hidden forest towers, awesome music, feet, ladybugs, and acid trips...ooooh dear

Ok, so first off let me apologize for kind of disappearing for a couple weeks or so. Work has been busy and then when I'm home I am usually editing pictures or simply lazing around playin games on my new TV, or figuring out this new phone. But then when I wasn't doing that I was on netflix blasting through this insanely hilarious show called 'Blue Mountain State." The show is basically about the inside life of a stereotypical national champion football team at a party-college. It's completely out of line 102% of the time but is also one of the funniest shows I've seen in a long time. especially once you realize that even the brightest stars on the team end up being complete retards as soon as they open their mouths, like this guy!

 And upon watching the show I came to realize how much I love their opening theme, so I did some searching and now have it set as my alarm clock. check it out!




And before all the BMS frenzy started, I actually had a pretty fun time at the beach with Momo trying to get pictures of her feet from 1 inch off the ground.



But as I was laying down taking the shots I noticed dozens of little ladybugs swarming me, and crawling all over Momo's feet as well. Since I had the macro lens ready, I snapped it on and started going crazy with the ladies! At one point Momo had 4 of them on her arm and face, it was soooo cute! However, up close they are still, in fact, BUGS, so you may or may not agree with the cute part here:




So back to current affairs; This week it has been raining non-stop for the last 5 days. UGH! You see, normally I love the rain, but today I'm supposed to go out for a photo project and, well, that's just not going to happen. So I have to find some way to get creative in my room/mini-studio. Sigh.

But since I'm in a lazy mood today I resorted to just playin some guitar and workin out, since I haven't done much of either in a while. So that's what I've been doin today, though I'm not sure what I'm going to do once I post this blog. Any suggestions? Home alone on a rainy day with a busted ankle and Momo is in vegas, so I'm running low on creative juices. Maybe some cheerios will help...

*****UPDATE:  I posted this blog and then walked outside to grab my camera from my car so it doesn't get soaked and BOOOOOOM lightning! I know exactly what I'm doin for the rest of the day. If you don't know, lightning is my absolute FAVORITE subject to photograph and simply to be around. I hope it keeps up until dark I'd love to go to the beach and get some lightning shots from the mountain top, as long as camera doesn't get too wet!

Weekend of fun!

Gonna make a quick update here before I head to bed.

This week has been incredible in terms of photography. I finally got around to editing the last batch from New Year's Eve.



Then on tuesday we got to turn in our self portrait photos for class. My teacher hasn't given the grade yet but the other students seemed to like it. The idea for the photo comes from the AFI song 'death of seasons.'

"I watched the stars as they fell from the sky, I held a falling star as it wept for me, dying."



And the irony of the whole shoot is that less than 5 minutes after shooting the selfie in which I "caught a shooting star," I went to take a picture of the staircase leading into the night sky and it just so happens I caught a falling star... A REAL ONE. I look up to check the lighting to see if I should use my flashlight but the moonlight was more than enough for the job, and just then I see it shoot right across where I'm shooting. I was thinking 'Oooooh I sure hope that was bright enough to show up on the picture!' It's not SUPER bright, but it's still visible and serves as proof that it's still possible. So now I can add shooting stars AND lightning to my night photography portfolio. =D



Then Saturday rolls around after a normal work week. Momo and I went bowling for the first time in years at Harley's Camarillo Bowl for their Club Atomic night. It was alot of fun and we had some really good games, followed by a record breaking bad game. I'll let Momo explain how that one went, haha. All I know is I'm still sore from playing Dance Dance Revolution for the first time in over 6 years. The last time I played I was a local favorite at Lazerstar where me and my old buddy George would go for hours and spend all kinds of money just dancing like idiots on heavy mode. Hey, it was a serious workout, and I'm considering getting back into it for lack of motivation to actually run or workout on my own, haha!

So finally, Sunday! My good friend Jun asked me to shoot his engagement photos for him and his beautiful fiance, Missy. I took roughly 400 photos, and of those I selected 64 to edit and submit for their approval, and of those 64... I have no idea how many they want to use for whatever, but its all good sicne I'm just gonna put my best effort into it and give them something to remember for the rest of their lives, hopefully.




So basically, that's it for now. Gonna head to bed now and get some rest for another loooooong day at work tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a wonderful new year!

~sw23

James bond has LEFT the building =(

Gonna keep this short, as I just took melatonin about a half hour ago and don't wanna start sleep talking... or sleep typing.

So here's the latest upload




Went to day 3 of my class today. It was fairly interesting. Teacher was going over stuff about how to import and use camera raw, which I already had it down and spent pretty much all class time editing this amazing picture I got from the weekend. Turns out I actually DID catch the shooting star in my shot. I thought it was too far from my frame, but after looking at it on the computer screen in full resolution that light white line streaking across the picture is no doubt the falling star I saw. And the irony of it all is that the photo I took just before seeing the shooting star was a themed conceptual self portrait in which I "caught a falling star" in my hands. So all in all it was very fitting and no way a coincidence that I went to that beach at that time with that sequence of events. Thank you God for allowing me to have such an experience despite my camera giving me slight frustrations. So yeah, I am a little excited about sharing it with you... as soon as I get to class on thursday and get the pic off the school computer haha. I saved it to computer, edited it, and then forgot to put it on my flash drive to take home, so its still sitting in my assignment file, which luckily will not be touched by anyone but me and teacher until the end of the semester.

So other than that, my weekend was pretty fantastic altogether. Not only did I get amazing photos saturday night, I also got to do projection on sunday and then spent the afternoon and the rest of the night with momo and her family. We watched momma mia... yeah, I'm not gay, but I survived it nonetheless. Then her dad thought to save my huMANity and had us watch two Clint Eastwood movies. "any which way you can" and "every which way but loose." I think those were the films. All I know is that they were very much needed after watching the former 007 in a retro skin tight jump suit singing abba hits and duets in a chick flick musical.... Sorry Brosnan, You have officially been excommunicated from the male species.

=

Not that the movie was all that bad, just that.. I mean come on, its James Bond singing mushy I-miss-you songs along with Abba(Sorry abba fans, nothing against you, I just can't stand it. S-club 7 is where I draw the line)... It hurt to see a hero fall so far. =P

But I have got to ask my dad about the Eastwood movies, as I'm sure he's seen them. The second one was almost offensive considering how poorly they tried to portray a marine boxing. Even with the globe-anchor-eagle tattood on his arm, they managed to make him walk all lanky and fish-like with his arms flailing around and taking punches wide and way outside... and then Clint naturally doused him with a flurry of punches. Given, it's an older movie, so even seeing a very clear distance of 2-3 feet between fist and face despite the 'marine's' attempt to sell the punch falling to the ground in agony, didn't stop me from having a great laugh at almost every turning point of the movie. Except the whole sleeping with your girlfriend with an orangutang in the bed... yeah, I laughed, but still disturbing haha.

So this week's assignment will be 40 pictures of anything within 50 ft of where I sleep... and at first she asked for a narrative, but like half of the students didn't understand what a narrative is, so she said forget it just take pictures. So naturally, I have to come up with a narrative and then some, because I'm not going to take this class lightly. If it's a project that I already know all the criteria for and it's an easy A, then I plan to make it a hard earned A by overdoing it to the point of almost offending the other students still learning the material, because I have no intention of paying money out of my pocket to take a class and not learn anything or try anything new. So I'm gonna ask if I'm allowed to edit the photos or are they due in raw unedited format. If yes to editing, then I'm gonna have a blast turning my house into a haunted mantion or something, since my roomies can easily pass as zombies (the dude hardly sleeps so he looks half dead at best, no offense bro, haha) Ok, the pills finally kickin in an hour and a half later. Time to head out before I knock my head out... on the desk. TTFN!

~sw23

I'm supposed to be in bed...

I promised I'd get some sleep once I finished working with some pictures. But I never promised I wouldn't do other stuff before I started the pictures, muahahaha! But seriously, I couldn't keep all this stuff to myself, since my internet wasn't working the past 2 days. So first and foremost, as I have made it a new tradition. Here is the latest from CTSP:




So from the beginning of interestingness, Thursday was the second day of my new class. We had the chance to introduce ourselves and naturally I got shy and didn't say anything I meant to say and basically made it look like I know NOTHING about photography and have no interest in anything but surrealism and art, which is in fact somewhat true. I am an artist, not a photographer. My camera is nothing but a tool for my artistic outlet, just like my guitar and my pencil or my keyboard. I'm a surrealist and will never see things for what they really are. That's far too boring.

But then it was time for everyone else to introduce themselves and boy there is an interesting bunch I get to work with this semester. The guy across from me, not to judge, but is probably mid 30's, long black hair, rugged facial hair, muscular and tight-fitting jeans just high enough to let every know that it doesn't matter who's signing for it, he's got a package for you. And not much to our surprise he stood up and confessed that he was raised around photography... pornography to be exact. And then we have two or three "pro" photographers who bought really cool cameras, paid for a website, and started charging people up the butt to shoot their events. I know I'm not a pro and I don't advertise or charge anything close to what I should, but that's because I know I have a full time job and I'm still learning photography every day I shoot. But after seeing some of their sites I finally get what John was saying about people who think that a camera takes good pictures. Cameras, as the teacher explained, do nothing more than store information on light and color, just millions of 1's and 0's. Only the person holding the camera can make what he'she sees into something worth calling a photo. We then discussed the difference between Cameras and artists. Blah blah blah, stuff I knew long before I started shooting, and then finally we got to the good stuff; Photoshop! I actually got in trouble. Not even done with my second day of school and I get humiliated in front of the whole class. And it was so awesome haha. We were editing a photo that was on the community network. What the teacher didn't mention was that if I clicked 'done' in camera-Raw, it automatically saves it to its original location and replaces the old one. So suddenly after I clicked "done" everyone in the room started saying 'hey, my picture just changed and I didnt touch it." Finally the teacher asked "who keeps changing the picture? Now it's desaturated and we can't work with it." I raised my hand and said 'my bad' and everyone just laughed and we tried a different picture while I put my hands in my pockets... Hah! Okay, enough about thursday, gotta save some space for the rest of the week(end).

Yesterday (Friday, so day before yesterday technically since it's now 1 am sunday morning) I believe was fairly okay, with the exception of a few internal struggles. But Momo came to the rescue and came  to spend some time with me after work. We watched James and the Giant Peach, Master of Disguise and about half of Hook before she had to get goin back home. I very much enjoyed the innocent childish humor to relieve me from the stresses of adult life. Thanks Momo!

Then Today (or yesterday for you technicalitarians) I had a half day at work. That's right, a REAL half day, where I was GONE by 1:45 or so. I went straight home, showered and shaved and got something to run around in and headed over to pick up Momo for some sunset photography madness at the beach shown above, El Matador State Beach. The pic above was taken new years eve, but the shots we got tonight were amazing. I got some goofy self portraits while jumping like a maniac off the rocks on the cliff face, as well as some pics of Momo and then another Selfie of a fallen star. (You'll see it soon enough) Then, after shooting a fake falling star, we went to the staircase and shot a long exposure of the stairs under the light of the moon and stars, and just as I started taking the picture a REAL shooting star streaked right across the sky, but it was just centimeters out of view of my frame! But I don't mind it not being in the shot, I still got to see it and that was enough for me. I have to admitt, I've never seen a shooting star turn that bright red before. Usually they are just white and tiny, but this one was orange-ish red and just ever-so slightly slower than most. I can only assume that this indicates that it was a very large body of mass and was large enough and slow enough to fully ignite and still make it close enough to the atmosphere for the human eye to distinct its color before it disintegrated. But I could just be a rambling idiot after all, but it makes sense to me.

So then after shooting we went back to her town and played with fishies and birdies and a puppy that she is house-sitting for, So cute!

Then we went over to my town and enjoyed some Souplantation. THEY FINALLY STARTED SERVING CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKE AGAIN!!!!! Yes, it is so epic it deserves all caps, end of discussion. The entire meal was incredible. 4 kinds of salad leaves with olives, shredded carrots, kidney beans, hardboiled eggs, cheese, noodles and chicken, broccoli and some slices of pickles for no reason at all, smothered in ranch and then downed with my soon-to-be world famous Froot Beer. (Just ask Momo, I have officially taken root beer to the next level. Maybe even over 9000!!!!!!!) Then we headed for the bread n' pasta buffet table and scrummed up some pizza bread, cheesey alfredo pasta, mac n' cheese, and of course some LAVA CAKE! I can officially say now that I ate way too much, and after spending all day at work doing sets of 50-100 push ups and sit ups between trucks, I have now defeated the very purpose of working out and will probably have to work thrice as hard for the next few weeks to undo the damage I caused tonight at dinner... And it was so worth it! :)

So now it's 1:27 a.m. and I'm chillin' out listening to some of my mom's favorite music from the 70's and 80's Amy Grant albums, and I gotta get up in 4 and a half hours to get everything set up at church. I get the feeling I am going to be tiiiiiiiiiiired tomorrow (or later today, for you technicalitorianites) but oh well, I'll live, and if I don't, I'll still live. :)

Goodnight internet! (or morning for you technica.....forget it. goodnight)

~sw23

GO TIME!!!!

Almost!

-but first-
Here's the latest and greatest from my website:




So in 18 hours I will be happily sitting in class... the first classroom I have actually been in as a real student in about 5 years! SO EXCITED. And it's a class that I am already confident that I know 99% of the material, but like I said in previous posts, it is an opportunity to get an official degree and thus earn more respect and credibility as a phhotographer as well as have a social life and motivation to use my camera more!

So other than that, nothing too incredible going on right now. I got the car window closed on my head, but only slight bleeding in the mouth, nothing serious. But it was totally worth it because I got to go to lunch with MOMO and feast on Subway. Sweet Onion Teriaki Chicken with avocado... MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. And that's pretty much all that happened today. Got off work early, came home and played around with photos and photoshop brushes and presets from my old harddrive, and now about half hour into melatonin dose and happily admitting that eyes are heavy and ready for a 7 hour nap. OH BEFORE I FORGET my camera is totally scratched on the sensor I think. Can't be too sure, but the dust removal attempts failed and I'm convinced it's hardware problems. But I'm considering upgrading to a D700 anyways... I need better low-light and full-frame capabilities for the 3 weddings I have coming this fall. Ok, wish me luck with all that!

Ja ne!

Ooooooooooh the places you will goooooooooo

Just a heads up, I'm really tired and out of creative juices right now, but I cant seem to sleep so I'm just gonna jot down some of the random thoughts and events of the weekend and try to clear my head, at least clear enough of it to make room for some sweet dreams. So here goes.

Saturday... oh boy was it NOT a saturday for me haha. Worked from 9am to about 7:40pm. Really long day filled with sitting around for hours at a time eating twinkies, doing push ups and situps and making random jokes in spanish that I really didn't understand half of them, but still I tried to contribute and pretend I was listening and said yes yes haha. Finally got off work and headed over to Momo's place for a group get together her family was having with her brother's friends. I sat at the table and had some pizza and fudge while I played apples to apples with the moms. It was pretty fun, and then we cleaned up and I came home, said goodnight, then got the urge to play a few rounds of black ops and edit a picture or two... one of which is kind of mandatory as I needed to finish this picture for a client now for a few days but haven't had time or motivation. Hope she likes it.

But here is the photo I finished for the fun of it. The Oxnard Seabridge on a foggy night.




So other than that, nothing too interesting this week. Went to revive for the first time in a year last night, only to find that it is a farcry from any form of 'revival'. certainly not the college movement that I had remembered it to be when last I visited. But before you go and get the wrong idea thinking I'm bashing it or talking bad about it, I'm not. This is a blog and on it I share my personal feelings, and this is what it felt like walking into that room. It felt like high school. I had the awkward privilage of sitting right next to Jill without realizing it til halfway through, and her boyfriend kept sneaking peaks at me... I guess I was supposed to take the hint and move or something.. but I came to spend time in God's house, not jill's so they can leave if they find my presence offensive, end of discussion, I let them know this by ignoring the stares and sang even louder and closed my eyes and just focused on the only one who deserved my attention to begin with. But aside from the awkward seating arrangement, along with leaving momo stranded again (SORRY!) It just felt like high school all over again with all of the cliques and younger people only talking to the 2 or 3 people they already talked to all the time. Nothing against the service itself. loved the music and message, definately felt the Spirit moving in there. The last time I was there it was intense. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and if you were new there then at LEAST 4 or 5 people would come up to you at any given time and ask to pray or talk with you for no reason other than to meet the rest of the family. So it was just uncomfortable afterwards knowing that so many of those people "knew about me" thanks to her rumors, and thus none of them actually KNEW me, which makes it really hard on Momo as she was new there and automatically got ignored when she was seen coming to hang out with me... like i said... high school all over again. I had to find some familiar faces to introduce Momo to without getting awkward stares from the haters, so I found my brother from another mother Emjay and we talked about some basketball tournaments starting up on sundays... I'll need to get in shape but I'm definately game. And yeah, after that we left and had snack / dinner at dennys and went home. So that's the last 2 days, in backwards order. Anything I missed or anything you want to know? feel free to ask or comment with your opinions or feedback or questions. I've been really unmotivated lately due to 10-12 hour work days and the ever-stressful burden known as random increases and studders in heartrates keeping me up all night. So please, feel free to start me off on a topic or sentence and maybe I'll have something new to run with here ya know? What's that you say? My entire post is one giant paragraph full of run on sentences? Haha, no, actually I started a new paragraph when I broke it apart with the picture...right?

Randomness terminated, commencing operation dream-beam. ZzzzzzzzzzzZZzZzZZzzzzZzZ

And the mad lib winner is....

First off, here is the latest pic from earlier this afternoon. Goodbye 2010!




And secondly... the winners are...





Your all winners! I read through all of the possible answers as I plugged in all of your answers into my story line and I honestly couldn't pick just one favorite to post. But since you all have been good sports and entertained me I will take a little extra time out of my extremely busy new years eve party being hosted in my room with hot pockets and video games and post them all! So with each entry I will underline the answers you gave me, but I won't number them so try to remember what you put, as hard as that might be.  Here's a refresher

And The Awards are as follows:

Best kind of field to run through : Cake fields by Wendy Pelletier!

Best time of day to be waking up : 7:24 p.m. by Mynx!

Best villain : Man-eating Unicorns by Bruce!

Kinkiest sounding superhero finishing move: Wonder Woman's liking loving upright horse ass smash by Bouncin' Barb!

Best all around party game: Little Big Planet by The Adorkable Ditz (Momo)!

And a special honor for the most randomly entertaining mad lib I read: Bruce's entry with his uncanny ability to seductively give into peer pressure while dreaming about man-eating unicorns being defeated by invisible woman only to be woken up by 22 clones of his wife making noise! Haha!


I really wanted to end the year with something funny so I might be able to start the new year with a smile and something to laugh about. So with that, Happy 2011 to everyone and enjoy the randomosities!

By Mynx:

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up at roughly 7:24p.m. to the sound of 23 Crickets outside my window. So I flung my superman blanket off and rushed to the window to see what was going on. Apparently there was something going on down the street at the local cheese market for new years and everyone in town knew about it but me. Luckily, I was already prepared for the unexpected random party-people situation with my Captain Jack Sparrow costume fresh out of the laundry.I threw it on in a hurry and Rode to the spot. When I got there I was greeted by my best friend Jason who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing I was! The rest of the guests were all wearing various outfits and playing a huge game of Scrabble . By the time it was finally my turn to jump in and play, everyone else lost interest as the DJ announced it was almost midnight. I softly gave in and joined them all as we stared quickly at the clock. When all the tension was getting to the point of insanity, as the clock was just about to change from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, a huge ball of light burst open in the sky and out came hundreds of giant man-eating Koalas. Everyone jumped in terror as they realized what was going on. And just as I was about to get devoured, batman showed up and defeated them all with his ultimate power, the Kicking Kissing sideways tiger big toe smash! But one of the monsters got away and chased me through a carrot field and just as it caught up to me and began to close it's fangs around my leg, My eyes opened and I was suddenly in my bed lying down. Was it a dream? I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on in my head to cause such an old dream. And that was when I heard it. the sound of 68 airhorns in a frenzy outside of my window...

By Wendy:

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up at roughly 9a.m. to the sound of 8 drums outside my window. So I flung my Miss Brooke blanket off and rushed to the window to see what was going on. Apparently there was something going on down the street at the local spaghetti market for new years and everyone in town knew about it but me. Luckily, I was already prepared for the unexpected random party-people situation with my Captain Jack Sparrow costume fresh out of the laundry. I threw it on in a hurry and shipped to the spot. When I got there I was greeted by my best friend Doris who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing I was! The rest of the guests were all wearing various outfits and playing a huge game of Monopoly. By the time it was finally my turn to jump in and play, everyone else lost interest as the DJ announced it was almost midnight. I groggily gave in and joined them all as we stared spritely at the clock. When all the tension was getting to the point of insanity, as the clock was just about to change from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, a huge ball of light burst open in the sky and out came hundreds of giant man-eating wolverines. Everyone 13(verb)ed in terror as they realized what was going on. And just as I was about to get devoured, Superman showed up and defeated them all with his ultimate power, the sleeping conjuring bending cheetah eye smash! But one of the monsters got away and chased me through a cake field and just as it caught up to me and began to close it's fangs around my leg, My eyes opened and I was suddenly in my bed lying down. Was it a dream? I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on in my head to cause such a sweet dream. And that was when I heard it. the sound of 7 bells in a frenzy outside of my window...

By The Adorkable Ditz (Momo!)

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up at roughly 11:11a.m. to the sound of 13 seagulls outside my window. So I flung my sailor moon blanket off and rushed to the window to see what was going on. Apparently there was something going on down the street at the local pizza market for new years and everyone in town knew about it but me. Luckily, I was already prepared for the unexpected random party-people situation with my Kung pow's chosen one costume fresh out of the laundry.I threw it on in a hurry and 7(verb involving movement/transportation) to the spot. When I got there I was greeted by my best friend Methusala who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing I was! The rest of the guests were all wearing various outfits and playing a huge game of Little big planet for PS3. By the time it was finally my turn to jump in and play, everyone else lost interest as the DJ announced it was almost midnight. I graciously gave in and joined them all as we stared ecstaticly at the clock. When all the tension was getting to the point of insanity, as the clock was just about to change from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, a huge ball of light burst open in the sky and out came hundreds of giant man-eating tazmanian devils! Everyone squawked in terror as they realized what was going on. And just as I was about to get devoured, Captain Planet showed up and defeated them all with his ultimate power, the whining baking crouching badger spleen smash! But one of the monsters got away and chased me through an udon field and just as it caught up to me and began to close it's fangs around my leg, My eyes opened and I was suddenly in my bed lying down. Was it a dream? I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on in my head to cause such a random dream. And that was when I heard it. the sound of 40,952,784,092 shoes in a frenzy outside of my window...

By Bouncin' Barb:

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up at roughly 3:33a.m. to the sound of 13 washing machines outside my window. So I flung my Davey Crocket blanket off and rushed to the window to see what was going on. Apparently there was something going on down the street at the local liver market for new years and everyone in town knew about it but me. Luckily, I was already prepared for the unexpected random party-people situation with my dirty harry costume fresh out of the laundry.I threw it on in a hurry and hitch-hiked to the spot. When I got there I was greeted by my best friend Albert who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing I was! The rest of the guests were all wearing various outfits and playing a huge game of dominos. By the time it was finally my turn to jump in and play, everyone else lost interest as the DJ announced it was almost midnight. I quietly gave in and joined them all as we stared extremely at the clock. When all the tension was getting to the point of insanity, as the clock was just about to change from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, a huge ball of light burst open in the sky and out came hundreds of giant man-eating donkeys. Everyone plowed in terror as they realized what was going on. And just as I was about to get devoured, Wonder Woman showed up and defeated them all with his ultimate power, the Liking loving upright horse ass smash! But one of the monsters got away and chased me through a peanut butter field and just as it caught up to me and began to close it's fangs around my leg, My eyes opened and I was suddenly in my bed lying down. Was it a dream? I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on in my head to cause such a big dream. And that was when I heard it. the sound of 50 blow dryers in a frenzy outside of my window...

By Bruce:

Today was a very interesting day. I woke up at roughly 8:03 to the sound of 803 of my dogs outside my window. So I flung my Alex Karras blanket off and rushed to the window to see what was going on. Apparently there was something going on down the street at the local Cheeseburger market for new years and everyone in town knew about it but me. Luckily, I was already prepared for the unexpected random party-people situation with my John McClane costume fresh out of the laundry.I threw it on in a hurry and drexted to the spot. When I got there I was greeted by my best friend Molly Ringwald who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing I was! The rest of the guests were all wearing various outfits and playing a huge game of some sort. By the time it was finally my turn to jump in and play, everyone else lost interest as the DJ announced it was almost midnight. I Seductively gave in and joined them all as we stared smoothely at the clock. When all the tension was getting to the point of insanity, as the clock was just about to change from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00, a huge ball of light burst open in the sky and out came hundreds of giant man-eating unicorns. Everyone ran in terror as they realized what was going on. And just as I was about to get devoured, Invisible Girl showed up and defeated them all with his ultimate power, the Hiding eating upside down goat buttocks smash! But one of the monsters got away and chased me through a carrot field and just as it caught up to me and began to close it's fangs around my leg, My eyes opened and I was suddenly in my bed lying down. Was it a dream? I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on in my head to cause such a round dream. And that was when I heard it. the sound of 22 of my wives in a frenzy outside of my window...

Hope you all enjoyed and thanks so much for playing and giving me something to do! Happy New Years everyone!

Inbred doesn't begin to describe...

So if any of you random nobodies have been following along in any of my older posts, you might remember this girl named courtney who I dated for 8 months only to find she was cheating from the first day, and dumped me for no reason out of the blue and got married to this one armed cancer-ridden 46 year old sex offender the next day... yeah, that one. Well she obviously decided to get so drunk and high, either that or so miserable without being able to pick fights and win anymore since I was the only man in her life who let her speak her mind without beating her, whatever the case, she decided to leave me some offline messages on my yahoo. it went something like this: "-blush- I love you. JKJKJK. HATe. I HATE U. U R WEIRD. N UGLY." Now mind you, this poor girl never went to school, never learned to read or write until she was 16, and was raped by her sister, her brother, AND her dad, and the only guys she ever dated treat her like trash...So when we broke up and i found out all the crap she was doing behind my back, I tried to be nice and forgive her and told her I wish her good luck and sat and talked with her and gave her all her crap back.... then she goes and pulls this crap trying to get a responst... well it worked.



 I let her know exactly what I never wanted to tell her. the truth. I very descriptively told her about how I felt about the way I was treated as well as the fact that her entire life amounts to nothing higher than sex and alcohol and that by the time her freak of nature husband is through with her she'll be so misshapen and deformed from all the drugs he put her on that even her dad brother and sister wouldn't get with her anymore, so she can take her inbred screwed up life and end it before she wakes up to realize what a retarded mess she has made herself. Among a few other choice words I said, I basically let her know that if she wanted to taunt me and get a reaction, then she wasn't going to get a buttered up response. I told her that I forgive her, but I will not tolerate her harassment any further. Can you tell I was pissed off and hurt? I mean come on, I thought I loved her, and she put me through hell, only to throw cheap shots at me while I'm still trying to recover from the life I almost threw away on her. Give me a freakin break!

 So here is the official end. If by some chance anyone related to or in contact with courtney reads this feel free to send her this message:



"Dear courtney koker,
           Good riddance. You could have been a good person but you chose sex and drugs over a life with a man willing to sacrifice for you. If you ever come emailing or texting me again, ill download the necessary programs that i still have access to and make sure your every email and form of contact info is erased and your phone will be shut off since I still have access to the phone I PAID FOR. and if you find yourself in danger when your psychotic husband who raped you when you were 14 turns on you for the THIRD time and you come crawling back for help, i will show you no kindness. you are not welcome in my life no matter what happens. You can move down here and start going to the same church or school as me, I will not acknowledge your existance, even if your name shows up in the obituary i will show no emotion, because as of right now this very second you are dead to me and I rid myself of your memories. Enjoy your life with the choices you have made and don't say i didnt warn you. you are married to someone who tried to kill you.. you fucking idiot. Good bye."

So now that that's off my chest, I apologize I didn't take the time to spell check and correct myself where needed, I just want to get it over with and put it behind me forever.


And in other news, I am happy to announce that I have 5 toes on my left foot and am totally cool with that. Never again will I make the mistake of falling for someone based on looks and first impressions, because I finally figured out how easily used I am and how hard it is for me to stand up for myself. Poop... I feel like poop. But it's all good, I got a girl who is my best friend before we ever made any kind of other connection, and by no means are we putting lust or any superficial ideal above our friendship. Don't be surprised, I mean sheesh it's been like 2 months since i've been single... I'm allowed to have a new girlfriend by now aren't I? But that brings me to my next awesome announcement.

Today Momo finally got the ok from both parents and myself to officially call me hers. We have been "together" for a few weeks but her parents and a few other people still loidering in her personal life were keeping us from making it official. But today I can finally say I found a girl who actually likes dorky nerdy funny stuff like I do and for the first time in years I have a friend with something in common with me. (Rose and the McDonalds gang, we have some stuff in common too, but personality wise you will all agree when you finally meet her, she is my other half, no joke.)

And on another note, I have one more week and then its back to school for the first time in 5 years!!!! So excited! I'm only able to take one class since I'm working 60+m hours a week, but still... its a chance at a social life and possibly a career building opportunity to get me out of this black-hole that is my job. Ok, I can't think very clearly this week, stress and sleeplessness getting the best of me, so for now I'll just say goodnight before I start making sense and scaring people... Til next time.

~sw23

IT FINALLY CAME!!!

My day off that is!

So yesterday after a wonderfully short 4 hour work day I called one of my co-workers / photo buddies, Gabe, and asked if he wanted to go shoot while I still had some daylight. He suggested we hit up the Ventura pier. We took turns with the tripod, because he's a bum and doesn't believe in getting his own. I took shots mostly while the light was still up, while he took some pretty amazing night shots from on top of the pier.

Long exposures + water = <3    :)




Then today totally took the cake.

Woke up like any other first sunday of the month, got ready and left to go work the projection at the church. But between first and second services I had the pleasure / honor to pick up Momo and bring her with. I felt bad because I had to make her sit alone as I still had to run the tech, but she seemed to have a good time during service despite having a hard time sitting all alone (IM SORRY!). Then things just started getting awkward in a good and bad way. For the first time since I started going to Calvary Chapel Camarillo, I was invited to go to lunch with other people. We went to a restauraunt that I used to work at back in high school, Burger Barn! MMMMMMM chilly burger! And oddly enough, dispite Morgan's claim to being shy and bad around strangers, she somehow fit right in! She didn't necessarily walk up and introduce herself to anyone, but plenty of people walked up and introduced themselves to her! The ONLY thing that made the whole lunch thing awkward is when I found a seat at our big table with the group, my first Ex-girlfriend, Jill, just so happened to take the seat RIGHT NEXT TO MINE while I was in line... so I had to ask Momo to switch seats with me so she could be between us. (Trust me, it was necessary. Jill is the very reason I never get invited to church events anymore, and the reason I have gone for 6 years without a single friend. To this day she still makes my life awkward and uncomfortable at the very sight of her and her hateful eyes. As if the rumors she spread weren't ridiculous enough, she has to sit there, SEVEN YEARS since the last time she's ever even seen me, and give me dirty looks in front of everyone including our pastor.) But the drama-queen aside, Momo made incredible progress as it seemed everyone on our side of the table, except Jill, was throwing bombardments of questions at Morgan in a genuine interest. Every couple minutes I threw a joke into the mix when Mo said something funny, just to remind them I was still at the table, but either way it became apparent to me why I was finally asked to spend time with people... Because I had a genuinely interesting person at my side. Thanks Mo!

Then after lunch Momo and I headed to the Ventura cross, with a few random detours to the wrong streets and back to the freeway 3 times. We got to the top of the hill, amazed at how beautiful the sky was and how perfect it was for pictures, only to find 30+ cars lining the entire hillside as there was a wedding going on. UGH! But no worries, we went down a little ways towards the bottom, found some parking, then walked back up to the small park/benches area just below all the crowds at the top and continued our picture picnic :)

And now I have the pleasure of sharing the first two shots from today's epic adventures
I finally got to use my new lens! I had it for over a week now and never even had a chance to take it out of the box and shoot. <3 day's off!



And then after the photos we snuck back to my house and tried out my newly added netflix I got on my PS3. We watched 'About A Boy' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' while talking about how much fun we had today.

All in all, this weekend was a total success. Even though I gotta get up in 5 hours to start another work week at the job I never thought I would hate as much as I do now, I'm not gonna let it get me down because I can truly say that this weekend brought me enough happiness to last the rest of the week at least, haha. Doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy my work or not have anything to complain about, but it definately means that instead of complaining about it, I'll simply think about the happier things that keep my mind off of the unhappy things. Thanks again for the awesome time, Gabe (no homo) and Morgan
Hope everyone else (whoever you are... you internet stalkers, you) is having a great holiday season!

~SW23.

Where has my heart gone? An uneven trade for the real world...?

Well, It's not much of a surprise to me, but I may as well just admitt it for those of you, whoever you are, who don't know. I'm a bit of a flake. Not like I had a specific daily word count quota or anything, but I do tend to not manage my updating priorites very well. But better late than never right? So what's been goin on lately? Oh boy, too much.

So I'll just throw it all out there randomly for the sake of not pretending to be any more organized than I really have been. Last week was decent. Went to work, did my thing, went home and eventually got over being sick. Saturday I went to Momo's house and spent the day with her family playing Farkle and Apples to Apples, then we watched a movie called House of D. The movie was good, very touching story and all, but hit a little too close to home at some points and I had to turn my head from Momo before she noticed my eyes watering. (Yes I get sucked into good stories, but stuff that is still fresh in my memory can only be pushed so far down before the right movie or song baits it back to the surface again) But then we went to see the new installment of the Harry Potter series. It was pretty good, though I'm not sure how 2 hours passed without me even realizing. Then we went to her house for an ALMOST midnight snack with pumkin pie and plenty of cool wHip then made my way to my car, only to run back and knock on her door to make her come out and see the HUGE moon.

Sunday was very nice indeed. Momo came over and we watched some more movies and spent more time getting to know eachother talking and quoting more random movies. That is, of course, until I fell asleep. I didn't sleep much the night before, so I kind of ruined the "go out and play" plans as she decided to forego waking me up to instead sit and stare at the adorable wonder which was my sleeping face. Yeah...women. Since I was so out of it, I can't 100% recall the events of the evening after Momo went home, all I know is I went to bed early because Monday was a day I would not soon look back on with fondness.

Monday was hell. Not going to sugar coat it. The last three days have been hell actually. I got moved to a new facility and no longer have my old job. My manager is also taking over management for another company and told me I would get a small pay raise, health benefits and PLENTY of hours. The only thing he didn't mention was that the work is near-impossible for someone with a short mental capasity like me. Oh that and the "plenty" of hours actually means a schedule that will suck the life out of me. Not to complain about having too many hours during a recession, but lets be honest here, I'll be working from 9a.m. to 7 or 9p.m. from Monday through Saturday, year round. Sounds great for a hard working man right? Well guess what, I work at the church on Sundays and that means I dont get a single day off... all year. Yeah, yeah, boo-hoo no more social life no more hopes of spending time with friends let alone finding someone who might marry me. And that's just it. If I was married with a house and family to provide for, this job would be perfect because I know when I get home from work I have my beloved wife and kids to keep me company and share in their happiness and such. But I'm not married, I don't have anyone but myself to provide for, and I am trying to put myself through school so I might be able to rise above 10 bucks an hour. That's a pretty nice wage, but here in southern California, 10 bucks and hour for 60 hours a week won't even get you an apartment, and I know I'm not going to rent rooms in a stranger's house for the rest of my life. I need to get to school, but my boss said very specifically: No days off. if you're too sick, he want's a doctor's note releasing me from work. There is no other reciever to cover me if I take classes.

So basically, I just got stuck in a position that I can't keep up with. With the recent amount of stress I've been under, I reached a near breaking point today and asked one of the other managers what my options are if I could go back to my old position and find someone more suited for this one. I am perfectly fine with 30-40 hour work weeks with weekends off and a little more flexibility, even if there are no health benefits or awesome paychecks. I'd sooner get fired from my new position for all the mistakes I'm making anyways. And the best part is...It's not hard work at all. It's not like I don't understand it all, It's just too much at once and my brain literally can't process all of the things I have to do without getting nervous and making stupid mistakes. And if you know anything about shipping business, once you make a mistake in recieving, that mistake continues to go through the system all the way until we ship the wrong product, get billed for it and rejected, then my boss has to call the corperate and explain to HIS boss that he hired a reciever who is making tiny mistakes here and there that are costing the business thousands...And guess what; My boss called me into his office today to tell me just that! He said I'm only 3 days into the new position and I'm already getting worse with every day. He sees that I'm visibly nervous, and wants to know if I will show improvement. I wanted to say no please let me back to my old job, but another manager at the company was the one who referred me to that position (I didn't know that until today) and if I bail on this job, then that manager who stuck his neck out for me gets in trouble too. So I'm at a loss here. not sure what to do. If I keep this job, I will have to sacrifice social life, me-time, friends and family, school, and probably the biggest slam in the face, photography. That's right. If I'm stuck at work from the time I wake up 'til long after the sun is gone, every day of the year, I'll have to give up any hopes of booking clients or going out just to shoot pictures like this one:



I for one do not believe in the 'american dream'. I'd much rather work my butt off to piece together my rent, then spend all my free time chasing my two passions: photography and people. Without my artistic expression and the people close to me whom I share it with, my life would amount to nothing more than a weekly paycheck and reciepts for all the food I wasted it on, as I would do nothing more than work and eat and sleep simply to sustain my lifeforce while my soul deteriorates...That is NOT what I plan to let happen.


But wait! There may be hope! Although I'm not 100% sure on the details, I went ahead and enrolled for spring 2011 classes in the evenings anyways! If I lose my job, then I'm fine because I'm ready for change and if this is the way to bring it about then bring it on! But hopefully I can sit and talk with the boss and explain that I'm young and trying to put myself through school, so I signed up for classes that start at 6p.m. two days a week, so for those two days i can come in 9-5 and go to classes, then take saturdays for projects / field trips as required by the class. That way maybe, JUST MAYBE I'll be able to even out my schedule to include some free time and life-progression as I go to school. But this is all just hopeful thinking for now. I'm hoping I can take the classes I want, and hoping the boss doesn't let me go when he finds out I'm taking control of my schedule. and I'm also hoping that if I can balance school and work and continue my position, perhaps those health benefits and pay raise might help me put some money in the bank while I get my teeth fixed and finally start wearing glasses after more than 13 years without them. So since I know only one person who reads this blog; Momo, whoever else is out there, along with Momo, if you are people of prayer, I would appreciate all the help I can get. Both for my situation at hand, as well as my anxiety problems as I have come to realize my fuse is much shorter than I imagined and lately every little thing has caused intolerable amounts of pain even though I know everything's not all that bad. I think I need a break from life.

That's what she said...

And of course, the title has nothing to do with anything. Take that cliche expectations!!!!

So what have I been doing all week? Simple. Wake up, do a bunch of stuff, go back to sleep. And just for the record, the weekend was a BLAST! Momo came over and watched some movies with me saturday, then sunday I made it to church an hour late and somehow managed to pull off all the projection duties without missing a beat, even after the band skipped a song and changed the order. With four hours sleep I felt so on top of things! And then sunday night I went to Rosalie's house with 10 other people to play a game called Curses. I won, not by choice though.

So if you haven't played any of those quirky social ice-breaker games like cranium or shout or whatever, then here is a really funny one that you have to have a video camera handy to catch the idiocy in real time. Trust me, you won't soon forget it.

The basic breakdown is that everyone is an actor in the game. There is a deck of "challenge" cards. Everyone takes turns picking up challenge cards and doing exactly what it says, then the other plays have to vote on whether or not the act was convincing. If the majority votes no, then the failed actor mus draw a card from the curses deck and do exactly what the card says. And if at any moment during the game that player is caught not following their curse, any other player can ring the bell and call them on it, and they get a strike. 3 strikes and you are out. And you must obey ALL curses, no matter how many you draw, which makes things interesting if you have one that says to cross all your fingers while another one says to  scratch your back every time you read a card (as if picking a card from the deck isn't hard enough with the crossed fingers)

So a quick example of the first 2 hours of our night? Well, at the table, To my right was Aubree, To her right was Krista, Steven on my left, Candice Rose and her daughter and Krista's brother Zack were across on the other side of the table. Here's how the shinanigans went down.: Krista drew a challenge card that said something like "You are a Vet. Demonstrate to the other players how to rescue a hamster suffering a heart attack." She started acting like a surgeon, asking someone to hand her a scalpel and and knife. For fear of future hamster-hack-n-slash horror film scenarios, we gave her a unanimous thumbs down. She drew a curse card that read: "Any time you speak you must pinch your nose." And so Krista had a hard time breathing and laughing without popping her ears the rest of the game, and she sounded ridiculous. Next aubree failed her challenge and got a curse that she had to pretend she was being attacked by deadly mosquitos every time she spoke and had to swat them away.... Try to imagine someone flailing their arms around their face every time they talked... it was like watching a live enactment of TIMMA!!!! from southpark. Maybe. I had some interesting challenges. I had to explain to Steven why I wouldn't marry him. Basically told him he had a weiner and I wasn't interested.  Then I had to ask him to the prom... and then break the news to him that he was pregnant... WHY DID THE ONLY TWO GUYS IN THE ROOM GET ALL THE WEIRD ONES?!?!?! Oh well, I failed one and had to be cursed with the rock star curse. Every time I spoke I had to strum an imaginary guitar... Looked more like I had some kind of twitching disease. Near the end of the game, to sum it up, Every time Krista read a card, Aubree had to bark like a rabid dog while swatting away mosquitos, And every time anyone made an animal noise, Rose had to be really itchy and scratch, at the same time any time someone named a food Rose had to clap her hands. Then any time anyone clapped their hands, Steven had to stand up and take a bow, While candice had to sneeze and make an animal noise every time she spoke while pretending her wrists were superglued to her forehead (watching her try to eat was histerical until someone had to help her out). Eventually every time anyone did anything, everyone else at the table had to react like an idiot or risk losing the game. It was hilarious.

Ok, so back to Monday... yucky work day! After stayin up all night playin games and watchin The Princess bride with the gang, and talkin to Momo after she woke up feeling unwell, I finally got home around 4 am, edited some pictures until about 6:30, then crashed. The sunrise, I might add, was INCREDIBLE! Anyways.  slow day at work, I got lifted up in a little basket with the forklift and had to clean pipes on the ceiling of the 3-story-tall overhang. Total yawn-fest until I got my ipod out of my car and just let the time pass as the world dissappeared and I cleaned the same pipes at least three times. Finally got home and got around to uploading my latest picture to flickr. Check it out!
Just remember to click the picture link and see the description, as there are lyrics and encouragement along with the imagery. =D



Then while editing the picture my old friend Jessica decides to randomly start talking to me again and takes a sudden interest in my personal issues and my so-called love life. I fill her in, catch up with her a bit, then make the mistake of mentioning that I found someone who could be worth the effort and BAM, she's all over me, just buggin' the crap out of me until I agree to give her some info so she can go do what girls do best and talk behind my back about me. Lucky me. But then again, life is finally getting interesting again after a mediocre routine-driven relationship with someone else not worth naming. So hey, why not let things hit the fan once in awhile? It could be a mess worth cleaning up after =P

So finally, I'm all caght up with the weekend and am about ready to settle down and have some me time. What am I going to do? not sure. Probably go to CVS and get a 10 dollar desk heater so my room might actually reach above 45 degrees tonight. This house is alright, but it is broken and has no insulation at all, the window doesn't even close properly, so the three blankets I use at night only do so much good against the 36 degree morning dew. I'm thinking 10 dollars is worth it as opposed to the money I'd throw away on cold remedies and possible doctor bills as a result.

But don't get me mixed up here, not tryin to complain by any means. I learned some scary facts about where my dad was in Kenya and the amount of suffering most people my age would never dream of and here these kids over there live it every day. Random scary tribal tradition: In order for a widowed woman to prove that she was loyal to her husband during his life, she has to sleep with her husband's corpse or face public humiliation and/or death for being unfaithful to her marriage. No joke...America has way too many things to take for granted, makes information like that just send shivers down my spine thinking about the differences in cultures and traditions. Here's a photo my dad took of a boy no older than I am. He admitted that most of the teens and men his age have to inhale chemicals and get high in order to numb the pain in their stomaches caused by starvation. Most of them know that they won't live to see thirty, if they're lucky enough to see twenty. Now I feel stupid for ever complaining about my tummy growling at work.

So tomorrow, hopefully, will bring some good news and answered prayers. If not, then I'll just have to make the most of it and keep up the good attitude. Hope everyone else out there is having a great week, whoever you are! Get well soon Momo!

~sw23


(Update: I ended up at dennys around 2:19 a.m. by myself after getting my 10 dollar heater from cvs. It was delicious, but I caught a cold)