THE COOLEST FEELING IN THE WORLD

More than five hours after this photo was taken, I'm still smiling.
Thanks to Mark Arnold  for taking over the role of photographer!

If you didn't know me and you saw me now, you might think I was a victim of too much Botox. My face hurts from being frozen into a permanent grin the past five-plus hours.


But the pain is worth it. See that photo of me with Ruben V? See the t-shirt I'm wearing? That's MY photo of Ruben!

The original photo of Ruben V, taken at Sam's Burger Joint
June 25, 2011.

A few weeks ago Ruben contacted me and asked if I would give him permission to use one of my photos on his newest t-shirt. I thought about it long and hard.


Yeah, right.


"SURE!!" 


I think I blurted out my reply before he finished asking the question.


I sent him the high-resolution image and then tried not to think about it too much. Amazingly enough, I was pretty successful at that.


Then tonight I walked into Sam's Burger Joint for Ruben's show. I got there early when he was still doing the sound check and so I busied myself with setting up my camera and checking the lighting.


He went off stage and the next thing I knew, there he was at my table, holding up the t-shirt with his picture...MY PICTURE. It was the coolest feeling in the world.


He had just picked them up from the print shop. When I got my shirt out of the box...it was still warm. Talk about hot off the presses!


I must admit, it was pretty awesome seeing people buy the shirt. The first time I see someone out in public wearing it, I'll try to refrain from running up to them and gushing, "That's MY photo of Ruben."


Maybe...