Thursday, March 31, 2011

NIT Champions

Congratulations to the Wichita State Shockers on their NIT Championship!  When I was in college I wished every year that the team would be good enough for post-season play but unfortunately I was never that lucky.  I continued following the team after I graduated - going to the MVC tournament every year and home games whenever I could.  But they were still never good enough for post season play. 

It would have been fantastic to be in NYC with other Shocker fans for this game.  Maybe next year I'll be able to follow them in the NCAA tourney.  Here's to hoping!

Go Shox!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Australian Grand Prix 2011

This past weekend, HA and I and some friends all headed down to Melbourne (pronounced Melbin) to watch the Formula 1 opening race - the Australian Grand Prix.  HA and I went last year with our friend Clarkie but had horrible General Admission tickets where we couldn't see anything.  I told HA if I was to go again this year, we needed to get better tickets.  So, HA worked with our friends Max and Mack to buy seats in the grandstand at turns 1 and 2.  They were tickets for the entire weekend (Thurs to Sun) so we got to see lots of events.

The weekend started with us heading out to the track on Friday to watch practice sessions 1 and 2 (yes practice sessions).  When I packed for the weekend, I based my clothing options off of the Iphone weather app which said it was going to be 65 and sunny.  Well, Iphone lied.  It might have been 65 but it was definitely not sunny.  It was overcast, rainy, and windy.  In other words, miserable and I didn't bring a jacket.  HA and I ended up buying jackets to keep warm and I ended up buying a hat as well.

It was so cold that HA and MayDay had to keep each other warm.


Saturday we had a practice session and qualifying on the agenda.  Again, the weather was miserable.  I nearly went home from the cold.  There were women walking around in shorts and dresses - I'm not sure how they dealt with the weather.  The best part of Saturday was that we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant that's only located in Melbourne called Taco Bills.  We went last year and really enjoyed it.  Dinner was fantastic - some of the best homemade flauta's I've ever had - and the margarita's and tequila were flowing. 


Fish bowl margaritas and tequila shots
The restaurant also handed out mustaches for everyone which lead to quite a bit of entertainment.  In case you're wondering - the sombrero's were included with the purchase of the fish bowl margaritas.

Mr and Mrs MacK
On the way out of the restaurant, they offered to let us have a pinata.  Due to the number of margaritas and tequila shots I partook of, I cannot remember the exact situation, but apparently, I wanted to take the pinata home rather than beating it senseless.  The restaurant agreed and thus, JabberJaws joined our crew.  He was named after a cartoon I watched as a kid even though no one else had ever seen this cartoon.  JabberJaws lived up to his sharkly nature by attacking everyone.



Thus ended our Saturday which led to a nice long sleep in on Sunday.  Sunday was race day but thankfully the race didn't start until 5pm so we had a good portion of the day to recover from the previous night.  The race was relatively uneventful.  There were no major crashes and the guy that started the race in first place ended up winning.  The Australian driver, Mark Webber, finished in fifth place which was quite a disappointment and to top it off, he didn't do his final lap around the track.  There's a debate on whether or not it was an issue with his car or if he was being a sore loser.

Cars entering turn 1 on race day
JabberJaws didn't make it to the race - he was recovering from the night before.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Engagement Session

While I was home last week, my sister asked me to take some pictures of her and her financee.  They had had some engagement pictures done right after he proposed but they were the standard studio pictures and JP wanted something a bit different.

I'm taking on this photography stuff and I do quite like it.  Up to this point, I hadn't done much in the way of choregraphing shots.  There were a couple that I did for the Project 52 (which I am totally behind on) but otherwise, I prefer to take candid shots.

To prepare for the "session" with JP and BL, I looked through the websites of photographers that I particularly like.  The website I spent the most time on is a woman that I worked with in Kansas City who has now become a full time photographer.  I absolutely love her work.  Please go check her out - http://www.jamiemillerimages.com/.  I downloaded some of the pictures with poses that I particularly liked so I could use them for reference.

I had hoped to take the pictures in CO Springs so that we could get an urban feel to them.  Unfortunately, JP and BL had to work and so we had very little sunlight between when they got off work and when the sun went down.  Given our time constraints, we decided to just do the "session" at my mom and dad's house.  This meant I had to go back to my research and look for poses that were outdoors and a bit more "country".

When they finally got to the house, we immediately went outside and got started.  We had a bit of trouble in that JP kept laughing...like laughing laughing.  She couldn't just give me a pretty smile.  I set them up in a few poses and got some shots but I was feeling very uncomfortable with the whole process.  I wasn't real sure what to do. 

After about 20 minutes, I had gotten a bunch pictures and headed inside.  We reviewed them with Mom and she decided we needed more pictures.  So we grabbed my laptop, which had my "posing guide" and headed back outside.  I made Mom come with me this time to help we setup up the shots.  We spent a bit more time outside and got a bunch more shots and had a few laughs as well.

I've done a bit of post-processing on some of the pictures and thought I would share them with you.  Hope you enjoy them!

J&B Engagement

J&B Engagement

J&B Engagement