectly composed roll of exposures to Walgreen's for 1 hr. developing. At the designated time, I went to get my images and the snot-nosed, zit-faced punk moron kid who was working the photo lab ruined my roll of film during processing and my images were lost and gone forever.

I was devastated to say the least. I came home sobbing and told my mom what had happened. She called Walgreen's and yelled at them and they apologized and said they'd develop a roll for free. So, my mom busted out her camera and we started taking pictures. It was awful. My hair had been in a ponytail all day and was dented in the back. My eyes were puffy and my face all red from crying that my stupid film was destroyed.

My mom got me to relax and laugh a little and we got through a roll of film pretty quickly. She took it to be developed, probablly threatened the stupid nerd kid at the camera bar, and an hour later, I had this picture.

This is the one I gave to Ross. I was looking for some frames in the basement yesterday and found it in the container I was rooting through. Notice the length and overall blonde-ness of my hair. And, I don't have a double chin. And, I am wearing a size medium t-shirt with a sun tan. Oh, those were the days.