Godzilla!!!

After an amazing dinner last night, the job of my guest today at the Grand Velas was Relaxation in the resorts amazing spa.  Throw in a some water volleyball, a ton of alcohol and the best French Restaurant I have ever been too and you have an amazing day in paradise.

My job was to make sure everyone got to their spa treatments and tear myself away from the pool and the fabulous breakfast and lunch to get some work done.  I did get in one game of water volleyball with the gang, we won of course....after a bunch of "do-overs" and suspect refereeing.

I took some fun photos of the team playing, check out my photo site at http://www.actionsportsshots.com/CorporateEventsandShots/ARC-Mexico/ .  I cannot take credit for all the photos.  Our new friend Scott Lewis, who is our guest on the trip, has his DSLR and a couple of Lens with him, so he is taking most of the great shots, although the first set of Sunsets are mine.  Scott proved how much fun dinner table stalking and natural light can be with the right camera.  His blue Iguana is amazing.

My photo for the day is a 2 and a half foot green Iguana that I happen to run into on my way back to the room.  When I showed a couple of the employees they said "oh si' Godzilla".  But that does add another Dragon to the Photoblog!!!  I think that is like 9(from 3 Countries), but he is the first Mexican Dragon.

Swim Forever

Today the team from ARC and I arrived at the Grand Velas Resort in Mexico.  While I often complain about travel this trip is probably going to be a bit different.  The first part is there are a lot of friends on this trip.  Second the Grand Velas Resort is the most amazing place I have ever been. Plus third this is a reward trip, my main job on this trip is to make sure people enjoy themselves.

The only thing that would make it better is if Jamie was here.

We arrived around 4pm and was immediately greeted by the amazing Staff at the hotel that among other things, gave short neck and shoulder massages while the group checked in.  Then it was off to the pool and the pool bar....did I mention this place was all inclusive?  The photo for today is the view of the infinity pool from the balcony of my suite.  Just enough clouds to make the picture cool.

I must warn you all I took on this trip was my G11 so the pictures won't be as amazing as the place actually looks.

Depth Perception

For those following the blog regularly you know we have an amazing dog, an almost 2 year old Pit Bull.  He is the sweetest dog, although a bit of a momma's boy.  But he has an unbelievable amount of energy.  When you get him going he plays until he drops.  Tonight was no different, tonight's source of energy was his bowling pin.

The only problem I have with him is that I believe he has a depth perception issue and he tends to head butt me.  Tonight's Photo with a bit of Lightroom help was the charge towards tonight's blow to the head.  I used to think the pucks to the head when I played Ice Hockey were damaging.....

Dragon Poop

Today was another Soccer day, and another win and another shutout.  On the way out the door there were like 4 lizards, affectionately known on this blog as dragons.  We have had several of them on this blog.  We have had a House Dragon, a Golf Dragon, an Easter Dragon, even a Flying Dragon.

Today will clearly be Toni's favorite a Dragon Poop.

Fire Season

Today we were back to the soccer grind.  Today was a game in San Diego, the hot and windy weather was a stronger opponent for our girls today as they are on fire right now.  The offense is beginning to click and the defense is as lock down as ever, Toni just continues to play mistake free and adds up the shutouts. 

Of course our girls are not the only thing on fire today.  I did say Santa Ana winds were blowing yesterday and today right?  So when you add heat and wind to a dry desert you get fire.

Today was no different, from the field we could see a fire beginning during the game.  Of course I shot it, but instead I am posting the one that Jamie shot out the car window driving up the coast.  The sky was so filled with soot and debris blocking out the  sun that it turned the photo yellow.

Santa Ana Winds

It is officially Summer in Southern California. How can that be? The calendar says October. Well October is when the Santa Ana winds begin to blow.

The wonderful thing about living in Southern California is the Pacific Ocean, while not only beautiful it is cool, so when the winds blow in from the West, we get a nice cooling affect. Well that is from the West, but if Sister Bridget Mary's Geography lessons were correct in the 6th grade, East of Southern California are Hot Deserts!

Guess what happens when the wind comes in from the Desert...HEAT!!

Plus these winds blow a lot harder then usually from the Ocean. Today was about 100 degrees in our little town, plus everything was blowing around with clocked winds up to 40 mph.

Plus what is the Wild West without Tumbleweeds??

Mr. October

Today was supposed to be a catch up day, I was finally back in the office.  I had a doctors appointment to take care of but that was it.   I was hoping to get caught up on everything.  Next week is going to be crazy as I am taking a group of customers on a reward trip to Mexico and I had about 20 things to get completed before we leave.

Unfortunately, I really did not have time for a picture today, but with less than 90 days left in this blog, I am not going to blow it now.  Fortunately for me living in the Los Angeles area, there is a valid topic for a lame photo tonight.

Tonight is the first night of The Dodgers Playoffs run, unfortunately for the Braves.  But will we have a Mr. October this year, or should I say Señor Octubre?

#YasielPuig

Top Gun... I think

Today was my final day in San Diego.  I am clearly smarter today than I was on Monday before training started.  These days are brutal, but the team did a great job training us.  Sharon our trainer was so smart she planned a barbecue lunch outside for the group. 

While the company was enjoyable the food left a little to the imagination.  It looked great, the brisket was ok but I am not a Mesquite BBQ flavor guy.  Give me the subtle flavor of Kraft original and I am ok.  We all shared a Rice Krispie treat, we shared because I now know how good my friends are.  I took a bite into this and the rice Krispies were stale....but in true friendship when I told everyone at the table, and asked them to try it, they all did.

But the line of the day as Kimberly's.  I got some of the Mac and Cheese it looked awesome!!! But it lacked taste, I wasn't going to say anything then Kimberly said...."ya know what flavor this mac and cheese is ? ......Yellow".  I laughed.

Because we were so close to the Marine Air Base at Miramar where they filmed Top Gun, if you are young you might not get it...but it was a movie that Tom Cruise Starred in before he became weird.  It is about fighter pilots.  Miramar is not far from our office, all throughout lunch we heard the jets above.  These suckers move!!!  You hear them above and by the time you look up they are gone!!!

See Below.

Last Light

How many hours is too many hours for a training class?  Well I was mentally done after 6 hours, unfortunately the training went 9 hours....before dinner at Orfilia Vineyards and Winery in Escondido.  One of the other drawbacks of Nine hours worth of training is Zero minutes to take a picture for the blog.

The best thing I could find at the end of the day was the last bit of light over the Vineyard.  Thank god there was a table to put the Canon G11 on and open the shutter for 8 seconds.

Not a great shot but at least the blog continues.

The Kiss

Another week, another trip, at least this does not involve a plane...or 3.  This trip is simply training in San Diego, a couple of the friends are in town as well so it should not be as painful and the parking should be better than last week.

I did make the number one mistake on the photoblog today. I did not have the camera with me all day so I was going to have to take random some photo at night.  Fortunately I had to pick up a couple of my friends at San Diego's airport.  For those around the world, San Diego is a US Navy town.  One of the Iconic photos of the 1940 was of a sailor kissing a nurse on Victory over Japan Day during World War II.  The picture(photo 2) was taken in Time Square in New York.

The fine folks of San Diego decided this would a fitting tribute to the Navy so they built a 20 foot statue of the Kiss.  Unfortunately for a Photographer at night, the statue is horrible lite.  I did the best I could.

Bird Bath

I woke up this morning in San Francisco.  It took me a little bit of time to figure that one out.  It looked like an Embassay Suites bedroom, that's where I stayed in Monterrey.  My fear was I was in Ground Hogs Day. 

I was finally getting to go home!!! It only took 5 nights and 4 hotels to go home...for a 1/2 day anyway.  I was up nice and early grabbed breakfast, sent a couple of emails. I even got to take a picture of some bridge there. 

But again, once you have seen one Golden Bridge you have seen them all.  So instead I think I will post a picture and a video(the video is below the photo) of bath time in our house.

Double Deer

Today was the final day of this event.  Thank God!!  Although due to more confusion I did not get to leave the event until 6:30.  Almost all the vendors thought the Exhibit portion of the event was supposed to be complete around 2pm.  A couple of the folks had to reschedule flights.  I knew something would come up so I wasn't about to schedule a flight at an airport 3 hours away on the final day of a show.

Anyway, after the event was over, and thanks to the parking situation at this resort, 1,500 guests 1,000 parking spots.  I had to walk about a mile to my car, dragging my brief case.  At least tonight I was smart enough to pack a sweatshirt.

As I was walking back I was looking around at the scenery not really noticing everything around me, including the Prius that pulled up behind where I was walking...Damn silent cars.

About a 1/4 mile after the Prius incident, I looked up, about 30 feet ahead of me there was a deer!  I mean right there.  I bent down to my bag to get my camera and he darted across the street, so I walked toward him.  The I realized he had a friend too.

I just wonder if they were considered Authorized Vehicles?  Or where they pissed about the parking situation too.

Looking Back on Sunset

I got into Monterrey at about 1 am.  I am sure the drive from San Jose to the Peninsula was amazing.  But what would I know it was pitch black.

Today was another show, I will not mention the name of it to protect the innocent, but it was so poorly put together.  It was one of those an hour of craziness, two hours of downtime, ninety minutes of craziness.  It was like that all day, and it did not end until 9:00.

The resort where the event was is located right on the Pacific Ocean in Monterrey.  One of the breaks was close enough to sunset.  I figured I would get a great sunset photo during that break.  So, even though it is was like a cold windy 60 degrees and all I had was a short sleeve shirt.  I still decided to walk down to the coast line.

I took a couple of shot of the sunset.  They were ok, once you seen one sunset over the ocean you have seen them all.  Sure they change form time to time, but not tonight.  The sky was kind of white and not many clouds to make for a good picture.

Then I turned around and looked toward the lodge.

Another Long Drive

After a full day of trade show and then bar tending for a customer event until very late last night.  We were back to the trade show this morning.  I needed to cut out of the event around 4 pm to catch a plane back in Phoenix at 8pm on my way to Monterrey.

On the drive up to the event it was about the scary road signs.  The ride back was about adding another cactus to the photo blog.  This type of Cactus is call Saguaro.  I am not 100% sure about what happened to the bottom of this one, I am sure it has to do with a hungry coyote or something.  I do like the US Flag that photo bombed this picture.

Seems Like a Good Place to Pull Over

Day two of this roady had me driving from Phoenix to Prescott AZ.  For those not familiar it is about a 2 hour drive through both the Mountains of Arizona and the desert as well.  It is a ride right out of the old Western Movies, except with Paved Highways and Porches.

If you watch the old Western like I know my dad does, you hear the cowboys giving directions to where they need to go that sound super scary.  The names are things like "Devil's Pass" or "Dead Man's Alley".

I always thought it was a joke.

Scramble

I left today on a crazy road trip.  It is going to be 3 flights, 4 different hotels over 5 nights.  Yes I know, I did the math too, it sucks.  Five nights from Tuesday means I don't get home until Sunday.

The first stop is Phoenix.  I didn't have appointments until dinner.  I decided that even though I didn't land until 1pm, that due to me missing breakfast this morning I would stop at my favorite Breakfast spot in Phoenix.  An interesting place call Scramble, they make the best French Bread French toast....and yes there Bacon is Meat Candy!

The artwork outside the restaurant I think sums up my feelings about the week I am about to embark on.

Bedtime Story

Today was another one of those busy and clearly tiring days around the house.  It seems like everyone was on the go today.  I had 4 appointments,  Jamie had her meeting set up day, and Toni is fully into the full swing of school and even had soccer practice.  Baxter got his walks in which tends to tire him out.

Although tonight he still needed a good bedtime story to fall asleep.

Autumn White

Today is the first day of Autumn.  In most area of the country that usually means the colors come out.  In Southern California, sure some of the leaves change.  But usually that is from green to yellow, no reds or oranges like is traditionally associated with Autumn. 

One interesting item that does happen in nature here is we get more white sunsets.  Throughout this blog I have posted amazingly colorful sunsets from our backyard.  However, with today being the first day of Autumn the white sunsets have begun. 

Toni had a game this morning, other than that we pretty much laid around watching bad football, which culminated in the Steelers 0-3 start tonight.  I decided to fire up the grill for dinner, as I was covering the grill I noticed how awesome white sun looked.  I wasn't sure how to shoot it, but I knew a fast shutter and a small aperture had something to do with it.

The result was pretty cool.  If you look to the right of the frame you can also see the edge of Catalina Island.  I also think the hazy look of the rooftop in the foreground and the cloud cover over the ocean is also pretty cool.

Out of Bounds

Oh my god I am so excited!!! Today marks the 100 day count down to the end of this Blog, THANK GOD!!!  265 blog entries in the books...or the web(how fitting for today).  Clearly the blog was not what I hoped for.  I hoped I would truly be able to spend time creating great images or do interesting activities with lighting.  Clearly I forgot I have a life and a job, a ridiculously busy job so, many of the days were simply a snap shot.

But though out, people kept checking out the blog.  They checked it out to the tune of 8,600 times.  They came from 41 different countries.

I circled this day on the calendar to make sure to shoot something cool to mark the 100 day count down.  Well, I think Brian solved that problem for me early when he lost ball and went looking for his drive on the 5th hole at Cross Creek Golf Course in Temecula.  He hit a nice drive down the right side of the fairway that bounced Out of Bounds.

He calls to me to get over there with my camera, of course he was standing right next to a "Caution Rattlesnakes" sign.  I thought he found a snake which would be cool to begin the 100 day count down.

I guess they better add Tarantula's to the Caution signs!!

Hangin Around at Home

Today was one of those "what was I thinking" days.  As has been documented on this blog, I have been traveling too much lately, I needed a day in the office to dig out.  But instead  I decided to help out a teammate and do a training at 7:00am in Downtown San Diego, which meant a 5am exit from the house.

Of Course the customer was not ready for the training.

Anyway, when I finally got home I got a ton done.  Then I decided to watch a little TV in the living room.  However, having an African Grey Parrot in the house can sometimes be more entertaining than what is on TV.