Portrait Perfection

In good tradition, this post is a bit of a read (although not as bad as some), so get yourself a cup of coffee and prepare to read every mundane detail of my weekend.

Update! I’ve uploaded all the pictures for your viewing pleasure. Check them out here.

I’ve known Cody and Becca since January 2006 (wow, has it really been more than three years!?). They were our Neighbors when I lived in Elk Grove and came over to see what was going on the night we got a little crazy with some rum. From that night began the summer of nightly BBQ, wonderful weekends and perpetual tom-foolery (see examples here and here).

Since then they have been able to buy a home in Elk Grove, and start their family and while I was over for Dinner about a month ago they asked me if I would take some portraits. I was flattered and shortly we made plans to go up to the Hoffman cabin at Donner Lake for a weekend to have some fun and take the pictures.

I took all of Friday off so I would have time to get all my stuff together and take care of a few other nagging things around the house. I ended up  on the phone, going through emails and taking care of some paperwork though so I still worked part of the day. I made a trip up to my parents house as well to pickup my Camera (which Chadd had borrowed) and to show my Mom the Blog I setup for her (http://tracysnotes.com, more to come on that later though). and left from there straight to Cody and Becca’s house.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t what we hoped for when we planned the trip a month ago and it rained the entire drive up, we even had a few miles of light snow as we crested Donner Summit (~7,200 ft). Once we got to the cabin, and were settled, Cody and I passed time playing some board games and I did some reading before we turned in for the night.

We woke up fairly early Saturday to cloudy skies without rain and made a point to get out and start taking some pictures. We did have some very light rain (almost a mist) to deal with, and snow on the ground but I think overall we were able to get a lot of great shots in. I did a preliminary processing job on the photos so far, but they aren’t ready for prime-time yet, so I’ll save all that for a later post.

After we wrapped up our multi-location photo shoot we headed into Truckee to get groceries for the rest of the weekend. Cody and I stopped in the local bookstore and did some quick perusing, but didn’t end up finding anything interesting. We all headed back to the cabin for one last set of pictures (indoors) and lunch. Becca made fabulous sandwiches while Cody and I played a game of Arkham Horror. I did some more reading, and played more games. Cody and I even managed to play one round of Axis and Allies before dinner. Again, Becca made a delicious Pesto Ravioli meal while Cody and I played (noticing a trend here?). We all played Coloretto, Yahtzee and watched SNL before going back to bed with the rain pouring outside.

I got up Sunday morning around 8am and intended to make a pot of coffee, but all I could find was decaf and a bag of Peet’s coffee dated Aug 2007 so I gave up, and decided to read some more of my book. When Becca got up a little later she ended up making some of the Decaf (turned out to be all there was) and scrambled eggs with toast for breakfast (by the end of the trip Cody and I were feeling pretty guilty that she kept doing all the work while we played). Cody and I played a few more games and after lunch we packed everything up to head home.

All-in-all it was a great trip in spite of the rain. We were able to get the portraits done that we wanted to do and I read a few chapters in my book but mostly I had a great time relaxing with friends.

United by Individuality

The long awaited ad that was produced from the video taken of hundreds of Scion owners own cars (mine included) is finally out. Actually, I’m a little slow to the punch as it started airing on Comedy Central, MTV, MTV2, Spike and other lifestyle-oriented networks August 4th.

My car is in there, but not really in any place where you can pick it out. I know where it is, but only because I have pictures from the daytime of where the cars were at. Its a good commercial all the same though so without further adieu, here it is:

The Simpsons Movie

Went and saw it last night (pre-screening FTW).

I started laughing when the 21st Century Fox logo came up (you’ll see why when you watch the movie) and didn’t stop till the credits started rolling.

They make fun of themselves being a movie on a few occasions. For example the opening sequence (similar to the one for the TV show) has Bart writing on the chalk board “I will not steal this movie”. They do however, take the liberty of being rated PG-13, instead of the typical TV rating they have.

The story is pretty much what you’d expect, but expanded. They even pause 1 hour in with a “To be continued…”.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and might go see it again when some of my friends go.

Universal Studios, Hollywood

[fa:p:a=6-16-universal-studios,id=562488893,j=l,s=s,l=i]The last day of our trip. We got up in plenty of time to make it to the park when it opened, we even got front row parking. Kerry and I have both been to Universal Studios, but its been about 5 years for both of us, so it was still a lot of fun. As is customary with most people, we did the Backlot Tour first. Its changed a bit since the last time I went. The “Broken Bridge” isn’t used anymore (which is ok, since it was lame anyway). And a few new things are added. They kept the airplane crash set from War of the Worlds, and its pretty amazing to see it, since it was such a strong scene in the movie (you can see it here, as the background to the website). The other thing they added was a Fast and the Furious special Effects demo, in which they demonstrate how to blow up two cars. While the pictures I took are cool, they don’t really do the demonstration any justice, so check out this video that somebody else took on their trip:

Kerry and I rode and watched just about everything at the park, but we didn’t waste much time because we wanted to try to make it back to the Springbok bar again and get that meal we had been craving. So we left Universal and drove back up 101 to Van Nuys and this time we were able to get a nice table and some food. Kerry had a Boerewors Sandwich (pronoced Bord-a-vors, its a traditional South African all-beef sausage), and I had Freestate Braai Pack (Braai meaning BBQ) which was boerewors, two lamb chops and a 5 ounce Filet Mignon. I really enjoyed it, especially seeing the excitement on Kerry’s face to be able to have food and drink from home again (did I mention she drank 3 Savanna Dry’s and a Castle Lager, all made in SA).

[fa:p:a=6-16-universal-studios,id=562502483,j=r,s=s,l=p]We made a drive after eating to go see some of Hollywood, but we out of cash, and even change to park and the sun was setting so all we really did was drive around on Hollywood Blvd, and Sunset Blvd and then we explored the tiny roads that go up the mountain that the Hollywood sign is on (trying to get a closer look at the sign). We didn’t make it there before the sun set, and there are no lights on the Hollywood sign, so I had to expose the picture heavily for it to come out so excuse the grain (Yes, I took that picture while it was dark out… isn’t Photoshop wonderfull)

Forza 2

I’m not a heavy gamer. I enjoy games. Mostly on the computer though. Most of the games I play on consoles are with groups of people. The one exception has always been racing games.

[fa:p:a=blog-images,id=529866558,j=l,s=s,l=p]The first game I can remember playing in detail, was Street Rod 2. It was a DOS game, released in 1990 and I probably played a couple hours a day during the summer when we had it. In writing this post, I was able to find it as a download over at abandonia.com. I have yet to download and try it, but I think its going to require setting up DOSBox or a DosVM to get it to run.
 
[fa:p:a=blog-images,id=529910351,j=l,s=s,l=p]More modernly, Forza, for the Original XBox grabbed the attention of many people as one of the most well developed car physics games to ever be released. With a large list of cars (not quite as many as GT) I always had a blast playing it. Making super cars out of old Toyota sprinters and the like. Now, Forza 2 is available, and although its still very similar to the original Forza in game play, the online play has been an absolute blast and it has had me yearning for a steering wheel and pedals to play with. The image to the left is one mans setup that has me drooling. Although Forza 2 has support for 3 screens built in, it still requires 3-360’s. So I don’t think it’ll be happening for me anytime soon. As well, I’m not good enough, dedicated enough, or rich enough to afford the Bob Earl VRC racing seat. But the wheel by itself is a reachable prospect, so don’t be surprised if sometime in the not so distant future if you see me with one.

Caples Creek

[fa:p:a=caples-creek-2007,id=519448938,j=l,s=s,l=i]Kerry and I did a short, but fun little overnight backpacking trip this weekend. We had intended to stay two nights, but after hiking all the trails around, and since neither of us thought far enough ahead to actually bring some kind of entertainment, we sat around quite bored and decided to come back a day early. It was a fun trip, somewhat uneventful, but relaxing. I was glad to get all my backpacking gear out of boxes and back to good use. I’m hoping to plan and execute a longer trip towards the end of the summer. The exact destination isn’t really decided, but I have a few ideas and I am pushing to do a 50 mile trip (we’ve got 10 days). 50 miles requires quite a bit of planning and preparedness, so we’ll see what happens. But for now, thats the goal.

Otherwise, its late.. and I’m going to turn in.

Hate Mongering

People say the dumbest things sometimes. We were having a conversation about world politics at work today and this came straight out of Chris’ mouth discribing who should be blown up, and who shouldn’t.

I dont like any country that doesn’t agree with us.

Reminds me of Travis’ quote, which requires a quick backstory. In Highschool all my buddies lived right next to eachother so we all shared a ride home. One day while waiting for our ride my brother Keith told us how in P.E. he had to run an extra lap because a rather portly fellow wasn’t able to keep up with the group, and Travis’s immediate response was:

Thats why I hate fat people

To this day he denies the quote, unfortunatly for him there were 4 of us there to hear it and I’m sure any of them will back me up on the subject.

For other entertainment provided by Travis, go back to my post entitled Travis Eats a Deep Fried Fish Head