I shot part of a wedding for the first time. It was fun, and I don’t think I totally screwed up someone’s important day! Go me!
As previously mentioned, Wife has the summer off since she’s a teacher, and has been sending me pictures of Sam every day.
This week, we picked a day care for Sam when she goes back to work. That will officially be the day that I lose it. It’s hard enough being at work when Sam is growing and getting better at life every day, but I know Wife is home with him. Just the thought that I’m going to miss things in his life is killing me.
I know full well that I can’t be there for every moment, but my heart and my head don’t want to agree.
In the last couple weeks, he’s figured out his hands. He sat on his back, looking up at his fingers, opening and closing them. Then he put his feet up and grabbed his toes. He figured out how to use his hands and what his toes are. In terms of life skills, he has exponentially improved his world. I, on the other hand, have learned how to make Excel spreadsheets slightly prettier. No contest, right now Sam is kicking my ass at life.
He wakes up in the morning with a smile; I wake up in the morning with a groan and a slap towards the snooze button.
He takes a nap and wakes up with a smile; I take a nap and wake up more tired than when I started.
He laughs and smiles at anyone in the room; I wonder what the person who’s smiling at me is really trying to sell.
He wants to move around through the world and can’t wait to get going; I can’t wait to get home and away from the world.
He wants to play in the grass; I want to cut it.
I want to be more like Sam.
Last weekend, we decided to have a watermelon carving contest. It’s a lot like a pumpkin carving contest, only people actually like to eat watermelon. They’re surprisingly easy to carve up, I did mine (the bald guy) with steak knives and a vegetable peeler.
And then we ate them like zombies wanting braaaaains…
your food is gross
There is an epidemic on the internet that needs to stop. Well, I guess there is more than one epidemic on the internet that needs to stop, but I’m only going to bitch about one right now because a comprehensive listing would be impossible to compile.
I’m talking about pictures of food:
This picture took me all of 12 seconds to find on my Facebook TimeWall (or whatever Zuckerberg is calling it this month, he’s a billionaire he can call it whatever he wants) and I’m sure you could find one just as quickly. This picture and its friends are awful in many ways which I will do my best to enumerate.
- Who cares? Unless you somehow ate an entire dolphin that you caught trying to steal your car, I really don’t give two shits about what you ate last night. It’s not as if I am lying awake at night unable to sleep because I need to know what is currently working its way through other people’s intestines. And make no mistake, by the time anyone sees the picture you’ve posted, that food is halfway to poop. Not a pleasant thought.
- If it’s something that you yourself made in your own kitchen, at least give the recipe. The picture is useless alone, but with a recipe I can at least give recreating your dish a shot if I find it interesting. Just like math class, show your work or it doesn’t count.
- If it’s something you ordered at a restaurant and you’re taking a picture of food that someone else concocted, cooked, and presented, take that cell phone and shove it up your nose. You have contributed nothing to this dish except the eating part of it, which isn’t a skill so much as a survival instinct. Acceptable exceptions include food which is larger than the plate it is served on, or taller than your head while sitting at the table.
- The picture you snap with the cell phone or with the small camera you keep in your purse has a 99.9% chance of turning out terrible. I’m talking from a strictly artistic and photographic perspective, the picture WILL be awful. Taking a good picture of food requires a) a good camera b) controlled lighting c) understanding composition d)post-processing. And no, Instagram does not make it better, it just makes you look like a wanker with an iPhone who thinks sepia fixes all of life’s problems.
Food photography is a thing with its own special rules. You wouldn’t take your senior picture with your friend’s smartphone, so why do you think the one of your lunch is awesome?
For example, this is a picture from my friend Mandy’s Etsy shop, which I like:
Note the composition (the blackberry in focus is balanced by the bowl in the background) the lighting (natural lighting coming from the right leaving shadows) the colors (high contrast, ivory, saturated) and that fact that it makes you hungry. This didn’t happen by accident; Mandy didn’t whip out her camera, take one picture, upload it directly to Facebook, and then eat the whole bowl.
- WHITE BALANCE. No, it’s not a racist name for a method of making sure you have enough minority representation in every picture. Every camera these days can do it, but nobody knows what it is. Use it. Make it your friend. Buy it drinks when you go up to the bar. Make sure it gets home safe. Call it the next day and invite it to brunch. Make sure the metaphor has been well and truly established before moving on to the next point.
- If you must, must have a picture of your food, take a minute to think about how the picture will look before you press the shutter. And then, most importantly, DON’T UPLOAD IT RIGHT AWAY. Later, after you’re done eating, look at that picture and figure out if you can make it better by cropping or adjusting the colors so it doesn’t look like you were eating sad gray tomatoes on a dingy tablecloth next to bread with cat vomit on it (see the top picture again. I don’t even know what the hell that plate on the left is). Picasa is a great free program for fixes like this, but if you want a free version of Photoshop, go ahead and get GIMP. It’s a lot more difficult to use than Picasa, but capable of much more.
I hope this clarifies my position, and now that you’ve been warned, maybe your friends will stop blocking your posts and your Klout score will go up, which is good because according to the Mormons you only get to heaven with a Klout score of 10,000 or something. I’m not really sure, I closed the door on the guy before he could fully explain it.
Sam has figured out laughing. This is pretty much the coolest thing ever.
I took my picture of the moon and added my wife and I flying a pink Cadillac around it. Then I added some friends in the car. Then I put my friend’s wife on a Vespa. Then I put another friend on Yoshi.
I think I have a problem.
taken last night with a Celestron 700mm telescope, x2 Barlow lens. Hooked up the Nikon D60 with a t-ring and telescope adapter.
Time-lapse photography trial. I’ve never done this before, so I just wanted to try it. My camera does not have a built-in function, and there is no compatible intervalometer for it either, so I connected it to a Ubuntu laptop via USB and wrote a script that took a picture and downloaded it every 10 seconds. Then I mounted the tripod and the laptop to a board using bungee cords, and mounted the board to the gutter with c-clamps. My wife thinks I’m insane, and I’m inclined to agree.
Sam and I looking shiny. There will be a day after he watches Firefly that he will thank me for making him the coolest baby ever.
If you want your own Jayne Cobb hat, visit the Etsy shop of Gromidez below:
Gromidenizens dad and newborn son in their matching Jayne hats! You just know this kid will grow up to be awesome!
For your own baby or child size Jayne hats, just convo me on Etsy!
being there
I know being the dad who goes to work while mom is home with the baby isn’t exactly newsworthy, but let me tell you, its hard. I had two weeks off after Sam showed up, and now I’m back at the office. I swear that every time I come home, Sam is bigger. It makes me feel like I’m already missing things. I know there will be times where I’ll have to miss parts of his life, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Sam, I promise I’ll do my best and try my hardest to be there for all your moments.
