Pollen dust

Pine pollen dust has taken over my apartment. There are many pine trees surrounding the complex and they are all spreading fine yellow pollen all over everything. Cars, sidewalks, windows, even the top of a lamp outside my window is covered with yellow dust. My car is completely covered with the pollen, and this must be an allergy sufferer’s worst nightmare. Under a microscope, pollen even looks menacing.

New macro lens

I got a "new" used macro lens for my camera so you will be seeing some more close up shots in the near future. It’s a 100mm f/2.8 Canon macro lens. I’ve previously been shooting macros with another lens that has made life difficult. I will be able to do life size magnification with the new lens.


Macros are always fun to do. Most of the ones I have posted have been shot in the studio. It has been closed for a little bit but I will probably be able to get back in some shooting time next week. Here’s a macro of a disc I did with another lens.

Crazy signs part I

One of the many signs around the city that makes no sense. So we are supposed to stop, yet right above the stop sign is another that reads there is no stopping any time, I’m confused. To make matters worse our crazy cops would probably give us a ticket no matter what.

FictionPress

If anybody has heard of it I have a site at FictionPress.com. It is basically a writers’ forum where anybody can create an account and post their original stories or poems or any type of work. I have been writing and posting on that site for many years. It says I joined December of 2001, scary. The most current things I am working on are some vignettes and a story called Black Skies. Black Skies is in progress. It is kind of a fun side project story. I just added a short poem for those that are interested called Ordinary. The fun thing with it is I increased the words in each line by one in each line. For example, the first line has one word, second line has two words, etc. Once it gets to the climax of the poem it decreases by one word the same way. Check it out if you like. You can find the link in the “My other sites" box to the right or by clicking this link. The two newest entries will be at the top. Enjoy.

Barrel of monkeys

New photos from the studio. I was playing with a light table and some toys this time. And is there anything more fun than a barrel of monkeys? Since the light table is shaped like a steep slide I taped the barrel to the back and then taped two monkeys inside the barrel and let the others hang from those. I like how it turned out. I have a Gumby toy I am going to shoot next time.

At the beach

I was at the beach a little while ago taking some photos so I thought I would pass on a couple beach shots. Beautiful outside despite the storms we had the previous days including hail. It was quite surprising when I was sitting in my room and it started hailing outside. Not that big of hail, about pea sized, but it was still something you don’t see everyday around here.

This is one of my favorites. I was planning on taking a picture of just the three of them sitting on the bench, but just as I was about to take the shot the kid on the right turned around to look at me. I thought it added a nice touch to the shot.


I was walking on the pier and saw the banquet of Lay’s barbeque chips by this little guy. They say don’t feed the birds but the pigeons would probably tell you a different story.


When I was walking down the pier, I saw this guy leaning over the side. I spent a good amount of time on the pier, maybe 30 minutes. When I came back, he hadn’t moved. Deep in thought I guess. Background of the waves and cliffs added a nice touch to the shot.

As Heard from the Roommates Part II

Time for the second installment of As Heard from the Roommates, with more randomness and proof I live with strange folk. As it is no explanations needed, but if you are curious about the story behind something drop a comment.

Deploy the anti-bovine weapon, we’re helpless against the cows. Real time strategy gone horribly wrong.

That would be a great shell script, hit a button, howler monkey!

Stop your train. Stop your train. Defects detected. Hotbox near axle 23 dragging equipment near Axle 0.

I’m too lazy to inhale, been holding my breath for three months now.

Toast! Buttered with awesome.

Pablo Neruda

My sister over at Gidgeflibbit recently pointed me out to some poetry by Pablo Neruda, and I must say I enjoy it quite a lot. I highly suggest you take a look at it if you are a fan of poetry like me. Scroll down the page on this website until you find his work, La Muerta and Soneto 17. For the English only speakers that’s Dead Woman and Sonnet 17.


On a separate note I am right now listening to crazy neighbors yelling and sometimes yelping in pain as they are shooting each other with water balloon slingshots…genius.

Literary quotes

There are so many books that I have read over the years, and a few of them have stuck with me in particular. Some because of the content, some of them because of the teachers in the classes in which they were taught, or others because of when I read them and what may have been going on in my life. Sometimes I can find a passage of a novel that sums it up, or gives a good idea of part of the novel.

Some of my favorite books are those written by the Brontë sisters, especially Emily and her book Wuthering Heights. The passage I like the most in that book is, “I have dreamed in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.”

So, what are your favorites? Do any of you like anything by the Brontë sisters as well? Leave some comments with your choices. Doesn’t seem like many people visit this blog yet, but maybe soon.

Pie

I work for a morning radio show for those that don’t know. Mostly it’s a news show with interviews, traffic reports, weather, etc. I write strange news stories all the time, but this one takes the cake, well, pie. I’m not gonna paste in the story, but basically blood donors in the county and the one south of us for the next couple weeks get a free Marie Calender’s pie.


They have done promotions in the past like coupons for pizza and the like, but a free whole pie is not bad. They even faxed the promotion announcement to the station in classic press release format all professional so I got a good chuckle out of it. I had to make sure I didn’t make the story sound silly on air, but since I donate blood regularly looks like I may get myself some apple pie this week. Yum yum.

As Heard from the Roommates

Going to be introducing a new feature for you all. I’d like to informally call it for now “As Heard from the Roommates.” A lot of craziness goes on here, and though we are one guy down as he is up north quite a lot the three of us manage to tear the apartment up anyway. I should have done this before but I never wrote down some of the incomprehensible things that come out of their strange minds. And so it begins.

I am the tuna of the devil!!

Guess we’re gonna have to put you down (in response to another roommate meowing like a cat, that roommate will remain unnamed)

And my personal favorite:

There’s so many pranks you can do with bacon grease and airport security

Silhouettes

I was playing with some flash units in the studio and thought I would try some silhouette shots. It ended up being a lot harder than I thought since the subject in the photo didn’t cover up the lights entirely and I was getting light flare in the image. Took a while to get one where he covered up the tripod and lights. The subject is actually one of my roommates and he was doing martial arts from the Muay Thai he is involved in.


He couldn’t go, but my other roommate and I headed out to the beach around sunset to get some shots with natural backlight to make a silhouette. We had only a few minute window to take the shots so we had to make sure we were set up. There are a lot of sand dunes out there so we climbed up one.


On the way back we noticed a funny sign. I think it’s pretty obvious that I won’t be playing with that particular wildlife. It might not end too well for me.


My roommate you see in the beach shot has a collection of funny signs he has seen around the city so I will try to get a copy of them.

Ramuné

I read about this strange soda called Ramuné so I had to check it out. It’s a Japanese soda, but the strangest thing is the bottle that it comes in. On top it has a plastic wrapper that has a little plastic plunger looking thing. You then use that to push down a glass marble that is keeping the drink sealed.


The carbonation and gas is pushing against the glass marble from inside keeping it up against the top of the bottle until you push it down with the plunger. The actual bottle has a large cottle to keep the marble from falling down into the bottle once the marble has been pushed out of the way. It’s actually a really neat design.


If you have a market near you that sells Asian food, I highly suggest you take a look for Ramuné. If you only see the original, original is a lemon lime type flavor.

Your favorite blogs

I know not that many people visit this page, but I wanted to know your opinion on other blogs. There are a few that I read but I am curious what your favorites are. What blogs do you read on a regular basis, which do you take a peek at once in a while? Leave a comment with those that you like so I can check them out as I am curious. I’ll have some photos I took at the beach up soon for a photo shoot I did. Some of them turned out pretty good. I was racing the sun, as I had to do them as it was setting so you only have a few minute window and that made it a little difficult. But leave comments on your favorite blogs, later.