"My Life, My Love, and My Lady Is the Sea"

Some of you may know that I work on the weekends as a photographer at Navy Pier, a famous tourist attraction in Chicago. It’s not like it’s a fun little hobby, more accurately, it’s an 18-hour-long, straight up, weekend killa’. I really wish I could have my weekends to relax, but my disgustingly high car payment and my Gigantor student loans have joined forces in a successful attempt to leave me with zero free time, hence the dismal effort at blog updating (sorry seven readers).

I used to take pictures at the Ferris Wheel. I’m the guy that says, “How are you today? Before we get on board, why don’t you step right behind this sign, show some love, and give Christy a big, Ferris Wheel smile,” or something to that effect. Then when they get off the wheel, one of us shows them their picture on the monitor and tries to sell it to them. I’ve been doing this for over a year now, and I’m damn good at it. Here are some bullet points I could put on a resume:

1. I’m willing to flirt with old ladies from St. Louis if it means selling a photo or two.

2. I can maintain order on a busy ramp, with people growing increasingly frustrated, and STILL get them to stop for a photo opportunity on a consistent basis. The college kids that I work with, yes, I know it’s pathetic that I’m 29 and I work with these youngsters, don’t have the gift of gab that I have. You just can’t coach it I’ve found.

3. I can vary my little pitch and tailor-make it to the people on the ramp so that I don’t bore them, my coworkers, or myself.

While I’ve proven to be an effective Ferris Wheel photographer, the last few weekends they have stationed me at the Sea Dog ™. This is your basic speedboat ride and architecture tour. Today I learned that on a cold, rainy, Chicago afternoon, don’t NOBODY want to go on a boat. So, we spent the day playing photographers VS tour guides in a game of two-on-two football. Of course, we’d stop and ask people if they wanted to ride in between plays, and sometimes getting behind the center and saying, “2:15 architecture tour on two, best 75 minutes of your life on 3!” I also watched the two tour guides do an improvisational bit about two ninjas who are mortal enemies, want nothing more than to kill one another, but keep crossing paths without their swords. They are theatre dorks, but perfect for the job, since they have to talk all day and think quickly on their feet.

The sad part is the powers that be noticed that they didn’t need 3 people to take photos of NOBODY, so they sent us all home. This has given me time to finally update my blog. Tonight I will be partying at my apartment during our going away extravaganza for one of my roommates. Tomorrow I will be a hung over, but still very effective photographer or wide receiver, depending on the weather.