Happy New Year!

From 2008_01_01

Scott and I have Lucas, Scott's best man visiting us for the week. After we returned from our travels we picked Lucas up on Sunday. Everyone went out for a NYC New Years. It was nice since usually we're travelling on New Years Eve. I think I'm usually on a plane or train or at home in bed. This year we went to Uncle Ming's. We got there and looked around and asked aloud where it was and the people standing near the door said "it's right here." It was one of those clubs that you have to know about to go into. They seem to have a lot of those in New York, I think they think it makes them seem exclusive. We had fun. I hope everyone else had a good one!

From 2008_01_01

New York City Marathon

I went to NYC today to send an e-mail that I'd forgotten to send out on Friday, then while I was in the area, I decided to walk over to the bottom of Central Park in order to see some of the runners from The New York City Marathon. I was happy at the way some of the shots I took turned out today. I didn't think there'd be that many good shots to get, but it was a really good place to practice my technique. The same thing happened over and over, so I could just stand there and practice. It was nice that there was still something different about each runner. Looking back through the shots was neat. I was standing at about the 23/24th mile out of 25. It was interesting to see how people who had all run the same race and were at the same place, were still so individual. Some people were bounding, some were limping, some were smiling some were grimacing some people ran with stiff arms some people swung their arms back and forth etc.

From NYC Marathon

There were hundreds of people there lined up to cheer the runners on. These weren't people they knew, but people who just wanted to be supportive. Some people had their names written on their shirt so you could call out encouragement to them specifically. It was kind of a rush to see people at the end of their endurance and to shout out postive encouragement with the crowd. Some people even had phrases written that they wanted you to yell at them, and everyone did. it was a lot neater than I thought it would be. I'm glad I went.

From NYC Marathon

I also tried to take a picture from the platform of a bag lady who was surrounded by bags, gathering them up in an empty subway car. So as I had my back to her to set up the shot and turn around to take it, I saw a guy sleeping. Unfortunately he was waking up and the train was about to leave so I got a little flustered and it came out blurry, but it's definitely one of my favorite sleeping in public shots so far except for the blurriness. I was proud of the composition, I didn't have to crop it at all in the computer, at least I got that right.

From Sleeping in P...

Fall Adventure

It's been awhile, but I've been busy. Lots of good news to report. Last week we won all three sets of our volleyball game. Whooo hooo! No games this week, so hopefully we don't lose our momentum. This weekend Sky, Anna, Scott and I all went on a road trip to Salem. It was great! A nice fall trip. The leaves hadn't really started changing too much yet since the weather has been so warm, but it was still nice to see the New England Coastline. Salem is about 10 miles outside of Boston, and it's a funny little town. Of course it's famous for the Salem Witch Trials where they burned a lot of innocent women at the stake for being "witches." These days it's just a nice town that really likes Halloween. There were people already dressed up in costume just because it was October. We went to the psychic fair, Scott got his Aura read, and Sky and Anna had a Tarot card reading. All very amusing. We saw a historical play where we were the audience/jury for a witch trial. Then in the end we convinced our hotel to bake a pumpkin pie that we brought them since Anna really wanted some and we couldn't find anywhere but the grocery store to buy one. The next day we tried to visit a cranberry bog but didn't quite succeed.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Instead we walked around in a corn maze, even though there was no one there for us to pay. I'll have to try to find a cranberry bog next year.

From Salem Fall Tr...

From Salem Fall Tr...

After traveling through 4 states we added a new one to the list, and stopped for lunch in the 5th state, Rhode Island. Providence is a nice town and we found the Brown University Campus and relived our college days sitting on the lawn. The buildings were all quite beautiful, and it made me think for half a minute that it would have been nice to go to school there. Then I remembered that it would be cold in the winter and was glad that I didn't. All in all it was a fantastic weekend. We love hanging out with Sky and Anna who are so fun and such great friends. This last picture is of a sign post that I saw in Providence covered with staples from flyers that have been posted there. I thought it looked neat.

From Salem Fall Tr...

Oh one more good thing. I heard from the camera repair people that they would fix my DSLR under warranty. Now I just hope it gets back to me in time for my class.

I'll Soon Be Class-ified

So the class that I was on the waitlist for at NYU had an opening and I signed up. I'm pretty excited about it since it's a digital photography shooting workshop. I'm crossing my fingers that my DSLR gets back from the shop in time. If not, I'll make do with my point and shoot. I'm just excited to learn. I checked out the professor's website and it looks like he went to Vietnam at some point too. This is his Bio:
Bruce Byers BA; Instructor. Professional Photographer; http://www.brucebyers.com/ http://www.streetmoments.com/
Short but sweet I suppose. It's interesting to see a professional photographer and the things they have in their portfolio. I don't know why I expect to see things that are a little more flamboyant and not so everyday, but I will be interested to learn what other people think makes a good picture. To me, a good picture is one that tells a story or makes you think or feel something. Maybe I'm trying to say a good picture is one that gets a reaction from the audience? That doesn't seem quite right though. Well, I'll let you all know once I find out, and we can follow my picture taking progress to see if I become a "photographer" after my 8 classes.

I have mosquitos in my house from time to time. I have no idea how they get in but they eat me alive. I think it's just one at a time and that one hunts me down and torments me all evening. I really am mosquito bait. I can go out in the backyard for one minute and come in with 5 bites. Yes, I've timed it. I don't know why they like to eat me, but I itch like crazy, and large red dots all over including on my face just aren't attractive. I don't use smelly things so I don't know what it is about me, they don't seem to bother Scott. Last night I was out collecting some leaves for a workshop at work, which turned out really cute by the way. I'll have to take a picture and show you. And I was fully clothed and I got 2 bites on my rear! I don't know if you really needed to know that, but I am trying to convey how serious my mosquito attracting condition is. I do own repellent, even some stuff that is 99% deet, crazy strong and probably awful, but I don't want to get all slicked up every time I want to spend five minutes in my own backyard. I guess that's one good thing about the weather cooling down. At least the mosquitos will go away, though it's still 80 around here today.

Trivia for the day: There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes worldwide! I think every one of them is out to get me. I wonder how many species I've been bitten by.

Super Exciting Photo Montage

Tammie of Largo Photography called today with very exciting news! My wedding picture slideshow (click to see it) is up! You push play then wait and jiggle your foot in anticipation because it takes awhile to load. Then, to top it off and make it a great day I got my CD of pictures from them! Or I should say CDs since there are 9 of them. I love it. My favorite thing to do is zoom in on pictures and look at them. Ok, maybe not my favorite thing ever, but it's one of my favorite things to do with pictures. I had a nice weekend and went to a friend from work's housewarming party on Staten Island. I think I've been to all the boroughs now. I'd been to Staten Island before but I felt I should note that. I still think Jersey City/ Jersey deserves to be the 6th borough since it's closer than Staten Island, and more city like. Oh well, enjoy!