Epic

So remember yesterday how I was complaining about having nothing to shoot and not really much motivation to get out and do stuff? Well, I may not have worded it that way, but I was definately needing something to do. I was doing jumpropes in my room, which should be physically impossible do to me being 6'4'' and my room being so small. I just tried not to scrape all the popcorn off the roof or knock my tv over in the process. But either way, rain or shine, I need to keep my ankle active now that I tore a ligament I need to soften it up so it can heal. Though it looks like surgery may be my only option at this point :(

Anywho, I finally got around to editing the pics  I took from friday's lunch break. take a look!



Notice anything different about the two pics? see if you can find all five differences. (basically the top one has 5 things less than the bottom one)




The first one was just his car. A mitsubishi lancer evolution, or as we call it, and 'EVO'. But for my homework this week I had to take a portrait of two people without a face showing, so I asked the owner, who happened to work with me in the office, to step outside and stand by his car acting cool. Then I HDR'd him with the car. YUP that's right, both of those pictures are made up of 9 different pictures blended into one, so luckily Ricardo (owner) stood still enough not to make ghosting or blurring effects.

As for the other portrait, well, I have about 130 shots from tonight to go through. The sun came out to play today and my good friend John called me back to go shoot at the beach with him and his girlfriend. So now I have shots of myself, his girl, him, and him and his girl together... and I only need to use one. sheesh this is hard!

On the way home from the beach I got a txt back from my friend Rosalie and went to hang out. I took her to pick her kids up from Awanas and then dropped them off as we went to Dennys for some biscuits with gravy, mozzerella fried cheese melt, and some french silk pie. AND OF COURSE ROOT BEER, DUH! After that we went to her house where our other good friends Krista and Aubree were waiting with the kids. We continued to play with bubbles until we got the amazing idea to start a game of volleybubble. Basically, since I'm the best bubble blower around, I blew huge bubbles and then everyone tried to blow it around and pass it to eachother. I got some video footage of it on my phone but am too lazy to go hook it up and load it to youtube and post it for you, but next post I will definately show you the carnage that ensued.

So all in all I had a pretty good weekend, despite my girl bein over in Las Vegas, I've been through enough to understand that time and separation can actually bring people closer together as they realise how much is missing in their life once they are away from eachother long enough, so I can't really complain, I'm just glad that she's happy and slightly jealous she got to go see Chris Angel and Phantom of the Opera live. (not at the same time obviously)

Well, gonna get goin to bed now, gotta get up for work in the mornin. Thanks for stoppin by and have a great week! Whoever it is reading this, don't be a stranger, feel free to make use of that comment box below. It's not for some stupid view count or personal acknowledgement thing, I just simply love when people take the time to show some love once in awhile. I mean, you got this far already, you must have spent at least a good 5 minutes if not more just reading all this nonsense, possibly 15-20 minutes if you paid attention and checked out all the photos on their actual webpages and viewed them large. So what would it hurt to say hello or some feedback on what you liked/disliked/would like to see about my writing, or at least simply to let me know you were here so I know I'm not just typing to one or two people with a bunch of other people reading a few words and being done with it, haha.

Well, take care!

~sw23

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

I'm going to give you something awesome. Hold out your pinky toe and open your nose.

WOOOOOOOOOAH! Has it really been that long? Oh well, my one and only follower sees me on a near-daily basis, so I guess slacking off on this blog isn't the biggest blunder of my month now is it? So what have I been up to? Let's see, well last weekend I finally got to edit a picture on sunday and even wrote a short song-ish poem thing to go with it.



Then later I got together with Momo again and we watched some funny movies; My cousin Vinney, The Whole Nine Yards, and I can't remember the other. It was a blast as usual, and I got to introduce her to my dad and one of our local fav's, Lombardo's Deli. We had a really good meatball sammich. Then for dinner we went to Red Robin and got matching burgers. And after that we went to the parking lot outside of the Coffea Bean by her house and played guitar sitting on my trunk. It was nice. She even got to hear me humm and pretend to sing for like 5 seconds.

Then on monday my buddy Gabe asked me to go shoot after work with him because it was so foggy and eerie. We went right back to the same place Momo and I visited the night before. So I figured Momo was only 40 yards away why not call her and see if she could come hang too. This time we went behind the Coffee Bean where I discovered an entire harbor and a field with this creepy looking tree in the middle of the fog. The way the lights hit the foggy air just made it that much more creepy and I simply had to get a picture.



We took a bunch of other pictures in the night, and eventually we ended up on the bridge going over the harbor as we were surrounded by 5 security patrols. one in a car, 3 on foot and one on bicycle. And we had some random cat making "Mow" noises, but it honestly sounded like a middle aged man mixed with a cat being stepped on. It was hilarious. We took some awesome shots from the bridge, one of which I actually thought looked better crooked. Get what I mean?



 I got to the middle of the bridge and laid down in the middle propped up on my bag. Gabe took pics of me looking like a bum and then the rent-a-cops started closing in, so we headed out.

Then things calmed down a bit as the regular work week ensued. But last night Momo told me that her mom actually insisted that she come hang with me. WOW! So we came back to my place so I could do some wash. OH YEAH!

Ok new side story 'Cause I don't feel like going back and finding out where this fits in the week, so deal with it. On sunday while Momo was over I tried to do some laundry and found that the washer was broken. I haven't washed my work pants in a whole week and I really needed to wash some socks because I had none clean. But since I didn't have time to go to the laundromat with my schedule, I just went ahead and bought some socks at K-Mart. 10 pair for 5 bucks, not bad! Finally I ask my landlord what's up. He says he is looking for a new one but can't find any good deals on craigslist in Camarillo. I turn around, walk to my computer and type in "washer" on craigslist, and the very top, first listing available, posted less than an hour ago, is a washer, in Camarillo, for 50 dollars...Epic win.

So anyways, he got it and we watched Shawshank Redemption while I washed my work clothes and such. Yay.

Today was alright. The first 4 hours of my day went by pretty fast. We had a company luncheon with a professional taquiador or however you spell it. Basically he makes tacos for a living. And they had hundreds of little cheesecake bites, so naturally I had to take 14. Mmmmmmmmm.  And the next 6 hours of my shift was meh. It was raining all day, and still is right now. Thanks to my website upkeep and enrolling in school I just so happen to be in debt and can't afford a rain coat or an umbrella, and my boss informed me that he couldn't get one today so I had to try to do the paperwork in the rain without getting it wet...Yeah, right. Long story short I had a pocket full of wadded up wet papers to scan. I also had to think like mcguyver and wrap an empty coffee filter bag around my scanning gun and tape it up so it didn't get wet. Then I snuck over to St. Francis (my old job) and steal their staple gun so I could ensure that the wet barcode tags would stop getting blown off by the wind and rain. Man, if I wasn't the only person who witnessed my creativite and quick thinking I swear I would have been tested for halucinagins and then promoted to some awesome position where my brain could better be put to use. But alas, no dice. But my Uncle did bring me this nifty rain suit, and he just so happened to get my favorite color, green! I looked like the forest-green...lime flavored kool-aid guy. But the self-proclaimed "Mexican spokesman" in the office got the other guys to start calling me avocado man. Then I remembered I had a $10 WalMart gift card, so I took my half hour break and got a matching green umbrella. They all had a good laugh when I got back. =P

So that's my week in a not so nutshell. Oh and I found a buried treasure in my unfinished photos folder that I totally forgot to post back when I actually shot this a year or so ago. So here you go. Booya!



And now I will return to my not-so-ordinary life, listening to Pandora radio and chatting on yahoo while racking up my killstreak on black ops. An hour ago I went 23/1 in a TDM, yes, I'm a beast. But what can I say, representing the world's finest requires a good deal of ownage. Don't believe me? Here's my 3rd highest K/D ratio from Modern Warfare 2.



Yeah, yeah. Video games. Nerds. Whatever you want to say, I'm fine with that. That clan tag is there for a reason, and if you want to put the conrtoller down and feel what it really is like when I'm hunting you, we can have that arranged. No I'm not gointg to kill anyone, I'm referring to paintball. DUH! You wan't to kill people, go enlist. Otherwise you're all mine mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaapickle.

Ok, back to socializing with Moomoo. Weeeeeeeee!

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.