Moon Rise

The moon is rising just as the sun is setting. I smell an eclipse around the corner.

I can't tell you how beautiful a desert moon rise is, especially when the moon is right on the horizon. Okay, so you can't tell in the picture, but it looks huge!

Del Taco Dinner

Randy and I are stopping off for dinner at Del Taco. We thought it was appropriate since the first Del Taco was founded somewhere around here (Yermo). I like that they have the sauce packets in a basket on the table. I wish all places did it this way. I take what I want and don't have to throw away the stuff I took "just in case".

Alien cloud

This is the one and only cloud in the sky right now. I'm thinking it's a UFO disguised as a cloud. That's my guess.

On the road again

Krista wants to celebrate her birthday in Las Vegas this year so Randy, my uke, and I are headed there now. Krista, John, and The Verg will head there later tonight.

We'll be staying at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas. As for our itinerary, that's still up in the air, but I'll be sure to squeeze in some pool time.

Stay tuned for our adventures in Sin City. Not everything that happens in Vegas will stay in Vegas... Especially if we can get John drunk enough to run around the pool naked.

My heart belongs to Apple... sort of

Apple’s iPhone 4 is available for pre-order starting today. Do I want one? Yes! Do I want one BAD? Hell yeah! But I’m not going to do it.

The 32GB iPhone 4 comes with a sticker price of $299 with a two year contract with AT&T. Add tax and the $18 upgrade fee and it’s still not a bad price, but multiply that by 2 (one for me and one for Randy) and the price gets to be a bit much. I have my heart set on a bedroom remodel this summer and a new walk-in closet is in my future.

Walk-in closet? iPhone? Walk-in closet? iPhone? Sorry Apple, the walk-in closet wins this battle. I’ll be saving up for the phones and pick it up by the end of the year. My iPhone 3G is just fine for now.

Apple Stuff

I have an iBook 3G (which is too slow to run anything except it’s operating system), a 3rd generation 40GB iPod (which can’t hold a charge to save it’s life, but is serving out it’s time as an external hard drive), one Power Mac G5 (hooked up to my TV), one Power Mac G5 Quad (right before the change to the Intel chip), and of course, my beloved iPhone 3G. Somewhere in the depths of my storage area lives an ancient Power Book. I can’t remember the model, but let’s just say it’s old enough to sport a monochrome screen.

I love my Apple products, but I won’t go as far as saying I’m a fan girl. I don’t love EVERY Apple product. Mac Book Air? What’s up with that? I don’t stand in line to get the latest and greatest from Apple. iPad, you can wait… until you come with a built in camera, at least.

There are a lot of Apple haters out there. The two arguments against it I hear the most are the price and the software availability, both valid arguments. I, for one, am willing to shell out that kind of money and the convenience the products give me is worth every penny. I haven’t had a virus in over 10 years. As for software, I can’t think of a single thing I want that I can’t get – granted, all I want is Photoshop, Microsoft Office, and World of Warcraft.

If you want a PC, go for it. I don’t blame you. It is cheaper (sort of, but that’s another story) and there is more software available. I just don’t want to or know how to deal with the problems that come with using a PC.

AT&T vs. Verizon

As for the iPhone, I hear more complaints about AT&T than the phone itself. Sure I get a lot of dropped calls (A LOT), but the pros outweigh the cons. I didn’t think a phone could change my life, but this one did. For one thing, my purse is a lot lighter. I no longer carry around a phone, MP3 player, camera, and PDA. I just carry around one device that does it all. I’m far more productive and connected to my friends than ever before and I don’t get lost nearly as often (thank you GPS feature).

Okay, I haven’t used other smart phones, but I have no desire to. I haven’t heard of any feature available on any of them that makes me think “Oooo! I want that!” and it isn’t available on the iPhone.

I used to have Verizon as my cell phone carrier… a long, long time ago. I got signal when other people didn’t. I love it. I LOVED it… until the bill came. Back when I had Verizon, cell phone companies offered a local calling plan and a national calling plan. A national plan on any carrier was outrageously expensive, so I went with the local calling plan.

The problem with Verizon’s home calling area was that it was limited to the Greater Los Angeles area – and not all of it. I would get roaming charges up the wazoo even if I didn’t leave the LA/OC area. Back then I traveled to San Francisco and Las Vegas frequently. I couldn’t turn on my phone in fear of getting a calling and having to pay roaming charges. Did I mention customer service at the time sucked too? Then along came Pac Bell (which later became Cingular and is now AT&T). They wooed me with their local calling plan: practically the entire state of California and Las Vegas AND it was cheaper than Verizon’s plan. Okay, sign me up!

AT&T and Apple’s exclusivity agreement is scheduled to end in 2012. There are rumors that it may end sooner, but I’m not holding my breath. When that happens I’ll explore the options between AT&T and whoever else is carrying the iPhone. Until then, I don’t mind hitting redial.

P.S. I don’t want to jail break my phone.

P.P.S. Roll over minutes has saved my ass twice. Thank you.

Twins

Meet my twin sister, Heather. We’re identical. Can you tell?

I’m Heather’s Siamese twin (since I’m Thai) and she’s my Iowanese twin (since she’s from Iowa), get it? Heather is basically… me, but with light golden brown hair. She’d kill me if I ever called her blond. We both love wearing flip flops, beer, cigarettes, and Bon Jovi - but not necessarily in that order. Is there more to life is than that?

We both worked the graveyard shift at Pictage along with Michelle (another soul mate of mine). It was nice having people around who understood what life was like working when everyone else was sleeping and sleeping while everyone was at work. There wasn’t much of a social life for people like us, so we stuck together.

When Randy and I lived in Las Vegas Heather would come stay with us at least once a month, sometimes more. She stayed with us so much she had her own room in our house. When we moved back to LA, she helped us do it. You know it’s love when someone helps you move.

Heather lives in Oregon now. She tells me the skies are blue and there are these green pointy things called trees. Amazing. She came down to visit this weekend so we met up for dinner. Even though we hardly talk anymore it’s amazing to sink right back into a conversation like we never left each other. I guess that’s what it’s like for twins.

My favorite iPhone camera apps

Lately, I’ve been taking more pictures with my iPhone than my DSLR since I picked up a few new camera apps. The pictures just come out looking so groovy.

The new apps are: Night Shot, TiltShift Generator, Hipstamatic, and TouchOfColor. My go to app used to be Photoshop.com Mobile, but I haven’t touched it since I got the other four.

Here are some samples from each app:

PS Mobile: Crop, straighten, rotate, and flip shots. You can also control exposure, saturation, tint, and contrast. If you’re feeling really artsy you can also add a sketch, soft focus, or just plain old sharpen effect. Last but not least there are several preload actions and boarders you can apply to your images. For this shot I applied the Vignette Blur and added a sepia tint.

Night Shot: This app is the best app for taking pictures at night or low light situations and comes with 5 effects (negative, color, B&W, sepia, and night vision) which can be applied with a low, medium, or high setting. You can use existing images or take a picture directly from the app. It seems to enhance the detail in shadow areas that would have otherwise been lost and does it really well.

TiltShiftGen: This app helps you simulate images taken with tilt shift lenses. It lets you apply either a circular or liner blur, adjust saturation, brightness, and contrast, and apply vingnetting.

Hipstamatic ($1.99): This has got to be my favorite app so far. Hipstamatic brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras. You can change “films”, “flashes”, and “lenses” to create different looks or just shake the phone and the app randomly selects each for you. Awesome! The most boring pictures seem to turn into works of art. The downside of this app is you  can only use pictures taken from within the app, but that’s okay by me. I’m always excited to see what I get. For this shot I used the Ina’s 1969 film, John S lens, and no flash.

TouchOfColor: This app lets you select multiple color in your picture using the eye dropper tool and keeps the colors you choose while the rest of the image is converted to black and white. Randy has had a lot more success with this app than I have, but I do look forward to playing with it more.

Tonight I’ll be shopping around for a few new apps. I’ll be checking out Pano, Best Camera, Camera+, Camera Plus Pro (yes, it’s different than Camera+), and whatever else I might run into. I’ll let you know if I find anything worthwhile.

BONUS: I don’t actually use this app myself, but it’s one of Randy’s favorites.

OldBooth Premium: This app puts pictures of you or your friends into 20s – 60s era photos. Practically anyone that gets near Randy has been OldBoothed and everyone always gets a good laugh out of it.

Blog Templates

I'm in the market for a new blog template. My site may look odd for a few days while I experiment with new layouts to include the removal of those dreaded ads. Please bare with me during this time of change.

Blogger

Let me just say, I really dislike blogger's current post editor. Aaaaaaarrrrgggg!!!

Aspen's Graduation Party

Randy’s goddaughter (and by default, my god-daughter), Aspen, graduated from high school today. I’ve known Aspen since she was about 5 or 6 years old and it’s a little bit shocking for me to realize how much she’s grown up. It’s all good though. I feel more comfortable talking with her now. I don’t have to censor myself as much since she’s an adult.

She’ll be starting college this summer and studying biology. I love science and I’m glad to hear she loves it too.

Randy’s niece, Josephine, was also at the party. She’s in college now too. When did that happen? Once again, it’s all good, I don’t have to censor myself with her now either. And did I mention that Josephine is into photography? Score!

I’m sometimes afraid parents will think of me as a bad influence on their kids. I really don’t know. On the one hand, I drink and smoke. On the other, since I wasn’t exactly an angel growing up (we’ll leave it at that), I can spot a lot of things teenagers will do behind their parent’s backs anyway.

Let’s face it, teenagers are going to do certain things no matter what their parents may say or think. They may drink, do drugs, and they may have sex before marriage. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I’ve screwed up a lot and I’ve learned from it.

There is something to having a person learn from his or her own experience, but I think it would be nice to have someone with experience be there to say if you do “A” then “B” might happen. It’s better to have someone there to guide them and make sure they don’t get arrested, maimed, or die.

On a lighter note, I did get a new bathing suit today so I could go swimming.

Note to self: eat less, work out more.

Anyway, congratulations Aspen! Good luck in college! I know you’ll have a great time.

Bangkok Burning

Remember a few days ago when I said, for the most part, Bangkok is fine… well, that was a few days ago. Most of the pictures that have come in over the past few days have been of the city burning.

In case you’re wondering, my family and friends are okay, concerned about the situation over there, but okay.

I’m not sure why the Red Shirts are claiming they are peaceful when so much of the city is a charred mess. I seriously doubt the government was the one burning down the buildings.

I miss the Thailand I knew.

Bangkok Normal

I had plans to go to Bangkok this summer. It would have been Randy’s first trip to Thailand, but I’ve decided to cancel my trip because of the Red Shirt political protests that have been going on there.

I honestly think I would be perfectly safe going there, but traveling to the places I would want to go would be inconvenient. I thought about going to Thailand without Randy. It would be interesting to see for myself what’s been going on there and I would still get to see my friends and family, but I might as well wait until things calm down again.

My friend Matt wrote, “for friends not in Bangkok: Just so you know exactly what's happening. points in the city are becoming chaotic. the situation is serious but I am safe at my home and schools are closed so I have no reason to put myself in a dangerous situation. Don't worry for me. Pray for an end to the madness.”

Other friends post about normal things: going to work; having dinner out with a significant other; attending a friend’s child’s birthday party; baking carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, praline chocolate cake and coffee French butter cream chocolate cake; etc. Yes, they all want to see an end to the fighting, but when they mention the protests it seems more like an inconvenience rather than an actual threat.

Another thing I’ve noted is that not a single one of my friends sympathize with the Red Shirts. Most people I’ve heard from believe former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is just paying people to protest and cause chaos.

While reports from CNN makes Bangkok seem like a war zone right now (and parts of it probably are), reports from my friends in Bangkok via Facebook seem to indicate, for the most part, the city is fine.

It’s important to see the other side. Here are some pictures my friends in Bangkok have posted over the past few days.

Paranormal Orbs

 

I just caught three ghosts on my camera! Notice the two orbs on the right side of the frame as well as the smoke like form on the left.

There are many people who believe that orbs are ghosts. One theory suggests that ghosts prefer the form of an orb because it takes less energy to form. Another states that, according to the laws of physics, energy being transferring would assume its natural shape of a sphere.

My brother has been showing me orb photographs for years and is utterly convinced that these are pictures of spirits.

WHATEVER!

It’s just dust people. It’s the light from the flash reflecting off dust (or rain, or snow, or whatever happens to be there) and back into the camera lens. It happens even more frequently with ultra compact cameras where the short distance between the lens and the built-in flash decreases the angle of light reflection to the lens.

As for that smoke like form in the image, it’s just that: smoke. I happened to be smoking a cigarette while taking that picture and the flash reflected off that too.

Give it up people. It’s not a ghost.

Home Sick

I’m at home sick today. I called in sick yesterday too. Is it possible for me to have cabin fever after in just 24 hours?

To keep myself entertained I’ve been catching up on my social media. It’s better than TV! There is just as much drama and I can interact with the characters.

One friend is apparently going through a break-up, another is talking about a country in the throws of a rebellion.

One person is talking about God and how she’s in love with him – oh yes, he is her “lover”, one more buddy is posting pictures of what life is like as an MTV VJ.

Some friends post about births in the family, others post about the passing of a loved one.

Though I haven’t seen many of these people for years, I still feel connected. I sometimes know more about their lives than of those that I actually live with.

Okay, I'm off to down my favorite drug. Mmmmmm.... NyQuil....

I'm Still Alive

Yes, I'm still alive. I haven't fallen off the blogosphere.

I will be back to posting regularly soon enough, but for now I want to give a shout out to a certain scrap booking maven who's been waiting patiently for me to update this thingy.

I can't wait to catch you guys up on everything.

Gripes about _______.

Once upon a time, I used to work for _______. I used to LOVE working there. I worked at night and the other people on the night crew were great. Since there were only 6 or 7 of us working at night we would play music – LOUDLY - and just work. It was so perfect.

Then things changed. They moved me to the day crew. Most of the people were great, but I was I was beginning to find out that certain members of the management staff were less than stellar. Have you watched Office Space? Yup, it was like that.

The management staff and I had our differences. Let’s just say a certain member of upper management tried to do something illegal and didn’t like it when I called them out on it. Human Resources was there to protect the company, not the employees. I went to speak to the owner/CEO. This person told me, “We don’t want people with ambition to work here.” That was it. I handed in my letter of resignation 3 minutes later.

Ever since then I’ve harbored resentment for _______, both their management and their service/product. Let’s face it, if you’ve ever used _______, you know how expensive their service/product is and if you’ve ever worked there, you know where to get the same product much cheaper.

After attending a certain industry conference I heard that _______ had a change in command. New Management. Yippy. I heard the prices were more reasonable as well. Okay, I’ll give them another shot.

_______ FAIL!

I tried signing up for an account, and after filling out my info and clicking “submit” I received a message that read, "The field, Business State, is not valid." WTF _______, is CALIFORNIA not a state?

I also filled out a form asking for more info and pricing. One question read, “Do you have a studio website/blog?” The pull down menu gave two options: “Yes – I do” and “No – I do not.” I selected “No” only to receive an e-mail an hour later stating that my web site information was incomplete. The email goes on to say: If you… do not have a web site yet that's OK, just let us know.” I did you morons, when I selected “No – I do not.”

The e-mail then says, “Please email your web site or Blog information to website@_______.com for review. How the heck am I supposed to do that? I just said I don’t have one. I should just send them a link to this blog and post.

I went on to twitter to gripe about the situation and @_______michael offered to help. I suppose he tried and I appreciate it. Maybe, perhaps I’ll give them another chance. Maybe. Just maybe.

On the bright side, I made few good friends when I worked at _______, some of whom still work there. They still rock my world.

Note to _______. I actually was trying to set up a legitimate account for my business. So, I don’t have a site yet. Quit asking me for my pro website or blog already. There are other ways to prove I’m legit.

Swatch and Jellies

Okay, so I was only 2 when 1980 rolled around, but it’s still the decade that I identify with the most. I was a Toys R Us kid, owned a Lite Brite, a large collection of My Little Ponies, and a Pogo Ball (no one I know seems to remember what those were). I thought Cabbage Patch Kids were creepy, but loved the smell of my Strawberry Shortcake doll. I watched Rainbow Bright (which might explain my affinity towards rainbows), She-Ra, Care Bears, and Transformers.

Thanks to having older siblings I was exposed to a lot of 80s fashion. Yes, I had far too much Lacoste clothing, had permed hair (which looked awful), wore Doc Martens, and loved my LA Gears - with 3 different colored shoelaces, of course.

This year I was feeling nostalgic so I asked Randy for a Swatch watch and some jelly bracelets for my birthday. To my surprise, he bought me three!

Unless you were a complete loser, you had at least two or three swatch watches in the 80s. If you were really cool you wore them at the same time. Swatch watches weren’t just watches – they were a culture. Swatches were so cool, they had their own accessories: Swatch Guards. Oh yes, you needed at least one of those as well. The ultimate in cool was if you took two Swatch Guards of different colors and twisted them together across the watch face.

Jelly bracelets were also a thing in the 80’s thanks to Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. This was before Avril brought them back or before they became known as sex bracelets. Then again, I suppose they never fully went away.



Don’t worry, I’m not planning to go full retro. I will not be crimping my hair or wearing any Flashdance inspired clothing any time soon. I’ll stick to only one Swatch watch and a couple of jelly bracelets at a time for now.

By the way, I can still sing you the theme song to the Greatest American Hero if you want me to. “Believe it or not I’m walkin’ on air, I never thought I could feel so free…. Believe it or not, it’s just me!”

It's Just a Number...

Happy Birthday to me! It’s my birthday today and I have no shame in telling the world that.

I think I may be breaking some female code telling people my age, but I’m 32 today. I don’t really understand why some women feel so ashamed to tell others how old they are or why the they feel the need to lie about their age, at least not in this day and age. I relish getting older. Don’t get me wrong, I still wish I had the body I had when I was 22, but I don’t see how lying about my age is going to get me that. Maybe a few more sit-ups would get me closer though.

I’m going to work today and I’m regretting not asking for the day off. I would spend most of the morning on the computer on twitter and FB, and then go shopping for some new jeans (most of my jeans now have holes in them where my thighs rub together).

I hate shopping for new jeans. First of all, I hate they way manufacturers label sizes. I’m a 9 with some brands and a 17 with others. Why can’t those people just standardize on one sizing convention? I wouldn’t care if it said I was a size 23 if it would just remain constant. Okay, I get why. I know some women do care about what size they are; they want to be able to tell people they are a size 6, even if that means the waist size is actually 40 inches.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, I’m 168 pounds right now. Lying or not telling people how much I weigh is not going to make me look any different either. Sure, I don’t like the way I look and I want to loose weight, but that’s not going to stop me from telling people how much I weigh. It’s just a number. I just have to eat less junk food and exercise more.

Okay, maybe when it comes to exercise the number does matter. Doing 10 push ups is probably better than doing 1.

The Book I'm Reading

For the past few weeks I’ve started writing at least a dozen blog posts, but I’ve deleted them all because I thought they were pointless. Then I thought, “Why does it have to have a point?”

I might as well just tell you about the book I’m currently reading. It’s called “Pour Your Heart Into It” by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. It’s a story about how Starbucks came to be.

I never thought I would like non-fiction books. I’m more of a Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter kind of girl, but here I am. Lately, I’ve been reading books about large corporations and how they got started, always written by the people that founded them. I want to start my own company one day so I figured this was a good way to find out how other people did it.

It turns out that I'm just as enthralled by these stories as much as the ones about lions, hobbits and wizards. I want to find out what happens next to the main characters and how they overcome the obstacles they face. I get irritated when I have to go to work because I have to put the book down.

The next two books I’m going to read arrived in the mail this week. One is called “Built from Scratch” by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank, founders of The Home Depot and the other is “Dave’s Way” by Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s.

I get most of my books from Amazon.com and almost always used. They’re usually in pretty good condition; some are as good as new. I picked up the Dave Thomas book for a paltry 42 cents. Heck, the shipping ($3.99) cost more than the book.

See, there’s no point at all to this post and I’m fine with it.

Family Dinner

My dad recently got a job in South Carolina and is leaving on Tuesday. He could have retired a long time ago, but I think he gets bored staying at home. It must be nice to work because you want to rather than because you have to.

My sister wanted to have dinner as a family before he left so Randy and I went over to the house. As usual, she and Chatchi prepared a mini feast: steak, crab, and clams.

I’m still not used to eating together as a family. We never did that sort of thing when I was growing up. The fact that my dad and I are still estranged just added to awkwardness.

My sister has been trying for 10 years to get my dad and me to get along again. She has made some progress. She’s gotten me to say hi to my dad when I go to the house and he actually acknowledges my existence these days.

Last month he spoke to me for the first time in 13 years. I had gone to the house without Randy for the first time in a long time. My dad walked up to me and asked where Randy was. I was so caught off guard by the question it took me a couple of seconds to realize he was actually talking to me. I told him that Randy was still at work and he would be by later. We stood next to each other in silence for a moment while I tried to think of something else to say to him. I was drawing a blank. After a few more seconds of the awkward silence he walked away and we haven’t spoken since.

After dinner my dad went about the process of opening up a durian for us to eat. I was still in the documenting mood so I got up to take pictures of my dad prying open the spiky fruit. It was the first time I’ve ever taken a picture of my dad. He never said a word or looked at me while I snapped away, but it still felt like the most intimate moment we've shared in 25 years.

I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to the way we were, but I am content with where we are.

NOTE: all photos were shot and edited on my iPhone with the Photoshop ap.