Typical Sunday...

Some people go to church, some people go for a drive, some people pour blood all over themselves and hang from ropes. The third option is how my Sunday went. ;)

Meet my buddy Agent P.

This was the..uh...."least risque" pic I could post!
This is also the same girl in the below post running the angle grinder!

-Mark!
p.s. If you wondering what this Agent X, Y, Z stuff is for....Simply anonymity :)
p.s.s and yes my mom reads my blog...hi mom!

A Simple Thursday Night....Part 1

Ok so I get home from work and I'm cruising the net as usual. I'm a big mixed martial arts(MMA) fan as many of you know and saw an advertisement for some local amatuer bouts here in Dallas -- that night in about 1 hour!!! So I grab my gear (like a good boy scout I'm always prepared!) and run out the door.

It's hot! Lots of people, free entry and plenty of alcohol for those who wish to indulge!

Two hours later and 10 bouts ranging from sorta-pro to full blown retarded! I mean come on guys, you have men in pink tutus duking it out! Here are my pics to prove the first half of the night....My next blog entry will showcase what happened later :)

Jabba!!

Jabba got knocked out by a dude in a cape!

The best fight of the night. These two cool girls went at it with intensity and heart. MUCH better than the guys!

Retard fight of the night...

-Kram!

A Simple Thursday Night....Part 2

We left off with me being annoyed at the goofy fights and not knowing what else to do...Next comes a tap on the shoulder. Being new to Texas, I don't know too many people, so when I whip around I'm setup incase I have to execute the flying butt pliers of death or whatever crazy kung fu move I could think of at that moment. I'm looking at this guy who just tapped me on the shoulder and we're staring at each other for about 5 seconds...
"Mark?", he says. "Brian?", I replied. Holy cow! I hadn't seen my buddy Brian since we were stationed in Australia over two years ago! We shook hands, and he pointed to another one my friends I was stationed with, Thane! Talk about a random, blast from the past! Brian, Thane, and I -- plus a ton of others would hang out quite a bit in Australia. We're all good friends and just kind of lost contact. What are the odds of meeting up in the middle of Dallas at an amateur fight night, one I almost didn't attend!!

So of course we have to go hang out and catch up on old times! We go to Two Rows bar for some dinner and laughs. They had a buddy, Steve, who picked up two nice looking African American girls and brought them along.

I told the group about a club I occasionally frequent for photo ops. Several friends of mine religiously attend this place every Thursday...Much like a church, it seems to have it's own congregation!

The girls didn't seem interested, and neither did thier new found escort! ;)
Brian and Thane were game, just like old times. They followed me to a secret location in Dallas, one which took me forever to find because I was all twisted around. I hate one way streets in Dallas!

Anyways...we made it and my buddies ware impressed... Yes, this is a fairly typical Thursday night at this club :)
These are the nicest(safe for work/family friendly) pics I could post, out of nearly 1000 shots of pure freak in two hours! Enjoy :)


Meet Agent M, another addition to the super cool underground team(Me, Agent Orange and Agent C). I've known Agent M for a while now and she's one of the nicest girls around. A super cool chick with wicked dance moves and a fun girl to hang with. Not to mention she's nice on the eyes ;) As always she demands shots (pics not alcohol) and of course I'm there to help!
Don't forget to click on the pic to enjoy the bigger size!

Always full of emotion and energy!

This is my all time favorite pic of Agent M.

Gotta love that spot beam :)

Nice eyes!

Playing with fire! This place has it all :)

The spots you see in the frame are actually kerosene drops spraying over everyone...including me and my camera! The things we do for the shot!

Explosive!

BOOM!

Fire Dancer 1

Fire Dancer 2

Fire Blades!

Now for something different....Turn the kids away for a moment...It's not too bad, but could scare them a bit...

Angle Grinders and Aluminum Stair Rails!

OUCH!

Here's my friend Layne, the Goth Supermodel, warming up on some sparks :)

At the end of the night it was time to go home and get some sleep before work in the morning... 5 hours away ;)
It was good to see my old buddies and I'm certain I'll have some more stories as we scour Dallas for the most fun we can find!

-MARK!

I'm It!

Thanks to Jan Garcia, I've been blog tagged!

Apparently I must divulge eight secrets or interesting things you guys don't know about me....

Oh jeeez.... We'll, I'm pretty open most of the time, so I'm not sure if I'll make all 8, but here goes. :)

1. I've trained in the martial arts my whole life. I have black belts in three arts: Shotokan, Tae Kwon Do, and Aiki jujutsu. I'm currently training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Both of my parents are black belts as well.

2. I lived in the Australian outback for 8 years.

3. My prior job involved launching spacecraft for NASA and "other" government agencies.

4. I can read/write/speak (enough to get my face slapped in a bar) Korean, Japanese and Spanish.

5. My photographic career started several years ago because of my interest in Astronomy. I wanted the best camera possible to take astrophotography shots. Thusly I bought a D70 and later a D200....and yet to take any astronomy shots!!!

6. I've never broken a bone in my body. Please knock on wood, so I don't break any in the future!

7. I don't use MS Windows at all. I abhor Microsoft, and use primarily a Power Mac for my front end and a room full of Linux machines in the back end for servers and firewall duties.

8. I won the Florida State Sunshine state games last year, in IDPA pistol shooting.
I was ranked number 5 in Florida state(for my class) in Limited 10 USPSA action shooting.

9. At my current job, about once a month I have to put on an Air Force flight suit and fly in RC-135 airplane test flights over the U.S for 8 hours at time; testing all my cool gear!

10. In addition to my computer studies degree. I have a degree in Psychology.

Well I made it! Nothing too revolutionary!

I guess it's time to tag someone else. It looks as if any one I know who blogs has already been tagged. I'll tag one good friend of mine. He doesn't have blog, but check out his stuff. Dave Koslowski totally rocks. He and I shoot models and HDR stuff all over north Texas. Check out his site and his Flickr site.

Later!
Mark

Second Visit...

Agent Orange and I planned a second visit to the old site we had previously visited. This time we came prepared with specialized cameras, lights and protective suits. The weather was over 100 F at 10am in the morning here in Texas. We knew we needed to move quickly or melt in the old building...

We parked our cars away from the site and started our walk toward the main building. along the way we ran across our first and morbid sign, something was just not right here.

I didn't want to touch the glove...err hand. It was fresh, smelled of blood and ran a chill down our spines... We quickly moved on.

Scaling a small rickety ladder, we scampered our way to the roof, only to find the next grizzly sight.

This poor bird was shredded by something. But by what?

Agent Orange starts to survey the area....we don't want any surprises!


We wanted to find an alternate entrance. Studying old plans, we believe there are roof access holes to the upper levels of the facility. These holes are electrically interconnected and needed a bit of hacking in a small panel shelter on the roof. Here's a shot Agent Orange rewiring an access port.

We find the port which opened...
It looks REALLY narrow, I'm not sure we can fit...



Agent Orange decides to go for it. We grab the protective suit and being the brave man I am, I vote he goes first so I can watch our back. He gives me a quick glance...well more of a dirty look and starts to slide face first into the hole...First his head, then his shoulders go in....he crawls a bit more, inching his way forward...Now all I can see are his shoes, then nothing but a scream! Oh my god he fell!
I'm yelling at him frantically. The fall was over 20 feet. He's just laying there motionless and I though for sure he had busted his neck...A few moments later he starts to squirm and look up at me...
With a big at grin, he waves at me and I cordially deliver a few choice words about safety and absolute seriousness of our mission. Whatever the heck that is!

With Ninja like reflexes I slip down the access port to find Agent Orange testing some wierd wall mounted body snatching device...

He said it was some sort of retaining devices for human experiments. As he walked away and I took a closer look, the label said something about automated lower rectal examination booth. Not sure what that means, but it sounds like it hurts.

We continue down the corridors, watching and listening for anything out of the ordinary. At the lower level we find a long open hallway with a large metal box at one end. We were both intrigued by the potential of the Pandora's box we just had to go in for a closer look.

I beckoned Agent Orange forward to open the box's large metal lid. He immediately waved a single, long finger at me. Which in elite explorer lingo means, screw you, you go first this time!

I inch my way closer, the box emanated some sort of electromagnetic distortion causing our camera LCD's to sparkle. Agent Orange sets up his camera, in preparation for whatever we may find in the old box.

Slowly I lift the lid....Each degree I open the lid, the more sweat pours down my forehead. A small light is slightly glistening from the inside. I open the box lid all the way and stand on the edge of it, to take a closer look at the light surrounded by the deep, bottomless darkness. All of a sudden BAM! I'm thrown back from the box and the lid slams shut!


I slam hard onto my back and scramble to my feet. Agent Orange grabs his gear and rolls to one side. The room starts to shake violently. Yelling at each other, we direct ourselves to the nearest ground floor exit -- smashing clean through a window!

Cut, bleeding, broken, nauseous, and terrified we ran and ran. We made it to the cars and jumped in. Starting our respective vehicles we both drove back south. I called agent Orange on the cell phone and asked what the heck was that! He saw it, tried to take the shot, but the camera failed..."What did you see dude?", I asked. A few choice words later from my phone's speaker told me whatever it was......we gotta go back to check it out!

-Mark

Too Cute!

Meet Agent C, the latest member of the gas mask wearing, urban exploring, abandoned building trespassing photo squad! Yes, we really do need some cool name for our motley crew of photographers! We'll work on that!

Anyways, Agent C. requested our presence at her bike wash. She has the cutest Texas accent and the nicest smile one could ask for. As a photographer, she does well on both sides of the lens. She'll make a fine addition to the team! You'll be seeing a lot more of her soon!

She definitely knows how to wear a gas mask well!

Busy at work...

YOU! Come here!

And she can dance!

Wanna Roll?

Hey guys,

Some of you have been asking for pics of little ol' me.... We'll here ya go! This is during one of my martial arts workouts.
Enjoy!
Mark
p.s. be on the lookout for pics from this coming Sunday's photoshoot!!