Intellectual Poison

For anyone interested, I've started (yet) another new blog. This one is called The Kyani Dream and is focused on our Kyani business, it is not all about selling though there is some encouragement to try out the products. It is more about sharing information, knowledge, health issues, thoughts about network marketing and our growing success which will lead to posts about our free vacations and, eventually, our free Cadillac Escalade Hybrid when we get there.

If you have any interest in learning about network marketing or the opportunities presented by Kyani then I strongly encourage you to check out the new blog and let me know what you think or what kind of posts you'd be most interested in reading.

Also, if you are in need of some miniature awesomeness then you should check out Plastic Life. Very, very well done miniature photography. I'd love to give some of this stuff a shot.

In other news, I took the Learning Styles Inventory Test after seeing at Where's My Plan and found out that I am...

The Great Communicator

75% Visual, 75% Musical, 88% Linguistic, 75% Kinesthetic, 75% Logical, 63% Interpersonal and 67% Intrapersonal!

Want to give the test a try? Take Your personal Learning Styles Inventory Test at HelloQuizzy

And, finally, check out some pretty awesome photos of nature's fury in full force.

That's all for now, I've got some other things I'm working on but they aren't ready for primetime just yet.

Labels: blog, Kyani, photography, test

Yesterday was a long day and today is already slated to be a longer one although there will not be a UFC event awaiting after the work is done.

Anyway, here are some thoughts as I prepare for today's wedding.

- When things start to happen, they will start to happen very fast and are unstoppable to retake a photo.
- Comfortable shoes are an absolute must.
- Eating or having some kind of snack is essential.
- Cloud cover is your best friend at an outdoor wedding.
- Tall centerpieces can be difficult to work around when taking long distance candids.
- There are some incredibly emotionally charged moments that are classic and timeless and impossible to capture again once they've passed.
- Memory cards are cheap, shoot five or ten times the number of pics you think you'll need.
- Every wedding is unique and wonderful in its own way.
- That memory card with all the day's photos on it is more precious than anything in whole world until its been downloaded and the photos backed up to DVD and an external hard drive.

I've got a couple of hours to get ready for my next wedding today. Time to get some materials printed off, cleaned up and ready to roll out.

Labels: photography, wedding

Today is the first day of the biggest week we've had since I was laid off from the school district. In just under ten hours we'll be hosting our first ever Private Business Reception (PBR) for Kyani. With some luck we'll be filling our house with prospective distributors and customers and members of our team. It involves many steps including a clean house, finding a place to temporarily park Nande and our border hound (my wife's brother is visiting from Colorado and his big goofy friendly dog isn't so welcome at grandma and grandpa's house due to aged and inflexible cat already in residence), making sure our kids are occupied or at the neighbors for a little while.

And there's also making calls and trying to pull in folks we've already talked to to try and bring them to the PBR. The exciting thing about tonight is that we'll have one Kyani's executives here. He's one of the top earners in the company and, at the end of this week, will be getting the keys to his Kyani Escalade Hybrid at the national convention. If I were him, I'd be giddy with excitement!

On top of the PBR tonight, there is the aforementioned national convention taking place this next weekend. Almost everyone from our Northern California team will be attending and I would be but my weekend is already very, very stacked full of previously scheduled goodness.

I will be working as a professional photographer for not one but two weddings in two days this coming weekend. And, in between the two weddings, there's also the mma magnificence that is UFC 100.

Each wedding poses some significant challenges but all four of the participants are very easy going, good people and I'm really looking forward to commemorating their special days with my cameras.

Also, we'll be doing our first Skype video conference call a little later this morning with WindBlossom, who has joined us on our Kyani adventure after trying the products out and finding that her knees no longer hurt and her thinking is clearer.

It should be a really good week. And, with some luck, we'll be much further along in our Kyani dream by the end of the week. So much so that my wife may be one of the many that gets to walk the stage to receive her promotion in front of the entire company. That would be awesome! I wish I could be there but am looking forward to my weekend of photographic madness!

Labels: Kyani, mma, photography, wedding, week

After a day and a half of four kids (my two boys and their two cousins), two big dogs (my Nande and their Murphy) and my wife's brother staying with us, this morning is calm and mostly peaceful. Even with Murphy still staying with us, he's a great big, sweet and goofy black lab/New Foundland mix.

My cold sore is about 75% healed up now, which is good because it was a really bad one while it was settling in. Probably the worst I've had in five years. But, through a combination of yogurt, lysine, Abreva and Kyani Nitro FX, it has eased up considerably and should be completely gone in another day or two at the most.

And that's a good thing because I need to get back to working out and riding my bikes. I can feel some pent up energy that could really use a release.

We took several steps forward with our Kyani business this week. Say hello to our newest distributor, WindBlossom! We also spoke for the first time the other day as I helped walk her through the sign up process. With her joining our Kyani team, we will start to farm and own Canada because there is little to no presence there as of right now. And virgin territory is huge, huge, huge in this early land grab phase of the game.

If you are looking for an amazingly good Plan B that could easily turn into a Plan A then drop me an email, leave a comment or otherwise get in touch. Kyani is our future and our future looks fantastic! There is no obligation whatsoever to check it out and, if you happen to have sick people in your network of friends, you can make a substantial improvement in their lives.

I had to do a little creative organization in my office to get my computer to be Skype-ready so that WindBlossom and I could video conference but its worked out well, I'm ready and my office is even a little bit sleeker than before!

I've been putting in quite a fair amount of work on websites. I've purchased a new domain for my photography business, used iWeb to create the new site, set up an entirely new account with Backprint and done a pretty ridiculous amount of trouble shooting to make Intellectual Poison work properly again as I'd busted one of the pipes in the process. I'm also starting to lay the groundwork for our as yet unlaunched new bicycling website.

And I've also been tending to several auctions on Ebay to help clear out some valuable but unneeded stuff in the office. Nothing like converting goodies into cash even if I seem to be spending too much time at the Post Office lately.

One big event on the near horizon is Graydon's fifth birthday this Friday! It is hard to believe that he's turning five already but he is. I'm excited for him because I know he's going to absolutely love his main present, a limited edition Automoblox race car. Oh yeah! If you've got young kids, especially car crazy boys (or girls) then you should definitely look into these beautiful toys. We've already got a bunch of the mini cars but the big ones are even more awesome.

The other big events on my horizon are two weddings that I'm going to be photographing the weekend after next. I'm excited, busy with preparations and a little bit anxious about not screwing anything up too badly. Once the weddings are behind us, we'll all be able to breathe a little easier, maybe take a camping trip to Big Sur or somewhere else and start to really enjoy the summer awesomeness out here on the coast. But, until then, there's a ton of things to work on and get ready. My tasklist is just as long, if not longer, than it was when I was working as a computer tech for four schools.

And, lastly, I'm saving my pennies to buy myself a long, long, long wanted goodie, the ContourHD high def helmet cam. Just thinking about my video capabilities with this thing makes me giddy!

So, I may not be quite as crazy busy as WindBlossom but yeah, there's alot going on right now.

Labels: blog, catchup, computers, kids, photography

Have come across some good stuff on the internets lately and wanted to share.

Need some more wild in your life? Check out Nick Brandt to see some spectacular images of Africa. He has a fantastic eye and has captured a whole host of animals, panoramas and the feeling of the wildness of Africa. Truly inspiring photos.

The other is referenced in the post below. Texts from Last Night provided me with more laughs in a few hours yesterday than I can remember in a whole week. I could post a dozen that made e laugh out loud but I'll just post a choice couple.
"(416): I just jerked it to the same porn two nights in a row... and she says I have problems with commitment..."
"(512): i just sat at a stop sign for 10 minutes waiting for it to turn green. i need to STOP SMOKING THIS SHIT."

Via Amy's Reader Feed, Looking Into the Past is a Flickr pool of old pictures held up where they were taken. Trust me, it is very cool.

And, lastly, SuperCook lets you enter in food you have and then kicks out a bunch of recipes you can make. It is pretty awesome.

That's all I've got for now. I've got some calls to make, trails to ride and hearts to break (just kidding on the last one).

Labels: awesome, links, photography, random

My mom sent me a bunch of photos by a guy named Clark Little, his photos are nothing short of astonishing, beautiful and awesome.

This is one my favorites from what she sent me.

This is the kind of photography I'd love to be able to do. Unfortunately it requires some rather expensive gear that just isn't in the cards presently. Too many other things taking precedence, like my mortgage and, you know, groceries.

Still, this is fantastic. Check out his site for a whole ton more of them, all for sale.

Labels: awesome, photography

I've had my new Canon SX110 for a week or so now and got a chance to use it on Monday as a secondary camera for Stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California. I didn't really need it as my XTi is a superb, fast and quality camera.

But I wanted to see how it held up with its built-in 10x optical zooming, 9 mp sensor and AA batteries.

Utility - it isn't going to ever give my big camera a run for its money. It isn't fast enough, it isn't powerful enough and it doesn't have the versatility of interchangeable lenses. But it isn't meant to replace, just to supplement.

Size Matters - The SX110 is a good bit larger than the SD1100 IS it is replacing. The SX110 is not pocketable but is also a good bit harder to drop because it isn't as tiny as the SD was.

Zoom - the SX shines here as there really is just no comparison between a 3x optical zoom and a 10x optical zoom (note, digital zooming is a waste of time, it is, essentially, cropping in the camera). When I need to zoom in and it just keeps going and going, I feel vindicated in moving up in size to the SX. The zoom isn't particularly quick though so it is hard to use for action oriented photography with changing focus points.

Screen - Okay, I admit it, the screen is awesome. It is large and easy to see what you've just shot. But the lack of a viewfinder means that you have to use it so there is no easy way to save battery life by turning it off. Also, the dial to navigate image viewing is a nice idea but the implementation is a bit kludgy and I found myself accidentally clicking far too often.

Overall - The increased size of the SX110 combined with its use of disposable batteries is making it harder for me to carry and use without thoughts of having replacement batteries handy. Its larger size means it is not possible to just slip it into a pocket, it has to be carried or attached to a belt (for that awesome super dork look). I don't see any way to use it as a handlebar mounted vid-cam like the SD. It is a good camera to be sure but I don't think it really fits my particular set of needs.

Pros: Nice zoom, big screen.
Cons: Slow, eats batteries, larger profile makes it a drag to carry.
Grade: B-

Luckily, I have the solid warranty from Staples that allows me to return it for pretty much any reason within two years. And, with the SD1100 IS retailing for around $180, the new warranty will be less expensive (sub $200 is a much less expensive warranty) and I'll probably get a chunk of store credit out of the exchange. Unless there's a new model around the corner or maybe I'll consider moving up to the 790 or 700. Actually, in doing a little research, I'm thinking the SD890 IS is going to be the one for me. It uses the same batteries as the SD1100, has a a 5x zoom and is a little curvier so it should slip in and out of pockets more easily.

Labels: Canon, comparison, photography, review

As always, The Boston Globe's Big Picture series captures some of the amazing and shocking realities of events around the world. This series is from the Australian Wildfires. Click the link for more images, some are pretty amazing, some are pretty awful (in a sad way). The photos remind me of the seemingly never-ending series of fires in close proximity to our house this last year. Bad enough that our school district shut down early one day as ash drifted down on us all. Here are a few photos from the school that day. Nothing anywhere near as arresting as the first in the series of photos from The Big Picture.

Labels: fire, photography

From the site,

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

How I Made a 1,474-Megapixel Photo During President Obama’s Inaugural Address

It is amazing, awesome and fantastic. And huge beyond huge. Its also the biggest Where's Waldo? ever. Via.

Labels: inauguration, photograph, photography

I just deleted a comment on my most favorited picture, the one here. The reason was because it was a throwaway comment he posted solely so he could post his stupid ass pet collar customization site.

That's right, there are idiots now trolling Flickr and spamming photos there.

Labels: Flickr, lame, photography, spam, troll

I wasn't able to get too far afield in the last day and a half but I did get out and get a few new macros with my new Canon.

The Image Stabilization really helps to keep the macros crisp and tight and it helps even when the light isn't ideal. Anyway, here are a couple of new macros to enjoy.

Labels: Canon, macro, photography

My little Canon SD450 pocket camera is dying. Which isn't such a terrible thing as I've got a long no-hassle warranty on it and, for the cost of the warranty, I can upgrade my phone for about $50 every couple of years.

I just got off the phone with the Staples up the street and they have a delectable new Canon SD1100 IS on hold with my name on it.

So I'm off, with my two boys, to go trade in the broken for the slick and brand new!

[Update: Well that was a pretty easy exchange and purchase. I traded in the broken SD450, got the reserved SD1100 IS, added a new 2 gig hi-speed SD card and the 2 year no-worries-mon warranty. The only color they had available was a dark, almost reddish, brown. Not too bad but it wouldn't have been my first choice. At least I didn't have to get the pastel pinkish red one. I'll take some image stabilized macros after Grady goes down for a nap to show off how crisp and nice the images it takes are.]

Labels: Canon, digital camera, photography

PicLens creates an instant, immersive wall of images from a variety of sites that is just too darned cool to not enjoy.

I've just begun with it and there are functions to embed the software into a web page (like a photography blog) to give visitors a richer and more engaging experience.

Very cool and pretty fast too. I can only imagine how awesome this would be with Flickr, its a shame my school district blocks it (and allows sites like FamilyGuy.com to get through).

Labels: interface, photography

Yesterday was my last official full day of holiday break and the weatherman had said it was going to be stormy up north. So we went south towards Monterey, Carmel and Big Sur. Its pretty ridiculous to live so close to such an amazingly awesome place and to not visit as often as possible.

We stopped just a few times to take some pictures but I did get a few that I'll keep. The throwaway shot above is one.

This is another, from one of the many turnoffs and pullouts on the road. Its a neat and very smart idea to have so many turnouts to make it so easy to pull off andreally take in the splendor. Words don't really convey it, pictures hint at it but the totality and sheer majesty of the whole place is beyond the scope of any lens. Not that people shouldn't try, of course.

One of the really unusual and kind of neat sensations I had was at one of the vista points. I stood up on the edge of a cliff some two or three hundred feet up from the water and felt warm air rushing up the cliff face contrasted with the colder air that had settled into the shadier dirt of the overlook. The warm sea air smelled fresh and, very faintly, like faraway places.

In fact,the whole ride was pretty good fun, until Sully got car sick and ejected cookies all over himself and his car seat. That was a bit of a downer for everyone. But we learned alot for our next trip down, which will likely be an overnighter, maybe even with Nande too.

Labels: big sur, california, coast, drive, photography

This was taken the other morning at a local park. The morning dew was heavily condensed on the green plastic slide and the sun was just starting to peek over the top of the slide which made for the dramatic and rather pretty picture here.

Looking at the picture, it gets me to thinking about harmony, about big and small and about how external forces are always acting on us all.

Water droplets get along no matter their size. Well, actually, the bigger drops gobble up the little drops and they become a part of the greater whole. That is, until they become so big that gravity takes hold of them, overpowers their grip on the incline of the slide and the whole kit and caboodle comes rushing down to the larger pool at the bottom.

And, eventually, the sun gets high enough to cook off that pool at the bottom which releases the water back into invisible droplets to waft into the breeze to start the cycle again.

We're all part of a greater whole, we're all controlled by forces outside of our control, we're all in this thing together and it is important to remember this basic fact of existence. No man (or woman) is an island unto themselves, just like no water droplet or combined hydrogen molecules with an oxygen molecule can exist alone for long. We all need one another.

I didn't really have a great big elaborate point to make aside from that. It would be nice if people realized it more often. Being good to others is being good to oneself.

Labels: photography, unity

I finally got around to updating and adding a whole bunch of new photos to CarpeVivo, my professional photography site.

Most of the new photos were added to the Children's portraits pages but I'm pretty sure I added at least a couple of new ones to each of the pages as well.

Labels: photography

One of many, many precious moments from the puppy invasion the other day. Our neighbor's nephew brought over his four pit bull puppies to see if he could pawn a couple off on some of us.

We successfully resisted the urge to buy up one of these adorable little dogs but our neighbors were unable to resist and got not one but two of them. Which is fine by me, more dogs is more better and now we've got five dogs in three houses.

Plenty of really great shots from the afternoon playing with them. This one ranks as one of the best, for sure. And you can't even tell that Sully is a drooling machine these days (teething seems to do that).
Here are a couple more pics with some others to follow.

Labels: baby, cute, dog, photography

We wanted to go apple picking today but the last apples were locally picked on the 23rd of September. So we did the next best thing and went out to the pumpkin patch and walked through the corn maze.

Note to future corn maze walkers, don't take a stroller, not even a rugged three wheel jog stroller, and wear decent shoes or expect to turn your ankle.

Also, the wind was ripping it up something crazy! And I got to do some more color accent photography so that was cool! Here's another accent shot that I really like alot.

Labels: cutout, photography, pumpkin

It isn't so much that I have nothing to write about these days. I have plenty of topics and news things that are on mind and would make adequate blog posts. So I don't have writer's block, I've got writer's dam. They probably come from the same roots but I keep starting posts, stopping, coming back to them later and then just adding them to my drafts. Where they will wither away until eventual deletion during a clean up.

I guess I don't really care to share the dreary frustration of hunting for a job. You've all done it, it blows donkey chunks, let's move on.

One thing I am rather looking forward to trying out today is my newly built bike camera mount. I've had the instructions and most of the parts for many months now, I was just missing the main mounting body. And there was an old bike lamp mount on Paula's bike. I took it, drilled it out, inserted the bolts and tightened up my washers and then tested it out. It should very, very cool on some of the descents. I just hope I don't eat it and destroy the camera, or that the mount doesn't disintegrate under bouncing stress and destroy the camera. But if it does, I really hope I've got the camera rolling at the time!

My other worry is that the camera will shake too much during the ride to produce any usable video, which is why helmet mounted systems are so nice. But we'll see what happens. At the very least it would make a great system for using on the cruiser while out on West Cliff.

Labels: bicycle, photography, videography

I noticed a link to some Military Photos of the Twin Towers in my Del.icio.us popular widget on my Yahoo homepage. Some of the photos are just shocking, as they have been for years now, and some go a very long way towards really capturing the scope of the damage and how widely the cloud of debris and dust and fumes spread.

Looking at these photos made my blood run cold.

Labels: 9/11, photography

You'd think he was enjoying some Spongebob on the big screen but he's actually gesturing at a passing plane. I like how Grady has tucked his feet up on the car and I just think he's pretty darned adorable.

I derive such an amazing amount of joy from my two boys. When we wrestle together, they laugh long and loud and I can't help but join them. I will miss all of the time I've been able to spend with them once I start working regularly again.

Which means that I try to maximize our fun while I am still off. Not sure what we'll do today but I bet it'll be fun either way. I'm currently trying to get a ride along bike for Grady so Sully can ride up front in the Wee Ride and we can all go bicycling together. That will be super awesome!

Labels: children, photography, raising children

It is monetarily official, I am a professional photographer (among other things). I just got my first revenue share payment from Backprint for the University Road Race I photographed last weekend.

No, I'm not going to be able to retire yet, nor could I buy a full tank of gas, unless it was for the motorcycle, but it does feel pretty damned awesome to get a payment for taking photographs.

Truth be told, I'd hoped to generate more money from the race and am not quite sure where the disconnect was as there were a much larger number of people interested in buying photos than have bought photos.

Perhaps the time delay caused a loss of buyers, perhaps they had difficulty finding their photos. I'm not sure.

I do know that I learned alot and will improve my output for the next race. Especially since I plan to rent a high powered auto-focusing and image stabilized telephoto lens to make each shot count a little more.

Still, I'm smiling all the same.

And I got some really cool shots at the Seymour Marine Lab earlier today, we'll see how they look when I get them loaded up later.

By the way, thanks for the comments on my professional photography site, CarpeVivo.com. I am planning on beefing up the photo galleries when I can get the time.

Labels: paid, photography

During our trip to the aquarium to see the new White Shark, we stopped by the Dennis the Menace park. And, of course, I wanted to snap some pics of the cool blue tunnel to the slide. This time there happened to a little blond girl in a blue shirt and blue jeans, which worked out perfectly for the color scheme.

I just wish I'd had the camera set to regular full sized images instead of the wee 640x480.

Labels: photography

I spent my Sunday on the campus at UCSC taking photographs of the University Road Race. It was a long day that started out very cloudy and overcast but sunned up quite nicely by the later races.

The course was a three mile loop up Hagar Drive, across McLaughlin and down the high speed arcing loop of Coolidge. The top racers went out first for a mere 20 lap race, that's 60 miles for the mathematically challenged.

I can't begin to express how impressed I was by their speed, stamina and tenacity. It made me feel very slow on my mountain bike. But I took solace in the fact that I could dyno down a set of stairs and not worry about destroying my rims and blowing out my tires.

But boy oh boy can they rip it up on nice pavement.

After the top men's racers were the lower tiers, the 35+ masterclass and the women racers. By the end of the day the sun was in full effect and the coolness of the morning was gone, replaced by bright, warm California sun.

I stayed until I'd completely filled up my 2 gig memory card and headed home about halfway through the last three races of the day, being run concurrently. Then came and comes the long processing of those 400 or so photos, correcting them for lighting and enhancing them for printing, uploading them to my e-store.

Ont he marketing side, my wife and two boys were super champs. They came up, walked the parking lot and handed out cards with the website and my photography company's name, CarpeVivo Photography.

Of course, things are never as simple or easy as they should be. After uploading photos from my camera, I burned a proof DVD and set it aside, in case of serious computer issues (burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame one me). Then I started to process the images, working in batches and creating folders with all the images from each race. Once I had gotten the first race done, I started to upload thumbnails to my Backprint.com site, a process which took more than two hours for 55 photos. And, when I went to check my site, all of the images were broken. And I freaked out.

Bear in mind that this was after 11 pm last night, I'd been up since before 6 (thanks to Nande wanting out at 5) and I just wanted to cap off the day and go to sleep. But I had to sit and see if I could get a workaround. Nope. But I did figure out what was preventing me from loading up my blog so that was something.

Apparently, during the password fiasco last week, a Firewall setting had been switched off when it should not have been. I did not do it, I know that. But it got switched off and, once it was switched back on, voila, blog appears!

Anyway, I need to get back to processing the rest of the photos and get them uploading to the site. Only a couple hundred left to go. Maybe when I'm all done I'll look into a batch processing application or see if I can automate the process a bit.

Oh yeah, and I need to rattle the cage of the company I want to hire me. Let them know that they would be doing themselves a disservice by not interviewing me.

Labels: computers, photography, road race

I will admit that I wasn't super thrilled about the early rise and roll today to get out to the Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge 2007 put on by Santa Cruz County Cycling Club. The coffee helped, as did the 40 miles of twisty fun empty roads on my moto! And I got this shot and many more, I'm still working through the mass and should (or maybe might) end up with upwards of 180 keeper shots. Maybe. Maybe not.

First off, I cannot imagine a more beautiful place to grind out 66.4 or 100 miles (depending on which loop you choose to ride). Some of the vistas along 236 above Big Basin National Park are really and truly astonishing.

Second, there were hundreds and hundreds of places to choose from to photograph the riders. The one I chose with the boys the other day ended up not being satisfactory and I changed to another place. I changed from a descent to an ascent out of a corner with good sun and a good turnoff to get my motorcycle well off the road.

The next step, after culling the out of focus deleters and other unmentionable miscues, will be to upload all of the thumbnails to my Backprint.com store for reprint sales. But that will have to wait until tomorrow as I am bushed.

Oh yeah, by the way, my pro photography website is called CarpeVivo Photography. Stop by and take a look if you're looking for prints from today's race.

Labels: cycling, photography, santa cruz

It is early, no kids are up, the cat wants out (but she's not allowed out since she just had an abscess) and I'm packing up to head up to the mountains.

The Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge 2007 begins in just about a minute. I'm headed to a spot on 236 near Big Basin National Park to take photographs of the peleton or breakaways or whoever I can.

As much for a training exercise as to take photos of riders in action, we'll see how it goes. Be back in a few hours!

Labels: cycling, photography

I just got an email this morning letting me know that this photo of mine from 2005 was selected for Schmap's The Great Outdoors section of its Las Vegas guide.

Thank you, Schmap!

[Update: And I apologize for the wonked up formatting of the post originally. I always forget that posting from Flickr adds code that munges things up.]

Labels: photography

One of my favorite shots from the county fair we went to the other night. This is Grady walking with his two cousins, Ciara and Aiden. Cute enough to melt your face right off, no wait, cute enough to melt your heart into a puddle of Ooooohs and Aaaaahs.

We always have a great time with Aiden and Ciara. Grady and Aiden are like two peas in a pod, they play fantastically well together and cry for each other when its time to go. It really is amazing to see how quickly they mesh and play. I hope they are able to spend more time together growing up since they live in Colorado right now and only get to see each other a few times a year.

Labels: family, photography

This is where we spent the last week, in a little town called Troncones outside of Zihuatanejo in the state of Guerrero. Our place had a three story villa, a private villa and a couple of other places too. It was spacious, beautiful and nicely maintained.

The two pools, one here and one over at the private villa, were the only things keeping us from bursting into flames during the heat of the day.

The ocean was quite refreshing and the surf was excellent fun to boogie board and play in. Also, just down the beach was a place called Present Moment (tell them the huge group from Casa de la Sirena sent you!), a yoga retreat, where we ended up eating numerous meals and getting to know the owners and staff. And they made a pretty good mojito too!

Labels: photography, vacation

My new camera arrived today and I'm pretty damned happy with it already. It seemed like the battery took forever to charge but that's probably because I watched it charge the entire hour and a half it took.

Anyway, my new rig is a Canon Rebel XTi with the basic 18-55 lens.

Initial thoughts and reactions. I snapped some pretty excellent shots of Sully in the late afternoon sun. I like how the camera snaps almost instantly and can run burst shots of 27 frames in a row.

I've got my little book to read and learn more of the ins and outs of this magnificent beast. I will try to upload some new sample shots before we roll out of town on Friday but I can't promise anything with my main computer being mostly kaput right now.

But I've got a shiny new pretty to play with and I'm sure we'll have a grand old time!

Labels: photography

Rather than try to force my way back into the 9-5 world, which didn't really suit me all that well to begin with, we have decided to try to take my photography to the next level.

My new camera will be arriving next week and with it, hopefully, a new beginning to a more satisfying and fun career working as a wedding and event photographer. The camera wasn't cheap and it was hard to justify its cost but my wife and I have talked it over enough that we were both ready to plunge in and give it a go.

Keep your fingers crossed that we bob back up to the surface rather than get caught in the anchor that is another chunk of debt.

And with that mangled metaphor, I'm going to bed. Sully is going to get tested up at the university tomorrow, something for the sociology department. Ought to be interesting.

Labels: career, change, photography

Now you have. And it didn't cost you an arm or a leg.

Labels: cool, photography

I hate to add more rain to the parade of the east coasters who happen to read this blog on occasion but Nande and I got back from a beautiful little bike ride along the lower flanks of Nisene Marks. My buddy's wife was off with his big hound dog so it was just me, Nande and my buddy who's still recovering from ankle surgery.

We've been having these gorgeous days with nice warm sun and it was perfect in the woods. There were places where the earth was still damp and wet from the night's fog and other places where we could just soak in the sun for a few moments.

The trailhead is a little sketchy as we park in private lot and drop in near some private houses. But we're respectful, quick and keep the dogs close so it hasn't been a problem yet.

But once you're in, the trail descends quickly and it feels really land-speederish like in Star Wars. The galloping hound at my heels doesn't really work for the imagery but it's alright. It is a ton of fun to burn hills with Nande sprinting alongside. And she was built for trail riding. Have I said that before? She is. She's tall and has long legs which let her float over the trail at good speed.

Unlike her usual companion, a stout black lab who I've caused to tumble off the trail because he insists on trying to run about three inches off my front wheel. And that works very poorly in tight single track.

Anyway, not too far in there's a car that got there a number of years ago. It is on its roof and the forest is swiftly dismantling it and turning it back into its elemental states. Kind of neat and a great object to sit and snap photos of for hours on end. The fact that its right near a cool little cliff above a four or five foot deep pool to toss sticks in for the dogs is just bonus.

This trail isn't especially long but you can ride multiple loops to just keep adding miles to your ride. The trail also leads into Nisene so you have to be careful of walkers and folks on horseback. We ran into one lady on horseback today who wanted to make sure Nande wasn't going to freak out around her horse. I truly didn't know what she'd do but she was, more or less, respectful. And we were able to cruise on to where we could either take another good fun descent that we'd have to pedal back up out of or we could turn around and head back.

We opted to heading back and retraced our path back towards the trucks. We didn't run into the horse again, which was nice, but we also didn't have enough time to stop and play in the water for too long. Unlike this video I took from a previous trip.

A really nice way to enjoy a beautiful Monday. Especially since my job training this morning was so quick. I'll write a short post about that later.

Labels: biking, life with a dog, photography

Anyday where you can go to the beach, play with your dog, snap some pics and catch a great shot like this can't be a bad day.

It was chilly out but warm enough for a tank top and shorts. We walked up and down the almost deserted beach for a while, I threw scoops of sand for Nande and she had a ball running after it.

That and I found a neat little spinning top with a frog in it on the beach, which I'm sure Grady will love.

I'm trying to take advantage of my time out of work as best I can. Today was either a beach day or we were going trail riding. Maybe that'll happen tomorrow!

Labels: beach, dog, photography