WhirlWindWeekend

Whew!! That was a doozy! So, the original plan for this weekend was to have my friend Tammy come up and stay with us a few days and hang out/catch up and also get Amandas clothes and things ready to ship out to NY for her fashion show. Seems simple enough. Take some pics, chat a bit, eat some food, run off a few copies, print out a few forms, pack it and where good to go.

.... oh no, that is SO not how it went

So T called me up on thursday and said she wasn't feelin' so hot and so wasn't going to be able to make it up. I was bummed, but figured, that's ok, we'll catch up later. It turns out that it was a good thing T didn't come up this weekend, cuz we were slammed. We took pictures of all of Amanda's new pieces on Friday. Saturday, the whole day was spent editing, re-editing, buying supplies and actually, I can't remember what all we did Sat, I just remember being completely burned out and frustrated and Amanda and I weren't getting along so hot by the end of the day. We were completely burned out and hadn't been out of the house at all. Amanda decided we needed to get out, so she drug me to the Fireworks down town. I'm SO glad she did. I started feeling progressively better the moment we stepped out the front door.

We parked like 16 blocks away from the fireworks and walked to Kits beach, where we found a nice spot on a grassy knoll to lay out our little pad. We ate processed cheese spread, hot sauce, pita, tortilla and a thermos of wine(things that were laying around to snack on as we jetted out the door). We sat on the beach for about an hour or so waiting for the sun to set and the fireworks to start. It was nice
to just hang out and unwind. I did kick myself a bit for forgetting to bring my camera to this event, but i was pretty brain dead at the time.

Sunday started off pretty good. Nice breakfast and then my job was to burn CD's, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn. So I get the files, organize them and go for it. I was on a roll! Burned like 70 CD's, which took most of the day. Amanda worked all day running errands and getting more supplies to finish her 120 some odd gift bags she had to arrange for the show. She comes in that evening and asks if I made sure to put these couple pics in the burn folder.... uh... dammit!... It's ok, so a few CD's are missing a few pictures, sucks, but fine, whatever. We fix the problem, burn about 15-20 more and Amanda is checking over something and realizes that the file that contains the prices and model #'s for the products is also completely wrong.... *shoot's self in head* An entire day wasted, completely wasted. THAT is disheartening. So we finally get it fixed and then we start burning some more, but by this time it is like 10 or 11 at night. Amanda at least got a lot done on her gift bags, but my day was shot. So, instead of mailing out monday, we'll have to mail out Tuesday, which is fine, but ridiculous.

NEway, to wrap up, yesterday, Amanda spent all day working and was still burning CD's when I came home last night. We had to pack all the stuff up and get it ready to mail. We ate dinner and got a nice call from Sage. Sounds like she's having a blast at her grandparent's house, watching car races at the track, jumping on trampolines, swiming day and night, sleep overs, playing with and making new friends, riding bikes and just having a generally fun summer vacation. She did request that we bring her BMX bike to her when we visit in a couple weeks so that she can go down to the BMX race track there with her friends. It was really nice to get to talk to her. We also had family come through town last night on the way to the airport, so we sat around and chatted with Gerry and Jane last night for a bit before bed around 1130 and then woke up around 4am to drive them to the airport ;) (sleep is for the weak!) I got to work a bit early, but there was no traffic on the roads, so it wasn't bad. Plus, I got to watch the sunrise, so that was cool.

Now Sunday wasn't all bad though, because in between changing discs out from burning, I set up my camera and played around a bit. I messed with focal zones and f-stops and shutter speeds and lighting. It was fun! And then I took my first stab at a little something called "selective de-saturation". Amanda recently taught me about something called "layers" in my photoshop program, which anyone who is remotely photoshop savy will tell you is a nigh indespensible tool, that I was completely clueless about. So with the help of layers, my new tripod and a little time, I came up with some interesting shots. Not too shabby for just messin' around.

I'll post those pics tonight when I get home.