Archives for April 2009

I learned that “fubar” is an acronym for a very bad thing.  Maybe I was living under a rock.  But I had no idea.  I also now wish I wish in the brainstorming meeting when they named this.  Bet that meeting was hysterical.

I learned that the oscar meyer weiner mobile passes out a toy they call the weiner whistles.  The weiner website says they were invented in 1952 by the weiner inventer himself and are given out everywhere this truck goes.  That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

I learned that youtube now lets you straight up download from their website any video for free in one of three formats.  They just put all the other websites that did this for you out of business.  So funny and so cool- unless you own one of those other websites and then um… bummer.

My facebook account can import my blog posts and now they show up as notes.  Nobody told me this and well, I was farting around on facebook and saw two “notes” from two people whose blogs I read and figured out it was just their blog on facebook and so I did some research and whalla… my blog now posts to facebook too.  I think I might love facebook. Not more than my wife or kids or soccer or photos… but maybe more than Christmas. 

Ok… so I went to this “worship concert” thing with Hillsong at a church in San Diego.

I was looking forward to going.  I was looking forward to singing with a lot of people and some very gifted musicians.  Maybe I’m a pagan, but I was also looking forward to testing my new camera that came in the mail that day in a low light indoor situation.

But, before I could get in, I had to have my bag checked- by the bouncer guy. This church doesn’t have ushers, they have bouncers… or at least the 3 times I’ve been there, they always have bouncers.

I know because welcome people say, “Glad you’re here.  Welcome to our church.  Thanks for coming.  Let’s worship God together tonight” … and stuff like that.

Bouncers don’t even smile before they say, “I’m gonna check your bag.”  Then this time they stapled a sign to my bag saying it’s too big and for everyone’s safety, it’s against policy for me to bring this bag. 

Bouncers say, “You can’t take pictures in there.”

I said, “um, ok.”

Bouncers then say, “If you do, we’re going to kick you out.”

I really bad wanted to say, “I love Jesus too.  Let’s worship him together.”  I mean this is a “worship thing” where everyone paid $25 a pop to sing to God.  Are you kidding me?   I really wanted them to kick me out of church for taking pictures of people singing to God without a flash.  I would have taken their picture when they did it too 🙂

So, I didn’t get kicked out… but here’s 2 of my illegal pics.  Don’t copy them. You’ll probably go to jesus jail.

… when you are driving on 805 south and you see a giant Oscar Mayer wiener next to you and your co-worker is jumping up and down in the back seat begging you to catch up to it so she can get a picture? 

Christina took a pic with her iphone and was gonna twit pic it…. which she did.  In the end, she chose simply “805 south”.  Here’s some tag lines that were voiced in the car but not used:

• I just saw a giant wiener.
• That’s one speedy wiener.
• Hey Oscar, have you lost your wierner?  Cuz I just found it.
• If you love wieners then you’re gonna love this.
• Check out this wiener.

Oh man… sometimes there’s nothing funnier in the world than a giant weiner truck on the freeway.

I get that question a lot. If you follow this blog, then you’ve seen my pics and people always want to know what I’ve taken them with.

MY HISTORY:
I got into photography as a kid of about 10 with a fully manual screw on lens pentax camera from the 50’s or something that I bought at a camera swap meet with my dad. I then took some photo classes in high school and upon graduation, bought a minolta automatic focus with 2 lenses. I was stoked.

THE DIGITAL WORLD ARRIVES:
Fast forward to eventually digital came around and I’ve had 2 or 3 different pocket sized digital cameras until June of 2007 when I bought my first digital SLR- a sony alpha 100.

Well, for my birthday I got a new camera from my folks- the sony alpha 700. It’s got some more bells and whistles the other one- but the old one still works awesome and does me right.

FOR SALE:
So, I’m selling my sony a100 and a brand new lens- the 18-70mm. This camera sells new for about $500 today. I paid over $700 when it first came out. It has another year on a 3 year warranty I bought so I’m selling it for $280.

It has never been dropped and has no dings. It does have some wear and tear on the dial on the top where some of the pictures markers have faded some. The screen is scratch free, it comes with the orginal box and manuals, a battery, charger, and a lens. You’ll need to buy an SD data disc to store your pictures on it.

Anyway, if you’re interested, just leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail.

here’s some pics of my camera for sale.

Oh… and I’m selling this Tamarac backpack that holds a laptop and a lot of camera gear. It’s in perfect condition and I used it only once. But I decided to go another route. It sells for $140, I’m asking $75.

Blog readers get first dibs, next week I’m sending it to craigs list.

I have come to enjoy photoshop from time to time.  I don’t retouch many photos cuz it takes me a while and the truth is, I’m sure there’s an easier way and some cool plug in to do it correctly in photoshop that I don’t know about, but I still do it occasionally.

The last time was Friday after a day at the Zoo with our family and the Taylors- friends from Nor. Cal. that date all the way back to high school.  It was great to share some stories, some time, and get caught on life again.  I posted a bunch of pics on facebook, the last of which was titled, “I changed 3 pieces of this photo, can you find them.” 

So here’s the original 3.

I stole Becky’s face from the first one.
I removed the stow-a-way daughter we got from the second one.
I added the sign from the third one.

Here’s the meshing of them into one final product.