Did I mention that I have been feeling very down on most of my photography work lately? I feel like I’m in some sort of slump. And this isn’t to say that I think incredibly highly of my work to begin with, but more that the work itself has difficult for me, not fun, and the results have been fair at best.

WELL, I think I am starting to see the end of this slump. The work itself hasn’t been better necessarily; however, the amount of fun I’m having while doing it plus the relative ease at which the technical parts come to me has increased as the fog seems to lift.

I shot and posted this the other week:

And it’s TERRIBLE. I mean, I shoot plenty of terrible things, but I’d never bother to post it. This was probably in the top 10% of things I shot that day and that’s why I posted it, because everything else was worse. Now, I must admit, I may have been a teeny tad bit under the influence of DRUGS and ALCOHOL, BUT, I did manage to still make this bachelor dinner for myself:

It was well-executive, creative, and DELICIOUS. My photo slump, at the very least, did not effect all areas of my interests and creativity.

Going through a creative and technical slump isn’t the end of the world for the most part, but when I felt that it was interfering with my ability to do PAID work, I began to worry a little bit. I shot a house for Jesse the other week and it felt very difficult and unnatural for me. There was an element of rust there, since I hadn’t shot a property for anyone for a number of months, but it was more than that. Camera and flash settings, position of the lighting, composition of the shot, all a struggle for me that day. I was very self-conscious about the results, but Jesse was happy with them and THAT I was relieved to hear.

After that was Lois’ birthday photoshoot. It was also difficult for me and I was unhappy with the results. And everything else in between, with the exception of this photo, which I really like:

Like I said above, I feel like I’m starting to come out of my slump. The technical aspects are coming to me quicker and making more sense, composing shots isn’t as ridiculously trying, and I’m having fun doing it. Since Jesse’s listing I shot another listing for his business partner and I had a lot better feeling about it during and after the shoot. The results are pretty close to the same as before, but it FELT different.

A friend and co-worker of mine asked me to take a few portraits of him and ultimately I was pretty pleased with the outcome:

Again, it was not the outcome or the results that really mattered to me, but the process and how it felt while doing it. Maybe that progressive, hippy, no-one’s-feelings-get-hurt curriculum and philosophy that my school district started switching to late in my public school education has something going for it… I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I escaped just soon enough to have experienced dodgeball and a rigorous math curriculum, but late enough to understand that maybe I’d rather skip college and go to trade school.

Huh? Yeah, I dunno how that all fits in.

Three in a row!

A couple things:

From this post about martinis and calorie consumption I made an error in assuming that a martini was 2.5 oz per martini. Mrs. S recently pointed out that I was actually using a jigger to make my martinis at home. A jigger is 1.5 oz, which means that my three “shot” martinis were actually 4.5 oz EACH. Three martinis like this is almost 900 calories (roughly 300 calories a piece).

I, however, have very little to be concerned about (other than the systematic pickling of my internal organs). As of this morning, I weigh 139 pounds. I’ve taken to eating more and nothing I do seems to get me back above the 140 pound mark. I’d like to be 145 pounds with that extra weight coming from muscle, but I’m finding it much easier to go for a couple mile run than it is to make it to the gym to do weights. I’ve got to work on that. The Mrs. says I’m way too skinny.

Seven days ago was Lois Lane the Prettiest Pug’s third birthday. I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss about it, because she’s a dog after all, but I also didn’t want the event to go unnoticed. I compromised by stopping off at a nearby doggy boutique, buying her a few special treats, including a frosted cookie, a new birthday shirt, and finally, torturing her with a birthday dog photo shoot.

When I arrived home Mrs. S was already giving Lois a bath. She was a bit on the stinky side and I don’t think anyone wants to be stinky on her birthday. Unless you’re a dog, of course. Dogs seem to revel in their stinkiness.

I made dinner for the grown ups, before feeding her and then starting the birthday festivities.

And when I say “festivities”, I mean Lois and I hanging out and being dumb while Mrs. S feverishly labored over school work at the dining room table, occasionally looking up to see how ridiculous we were being.

I started with dressing Lois up and taking photos of her:

Kind of a difficult, laborious process, because I mean, she’s not exactly the most obedient dog on the planet and what I wanted from her was very specific.

After we both grew tired of that I gave her her frosted birthday cookie. She grabbed it and ran to the living room.

That about did it. We were both worn out after the bath and photoshoot and playing. I managed to grab the cookie away from her, because I didn’t want her eating the entire thing in one sitting. That didn’t stop her from obsessing over the cookie for the next few days, which she could smell, taunting her from the counter. But at least on her birthday, I didn’t want her puking everywhere from excess.

That’s that. If the 7:1 dog year ratio thing is true, then Lois is now 21 in human years. Let’s both cross our fingers for a lifetime of alcoholism in her future.

Anything! It doesn’t have to be good! Really!

So I feel like this gloomy weather has me feeling gloomy. I mean, it’s Spring, right? It should be nicer than this at this time of year, right? I can handle many, many months of rain and dark clouds, but when May rolls around, I’d like to see some sunshine, ya heard?

OK, a lot to catch up. I think that I’m going to create one post every day for the rest of this week. I don’t want to pull a mental hammy, so I’m going to start off light by posting a few camera phone pics I took recently and semi-recently:

Camera phone pic of Dids after he had finished his third “personal” pitcher at Von’s:

BIG AZ Bubba Twins two pack of chili cheese dogs with a “DOUBLE MONEY BACK GUARANTEE” that you can actually purchase for TWO DOLLARS out of the vending machine at my work:

A Korean “Fried Chicken Snack” which HAD to have been invented for just me:

I enjoyed some alone time having Conveyor Belt Sushi aka Sushi Parade a few Saturdays ago. It was a total convention of mothers and daughters having lunch together. You can see two sets in my pic alone. SINGLE DADS OUT THERE: If you have a teenaged son and both of you are on the market, I recommend going to sushi parade for a two-for-one deal (wink wink):

A work meeting over a cocktail:

You might recall me once complaining about the price of gas in THIS POST saying: “got gas this morning and i’m pretty sure this is a record. its a combination of me almost running on fumes (i only have an 11 gallon tank) and the price of gas being frickin ASTRONOMICAL.”

I paid $25.71 for 10.851 gallon. That’s like, $2.37 a gallon. I took this just the other day:

You ever feel like you’re living in some sort of sci-fi futuristic world where gas is nearly $4 a gallon and all the world’s knowledge and information is at your fingertips at all times? Yeah, me too.

Did you know that Flickr now has video?? I think that a lot of people in the Flickr community are pretty upset about the whole concept, but I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I think that the more features you can pack into this already great system, the better.

Let’s give this a shot!

…which is the longest I’ve ever gone without blogging since I started this website. Please be assured that I did not drink myself to Bolivian or waste away into a dusty skeleton sitting at a computer somewhere. No, the real reason is that I’ve been working non-stop for the past three weeks with my works’ building move and I haven’t had a single day off since. I think I’m going on my third 70+ hour week in a row and while that might be nothing for a doctor or a corporate something-or-other *I* am starting to get a little bit tired.

Fortunately, this is the last weekend of it all and after that I may resume my twice-a-month blogging.

In the meantime, the view from my new cubicle:

And the fuel that keeps me going:

I’m talking about blogging, of course. I really go through spurts of motivation when it comes to this thing.

This morning I weighed 147 pounds. I think that if I can stay between 147 and 150 I’ll be pretty happy. Last Saturday morning I weighed in at something like 144 (but then again, I always lose like, three pounds the night after I’d been drinking). I’m still trying to figure out how to maintain weight as opposed to gaining or losing. Currently, I’m mostly focusing on larger lunches, but otherwise everything else will remain the same. And oh, I was able to run for the first time the day before yesterday. I think my knee is sufficiently healed up to start doing higher impact stuff.

I’m still adjusting to the weight loss and all. Two Friday nights in a row I nearly embarrassed myself with my level of intoxication from volumes of alcohol that would have previously been just fine. Between the drunk texts and the reoccurring emasculation at the hands of a specific bar manager, I’d say that I need to adjust my personal expectations for how much I can drink.

Let’s see, what else, wrecked a giant bowl of mussels with my girl Kate the other day. The girl can cook:

Afterwards we went and saw Be Kind Rewind, which was wack, in my opinion.

There are a number of shows that are coming up that I plan to attend:

Monday, March 10th
Neumos
Truth is Here Tour
Brother Ali

Wednesday, April 16th
Key Arena
Glow In the Dark Tour
Kanye West

Tuesday May 13th
Showbox at the Market
When Life Gives You Lemons, You Make Seattle Gold
Atmosphere

I currently only have tickets for the Brother Ali show, so if you want to join me for either of the other two, let me know and we can go together!

TGIF!!

No, I haven’t taken up a tobacco habit, but I did buy my first Zippo yesterday. To be honest, I’ve always wanted one, despite not ever having a good reason to own one. There’s just something sexy about the way it feels in your hand and the sound it makes when you flip it open and shut. Not to mention that it produces FIRE, which is one of man’s fundamental and critical technological masteries. Me being the techno-fetishist, how could I NOT want one?

But right, I don’t need one, but then I saw this at the mall yesterday and knew I had to have it. I showed Mrs. S the Zippo and without a pause she said, “You should get it!” So I did. The little guy is in my coat pocket as we speak. Now I just need something to burn.

Cross-posted from a messageboard post I made:

You think of vodka as being pretty harmless calorie-wise, and yet, doing the math it’s crazy.

Just yesterday I had four martinis. Conservatively, that’s about 2.5 oz. per martini. I googled it and 80 proof vodka is 65 calories for a 1 oz. serving.

SO, my four martinis was 650 of completely empty (but delicious) calories. In a 3 oz martini, that becomes 780 calories.

I’m guessing that in the last seven days I’ve maybe had about 10 martinis, which can be as much as almost 2000 extra calories with no nutrition. I think I’m going to limit myself tonight to two martinis, which will make for a nice round dozen for the week and a cool 2340 extra calories.

It boggles my mind. Glad I don’t drink beer.

I actually ended up going to the artist’s reception for the scavenger hunt despite being a bit uninterested initially. Well, it’s funny that I did, because I ended up winning an award! There were three judges and they presided over choosing Best In Show, 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place, Juror’s Choice (each Juror chose their favorite photo from a pool of about 160), and People’s Choice. Well, Juror #3 like my photo the best! It was this one:

I was given a certificate, a large UW-related print by one of the Jurors who is a photographer, and a gift certificate to have a giant print made of one of my scavenger hunt photographs. Pretty sweet.

And granted that most of the people there were college aged, young, amateur photographers, I found that I have very little tolerance for hearing others talk about their photos in an artistic sense. I could probably get down with hearing people talk about the technical aspects of their photos, but all the artsy stuff was totally yuck.