Day 22

Day 21

For the last 2 years Halloween (or the celebration of it in Utah) has fallen on a Saturday. In those same 2 years the University Of Utah has played football games on the same night. So, we turn on the game, order some pizza, and pass out candy. We also get some great visitors! It was just funny that pretty much the exact same scenario happened in 2009 AND in 2010. We got a great visit from Shara's brother and his wife and their baby girl both years, and we took pictures last year in my game day shirt, and this year in my game day shirt.

The Utes won their games both years, although this year was pretty frustrating.
2009: Utah v. Wyoming 22-10
2010: Utah @ Air Force 28-23

Day 20 (Part 2)

After our baby shower, and after everyone went home, and Shara was pooped out for the night and went to bed, our friends in our neighborhood were still carving pumpkins. They told me to still come over, even though my wife was asleep and I hadn't yet purchased a pumpkin to carve for myself. After they were done, I wanted to make sure I was still in the annual pumpkin carving picture, so we improvised... Their pumpkins turned out awesome this year! And we had good times playing Mario Kart until 2:30am with a Del Taco run thrown in between. It felt like High School al over again!

Day 20

We were SO grateful to have another shower thrown for us this weekend, and I was amazed all over again at the generosity of the people in our lives. After being married for 5 years, we really have absolutely NOTHING to be prepared for a child. And so all the gifts we are receiving are such great things, and all so unique and useful, and things we love. I'm also amazed at how much University of Utah items our boy will have. It's definitely more than Shara and I combined! He is for sure hooked up. Thank you so much to everyone, we love you!

Day 19

(Today you get two, because I'm feeling ambitious, and I haven't played around with a lot of photos in Photoshop.)

I purchased this guitar after getting a bonus check in 2002, and got a great deal on it from Guitar Center. I've had my eye on other acoustic guitars since then for purchases FAR into the future, but this one has been great and provided countless memories during the past several years. I also think this guitar is partly responsible for convincing Shara to marry me as well.

Day 18

My current bathroom reading material.

(I'll be highlighting the book on top at a later date, but it's the quintessential bathroom literature entitled What Is Your Poo Telling You?)

Day 17

Needless to say, the last 3 days have been eventful, and somewhat adventuresome. We had the LAX Adventure Sunday. Monday was the journey home, and getting right back to work, only to find out my care wouldn't accelerate, and will need a new IDPM Distribution box. I knew I needed new brakes, so this just added to it. The part will be in by Wednesday morning. Luckily we got my car to a point where I could drive it, with hopes that the problem won't happen again until we can replace it.

Today Shara called me as she was leaving home for her Volleyball game and said that her rear right tire was completely flat. So, I came home, switched her cars, and changed her tire. We knew her car needed brakes and were planning on a set of new tires. Turns out we for sure need at least 2 tires, most likely 4.

And driving home tonight, my left headlight went out.

I've said a few dirty words in my head over the last 3 days.

Grand total of repairs/items needed for both of our cars:
2-4 SUV tires, 2 brake jobs, an IDPM Distribution box, 1 oil change for the Jeep, and a missing headlight. I don't even want to know what the total price on all of this will be. Tomorrow is a fresh start right?

Day 16

This picture isn't the most creative, nor is it the best quality. But it was the best picture I took all day Monday. As you can see Shara and I were the last standby passengers to make our flight to SLC out of LAX, and this picture was taken as I was handing my seat request ticket to receive my boarding pass. We may have cheered in the airport a little. Just a little.

Day 15

Sunday after our trip to Disneyland, we tried to fly home standby through Delta Airlines at LAX. Long story short, the flights we waited for were oversold, and over booked, and they ended up asking passengers to volunteer to leave a flight in exchange for a voucher for a free flight. Good for them. Bad for us.

All in all, we ended up being bumped from 5 flights Sunday, and spending a total of 11 hours at LAX, before finally giving up, and realizing our chances of flying standby were better on a 6:15a Monday morning flight (which we made thankfully, being the last 2 to make it on the flight).

This photo was taken in a hallway to the Delta terminal in LAX after we decided to give up for the day and get a hotel room close to the airport for a few hours of sleep before trying it all over again. I think Shara said it best when she said, "I've never been defeated by an airport, until now."

Day 14

Disneyland Day 2. You may casually walk right over this spot and never knew it even existed, but this Golden Spike right under the inside entrance to Sleeping Beauty's Castle is considered to be the geographical center point of Disneyland prior to the expansion of California Adventure. I've been there many times, and saw it for the first time this last trip.

Here is some more info on it (still trying to research the validity, but it seems legitimate):

The Legend: A marker beneath Sleeping Beauty's Castle shows the exact center of Disneyland.

Behind the Legend: The marker really does show the park's center, but it was not always beneath the castle. When Disneyland was first being laid out, a team of surveyors under the guidance of Walt Disney located the park's original center using a gigantic piece of string. The original center is at the middle of the large compass south of the castle. Over the years, as the park was added to, the exact geographical center has moved many times. But it was only after the construction of Mickey's Toontown that Disneyland executives decided the park had expanded enough to warrant a new marker. Using the ultra-high-resolution camera on one of Disney's "communications" satellites, a detailed survey of the park's new borders was made, and the new center calculated -- this time taking into account such technicalities as the non-Euclidian nature of surface geometry when measuring angles on the curved surface of the Earth. In a midnight ceremony shrouded in secrecy, the current marker was placed on the newly calculated spot.

Day 13

Day 1 of Disneyland. This was our first time seeing Disneyland during Halloween. If you know Disney, you know they always go all out. And Halloween was no exception. The Haunted Mansion ride is decked out with The Nightmare Before Christmas and in my opinion should be kept like that year round. This was at the entrance to the ride.

(I took plenty more pictures trust me, but thought this was the best one of the day)

Day 12

We went to Disneyland this past weekend. I took pictures everyday, but just haven't had a chance to post them until we returned. Our first day there (Thursday) was a traveling day. We had some time to kill with Shara's sister and her family before we could pick up our rental car. So we journeyed across the street from John Wayne airport to the IHOP. My nephew "E-Man" (I call him that) had a lot of energy after being cooped up in a plane that long. So to settle him down, I pulled out the Skull Candy headphones and Over the Hedge on my iPod, and he watched intensely, as you can see.

Day 11

So, as I mentioned in this post, Shara and I have very different work schedules. During the work week, we sleep in separate beds. I was a gentlemen, and let her have our King Size bed, and I took the Twin Size bed. I'm 6'5" by the way, I don't fit in a Twin very well, but I'm used to it and can sleep anywhere. I also got to pick the sheets I got to sleep on. When we first moved in to our home, Shara wanted me to have plain colored sheets. I of course declined when I knew I had these sheets from when Dave Swanson and I lived together. Why go with plain colored sheets when you can have Sponge Bob and Spiderman?

Day 10

After coming home from basketball tonight I took off my shoes, and a tuckered out little fella fell asleep against them.

Day 9

The moon looked pretty cool tonight, and I wanted to see how close my lens would zoom in on it. I did a little adjusting for the B&W effect in PS, but I think this turned out pretty cool!

Day 8

10.17.2010

This picture may not look like much, but it's an image I see every day. Shara and I have very different work schedules. Hers requires her to wake up at insane hours of the morning, which also require her to go to bed at very early hours during the day. It sounds weird to other people, but because of that we sleep in separate rooms. Our marriage is great, don't get me wrong I love that girl, but sleeping in the same bed during the work week just isn't in the cards for us. So I tend to see this door to our Master Bedroom closed during the weeknights, and this is as close as I get to seeing my wife most nights as well. We really are just roommates during these times. So this closed door is more than just a closed door you see. It is a wall...

Day 7

10.16.2010

Today was the first of the baby showers family & friends are throwing us. It amazes me how gracious, thoughtful and kind people in our lives our. We received some absolutely incredible things from people to help us out in our new chapter of life. Because frankly, we don't have much. It really does take a village to raise a child, and there are more showers to come, so thank you in advance as well. We could not do it without you. There is no way we could have purchased all the things we need to raise a baby without going into some serious debt. We love everyone and everything!

This is a photo of my Mom demonstrating how tiny newborn diapers are. I was shocked as well!

Day 6

10.14.2010

Candle, candle. (Inside joke only my Mom & Shara will get)
Pumpkin Spice candles are awesomely rad during the fall, in case you were wondering.

Day 5

10.14.2010
We are in the process of finishing our basement. It's a long process, longer than I thought, but it's good to have it started. This is a shot of our family room, towards the back where you can see a framed door will be another bedroom. Overall the basement will have 3 bedrooms, 1 family room & 1 bathroom. Lucky for us, the bathroom is already finished. Framing, electrical, and heating & cooling are done. All we have left is sheet rock, paint, finish carpentry and carpet. Still sounds like a lot...
The mess in the middle is a little embarrassing to me (food storage, boxes and boxes of old stuff and empty boxes that we have yet to go through really) but we had to start condensing to make room for the being.

Day 4

10.13.2010

There will probably be many pictures of this guy until our baby comes. For those of you who don't know him, his name is Stanley. He likes to sleep in random places, including places where he could get stepped on. I found him sleeping here tonight.

Day 3

10.12.2010

Christmas of 2005 Shara gave me a year long subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, and has continued to every year since. It's definitely one of my favorite gifts she has given me. Ever since then I have kept every issue and keep a collection of them in our bookshelves. October of 2008 they changed their print format and produce a smaller magazine than what they once did. I found the older and bigger style of magazine more interesting to shoot because of the used look, staples and texture of the paper. I love that a new magazine shows up faithfully every 2 weeks, and gives me something to read in the bathroom.

Day 2

10.10.2010


Strangely I have 4 of these controllers that I have somehow collected over the years. In my opinion no other gaming console will ever be as cool as the original NES was. Sure gaming, controllers, and everything overall has become more advanced, and graphics are so much more superior than this little guy ever thought of. But in it's prime, I think the original NES had much more hype and attention than anything else since then.
(I am infatuated right now with super tight close-up shots. I love the blurring effect, and the textures you can see.)

A Picture a Day

Hello again! My, my, my it has been a while. It seems for the past year and half or so my posts have only been solely about music and a couple of cool stories my wife has done on KSL. A lot has happened over that time and rather than try to catch up, I've decided to just start from scratch again.... For starters, Shara is pregnant, which seemed like a perfect time to save up and purchase a semi-professional Digital SLR camera. We found a great deal on a Canon EOS Rebel XS with a bunch of different features including 2 lenses. I decided I need A TON of practice, and what better way to do that than to just start taking pictures and researching how to make them look cool/interesting/professional. Anyway, my friend Melanie Swanson does this "Picture a day" blog that I think is such a creative idea and a perfect way to capture every day moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. So I've decided to adopt the same philosophy. From here on out, I'm going to take at least 1 picture a day in hopes of increasing my photography skills, and also to eventually capture the moments our little baby will bring into our home. We are really excited and honestly I'm getting to the point where becoming a dad is all I'm thinking about during my days at work.

So, I bring to you another hobby that I hope to be somewhat good at, but mainly just want to copy and mimic some of the incredible photographers I have as friends that have inspired me to want to take photos myself. Please bear with me as I learn how to make my pictures the best they can be, and I would love any advice or tips you budding photographers have learned along the way. Enjoy!

Day 1. 10.10.2010

Sometimes I tackle a ton of laundry and run out of room to hang in our laundry room. Thus I need to find interesting places to air dry extra shirts that I don't like to put in the dryer. These are the majority of dress shirts I wear on a daily basis.