I thought I'd embed a few here, both to awe my readers, and to keep a quick link for myself.

5D mark II clips from Lucasberg on Vimeo.

test 5d mark II - "crime" shoot from Hot Rod on Vimeo.

Christina on 5d Mark II from Barry Goyette on Vimeo.

Kevin, with Saxophone

Rock-Collecting

Parasurfing

So that's a start. Feel free to leave me feedback. These were shot with different cameras (RebelXT and G3, I believe), and none of them in the ultra-flexible RAW format. I'm going to start shooting in RAW from now on, as I've seen that it handles these sorts of digital post-processing much better.

So today I did a little research and found a well-reviewed book called The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter) by Scott Kelby. I figured that I had a few errands to run today, so I'd swing by the nearby Barnes and Noble to pickup a copy. I looked online and found the price (around $35) and then called to verify that they had it in stock.

Silly me for not asking for a price check.

I drove to the nearby town of Woodinville to grab my copy, went to the cashier, and was all ready to pay when the lady said "That will be $49..."-something-something. I don't remember the exact amount. Now, I'm not that great at math, but I know enough to figure out that $35 + tax ≠ $49. I leaned over to double-check that it was the correct book, and indeed it was. I asked her to confirm the price and she told me it was $44. Hmmm. She asked if I saw the book online, and I responded in the positive. She then informed me that their online prices were different than in-store. Hmmmmmmm.

So, if I went online, ordered the book on there (even selecting the "Pickup at Store" option), the price would be almost $10 less? How does that make sense at all? It's deceptive, and bad business-practice, and I believe it's similar to what got Best Buy in trouble a little while back. The cashier even looked up the price online and saw it was lower. But when I asked if I could get that reduced pricing, she shook her head. No deal.

I had to think about it for a moment. Normally, I'd just shrug it off and buy it. But money is tight, and those extra bucks are really worth something to me now. So I informed her that I was sorry for the inconvenience, but I was going to pass on the purchase. Fueled by anger, I went to my car and pulled up the Amazon app on my iPhone and found the book. It was listed at $29, or SIX DOLLARS LESS than the online B&N price, and a whopping $15 less than their insulting "in-store" price. Added to cart. Ordered. All told (tax & shipping), I got it for less than B&N's online price.

Some of you may know that I've been into photography for a few years now. I went from a film SLR to a digital point-n-shoot (Canon G3), a Lomo, a smaller point-n-shoot, and eventually up to my Canon Digital SLR (350D, Rebel XT) with a few different lenses.

I had a lot of fun shooting and getting pleasing images (pleasing to me, anyways). But I hit a roadblock, for some reason. Maybe it was moving up to Seattle or getting Zippy or something. I was staying inside more - a bigger problem in itself - and wasn't really producing images that I found to be appealing at all. And when I did manage to take a photo where, for instance, the composition was excellent, I'd be bummed out when, on loading to the bigger screen of the computer, I'd see how blurry it actually was. That happened a lot. So, after awhile, I just didn't grab for my camera anymore.

I've been feeling the excitement again, though. This is always spurred on by something outside of myself. In this case it was watching (on someone's blog) a tutorial of sorts, a walkthrough of Adobe's Lightroom 2 software and some of the advantages of shooting in RAW vs. JPEG.

I'll spare you the geeky details, but things just started to fall into place for me. And I started really looking at photos of other people, identifying what I liked and digging to see what tools were used to create the images. My camera's not amazing, but it's totally more than enough for me. My small lens collection is really quite adequate. I really don't have the kind of expendable dough to go buying "good glass" right now, anyways. That would be silly.

Lightroom 2 was first on my list. I had heard about it, but really didn't understand what it was used for until I actually saw the interface and watched someone use it (that's how I learn best). It would certainly beat the pants off iPhoto for post-processing. Hands down. But it was around $300. So I added that to my mental wishlist and tried to put it out of my mind.

Around the same time, I started to think about external flashes. I didn't know much about external flashes, but I did know that the internal flash on my camera sucked bigtime and was impractical for almost every situation I find myself shooting in. I remembered seeing the Canon Speedlite 430EX mentioned occasionally on Flickr or what have you, and I went and looked at what it might cost. I did a quick look-up on B&H Photo, and they listed it as discontinued. Another search found the Canon Speedlite 430EX II available at a different vendor, at just shy of $300. Again, put it out of my mind.

But then I came across the photos of a fellow Boston Terrier owner (we're in the same Meetup.com group and got our dogs from the same breeder), and I saw the kinds of images I wanted to get of my dog, but just couldn't. Why couldn't I?

Let me add a little side-note about this right here, because I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It is not my intention to acquire a bunch of higher-than-basic consumer-level photo equipment and then spend all my time shooting my dog. That sounds pretty silly. While yes, I will certainly get much enjoyment and practice out of taking photos of him, my main interest is in portraiture. It's my favorite personal style of photography. I love taking portraits of people, animals. But those willing to casually model for me are difficult to find, so I use what's around. Namely, my boyfriend, and my dog. And the dog is easier to cajole.

Back to the fellow BT owner. For one, it looked like she was shooting with an external flash. Also, her photos had coloring that just "popped". And when I noticed a light vignetting around some of her photos, I had a sneaking suspicion - a hunch, really - that she might be using Lightroom. Lastly, the focus and composition of the photos struck me as being from a 50mm lens, a 50mm 1.8, to be specific. Again, a hunch. So I emailed her, complimented her on her photos, and humbly asked about her equipment.

She was using a camera that was a different brand, but comparable to my own. She was, indeed, using the 50mm 1.8 lens. And she was using an external flash comparable to the 430EX II. And she was using Lightroom for post-processing. Ta-da! Adding fuel to the fire, my pretties!

Now my desire for these pricey pieces of equipment was almost overwhelming. But I'm unemployed. But I have a rather large tax refund coming to me. But I'm UNEMPLOYED! But, really, the refund is quite a large sum of money! BUT I'M UNEMPLOYED!! Srsly!!

But then Erik said I should. So I went ahead and did it. I found both items for a really low price, and went for it. I very rarely splurge so irresponsibly like this. I tend to be a saver over a spender. But this unemployment has seriously got me down. It's a really tough job market out there, and if these two purchases will get me outside and excited about something immediately, well, I'll chalk it up as a mental health expense. And besides, it's really a ridiculously-large tax refund. Thanks, first-time home buyer's tax credit!

See, the first thing Zippy does "at bedtime" (Gah! That sounds ridiculous!) is burrow under our sheets. It's a smart move, and we allow the behavior because he acts as a sort of electric blanket. So when he was pushing under my pillow, in the whiny tone I only get while I'm half-asleep, I told him, "No, Zippy, don't go under my pillowwww. Zippy, noooo. Urrrrggghhh."

Eloquent, I know. Well, Erik heard the fuss and came from wherever he was at such an ungodly hour in the morning, and I whiningly explained that The Dog was trying to get under my pillow, much like a child would "explain" to his parents that a sibling had taken his toy. Erik laughed, as he often does when trying any conversation with me while I'm in some weird Beta-state, and corrected me: "No, Zippy's not under your pillow, he's IN your pillow!"

Zippy had managed to, in the clumsiness of sleep, mistake the space between the pillow and its pillow case as his entrance to the bed undercovers. His body was half-underneath my pillow, which was wholly-underneath my head. Through his laughter, Erik managed to exclaim, "Zippy, you're doing it wrong!" *Sigh* I wish we had the opportunity to get a picture.

Me: "Hey, you know these pockets that aren't pockets?" Erik: "Yeah?" Me: "Well they really ARE pockets!"

Me: "I'm all out of whipped cream, so you need to go to the store." Erik: "That's rich."

My life right now is the opposite of hectic, but it's still incredibly stressful. I've been out of work since the middle of October. The job market is completely saturated right now, because there's a record number of people who've also been laid off. It's not a happy time for too many. I consider myself lucky because Erik and I have a good chunk of money in savings, and we can get by for awhile without me having an income. I can't imagine what would happen if we didn't have this buffer. Losing our brand new house might be more than I could bear.

So the bad news is that I'm out of work, but the good news is that I've had the time and distance to better evaluate what I'd like to do with my career. I had been focused on the tv/film industry from high school through just over a year ago, and now that I'm living in an area nearly devoid of that, I've had a bit of an identity crisis. Even before we moved up here, I was contemplating a career change. But I had so much I was interested in... what to choose?

I considered everything from nursing to database administration. I evaluated opportunities based on pay, required schooling, potential schedules, and work environment. Nothing was really holding my interest. Until I sat down and took inventory on my interests. While I'm not exactly studied in any of these, I'm interested in the fields of graphic design, web design, web usage, marketing, computers and technology in general. I've also consistently thought about going back to school and studying psychology, but didn't really have in mind becoming a therapist. The blind should not be leading the blind, there.

A few years back I stumbled across an old classmate's website, and saw that he was working in the field of Usability. It piqued my interest at the time, and I always thought that it was something I'd be good at. But I wasn't really looking at a career change at the time, so I just set it aside. And finally, just a short time ago, it came back and tapped me on the shoulder.

I've decided that I want to go back to school to major in Psychology (Cognitive) with an emphasis on Human-Computer Interaction, or Interaction Design, or Usability... whatever the cool kids are calling it these days. Sure, I have tons of credits from when I went to school around 15 years ago, but I'm sure most of them have expired, so I'll basically be starting from scratch. Also, I don't believe I'll be able to attend school full-time (at least not starting out), so it will be a slow re-entry; perhaps taking a class or two each semester/quarter/etc.

I'm still trying to mentally-prepare myself for the reality that this will take a REALLY. LONG. TIME. I don't have the luxury of being fresh out of high school with all kinds of time and no financial responsibilities. I'm a "real" adult now, and I need to find a job (full-time, most-likely), as I have a mortgage to contribute to. Certainly not helping matters is the fact that I can't wrap my brain around the story of that woman who recently birthed octuplets - she's going to school full-time, living off of student loans, and is a single mother. Gah! Part of me thinks, "If she can do it, why can't I?" Oh yeah, I'm not a selfish, irresponsible person who is taking advantage of the system, that's right!

So yeah, it's an exciting time if for no other reason than I finally feel like I have a direction. It's a long road, but at least I know where to find it on the map.

I scored some pretty interesting transformations with this tool:

"Helga" treatment

"Lolo" treatment
"Cinema" treatment

Then I found out about a second app, Tiltshift by Michael Krause. This allows one to select a certain focus area to accentuate within a photo. Paired with CameraBag, I found this create some really cool-looking images:

Applications like these make me want to spend even more time looking to take interesting photos with my iPhone... and I didn't think I'd ever have much fun with that.

So it's a big thing for me, cooking a Turkey Breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied yams, rolls, some veggies, and pumpkin pie... it's very very intimidating. But I'm going at it full steam. I'm taking a few minutes to relax, rest my feet, and prepare for the scariest aspect of the whole preparation... prepping and roasting the turkey. OMG! I've gotten a lot of tips from friends, and I'm not going to do anything too crazy. Rubbing the bird with butter, Kosher salt, and ground black pepper. Maybe throwing some onions, celery, carrot and lemon in the pan under to add some flavor to the mix. We'll see about that, though.

I'll be checking in here only occasionally, but you'll find updates of the prep and eventual meal (oh geez, will it EVER be done?!?) in this Flickr set.

2) Playing videogames: Fallout 3, Fable II, Lego Batman, Wii Sports. And special mention needs to be made of the New Xbox Experience (NXE). The #1 attribute of this for me (besides the avatar creation which is a fun thing) is the new Netflix streaming: instant access to a lot of tv shows/movies on Netflix - some in HD - that we can now watch on our tv instead of in the office on our computers. First thing yesterday morning I set it up and did a trial run on an episode of 30 Rock, and as it was determining our bandwidth available, it quickly said "Presented in HD", and WOW! Was it ever! It wasn't jerky, there were ZERO hiccups in the stream. And the interface is super-easy to use and it takes all of 5-10 seconds while buffering before program starts to play. It's like magic. The future is here, people!

3) Losing weight: I've been eating really poorly. Since we moved up here, really. Call it a nesting instinct or whatever, but I've seen a sizeable weight gain recently, and decided to nip it in the bud and really do something about my... my... heft. So two weeks ago I joined Weight Watchers. And I've lost just over 5 pounds so far.

4) Spending time with the dog: Our Boston Terrier, Zippy, is SO SPOILED now that I'm here most of the time. He hates it when I leave the house, and because I've been doing that less often, I fear what he'll go through when I go back to work. But I don't wanna think about that too much right now. He's well-rested and is having so much fun playing during the day.

5) Staying warm: Not too warm, you see, but this is our first winter with a gas furnace, and our last electric/gas bill this month totaled just shy of $200. Now, I don't know if that's good or bad, as I have no historical info on that, but it doesn't bode well with our budget-flexibility over the next few many winter months - especially factoring in my unemployment. While we have double-paned windows through most of the house, our windows are BIG, and our house gets a little drafty. We don't really have the cash reserves to hire an efficiency expert to assess and fix what needs to be done right now (like, while we have double-pane windows, we know that at least two of them have seals that are shot, and they're kinda old), so we'll have to endure any heat-loss and higher usage for the time being. I've been trying to help, but Erik says I absolutely cannot have the heater set at 63º all day.

There've been a few awesome games released just recently, among them two RPGs (role-playing games, for the uninitiated), Fable II and Fallout 3. I had a blast playing Fable II, and finished the main quest after a couple days. But as I mentioned in a recent post, Fallout 3 was the game I have been super-eager to play.

A crisis was averted when, after our pre-order status said it wasn't going to get to us until 3-8 days after the release date, Erik went out to buy a copy in the stores, and return the mailed one when it finally arrives.

So I've been playing through - I've logged about 17 hours on the game so far (I expect to get up to about 200 hours when all is said and done). And then this morning, something terrible happened. The game froze up - which is nothing new, games do freeze up on occasion, just like software applications - but this morning the game repeatedly froze on me. And then, during one of the restarts, the game console showed us the Red Ring of Death, also known as "RRoD". Let me re-phrase that - the INFAMOUS RRoD.

Infamous because it's happened to a LOT of people who own the console. Microsoft has extended the warranty for this problem from 90 days to THREE YEARS because of it. And thankfully, we're still under that warranty period. So we're going to have to pack up our console and send it in for refurbishing. Which is wonderful. But it's going to take around three weeks to get back to us. THREE WEEKS!!!

What am I going to do with all my free time if playing videogames isn't an option?!? I have looked forward to this time off between jobs for SO LONG, so that I could spend time playing the games I was eager to play - but now that has been quashed. I guess I'll be doing a lot of reading. Or I could go outside ;)

"Puppy Love" is the first in a series of webisodes created by former "Sex and the City" writer/producer, Amy B. Harris - each episode a brief, yet telling, glimpse into the lives of "dog lovers and the people who love them". Famke Janssen and her real-life doggie-companion, Licorice, star in this one, and others will include the likes of Martha Plimpton, Ally Sheedy, Dan Hedaya, Alicia Witt, and Kristen Johnson. But of course I know in advance that this one will be the brightest star of the bunch -- unless, of course, there are others that feature a Boston Terrier, as well!

I'm sure Famke was consulted about certain aspects of the script while it was being written - as only a BT owner could know about how adorably GASSY they are (yes, especially after eating chicken)!

In this month's issue of Wired, there's an article about Hulu that shook my memory of it loose, and today I decided to give it a second try, to see what's been added.

After about a half hour spent watching the full SNL VP debate skit that I missed the beginning of last Saturday night, and last night's episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I went to search out what else Hulu had available -- and, OMG, lookee lookee what I found:

Yes, that, my friends, is a full-length episode of Elvira's Movie Macabre from the early 1980's... of which Hulu offers ten. Ten! Here's a list of television episodes they have available to watch, and here's a list of movies they have available to watch (full-length eps and films are indicated with a special icon).

Sure, the Netflix Instant Watch feature is pretty cool, and offers loads more film content, but the reason I'm so excited about Hulu right now is that I don't need to reboot my iMac into Windows Vista -- I can run this straight from my browser.

Time to go watch some more Elvira...

I slowly got out of bed a bit after 9am, as there was one report I needed to create for the boss's boss, and I had a physical therapy appointment that was too late to cancel. I figured, heck, it's just down the street, and I almost always feel invigorated afterwards, so why not?

The morning was pretty chill, and I decided to prepare myself a breakfast burrito - you know, to get some protein into my system. That was nearly an Epic Fail when, as I poured the egg onto the griddle, it spilled out over the front of the stove and onto the floor below. Not fun to cleanup, but I did manage to salvage enough egg to make a small burrito.

After a helpful physical therapy session, I came back home and set myself to the next important task of the day: relaxing. I'm continuing that now. After watching some mindless gossipy drivel on the tv I decided to grab the new Neal Stephenson novel Anathem and see how far I could get into it without stopping to lookup the meaning of a word. It got me at Page One, I kid you not ("amanuensis"? "extramuros"? really?!?).

But all is well, because I'm utterly relaxed: curled up with a blanket and a Boston Terrier on an overstuffed chair, getting into a book, loudly sipping at the remnants of a Slurpee, and listening to the heavy, steady rain come down on the roof and backyard deck. And I'll tell you what, I'm not feeling so sick anymore!

Erik mentioned that I might want to try something called "The Elder Scrolls", and while out on a trip to the local GameStop, I picked up "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", the Game of the Year Edition. I played my share of Mass Effect, sure, but I spent some MAJOR time with Oblivion... well-over a hundred hours, at least. I mean, I managed to get all but one of the achievements (59 out of 60 of them) -- that's just preposterous!

Oblivion really lived up to its name... when you're playing it, there's really not much else you can think about. I remember being at work and just aching to go home to play Oblivion. It became a bit of a competition between me and Erik - to see who could finish the game and get all the achievements first.

And then, I don't remember when, I don't remember how, I learned about "Fallout 3". This is another RPG being produced by the same people who made Oblivion, but this time it takes place not in a medieval-style fantasy world, but in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Washington D.C. Your character is a "vault-dweller" -- born and raised in a large-scale underground bunker, and you're forced out into the wilds of the unprotected fallout zone in an effort to find your father, who has left the "vault" just as the game begins.

The gameplay looks startlingly (and tantalizingly) similar to that of Oblivion, but it takes that style of game which I have recently become so obsessed with, and paired it with a story and setting that hearkens back to one of my own favorite genres: post-apocalyptic sci-fi. It's a recipe for a LOT of fun, and a LOT of time spent at home, in front of the tv, staring at the screen.

Fallout 3 doesn't come out until the end of October, and the wait has been really excruciating. I've been wandering the websites, the fan forums, the game news sites -- all in search of any new info I can get my hands on -- yet trying to refrain from picking up information that might be "spoiler" material. It's a fine line to walk on.

A few weeks ago, Erik and his brother Bryce attended the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a large gaming convention up here in Seattle, and Erik got the chance to get his hands on Fallout 3 for 10 minutes of gameplay. I was hella-jealous, but was indeed happy when he came home at the end of every convention day with new schwag from the game - a vault-dweller's survival guide, a limited edition poster...

...I've got it bad. I want to play this game! The game is released on October 28th, and we've already got our copy pre-ordered online (the Collector's Edition, which comes with a Vault-Boy bobblehead figure, an artwork book, a "Making of..." DVD, and even a Vault-Tec lunchbox!). Recently, a new interactive site came online for the game -- Prepare For The Future (.com)" -- and that's helping me get by, but October 28th can't get here fast enough! My last day at WizKids is October 17th, and I'm eager to find another job to, you know, help pay the mortgage and all -- but I'd be lying if I didn't hope that my next job didn't start until a week or so AFTER the Fallout 3 release. :)

So before then, I will catch up on some reading, try to catch up with my friends and family, give Zippy a lot of playtime -- because who knows how many hours (or days, or weeks, or months) I'll be unavailable!

For now, the countdown continues...

I haven't been terribly compelled to blog over the past couple of months - really not in the past year, it seems. I can't really come up with an adequate or accurate excuse, especially due to all of the exciting things that have happened since this time last year (moving up here, getting a new job, adopting a dog, buying a house, etc.), but saying that it's "because I'm still adjusting to the move from L.A. to Seattle" sounds good.

And I haven't been completely off the radar - I have been micro-blogging, thanks to the lazy-blogger's best friend, Twitter. It's somehow easier to post in quick bursts - especially when I can do it from my ubiquitous iPhone. I was actually pretty averse to Twitter for awhile, but after giving it a shot, I quickly became addicted - even moreso when friends signed up. Now, it's almost a virtual chat-room; SMS without the extra cost.

So what's going on with me? Well, I'll be leaving my job in a few weeks. The company's going through some serious down-sizing to survive in the slow economy. They've been really good to the ones they're letting go of, though.

Everyone had at least a month foreknowledge - most of us longer - we were told at the end of June, so I've known for months now. They've sprung for job-hunt workshops for us, and are providing a pretty decent severance package. I personally can't complain about it. I've been through my share of lay-offs, and this one was the best-handled (in my opinion).

Plus, this gives me the opportunity to go back out into the market and see what else is out there for me. I sort of rushed into employment upon my move up here - I didn't know much about the environment coming up, and was more worried about paying the bills after an expensive move (even with Erik's healthy relocation package, we still managed to spend an atrocious amount of money on getting setup with furnishings and what-have-you). This workplace seemed like an interesting change of pace, and of scale, and of culture - and I'm certainly glad I spent some time here.

So on the job-hunt I go! I've been randomly browsing the internets for job postings over the last few months, but haven't really wanted to exact my search until the last week or two (I don't get my severance unless I stay until mid-October).

It was looking pretty dismal for awhile - the listings didn't inspire - but wouldn't you know? In the past week I've found not one, but three positions that seem perfect for me, in roles that hearken back to my true skills, qualifications, and interests, thank goodness! And to top it off, I have even found a connection to one of those roles from one of my internal clients back at Universal. It's all seeming rather serendipitous at the moment.

It's exciting times like these - when I'm pushed out of my comfort zone in pursuit of goals that ignite my enthusiasm - that I'm really inspired to come on here and shout out to the faceless blogosphere... Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Life is full of new adventures!