Usual Saturday morning except we cut each other’s hair (okay, Amanda cut mine and I trimmed the back of hers) then I made French toast while Amanda made some eggs and some apple chicken sausage I’d just picked up.

Then we went to Lowe’s to get some bug spray. We figured we’d try to take care of the ants, gnats and mosquitoes this year. Plus we’ve seen a few “waterbugs” already lately. While we were out we went by the mall. Amanda had some pretty major discounts for Express, which she used to get me some early birthday presents.

We got home and watched Duke play Boston College at Cameron Indoor. Duke couldn’t hit anything, especially free throws and was down at the half but still won, 90-80.

We hadn’t taken the dogs to the beach in a while so we packed them up and went there. It was really windy and a little cold because of it, but the dogs had a good time. Bruce did a lot of running around and would run at Harvey and growl at him like he was baiting him, daring him to do something. One of my life’s joys is watching Bruce run like he did there on the beach. Amanda said I need to take Harvey to Portsmouth one of these years. I’m sure he’d have a great time.

Kirsten was the only Frazelle at home and she told Amanda that Scout, their King Charles Spaniel, was really sick. Amanda called Anna and talked to her about it. Apparently sugarless gum now has something that’s really, really toxic to dogs and he had gotten into a pack that was in Hannah’s car. It’s really bad. They’re talking kidney failure. That poor dog has had so many medical issues his whole life. Amanda said that Anna and Barry were trying to stay busy so as to not have to deal with how bad his condition is. I feel awful for them.

I forgot to mention this, but there was some cancer found in Paddy the day it was found out that Amanda’s grandma had cancer. We didn’t know about Paddy (Amanda’s parents’ Jack Russell) until I think it was Friday, when Amanda’s mom said she’d had her operation and it was looking good.

In more pet news, Adam and Renee are looking at getting rid of Tsota, their coati mundi. I know they’ve talked about it before, but I guess Adam has come around on it. She’s a really cool animal, but they don’t have the time or space to keep her happy. The lady they were having a second meeting about it with today lives in Oak Island and has something to do with the nature department there or some such, so she loves animals and has the means to keep Tsota busy and occupied. I hope it works out.

After Amanda and I got back from the beach I closed my eyes for a few minutes then got all my camera gear together. I went over some notes then headed out to take some pictures at the UNCW-James Madison game. I didn’t know a lot about what to expect. Most people in the media room already knew each other and there was a table of older men who were sports writers talking about, as you may guess, sports. I talked to a couple other photographers out on the court and one gave me a few tips.

I had a blast taking shots at the game. I spend most of it in one corner and came pretty close to getting run over by a player at one point. The ball bounced over to me once and I rolled it back to the ref. That was all the action I saw, but like I said, it was a lot of fun. When I got home I started going over the images. I knew I needed to get a new 70-200 lens, and I think I did a decent job with the one I have but having an f4 as opposed to an f2.8 makes a huge difference. I could cut down on a lot of noise in the darker spots of the images with that.

I did have some pretty good pictures though I think. So I am now Zach Dotsey, sports photographer. (I know, I have a ways to go.)

When I left to go to the game Amanda went out and bought some stencils to put some designs on the cupboard, the really old one that she painted and distressed a while back. She spent most of the night stenciling in the design. It should look pretty good when she’s done I think.

Zach Dotsey
.
UNCW game- win 99-80-something.