Somedays it is worth it more than others

I have a great job.  I work for a great company.  However, some days, or weeks are a little more stressful than others.  There seems to be a lot more of those lately.  This week was one of those "screeching halt" weeks.  I have so many reports and non sales related items to do, which as a sales person angers me.  But one of my high value customers had a couple of machine go down this week, because, fortunately for all of us, he over uses them.  I love this guy, so I made sure I hung in his office and helped get them back up.  The best part is, he is going to buy two more machines.  Chalk one up for the sales guy.

I also spent way too much time debating with my category manager over an important customer in my region.  Because it is my blog, I was right he was wrong!  Outside my blog, I was still probably 65-35 right.  Anyway, it made for a messed up week.

I said I have a great job and work for a great company right...well sometimes, most of the time, it is the people that make it great.  Today Dennis and Todd were in town, and after LA, OC and San Diego traffic we found a place for dinner.  Yes, I still took the picture set the G11 on a glass on the table, before I barked at the waiter, that I had to take the picture!

Thanks guys.  Great time, Steaks at my house next time.

Your Tax Dollars at Sleep

I woke up with a plan, take an interesting picture of landscaping.  Well I came home from the gym, the sun was in the perfect position to take the shot of my neighbors Birds of Paradise.  He has a perfect prebloom flower which I plan to shoot and turn into a 3 piece canvas with the two I shot earlier in the month.  Well the unbloomed bird... bloomed.  So now I have to wait.

However, I still found an interesting landscaping picture, or at least an interesting picture of a landscaper.   The city takes care of the landscaping over the wall in my backyard.  I sure hope they pay the fine folks from Park West by the contract not the hour, these guys napped for about 15 minutes.  I apologize to Webster for making up words above.

The Moonset

Ok the day started at 2am, it is now 9:35pm.  Jamie made me stand out in the cold this morning with the 1.8 extender on the 400mm lens which makes the focal lenght 560mm on the 5d with the tall tripod and the step-stool, because at 6:30am the view from our back yard was of the Moonset.

Yup, the extra money for the view was worth it.

The images are untouched, colors are courtesy of God....God and the Orange County motorists.  The first one is with the lens configuration above.  The second picture is, well "BZ"...before zoom.

Next time we hook the camera to Toni's telescope.

Dumb Dog - Goofy Kid

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well it's going to take about a thousand to explain today blog picture(s).  I was running out of time today to take my picture, I planned on shooting the neighbor's closed Bird of Paradise for a 3 piece canvas I am going to do with February 16th's photos.   But the day started crazy and got worse and the sun was already gone by the time I stopped fire drilling my supposed Sales Job.  The flower shot will have to happen tomorrow...hopefully.  So it was going to come down to something in the house for today's shot.  But what?

Then we sat down to a late dinner, don't ask us why because there was no soccer today and we could have eaten early.  Just one of those days when the who day gets away from you and at 7 o'clock you ask "what's for dinner".  All during dinner I was stalked from below by the dog.  Then after he wasn't getting my attention he figured he would work the begging thing a little harder by putting on the well documented puppy dog eyes in full droop and stick out the patented "Bubba Lip"(see Forest Gump for the reference). 

Then it hit me!  The perfect shot!  Get the camera, I was all giddy, get the tripod and get the wireless remote, focus the shot over my place at the dinner table right to where Baxter sits and Begs(Mom if you are reading this, I know the dog is not supposed to be by the table during dinner, I know...I'm Sorry).  Now a good photographer, which I clearly am not, would have been all prepared.  First I would have left a couple of pieces of beef in my bowl to entice the dog and I would have made sure that the "special-can't buy in the regular store-and I don't have a spare" battery for the camera remote WAS NOT DEAD.

Ok Plan B, I will just get the dog to sit there, Toni would take my seat at the table, try to entice him with a boring dry dog treat when he had steak on his mind. I would shoot over her head when Baxter puts his paw up....it would still work.  Did I tell you I forgot to leave a couple of pieces of steak?  Well needless to say the dog wasn't interested any longer and clearly couldn't figure out what I wanted for the picture.  So Toni being the good assistant thought she could show him.

Our Official post of the day is Goofy the Kid...not the dog(get the analogy? Goofy...Dog..Disneyland.  Ahhh never mind).  But just for the Bubba Lip reference and to let my mother see that he is just too hard to resist when he puts on the eyes and lip, we posted Baxter's attempt as well.

Enjoy...I know I didn't.

 

 

Back to Lancaster...But this time we were ready!

Ok so after two huge wins yesterday, it meant Sunday would be spent back at Lancaster.  To add to all the joy of the wind and sandstorms yesterday, today the fine folks from weather.com added COLD to the story.  But Neal came ready for them today, the wind, the cold and the Sand.  See the picture below for the official post of the day.

The big story of the day was that the U11 WCFC girls advanced to next week's round of 8!! Of course they are driving us to the middle of nowhere again!  I am sure I will complain about it then.  But today is all about the girls.  First our injured friend LOLO was with us to add motivation for the girls.  In her honored they wore the hot pink ribbons.  What happened next was legend!  The girls continued on their hot streak.  I am not allowed to mention how many wins in a row, because it might jinx them. 

I just deleted a bunch of sentences about who played well this weekend because I realized I would have to mention the everyone.  So I will save it for the end of the season.  The second picture is the post game huddle.  Way to go girls!!!

Soccer in a Windstorm--Cal South, You guys are idiots!!

Two weeks ago, I told you we spent the weekend in Apple Valley, the freezing desert, 2 hours from nowhere at a soccer tournament.  I thought then Cal South, the league our club plays in, were idiots then for dragging everyone out there in Freezing February.

Well after today's experience, they have taken stupid to a new Level!!!  This time they take us further north and out east, 2 hour drive up....3 and a half back.  Oh! and guess what happens in February in this part of the Southern California Desert.....60 mile per hour winds and......SAND STORMS!!!!

Great place to hold a soccer tournament....morons.

Well now it single eliminations....our girls again played amazing!!! They made it through two more rounds today!!!  There was no way I was taking an expensive cameras out in a Sandstorm to shoot the action.  So I shot the G11 on the first and Third pictures, yes that is SAND all around in the third picture.

We also have a first, a guest photoblog submission.  Thanks to my lovely finance' Jamie for the second picture, please don't make me say how she shot it.  The first picture is the return of Eric Adams to the photoblog, Eric is a bit of an entrepreneur, this is his latest invention...the human powered wind sock.

Now if you will forgive me, I am off to shower and try to get all the freakin sand out of my ears.

 



Use or Lose

My company gives us FTO or Flexible Time Off.  It is a great benefit.  It simply means that your vacation and your sick time are combined.  You can take the days when ever you choose.  I am a Sales person, I take them when I can afford them!   You accrue the time each paycheck, I have been with the company for 16 years so I accrue 13.5 hours a month.  The is one issue, you are capped as to how many hours you can have maximum.  That number is 240. 

If you are at the cap any additional hour you accrue are lost.  Well, I am at the cap. I didn't feel like losing the next hours so I decided to take 4 hours this morning and take customers and buddy golfing.  My rule with the customers are "I can't pay for golf....but Lunch is on us after".

The course we played this morning was Telaga Golf Club in San Clemente.  The course is awesome! We have a major discount card or I couldn't justify playing it, not with the amount of Child Support and Tuition I pay and the obscene amount of Alimony I have paid over the last 10 years. 

But I digress, The weather was perfect 50s to start 68 to finish.  The skies were still clear.  As you will see in the picture of my Buddy Brian Teeing off at 10, the course has views of the Pacific Ocean.  He is just blocking it!

As for my decision to take the morning off and play golf.....I should have chosen to lose the vacation hours.  Plus I still ended up putting in 10 hours of work after.

Traffic on the 5

Today was one of those long days on the road.  Long from the perspective that is was a tough day.  Saw the most amazing Canvas Printing company...name withheld to protect the innocent.  Then met with one of my best Partners and their team.  Sat in on a very important Conference call...then turned the GPS on to head home.  Crazy traffic on the 5 coming home from Disneyland area.  So I jumped on Chapman Ave all the way to the end which is Santiago Canyon.  I highly recommend the drive, especially on a Harley. 

I needed a picture for the blog and I had the G11 in the car with me like a good photoblogger should.  Then the same Mountain I shot from the lake yesterday was staring me down from the backside.  Found the perfect shot...Toni picked this one over a couple of others.  Nik HDR did the rest.

Thanks Mother Nature

It rained like crazy last night, which again, during the winter in Southern California means snow levels down to 2,000 feet.  I woke up very early today, it was still dark. When the sun came up the view out my window was perfect, snow on the Saddleback Mountains.  Plus we had Amazing blue skies with just enough clouds to make it look even more blue.

I had a lunch meeting with a teammate.  I made sure it was by Rancho Santa Margarita Lake.  I grabbed the 5d, put the Wide Angle Lens with the Polarizing Filter.   I did a little PhotoShop work to remove a couple of houses.   The geese were there just by luck!!!

Fragile- Handle with Care

Today was another rainy day.  Someone said something about this year being an El Nino year....Noooo!..do you think?  Freakin Genius.

So beside the rain, it was one of those "chained to the desk" days, so I started to think, "ok, what in the house can I take a picture of?"  Then Toni came home from school.  She was very excited and had to show me something...a picture she drew? No.  An A+ on a test? No.  She had to show me a brand new bruise, she no doubt got playing with the boys....

I have to buy this girl a dress!  But I do have to reward her for giving me a photo subject today.

Sad Day

I moved to Southern California in 1994.  I remember growing up in Philadelphia and the chants of "Beat LA".  Which basically meant, "beat the Lakers ....Please".  In 1983 I celebrated when the home town 76ers beat Magic and the Showtime Lakers.  But I remember thinking how great this team was, especially when they took care of the Celtics for us.

Two years after I moved to Southern California, the Lakers moved in another Philly guy, Kobe Bryant.  From that time on, I was sold, I became a home town fan again.  I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Jerry Buss the Owner of the Lakers twice since I have been here.  Although the meetings were brief, I found him to be extremely generous of his time.  I was instantly in awe of the man and his accomplishments.

Today we lost a great man, and a great owner. 

The best comment so far today came from Magic Johnson in an interview with ESPN who said  "Dr. Buss loved the Lakers, he loved to play poker, he loved his women, I gotta say that ... and he loved winning for the fans of L.A....It wasn't for him. It was for the fans of L.A.".

 Thank you for the 5 Championships I got to see locally. Well done Dr. Buss...Well done.

Dragon attack!!

Ok it was really just a Lizard that we saw on the back wall, but short of reviving an old Taco Bell commercial and naming today "Here Lizard, Lizard, Lizard" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bohI-J9pe4c ), I went the Dragon angle. 

Fortunately the 70-200 was already on the 7d and the Tripod was in the garage.  He stayed around long enough for me to get 4 shots.

Birds back in Paradise

After a debate with some folks.  I have decided that I bent the rule of this photoblog, I did not break it.  My rule was that I would take a picture everyday.  I did on Saturday, I took a lousy shot of my neighbors Birds of Paradise.  But it was late, and I took it with the G11.  I knew Sunday morning would be warm bright and sunny.  Plus the sun would be on the correct side of the house to shoot the flower.  Plus the 7d would have the 70-200 lens.

Once again for the Philadelphia people.  This is an actual flower that grows in Southern California, it is not just something you bring back from Hawaii with the flower leis you keep in the refrigerator until they grows mold.

The weather is back to beautiful here in Southern California...for a couple days anyway.  The hardest decision today and I could not make it, was which side of the flower looks best.  So I posted both.  The first one has the sun behind the flower, the second has the sun over my shoulder.  Feel free to post a comment with your vote.

Tradeshow Antics

Some trade shows are busier than others.  This one ended up slow in the afternoon because the host of the event scheduled presentations...Well I happen to have my 7d with the 70-20 lens which is great for action photos and we have Frisbees in our booth.  Plus the school we were doing the event at has a balcony right outside the show.

The challenge was 3 Frisbees, hit the tree... we got it on the second throw.... This was from about 30 yards away!(below the first picture was the target area he was throwing into)

Great throw Jason!

For All My Unappreciated Brothers

Guys, I know how hard it is on you on Valentine's Day.  She wanted diamonds, you got her Flowers.  Her co-worker got flowers delivered to the office, she didn't.  She wanted a German Sports Car you thought she meant Volkswagen Beetle.

And now you feel under appreciated, next Valentine's day, give her a framed picture of how she makes you feel. Again, someone call my mom and tell her this is not how Jamie's makes me feel.  I just needed to take a picture for this photoblog and it is Valentine's Day and there is dog poop on my desk....nevermind.  I thought it would be funny.

I will take a picture of the Roses tomorrow when they bloom.

Some guys just market better than others

Still in Arizona, the weather is still cold but getting warmer and certainly clearer as the rain has stopped.  Today was another day visiting customers.  Full day so the picture of the day might be a challenge.  But I was going to see Plotter Doctors, one of my partners.  One of my partners that did a rebranding of their company about 2 years ago.  Some people think they went to far, I think they went just far enough!

This is Kelsey's ride, one of the printers in on their permanently and lights up at night with a scrolling sign.

Atta boy Kelsey.

Tough Day....tough decision

Had one of those days today.  The coffee at breakfast didn't wake me up.  The lemonade at lunch just made me more sour, although the company was sweet.  The only option left was wine at dinner.  Plus I knew I had to take a picture and if you HAVE THE WRITE CAMERA wine and glass make great pictures.   Plus I got great advice from a friend tonight... one of them was "take a picture of the wine tasting".  I did miss my Speedlite tonight...hey the first rhyme of my blog.

The decision....The Newton.

Ok enough with the Cold

Had to be up at 4:30 to catch a 6:45am flight to Phoenix.  Got here and it was raining, then it stopped and got freakin cold.  What! Is the weather now following me?  I just realized something, I was supposed to be in Hawaii this week. 

Anyway, busy day, didn't feel like taking pictures of customer or the guys snoring next to me on the plane. 

So I figured the pool at the Hilton Scottsdale would work.  If it wasn't so cold I might have tried to take a better picture.  But here is the pool, I bet it would be more exciting if it wasn't 41 degrees poolside.

The Hat Makes the Man

Back to Apple Valley, the team is hot...the weather is not.  Some people go to great lengths to keep warm not matter how goofy they look, some people pull it off better than others.  Erik and Poppa Bob might have just found the edge of the "no matter how".  Jamie and I just decided to watch the game from the car.

Beauty after Wild

We love Toni's soccer team.  The girls are awesome, the families are just as good.  We miss Lolo and her family.  She needs to rehab her knee fast!! Today is the start of State Cup, for those not involved it is like a Playoff or more like College Basketball March Madness.

As much as we love our team and am "ok" with our club, maybe, I hate the League, Cal South, I think it is run by a bunch of Buffoons.  Anyway, this weekend is more reason to hate them.  Who in the world runs a tournament during the month of February in Southern California where the weather is Amazing in LA, Orange, and San Diego Counties, but you choose to take these teams out of these counties and drive them 100 miles into the freakin Desert...Morons. 

Beside the drive and the ridiculous scheduling for the weekend, it is February and thus about 39 degrees.  The fields were covered in Ice, and oh yeah in the Desert the wind blows hard!

However, at least the drive did give me a great Photo opportunity.  After a winter rain in SoCal you often get snow levels down as low as 2,000 feet, plus you tend to get low clouds and bright blue skies above them.  Below is all 3 in one picture.  I added a second picture, lets call it a Dash Cam, from inside the cloud.

Enjoy...and oh by the way 2 games to 2 shut out-blow outs!!! Way to go girls.

Wild Weather

Too late to write too much today, I will update later.

But let's just say the weather in Southern California today was crazy, Rain, Rainbows(Jamie got that picture), Hail, Bright sunshine, Pouring rain on one side of the street nothing on the other.

I have been out on NJ for 18 years now, but I never remember being able to see the rain coming from a distance and it only raining in certain spots and not another.  Yes the lines coming from the clouds are Down Pours.  We get this in SoCal all the time when it rains.  This one was at 65 miles per hour.  I broke one law, but made sure I didn't break another by speeding.

Kids don't try this at home....or in the car.

Birthday Dinner

Today is Toni's Birthday!! Happy Birthday Toni!

Today was a pretty busy very long day.  But today was a special day, it is Toni's big 1-1.  Jamie was trying to figure out if we were headng out for Birthday dinner.  But the neighbors were out playing so dinner was going to be take out.  Philly's Best.

Where is it?

I woke up way too early this morning.  3:30 another stupid Dream.  There was a family of Coyotes in El Pollo Loco(local chicken restaurant) where Jamie and I were eating.  The weird part about the dream is that Jamie(my vegetarian other half) was eating chicken! 

Then Baxter wanted to go out, needless to say from that point I was up.  I talked to a couple of teammates, messaged a couple of Barcelona folks.  Then about 7:30, I hear Toni from my bedroom "Where did it go?, Where is it? Wait... I'll get it."  I was wondering who the heck she is talking to.  So I went into my room.  Lucky for me my camera was on my dresser.

I want my freakin Money Back

For 9 years I sat on the sidelines before entering back in to the housing market. We looked at so many houses that were pieces of crap.  By the way, I understand if you were dumb enough to sign an $800,000 mortgage on a $40,000 per year salary just because some mortgage guy told you that you could afford it.  But really do you have to be that much of a A-hole when you get booted from the house to trash the house and take everything including the recessed lights and doors.

But I digress.... Now where was I?  Oh entering back into the housing market.  Yes I bought a house a year ago, if you want to learn more read January 6th and 13th entries, I know that I paid more for the house because of the amazing view.  But this is what I woke up to this today...I want a discount.

For Reference this was a sunset view on Jan 13.



The X-Men

Ok today was my introduction to Children and Infant Photography.  Our friends Chris and Bernadette have two of the cutest little boys Max and Xavier, who I have named the X-Men.  Xavier makes Chris walk the neighborhood a couple times a day.  Chris tries to avoid our house because Xavier loves Baxter and Maya and wants Chris to take him in the house to visit.  It has taken Chris about two months to convince Xavier that our house isn't that much fun.

Well Chris's argument went down the drain today! As I was typing this, I realized how Ironic that statement actually is...as Chris is a Lawyer. 

I told Chris a couple of weeks ago that I needed to shoot his boys for this photoblog.  Well it is Valentine's Day coming up and Chris has an idea for a gift for Bernadette, lucky for me it is a photo gift of the boys. 

Thanks to an idea from my boy Hien, I created a light and heart board for the background and I let the balloons act as entertainment for Xavier.  He was awesome, and thanks to Toni for getting the smiles.  I did learn that now I need a baby poser if I am going to work with Max.

My Official post is Xavier, but I couldn't leave Max out( I still have some post production on the lights in that picture). 

Don't tell Bernadette until after Valentine's day.  We have been keeping the Blog a secret from her.

 

SuperBowl Sunday

So it is finally here, SuperBowl Sunday.  The day the beer companies dream about.  As is the tradition in my house, we hosted the party.  I cooked all day, Jamie ran around all day.  We had 15 people at the Party, basically capacity...at least our lights didn't go out after Beyonce' sang like the Superdome.

Throughout the day I was taking various pictures, the dog and the kid sunbathing in the backyard, even Jamie let me take a picture of her drinking wine...from the bottle, but would kill me if I posted it.  The end of the evening had an exhausted dog laying at the top of the steps, it is not the post but it  is shown below because he is so handsome.

At our Superbowl party instead of the traditional pool with the squares we do a SuperBowl Quiz, with all the important questions like who will win the coin toss or will the first touchdown be scored from left to right or right to left on the screen.

Well today's picture is the reaction from the crowd when Alicia Keys extended the National Anthem past 2 minutes and 15 seconds, which was the quiz question.  The crowd clearly had "longer than 2:15".  Here is the reaction.  We take our football serious in Southern California, except Baxter, he could care less.

Superbowl Weekend Means One Thing

Back home from San Francisco with only one thing on my mind, ok maybe two, cooking!  Tomorrow is the biggest holiday of the year heck, even Jehovah and his witnesses pull up a chair to celebrate this one.  Although I think it is high time we start a petition to make the Monday after Superbowl a mandatory day off from work.  One of the reasons I moved from the East Coast to California so I could wake up the next day for work.

Anyway, like I said the day before SuperBowl is for cooking, plus now somehow our little get together has grown to 15 people for tomorrow.  I am reviving the Italian SuperBowl, so it is Meatball Sandwiches, Baked Ziti, and Strombolis both Peperoni and Vegetarian. 

Tonight with the help of Toni and her pal Lolo who rolled the meatballs.  I present my picture of the day.

Finally a San Francisco Landmark

Ok maybe not officially.

Because I have been busted on about being in San Francisco and not capturing the San Francisco spirit with my last two entries.  I got up nice an early this morning and took the long way to my appointment up past Coit Tower.  I thought I would get a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge or Coit from a cool angle.  I got both.  Then just for the heck of it I would head to Lombard Street, the street that zig-zags.  I shot it from below with all the tourist then decided since it was on the way I would shoot it from the top too.  Got that those pictures too.

Just as I was walking to the car dodging the Cable Cars I remembered that the Home team has some big game or something on Sunday.  Then I got my reminder and figured this is, at least, a once a year picture.