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With a heavy heart, I gave my house keys to my landlord at 4:15 p.m. yesterday. After two weeks of packing and cleaning (which explains the lack of posts recently), I'm ready to leave.

Not really. I've learned so much about photography and life in Bloomington, and I've had so much fun doing it, so it's a little hard to leave. I move on, though, in the hope that even better things will come. After finishing my stint as IDS web editor managing the Facebook page and Twitter account in less than two weeks, and after sending resumes to newspapers across the state, I will be ready for... well, for whatever comes and whatever I decide to shoot for.

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In what has become a yearly tradition, I drove the support vehicle for my dad in the Ride Across INdiana on Saturday. The ride follows U.S. 40 for more than 160 miles from the Illinois border to the Ohio border. My dad, at 51 years old, is rockin' the bicycle like he did over 20 years ago, and I couldn't be more proud of him. The best part of his ride was shared in an email exchange between him and the other two riders, Lige and Ron (Ron writing):

Tom finally arrived [in Dunreith, 30 miles from the finish, and] looked pretty bad. We all thought he should stop, concerned about his safety. Lige and I continued on, thinking Tom would drive with the sag [support and gear vehicle]. ... We talked with Dave and Alex and they informed us that Tom a.k.a. Lazarus, was riding. ... He finally got in with about 10 minutes to spare.  He said he felt great after the rest and was riding the best he had all day. There must be magic dust at Dunreith.

Cyclers ride past a farmhouse near the end of the Ride Across INdiana on July 16 west of Richmond, Ind. The ride, in its 25th year and organized by the Bloomington Bicycle Club, stretched more than 160 miles west to east across U.S. 40 in Indiana.

Note: This has nothing to do with news. At all.

As I was walking back home today, I looked down and saw some ants crawling on the sidewalk. One ant was carrying another, which was limp and seemed dead. It was a simple, everyday occurrence. The thought of ants lifting things much heavier than themselves, though, got me more interested, so I put down my bag, pulled out my camera, laid down on the sidwalk and snapped a little sequence.

An ant carries a larger ant up a sidewalk July 14 near Willkie Quad at Indiana University.