Flugtag 2010 was held this year in Long Beach’s Rainbow Harbor. There were sooo many people there. I went with my friend Jay, who like me, had never been to it before.

I didnt really know what to expect, other than people jumping off a pier and trying to fly. Unfortunately, I think I was expecting a little too much, as it was mainly a bunch of questionably sober people just jumping into the water. Not too much flying going on.

In any case, it was an experience I can now say I have seen. Maybe next year we will tackle burning man…

Here are a few shots from the day.

About 3 years ago, I was asked if I would be the godfather of Demarco. Demarco is the first son of Dwanne, Joan’s cousin. I have watched this little kid grow up, and so far, he gets cuter as each year goes by.

Now that Dwanne and her Don have had their 2nd child, Daelyn, Arby will have the joy of watching her grow up as well.

This past Labor Day weekend, we celebrated Daelyn baptism and Demarco’s birthday.

The party was off to a somewhat rough start when the caterer did not show, but after visiting the local chinese food joint and Pizza Hut, everything was well and good in the world once again.

Plus, when seeing pictures of kids so happy, how can you not smile just a bit?

Joan planned a wonderful couple of days to celebrate my 30th birthday.

We started out the day by heading out early to Newport Bay and enjoying a nice whale watching boat trip. We didn’t see any whales that day, but we did see a few sea lions and a ton of dolphins.

After that we walked around to find a nice place to have lunch. We both had fish and enjoyed each other’s company.

After lunch, we then walked over to the boat rental place. We were debating on what type of boat we wanted, and after seeing the seas from earlier that morning, we thought it would be better to just get one of the bay boats and just cruise around a bit. We both took turns driving and called each other “Captain.”

After that, we drove to LA while eating Yogurtland. Sooo good.

To round out the day, we took a nap and almost missed our dinner reservation at the Water Grill. The food was really good there and i realized that i am almost starting to enjoy oysters.

After dinner, we hurried down to the Ahmenson Theater to watch South Pacific.

We crashed out not to long after getting back to the Biltmore Hotel.

Overall, i had a great day and appreciated all the time, effort, and love that Joan put into making my birthday special.

Here are a few pictures of the day…

We were rushing to get over to Veterans Stadium last night to watch the fireworks. Fortunately, Arby drove fast enough and was able to find a small amount of space on the street to fit his car into.

I got out and setup my tripod and was able to get a few shots of the fireworks.

It was actually my first valid attempt to shot fireworks. The method i used was to simply set the mode to Time Priority, set the 2 second timer, and let it fly. I tried different amounts of shutter exposure, just increasing and decreasing the seconds of each shot.

Last night, we held a strike vote to authorize economic or job action if we are unable to reach an agreement with the companies by midnight tonight when our contract expires.

It is weird watching the news reports on TV and reading them on the various newspaper websites. Some information is correct, some is wrong, but it is what it is…

I would say that no one wants for there to be a strike or lock out, but that, unfortunately, is completely up to the companies.

We are 100% prepared, ready, and willing to walk the picket line to protect the 24% of employees who they want to layoff and to protect our jobs from being sent to non-union workers.

In any case, I had my camera with me for the Strike Authorization Vote and Negotiations Planning Session that we had last night. Our president, John Fageaux asked me to keep my camera close at hand for any other events. Stay tuned…

I have just recently gotten back into photography. I got a new lens and have been visiting my old photography blogs again. I have realized however, that I do not really have a direction in my photography.

There are many different kinds of photographers… Wedding, travel, adventure, fashion, journalistic, etc… I feel that as long as I do not have a specialty, I will not grow as a photographer.

I will continue to be a rather amateur photographer with just semi-nice equipment. I want to be more than that. I want to be a true photographer. It allows me to view and connect with the world in profound ways.

I need to find my path… I need to restart…

As a start on my restart, here is a photo of Joan and I in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Here is Bosco in his Halloween costume. He did not appreciate having it on and pretty much just stood anywhere you placed him and would barely move an inch. On his behalf, I must make another request to all dog owners to stop the dressing up of all dogs. They just don’t like it and will one day plot against us and take over the world. Ok, maybe not exactly, they are getting mighty pissed off!

Bosco the Turtle Will Take Over the World!, originally uploaded by jasolutions.

Halloween 2009 has come and gone. It’s kind of sad to say that we had our lowest turn out of TT’s (Trick or Treaters) this year. I couldn’t tell if Bosco was sad because of the lack of TT’s or if it was just because he had his costume on. He really hates it when we put anything except a leash on him. This year, Joan got him a turtle costume. Even though I despise idea of putting clothes on Bosco, I do have to admit that he looks pretty cute in this outfit.

The two jack-o-lanterns behind him are the works of art that Joan and Harveen made earlier in the day. Joan made the cat and Harveen made the owl. They are so good; I believe they are going to turn it into a yearly tradition. Next year, I am going to carve Bosco’s likeness into the pumpkin! I will call it a “Bosc-o-lantern!!!”

And if you just can’t get enough of Bosco’s costume this year, tune in tomorrow for a better shot of just him in all his glory…

A Turtle and Two Jacks, originally uploaded by jasolutions.

Ahh, Venice… The city of… pigeons… I still get shivers thinking about the people that let them perch atop their head and pick bread from their lips. Umm… yeah, on to happier thoughts.

When we were on the ferry going into Venice, we were greeted with this wonderful and, no doubt, most famous sight. The area surrounding St. Mark’s Square and its Basilica is known as the Piazza. From here, the most prominent object is the giant Campanile which towers above the city. We did not have a chance (read: too tired!!!) to climb to the top, but perhaps we can next time we are in town. Flanking the Square is also the Library and the Doge’s Palace, which is where Casanova was once held.

Too bad we only had 1 full day there. I think we could have easily spent a week there, exploring all the little alley ways and catching up on all the sights we missed out on. For being such a relatively small place, there are so many things to see, do, and take pictures of.

Piazzetta San Marco, Venice, Italy, originally uploaded by jasolutions.

It has been a while since I have had an entry here. Life has been composed of one crazy day after another. On that token, I decided to go back a bit in time a post a picture that I shot quite a while ago.

I had to go down to the TTI terminal one night to take some pictures of a container for one of China Shipping’s customers. I took this opportunity to snap a few shots of the cranes and staging area. This is the area where trucks line up to either pick up import loads or drop off export loads. The sun had just barely set, and there was still that twilight glow in the sky. With the crane and terminal lights, it looked pretty cool.

Now this was back before I had a digital camera, so I didn’t even really know how the shots were going to turn out. It is really weird to think back when I first started out in photography. There was a refreshing quality to not know how a shot was going to turn out, forgetting about it, and then when you got the prints back, being pleasantly surprised.

Now you can, shoot, review, shoot some more, and even do basic corrections without having to even think about basic photographic principles. I like to think that my photos were somewhat better back in those days, mainly because there was a cost associated with every frame. You had a vested interest to make sure the shot was composed properly because it was costing you money every time your finger hit that shutter release. It made you think before you took the picture, instead of after the fact.

I wonder if Costco even processes film anymore…

TTI Staging Area on Film, originally uploaded by jasolutions.