I need one of these...

Plan to buy one of these after I get a real job...

(Don't worry Lish will let me- only rule is she has to be able to drive it when she wants)

~ Chris

Hate "Photos" and "Photogs"!?!

So before I delve in to the finer points of this I was just thinking again of how much I hate the proliferation of the sub-$1000 dSLR camera- that and how ridiculous everybody who owns a Canon Rebel neckstrap is. BTW- don't flaunt it it's not a freaking d series and even then I don't know that I would tout it as all that unless it at least holds a mark moniker (mk II or MkIII). Now before everybody gets in a fit and lynches me you should know where I'm coming from.

dSLR does not equal professional photographer.

B&W is a type of picture that you specifically compose to- NOT a FILTER on photoshop.

Holga is a type of camera with a very artistic value to it- NOT a BOX you click on photoshop.

Oh yeah, and photoshop is to help fix small imperfections and minor adjustments NOT a compensation because you suck at photos.

So why the ridiculous hate? Well see I've had a lot of people that I am connected to get married in the last year or two, as such everybody posts all these photos online - via FB or blog or flckr or you-name-it. Then I see other people gushing about how awesome they are and how they're the best wedding photographer in the world, etc. ad infinitum. This is fine and all, until I start seeing how crappy this stuff is and how much of it is 20 something girls that daddy bought them a camera and they have a macbook Pro so they can charge an arm and a leg and then take these senseless photos, add B&W effects or add a Holga Vignetting and say it's art. It's NOT!!!

I'm not a great photographer, and I don't really like/do well with wedding pictures, but that being said I'm not charging thousands of dollars either. I have shot a total of 3 (?) weddings and I have never done any of it as a pro. It was always as a favor or as an honor to be able to take some pictures for a friends wedding. That being said I am insulted as an enthusiast and friend of multiple professional photographers when I see the crap that is put on FB and flckr. Really you took the dumbest photo and then not only did you make it black and white but then you included the color one so that everyone knows that it's not really a B&W, or maybe you included both the B&W and the sepia tone wash - dear stupid do you even know what a sepia wash is? or how it's done??? (besides the obvious, "Well I click here and it does it- ta da!!")

To me black and white is the best looking form of art there is (now I know I am wrong, but this is my opinion). And to see it corrupted by idiots makes me sick. Think of it this way - most professionals spend years shooting Black and White heck some of them never leave it, but I guarantee you that all of them know how to shoot it. Furthermore, every person who takes a real photo class starts in B&W. This is where you learn the fundamentals, this is where you learn how a darkroom works, keys, tones, pushing, pulling, etc. you learn how to really take a good picture and yet somehow the lack of people knowing the basics seems to make them pros and leads to crap for photos.

If I offended you well I hope you can look past it, if you're really offended lemme know (not that I will do much about it, but maybe we can talk and I can show you what I mean). Otherwise always ask to see a professional's film cameras to know how they're digital stuff is.

Trust me a $500 dSLR is not a camera that you want as the main camera for your wedding- the sensor is too small and it may be 60 megapixels but that number means next to nothing- I know 6MP cameras that outshoot nearly everything else there is.

Chris

Wonderful Day!

So I didn't have high hopes for Disneyland yesterday. Disneyland has recently introduced a monthly payment plan for SoCal residents so the park has been more slammed than usual. When we went on Chris's birthday, we didn't ride a single thing and left about mid-day because there were so many people. So when we pulled up Monday evening and had to park on the ground floor in the parking structure I was worried. Really worried, because that seemed to indicate that all the other floors were full. But much to our dismay...there was hardly anyone in the park. We were able to watch the fireworks while riding Big Thunder Mountain (really cool by the way).
But I didn't dare hope that Tuesday would be as empty as Monday night, and as we waited 25 minutes to get into the parking structure I was not very hopeful.
But as we got to space mountain and the wait said 10 minutes...my hopes started to rise. And when we were able to ride 3 times in 30 minutes life seemed pretty good (besides the fact that I had the day off and got to spend the whole day with Chris). Only bad thing? The ride broke as we were about to get on for the 4th time. I just wish it would have waited 5 more minutes. (It's a life-long goal for Chris and I to see space mountain with the lights on). Oh well.
After space mountain broke, we headed to splash mountain and got there right as it broke down. Then we walked onto pirates, got my birthday gift card and went to eat at the Blue Bayou. By the way, definitely good, but I would save it for a special occasion. After we were done eating the server brought out a chocolate mousse with whipped cream and mickey mouse sprinkles. It was amazing!
Then we decided to head out to avoid getting stuck in traffic on the way home and spent the evening relaxing and trying not to bake.
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!

Follow me, I'm trained to survive this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8206280.stm

So the good news is my years of video game training have made me fully prepared for the inevitable future.

Beat Down

So I had my annual committee meeting yesterday. Didn't go quite as I had hoped for. The good news coming out of all of this is that I am meeting again in three months to finalize my graduation date... that is good. The bad part is i have to really crank it out to ensure that I have good enough data at that meeting that I can sell them on an end-of-the-year/early next year date. We will see. In the mean time I don't think I've ever felt so abused in my whole life as I sat there talking to my committee. I should feel honored that they think what they do about my work and what I can do while I'm still here. Really? Really? Gee I sure do feel honored that you want me to build a second presentation and give it to you in three months. I feel extra honored that you guys can't even decide how much time I need to finish. I have a 2-1-2 split as to whether I'll be done in the next 4 months. 2 say yes, 2 say no, 1 says he can't decide. WOW! Seriously? WOW!

Well no matter what I'm done in 6 months tops but I'm hoping more towards 4- time will tell.

~Chris

Lamentations

Yeah we were so busy on Saturday night that we didn't even take any pictures. The tournament was a success, the stage was rockstar-worthy, the crowd was singing along. It was AWESOME. Too bad about the pictures. My hope is to secure some from some of the "official" cameras, or at least someone else. I also plan to draw up the awesomeness that was the stage. Oh, well. Hopefully there will be other chances to do something similar.

It's time to Rockband Tourney!

So tomorrow night is tourney time. We're helping out with a huge YSA activity (think LA and south) y helping host a HUGE rockband tourney. We'll be sure to take lots of photos and try to get some posted up to the blog. In a worst case secenario we may just do another Picasa album. Anyway I have successfully found the best prizes EVER for our contenders.

How about these:

Amazon

Video in action at:

Gearlog

Yeah they're about the best thing in the whole world. Perfect for the 18-30 year old dedicated enough to win Rockband.

If you guys have any other ideas of things to include in the tourney I'd love to know.

Oh yeah before I forget I got one of THESE to help with the "effect"

Check out the video here.

Btw- for future reference Fog juice is able to be purchased Year Round at Party City (yeah I really had to find Fog Juice).

Cheers

~Chris

Wedding Pics

So if anyone is interested in scrolling through the 600+ pics that Chris took at Tim (Alicia's little bro)'s wedding. Feel free to drop us a message and we'll be happy to send you the link. Keep in mind there are no comments on the pics so you may not recognize most (all) the peeps in the shots, but it's good fun to look at some of the awesome moments frozen in time.

Must have this shirt

Need I say more than the title?

Time to Re-Rock

Yup so 2 bands that we'll be seeing later this fall have released packs of songs on Rockband this week, and it looks to be some must haves for the Larsons. blink-182 and Weezer have both released packs...which makes me wonder: Would these be good songs to have for the YSA conference we're helping with next weekend? Thoughts from the peanut gallery (BTW- YSA=Young Single Adult church group). The songs are:

Weezer- Pork and Beans

My Name is Jonas

Undone (The Sweater Song)

blink-182- Down

Feeling This

The Rock Show

My 2 cents:

My Name is Jonas is my favorite weezer song, but not exactly the rock-a-thon that I come to look for in a good RB song. Down is a kinda slow blink song too. The Rock Show is about as basic pop-punk as you can get which always lends itself to a great play... who knows!?!

Tonight We Music

So the tonight we ride post is kinda misleading as it is still 3 weeks away, that being said tonight for reals we're headed to another wonderful Summer Pops on the Bay concert. Looking forward to some VGL performances and who knows maybe some guest conductors... Anyway they don't allow cameras so no pics, but that being said they don't really check either. Well I'm off to work hard.

Tonight We Ride!

Yeah so it's that time again. What time you may ask? Well time, of course, for the annual Midnight Madness Bike Ride through San Diego. It's coming up on August 15th (that's a Saturday). We're getting stoked and of course not doing anything to be prepared (it's always better that way). So if you're interested in coming out to ride with us let one of the two of us know and we'll get the details squared away. Also if you're from out of town and want to ride with us I'm pretty sure we can put up a few people in the apt for the evening (yes I am epecially directing this to residents of North O-Town). In the mean time I'm gonna have to figure a way to mount the bike racks on to the Yakima Bars... hmm I'm sure I can make this work some how...

~Chris

MIA

For those of you who haven't heard nor seen me much in the last month (year, decade) (and yes this includes my wife some weeks)- I have to say that I wish I was aroud more. I feel like I've been working way too many hours this last year and I don't even have the progress to match. The good and the bad of all this is that I am making inroads toward an end. I am hoping that 6 months is the magic number. After that it's a quest to find a job. I will keep everyone posted but in the mean time if you're really bored and wondering what's new you can always email me as I have lots of meetings and lots of time to respond to email.

Later-

Chris

Buzz...

So while we were at Disneyland this last week I was reminiscing as we were riding the Astroblasters and realized that I never shared my skills on the blog... This is from a while ago when my score actually made the high scoreboard for the day...

New car!

So as some of you may know, about three weeks ago I got into a car accident which ended in a totaled Aveo. Thankfully, I wasn't hurt and it wasn't my fault. So here are some pictures of the new car we got last week. This won't be the final product..the dealership still has to put a spoiler on the back and tint the windows for us, but we finally found everything we wanted (4 doors, manual tranny, sunroof) and got a great deal.

Must Own- NOW!!!

How did I ever survive without one of these:

All I can say is I want that!

~Chris

What happens in Vegas...

Is gonna be shared by everyone as I am proud to announce that we did, in fact, get tix to the U2 show at Sam Boyd Stadium. Even better is that we got GA field tix, meaning I have plans to get some nice up close pix of Bono again. Yeah I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm bragging but I just can't hold it back. I'm going to Vegas to bowl and see my favorite band...WAHOOO!!!!!!!!!

Moving.

So rather than try to call every person separately to tell them I'll just spill the beans here:

We're moving back up to La Jolla, we're hoping that I can get to work faster when I need to, and that we won't have as bad of neighbors this time - thank you idiot that washed a pack of smokes in the washing machine and then dried them too. So yeah if you missed us in Mission Hills, now is the chance to see us in our bigger place up in La Jolla again. Oh yeah and it has a pool, hot tub, and I get a BBQ (Lish said so).

Chris

Down with the Dentist!

So I officially do not like my dentist. I hadn't been in 7 years, so I expected to need some work. But really? Today, while reading a story to my kids at work, my temporary crown fell off. I just don't think that that is supposed to happen. I'm supposed to get my permanent crown next Tuesday, but when I called today to see if they could just put the permanent one on, they said they didn't have it yet. when I originally got the temporary crown, they told me they usually get them in a couple weeks. That was 3 weeks ago and they still don't have it. So now I have to take time off today to get the temporary one back on, then again on Tuesday to get the permanent one. This is all on top of the filling that they did 2 months ago that still hurts when I eat and all of the problems Chris has had. My advice to all of you is to never go to this dentist. He is not good.

It's tour time!

So it's called the 360 degree tour and I'm getting ready to go. That's right U2 is touing again and I can't wait to get my tickets. Oh, yeah for the 5 of you who maybe didn't know - I'm kinda a U2 junkie. In the meantime (Cause the tour is gonna be awhile in the making) I'm just gonna keep on enjoying the new album.

Chris