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The birth of our most recent child, Jeremiah, brought along with the event our families obligatory new camera purchase. However, this event was a bit different then the times past. This time we purchased a decent DSLR to memorialize the birth of our newest family member. Little did I know that the purchase of this unit would rekindle my artistic side and as a result cause me to spend thousands of dollars in accessories and lenses.
For those that don’t know me well, I started out my career as a graphic designer in desktop publishing. I then got bored of that and moved on to design for web sites. During my short stint as a web designer I was introduced to software development. 10 years later here I am still developing software and doing absolutely no design work.
However I always did appreciate the graphic design side of things as it gave me a venue to be creative in a non-methodical, non-algorithmic kind of way. Like I mentioned earlier the birth of newest family member has jettisoned me back into the creative, only this time with a camera in my hand instead of a Wacom tablet (although the Wacom tablet would still come in handy for those digital pics).
I suppose this new found hobby is not so bad as I could be going to the bars, hitting up the night clubs and such, but instead I find more joy in staying at home and photographing my children growing up.
So for those of you interested in learning more about photography I have compiled a list of my favorite RSS feeds for your enjoyment. Also if any of your would like to pick my brain on what I have learned thus far feel free to drop me a message and if any of you have anything to share to help me learn more, then your suggestions are very welcome.
Scott Kelby (the man is a legend and great Christian to boot) - http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/
Joe McNally (I am accepting tickets to his classes as gifts;) ) - http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/
Moose Peterson - http://www.moosenewsblog.com/
Strobist - http://strobist.blogspot.com/Current Mood:  sick |
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Here is a handy flowchart to help you in your bacon decision making.
 Current Mood:  amused |
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October 16 brings with it the Transformers on HD DVD. Blu-Ray supporters... sucks to be you. I will certainly be placing this movie on pre-order to ensure that I will be glued to my HD setup on 10/16.... hopefully the baby doesn't decide that he wants to be born that day, otherwise I might have to miss the birth of my son :D. (j/k, I'll just have to take my laptop with me to the hospital to get my fix until I can watch it at home hehe).
http://www.dvdtown.com/news/press-release-transformers-on-dvd-and-hd-dvd/4722
On another note I have recently become very fond of the Partagas Black Label cigars. They are quite tasty with a nice port.
 Current Music: Digitally Imported |
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OK I think I found the greatest shirt ever today. Not that I will vote for either, but none-the-less this is still a great shirt:
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If evolution is true then why are we so concerned about various species becoming extinct? Discuss...Current Mood:  thoughtful Current Music: Teaching |
| » Jim & Kendall's new cat |
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I had the pleasure of meeting Jim & Kendall's new cat today and got some video goodness of the experience. I can't see why Schultz is scared of this cute little bugger! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-708218345413567790
Jan. 13th, 2007 @ 01:38 pm
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| » New Years Resolution |
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Jan. 4th, 2007 @ 09:27 pm
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| » Blessed… |
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Sunday I had the pleasure of hanging out with the fantastic family of my good friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) not_a_monk up in Orange County. Many of which I had the opportunity to meet before, however yesterday was the first time I was able to get to know them. The whole family was an absolute joy to be with and they share the same values, hopes and desires that I was raised with and taught in church.
thomas_a_kempis welcomed me and my family in as part of their own, and that touches me as it is a rare quality in today's world. He has and continues to raise his family with incredible love and compassion which makes me envious. He is instilling in his children a great sense or morale, education and love for others and Christ.
To his son and daughters... you are all truly blessed... and we are blessed to have you all as our friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. I pray that this will prove to be a long friendship between our families.
†
Oct. 30th, 2006 @ 11:04 pm
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| » Wasting some ammo in OC |
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Apparently my darling cakemaven is delivering a cake early in the morning on Sunday and then taking the kids to a kiddie Halloween party up in OC. Since I don't mingle well with a room full of moms and screaming kids, I figured I would go to the shooting range instead during that time and punch holes in paper. Would anyone in the OC care to join me Sunday afternoon?
Oct. 27th, 2006 @ 09:20 am
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| » Decisions, decisions |
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After mulling over the various brands, models, and features, I think I have finally settled on a pistol. I have pretty much settled on picking up a Kimber Eclipse Custom II. The local shop carries it for $979 and currently has it on hold for me until Wednesday. Is this a good price for this gun? From looking around on the web this seems to be about the average price I have seen. A few places have it cheaper, but then you have to pay various transfer fees to get it to the local gun shop.
Opinions? Deals? Anyone?
Oct. 8th, 2006 @ 09:05 pm
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| » Gun Safety Course Tonight |
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Well... tonight I get to attend a gun safety class at the local range. I'm hoping to take the safety test right afterward so I can get my license to purchase a new firearm. I think Trish and I are going to head to the Del Mar gun show on Sunday and see if we can get a decent price on a nice 1911. So if anyone wants to join us on Sunday give us a call and we can make it a group outing.
Oct. 6th, 2006 @ 04:54 pm
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| » Another friend has drank the Koolaid - Mikkitig |
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Everyone I would like you to meet mikkitig, one of my friends and co-workers from Verizon. She is a lot of fun to chat and hang out with, she loves guns and her husband loves cars... need I say more? :) I'm sure you'll all get to meet her and her husband one of these days at the range.
Oct. 5th, 2006 @ 11:19 pm
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| » It's going to be a late night... |
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So we go to launch three different websites today and the fun began. The first site was more of an update to an existing site, but now we are integrated with Google. The site goes to launch at midnight this morning, but gets denied because a firewall rule protecting our servers from hackers is also protecting our servers from seeing Google. So that site has been rescheduled for tonight at midnight with the firewall rule adjusted to allow Google. Hopes for a successful day are still high because we have two others sites that will certainly go out without issue.
I arrive at work at 8am to launch our "What's Next" site. After much preparation I push the button to promote the site and proceed to test the site and verify everything is bueno. To my surprise the site is throwing errors left and right. I quickly roll the site back and proceed to yell at our production team as they have a completely different environment setup than what is in our test and development environment (that are suppose to be identical). After arguing with them for close to an hour they finally agree to remove one of the servers from production so we can diagnose what variables are different. It turns out that another firewall rule has bitten us again. After rescheduling that site for this evening at midnight, along with an updated firewall rule, I move on to the third site. We are 0 for 2.
I move on to the last site and start crossing my fingers. I scour the site for any web services or dependencies on "firewall rules." I find none and promote the site. SUCCESS! We are now 1 for 3 and have a date with VIO at midnight for the other two sites.
After all that craziness I jump into the all day meetings that I was suppose to be in at 9am (it is now 1:30pm). I then learn that the site I gave a 4.5 month level of effort for needs to be completed in 5 weeks. Gotta love corporate. Let's just say the next 5 weeks is going to involve a lot of swearing, crown royal and some very "creative" programming to meet the date.
Oct. 5th, 2006 @ 07:09 pm
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| » Newest site launch at Vz |
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Last week we finally launched one of the several new websites we are trying at work to get out by the end of the year. Verizon Surround is a new site that is focused on our FiOS broadband customers. Personally I am pretty pissed about the project because the site wasn't ready for production and there are numerous bugs, that are third-party related, littered throughout the site. However, "making the date" was far more important to corporate than releasing a quality product was.
Oct. 3rd, 2006 @ 07:52 pm
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| » I give in to the peer pressure |
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Alright, it appears everyone is on LJ except for me. So it is about time that I give in to the temptation and sign up for a journal of my own.
Oct. 2nd, 2006 @ 04:57 pm
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