Best Weekend Ever?

My amazingly awesome weekend is coming to an end and it could be considered one of the best weekends of my life.  Last time I blogged was on Wednesday night and it has been non-stop since then.  Thursday was full of work because I knew I probably wouldn't step inside my office for the next 5 days after.  By the end of the busy day, all I had time for was this quick picture:



Friday began the preparations for the parties so that meant a TON of cleaning around the house and setting up.  Luckily, the day ended with some actual fun as my out of town family started arriving and a bunch of us went out to dinner at Mas, my favorite Mexican restaurant, for some good food and mariachi music.  By the time we got out of there, it was pretty late, and combined with the long day of work, I was exhausted.  Not having taken a picture yet, I got a quick pic of C3PO. 



Saturday was my big party!  Although it was one day early, we celebrated my 33rd birthday in style with our 3rd annual tequila tasting party.  We had somewhere around 30 friends and family show up and between the good company and great authentic Mexican food, we had an amazing time.  And that is not even counting the 13 different tequilas we sampled and rated!  Not even the rain kept a good time from happening.  And once the party was finally over, all the tequila was mine!



Sunday was my actual birthday, but we celebrated by having my sister's baby shower!  Lil' Dude is less than a month away from coming into the world and we are all so excited.  I stayed behind to take pictures of the shower.  Check out the baby carriage my dad made out of fruit!



Still, the day didn't go without some celebration of my birthday.  Jess, my folks, and my cousins accompanied me to Tex Wasabi, one of my favorite restaurants in town.  That made 3 birthday dinners for me in a row!!!

Monday, we continued the fun with lunch with my cousin before they went out of town and then a barbecue at the Matteonis!  Prior to all the fun, I took a few pictures of a Guerrero statue my Grandparents own for my cousin.  Guerrero is their surname and it means warrior in Spanish.  The statue perfectly depicts that and it was fun to take pictures of. 


And today, I guess I could have gone back to work, but Jess was also on her last day off so I opted to have a lazy day on the sofa with her.  I still worked while we watched TV, but didn't get as much done as I could have.  And tomorrow is also the 1st of the month so reality will really come crashing down tomorrow.   Hell, I haven't even taken a picture of the day yet and I am already freaking out about tomorrow.  But I wouldn't trade the fun I had the last few days for the world. 

Oops

Oops, I haven't blogged in almost a week!  I bet you readers were afraid I was taken up in the Rapture, weren't you?  All kidding aside, I had a tremendous amount of fun making fun of the whole situation on Friday and Saturday.  Truthfully, I had zero percent of me that was worried it would happen and that allowed me to have a great deal of amusement.  Late Friday night while partying over at a friends' house, I eagerly counted down the hours until 6PM in New Zealand to witness the failure.  Well, that's not ALL I did.  Brandon and I took out his old Hot Wheels to take pictures.  I took a few, making them look like cars on a showroom floor.  I was pretty happy with them!



Saturday, the Rapture jokes hit full force as time zone by time zone reached the zero hour.  It is actually sad that some people can be so delusional when it comes to certain things.  As my one last Rapture joke of the day, I took a photo pretending to be taken away as I was playing ball with Jess.



On Sunday, while Jess worked, my dad and I put up a bunch of shelves I had been wanting to do as well as some art work that we have had for nearly a year, but never got around to hanging up.  Now that it is up, it looks even more amazing!



Monday was another installment of tequila tasting at Mas, the absolute best deal in town.  Hell, it is probably the best deal in numerous towns.  This month's tequila of choice was the wonderful, Patron.



Nothing really exciting of note the last two days: shopping, working, etc.  That didn't keep me from taking some pictures I am very happy with...





Just counting down now until my big birthday bash on Saturday...

Screwed

May 19th, 2011 - Day 139

I decided this rusty screw on my fence would make a pretty good picture of the day.  The challenge was getting my tripod in a position so that I could get a crisp shot, but being right against the fence proved rather difficult.  I had to open up the tripod ever so slightly so that it was basically standing straight up, but even then. I had to balance one leg on my foot.  Because of that, it isn't quite as crisp as I would want, but I am still fairly happy with it. 

Old Girl

"Old dogs, like old shoes, are comfortable. They might be a bit out of shape and a little worn around the edges, but they fit well."
- Bonnie Wilcox 'Old Dogs, Old Friends'

I felt like Winston was getting too much of the love lately so I took Leia out to the field for some photos today. Here is a vintage looking Leia shot as the sun sets.

 

Little by little, I can see our Leia-Boo getting older and older.  We adopted her about 8 and a half years ago from the SPCA where they estimated her to be about 2 years old.  So this puts her roughly halfway to 11 years old.  She has been the best dog that we could have ever asked for (despite her barking) and it saddens me to see her reaching old age.  Mostly, she just lays and sleeps now, but the addition of Winston to the family has definitely added a little bit of energy to her doggy body.  I don't feel she is anywhere near her final days or even years, but you can definitely see how old she has gotten. 

An Interesting Choice

May 17th, 2011 - Day 137

Saw this little guy today and I ran back inside  to get my camera, crossing my fingers he would still be there.  Thankfully, he was, but that was the easy part.  The hard part was the fact that it was SO windy outside.  Try using your macro to shoot something so small when it is so windy...all you get is blur and I WAS using a tripod.  So yeah, I took over a hundred shots and this was the best that came out.  It is still somewhat blurry and not as crisp as I would like, but I did the best I could with the conditions I was given. 


Truthfully, I never get tired of photographing insects with my macro.  Although flowers might look prettier with the macro, there is something cool about seeing an insect up close.  Hell, I wish I had a better macro so I could get even closer.  For now, what I have works awesome and I wish that there were more interesting insects (outside, of course) that I could photograph around here.  I believe I have done bees, ladybugs, and a fly, but that is about it that I can remember.

But what about you, what do you prefer pictures of - insects or flowers?

Son and Green Moon

Our son ready for bed...



This claw is the bottom part of one of my swords that I own. I thought it was pretty unique and since the ball was green, I went outside and took the picture in front of a tree to give it an additional green tint.

And Back to Reality...

Well, I am back from Disneyland.  Actually, I have been back since Thursday, but have been too busy to process pics and blog.  Seems to be a recurring theme on this blog lately - too busy.  And all this busy-ness has been with the Playstation network down for almost a month.  I am not sure I would have even had time to play video games!

So, anyways, Disneyland was great as always.  It was an awesome time and it truly is my happy place.  I made my Sunday night picture a picture of our packed suitcase.  Can you tell I was excited?



I didn't take many pictures this trip as we had just been to Disneyland a few months prior.  Still, I made sure to get a picture of the day every day that was Disneyland related.






If you want to see a slideshow of all the pics(there aren't too many), click on this link.  I have so pretty flower pictures that I love.

The last few days since my return have been pretty busy with a return to work and real life.  Because of time constraints, a lack of imagination, and procrastination, my last three pictures of the day have been simple macro shots.  Not the most exciting, but still came out decently.





 

Peace Out...

Living for Disneyland tomorrow.  Have to make this a quick one...


Saw Thor at the midnight premier on Thursday night.  It was awesome; loved it.  Right before we left, to get myself in the frame of mind for the film, I took a shot of my Thor bust.  I am really happy with how it came out.


On Friday, Jess and I spent most of the day in the tattoo shop.  I finished up two of my tattoos on my sleeve and did some more work on the third.  The Star Wars one is going to have a little more work done because my guy has some more ideas.  After that, Jess got her tattoo.  Pictures another time though.  While we were there, I saw the figure below and figured he would make a good picture. 




Saturday, I worked all day long to get work under control for the week I am gone on vacation.  Crappy way to spend a Saturday, but I was rewarded with a party that night to watch boxing, complete with some great food and some games of pool. 

Smashed

Both of these things can smash you...





In all seriousness, these are the last two pictures of the day, but it wasn't until I was uploading the second picture that I saw that there was a connection.  Yesterday was a super busy day and when I was finally done around 8 or so, a simple picture like The Hulk toy was all I could manage.  Still, I found it pretty cute.  Today's pic represents what my dad brought home for me from his two week trip to Mexico.  Can't wait to break that new bottle open.  Although, maybe I will keep it unopened to torture him as he really can't wait to try it.  Decisions, decisions...

Summer Movie Preview 2011

As promised, here is your annual Summer movie preview; the time of year where the movies are usually not award-winning or original, but damnit, if you turn your mind off for a second, they can be damn entertaining.  Sure, the occasional critically-acclaimed movie can come out in Summer (Inception, 2010), but usually, these are just for the fun of it.  As usual, I will break down the highlights of the Summer by date, and then at the end, tell you my top 5 anticipated movies.  At the end, you can tell me your top 5 if you wish, too!  Well, the four or five you who still read this blog.  Why didn't I start off the preview with last weekend's Fast Five, arguably the first hit of the season?  I just have a hard time calling an April movie the beginning of Summer movie season.  Just my preference.  Here we go...

May 6th
Thor - Do I need to explain this movie.  God of Thunder?  Next Marvel movie after Iron Man 1 and 2 and Incredible Hulk before they combine them all next Summer in Avengers.  Ring a bell?  It should, because this movie is going to be all kinds of awesome.  Marvel has been on fire since they took over the production rights of some of their characters and I don't expect anything less from this one. 


May 13th
Priest - Looks like an action-packed, post-apocalyptic movie with humans against vampires.  Although I won't be seeing it in the movies, this is a definite watch for me upon video release unless I hear it is downright horrible.  Based on a graphic novel, this might make some dough as it has a bit of a following, but might find the season pretty crammed. 

Bridesmaids - Ok, so I personally think this looks horrible, but I am thinking this could POTENTIALLY be a sleeper hit.  If it gets some buzz and good reviews, I could see women flocking to this movie about hijinks of a bunch of bridesmaids.  Maybe it is trying to be the Hangover for women.  So, it could go either way - MAJOR bomb or sleep hit.  We will see. 

May 20th
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Eh, so is it too soon to release another Pirates movie (and maybe the start of a new trilogy) so soon after the last trilogy kind of fizzled out there at the end.  I just don't hear too many people getting excited about it and it has to be how the last one left a bad taste in our mouth.  It will make money, just based on Depp's name alone, but this might not be the huge money-maker Disney wants.  Then again, it could be once you combine international markets and stuff.  At least the previews make it look like a return to the simple fun from the first one. 

May 26th
The Hangover: Part 2 - The shenanigans continue with the same cast from the first one.  Previews make it look like the EXACT same movie, just set in a different location.  I thought the first one was pretty amusing, but nowhere near as funny as people made me believe it would be.  When I saw the trailer in the theater, I chuckled once while the rest of the theater roared with laughter.  I don't know.  But yeah, this will make bank.

Kung-Fu Panda 2 - Another sequel, another movie that will make a bunch of movie.  The first one was very successful (I never saw it), and I don't expect anything different with this second one as I assume they won't stray too far from what made the first one so profitable.  Pretty interesting release date, too, a raunchy R comedy on the same weekend as a kid movie means there is plenty for everyone.  Probably a huge weekend in the box office. 

May 27th
The Tree of Life - This movie is only coming out in limited release, but I list it because it has had some Oscar buzz for some time. In fact, before it was delayed, people expected it could up for some Academy Awards LAST year.  Not sure why it was delayed, but this Brad Pitt/Sean Penn movie is finally coming out. As for what it is about, Google the trailer and you tell me.  Just looks....weird.  But, as least this movie with a lots of pre-buzz is finally coming out. 

June 3rd
X-Men: First Class - I was pretty hesitant about this movie, a prequel of sorts to all the X-Men movies; showing the early stages Professor X and Magneto.  Just based on pictures and stuff, it looked downright horrible.  But then the trailers started coming out and what do you know, I think it looks like it could be pretty damn good.  Seems to have a serious tone to it and I will definitely go see it now, something I hadn't planned on doing a couple of months ago.

June 10th
Super 8 - Produced by Spielberg and directed by JJ Abrams.  That should pretty much sell the movie right there.  If you aren't sold, watch the trailer.  This looks really cool and gives me a feel of an 80s kid buddy movie like Goonies, but sci-fi-ish and involving aliens...I think.  The trailers do a good job of not revealing TOO much about the movie and that makes it that much more exciting. 

June 17th
Green Lantern - Ryan Reynolds dons the costume of the DC Comics superhero.  Looks like it could be decent and action-packed, but my boycott of almost everything DC will remain in effect.  With Reynolds in the movie though, this should be pretty hilarious. 

Mr. Popper's Penguins - Jim Carey takes on the role of a man who suddenly comes into possession of a bunch of penguins and is forced to live with them.  Based on a children's book that I feel I read once, but have no recollection of, this could be successful or totally bomb.  It is really hard to predict sometimes with kids movies.  His kids movies usually make a decent amount so this could be a hit. 

June 24th
Cars 2 - I think that Cars is the worst of all the Pixar films (although beautiful on Blu-Ray), and it is certainly not one that needed a sequel.  On the flip side, this movie made SO much money for Disney from a merchandising point of view that it is not surprising that a sequel was made.  I know I will be skipping the theater for this one.  But yeah, tons of money. 

Bad Teacher - Comedy starring Cameron Diaz as a foul-mouther junior high teacher also starring Justin Timberlake and Jason Segal.  A lot of people thought the trailer was pretty damn funny and if it ends up getting some buzz, it could do pretty well.  Of course, it could also crash and burn, which is what I would probably put my money on, but you never know.

July 1st
Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon - Here we go with the third film in the series.  The first one I LOVED.  The second one really disappointed me with how dumb the humor was, but got better after repeat viewings.  This third one: I am cautiously optimistic.  Hell, even Bay and Shia said the second one was garbage and that this one will be much better so that alone has to give one hope, right?  Tough to tell from the trailers though - it was just a bunch of cool effects of shit blowing up.  PLEASE be good! 

July 15th
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - It all ends here.  This is more than just a tagline for a movie.  This REALLY is it.  After enjoying the great series both in book form and movie form, this is it.  And what a finale this looks to be.  Part 1, released in November, was phenomenal and I expect nothing less from this second part.  This is both exciting and sad at the same time.  It all ends here. 

Winnie the Pooh - Wow, I didn't even know this was coming out.  Yup, there is a new Winnie movie coming out this Summer.  But the same day as Harry Potter?  OUCH!  Is Winnie the Pooh too dated now?  DO young kids of today even like him?  We shall see.

July 22nd
Captain America - The final Marvel superhero film before they combine the 4 heroes (Cap, Thor, Hulk, and Iron Man) as well the supporting cast in next Summer's Avengers.  This looks great and although the last few weeks have been all about Thor, I expect the excitement for this one to build in the coming weeks.  As long as they keep to the same pattern as the other gems they have had lately, this should be a winner.

July 29th
The Smurfs - Did anyone  ask for this live-action adaptation of the 80s kids cartoon.  This looks HORRIBLE.  But hey, it could make a good amount of money.  Still, Smurfs lost in the city...total pass on this one. 

Cowboys and Aliens - Sci-Fi Western.  Yeah, you don't hear that too often.  But that is what we have here, a movie about an alien invasion in the Old West.  Looks like a fun movie and the cast looks great.  Plus, Jon Favreau makes some pretty damn good movies too.  Will it make a ton of money or totally bomb?  That is still up for discussion but I AM leaning towards a mild hit. 

August 5th
The Change Up - Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman, a single stud and a married man, respectively, switch bodies.  Give me a break.  Ryan, you're better than this...

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - A reboot of the Apes series showcasing how the apes came to be intelligent in labs and their subsequent breakout from captivity.  Can a movie be that good though when one of the selling points the trailer tried to make was who did the special effects?  Looks cool, but I will wait for video. 

August 12th
30 minutes or Less - Based on the cast and the relatively late place in the movie season, I think this could be a sleeper hit that could make a bunch of money.  Starring Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari and Jesse Eisenberg, this action-comedy about a bank hold-up could do very well. 

The Help - And on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we have this movie set in the 60s about a white college girl who interviews the black help in her household.  Or something.  This is based on a very popular book and I expect it will make a few late season dollars.  Other than the name though, that is really all I know.  I know people love it though. 

August 19th
Conan the Barbarian - Yup, they remade it.  I am guessing not too many people knew that except for the folks like me who go to movie sites every day.  I am guessing if you liked the original, you will be willing to give this one a try, no?

Spy Kids 4 - REALLY, Robert Rodriguez?!?!  Sigh...

Fright Night - A remake of a cool 80s Vampire horror-comedy about a boy who lives next door to a vampire, except nobody believes him.  This original is a cult classic and with Colin Farrel playing the vampire in this one, it could be fun.  Hoping for something good, but still waiting for video.

August 26th
Final Destination 5 - STOP ALREADY!!!!

With that, we reach September and the Summer season comes to an end.  Whew...

So, anything look worthwhile?  Here is MY top 5.

#5 X-Men: First Class - What was once a ho-hum movie for me has now become something I am excited for.  Hope I am not disappointed.

#4 Transformers 3 - Would probably be #1 if part 2 hadn't disappointed me slightly.  I am so nervous for this one.

#3 Thor - Just a couple more days for the God of Thunder, just another year until it all comes together in Avengers!

#2 Captain America.  I love Captain America.  I think he is a cool character.  The movie looks like a ton of fun, almost Indiana Jones like with action and comedy.  I hope it is not TOO over the top funny, but as long as they don't mess this up too bad, we will be all set for the combined forces of the Avengers next year!

#1  Harry Potter - Yup, this looks awesome and the fact that it is the end of everything Harry Potter makes this more anticipated than any others. 

Whew, that took forever.  No way I am going back and checking for spelling and grammar. 

Just Another Weekend Update

I am not really good at this whole posting on the weekend thing, am I?  Truth be told, I wasn't nearly as busy as I have been in the most recent weekends, but I still didn't get a chance to blog.  Friday, I actually worked most of the day except for a brief step out to play 9 holes of disc golf.  That day, a Vinylmation site I follow was having a contest for a free Vinylmation.  All you had to do was post a picture of your favorite Vinylmation that you own.  So, I came up with something pretty creative and recreated the, "Han shot first" shot from Star Wars.  I was pretty happy with it, but I ended up losing as I found out that it was not a photography contest, but rather, anyone who entered would be randomly chosen to be the winner.  So, despite my fun shot, I lost to someone who simply posted a stock photo of one from the internet.  Oh well...



I actually spent most of the day on Saturday working while I watched TV.  I guess I could have relaxed, but I chose to be productive at the same time, despite it being the weekend.  Saturday night, we went to see one of my oldest friends perform a one-man play which ended up being absolutely outstanding.  Really, there aren't enough adjectives to describe it.  At the end of the night, I had to get a picture of him next to his poster.



Sunday started off with seeing Fast Five, which ended up being AWESOME and the best in the series yet.  It was my last movie before the Summer Season officially begins this Friday.  I think Jess and I spent the rest of the day relaxing and I ended up going with a pretty basic shot of a flower blooming in our garden.  I actually like the shot, but it looks way cooler in person.



Today was a 12 hour work day.  Well, 12 hours minus the hour when I had to take off and run some errands.  I took my camera with a specific shot in mind on the way home and thankfully, it all worked out for me.



Summer Movie Preview, 2011, coming by Friday!