Good Excuses to Look at Old Photographs

So, there's a showdown going on thanks to @flaccidfervor, and I'm trying to come in as a contender: assuming, of course, that anyone will find my photography worth nominating. Still, it's a nice reason to look at photos of times gone by, so let's crack open the folders and see if anything looks good. I'm going to start off with the profile pic for this account, because it's sunrise on top of Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico on 21-12-2012 with a hot-air balloon in the background, so, fuck yeah:

Here's something I'm really proud of to this day: in my high school, there were white supremacists. I visited the "home" where they hung out purely to sell them overpriced drugs. (Whatever cops, this was 15 years ago, come at me, although I do admit there is a little bit of a "last season of Breaking Bad, you're probably taking this too far" kind of vibe to it.) Because I would not ever let their racism slide during our face-to-face dealings, here is what they wrote about me on their own wall:

(They can't even spell "crotch" correctly. Or my name.)

[Also, I apologize, but it seems that when I share this post elsewhere, those networks choose to display the photo with the racial epithet.]

Here's just me on Venice Beach wearing a gas mask. Pretty sure it was the kind for a bong. Anyway, my recollection of my own life's events can become a little sketchy at times--just kinda forgetting the order in which I lived where, that kind of thing--but I'm guessing this was about 2008. Hopefully photos you didn't take yourself will count and the contest is more about photo blogs:

Here's a photo I took from the balcony of a room at the Excelsior Hotel on Via Veneto in Rome in the summer of 2012. I paid for none of this vacation (technically I was acting as "tour coordinator" but I could not have cared less about my job) and saw a great deal of Italy and the Adriatic. Proud to say my visit to Rome coincided with a protest against austerity in which I had the honor to march:

Here's a photo from 2014 or so of a woman wearing a hat I won in Rome during a sparring match (friendly, just testing each other out) with an Israeli man trained in krav maga, whereas I practice wing chun and tai chi. Because I won--i.e., captured him in an arm lock from which he could not escape, and with the aid of which I could gravely injure him if I chose--he sold me a hat priced at 120 euros (when the exchange rate was like $1.50 per euro) for the twenty-dollar bill of US currency I still had in my wallet.

Don't completely recall her name, despite having attended her little sister's quinceañera, but I would say she wears it well.

Heavenly locale from la Villa Borghese:

Here's a photo of a Vespa that Dalí painted and named "Dulcinea." I got yelled at by Italian museum guards for this, who at the same time showed me how to take photos more discretely while keeping my camera hidden in my pocket and trusting that just the first knuckle of my finger would provide enough height that, if I raise my fingertip to the hem of my pocket, I can discretely expose my phone's front-facing camera without anyone noticing my photography. Awesome guards.

[Fucking Christ, did I actually lose that photo somehow? Oh well, look it up if you want. I will leave the paragraph in which one may learn how to discretely take photos in a museum.]

Here's the best shots I could get of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Technically I shouldn't have done this, and they have eagle-eyed guards to prevent any attempts, but personally, I say fuck the Catholic Church, so:

Here's also just a decent shot of Venice from the canals, circa 2012:

I'm like 90% sure this is from Dubrovnik, the setting for King's Landing from Game of Thrones, but otherwise it's like, somewhere in the Adriatic.

This, however, definitely comes from Dubrovnik, so go ahead and nerd out now:

Fuck yeah! Keep spinning, DJ Miracle, photographed somewhere in like... I don't remember really. Some Croatian or possibly Slovenian port, I guess. I'll try to narrow it down within a week.

Here, I once found a nametag (in like 2014 or something) that apparently gives me some important position in the universe:

And finally, let's close with a photo of a Slovenian mime giving us an excellent gesture of either bonsoir or adieu.

Ciao for now,

Zach