I like to make fun of Jeff for slowly but surely turning into the human equivalent of a camera store. Since he started working for MU Athletics as a photographer, he’s purchased one piece of equipment after another, and it’s always a guessing game as to what he’ll think to buy next.

A few weeks ago, Jeff purchased safety cables with which to secure remote cameras. I’ve never actually seen him use the cables. For all I know, they’re used to unnecessarily torture a stuffed fish abandoned by his old roommate Dann.

Another of Jeff’s recent purchases? A 35/2 lens, which I used to take a photo of his newly-bought safety cables and the poor fish:

Some of the decor in Jeff's room.

In other news — the data recovery company was able to recover all but a few JPG files on my dead portable hard drive. I received the recovered data on Friday after my shift at The Columbia Missourian. So, besides shoot the Kansas State game, all I’ve done this weekend are back up all my files to my desktop external drive; match and confirm the duplicate copies between my portable, desktop and laptop drives; and reconcile all copies to ensure that no data was lost when I eventually formatted the new portable hard drive.

It’s been a chore.

It also means that I have all my working project folders and this semester’s photos back. So I can finally blog Days 11 and 12, which I missed because those photos were on the drive, as well as resume work on various other projects.

But all in good time.

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Let’s just face it: This was going to happen.

By “this,” I mean “Jeff’s face eventually appearing in this 30-day challenge.”

Today, I was still sick, so I missed classes and work and ventured outside only to attend the weekly sports beat meeting at The Columbia Missourian at 5 p.m.

But apparently, being sick is no excuse for not taking a photo for the 30-day challenge (thanks, Erin), so when Jeff came over late tonight to return my camera that he borrowed… well, I didn’t mean to have him model for me.

But that’s inevitably what happened.

The set-up: We were sitting up, opposite each other, on my bed, and I had my legs drawn up with my sheets over my knees. He was leaning forward with his chin nestled on the sheets between my knees — and I snapped a few photos.

"Moooooo."

By no means are these the most journalistic images in this 30-day challenge. But like I said — this was just bound to happen.

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Last September, my camera and I followed 11 agricultural journalism students into woods, prairies, caves and other pockets of southeastern Missouri. I emerged with plenty of photos from the trip, as well as a rash of chigger bites all over my ankles, waist area and, oddly, shoulders.

Over the past five months, I’ve visited my general practitioner three times and a dermatologist four times. Four packs of prednisone and a number of other prescriptions later, the final diagnosis? The bites have been aggravated into dermatitis, and the only way they’re going away is if I stop scratching them.

That’s the problem — they itch like nothing else.

Yesterday, I began to apply a prescription of Cordran Tape.

Self-portrait. Chigger bites on my right shoulder.

The tape is medicated on the underside, and it prevents me from scratching and protects the bites from being irritated by my clothing. After five months of nothing working or helping except the prednisone — which is not a drug anyone should take often — this tape is a godsend.

I’m really hoping these bites clear up before spring arrives and I should start retiring long sleeves and footed tights.

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