OMG Family BBQ

Ok, so obviously this is not one of the pictures of the family BBQ we had at Fred and Sheila's this weekend, but.... it was taken during that BBQ! I took lots of nice family pictures of our afternoon, but this one just spoke to me. The others are nice and all, but they were just documentation of the day whereas this swimmer is just damn interesting.

Vermin (the car, not rodentia)

Awwww.... isn't he cute? These are shots of "Vermin," my dad's 1935 Oldsmobile Street Rod. He just got it this past year and it's his new baby. I was only recently able to finally meet the new toy and go for a ride. I must say, it's a pretty nice car. I of course, didn't get good pictures of the car as a whole, but did get some neat close ups. If you want to see the whole car, go to: www.teds-olds.com

My dad has been collecting since I was in high school and at this point in life he even lets me drive a few of them (well, the ones that aren't standard anyway). He usually sticks to 1960's Oldsmobiles but "Vermin" obviously does not fit into that mold. It's a fun car and basically looks like a mob vehicle to me. Dad even has a fedora that my mom got him to wear at shows and carries a violin case in the back just in case there's trouble. It's a pretty good package deal if you ask me.
Dad with his baby.
A Neat shot I took on the ride down 495 on the way home. You have no idea how hard it is to hold a completely zoomed in camera steady at 75 mph.

Sun lit clouds on the way home

I always seem to find some cool looking thing to take a picture of on the way home. The only problem is finding a place to stop. Luckily, today I found my shot before I even started the car. I was leaving late and the clouds surrounded the sun just enough to make taking a picture work out.

What is C-3PO doing in a pool?

Why this picture do you ask? It was too funny to not take, that's why! The Jedi, Master Frost, celebrated his birthday in grand style complete with space mojitos made by the protocol droid himself. It is amazing what a little tang can do to an already perfected concoction. R2-D2 even made an appearence during the toast. Overall, a wonderful event with great food and pool parttying for all!

White Roses

It is amazing what beauty you can find in your office parking lot when you take the time to actually look.

A birthday book with a purpose

Ok, so..... sorry for the lack of posting. Things have been very busy lately. Actually the funny thing is that I have a lot of things to post, I just haven't had the time to get them up on the blog, lol! So, I'll start with this birthday book I made at a class at Ink About It (my absolute favorite crafting store). Each person who took the class put this beauty together in about 3 hours. Now I don't usually do classes like this one becuase they are so involved. The last one Mom and I did was a Christmas album and I think we ended up being more stressed once the class was over then when we got there! It's not hard per-se, just long, involved and intricate. This project, while more in depth than my usual quick and easy card classes, was really fun. Plus I now have an album I can use to house all my birthday pictures from this year. I figure I should probably commemorate the 30th one if nothing else.... I took a few pictures of the inside pages as well. I just love how the book has all the tiers of the cake and "frosting" as Mary the instructor said. Plus, I got to play with rub-ons, which are a throw back to those annoying things I did as a kid. They have definately improved since then.... every word in the book was a rub on so I was a little worried about messing them up. Happily, they all came out great and went on easy with the little rub-on tool I bought a while ago. Great, now I have to buy a bunch of rub-ons... just what I need, more craft stuff!

Water on Fire? Brilliant!!!!!

After going to Sakura, Colette finally succeeded in getting me to WaterFire a (basically) free display of bonfires and music along the main waterways in Providence, RI. The show started with a multitude of silent boats coming into the apex of the two rivers to light their torches. They then progressed down the lines of floating piles of wood to start the fires. During the lighting and while the fires are still lit, they play tribal new age-y music that fits in well with the heat and smell of burning wood wafting through the air.

A nice view of the Providence waterfront while we were waiting for the lighting ceremony to begin. It's amazing how low light and water can make a city look so neat.

Let there be fire!

Colette and I both thought it would be neat to go on one of the gondolas that offer rides during the lighting. Of course there would have to be a boat-by-marshmallow roast on our part for that to truly be successful. I mean, why boat by a floating pyre if you can't get some dessert out of the deal. Mmmmm... smoars....

Typical me and my ability to turn everything into a photo shoot.

WaterFire continued

Self-portraiture at it finest... by firelight.



There was a pretty big crowd at the lighting. I thought it was neat that so many people would find it as interesting as I did.


Fire bad, tree pretty? Nah, I think that's backwards.... this fire is definately pretty and the tree must have been bad cause now it's on fire. Looking down the fire-lit waterway.

Sakura Sushi Time!

Colette and I took a trip to providence today to go see WaterFire, but.... beforehand we could not resist going to Sakura, a little hole in the wall sushi place with prices (and sushi) to die for. Every time we go to Providence we try to catch a meal here because it's pretty reasonably priced and therefore we can pig out on nummy things. Usually Sakura is bustling with a young crowd and it can be hard to get in and out quickly. For some unknown reason it was really quiet today so we got a seat on the porch and probably ordered and recieved our food in 10 minutes flat. Talk about instantaneous sushi gratification (and of course tempora-ed things).

Christopher

Meet little Christopher (an of course his mom) . He is Tina and Shawn's new son who was just born on the 7th of August. Isn't he a sweetie! Congrats to both of you on such a beautiful boy! I have known Tina since basically the first weekend I was at college. I think I sat with her for lunch on the first day even, although my memory could be a little fuzzy on that one. I obviously didn't take this picture since Tina, Shawn and Christopher live in Houston, TX but I'm assuming Tina's dad did and he is a wonderful photographer. I just had to share another little guy with everyone. With the arrival of Christoher, I now have two little babies who when they speak will refer to me as Auntie Jo... I like how this is going :)

Yet even more photos from Maine... there were people there too!

Brian enjoying a classic bottle of Coke he got at the local store and John working on his short story... as you can see we were all very stressed out...
The gang in hardcore board gaming mode and yes, this game can take up to six hours to finish, we have proof...
Sam preparing to slay Ithaqua during an Arkham Horror game
Becca, concentrating on keeping her game face...
Me, sitting out on the dock and enjoying the lovely sunset with my trusty camera by my side, err.... well, in front of me

Nawne finally gets to the Outlands!

Ok, yes, this is one of my mmorpg characters. Actually she is my first character, who kind of fell by the wayside once both Brian and I got separate World of Warcraft accounts. When I got an account we tried to switch Nawne over to mine but Blizzard wasn't doing that then, so she sat of Brian's machine and languished as we both just started up new characters so we could play together. Eventually, Blizzard made it easy to move characters and she was mine again. I had soloed her all the way up to level 53, which is pretty darn good if you ask me, but Brian and I had been playing our others toons so much we just kind of stuck to them. After a year and a half of ignoring Nawne and leveling Thayolin up to 70, I finally decided it was time to play her again... and tonight, I hit level 58 when I can go to the outlands. So, gratz Nawne, for finally catchin up to your little sister Thayolin :-P

Some other pictures from the trip to Becca's Cabin

Here are some more neat shots I took over the weekend:

closeup of the hammock - I like hammocks
lillypads down near the dock invasion of the leaves!
quite possibly my best sunset picture ever, thank you shutter priority mode :-)
the fog creeps in on little cat feet

Leaves of days gone by....

I just love finding random things while skulking around with my camera... especially lobster pots with decomposing leaves on them! My photos are just so glamourous :-) Speaking of skulking, I just kept on wandering off with my camera this weekend. I just couldn't help myself. Whenever I get into a new environment and actually have time to explore and play with my camera, it's like I'm a kid in a candy store. I think I had at least three separate times when I went out and took pictures for over an hour this weekend. Everybody else was occupied playing board games, which at the moment hadn't really appealed to me, so I just wandered around the cabin, down the road, over to the dock. Overall, it was a great and relaxing opportunity to learn more about photography and spend some nice time with friends. Overall, it was quite a nice weekend.

Mushroom Mushroom!!!

A badger, badger, badger... well, you get the idea. I took this picture when we were up at Becca's cabin in Maine for the weekend. It is definately on of the best ones I took over the weekend. I was playiing around with Shutter priority mode since it was pretty cloudy and therefore there was lots of diffuse light to be had. I have some even better examples of when neat things you can do by playing with shutter speed to show you, but this is a good start.

Class with the owner of Memory Box

So mom and I went to another class tonight and it was with a guest teacher insead of Jenn, our A*Muse instructor. His name is David Brethauer and he is the owner/creator of MemoryBox stamps which is another company who's stamps and paper I tend to love. (See the MemoryBox website for samples of their stamps, papers and card ideas) David taught us watercoloring techniques using twinkling H2O's (which have glitter in them so they sparkle) and watercolor pencils. The photo in this entry has just a couple examples of what he taught us during the class. It was amazing how much we learned so quickly and he was absolutely hilarious to boot. He apparently started out getting a degree in mechanical engineering and then when Boeing wasn't hiring he ended up getting into stamping. By some freakishly odd circumstances he began designing stamps for someone and eventually ended up with his own company. What was really neat about the class was that there were so Many Ink About it staff members taking the class (at least 4). Two of them were even instructors of some of our previous classes! So, you know this guy is good if the experts are signing up and paying for his class...

Angels for our ears and hearts...

So, how cool is this?

Our Employment program is going to be making these Angel Necklaces as well as matching sets of earrings and selling them. And I was the lucky one that got to take all the photos of them. You can get them in your choice of at least 6 different colors crystals or at least 3 different types of teardrop pearls. They are so very cute! I know I'm getting at least one...