Come visit during the rose festival!

The Rose Festival starts tomorrow, and looks to have some pretty cools stuff! There will be Tall Ships, some Navy Ships, Auto races, rides and stuff for kiddies, and more. If you wanna come visit in Portland, next week would be a good time to do it! I can't wait to see the sailing ships, take pictures of the fireworks and the starlight run, not to mention other things.

Let me know if you're interested. Maybe we can make an event of it if enough people wanna go together. Guests are welcome, too!

Bring it on baby!

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Pics of Naiya

I hope I spelled that right.

Anyway, these are some pics of N that I took back when we were visiting Grandpa in the hospital. I hadn't really looked at them until recently when I was cleaning things out. Aw, isn't she cute :D

Sick but hanging in there

Well, I got sick a few days back. So, I'm coughing up a storm here. But, other than that I feel fine, and everything is going OK. I finally received some work from the real estate place I'm shooting for, which should provide some much needed moolah. However, it has also means I really really really need to get a wide angle lens.... for $700. That's in addition to the $900 telephoto lens that I need, too. And yes, need is pretty accurate. I really 'can't' take some of the shots I need without a wider angle lens for this real estate stuff, and for weddings, I definitely need a longer telephoto... Also, after advertising 1 day on a new site we received a job worth over $700. So, that ad paid for itself.

I've been talking with bankers, talking with advertisers, and will be talking with a lawyer today. All this stuff to do. I'm also looking forward to visiting Eugene soon.

I did manage to take some night pics the other day that I'll post eventually, and went to some party at Travis's (of Amy and Travis) brother's house. It was fun and laid back. Then, yesterday Sarah and I visited some old high school friends of hers who were in town and played board games. Haven't done that in awhile, but it was a rainy day out, so it was a good plan.

I also saw 28 weeks later the other day. Ooh, scary. It was fun. A solid sequel, and it actually lines things up well for a third movie. Looks like things are gonna get VERY ugly in that one...

And speaking of zombie flicks, during 28 weeks later they showed a trailer for the next resident evil movie: Apocalypse. Although the second one was terrible, who knows. Maybe this next one will be OK... maybe. The first one was so good!!!

I guess that's enough movie geekery for now, so I'll stop. Take care everyone.

Something cool

Just found this online...
Something cool

This is on one of my favorite blogs, btw, so if you read my prior intro to RSS, you can now subscribe to it, too, like me :)

How to subscribe to a blog

OK, this post goes out there to anyone who wants to know how to stalk -- I mean subscribe to -- bloggers.

There is a cool technology called "RSS". Does it matter what it stands for? With RSS, the blog will tell YOU when a new post has been made so you don't have to remember to check yourself.

N00b way to subscribe?

1. Use Firefox
2. Go to reader.google.com
3. If you don't have a google account (blogger accounts work unless they're really old) then make one
4. go to a blog
5. Click the little orange icon in the firefox url bar. It's on the right hand-side, left of the divider by the google search box.
6. Click it
7. Choose 'google reader'
8. The google reader page will come up asking you if you want to use google homepage or google reader. Choose google reader again.
9. Done. Have some coffee or something. Fire up reader.google.com to see if anyone has any new posts. This is great because once you're watching a lot of blogs, you don't have to visit them all. Just go to one site, reader.google.com, and it'll show you which sites have new posts. You can even read them right from reader.google.com. Awesome.

Note: there are other 'RSS readers' out there. Safari does it, as do lots of other browsers, some email applications, and stand-alone apps. I tell you how to do it with google reader because it is easy. There is also a blue "RSS" button in Safari that you can click. The resulting page can be added to your bookmark toolbar and will tell you when there are new feeds. For other RSS instructions, use google to find an answer.

Upcoming Eugene Visits

I will almost certainly be visiting eugene on these days.

May 26 -- Virginia and Morgan's Reception -- will probably come down saturday morning and stay through sunday, but at this point that is all flexible

July 7th -- Wedding Shoot -- yes I know it's on my birthday. It's a great birthday gift as far as I'm concerned: Money :) Anyway, that's on Saturday, and this time I'll almost certainly stay 'til Sunday to visit people and such for my B-day.

July 14th -- Another wedding -- Just Saturday at this point unless someone has other ideas...

That's it so far, at least as far as scheduled business trips in eugene are concerned. Drop me a line if you wanna get together any of those days and we can make it happen.

Cool places in portland

I've manged to get to a few places around Portland that are pretty cool and worth checking out. First off, we're in 'North Portland'. It took me too long to realize that all those division names (N, NE, NW, SE, SW) simply referred to what the street name started with. If you're on NE Broadway, then you're in NE. If it's NW, then you're in Northwest. Like I said, took me too long to figure that out. Anyway, I've mostly been hitting up places in N because they're convenient, and it's no fun to have to go all the way across town for coffee.

So, in no particular order: cool places I've found in portland!

Coffee:

AJ Java -- It is off Portland Blvd, and has several other locations, too. Nice atmosphere, the roast their own beans, internet access, and reasonable prices. Oh, and they have a couch. I like coffee shops with comfortable seating. That's one of my main requirements, so they pass.

Madrona Hill Cafe -- A nice little cafe + coffee shop. They also have comfortable seats, fresh, friendly decor, and they're even closer to my new place than aj java. I'm sure I'll go there a time or two.

Movie Theaters:

Bagdad Theater -- This one isn't all that close. It isn't even in N. But, it's still pretty neat. It is down on Hawthorne (SE). BUT, they are supposed to be cool. Actually, I haven't even been there yet. But it's a McMenamins location, which is a good sign. They also had a big lebowski night awhile back that I was, sadly, late to. But they serve REAL FOOD at a theater. How much better can it be?

Hollywood Theatre -- Also near Hawthorne, this theatre is OK. It reminds me a lot of the Bijou or the Mcdonald Theatre, except before it was converted. It's an old theater, sells popcorn, and shows funny/obscure stuff. I went to the zombie film fest 'Zompire' there on Saturday. Some of the shorts stunk, but some were really funny. They didn't have any that were scary, but a lot were about zombies in love. The last, and most entertaining, was called 'Zombie Love' and was a musical about a zombie guy and a normal human girl falling in love. The story was ridiculous, obviously, but it was hilarious.

St. Johns Cinema and Pub -- This one I haven't been to, but found it the other day. They show movies for $3.50 matinee, and $6.00 in the evenings... and that's for new movies. They aren't a 'cheap theater' showing old movies. They're showing Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3 there now. Looks like they don't have many prices, but it must be comfortable as they serve pizza, beer and movies, apparently. Sounds OK.

Restaurants:

I'm gonna forget some of these, but that's OK. There's a lot up here. I'll never go to them all. Oh well. Actually, I'll do restaurants later. There's too many.

OK, I think that'll be it for Part I. Part II to come later. Maybe with pics... oh, and I'll have some neat night pics of the docks and skyline, too :)

The Office/Studio Pics!

I am finally getting around to putting the studio pics up. Yay! It is unfinished so far, but I'll show pics later once we paint it and get all the supplies. Waiting on the income to settle out fr that. :)

Pictures!

So, one of my goals for today was to upload some pics for everybody! I realized that there was wireless available here, so I can upload. I couldn't this morning, though, as I'd left my power adapter at the studio. Drat. But, I retrieved it... and left my camera, with memory card, at the studio. Now I have the internet and the power, but no pics or camera. But wait! I have my old crappy camera! So I took some more pics with it. No studio pics, but some of the house. Here ya go!

The Dining Room - only place I get wireless signal


Living Room - Check out the plants! Thomas (the guy we rent from) owns a construction company and remodels houses and such. He also gardens a lot. I'll have to show backyard sometime...


Next 2 are kitchen




Stairs to basement...



Looking out the door at top of stairs



And the bedroom. It's a disaster and we're still unpacking. I have the pirate flag up, though :)





As you can see, the bedroom is actually pretty big. And those basement windows open, and let in a lot of light, so I'm happy.

Arrived in Portland, safe and sound!

This is a quick post. I will add some pics later when I get them off my camera. I forgot the card reader, and have to use internet at a coffee shop to even post, so I probably won't be able to add them until tomorrow.

The house is really nice. Lots of old charm. Also Sarah and I pretty much have the run of the basement, which includes a fairly large bedroom with windows, a large bathroom, and all the storage in the laundry room. Upstairs is really nice, and the backyard is huge with cool raised beds.

The studio is coming along nicely. We're going to be picking out colors to paint it later on. The whole place is mostly unfinished, but that's OK as it means we get to choose the colors. It is rectangular, twice as long as wide. We'll be hanging a fabric partition right down the middle to separate the studio from the office stuff. As such we'll have a studio and office about 20 feet square. It is great, and I can't wait to get studio lights.

Every once in awhile I think that I should be saving money and not have the studio yet, but then I remember that we'd have to rent an extra room if that were the case, for our desks. The studio is only $300/month, which is less than any bedroom. So, this is a killer deal for us. Makes me happy.

I'd write more but the coffee shop closes soon and Sarah still has to check her email. Keep watching for updates and pics!