The perfect present

I don’t do this that often anymore, but I used to wrap presents for friends and Elisa in a weird/ugly/head-scratching way. Why? Well, why not? I’ve wrapped presents in successively larger boxes – that’s always fun – or just with lots of duct tape so that it’s a real challenge to get open.

A buddy of mine’s birthday was a few weeks ago, and I’m just now getting around to giving him his present. (Hey, he’s been out of town for a while, so be nice – I’m not that much of a jerk.) I decided to wrap it in one of Elisa’s magazines – Lucky, in this case, which you probably guessed from seeing the pic below. I added some duct tape, just for good measure. But in this case, the duct tape is actually alluding to what’s inside. Hint: the color of the duct tape is what matters.

L is for …

LUCIEN! 10 weeks and 1 day to go …

Light glass

I was playing around some tonight with the LED in my phone and one of our household glasses. I like this one.

Poor Mister Hippo

I feel sorry for the toys Jack receives – he loves them so. He gets them, brand new, smelling like some factory in the far East, and he immediately loves them. He loves them in his very own, very specific, frighteningly mechanized way:

Step 1: Prance around the house with new toy in mouth

Step 2: Try to badger human father into getting into a fight over it; if this fails, move to Step 3

Step 3: Upon an unsuccessful battle-to-the-death-over-awesome-new-toy with human father, throw it around on your own for 30 minutes or so

Step 4: Remove awesome-new-toy’s ears

Step 5: Attempt Step 2 again.

Step 6: Remove awesome-new-toy’s tag(s)

Step 7: Remove awesome-new-toy’s nostrils/feet/arms/fingers/eyes/lips/toenails/fake hair … pretty much anything that sticks 1.5mm or more from the overall surface of the main body

Step 8: Attempt Step 2 again.

Step 9: Remove as much stuffing as possible through laparoscopic-sized holes where various extremities were laughingly attached by small children who tried in vain to keep a puppy this awesome out

Step 10: Bring largely deflated carcass of awesome-new-toy to human father and attempt to badger him into throwing it as far as it’ll go so that it can be taught, once more, who’s the boss

Step 11: If human father is otherwise totally disinterested in having a fun-fest with the carcass of  awesome-new-toy, feign needing to go pee outside to see if the cat is around

Poor Mister Hippo.

Salad Nicoise

Elisa is the best. On a day when it was 87 degrees in the house she choose to make salad nicoise. She was all hot and sweaty from cooking, while I tried in vain to beat the opposing team with my worthless Battlefield squad – shame on me. So I took a photo of her beautiful veggies as a tribute to her greatness – but I turned on the a/c first.

Clifton Inn wedding professionals

The wifey and I went to Clifton Inn last night for networking session of all the local Charlottesville area wedding-related professionals. Saw some friends, made some new ones, ate some killer food. All-in-all, a good time. There’s a lot of talent in this town.

Distrusting

Jack gets photographed a lot, and has learned that the focus ‘beep’ (and or focus assist light) means that, in all likelihood, he’s about to get blinded by a flash. Look man … we constantly give you treats like oven roasted turkey breast, all sorts of nice cheeses, incredible $10-per-pound-Organic-Butcher-bacon, and who knows what else. The least you can do is pose now and then for a pic. I’ll even take those totally distrusting eyes.

New hat

We went to Sears yesterday, on a whim, and scored. I’d been needing some new polo’s and t-shirts, but I’m of course choosy. However, at 50% off of the already 20% reduced prices, Land’s End was just what the clothing doctor ordered! So for $50 I got two new polo’s, two new t-shirts, a new oxford button down, and this hat for the wifey. I think it’s cute!

Poor the wifey

I always want to play with the gear, try new stuff, and practice in general – all the time. After work, after sleep, after meals, in the middle of the night … always. I’m way more interested in light than (I should be?) Elisa is, and that’s totally fine, but sometimes I feel like I’m quite the burden. Lately, I’ve become enamored with the fact that Nikon’s high-end cameras have a built-in flash commander mode for the CLS lighting system. This saved me $240 because all I had to buy was a $12 piece that hooks into the hotshoe and now I can control our Speedlites remotely. Like in the new softbox! Very happy stuff, just not great news for the wifey I fear …

The meaning of the word ‘is’ is …

I don’t seriously think people are so interested in my life that they’d keep themselves awake at night wondering why “hubbie branch[ed] out,” but just in case I thought I should set the record straight from the near-beginning.

What this web log is:

– A place for me to post photography-related things, my images, etc.

– A place to, inevitably I’m sure, go way OT

What this web log is not:

– The beginnings of Edward branching out from Elisa B. to do his own photography-related thing/business/whatever. I don’t ever see that happening unless it were to occur because we were trying to break into a new photography-related market (say, product photography) and didn’t want to confuse the brand.