Holgas

Horseshoe Falls, Niagara


Jerko & Drew before a show


Burger Palace


More here.

New Toy

This week Josh came back from his Dad's house with a present for me. It was a lovely brown case, containing an even lovelier gift. Ann brought back her dad's old camera from NY for me. It's a Canon AE-1Program, a 35mm SLR from the early to mid 80's. There was also an extra lens and a flash in the case. And several film canisters, which I'm nervous to open. I don't know if they've been exposed yet, and I don't want to ruin them if they have. I'll have to take them by Barron's and have them checked out. There was another roll still in it's box, so I might pop it in the camera and just see what happens when I start pushing buttons. :)

To See

There are two photography exhibits that I'd love to see at the Amon Carter Museum right now. Masterworks of American Photography: Popular Culture and Ansel Adams: Eloquent Light both look fantastic. We haven't been to the museum since December! Going to try and squeeze in a visit this weekend since the Masterworks exhibit is ending July 18th. And the exhibit American Modern: Abbott, Evans, Bourke-White that starts in October looks good too. I'll have to put a reminder on my calendar for that!




















Esther Bubley (1921–1998)
Humble Camp, Gene Tanner and his Dog, Sergeant, Tomball, Texas, 1945

Friday Conezone #16

Hey guys! It's finally Friday! This week has been all out of whack for me, with us being gone Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday felt like Monday and things have been off-kilter ever since. But it's finally time for the weekend. As I've mentioned before I like to try and keep things a little topical when it comes to the Friday Conezone. Today I found out that two of the three photos I submitted were accepted for an August exhibition at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. Naturally I'm very excited! So, for today's Conezone clip I decided to share Conan's photoshoot experience at Teen Beat magazine. Enjoy!

Snow Day II

We're on snow day two after about a foot of snow fell here all day yesterday and into the night. Luckily we still have power, although our satellite is out. Our trees are still standing, although some of them are "resting" on the roof. Hopefully they'll bounce back when they aren't weighed down with all the white stuff. I'm regretting eating our last cans of soup on Tuesday though. Soup sure would be good right about now and I don't know if I have ingredients in the pantry to make any. Oh well. We've got mini egg rolls and buffalo wings in the freezer, I'm sure we'll survive, ha. Ran out and took some pictures real quick like this morning and then ran back in for coffee. It's cold! Here are a few pics, more here. I'll be back later today with the Friday ConeZone!

Josh's 30th Birthday

I didn't get a chance to post about it yesterday thanks to a super busy work day , but it was Josh's 30th birthday! We slept in a little yesterday morning as a treat. He had ice cream cake at work, and after drum lessons came home for nice birthday dinner of pizza, champagne and tiramisu. I bought him Resident Evil 5 for PS3 and the latest Stephen King book, which both pleased him very much. We spent the evening eating and watching Kids In The Hall episodes. He said he had a very happy birthday, and I'm very glad!

Au Revoir 2009

It's really hard for me to believe that in twelve hours this year will be over. 2010! This time last year I was figuring that 2009 couldn't possibly be as great as 2008 was, but it definitely proved me wrong. 2008 will remain #1, maybe because it was the first truly awesome year I've had, but 2009 absolutely didn't disappoint. Here are some highlights of this tip top twenty-oh-nine.

We bought, painted, and moved into our first house!















We found a new local restaurant we like, Chadra's.
I took several photo classes at a local camera store.
We switched to buying organic, mostly local, meats.
We vacationed in Washington DC and attended Steve & Meri's wedding.















We threw a house warming party and were so happy to have so many friends come to see the place and party with us!
We hosted a baby shower for our best friends Stephanie & Rodney and their twins, who will be here so very soon!
We spent time in California with our good pal Diggy.















In just the last 6 months I've seen Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, The Smothers Brothers, The Swell Season and WOODY ALLEN in concert.
An online travel agency picked up one of my travel photos.
We made new friends, and spent a lot of time surrounded by old and new friends this year.
I took an online photography class.
I roasted my first chicken!
My baby sister graduated from high school- salutatorian!
We celebrated our 11th year together and our 3rd wedding anniversary.
I had a Fort Worth Camera and a photopl.us Photo of the Day
We had our first Christmas in the new house.

Who knows what 2010 has in store for us? We're hoping for a camping & trout fishing trip in the near future with Josh's dad. I'm hoping we'll be able to get down to see my sister's new house. I can't wait to love on Steph's coming twins, and Rob & LeAnn's little Violet (also due very soon). And I definitely can't wait for all the fun and new experiences Josh and I will get to share together. 2010, be on alert- you've got big shoes to fill! I'll be back tomorrow with my 2009 resolution accomplishments and what I hope to work on for 2010. Happy New Year everyone!!!

Post Christmas Catch-up

Oh my! I'm finally starting to feel back in the swing of things. Of course, it follows that there's still New Year's to get through too so who knows how long this feeling will last. Christmas eve turned out to be quite eventful, in that we practically had a blizzard in these parts. It started snowing before 10 that morning and it just kept coming. It took forever for it to start sticking, but once it did it accumulated rather quickly. The roads eventually started to ice over too. Mom and my brother Justin and his family were supposed to be coming over for dinner and presents. Mom still made it, but Justin had to make a quick stop by himself to deliver gifts since my niece came down with a bug that day. What bad luck! But we had a nice evening anyway. The snow finally eased shortly after Mom arrived. I roasted a chicken, which we had with stuffing and roasted veggies. We lit some candles and opened a bottle of wine and had a nice leisurely dinner. Afterward we played a little Beatles Rock Band to show Mom what it was like, and then we had apple cider, egg nog, and opened our presents. My bro called so my niece could say Merry Christmas to us all. We visited for a little longer and then we helped Mom out to her car. Her door was frozen shut, which took some yanking, and I had to scrape her windshield off for her. Luckily she just lives around the corner, so she didn't have far to go on the slick and slippery roads. Then Josh and I put on the new pajamas Mom gave us, had some cocoa and more nog, and watched Muppet Christmas Carol before settling in for our Christmas sleep.

Christmas morning we had a nice sleep in and woke up to glistening snow all over our yard. I previously had hopes of taking a little family portrait in front of the house, but all the cold and snow called for a quick readjustment. I set up the tripod and snapped a pic of us in our Christmas pajamas on the sidewalk instead. Then we had some bacon, hash browns, eggs and coffee for breakfast and opened our presents. We spoiled each other as usual! Josh loved all his presents, and I of course loved mine. He got me most of the stuff I posted from my wishlist. Then I got changed and went outside to make a little snowman. I just couldn't let the white stuff melt without a few minutes of fun in it. We spent the rest of the day enjoying our presents and then got ready and headed to his Mom's house that evening. I helped Deana in the kitchen while the guys watched a movie. We then had dinner and opened gifts, finished the movie over dessert, and headed back home.

Day after Christmas consisted of Josh leaving very early in the morning and me sleeping in. I spent most of the day in my pajamas with the after Christmas blues, watching movies and stuff off the DVR. Went out that night with Holly to see Holy Moly at the Aardvark, followed by some post drinking Fuzzy's Tacos and back home to bed. Josh got home on Sunday, we grabbed some lunch, and then headed back out to House of Blues for the Rock School showcase and the Back In Black concert. Monday we slept in, then got ready and hit the road to Austin to see Woody Allen. I'll write about that in another post though, cause that was a big life moment for me!

Here are a few pics from our holiday weekend. You can see a couple more here.

Holgas

Finally got the film I shot in San Francisco developed, along with a roll started in SF and finished off here at home during a walk around the museums. You can see the rest here.

Holy Crap!

One of my pics from our trip to San Francisco was picked for today's photo on Photopol.us. I'm amazed! Thanks!

San Francisco Leftovers

Just wanted to share a few of the random photos that didn't really fit into a specific category of our visit. San Francisco/California was such a fun place to take pictures, and I can't wait to go back to explore more. If you click on the first pic here you can see the car lights winding down Lombard St. More here. I've got one more set of photos to share from our trip later. Thanks for looking at my excessive vacation photographs!

Cali Vacation Day 4: Golden Gate Park and Film Festival

On our last day in California we all got up plenty early to make sure we got a good start. We stopped for coffee and donuts and then drove in to San Francisco. That day's agenda was Golden Gate Park and then the 9th Scary Cow Film Festival that night at Victoria Theater. We walked around Stow Lake, up to the boat house and then headed over to JFK Dr. to find the Lindy Hoppers. I love all forms of dancing, although I don't really do it myself, so I was super excited to get a chance to see them dancing and snaps some pics. Then we walked around, past the de Young and Academy of Sciences, back over to the boat house. I convinced the boys to get a pedal boat and they pedaled me around Stow Lake, again while I took more pictures. Once we got back to the boat house we hopped in the car and headed off to Victoria Theater to pick up Diggy's friend and former teach, Carl. Carl has lived in the Bay Area all his life and he took us on a whirlwind driving tour of the city, pointing out interesting sites and sharing some historical and note so historical anecdotes- like areas that had suffered severe earthquake damage, pirate/indian/spanish mission stories, and where his first dope dealer lived, ha. We drove up to Twin Peaks where I got a good row of shots I stitched into a half-panoramic view, past the Palace of the Legion of Honor, stopped for dinner at a decent Italian place, and then headed back to the theater. The film festival was interesting. Diggy's film was definitely the best in my opinion. You can see for yourself here. His film ended the showing to loud, long applause and won first place along with a slew of other awards, announced days later, such as best directing, best acting, and best original score (by our other friend, Cory). We stopped by Tommy's for a celebratory root beer and then it was back to Palo Alto to try and pack for our flight in the morning. Here are some pics from our day in the park. Rest are here.

Cali Vacation Day 3: Shopping, Shooting and the Golden Gate Bridge

Back to vacation re-cap! Day 3 of our vacation we drove in to the city to do a little shopping. Josh and I love H&M, but we don't have one here in Texas. Emily directed me to the H&M on Powell, so after a brief viewing of the Love Parade, that's where we headed. I bought a cute gray sweater dress, gray cardigan and cream & black striped tee. Josh got a few tees, a peachy/pink button down shirt, and a nice striped sweater. And Diggy was a good sport through our long shopping trip and bought Josh a brightly colored plaid bow tie- on the condition that Josh had to wear it to the film festival the next day. We followed the shopping up with a late afternoon meal at Sears diner where Josh had 18 tiny pancakes, and I enjoyed some of the best sausage I've ever had. Then we walked down to the Ferry Building for some picture taking, took a street car back up towards where we parked and then headed over to Chrissy Field. Walked down Chrissy Field to Fort Point for more picture taking. After we headed over to the Cliff House for a couple of glasses of wine and some truly scrumptious fried calamari. Then it was time for the boys to suffer for my art so I could take some night shots of the Golden Gate. We drove over to the Sausalito side to several look out spots. It was pretty cold, and soooo windy. The boys danced and serenaded me with their renditions of Spoon songs while I shot. I had lost feeling in my right middle finger by the time I was done for the evening. We packed up and went back into the city for some Chinese food. A variety of fried rices were ordered and we had a nice meal before we headed back to Palo Alto. I was exhausted when we got back and we were planning to get up early the next day so I uploaded my pics and hit the hay. Here are some of my Golden Gate Bridge photos. The rest can be seen here.

Cali Vacation Day 2: Muir Woods, Overlook, Beach and Sausalito

Second day of our vacation started out with Muir Woods where we had a lovely hike, saw a chipmunk, some deer and teeny tiny birds amongst the giant redwoods. Very beautiful and peaceful. From there we went to Muir Overlook, where we had a great view of the Pacific and saw ravens the size of a cat! Oh, and some sort of groundhog or similar hole dwelling vermin. Then we drove down to Muir Beach where, despite Josh's complaints about getting sand in his shoes, we saw starfish and anemones. Then we drove back in to Sausalito and had dinner on the bay at Scoma's. We split a dungeness crab and I had fish and chips with some truly amazing tartar sauce. Capped the meal off with some tiramisu and a boozey coffee. We drove back across the bay to San Francisco and drove around the city at night, stopping up at Coit Tower so I could take some night shots of the city. I had fun taking some pics out of the moving car window too, which I'll share later. Here are some pics from our outdoorsy day in the bay area. The rest can be seen here.