Photo Project #1 - 10 words - SF

Objective: take a picture for every word in a list of 10 words. List provided by other person.

We pretty much walked around the park for two hours. I was sad because about 45 minutes in my card crashed or something and I lost some pictures... including one that I REALLY wanted to use for twenty-something. Oh well. I just shot with my 50mm on the d70. It was way too foggy to bring out our film cameras. We were originally planning on using some expired slide film but it was 100 speed. This was really good practice & tons o' fun. After I was done taking pix I said I didn't even really have anything for my words, but as I was uploading them I realized that I had stuff that worked. So ta da!

Tadaima!

I'm home from my 1 week Mexican Cruise! I still feel like I'm on the ship... I'm sitting in my computer chair but it's like I'm rocking back and forth. Too tired to blog in detail but here are a few pix I liked from the trip. More to come manana! Click on the panoramic to see a bigger one... it's composed of 6 pix.

Edit:

Mexico was a lot o' fun. Thanks again to the parentals for funding this vacay! <3

Day 1 & 2 - out at sea. had a few drinks. lost money in the casino.

Day 3 - Cabo San Lucas
Almost yacked while tendering to the pier. Those little boats are rocky & it does not help when you are a wee bit hungover. Walked around & checked out the shops & the mall. Ate at a restaurant which took the waiter over 30 minutes and reminding 3 times to bring me a Coke. He let me have it for free after that :] If I could do Day 3 over I'd definitely hit the beach and the beach only. Shopping was way too expensive.

Day 4 - Mazatlan
Took a Trolley Tour which brought us to the Historical Center where we got to check out the market & cathedral. Then, we caught the Cliff Divers. So crazy... they jump so many stories into what looked like shallow water filled with rocks but they do it 60 times a day so I guess it's not so scary to them. Then, last stop, the Golden Zone. More shops & we ate at The Shrimp Factory. Mazatlan is known for their shrimp catching. It's also the home to Pacifico & Tecate.

Day 5 - Puerto Vallarta
We did the Jungle Tour which is up a mountain outside of PV. It's also where they filmed Predator. It was about a 40 minute drive from the pier and a 40 minute hike to go from the restaurant, up the mountain, & back down to the restaurant. The restaurant is over a river which we were allowed to swim in. The water was SO cold but SO refreshing. We had a lot of extra time afterwards to check out the city/beach which we should've done but my stomach was feeling iffy & queezy from the bus ride & the quesadilla. Needless to say, when we got back to the ship, I was in bed all day & night.

Day 6 & 7 - Out at sea
More drinking, eating, & sleeping. Karaoke night was fun. There was this cute little Venezualan girl who dedicated "Sweet Carolina" to her husband. She could not sing for sh*t but she got the crowd going by dancing around the room and yelling to her hearts content. The comedy show was semi-funny. I believe the comedian's name is Darryl Jones. The jokes he had about the cruise ship and the tv channels was funny. But, the racial jokes were so played out. How many times do we have to hear about how white people talk to their kids like adults & how non-white parents spank their kids? So played out it's not even funny anymore.

My uncle and I sat with 6 other people for dinner time. They were all very nice and had kids all my age which was a bit awkward :D I'd say a majority of the cruise attendees were over 30 and those that were my age all had their significant other's along or were newlyweds. And EVERYONE assumed my uncle and I were married. Bleh! It got to the point where we'd introduce ourselves and straight up say, "She's my neice" or "He's my uncle". It was fun though. I am still feeling like I'm rocking away on that ship. I hope it goes away soon.

ALL pix are up!

Next stop: LAS VEGAS!

N2020 w/ 50mm lens

I just got the best early bday present... well, it's right up there with my parents deciding to pay for my Mexico cruise as my gift :D... I just got this amazing N2020 SLR with a 50mm lens AF. Best part is it attaches to my D70! And I've been wanting this lens for a while now so hurrah! The cool thing about the N2020 is that instead of doing the +/- feature for over/underexposure, it just tells you what shutter speed you should be on depending on what your aperture is. Also, for the focus, there are arrows and red lights and you just focus, focus, focus 'til you get the green light. Adrian gave me a quick tutorial on all the features and in that 10 minutes I feel like I learned more about cameras than I have in the so many years I've been trying to learn photography. hahaha.

Here are some quick shots:



Yesterday was a great day. Got this camera. Got a mustache. Went to Daiso for the first time! Had really good lechon kawali (kawawa!). Had amaaaaaazing, mouth-watering Fondant Au Chocolat from Beard Papa. Went on a long photo excursion in downtown (will post pix hopefully tonight). And managed a night of King's Cup without drinking a lick o' liquor. Mmmm... just thinking about that Fondant. Words cannot even describe how delicious it was.

Quick update on Xam'd. Finished watching all 9 episodes. It is getting very interesting. Can't wait to see how the story develops. I'm kind of seeing how this is going to be a theme of what does it mean to be human and who are we to judge who lives and doesn't.

Some of my fave pix from yesterday w/ the 50mm (rest can be found HERE):

Most of my pix from the actual photo excursion are on my Pentax & I haven't finished the roll yet. I'm going to make it a thing to go on photo excursions once a week. Hopefully it works out.

Time to pack for the cruise!

santa cruz

the beach

the governator

the pirate ship

tracy w/ giant donut

donut w/ giant donut

adrian w/ giant donut

partners in crime since 1997

pictures by adrian. shot, processed, developed.

Double Shot - best view of the ocean
Pirate Ship - gigglies in the stomach
"Rape It" - leaaaaaaaaaan
Hurricane - but you could call me slurricane

Corn dogs tasted like crap on a stick. Giant donut was amazing as always. They have no killer clown tattoos. After some time and calculation, we figured out you need to ride 8-10 rides in order to get your $30 worth of the unlimited bracelet. Unfortunately, we were only able to accomplish 4. The clouds rolled in around 6 :\ I think that's what my dream was trying to tell me... the dream of the lava ball crashing into the ocean creating a tidal wave onto the boardwalk and causing a massive fire. Yup... that all meant there was going to be rain. haha.

Emergency & I

Photo taken by Nosyt.

D70, Tamron 80-210mm

I'm very pleased with this photo since I'm always getting blurry shots when I shake even just slightly w/ this lens. This was taken while I was driving.

I think I'm going to add some Photoshop tips on here when I get the chance.

"Dwigt"

BBMAK got me the best present evar! Now I feel like I'm truly part of The Office! It's really heavy & durable. That's some good quality bobble head action going on.

"My middle name is Kurt, not fart!"

Pilipino Time

I went to Bridge's annual showcase, Pilipino Time. This year's proceeds go towards a scholarship fund for a HS/transfer student. Finally took my D70 out & about. Wish I had brought my Tamron lens because I couldn't really get good shots until I moved to the front.

ISO: 800
Lens: Nikkor 18-70mm

Refurbished: Old photos

Cross Processing

I love vibrant, blown, and overexposed photos so cross-processing caught my eye. But, I have no means of printing 35mm film in slide chemicals, and vice versa. Thanks to Adobe for PhotoshopCS2 because you can cross-process with it! I found out how here.

The Counter

The Counter is THE BEST burger joint for 3 reasons:

1. custom burgers (numerous choices of cheese, toppings, bread, etc.)
2. onion strings!
3. a full bar!

Check them out: here.

The one in Palo Alto has a cute bakery next to it.

(photos 1, 3, 4, 5 provided by Tyson at Photshite.net)

Halloween 2006

Since I chucked my Marge wig because of the gross dye, I had to come up with a makeshift costume the night of. We ended up going to good ole' Savers and I found a Safari hat from Disney's on Ice, a cheetah backpack, and ANOTHER POLAROID! Except, this polaroid had a flash and works sooooo well! We ended up predrinking at a house, drinking more at Chili's, then drinking again in Downtown San Jose. Best halloween evar!

Check out how cool the polaroids look.

22nd Birthday/Costume Dinner

For my 22nd birthday I decided to have a costume party. My mom helped me prepare the food. Just a whole bunch of finger foods from Costco: wings, meatballs, taquitos.

I decided to make Chocolate-Hazelnut Kisses from Food Network's Everyday Italian. You can get the recipe here. It's pretty easy once you figure out how quick your oven works. We also cooked my mom's famous spaqhetti w/ chili & hot dogs, her yummy 7 layer dip, and I made onion petals (because the flower fell apart).

The best part was making the jello shots. No matter how much you like vodka NEVER do 1 part water to 1.5 parts vodka. It was so strong! I found those cute Frankenstein heads at Savers. The jello shots fit perfectly in there. I just used those little dental cups you find in the plates, etc. isle of Safeway. And then, you just toss the paper cup out and add another shot.

The party was fun to prepare for. I ended up sewing my Marge Simpson dress, buying a red necklace from Walmart, red shoes from Payless, and a wig from Savers... all in all I spent under $40.

The pictures above are from my Nikon film camera. I put Kodak UltraColor film in it and it made the colors look crazy.

Anyway, thanks to everyone that came :)

Fake Tilt Lens