Las Vegas 10-31 - 11-2-2008

Headed out to Vegas this past weekend. I took friday off and had myself a nice 3 day weekend. I decided to leave at 2:45 in the morning to try to get to Red Rock for the sunrise...We barely made it right as the sun was coming up. The clouds decided to cover up the sun though! It was pretty sad. Still, I took out my camera and attempted to get some decent shots.










Got to the hotel and Kyle did some sleeping while I ran errands and attempted to fix my laptop (which i did successfully). In the evening we met up with Eric for dinner and wandered around the strip for a few hours. We found a restaurant called Bouchon, which was recommended to us by our mom. It's a nice little french bistro.









The next day we actually had brunch and dinner at Bouchon. It was quite delicious. I had Sturgeon and Kyle had toast for brunch. For dinner I ate the duck breast wrapped in cabbage and bacon and Kyle at the muscles.











In between we went to Kyle's friend's wedding at the Exalibur Wedding Chapel...it was a cute little wedding. I hadn't met either one of them prior to the wedding, but they seemed like good people. They're starting their new life together out in Texas. I wish them the best!













To View all of the pictures I have posted online - CLICK HERE -










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SF Shooting with Cousin Timmy

Went up north this past weekend. It was a good time hanging with family. Saturday morning I drove down to Half Moon Bay to go to the Pumpkin festival. The original plan was to meet up with Tim around 1 and take some shots at Pescadero, but traffic was really bad. I met up with Kevin and Joie at the festival and we waited for Will "the thrill" Clark to come around for the parade. Will is Kevin's all time baseball hero, so he was dang excited. Before the parade he kept on pacing up and down the street with his baseball in hand hoping for an autograph. Long story short, we found out from a security guard that he was not going to sign any autographs at all. This was the only reason why they had gone down to the festival, so Kevin still had his hopes up. We waited at the beginning of the parade to see what would happen.



When he passed by on the car, he had security guards surrounding the car so no one could rush him. Once he passed Kevin walked over to where the parade would end which was just a block away. When he turned the last corner we saw that people were going up to him for autographs. Kevin got all excited and ran up to the car with Joie not too far behind him. Quickly trying to get his ball and book in front of Will's hands so he would grab at it he had no luck and the car kept going. That lasted for about a minute and then there were no people left, so the car began to speed up. Kevin started to look like his life was over...



all hope was lost and he started to slow down thinking that he had come all this way and his hero had not come through for him. I was always about 15 feet away from the car and was now walking behind it. I decided to yell out "One more will!" and the Security guard looked at will and said, "Sign it for this guy, he's been following you since the beginning of the parade". So the car slowed down and Kevin smile lit up again and they ran to the car and got an autograph on the ball and the book.








My next stop was meeting up with Tim who decided not to drive out to HMB because the traffic was too bad. Instead I met him about 30 minutes outside of the town.



We headed to my house for a quick lunch and started our day of shooting. Our first stop was our cousin Becky's soccer game. Apparently they don't keep score anymore in little league. They just play for fun. What up with that?! Doesn't make sense to me. When we got to the field, the game had already started and Becky was already on the sideline. She kept getting excited and wanting to play, so she would run onto the field and the coach would have to yell at her to get back. We tried to get different angles from the field.






Our main subject for the day was the Golden Gate Bridge. We spent a big chunk of time trying to get some good shots at different places. Our first shot was not the greatest place to stop, so we only stayed there for about 5 minutes while taking some quick snappy snaps...







Our next stop was China Beach. I guess this is a pretty famous spot for photographers. There were multiple photo shoots going on while we were down there.
















Then I met up with my family for some dinner on pier 1 1/2. The restaurant was a Peruvian restaurant called La Mar. It was quite delicious.





Tim went to go eat with him mom and Yumi who were in the city with his Grandma, so we met up aftewards and went to vista point (the last exit before crossing the bridge). Here I shot my HDR photos. I think only one of them turned out well, but it was fun anways. Hard to get good shots when it's windy and I have a cheap tripod. We thugged it up for the camera.



This HDR consists of 10 different exposures.



Our last stop was Treasure Island. We would have liked to have stayed there longer, but it was extremely windy and cold. It was great though because it was a vey clear day and you could see all of downtown and the Bay Bridge.






And that was my Saturday. Spent Saturday night at Tim's new house and went to his church on Sunday before headed back to my parents and heading home. I'd say it was a very good trip!


This is pretty much most of my pictures, but if you would like to see all of them CLICK HERE

Mexico Fun Ride

Our second annual fun ride down in Mexico. This is a ride that starts in Rosarito and ends in Ensenada. Last year it was just Randall and myself. This year Ted and Howard decided to join us. We stayed at shannon's house on Friday night down in SD. We woke up at 5:30 in the morning to arrive at the bus station at 6:30. The bus departed at 7:30 and we arrived in Rosarito at 9. We proceeded to the start line and Ted and Howard went to pick up their race numbers. All started well. We actually started towards the front this time, so we didn't have to wait very long to actually start riding. I began my stop watch once we crossed the start line and we were off.


The morning was foggy with a slight wind. We all stuck together for about 5 minutes and then Howard fell back, so it was going to be Randall, Ted, and myself for the race.

About 16 minutes into the ride I see Randall pull over to the side of the road and slow down. I wasn't sure if he was just checking something or if something had fallen of, so I took a quick scan of his bike as I passed by. I quickly saw that his rear tire was flat. We all stopped and helped Randall get his tire fixed. We pulled out the spare tube and started installing it. After it had been fully inflated Randall attempted to pull off the pump and the seal came out with it and the tube deflated. We then tried to repair his blown tube. Since he had it a deep pothole he had 2 punctures in his tube side by side. We decided to patch it with 2 patches. Unfortunately when we went to pump it up it wasn't holding air, so we again had to take the tube out and then try it with just one patch. We got it on and pumped up the tired. Then, once again when Randall pulled out the pump (this time we we using Ted's pump instead of mine), pop. The seal broke off his second tube. We were out of tubes now and only 3 or 4 miles into the ride. We had already told Howard to keep going since we would probably be able to catch up to him. This was a good 30 minutes ago, so he was long gone. A vehicle passed us and told us that there would be a truck following the last person and would be able to pick him up and maybe give him a ride to the next check point where he could get another tube and continue the ride.

Ted and I continued on the ride. We rode together past the first checkpoint. It was nice to have someone to ride with. I had stopped my watch while we were with Randall and started it up when we continued riding. Somewhere between the first checkpoint and the first downhill I began to inch away from Ted. I was about a mile from the first hill when I passed by Howard. It was on a downhill and I was traveling substantially faster than him, so I was only able to say a quck hi as a passed by. Now I was for sure alone and the hill was about to start. I remembered it being long, but it seemed longer than I had remembered. My goal for the whole ride was to not walk at all. I made it. At the end of the 2 mile hill there was the halfway checkpoint. The whole middle of the ride is a little flat and a lot of uphill. It was hot and very tiring. Of course once the hills were done, there was an 8 mile downhill where i'm pretty sure I hit speeds up to the high 30s. From there I came back to the coast and rode along the highway for a good half an hour until I hit the finish line. It took me 3 hours and 45 minutes to finish the race which would give me an average of 13.3 mph. I beat my last years time by about an hour and a half. Surprisingly I wasn't even as tired as last year and my legs didn't cramp up at all! At the finish line I waited about 35 minutes for Ted to arrive. We all eventually made it to the finish line. The final results were

Me - 3 hrs 45 minutes
Randall - 3 hrs 50sih minuts (we found out later that he took a cab back to the start line, fixed his tire and started over again)
Ted - 4 hrs 20 minutes
Howard - 5 hrs 30 minutes.

Everyone had a good ride and a good time. It's shame that this was the last Mexico ride. Maybe it'll start up again.

Took a few pictures while on the ride as well as some video.

Enjoy!

Documented Video of the Day

Seattle September 11-15, 2008

Had my first trip out to Seattle. It was a great time. I'll try to make the writing short.

Thursday - Leave house at 5am and arrive at my hostel around 1130. Walk down to Space Needle/Pacific Science Center/Ride the Ducks of Seattle Tour.


PSC - Imax on beavers - learned that beavers are freakin' awesome! went to Planetarium and saw some dinosaurs....


Ride the Ducks - 30 minute tour on land, 60 minute tour on Lake Union

Space Needle - bought 2 time pass (was only $4 extra) went up and hung out there for a few hrs getting some good night shots.






Walked back to Hostel and met up with April and Marsha around 11 when they arrived.

Friday

morning - Woke up and had some Breakfast

Underground Tour - Walked over to Pioneer Square for the Underground Tour - a good history of Seattle

Back up to Pike Place Market for a late lunch

Walked down to Space Needle again and hung out there till sunset - Some guy proposed right next to me during a tour up top.



Met up with Tim and Brenda and had dinner at Serious Pie - some of the greatest pizza I've ever had.

After dinner we walked back to the hostel and I grabbed my stuff to go home with Tim and Brenda. April and Marsha stayed at the hostel and spent saturday wandering around downtown Seattle (I hear they spent 3 hrs at Macy's)

Saturday

Woke up early in the morning and headed out for a hike to Snow Lake.






Got home and watched the Notre Dame game (Tim's a huge fan) and then just rested at the house for the afternoon. Brenda make some home grown dinner - blue scalloped potatoes, zucchini, cucumber...it was delicious! Then we played some Mexican dominos and called it a night.




Sunday

Woke up and Tim and Brenda drove me to the bus station where I caught a bus and headed back into downtown.

Went to the Aquarium for a few hrs


Then I went on a boat tour of the harbor. During the cruise the Seahawks games started and the fighter jets flew over after the national anthem. I got to see it from the boat.




Met back up with April and Marsha and we went to the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum. the EMP was aweseome. Saw Jimmy Hendrix's first guitars and learned how Martin and Gibson got started along with their first model guitars. The SFM was also fun.




April and Marsha left for the airport around 630 and I went back and took another nap until 930 at night. Woke up and got a few night shots before going to bed.



Took an HDR shot of the First Starbucks



Monday

Woke up early on Monday and had some breakfast and walked around Pike Place Market for a little while getting some shots. Went inside the Starbucks and got some shots.








Around 11:15 I met up with Tim and his coworker. Tim worked just a few blocks from my hostel. We had some good Thai food.



After lunch I walked another mile and ended up at the Qwest/Safeco Field. From there I caught the bus back to the airport and flew homw.








For more pics CLICK HERE