wedding times

I went to a wedding tonight. I knew neither the bride nor the groom. My roommate wanted to go. The wedding was in Sacramento. My roommates has no car. So I went with him. At the wedding they had little M&Ms with their faces on them and little messages. It made me want to run and hide. Thankfully, I brought along my film camera and was able to take random shots of people. Oh, and at some point my roommate caught the garter.

Posts away!

This was the first picture I was going to post today, but alas, something more "life surrounding" came along.

This may not seem like much, but it very much a huge success. At Amy's house there is a side of their house that has been missing a fence for some time. After successful completion of the bumble bee ramp last January, Amy's parents were excited when Amy and I started talking about fixing the ramp. But then El Nino hit. And it rained and it rained and it rained. Then I was sick, I was sick, I was sick. So FINALLY today we see the posts being concreted in. Furthermore, I convinced Amy's parents that if they really loved me, they would buy a pre-fabricated fence. So I'm going to install a pre-fab fence on Tuesday. I'm so excited this project is finally coming to a close.

The grove of eucalyptus

Tonight Amy felt well enough to join Lola on our adventure. I took her to another park to go running. There were two other dogs there so I eventually took Lola over to a ballpark and ran her around in the outfield while Amy watched from her chair. Amy's back sprain means she she couldn't play with us, but she watched as a little dog had way more energy than a full grown adult.

the day after

Last night on her way home from work, my best friend Amy has a left side rear blow out. She was going about 60 MPH when the blow out happened. She fishtailed left then right then left then right one final time before coming to rest is a grove of small trees and bushes. Today in the day light I took a few shots. The back bumper is gone, as is the back window. Amy, thankfully, is rather okay. She strained her back and is off work for a few days, but I have seen similar situations go much worse. By all guesses - the car is totaled, but we'll find out later. If it is totaled, there is one silver lining - what ever junk yard gets this car is going to be rather happy. The engine is in great shape and will fetch a pretty penny.

Lessons from owning a dog

I have a co-worker who needed someone to watch her daughter and son-in-law's dog until the 1st of October. I volunteered. So for a week now, a dog has been living with us that is my sole responsibility. It has been a very educational experience. First lesson I learned was that no matter what time you get in at night or how few number of hours of sleep you get, there is a dog that expects to go pee every morning at 7 AM. So no matter if you get home at three, or if you have tonsillitis (like I did for the past several days), the dog expects to be let out to pee at 7 AM. Second thing I learned is - a dog will always have more energy than me. I took her out running today. Running!! I haven't ran since Fall Semester 2006. We ran/walked/jogged for an hour. Eventually, Lola decided she was done and crawled back into her crate. We went home, me satisfied that I had wore her out. 30 minutes later I'm napping in my lazy boy when Lola comes and jumps up on my lap with the energy of a teen boy on three Red Bulls. Always more energy. The last thing I'm learning is it does not matter how much you feed her prior to dinner, what ever you are serving is so much better and she will beg from the floor next to you. She seems to love her dog food, but not when you are having anything (pringles, pasta, slop).
Oh, and I learned one other thing. When dogs are in heat they bleed a little and so to keep her female parts clean, Lola is constantly licking herself down there. First though...eewwww!. Second thought, I'm so glad that the cave people didn't take after the dogs when they were developing in evolution. I would never kiss another girl if I knew she was lickin her self down there.

looking down on ant people.

Contra Costa County

My new office is 5 stories higher than my old office. Each day there are people standing at the huge window in the break room marveling at the sight. For two weeks I've tried to avoid looking. Today I ventured a gander - and it was just as I had assumed - a long ways down.

The Portrait Project Part 1

For about 2 months now I've been working on using my dad's camera to teach me about shooting portraits in black and white using film. Tonight I picked up the last roll of scanned film and these are the pictures. I learned a lot in the process. It started with the picture above. I was asked to do a photo shoot for a customer's Linked account. We took about 100 pictures. With digital that's okay, but film is bloody expensive, so I really wanted to learn how to shoot portraits without shooting so much. I made an announcement on Facebook and got three victims er...I mean volunteers.

Dave was the first volunteer.

This is probably my favorite from the initial shoot.

With David I tried to take a lot of different poses. I was trying to figure out how to pose a subject.
Next was Toni:

This is my favorite from the shoot.

This is Toni intimidating Dave.

Toni wanted to add a prop, which I forgot added more shadows to be weary of.

This is the one time that shadows made me happy. It looks like she has a necklace from her earrings.

Next was Steven. I shot pictures of him with the much prodding from Toni.

When I got this film developed I quickly saw the importance of lighting and using it for me benefit and not against me. Tomorrow I will show other shots and talk a little more about what I learned.