Vote for Me!

Bobby Earle is having a contest on his blog. Vote for my picture and I can get free web-hosting from Show-it Sites. If you leave a comment on his blog, you’re entered to win Smugmug Pro and get unlimited file storage for a year!!!!! All you need to do is leave a comment on his blog that my picture (below) is your favorite!!! Help a girl out!

Giveaway one: This is for the attendants of the recent RPTE that we took to Thailand and Cambodia. The winner gets a free year of Showit Sites compliments of David Jay All they need is YOUR vote!

Showit is probably the most integral part of my business. I would be hard-pressed to think of a company that has benefited me more. If you can think it, you can do it with Showit (without needing to know html/flash/css code). I have a hard time figuring out why someone would use the other website options, to be honest…

Giveaway two: The next giveaway is for all of you who vote with a comment below (only on the blog — not facebook or twitter). One commenter, chosen at random, will get a free year of Smugmug Pro! Compliments of Markham at Smugmug

I’ve been using Smugmug for about 3 or 4 years now — and I can’t say a bad thing about them. In fact, I can only say great things about them! Their customer service is out of this world. I remember having some question at like 3am one time a few years ago — within the hour I had an answer from a top Smugmug guy (Andy) on the Dgrin forum. I’ve met personally with the people who run Smugmug and I can tell you that they care about one thing: Doing what they do to the best of their abilities so that photographers who use them can have more success. They’re amazing people.

Now, for those of you that don’t know, here’s a few quick reasons that I love Smugmug…
Store (literally) UNLIMITED photos. Backed up by Amazon.
Upload and display stunning Hi-Definition video clips.
Powerful image protection including custom watermarking.
Set your own prices for prints & gifts and earn profit from sales.

Strange.

I think it’s strange when brides close their eyes in their bridal portraits… it’s one thing to do it if the photographer asks her to. It’s part of his vision.. but when brides do it on their own I think it’s weird. Do you want to look like you were sleeping? I’m just not sure why brides do the things they do. Do they think that that’s what you’re supposed to do? And worse of all… the brides are “asleep” and the groom has no idea and he’ll be smiling or giving an expression that doesn’t match. strange.

Odd. Girls are weird! I’ve proved it. It’s a fact.

Proper attire.

When you’re out galavanting in the rain… or often in my case, taking public transportation in the rain, you always need to be dressed in proper attire and equipped with the essentials.

On this particular rainy day, I was not prepared wearing my suede-ish moccasins.

Sunday in the City

Just a continuation of the glorious Sunday afternoons I’ve seen

Lazy Sunday afternoons

I’ve spent most of my January Sunday afternoons in the city. And even though I’m sick in bed this Sunday afternoon, I’m still overjoyed with how beautiful it was in the city last weekend.

Sonics

I have a love-hate relationship with Sonics.

Sonic commercials are ALWAYS on. Now, that wouldn’t be so bad if there was one close to where I live, but for a long time I had no idea even where the closest one was! Four years ago when I found out there was one near Davis (about an hour and half north of here), I tried it for the first time… and it was as delicious as it looked on tv. I instantly fell in love with the limeades and tots. yum! That was the first time I ate at Sonics. The second time I ate at Sonics was five months ago in El Paso, Texas. Yeah… that just shows you how accessible Sonics is to me.

Finally a Sonics was built in Gilroy which is an hour and half south of where I live, but near the outlet mall… which gave me more of a reason to go as opposed to the other one near Davis (which is out in the middle of no where). Needless to say, it was not until a Sonics was built in Hayward (about twenty minutes away) that I finally ate at Sonics for my THIRD time.

Glorious!

(p.s. I used to have similar experiences with Walmart. We’d always get Walmart ads in the newspaper, and I used to think… “What’s Walmart? Where are those things? Why haven’t I ever seen one before?”)

Little ones

I think my niece is more like a little person than a little three-year-old. I love her… and she’s super cute.

It’s my birthday!

Nope.. it’s not really my birthday. But today IS my birthday party. Wooohoo. With all the birthday celebrations in my family, my brother and I, who usually have a busy schedule… (I have a busy schedule? yeah! go figure!), decided to celebrate our birthdays together. His birthday was two days ago and mine is in a month and a half.

For birthdays our family usually goes all out… and today will be no different. Today we are having a potato party… potato pancakes, sausage, chilli and baked potatoes. Probably the most unhealthy meal my brother and I could have chosen but very fitting if you knew us. Ryan doesn’t eat the healthiest and my choices ordinarily cause people to scratch their heads with confused looks on their faces. We’re not going to have cake either because Ryan and I don’t like cake… I don’t really like baked goods or chocolate… I’ll eat the gingerbread cookies, madelines and white chocolate like there’s no tomorrow, but everything else is kind of “eh”.

Side note:
My sister-in-law asked… “Are there going to be any vegetables?”
My response: “Aren’t potatoes vegetables?”

Anyways… today will be glorious.

Here’s a picture from the day of Ryan’s birthday when it rained. Notice the pink sky at sunset and the saying “Red at night, sailor’s delight” (meaning the following day would have great weather…which it did have.)

p.s. Anyone else think it’s ironic that I’m celebrating my birthday on the day of two of my ex-boyfriend’s birthday? I do. hahaha. sucka.

If you vote for me, maybe I’ll get better.

While in college, I got sick pretty often.  It was the result of no sleep and not properly taking care of myself.  Anyway, there was this one time I was sick for three months.  I got several ear infections, sinus infections…even eye infections during that three month period.  But during that whole three months I had this horrible cough I couldn’t get.  I was so busy with work that I didn’t go to the doctor until the end of that three months.

Long story short… I had whooping cough.

Right now I have ear and sinus infections and chills but no fever.  If you want me to feel better, I’m pretty sure voting for me on Bobby’s blog will make me feel better!!!!

Leave a comment on his blog and you enter yourself in a free year of SmugMug Pro!

Hello.

Rain, rain don’t go away.
Here is a rainy day song on heavy repeat right now.
The Stars, “Your Ex-lover is Dead”

There were so many bad and good things about today, but I think the good outweighed the bad… more on that tomorrow!

(click on the images for a larger view… all these images were taken with my point-and-shoot!)

I like this picture.

Addictions…

I am most certainly in love with coffee shops.

Give me a indie shop or a trendy one, I’m hooked. There’s something about being surrounded by strangers that I love. I sit here at my window seat, trying to work vigorously, staring at pedestrians wander around as I wait for pictures to load or export. As I mentioned in the wee hours of this morning, my lightroom catalog crashed so I’ve started from scratch. But as I type this post, I’m waiting for my pictures in my catalog to load.

It seems as if my life attracts bad luck with electronics. It turns out I’ve corrupted this new catalog as well. Thank goodness I’ve been backing up my work every half hour and creating multiple copies of my catalog to ensure I won’t have to start from scratch again. Yikes! Perhaps it’s this pirated version of lightroom. Maybe this is my fault for having a pirated version. (Btw.. this is the only pirated software on my computer… and trust me I have tons of applications–all that I’ve bought).

Anyways… so bad to my addiction. As much as I love going to coffee shops, I don’t drink coffee. My staple drink is apple cider. Yum! Second is a chai latte (even though it makes me gassy. hahah) If the shop doesn’t have any of those I will definitely enjoy a tasty hot tea. Life is good.

Here’s some pictures from my coffee shop extravaganza today.

I looked down at my freezing self and liked how my scarf peaked out of my coat while I was sitting down.

Then I realized, “Hey, I really like this scarf!”

This is what I’ve been staring at for the past five hours. I love it here.

p.s. I saw a man with the raddest mustache today. He drove the bus and was super friendly to me. I love friendly, non-creepy strangers. It looked like this one… but fuller and black (not neon yellow).

picture from here