Sparktoblog!

I’m going to be a daddy!

I’m so amazingly excited! I’m finally going to have a dog! Quentin came over and announced that he was giving me one of his litter for my birthday! I’ve wanted a dog for years, but finally am at a place in my life that I can have one. I’ve figured out a way that I can afford doggy day care, and be able to take my puppy to work for the first couple of months. I can’t describe how happy I am!

I drove over to Quentin’s house tonight to meet him. It was love at first sight! He was the runt of the litter, and a very small and calm pit bull. He is so cute, tiny, and needy. He is currently 3 weeks old, being born on July 8th, 2004. He was born very small and they have had to hand feed him formula to supplement his diet along with Tilt’s milk (his mother).

I’ve decided to name him Skype. Skype is a word from Middle English that means “imp like, mischievous”. It has been used in current language as an exclamation meaning to steal covertly. It also brings to my mind something small and cute like a child.

I won’t be able to take him home till he’s at least 7-8 weeks old. I can’t wait and am already planning out the logistics. It’s going to take a major restructuring of my life but it’s all worth it.

BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!

The future does not belong to fear – it belongs to freedom!

“My fellow citizens” sparked the fire from Kerry tonight at the Democratic National Convention that ended in a glorious blazing flame against Bush. The Kerry speech was amazing – until this point I had not seen any emotion and passion during Kerry’s speeches, but tonight he pulled out all the stops and managed to get everyone cheering and chanting for the democratic party. Help is on the way. Help is on the way. It was a powerful message that Kerry delivered to our soldiers abroad, our middle and lower classes, and elderly. America can do better and help is on the way.

Now Kerry did make a few hits that I would consider below the belt. He called Bush out on a few things that he really could have avoided, but could really be considered fair given the republican parties message against Kerry. I think it’s sad that our entire political process has degenerated into name calling and drudging up records from the distant past.

Before watching this speech I was going to vote for Kerry – not because I thought he was the best man to be president of the United States of America, but because I believe that Bush must be removed from his throne at any cost. After watching Kerry’s speech I believe that Kerry could be the right man to lead our nation. He was able to bring together a people, and make a crowd erupt with passion for a better America and a better world.

Two amazing women grace my life...

Today after work I was planning on sitting on my couch and chilling but alas something far more interesting happened. Someone from a mailing list I subscribed to made a generous offer of a birthday gift. Not being one to refuse a good thing when I see it I agreed to meet Catling at the Aurafice to collect my newfound treasure. Upon getting there I was amazed by what a cool person she is – we see eye to eye on a great number of things, and have very similar personalities. She is like a female Sparky in my book!

We decided to go check out a cocktail party to benefit keeping abortion a matter between a women and her doctor – keeping the government out of it. On the way there we met a fabulous women named Deborah. Deborah is homeless, and was asking if she could wash Catling’s windows for some change. We declined the offer, but hooked her up, and talked with her for a few moments. Now Deborah obviously has problems of her own, but I was impressed with what a strong and vibrant women she is. I was snapping pictures the whole time and really like the way the one to the left came out. I’m not much good at portraits yet, but I’m getting better. I like the way this one captures the power in Deborah’s eyes, and the warmth in her smile. I got her sisters address and am going to try to track her down with Catling to see if there is anything we can do to help Deborah on her way.

Two days left – I’ve just got to make it through two more days. Once the weekend hits I have three days to party and relax. I’m excited about my birthday party on Saturday. I don’t much relish the idea of getting older, but at the same time birthdays are fun – lots of partying and friends to celebrate ones life with!

Picture of the moment: Diets over

While at the 3 way birthday action on Sunday I got my own personal mini cake. It’s a small cake, more of a Torte really… Unfortunately because there were 3 cakes I was the only person to have a piece of mine, and took the rest home with me. Woe is bestowed upon us by the next part: over the last 3 days I have slowly eaten away at it – I’ve had two friends come over and help a bit, but I ate a little over half of it. It was pretty though, and very tasty too.

So much for the diet.

Diversity sucks...

The last two days have been fairly blah. Yesterday was a normal day at work, and it went by fairly quickly. Today I had to go to a diversity career fair for work. It was the lamest thing ever – it was in South Center (who throws a fair at a hotel in a mall anyway), and was mostly focused at non- tech companies so I spent a lot of time bored. I did manage to meet a couple of awesome techies, and gaze upon a couple of really hot guys!

While driving home I saw a guy in a beat up Monte Carlo that was out of commission over by the side of the road trying to flag someone down to call a tow truck. I figure one good deed a day helps out in the long run so I pulled over and let him use my phone. His transmission had locked up, and his car was as good as dead. His name was Chris and I talked to him for a few minutes – always nice to get a view into someone else’s life, if even more just a moment. I felt kind of bad for him, but there was nothing I could do but get a tow truck on it’s way and leave him to his fate.

Tonight I headed up to the Kimchi Bistro for some dinner with Tres. God I love Korean food! Someone had trashed his motorcycle and it sucked for him. I am going to have to nag at the boy to get the damn thing insured! While walking home I snapped this shot in the alley behind Charlie’s. I’ve entitled the picture “noise” because of the lower yellow tag, but I took it because of the larger tag in the middle. The guy who has been doing it has tagged hundreds of thousands of dollars of property in the Seattle area. I wish I could meet him – he must have a fascinating story!

Picture of the moment: Blue Table Patterns #1

Today was Randy’s birthday party so I headed out to Kirkland for dinner with some old friends. It was a merry old time and we celebrated 3 birthdays. It was good to see Randy – it’s been a while since I’ve seen him and it was nice to catch up. Randy got a very cool table at Ikea with a brushed metal top. I played with it in the sun for a while and got some very nice abstracts with it. The rich blues being reflected by the sky don't come across well in the JPEG, but I'm excited to get this one printed. This is the one I’m most happy with it. A couple of people that have seen it have not liked it because they think more should be in focus, but I like the softer feel to the image. Thoughts? Comments?

Haircuts and Mayhem!

Last night was a chaotic festival of madness! Tres and Ken came over for food and we ended up going out to some Indian food. I started to drink a little, something I do rarely, and the night dissolved into a drunken slosh of movies, faded memories, and way too much humid heat in Seattle.

Upon awaking this morning I am hot, hung over, and amazed at the mess we managed to create last night. Today should be a fairly chill day – dinner tonight with Brien, Mike, Cynthia and myself and going to Fry’s with Elliot and Eric. I got my hair cut this morning after I woke up because it was getting long enough that I felt too hot. As much as I like long hair I can’t stand the heat even more.

I snapped this shot while I was at the Super Cut’s on Olive and Denny. It evokes highly commercial feelings of luscious tropical vacation spots way out of my financial grasp. I find it humorous that a shampoo companies marketing team can make you feel happy by using their product – even if only in the most hollow and meaningless of ways. Clicking on the image to get the full view is highly reccomended so you can read all of the text.

Picture of the moment: Bangle

While walking with a friend of mine up to Broadway to cash his check I snapped this quick shot of his hand. I’m not sure exactly what it is about this shot that I like so much, but it came out nicely. The main point of interest to my eye is the interaction between the bracelet and his tattoo.

Rosebud == therad!

Last night was a fun one for sure. Ryan came by to grab his check and we hung out for a while bitching about our respective jobs, and consoling each other. Afterwards I headed over to the Rosebud to grab a bite to eat and some drinks with the Brew Night Crew. It was the usual mayhem, and much fun was had.

This morning I got to wake up early because I had an appraiser coming by my condo to do the final evaluation for the loan. He was like 45 minutes late, and a crazy old coot. He must have been 55, and obviously oblivious to my lifestyle, and method of living life. What a bother he was to deal with. Ohh well – so long as he gets me the value I want and everything goes through I should be happy with it.

Tonight I have Jake as my homeless victim. I’m thinking of dinner and drinks, but have a few more sinister plots in mind – I need to figure out the best way to get everything lined up. I’m really tired from my week so nothing too wild will happen. If not for Jake and such I would probobly go home and play video games all night. I’m thinking dinner, then crashing Rando’s party to into Jake to The Machine!

This weekend should be pretty exciting – I have a massage scheduled for Saturday, and then Randy’s birthday on Sunday. Other than that I want to focus on a few photo shoots that I’ve been meaning to go out and do. I want to drive to Ballard and go shooting, as well as explore the arboretum in a bit more detail now that it’s nice outside.

MXO MXO MXO!

Today was an average day at work. I got a lot done but was quite drained. At the end of the day we got a hot job on and I’m kind of excited to work on it tomorrow. It could make me a lot of money and boy would that be useful at the moment.

After work I headed over to Monolith to meet up with a friend of mine and talk about photo gear. While I was there he had me sign an NDA and showed me The Matrix Online! Because of the NDA I can’t say much about it other than AMAZING! They have created an incredibly huge and persistent world in which tens of thousands of people can play online simultaneously in a seamless and detailed city. I don’t much get into online gaming, but I’ll definitely be getting a copy of this one! For more information on it see what has been released to the public on GameSpot.

While eating dinner I got a call from Chris, the writer and director for Creatures of the Gay Lagoon. I did not get the part I wanted, but better yet he checked out Sparktography.com and wants me to be the set photographer. I’m pretty excited about it and have some great ideas for ways to add extra features from the making of Creatures of the Gay Lagoon. I can’t wait to talk to him next week and sort out all the details.

I also got the resale certificate and title for my condo today. It’s about an inch of paperwork that I have to read through – what a pain. August 30th is looming ever closer, and I can’t wait. I’m starting to get really excited about buying the condo, and I think that most of the stress and such will evaporate the moment I close. I know the money is not a problem now, and I’m almost done with my part of everything, but I’m still worried that “something” will happen.

Platform jumpers!

This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in ages! Aside from that today was a fairly normal day. After work Brien and I went to look at condos he is thinking of buying. They are on the hill and quite nice. The view is absolutely unimaginable! They also have amazingly cool bathrooms. I really hope he can pull it off because they would be an incredible place for him to live.

It always happens on a Monday...

This morning started off bad, and then got worse. I woke up exhausted – last night I had some mild indigestion, as could not sleep for the muggy heat until nearly 4 in the morning. Something was off this morning, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I got up and smoke a cigarette to try and wake up so I could face my day. Something still off, still can’t put my finger on it. I lay down on the floor and get ready to do my morning exercise. Crunches – starting, crunch, crunch. Something is amiss in my abdomen, perhaps brought on by the rapid movement in the area? Crunch, crunch, 10. Something is really going on. Crunch, crunch, 15. Yipes! I run to the bathroom. NOT OK. Suddenly I think back to the greasy cheese bread I ate for dinner late last night. *sigh*

I called in sick to work, and planned on getting a couple of hours of sleep before going in at 10:30. I RDP into work to check my calendar – nope, nothing until the afternoon. I’m in the clear.

BLEEP BLOOP BLIDDY BLEEP BLEEP crap.. It’s work calling at 9:00. I had a 10:30 meeting that never got sent to my calendar. Grumble. I hauled my ass out of bed, and made it to work by 9:30 so I could go up to Bothell for my meeting.

The whole day was very long and boring. I got a lot done, but was tired all day. I’m really glad that I’m home now – I’m planning on spending a nice quiet evening glued to my couch. It’s not so hot and muggy today so hopefully I will be able to fall asleep early and be ready to tackle my day tomorrow Sparky style!

And now in honor of this morning I present to you my readers some toilet humor.

Picture of the moment: Brand X

This is another shot of the penguin at Pacific Place. I’m not as happy with it as the one below, but it has it’s own certain charm. I’m going to contact the artist and see if they have more work out in the public. I love the artist’s style. (I’m mildly peeved that I forgot to find out who did the piece before I left for home today.

Picture of the moment: Dealer

While at Pacific Place for the movie I noticed a great art installation. It’s a penguin shaped metal sculpture made of found items. I love the organic feel you can get from such inorganic components. This shot cried out to me – I like the strong impact of the two words, as well as the play of light and dark in the right and left sides. The lighting in a mall is an interesting thing to work with when doing photography. I was quite glad that Pacific Place has a glass ceiling to let in at least some natural light.

I, Robot?

So this afternoon I decided that against my better judgment I would go see I, Robot in the theaters. I had reservations about going even before I went based on the robots vs. humans theme that had been prevalent in the commercials.

On my way down I came across a protest going on near Westlake Center. A large number of people in wheelchairs are blocking off several city blocks and trying to get their message out. The Bush administration is currently trying to pass legislature that will take disabled people who are unable to live unassisted and institutionalize them. They Bush administration wants to take these people out of their homes, cut their Medicare funding, and put them in nursing homes against their will. It was an amazing and heartbreaking thing to see hundreds of wheelchair bound citizens from across the nation begging for their right to live in dignity.

Back to the movie - now I’m not sure how many of my readers are Isaac Asimov readers, or even how many people have read the book I, Robot, but anyone who has will be very disappointed. The movie is loosely based on some themes from the Robot series written by Isaac Asimov, but really has nothing to do with them. The only thing I could really see that gave them any connection with the series is that the whole movie revolves around the 3 laws of robotics.

The movie by it self was an interesting concept, and had great special effects. The robots look genuine, and the designers did a great job of giving a “plastic” face emotion. Had it been called something else and merely borrowed the 3 laws of robotics I probably would have enjoyed it more. The plot had a few holes in it, and wore very thin at a couple of major points. I don’t think I’ll be seeing this one again for a while, but at some point I suppose that I will have to NetFlix it and give it another viewing.

My advice – if you have read the Isaac Asimov books and are looking for a heady intellectual flick, then don’t watch this movie – you will be very disappointed. On the other hand if you have not read the books, and are in the mood for an action packed movie with little substance and lots of pretty things to look at then by all means go ahead.

P.S. The concept car design by Audi is very cool. I like the idea of a free spinning sphere for a wheel and hope it actually makes it to market at some point!

Maximize your desktop

While browsing QuenteCafe I came across a great little application from Maxivista for adding a virtual VGA driver to windows using RDP technology. It effectively lets you put your laptop next to your desktop monitor and initiate an RDP session to a virtual monitor on the desktop. This adds a monitor to your desktop, and lets you drag windows into it, and smoothly move the mouse from one computer to the other. I’ve played around with it a little and like the concept. I didn’t have to fiddle with VGA cables or an extra monitor (it's all piped through the exsisting network) and VGA card to get a 3rd monitor onto my desktop. There is a free trial but it’s pretty limited. I might just end up buying this one once my condo closes and I’m not a broke mofo.

Updated: Sparktography.com gallery

So I’ve gone and updated the Sparktography.com gallery again. I’m using a program called jAlbum that is absolutely amazing (thanks Elliot!). It lets you quickly and easily make photo galleries on any operating system, and use any of 100’s of skins. The best news is that it’s free! Check out what it did for the gallery and see the cool photos. I really like the slideshow feature you can access by clicking the play button.

Picture of the moment: Topwise Shoe Rack

While walking to my audition for Creatures from the Gay Lagoon I stopped off in a vintage clothing store on Pine. There were a lot of shoes there and they made fascinating subjects. I love the way the color and shape of the shoes is presented in this shot. The toes from the shoes on the rack in focus give an abstract feeling to the shoes and contrast nicely with the subdued colors below.

I’m still experimenting with presentation for photos. This larger size helps show the photo better without clicking on it, but loads slower. I like the greater level of detail in this size. Any opinions?

Brop...

Yesterday actually turned out to be a pretty good day. I spent the day at work being reasonably productive (particularly for a Friday) and got a lot of work done. After work I decided to head to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens and take some photos while I waited for the traffic to die down. I got a couple of decent shots, but this somewhat harsh shot is actually my favorite. I like the way the hard converging lines are supported by the highly contrasting surfaces.

After I got home Scot and I went to go grab some dinner at Charlie’s. God I love their food – as unhealthy as it is. Tres joined us shortly after we got there, and then once we got back to my place we were joined by Jake, Ryan, and his girlfriend. We watched part of The Hole, a delightful gay pr0n that parodies The Ring with the best acting ever! Of course we skipped the sex scenes, that’s just boring in comparison. After Ryan and company left the rest of us homos ended up watching Equilibrium and having a gay old time.

Today should be a fairly fun day. I’m about to grab some food with Tres and Jake, then I have my audition for Creatures from the Gay Lagoon and then who knows what madness. More of that for me please!

8-Ball Cares

I came across this gem while browsing around on the web. It’s a hilarious advice column run by a “prisoner” in cell block B. God bless the internet. I have submitted my questions to 8-Ball, have you?

Oh lordly thank god it’s Friday!

My goodness I’m glad it’s Friday. This week has been very day to day and I’ve been just trying to make it through work each day. The good news is I found an amazing track on the way to work. Why Not on the Musica Divinorum album by Talamasca. It’s really mellow, but has a good beat. I like the harmony and can easily see this quickly becoming one of my favourite tracks.

Last night I headed to the B&O for some dinner and the first 2004 Hempfest Photography meeting. I’m very glad that I’m not on the core group this year – as great of a cause as Hempfest is I just don’t have the 300+ hours a year that the core group requires to pull it off. This year I’m working closely with the media and photography groups and will be shooting the event. I think it’s a great opportunity and I’m excited to be a member of the group that will be capturing the essence of Hempfest and recording it for the world to see.

Last night after the meeting I finished rebuilding my TabletPC. I decided not to put the Tablet OS on it and opted for Windows XP for stability reasons. This also gave me a lot more flexibility in setting it up. I got RPC over HTTPS configured and managed to connect into Elliot’s exchange server. I really do have to admit it’s slick having server based mail like that – no longer do I have to worry about synchronizing all of my computers and worrying about which one has the PST file with the mail I’m looking for, instead I just set it up, point it at the server and I’m done. VERY SLICK. VERY SLICK INDEED! Thanks Elliot - you are the 1337!

Software for the next 200 years

An interesting article can be found here by Dan Bricklin on the future of software design. He talks about the basic building blocks of technology and brings up some great points about how some software should not be driven by new features and frills, but should instead be made to last for 200 years and just run. It also touches on some interesting points on what should happen after somthing breaks and the steps that should be taken to prevent it from happening again.

Overall the last 24 hours have been pretty good. I’m still suffering from sleep dep, but at least I’m starting to catch up. Last night was pretty chill – I headed over to Tres’s house for a bit of dinner and to play some video games. Keith (an ex co-worker of mine) came over for a bit and it was nice to see him before he jumps on a plane to go to Florida for a year for school. Lucky bastard. Damn lucky bastard!

2 days left till I get another weekend. *Sigh*

* * *

On a side note I came across the following article today one the web. A homeowner in Arizona has put their house on the market with a sign that pronounced “4 whites only”. Amazingly nobody has complained so the HUD and ACLU can’t do anything about it yet. This is simply amazing in the year 2004 that such rampant racism can be ignored so long as nobody fills out a form.

On Sunday I went to help my friends Eric and Sylwia move out of Sylwia’s house in Kirkland. Over at her dad’s house there were a bunch of stacked orange boards to make scaffolding out of. It was a kind of experimental shot, and I did not spend much time on it, but I still like the way it came out. The really vivid orange makes the image come to life, and the texture and pattern lead you into the focus of the image.

Today was an OK day. I got a lot done at work, but was tired all day. I’m checking out the Buffy the Vampire Slayer videos that Scott gave me at work. He thinks I’ll like it – I’m kind of blah on it so far. It’s a cute concept, but the pilot episode was kind of transparent. I’m going to watch a couple more episodes because I know that the pilot of a TV series often sucks. I’ll report more on this at a future date an time.

Another Tuesday morning…

It was really hard to wake up this morning. I’m not sure if it was the drinking at Charlie’s with Scot and Greg, or the fact that I did not sleep well, but regardless waking up with a nightmare. I managed to make it out of bed and into the shower, but I still made it out the door a few minutes late. It’s mornings like this that I’m glad I usually get to work an hour early because otherwise I probobly would have been late.

On a side note the track In Hell X Hell by Boo Reka on his album Corrupt Data Factory is amazing. I listened to it on the way to work and it helped perk me up. It’s a very rich track, and has a relentless, driving quality to it that makes me happy.

Wreckage

What a day it’s been. After last night getting to bed late and inhaling all that smoke I woke up feeling like shit. I had a lot to do so I came in to work early and got there at about 7:30. I got a lot done today, but felt unsettled in the aftermath of the fire. It’s strange how losing an icon like that for a neighborhood (and one so close to my condo at that) really strikes home what an “act of god” can do.

These are a few more shots I got this afternoon. I could not get in as close as I wanted because the fire department put up fencing and posted a rent-a-cop. I managed to get a couple of shots of the wreckage through the fence, but I could not get up close and personal with it like I wanted.

Picture of the moment: The One Ring

My boss James got married back in May in beautiful but boring Kamloops BC. I took some shots from the wedding, and this has become one of my favorites. I really like the symbolism in wedding rings. Hopefully I’ll still know James in 10 or 20 years when the ring and his hand have seen some wear and I might redo the shot to make a cool sequence.

Aftermath

The aftermath of the fire was pretty gruesome. I went back down and took some photographs. I got very up close and personal with the wreckage until I was kicked back to the tape line. It’s amazing the power that fire has to destroy something so quickly. In a matter of less than an hour the building was reduced to a burnt out shell.

FIRE!

So there I was relaxing and getting ready for a nice quiet night at home when what do I hear but a small explosion. At first I ignored it but heard sirens so I grabbed my camera and headed downstairs to see what the comonotion was about. The Capitol Hill’s beloved Hillcrest market, the corner store everyone buys smokes and beverages at had something explode in the backroom and burst into flames. From what I can see noone got seriously hurt during the initial fire. The store immolated and threatened the building next store, but at the time of this writing everything seemed safe save Hillcrest.

Randy and I hung out for a while shooting the flames and watching the commotion. I got pushed back on my side of the building due to smoke, but once I walked around to the other side and stood in the Starbucks parking lot taking shots. I really hope that the owner had insurance because there sure won’t be anything left once they get done picking up the smoking ruins.

Picture of the moment: Flowers Gate

Also while on my walk this morning I managed to get this shot less than a block from my door. I did a little photoshopping to make it more vivid, but I like the way the shot played out naturally. The gritty detail and sharp angles in the wooden foreground contrast nicely with the soft vivid flower and vegetation in the background. I like the way the shot jumps out at you and gives you strong visual impact. I’m trying to figure out what kind of frame or border it needs but for now I’ll just post it like this.

On a side note a couple of people commented on the small images – if you click on one it will pop up into a larger window with a much more detailed version of the images I’m posting!

I also came across this interesting night light on line. It’s got 3 LED’s in it (red, green, and blue) so it constantly and fluidly changes colors. At $20 I think I might end up buying more than a couple once I close on my condo to give my place a little splash of lively color at night.

Picture of the moment: Invaders Creepy Eye

On Pine and Belmont there is a bar in Seattle that has a fairly creepy and stylized space invader tagged on the side. The eyes of the space invader are made up of tiny, slightly more menacing space invaders. I was out for a walk this morning with my camera and I started playing with the invader and came up with a couple of cool little shots. I really like the way this one came out – the high key effect really plays well with something as simple yet chaotic as graffiti!

Check out the Space Invasion!

RSS Madness – the tinkering continues

So in the last couple of days I have done a bit of maintenance work on my blog and moved some of my domain mapping around. It does make it easier to do things I want to do, as well as make the site a little easier to navigate. Unfortunately it bork3d the RSS syndication big time. If you have added my site to your newsreader you might want to change the feed url over to http://blog.giantchoad.com/blogtonia/index.rdf to ensure that you get all posts correctly.

Picture of the moment: Past Celebrations (a.k.a. “Forgotten Relics”)

Somewhere in the Madison Valley there is a guy with a very interesting house. He obviously has a lot of character and would someday like to meet him. I was walking with Cyn and came across an old canoe with a variety of trinkets and artifacts laid out with well defined chaos. A couple of shots later and we were off to take Charlotte home.

I’m still experimenting around with how to post images on a more regular basis. If anyone has any opinions as to size or presentation please do let me know!

Dissapointment F911

So I just got done watching Michael Moore’s new “documentary” Fahrenheit 9-11, and I have to say I’m disappointed. It failed to make me angry, or get me riled up like everyone else I’ve talked to has. Michael Moore has managed to bring up some interesting points, but it’s mostly things that we all knew already. Don’t get me wrong – I hate George W. Bush and think he’s one of the worst things to ever happen to the United States, I just don’t think that making a film that’s 30% fact and 70% fluff won’t do much to hurt him.

It has the republicans up in arms, and I can see why. In Michael Moore’s defense I did not see anything that he said that was in factual error, he just made a lot of misleading statements and made mountains out of molehills. Hopefully he will swing a few voters, and I’m glad for that – I just don’t think that taking the low road is necessarily the right way to do things. America’s faith in Bush is already failing, the American public is realizing the damage the Bush has done to the United States foreign policy and fiscal status and will prove it in the polls.

Picture of the moment: Paper Leaves

An interesting shot alight with foreplay of translucent leaves filtering in light from the window behind. I really like the way that the light makes the dark edges really pop out with contrast. This picture was taken in afternoon light handheld at F2.0. Quite to my pleasure I did not have to do very much to it in Photoshop aside from converting it from RAW and tweaking the levels.

RSS Madness

So I’ve been playing around with the RSS Syndication feature that LiveJournal, TypePad, and a number of other websites are offering and I have to say it is damn slick. I’m currently running NewsGator which integrates with Microsoft Outlook and adds news feeds to my exchange account so I can treat them as incoming mails. It’s a damn cool interface, and let’s me use my phone, PDA, or OWA to check my RSS feeds. I owe the discovery of NewsGator to the Almighty Jake, Lord and Master of Microsoft Works.

For those of you that have an RSS reader of some sort (and I highly recommend trying NewsGator’s free 14 day trial) you can point it at my RSS feed here and get my blog delivered to your computer in hot steaming chunks.

Aside from the RSS madness today has been an excellent day. I woke up to go meet with Scott (my real estate agent, and from what I can tell a damn good one) to get the initial contracts in place for my condo. I’ve gotten approved for my loan through a good friend of my families, and everything looks like it’s set. I’ve got to scrimp and save, but everything looks like it should go through on the 30th of August!

Also of note I got an excellent massage today from a friend of mine. She is amazingly good at relaxing you and then fixing what ails your muscles (Seattle Area Computer Users Syndrome in my case) and leaves you feeling limber, refreshed, and perky! She’s always looking for new clients so email me if you want her contact information and her reasonable rates!

It was an interesting end of quarter work party to say the least. We set sail under a dreary sky, laden with food, and clad in gimpware (well, I was at least). The boat we had was very nice and had an upper deck with an enclosed area so we could put the food somewhere safe. It was an open bar for all that means for me, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. I took my camera and documented, as well as get a few interesting shots.

There was drinking aplenty, piano by Erika, and cigars by the old boys. It was Keith’s (our beloved IT guy) last day so we had a bit of a collection around the office and got him a few going away trinkets. It was odd to view the world through the eyes of the lens while drinking beer – I don’t often mix any form of intoxicants with cameras! The weather improved over the course of the 3 hour cruise and was quite nice by the time we docked.

Now for an evening of relaxing. Ian is coming over and we might end up watching a movie.

DAS BOAT!

So of course the day that we get to leave work early and go hang out for the end of quarter party on the Puget sound is a cloudy, rainy, and dreary day. Ohh well – I’ll bring my camera and hopefully the crud will burn off and leave us with a nice day!

Last night was a late one and I’m tired and grumpy because of it. I had dinner with Brien again – it’s good to be hanging out with him. After I got home I got sucked into a variety of things and never really got to bed until way to late an hour.

Off to the sound!

Weekend of bliss

What a nice relaxing weekend the 4th turned out to be. I had 5 days off and had been planning to go to Pheonix Fest, but ended up just staying in Seattle and letting myself unwind. I got to hang out a lot with friends which was nice, as well as finish fighting my way through Final Fantasy 3, one of the best RPG’s ever made. Tres and I spent a lot of time together playing classic RPG’s (He’s going through Chrono Trigger, a game that I want to go through again soon) and just shooting the shit.

On Sunday I ended up at Shawn’s house with Ian watching the fireworks over Lake Union. I got some great shots of the fireworks and spent a good amount of my day on Monday going through them before I finished up FF3. I ended up starting FF5 (god am I hooked) and once I’m done with that I want to do 7, 8, and 9 again before I buy a PS2 and tackle 10 for the first time.

Today and yesterday have been kind of brutal at work. Getting back into the swing of things is always a trick after a long weekend of running my life on my own terms. Waking up on Tuesday was really quite the feat when my alarm clock went off at 7:00.

I’m planning on spending the next 2 days being pretty chill before I actually get out and do something this weekend. On Friday it will be an easy day at work as we are having our end of quarter bash and will be spending the last half of the day out on Lake Union living the high life. This weekend I want to get out and do some shots out on Alki Beach. There have been some great photo’s taken there by friends and I want to check it out!

I WANT IT NOW!

It’s been a short but stressful week. I have today through Monday off, supposedly so I could go to Phoenix Fest but I’ve been really stressed out of late and feeling pulled in a million different directions so I think I’m just going to stay home for a nice long 5 days weekend of relaxation. It will give me a chance to just play some games and work on a backlog of photos that I’ve taken.

This week was cool in that I have some deals at work that I think are going to go through so that should help out with the buying my condo. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one of those “responsible things” that I’m going to do. I mean I’m not that attached to having a condo, and buying it is turning into a major pain in the ass, but I’m glad I’m doing it and it will completely get me on the right financial path for some of my long term goals. I’ve been having a somewhat futile mindset of late. I’m not sure if I’m just not enjoying my life or what, but I almost feel like I’m a hamster on a wheel just doing what I’m told. It really makes me think about long terms goals and what I want out of life.

Unfortunately what I want out of life is probably something that I can’t have – to be able to sit on my couch and follow my own interests for the rest of my life. I guess the real problem is that I lack direction in the short term – I have lots of goals and things to strive for, but at this point it’s looking like a lot of those things won’t happen for 10-20 years down the road. It just seems silly to keep going like I am for that long without getting the rewards that I want.

I guess instant gratification just is not in the cards for my life!