In my own personal version of March Madness, here are two more basketball photos, with a twist. One is action from a Rider University game on Sunday March 1st. That's Ryan Thompson for Rider. His older brother Jason graduated Rider and now plays for the NBA's Sacramento Kings. I photographed their parents for a story and they are a crazy couple! Crazy in a good way.

This one is Steinert High School teacher Tracy Quinn, in her classroom. When she played for Hamilton High School, her team won the state championship, coached by a great guy and former band mate of mine, Mickey Kessler. He forgot more about basketball than I'll ever know.

Lisa Lenihan, of Hamilton, holds her six week old son Liam, for the distribution of ashes during a lunchtime Ash Wednesday service at St. Gregory the Great Church on Nottingham Way in Hamilton Township, New Jersey. I wonder what Liam is giving up for Lent.

I've been to a few basketball games these past days. The big photo, above right, was from the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton. I went up as high as I could (press box) and got a clear background when I finally got a guy going up for a shot, facing the right way. At regular old high school gyms, the bleachers don't go way up, so I usually go low, on the floor to be exact and sometimes the players do, too.

On Friday I got to spend a couple of hours hanging out with and photographing two homeless teens for the do1thing project at HomeFront's Huchet House, in Trenton, New Jersey, a place where family care workers and a parent educator focus on ensuring pregnant homeless women receive needed services like prenatal care and employment training. I tried something different, too, my first foray into slideshows with audio. I had just purchased a digital audio recorder, for two reasons, they have really come way down in price and my sister had given me a B&H Photo gift card for my birthday. It was delivered on Wednesday and I brought it with me as an afterthought to Huchet House and got a very little bit of reluctant audio from the girls before I left. It took me most of Saturday to learn how to edit the audio and incorporate it into a slideshow using various "new to me" programs. After I sent my still photos and slideshows to do1thing, I posted the slideshows on my own webspace. Each one is roughly thirty seconds long. I only had a couple of hours to be in their worlds, but it seems even stranger to try and tell their story in thirty seconds.

You can see them here:


www.MichaelMancuso.us/Yakima

www.MichaelMancuso.us/Tamara

What's the word I'm looking for...? Well if these people can't help, there's no hope. They are participants in The Classics 9th Annual Scrabble Invitational held at Classics Bookstore, 117 South Warren Street, Trenton, on a Sunday morning. What an eclectic mix of people! I guess word nerds (and I use the term lovingly) come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Starting with the young...

Here's the view from the top (of a bookshelf).

Ah, yes! Thinks that help you think, juice and a Dunkin' Donut.

Back to the word "nerd." Here's an expensive stopwatch. It costs $200 and it requires a $25/month data plan. I'm just jealous of the "Google phone."

It happens every year. In the northeast it gets cold. Birds fly south for the winter. I don't. I guess that makes me less than a bird-brain...

...0r perhaps a horse's ass. At least he's smart enough to wear a jacket while it was raining.

And here we have the civilized human, off to catch a train to work, no matter what the weather.

What should I call this, Mommy' s going off to war? She is. Guardswoman Sgt Zelene Diaz walks with her son David Diaz, 4 following a Departure Ceremony for the 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion shippiing out for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Earlier, Sgt Richard Schwartz, right, sings "God Bless America" to conclude the ceremony.

NJ Gov Jon Corzine, 2nd from right and MG Glenn K Reith, right, Adjutant General of New Jersey applaud. The others in photo from left are Senators from NJ, Robert Mendez and Frank Lautenberg.

From left, Chaplain Joanne Martindal plants a kiss on the cheek of Madison Tolska, 8, months, held by her dad, Capt. Eric Tolska onstage after the ceremony was over. Last week, I was at the inauguration and now this today. Makes me proud to be an American.