Saturday, December 20, 200321 Jump Street 2003So I'm walking up to the front doors of my local Tower Records (Northridge, CA) the other night to do a little xmas shopping. As I approach, I notice a few shady looking young folks hanging out (loitering) against the wall and I'm thinking to myself, these kids look like they're up to no good, when all of a sudden a few other kids walk out the door. The first thing I hear, and I'm paraphrasing here, is "hold it right there, put your hands behind your back" and just then one of the kids exiting the store makes a run for it and is immediately tackled by a couple of the young loiterers. One of the other kids is now facing the wall as he is getting the cuffs put on him. I hear him say that he doesn't have anything on him. During the incident that took about 4 or 5 seconds total, I was slowly (relative to 4 or 5 seconds) realizing that the loiterers were young cops waiting outside for shoplifters to leave the store. I guess they had people inside with radios giving them the info on who to bust as they exited. I entered the store and was standing next to a display up front when they all came in and walked passed me. As they did, the first guy in cuffs drops a DVD right at my feet. The cops look at each other and the second cop picks it up. Wow! Now how's that for a little holiday shopping excitement? posted @ 09:43 PM PST [link] You mean it's next week?! Holy crap! Christmas is next week. It seems like it sneaks up on me faster every year. I mean, I knew it was coming soon, but it wasn't until tonight when I realized how little time I have to finish my shopping that it hit me how close it is. Looks like we'll be fighting everyone else in line at the mall this weekend. Lily and I had a good day visiting clients and going to pick up film and prints at The Darkroom. She is at that age when she hides in daddy's neck when we see people on our outings. It takes her a few minutes to realize everyone is OK then she starts to smile and play a little peek-a-boo. I'm getting a lot of great feedback on the few xmas cards that have arrived at their destinations so far. I promise I'll post the card here in a few days, when most everyone who is getting one in the mail has seen it. Until then, here's a random image just so people don't compliain that I don't post enough images for a photographer.  posted @ 12:20 AM PST [link] Thursday, December 18, 2003Champagne Anyone?I just spent quite a few minutes staring at the Champagne section at Woodland Hills Wine Co. I needed to find the perfect bottle for a client that I hear loves Champagne. Now I know many of you reading this (not that there are many people reading this) have probably bought a bottle of Champagne for someone and just bought what ever was in your price range. Well, sometimes it can get more complicated than that. See, I'm not sure how well this client knows her wine. This makes the decision a little harder to make. If she doesn't know her wine, then any old higher price Champagne will do. She would be impressed because she got a bottle of Dom Perignon. If she knows her wine then that selection or any other number of popular high prices bottles would be a little too generic. Does this make any sense? I mean I want her to know that there was a little thought involved instead of 'Honey, will you pick up a bottle of Dom for my client'? Anyway, after consulting with Hesse, who happens to have tasted a lot of different stuff lately, I decided on a bottle of '96 Bollinger Grande Année. From what I've heard, a lot better than any old bottle of Dom and less expensive too. I wish I could have got a bottle for myself and Marisa for New Years. Oh well, we'll have to drink one of the bottles of Montaudon that we have in the wine closet. You can pick up a bottle at Trader Joes right now for $18.95. It's the best $20 bottle of Champagne I've tasted. We had double magnums on the tables at our wedding a few years back. Anyway, enough for now. I need to get some sleep so I can make the big delivery in the morning. posted @ 08:31 PM PST [link] I love this stuff! I wonder if Strom Thurmond and Rush Limbaugh ever hung out together and talked about the lies thier lives had become. posted @ 12:21 AM PST [link] Wednesday, December 17, 2003BUGS! I just got some pictures back from the lab. I know, I know, it's the digital age and I'm a professional, why don't I shoot digital? Well, I do, so shut up. Anyway, I was excited to see these pictures because the bugs were in there. The bugs? Yes, the bugs. You see when we were in Grand Forks, ND for Thanksgiving, we stopped by the North Dakota Museum of Art. There was an exhibit there by Jennifer Angus and I was blown away. It was one of the coolest installations I had ever seen. I've created a separate few pages to show you the pictures CLICK HERE. Please give me some comments on this one. posted @ 06:00 PM PST [link] Tuesday, December 16, 2003Fine wine, great food, and a bunch of testosterone!Just got home from a great little party at Mikes house. 13 guys eating great food (thanks Mike) and drinking some wine that even the snobbiest of wine snobs would drool over. Turley, Ridge, Martinelli (think Helen Turley, not sparkling cider) and a little home bottled Vanucci among others. I think we finished 8 or 9 bottles all together and a few guys were drinking beer. Those two Tums really hit the spot when I got home! Anyway, we finally got a xmas card shot done with a little cooperation from Lily today. FTP'd the file to Curt at The Darkroom to get some prints done. I'm not sure that we topped last years card, but it's pretty damned cute. I'll post it here a little while after it gets mailed out so no one sees it early. Last year-2002 Holiday Card posted @ 11:30 PM PST [link] Day Two Well, I've had a below average night of sleep. I spent a good amount of time laying in bed thinking about blogging. Funny how when you have something new in your life it can consume you. I have a lot of work to do, but here I am writing in my blog about nothing and enjoying it. I guess I'll try to keep it up and as soon as something happens I'll write it here. Maybe I should try to find an image to accompany this post. Ahhh... Here we go. Lily shot in Grand Forks, ND over Thanksgiving with my Holga Camera.  posted @ 10:08 AM PST [link] Monday, December 15, 2003Stop Making That BIG Face! posted @ 10:46 PM PST [link] To Blog or not to Blog Hmmm... Seems that I have stumbled onto something here. See, I have created blogs for others in the past and did them all through Blogger.com, which works very well. One thing that bothered me was that it seemed difficult for me to customize the blogs to my liking. So, I searched the net for an alternative that gave me more power and was still easy to use. Then I found a little journaling software called Greymatter. Greymatter was written by a photographer (one hint that it must be great), so I thought I would check it out. I didn't want to try it out on a client, so I set up a blog for myself just to test it out. So here I am. I have this thing all set up and I'm sitting here wondering if I have anything remotely interesting to say to the world. Should I scrap it and chalk the whole thing up to a learning experience? Should I start typing and see what comes of it? This is where my journey either ends or turns into something I love doing. I'll have to sleep on it and decide if I ever come back to type more stuff here for everyone to see. Maybe this would be a good place to show strange little pictures that don't fit in any of the other areas of my site. Jokes? Nahhh! Anyway, stay tuned to see what does or doesn't come of this. posted @ 06:02 PM PST [link] Pictures Pictures Pictures! Just testing out the image uploading feature to see how it displays an image in a post. Here's a recent Nailpro magazine cover I shot.  posted @ 03:32 PM PST [link] Wow! Is this thing on? Well, here it is. I actually figured out how this Greymatter blog software works and I'm on my way to offering it to my 1121 design clients. It seems like it might be a bit deep for what I need, but I'll try to dig deeper as I learn more about how the templates work. Until then you can find links to other blogs on the right. Have a nice day and don't forget to write! posted @ 02:40 PM PST [link] About Me  posted @ 01:08 PM PST [link] |
about me contact wishlist blog home blog archives non blogs: brooks ayola photographer the studio stoney point the lily site 1121 design the vortex friends and family: fauxtoblog (my other blog) meghan's deep thoughts lily stories face up blahg u.w.f.b.w.i.s.b. mr. spiffy 63 days alli deluxe liars club ...................................  powered by: greymatter ... 
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