Sparktoblog!

This weekend was a fairly quiet one. Saturday I woke up and had breakfast at Starbucks with my dad. After that I went to get a haircut, then spent much of the day cataloguing media and listening to music. The Rumpus house had it’s 4th anniversary party so I ended up going down to that for a while. Got to listen to some excellent tracks by the hands on Matt Fey. Eric and Sylwia showed up just when I was leaving but it was good to see them. I got a couple of really cool shots while I was there, including the one featured here.

Sunday was a quiet day around the house for me. I was feeling kind of sick so I tried to take it easy. The 2nd DeviantArt Washington meet was in the afternoon, and I tried to go, but left after less than an hour because I was feeling so poorly. I went to bed very early which caused me to wake up at 5:00, but it gave me a good head start to my week.

Today at work I had to go to a career expo. It was kind of fun to get out of the office, but standing around for 6 hours talking to people can get old fast. I found a couple of excellent people for some jobs I am working on, so that is always a plus!

Family business

It’s been a busy couple of days. I’ve been getting half sick and trying to take care of myself. My Dad is in town for a class so we got to eat dinner together last night. We went out to an Ethiopian restaurant and had some good eats. It made my stomach upset, but I’m pretty sure that was more being half sick than the food. After dinner we got to hang out for a couple of hours just bantering about nothing.

Today sucked at work. I was not feeling well and one of my co-workers bailed on work. He’s been flaking out lately and not showing up much and it pisses me off that I have to deal with his shit. After I finally got home Tres, Jake and I went out to dinner so I could deliver his pictures of Sophie. Now that I’m home I’m going to veg out for a while and rest. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will have me back to normal. Tomorrow I get to see my Dad again so I want to be my best!

Big bang!

My second attempt at fractal art. This is 3 fractal renders with heavy photoshop to blend them together. I'm starting to get the hang of this. I'm playing around with Bryce as well trying to get a feel for it and figure out how to incorporate it into my images.

Squish goes the seat again and again!

Today was a good Monday for the most part. The morning was so nice it was hard to go to work, but once I made it there I was busy enough that I barely noticed it go by. At lunch Liz and Erika joined me to some Thai food to satisfy our Pad Thai cravings. It was borderline hot so I had my windows down and the sunroof open. Unfortunately I left my sunroof open (to help keep it cool when I came back out to my car) and forgot about it when a downpour started shortly after lunch. When I realized what I had done it was too late! My car was soaked.

I had a wet warm ride home with my heaters on full blast and that helped a little bit. When I got home I ran my heater for about a half an hour while I chilled out then turned it off and left a window cracked. It got rid of a lot of the water, and I’m hoping when I get up tomorrow that it will be all warm and dry for my drive to work.

Fun with fractals

My first attempt at fractal art. I just sat down with Apophysis and started to explore. Once I found a few fractals I liked I played with them in photoshop. Nothing really perfect, but fun stuff to play with.

After a fairly quiet Saturday evening I got a good nights sleep and woke up this morning ready to tackle my day. I decided I wanted to go retake a couple of the shots that I took at the Conservatory last weekend so I dropped by there with my camera and got to work. I brought my new reflector and a tripod this time, and was able to get some shots that I am a lot happier with.

After I got done with that I was still ready for action so I decided to drive around the natural land at Interlaken. I parked my car and started hiking around on little trails I found, gear in hand. I got a couple of decent shots, but nothing to write home about. It was fun to go hiking around in a natural setting, climbing up hills, and enjoying the outdoors. I usually don’t like that sort of thing, but on a beautiful day like today it’s really quite fun!

Fun with dogs

My friend Tye was in town last night so we got to hang out and talk about a couple of new business ideas. He has me excited about some of them and I hope things work out for him! He ended up crashing at my place and we stayed up late watching Family Guy and talking about photography equipment.

Come morning I woke up and went to pick up my friend Tres and his dog Sophie. We went to Gasworks park to do a photoshoot for Sophie. It’s really surprisingly difficult to do a photoshoot for an animal – they don’t take direction well, and like licking the lens. After that we got to come back to my place to go through photos and get two of them ready for print. After we took a CD of the images to Ivey we headed over to Glazers so I could buy a much needed reflector. Today’s shoot would have gone a lot better if I had something easier to use as a reflector in the natural lighting.

I’ve been thinking a lot of late about MP3 players and I’m considering getting an ipod mini. I’m not sure about the idea of getting an MP3 player that does not have user replaceable batteries, but they are so small and cute that I might not be able to resist. There are a couple of interesting new players being announced now at CeBIT in Germany so I’ll have to wait for it to get over and look at what’s coming before I make my decision.

Fall of the credit card

What a week this has been! Since I got my stereo installed everything as been busy (mostly in a good way) and I simply have not had the time to update my blog. There was a billing error with my bank so when I went to update it last Tuesday I discovered that my account had been suspended. Now that we have that sorted out here goes with my last two weeks:

Last weekend was filled with photography and friends. Saturday morning I got up early and headed to Volunteer Park so that I could wander around, take some pictures, and check out the conservatory. I got some excellent pictures from the conservatory and put up a small gallery with some of the better ones. I'm still not 100% happy with the results and will probobly be going back there this weekend if I get the chance to retake a few of them, and explore for new angles.

Sunday was a busy day with friends. There was a big BBQ at Mike and Cyn's so we could all hang out again. I ended heading over early and running errands with Mike. It sucked because I somehow managed to lose my new stereo faceplate along the way, but I'm not to worried about it as they are roughly $100. The BBQ was fun, Brien came, along with Wee and Shalena, and all had a gay old time.

For the most part this week has gone by quickly. I had busy days of meetings on Monday and Tuesday, and then Microsoft Dev Days (a .NET development conference) was on Thursday. The conference was mostly boring, but I managed to make a couple of really good contacts. I've been thinking about some plans for sparktography and giantchoad and am planning on putting a lot more time and energy into both over the coming weeks. If all goes according to plan I'm going to be moblogging a lot more, as well as posting more pictures from everyday life. We shall see how that goes. Sparktography.com is also going to be undergoing a facelift this weekend (check out the new gallery on Monday) as well.

Thump thumpity thump thump

It’s been a busy week what with work and keeping up with Sparktography and all. Friday night was a birthday party for my friend Ryan. He was headlining at the Down Under and it was a pretty wild party. I’ll post a couple of pics to the gallery once I get a chance. Brien came down and we got a chance to hang out. It was really nice to see him again and hang out with him in a club.

My friend Demonseed was in town so on Sunday we went out to see the Passions of Christ with Brien. It’s a cool movie with a surprisingly well done acting job by all of the main characters. I can see why it’s generating so much controversy – it’s painting a pretty graphic picture about the last day of Jesus’s life.

Most of the week has been a blur of getting things done. Tonight I decided to take a break and headed out to Woodinville to hang with Demonseed and Brien for dinner. Driving out was fun because today I finally got my stereo installed from the insurance company after having it stolen 3 months ago. I’ve missed having any form of music in the car and now going back to having a decent stereo system so I can continually surround myself with music.

I just have to make it though tomorrow and I get a weekend. It’s going to be a busy one, but I’ll have a chance to rest. I have a photo shoot with my coworker Erika on Saturday before Damian’s birthday party, and then a photo shoot with my bitch Tres on Sunday morning.