The life and times of an animator, a photographer, and a geek.
All of my holiday photos are now up on my Flickr photostream. Loads of Christmas Eve madness with my dad and stepmom’s side of the family and tons of Christmas night fun with my mom’s side. A few more pics might slip in over the next few weeks, but, for now, this is it. Gotta move on to other stuff. :)
Woo! What a fun and crazy holiday season it’s been so far! First there was the week without power. Then I had some Hanukkah fun with Benn and Brittney. I crammed all of my Christmas shopping and gift-making into one day (I printed and framed several photos for family members). Then I drove down to Portland on Christmas Eve to hang out with my family for a couple of days.
Christmas Eve dinner and present madness with my dad and stepmom’s side of the family was at my Uncle James and Aunt Kana’s home in Tigard. I had Christmas lunch with my dad and stepmom at Wong’s King in Portland. Christmas dinner and more present madness with my mom’s side of the family was at my mom’s place in Gresham. And I finished things off the day after Christmas with lunch with my mom and grandma at Om Seafood Restaurant in Portland. Then I sat in traffic for 4-1/2 hours coming back to Bellevue. Basically, it was a typical Christmas for me. ;)
All of the gifts I gave were well-received. Everyone seemed to love the prints I made, and I got requests for more from those who didn’t receive them (I only had time to print stuff for my parents and my sister and her boyfriend). I also got my sister a nifty red scarf and a red 8 GB iPod Nano. She liked both.
I made out pretty well this year as well. I got 2 sets of towels (I totally needed them), Digital Portrait Photography and Lighting (my sister is always good about checking my Amazon wish lists), a long sleeve polo shirt and a wool sweater from Banana Republic, a Best Buy gift card, and the always-appreciated cash money from my parents and grandma. I also came away with lots of fun family photos which are presently being processed and uploaded to my Flickr photostream. Christmas Eve pics are up; Christmas Day pics are forthcoming.
All in all, I had a great Christmas this year. Tons of food was consumed. Lots of money was spent on gifts. And great cheer was had by all. Now I’m going to spend the next couple of days recovering and doing absolutely nothing. I’m on vacation until after the New Year, and I intend on using all of it to relax.
Photo Friday 6/30/2006: Happiness Is…
Receiving a hand-made birthday present from my little cousin Jonina. I couldn’t be happier.
It’s 7:30 PM and freakin’ 90° F outside. That means my apartment is a few degrees higher due to being on the third floor and facing west into the late evening sun. Despite the heat, I still went out for my regular run, although I did loop around the cool shade of Wilburton Park for a good portion of it.
Now that I’m back from jogging and sweating the calories away, I can relax for a bit and type up a few words about the weekend, which, by the was, was a blast! The fun kicked off Friday afternoon when I got off work early and did a nice long photostroll through Bellevue. I must have walked at least 5 miles and almost filled up the memory card in my camera. I’m still processing the photos from the stroll, so they’ll show up in my Flickr photostream sometime later this week.
On Friday night I met up with Scott and Tom for dinner at Old Town Ale House in Ballard and the late show of Cars at Majestic Bay. Cars was a surprisingly good movie. Based on the trailers and sneak peaks I had seen, I was expecting the first less-than-stellar movie from Pixar, but I was pleasantly surprised. The story was fun if a bit formulaic. Pacing was good. And the animation was actually quite good given the limitations of a car-based characters. I was especially impressed with how much they accomplished with the eyes on the cars. I noticed that I rarely looked at the characters’ mouths during dialog sequences and instead focused on the eyes. I could see everything that was going on in the characters’ minds. It was really nice.
On Saturday afternoon I attended the Alice Wheeler lecture as part of the Seattle Flickr Meetup group. She talked about her photojournalism work, her experiences being the first photographer for Nirvana, documenting the Riot Grrl movement here in the Pacific NW, and shooting various events and festivals over the years. It was inspiring to see the work and very neat to actually hear the photographer talk about it to give the work some context.
I also finally met Jon Madison, with whom I’ve been conversing on Flickr for well over a year now. His work has also been very inspirational to me, and he’s helped me learn a great deal about cross processing film. We actually only live a few minute apart when I was in Renton, and I was surprised we never ran into each other. Thank goodness for the Seattle Flickr Meetup group!
Immediately after the lecture finished, I hopped in my car and drove 3 hours down to Portland to do an early birthday celebration with my family. My dad has this thing about belated birthdays, so he really wanted me to go down there a week early (my birthday is this Friday the 30th). I met up with my dad, stepmom, a couple of aunts, and a couple cousins for dinner on Saturday night. My little cousin Jonina gave me a couple of hand-made decorations for my apartment and my car. She is entirely to cute.
After dinner, my dad and stepmom, one of their dogs, and I went for a walk along Waterfront Park in downtown Portland. The weather was incredibly nice over the weekend, so we really wanted to take advantage of it. It’s wasn’t a terribly eventful walk – most passersby kept commenting on how big and fluffy the dog was – but it was definitely nice to just hang out and chat with my dad and stepmom. I don’t get to seem them very often, so this was a good chance to spend some quality time together.
On Sunday afternoon I met up with my mom’s side of the family for lunch. There were 12 people at lunch, so we ordered plenty of food. Peking duck, steamed crab, fresh oysters, spicy fish, a couple of fancy tofu dishes, and other stuff I can’t remember right now. Needless to say, despite the hot weather, we were more than happy to eat up all the tasty food.
Gift-wise, I made out pretty well at that lunch. I got money from my of my family. My sister gave me a gift card to Banana Republic (time to get more shorts for the summer), and my cousin Pam got me an Apple gift card. My mom also gave me a painting inspired my cat Sheena. She’s really talented at Chinese brush painting, and she had been working on this painting for a couple of months now. I was so happy to finally receive it. I think I was the only person in my family to not have one of my mom’s paintings.
The photos from my weekend family activities are currently being uploaded to my Flickr photostream. I have a set started, and it should be completed sometime on Tuesday afternoon. I must remember to pick up an extra compact flash card next time I see my family. I almost ran out of space at each event!
Alright, the weather has finally cooled down, and I can go about the rest of my evening now. Need food…
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