Last Day to Order

Don't forget, Bearkats...  today is the last day I'm taking orders for the panoramic I shot of the Bearkat fans rushing the field following the Bearkats' historic victory over Montana a couple of weeks ago.

Orders will be accepted through Tuesday, December 27.

$25.00 plus shipping, paid via PayPal.  Photos will be mailed the first week in January.  If you happen to be in the Brenham area, let me know and there will be no shipping costs.

To order, e-mail your shipping address to photos@jamespharaon.com, and I will send you an invoice to pay from on PayPal.

Thanks, and Eat 'Em Up Kats!

"Bearkat Fans Take the Field"

"Bearkat Fans Take the Field"

Following the SHSU vs. Montana game last week I shot this panoramic shot of the entire field as Bearkat fans stormed onto it.  I've had several requests for prints of the shot, so I'm posting this here in case any other Kat fans would like one, as well.  

Order your 32"x9" panoramic photo print of the crowd taking the field following the Bearkats' historic victory over Montana!  This will be a one-run only print, so don't wait and miss out!  This will be a high resolution professional photographic print, suitable for framing.

Orders will be accepted through Tuesday, December 27.

$25.00 plus shipping, paid via PayPal.  Photos will be mailed the first week in January.  If you happen to be in the Brenham area, let me know and there will be no shipping costs.

To order, e-mail your shipping address to photos@jamespharaon.com, and I will send you an invoice to pay from on PayPal.

Thanks, and Eat 'Em Up Kats!

SHSU Battle Message

Mad crazy Kat props to Michael F. for putting this together.

Eat 'Em, Up Kats!

The Lock

This is a true story.

On the campus of Sam Houston State University, outside the Lee Drain Building (between AB4 and the ROTC/former Dance building) there is a bike rack with a lock on it with no bike attached.

Now, that lock has been there for a long time - since I was a student at Sam Houston State.  While walking around the campus with Kristi and the kids this weekend, I saw this lock and couldn't believe that it's still there.  It's been almost 15 years, after all, and it hasn't moved.  A building has been torn down and another built right next to it.  And countless bikes have been locked up to the rack right next to it.  I wonder how many people have ever even noticed this lock sitting there, protecting nothing but the pole it's attached to?

I know it's been there since 1997 because it's my lock.

One day I borrowed Kristi's bike to ride to class on, and I locked up her bike in this very spot.  Or at least I thought I had.  It turns out that I had apparently only looped the lock around the bike rack pole and not around the bike frame.  And when I returned for the bike later that day, it was gone.

I'm not quite sure why I left the lock there, but I never went back for it.  And it stayed right there.  I always assumed that the university would just cut it off the pole, but I guess that never reached the top of the priority list.

And there it sits today.  I probably still have the key in storage somewhere, but I'm just going to leave it.  I'm curious how long it will remain there.  Will it still be there when my kids are students there?  Or grandkids?  I picked up the lock, and it's still very firmly locked.  Despite the rust, I'm almost positive that the key would unlock it.  but where's the fun - and the mystery - in that?  For all I know there's an urban legend on campus surrounding this fixture on the SHSU campus.  Or would anyone even notice if one day the lock was just gone?

It's just another part of my legacy, I guess.

SHSU Walkaround Portfolio

As we were walking around the Sam Houston State campus for Homecoming this past weekend, we started noticing things that I had designed for the school. Most of them were Sammy Bearkat art, but others were logos, as well. So I started snapping photos of the things that I saw. This is my legacy, and I'm proud of it.

Remebering SHSU

I'm not sure how I missed this (or forgot about it), but last year I did an interview with the Building SHSU website for a feature called "Remembering SHSU" where I relived a little bit of my experience at Sam Houston State, especially as Sammy Bearkat.

Check it out here if you're so inclined.

Anatomy of False Alarm

After reading a friend's post on Facebook that the Sam Houston State campus was on lockdown (and that there were shots fired and there were three gunmen), I checked the Huntsville Item newspaper's website:

3:00 - Item investigating reports of shots fired at SHSU; campus on lockdown; officers massed around Avenue I.

3:40 - All clear at SHSU. More info to come.

4:00 - Police say SHSU reports due to Nerf game on campus.

It's a sad, sad day when an entire campus goes on lockdown because of a game of Nerf ball. For one, Nerf guns look nothing like real guns. And did whoever reported that there was a gun on campus not see the bright orange missiles or balls sticking off the front? It's not as is if they were running around with pellet guns that might actually be mistaken for, you know... real guns. What's next? Will the town of Huntsville be put on high alert the next time some kids decide to run around with Super-Soakers?

What a sad commentary on the freak-out society we live in. Still, so glad that no one was seriously hurt by a stray Nerf ball.

Bearkats Choke, Lose to Baylor 68-59

One of the best, hardest fought games I've ever seen. And things looked good for the Bearkats right up until about the three minute mark. Then they just visibly crumbled. It was remarkable because you could almost see the moment the players knew the game was over.

Bearkats Lead Baylor 31-30 at Halftime

Go Kats.

Sam Houston State, your posters suck.

Sam Houston State University is my alma mater. I loved my time there and got a good education. And I still talk it up every chance I get. Today I'm judging a student art scholarship event at Brenham high school and saw this poster as I was walking down the hall.

My problem is with the very first word, "see." There seems to be an implied "we'll" in front of the word "see" when used at the beginning of the sentence. Any promotional poster that seems to say "we'll see (if) success unfold(s)" is a poor poster. That's how I read the poster before I even saw who the poster was for.

I know you seem to be trying to own the word "success" lately, but even that seems like a mistake to me. Your billboards with a grad cap and the word "success" aren't inspiring and don't evoke any emotion or make people want to learn more about the school. Success is relative. Is graduation success? No, it's not. But that's what your billboards seem to be saying. Never mind the fact that it's not even clear if you mean high school graduation or college graduation. And if graduation is success, then most high school seniors are already this close to success.

Besides, it just seems so generic. Any college can throw a graduation cap on a billboard with the word success. What makes SHSU special? Where's the differentiation? That's why you spend money on a billboard - to tell people why you're different.

You need a real advertising campaign. You need someone who understands the Sam Houston brand and how to make it stand out from the hundreds of other colleges in Texas. You need energy. You need to expect better. You need to cultivate your image better. Cheap crap like this only hurts the image of the school in the long run.

Tell us why you're different. Don't promise success because success means different things to different people, and there a lot of levels of success. Promise excellence. Inspire. That's what kids want from the college they choose.

As it is, you might as well come out and promise mediocrity. Because that's what your advertising implies.

Huntsville To Decide Whether to Extend Hours of Alcohol Sales

From KBTX.com via Matt:

How late should bars and restaurants be selling alcohol? That's the question Huntsville city leaders could decided Thursday evening.

This would be the third reading of the proposed ordinance that would allow alcoholic beverage permit holders to obtain a late hours permit to sell alcoholic beverages, beer and wine between midnight and 2 a.m. on any day.

Some bars and restaurants claim extending the hours makes Huntsville more attractive when it comes to recruiting conferences and business meetings to the city.

I have to admit that I was surprised and a little inconvenienced that we had to call it quits at Midnight last month when I and several former Sammy Bearkats got together during Homecoming to have some beer and shoot the bull. I felt like we were just getting warmed when they told us we had to go.

The Battle of the Piney Woods Moves to Houston

From the Houstonian:

The second oldest rivalry in Texas will have a new home next season as the Battle of Piney Woods will be moving to Reliant Stadium next year.

Sam Houston State University, Stephen F. Austin University and Lone Star Sports and Entertainment have come to terms on a four year contract for an unspecified amount of money.

This is an odd move and a genius move. Having the game in Reliant Stadium seems odd because it's such a big venue. The crowd is going to seem ridiculously small in such a large stadium.

On the other hand, from a marketing perspective, this is a genius move. The vast majority of the students at Sam Houston State come from the Houston area and SHSU still has the perception that it's only slightly better than a junior college. But stepping up its game and by presenting a more big-time, big-school image it might raise Sam Houston's perception and elevate its status - in the NCAA, in the minds of potential students and in the local media.

It worked very well for Texas State.