Time for some fun!

So, my life isn’t all that incredibly fascinating. Aside from the work, my wife’s amazing treats; doing some graphic design for my wife’s site; planning stuff for my mom’s site, which will hopefully soon be launching completely on diannegamblin.com (more on that to come in the future); going out shopping with my wife; and taking pictures with my brand new camera my life has been pretty chock full of entertainment. So I just want to provide a little insight into my life:

• I went to the emergency room at the Kaiser Santa Clara Homestead facility in Santa Clara, CA on Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. I woke up to an extreme pain in my lower right side of my abdomen, and finally went to the ER at about 3. It turned out to be my 3rd kidney stone in the last few years. I got some wonderful pain killers, a CT scan, an EKG and 2.5 hours in the ER. I got pain killers very quickly (from what my wife told me) and was treated right away. All this for a small co pay. I do love my health insurance. Note: I am now the number one producer of kidney stones in my complete extended family. I have another 3 in there, according to my CT scan. So get ready for some more kidney-related fun!
• I will be going to Salt Lake City, Utah on Monday for an engagement for work. I’ll be there for 4 days and get to spend some time with my sister and possibly catch a haunted forest or house or something fun like that. My sister and I are the only ones willing to go check those out these days.
• We love our camera. Check out some pictures.

    

I do love picture taking. I found this quote from Elliott Erwin on a website:

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

You can also check out my wife’s blog for some more pictures. I do all of her food pics!

I hope everyone is doing wonderfully out in the blog world. Remember to leave me a comment and let me know you were here! Until next time.

I Finally Got It!

What is it? It is the Canon Rebel T1i, or 500D for those in the UK (though I don’t have any readers across the pond). It’s my birthday present, and something I’ve been waiting on for some time. I’m so excited to have the camera and look forward to using it to take many different pictures. I also got the Canon EF-S 55-200 mm IS telephoto zoom lens to go with it. I additionally got a great camera bag to go with it. Both the lens and the bag came from my parents. It’s so exciting to me to have the camera and be able to take some great pictures. I’m a nerd, as those who read this site are fully aware, and that extends to things beyond just computers. I really do enjoy photography, as some might have noticed, and I am so grateful to have something that can grow with me and help to take even more fantastic photos. It’s amazing. I’ll share some examples here, but first let me give you a quick review of the camera.

Note: All photos of the body and buttons are from DPReview. It’s the BEST camera review site. However, all sample photos were taken by me!

Handling

The camera is a large camera, as most are aware. The dSLR systems are typically larger, and feature large screens on the back and weight significantly more than any point and shoot that you can purchase. That’s why the gadget bag was so important for me.

However, handling is about how it feels in the hands, and how the  buttons are laid out. The camera has a fantastic screen on the back which is where you primarily find the details of the settings and the potential to review your photos after being taken. The buttons are satisfying, and within reach. Also, my hands aren’t huge and  therefore it fits nicely in my hands.

Features

Getting top billing on this camera is the inclusion of a HD video mode. It includes 720p video capture at 30fps, or frames per second, (which is about half of what the human eye sees, but what a smooth video typically will run at) and 1080p video at 24fps. It makes the 1080p video mode a little less attractive, as some choppiness is evident. Also, the autofocus in the video mode is slow. Therefore, it’s not quite as amazing as it sounds. However, it looks FANTASTIC when shooting video. You you just have to focus before you start taking the video, pan slowly, and not have something moving back and forth toward the camera. Otherwise it’s great.

Additionally, it features 3.5 frames per second shooting with unlimited frames shooting in jpg mode, great color reproduction, 15.1 megapixels, RAW capable, DIGIC 4 processor, and support for high capacity SD cards. It’s really a wonderful feature set, and more than worth the entry cost.

Picture Quality

After all, it’s all about the pictures in the end. The picture quality is seriously amazing. Stepping up from a point-and-shoot camera, the detail and color reproduction is outstanding. Being able to focus close in, blur backgrounds, open my shutter speed and do all kinds of other amazing things that simply can’t be done with other cameras blows my mind. If you don’t believe me, check out the photos:

There are plenty more photos coming later, but that’s just a smattering of some of my favorites. Check out my Facebook page or a new page that I’ll be making on Flickr. I’ll update that later.

Conclusion: An AMAZING camera for an entry level photographer. It’s expensive, but ever so worth it. If you love photography and want to step up, it’s a great value proposition and won’t let you down.

What do you guys think? Know of any good photography spots around San Jose? And hey, I’m willing to take pictures for anyone that would like some pictures!

Birthday Commentary

Hello out there.

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog recently. I've been in Austin, TX For the last three weeks. That's right, almost a month sitting out there in Texas for an audit. It was a good experience. Worked with a lot of great people, learned a lot about the audit process, and feel better. However, after a 3.5 hour wait sitting on the plane which was sitting on the tarmac, a sprint to make my connection, and a 3 hour flight home, I now can blog from the comfort of my living room and sleep in my own bed. It's so nice to be home, and I'm glad that I have the chance to be in California. Texas was not a bad place, but it just isn't for me. Crazy thunderstorms including rain out of nowhere; 70 days over 100 degrees with 75% humidity and plenty of more features make me happy to be in San Jose, CA.

Anyway, it's been a good day so far. I woke up early (I'm still on Texas time) and turned on the A's game. It's been good. I know my wife has plenty more planned for the rest of the day, and I'm looking forward to it. I don't know what's going on, but that makes it all the more exciting.

I know that my birthday present is the Canon T1i. I don't know how many of you know, but I'm an avid photographer. I love taking pictures. It's really just a good outlet for the creativity that I have flowing through my blood. I'm not an artsy person, but I have a prett good eye for photos. So, I'm super excited to get my DSLR and learn how to take even better pictures. I can't wait to take food pictures for my wife, who has a new blog, and help to make her a famous goody-making woman. Trust me, her treats are well worth it. And I look forward to taking pictures of people, scenery, and all kinds of other things. It's exciting to me to be able to afford something like the camera and enjoy it. I can't wait ... but I have to wait a few more days.

Other than that, I don't know much, but I'm excited to find out.

Anyway, I'll leave you all with some fantastic photos of my trip to Austin, and hope that everyone is doing well. I have some tech news to run over soon. Lots of stuff has been happening, and I'd like to opine. So, sorry, but you get some tech posts coming soon!

Here are some pics:

Lindsay's b-day dinner at The Melting Pot in Austin, TX.

Our dessert at The Melting Pot.
My wife at the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Museum at the University of Texas. We had lots of fun.
Museum Again. Just taking a pic together.

A picture my wife took at the Texas State Capital.

My wife amazed at the huge McKinney Falls at McKinney State Park. Yes, that's supposed to be a waterfall. I guess there's a drought. Sad.

Just about to drop my wife off at the airport so she can head home. Yes, I do look terrible.

Drop me a line and let me know you were here. See you all soon.

WE'RE GOING TO WICKED TOMORROW!

We're super, super excited.

That is all.

Children ...

Hello fond blogging world.

I know that I have launched a particularly long absence on my poor reading public recently. While that may be a very small minority of individuals in this world, I have been getting a few requests to get something out there to provide a few minutes of entertainment to those who happen to occupy some work moments with reading my little blog. So, here I am. Saturday night. Looking over some stuff on my wife's computer and looking at the house. The house has three little specialty beds set up in various parts of the living room. We have cupcakes in the oven. I'm a touch sunburned from being outside at the park today. I'm exhausted, but not because I've been doing anything particularly strenuous. Nope. I'm just babysitting. Now, some of you may not take pity on my lovely wife and me for a simple matter like babysitting. Some may scoff and think that it can't possibly be that tiring. You, my dear reader, would be wrong. Going from no children to 3 overnight is nothing to laugh at. Obtaining children that are 8, 7 and 5 overnight ... that is a lot harder than it might sound.

So we've spent the day at the park, trying to pick out a game at Target, and watching more episodes of The Legend of Zelda TV show than I ever thought I would see in my life. I ate frozen french fries and chicken nuggets last night, something I haven't done since my days as a college bachelor. Our life has been flipped on its head, as we go to bed at 9:00, beat from the day of keeping siblings from attacking and punishing each other for being on their side of the seat in the car. We've averted near disastrous cheating at hide-and-go-seek, and managed to entertain and impress with our small, but useful 1-bedroom living space.

It's been a crazy weekend so far, and there are still two more days to go.

I think we might have found the best form of birth control.

Opportunities

#1: Yesterday, I received a phone call from a co worker and friend that I worked with for the first 2 months of my job. She called me to ask if I wanted to come back and work on a client with her in San Francisco. The opportunity would actually be to come work with her on a lot of her clients as the advisory staff who work on those clients all tend to move between them. They are a lot of advisory clients within the SF bay area. I was surprised to hear from her. It was really a fantastic opportunity and one that took a lot of thought and analysis. The clients that she has provide the opportunity for potential international travel to Germany, England, France and other countries. It is the opportunity to do real advisory work, including internal audit and data analytics opportunities that are potentially in the pipeline. It's exciting. I decided to take advantage of it, and will be moving most of my time to work exclusively for this partner and the team. It's very exciting and I'm looking forward to being able to work with this team. It'll mean more responsibility and potentialy some demanding projects. But that, my friends, is what I need out of my work.

#2: I recently had the opportunity to drive into San Francisco again. It reminds me of how beautiful and fantastic it is to live in the SF bay area. Living just 45 minutes south of a famous city, having a job, and being able to call this fantastic weather my home is yet another wonderful thing.

#3: I recently had the opportunity to apend the weekend with my wife at my parent's house. We were actually alone, as my parents had taken residence at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas (in a 1400 sq. ft. suite, but that's another story) so we adopted their home and took care of Rubi for a couple days. We heated up the pool, went for a swim, laid out (Lindsay has the burns to prove it), ate at Tex Wasabi's. I got the smoked pork ribs, and Linds got the "hulk" sushi roll. Yup. Southern barbeque and sushi. It's Guy Fieri's restaurant, and it's wonderful. If you find yourself in Santa Rosa, check it out.

Just remember, if you have opportunities in this life, no matter how small (#2), how large (#1), or how fun (#3), take advantage of all of them. Life's wonderful. It's hard sometimes, but it will all make sense in the end.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the "Not-so-Lame"

Time for a movie review. And this is one that I've been looking forward to all summer. Well, even all year: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. That's right. The blockbuster sequel to one of the more fun movies of a couple years ago has arrived and it stormed into theaters. It's riding very low on Rotten Tomatoes right now (20% Fresh), but what do the laymen think of the movie? Being one of those every day people, I'd like to throw in my two cents. I'm going to try to stay as spoiler free as possible.

The movie opens with a great battle, and then starts the plot forward with a few uttered words near the end of the battle. We find out that man and machine have a tenuous alliance but that not everyone is happy about that. The story then focuses on everyone's favorite fast-talking dude Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) and his trip out to college. Of course, his college is full of basically the most beautiful people ever in the world, but that is short lived as he loses his mind during one of the classes. That truly sets the story in motion as he charges across the world trying to figure out what the symbols in his head mean and why Megatron wants them. That's about as close to the plot as I can come. It's not overly complicated, but it does violate the "show not tell" policy that movies should adhere to during a lengthy exposition of what's going on. I'll break it down:

Plot: While not the movie's strong point, the plot is serviceable. We are talking about alien robots that come from a planet full of alien robots, after all. The plot serves to get the characters where they need to be, although I wish that the final action scene had taken place somewhere more impressive than where it was staged. I was a little sad about that. Likewise, I wish that they had spent just a touch more time to develop the story and why it's so important rather than wasting time on some lame jokes that were present all throughout the movie. Unfortunately, the comedy seems to be aimed at 13 year-olds. It's very juvenile, but I did find myself laughing at times. I'm afraid of what that says about me. Overall, The plot is definitely a weak point, so I say 5/10.

Acting: I don't think anyone is going to be blown away by the acting. They are playing exactly the roles that you expect them to play, and they are exactly the roles from the first one as well. Sam is the same fast-talking charmer, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) is quite literally just there to be exploited. She runs a lot in slow motion, and her lips have to be fake. Agent Simmons (John Turturro) makes his return as Agent Simmons. I do wish that he wasn't played strictly for jokes. I think that he could be a reasonable character if he wasn't just there to take off his pants once or do some other ridiculous stuff. There's another guy, Sam's roommate, who played another annoying character just there for laughs, but honestly, I never expected Oscar-worth performances here. Overall, a 6/10 for acting because everyone does their job.

Action: There is some amazing action in this movie. There's a fight in the forest that everyone is talking about, and for good reason. The end action scene is good, if a bit incomprehensible. The opening act is pretty awesome as well. Seriously. Just remember the phrase "air drop". That moment is so incredibly cool. But I did find myself missing some action in the middle. After the fight scene in the forest, the action dies out for awhile. If there was a better developed plot, this wouldn't have been much of an issue. However, as discussed, that's a problem, so I did get bored for a bit in the middle. Overall, however, the action and special effects are to notch, 8/10.

Overall: This is far from a movie that I hated. While I won't laud over it because it has too many weak points, and about 40 minutes could have (and should have) been eliminated from the middle, I found it to be great escapist, summer entertainment. Things blew up. Characters were in peril. And ultimately, I really enjoy the action of the Transformers. I'm going to give it a final of 7/10 and tell you to go and see it, as long as you do it in a nice theater to take advantage of the good projection equipment and the large screen. I don't think you'll regret it.

Side Note: There are some kind of crazy stereotypes in this movie. And there's a lot of robo-leg humping. You've been warned.

What did you guys think?