On Saturday, October 10th, I had the honor of photographing a wedding, my very first. It was nothing like what I was expecting, though I didn’t even know what to expect in the first place. But it was very fun, and I learned so many things, not just about photography.

The venues for the ceremony and the reception were gorgeous though, especially the ceremony because the time it was set. A half hour before sunset in the Japanese Garden at CSU Long Beach. I just wish I had more time to take it all in because it was amazing.

Here’s a glimpse.

I’ve only barely begun the post-processing of the thousands of pictures that I took and have hours and hours of just going through pictures to look forward to. But after taking a quick look through all the pictures, I’m going to say that this wedding was a success. I had a lot of fun working with so many talented people that all played a huge role in making the wedding happen. The pressure I felt was quite similar to what I felt working at Anime Expo. The only difference is that I’m taking pictures instead.

I want to just plow through all the photographs and finish it all right now! But I have to balance it all with school. I’ll do my best!

So as I’m writing this blog, the weather is taking a turn for the worse. It’s cloudy, rainy, and windy outside. It isn’t actually raining at this very moment, but it was and it will some more. I’m very glad the weather opened up just for the wedding ceremony.

I think this is a relevant topic because so many people use cell phones and so many people drive. And I’m sure that a significant number of people charge their phones in their cars. It might even lead to more people using resources, whether that’s energy or their money, more efficiently if tested and researched.

I have two myths actually.

Myth 1.
Does charging your cell phone in your car shorten the phone’s battery life?

There would be at least two parts to this test. One where the engine is off and the phone is drawing power only from the car battery. The other part would have the car’s engine running and the engine supplying power to charge the cell phone. The engine-on part may even be split to engine idling and something like car travelling at highway speeds.

Myth 2.
Does charging your cell phone in your car instead in your home, save you money?

This one is based on the idea that the electrical output of a car is replenished once its engines are operational opposed to a homes electrical power that a homeowner is billed for using. This is assuming that your car is an average consumer’s gasoline burning car or even a hybrid perhaps. Nothing like a gas guzzling SUV. There are many factors to take into account including how much you pay for your electricity, gas, car, home, etc.

The amounts of power being measured in both myths is probably very minuscule. I don’t have any ideas on how anyone would go about testing this myth.

This looks like a job for The MythBusters! But until they can test it out, here’s a discussion thread.

I’m writing this post because I’ve had enough of my Accounting homework and just need to do something else. And I need to update this more.

This semester is looking like it will be an expensive one. Expenses keep adding up but I still don’t have much of an income source.  It’s kind of ironic since this is my first semester studying Business.  I haven’t started any HRM classes yet though, so I’ll just have to tough it through all the entry-level classes.

I’m finding the status of my job search quite surprising.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I’m a bit surprised that Ihaven’t even found a minimum-wage job.  It was quite a surprise when I didn’t get the Art Supply Warehouse job even with a Manager referral.  Oh well, just keep swimming.

Now let’s rewind to a brighter subject.  Anime Expo’s 6th Annual Staff Dinner happened quite a while ago, but it wouldn’t hurt to mention.  I was surprised with the honor of Operations Division MVP along with James (who should have also won Best Dressed).  I was minding my own business eating my Mango Pudding too!  Well, AX09 was fun, but now it’s time for Anime Expo 2010!

Since I’m on the topic of Anime…

I think my favorite academic class this semester will be my Philosophy class. One of the books I had to get for the class is Virus of the Mind. After reading the Introduction and Chapter 1, I couldn’t help but find many parallels between the topics of the class and Ghost in the Shell. I feel like I already understand many of the topics already because I’ve watched Stand Alone Complex so many times (I’m watching again for kicks). Now kids, that’d another reason to watch Anime! This in my opinion is educational television at its best. Maybe I’ll write another post someday and go into more depth.

So has anyone read The Laughing Man by J.D. Salinger?

P.S. The forum on my website is functional. Feel free to use it here. But if you do, please follow this format for your username: First name + Last initial. I.E. KimLongV, BarrackO, FrodoB, you get the idea. Names not following that format will be edited and then you’ll have fun trying to log in. I think a BBS is great because it allows group conversations to occur outside of real-time and carry on for extended periods of time. With talking, phone calls, AIM or whatever, the conversation can’t go on too long because it’s just impractical. It’s not meant to replace other forms of conversation but just to be a supplement. So don’t be shy, and stop on by.

This is my Wing Gundam Ver. Ka (Katori). I built this guy back in Christmas 2007 but recently brought it back out with plans on making it look even better.

I’ve begun learning how to paint these models and am also experimenting on a few other models. I am working on a new color scheme to paint my Wing Gundam which will make it look a little more lively than it has for the past year. Painting it adds a completely different texture that looks much better than the flat plastic-y look.

Here you can see that I’ve also modded the wings so the sections can spread apart and move too. I saw this mod while surfing different modelling forums. I think it gives the wings a more organic look, rather than all the lines being straight. The first wing took 5 hours to complete while the second only took 1 hour. I still need to fill in the holes and gaps so it doesn’t look messed up before I paint it.

I don’t have enough money now, but when I have some extra, I’m going to go to Brookhurst Hobbies and pick up some paint so I can start working on this model some more.

I still have to sand everything down anyways. My old 320 grit block is falling apart so I might have to pick up a new one soon too.

I also recently discovered the chisel blade for an X-acto knife. That blade is amazing, and anyone who’s building model kits should give it a try. Just wish they had a saw blade that small too; X-acto’s saw blade is way too big.

In the mean time, I’ll be job hunting.

The amount of work and detail that is put into Disneyland is just amazing.  I never get tired of coming to Disneyland.  It’s always fun singing along to everything though half of the people there think we’re crazy.

I need to come here and take pictures more often because there are so many little interesting things that are just beckoning to be photographed.

I must go back one more time before Summer starts.  There are only 12 more days left that I can go in June!  July is completely blocked out and so is half of August.  The second half of August I will be busy with my high school, so that’s no good.

Anyone want to go any time soon?

School was out a week ago! I got to end the year with lots of fun performances. I think that was definitely the most performances I’ve had in a month ever in my life. It was definitely fun though, and I’ve definitely taken more pictures during this month than any other month and that was also very fun.

Aside from that, I also attended a couple BBQs. The AX one left me smelling like smoke and it took a whole day for the smell to go away. The one on Memorial Day was nice and quiet and relaxing.

And that’s it for the good news.

This is a minor nuisance, but my laptop charger is dead now. The wires in the connector are short circuiting so it will not provide any power to my laptop anymore. I am currently borrowing my sister’s whenever she is not using it. So that was two chargers that died on me this month, and there’s only one good one left in this household.

Because it’s so annoying having to wait for my sister to not use her laptop to get anything done, I thought this would be a great time to cross over to a Mac. I’ve been thinking about getting a 20″ iMac for a while after all, so why not do it when my PC continues to fail me. But of course, that wouldn’t be the plan for long.

This next bit is rather ironic I think.

I told Michelle about the problem with my laptop, and she (being a Dell user) offers to let me borrow a charger temporarily until I can resolve the issue. So Monday evening, I start heading up to UCLA to pick it up. I only made it half way because my car engine started acting up. While I was going at 75MPH two lanes over from the carpool lane, next to a CHP car, and with a large SUV with rather bright headlights coming up behind me at probably 85MPH, my engine experienced a sudden loss of power. RPMs dropped and my speed was down to 50MPH in about 5 seconds, which now that I think about it is abnormally fast. I tried to accelerate back to 88MPH so the flux capacitor would work, but then my engine completely cut out and RPMs dived to 0. Time of death, 11:12PM.

So my engine is blown, and considering how fast that thing leaks oil, I’m not too surprised. It’s just not fun having to deal with it. It uses over a gallon of oil a month. If it lasted any longer, I would have been using more oil than gas.

Oh and earlier, my shoot-through umbrella and my backpack broke. At least those two were easy to replace.

So plans for summer are going to have to change a bit. No new computer, not as much new camera gear. I have to get a replacement car soon after all.

But the good news is: AX2009 is less than 5 weeks away!

Last Saturday I played one of the most amazing steel drum concerts I have ever been in. It was so much fun, and the best part was a lot of my friends and family came.

My good friend Johnny B’s girlfriend Alyssa was kind enough to take pictures for us during the second concert and she got some amazing shots.

The lighting for this concert was interesting because it was the first time we performed in a dance theater. I thought they would turn on their side lights, but they didn’t for whatever reason. But the pictures still all came out pretty good I think.

Come to my next steel drum concert in December!

My laptop almost quit on me several times this month already. It’s only about 3 years old, but I use my laptop a lot as it is my primary computer so I can believe that the end of its lifespan is coming. Some of my other friends with almost the exact same model who bought it about the same time I did have had theirs die already. So I’m expecting mine to quit soon.

Maybe while I’m writing this entry?

My plan now is to hope it will last me until summer. And hopefully by then I’ll have enough money to buy a new computer. But this time, I plan to switch over to a Mac. I plan to get a 20″ iMac. I had trouble visualizing what a 20″ screen would look like, so I stopped by the Apple Store to take a look. 20″ is pretty big, and 24″ is way too big for my desk. At roughly the price of a new SLR body, this better be a good investment. But before getting it, I have to figure out one thing: Aperture or Lightroom?

I have exclusively been a PC user so this will be interesting.

Any PC to Mac users have feedback?

I’m on Spring Break now!  And this year, Ceasar Chavez Day was not during spring break!  But we still didn’t get the holiday off?  Bummer..

Now that I have some time to sit down and blog, I will.  Then I shall do some very much needed spring cleaning in my room.  I probably have lots of things to toss out and a ton of photo gear to organize and store somewhere.  A lot of my free time (if that exists) I used to make random photo things out of stuff like cardboard and tape, so  need a place to put it all.

Let’s begin by recapping everything that’s happened since the last post. (I am currently consulting flickr and my pictures to refreshen my memory on stuff that happened)

I should have posted this one on my last post, but here’s my birthday cake just because I like cheesecake so much.

But besides that, more drumline competitions for Westminster HS. That’s keeping me busy. It’s getting tiring because I feel like I’m more motivated than some of the kids marching. Shooting pictures at the competitions is good practice for my photography though. Bad gym lights, fast moving kids… how much harder can it get?

Happy 5 months! I feel like a jerk for not doing anything special…

I think the highlight for me is the World Percussion concert. We all had a blast! Friends and family went to this one! So I’m happy. Thank you everyone who showed up.

My sister’s blog has some videos if you want to see because you couldn’t make it or something. None of the steel drum performance though, just the African stuff which is still super cool. That just gives everyone a better reason to stop by CSU Long Beach on May 2nd to go to the big steel drum concert!

I’m going to cut this post short because I am going to bed earlier so I can wake up and clean tomorrow! It’s time to discover what’s underneath the pile of stuff.

I just finished a simpler layout for my site.  I really like this one because pictures really stand out from it.

I have totally been neglecting my website.  It’s just that I’ve been occupying myself with so much other stuff.  And school started again.  I pretty much spent my last free weekend for the next few months working on this.

I should have blogged about so many things.. But at least there are pictures on my flickr to show for them.

Since my last post, there was Christmas, New Years which I spent in San Diego,  Road Trip through California, school starting again, my girlfriend leaving to study abroad in Korea, getting new camera gear, turning 21!! and heavily contemplating my future.

Still don’t know what I want to do as a career.  Might switch majors, might change current major to a minor.

A lot has been happening, but I’m still alive and healthy.