sun bliss

sun bliss, originally uploaded by chirastar.

seattle's been kind of manic lately

rain and stormy one day
sunshine and beautiful the next.

my moods have matched, to boot.
lets hope for more sunshine to come...
bliss

Vacation is a MUST

New Zealand Coast, originally uploaded by chirastar.

I just took a multi-week (3!) vacation and I have to say that it should be a REQUIREMENT for people to take one every year! I loved having, "beach, eat, read, hike, bike and walk" on my schedule, in no particular order.... no phone, no email for an entire week and very sparingly after.

It made me reset my perspective on importance.

Do it, do it now. If not every year, at least just try it once...

sunset

sunset, originally uploaded by chirastar.

astoria, or.

a beautiful place.
a celebration of 3 times a decade of a good friend.

more pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chira/

my first time

hello strangers. since one of my three readers encouraged me to post, i decided why not?!

w asked me to help take some pictures for a dinner event for this non-profit that she is a board member of. since this was my first time being "photographer", i wanted to look kind of important so i consulted my favorite techie t on diffusers (aka expensive tupperware). so after taking 200 some pictures that night i found out two things:

1. I am a wimp and I need to do some strength training cause my arms hurt from lifting up my measly little camera with a flash unit.
2. I realized I have a lot to learn about low light and flash. I fumbled a lot and tested things out. Hopefully one of these days it will just click.

here are the two shots i liked:




and one of our new mayor! woot.


i think the rest will be posted on their web-site sometime in the near future. luckily i wasn't the only one taking flicks.

inspired to be inspired

book, originally uploaded by chirastar.

since finishing up what was basically a SQL BI cerfificate at the UW and being assigned to beta test our new reporting system, i think i am craving something well.... creative....

i seem to pick up hobbies and drop them.. like last summer when i was on a sewing kick but today i just had a blast of inspiration and ideas for some photos.... so i am posting this up here to remind me, to follow-thru.

this shot was done very rushed with some really novice photoshopping and while it is not technically amazing i liked it and i want to continue....

all in a saturday.

I walked from upper queen anne to Boat Street Cafe to meet t for brunch. Benedict gets two thumbs up, T says it the best in Seattle... I think that is quite a statement, quite close though. After brunch, i walked downtown to sit in a computer lab for 5 hours (while it was gorgeous and sunny) to hammer out my final project for a data mining course I am taking... luckily i had company and a Gelato break so it wasn't too miserable.

Walked back up to the QA, got changed then went to Solo Bar which is quite quaint. I ended up sitting in 3 different places, until I settled on the Green Couch and a Mojito... I wanted to match my drink with my seating you see...

After a few pre-drinks we headed over to the SIFF Cinema for a short series. Some sips from j's flask and 2 shorts later I had to cut out to jet to a last minute invite from b to Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali. They were a riot to say the least. I think one of the most awesome lines (out of many) was:

On vegetarian food-
"One of my favorite things to eat are vegetarians." -MB

A little La Spiga later, which resulted in my first taste of Grappa (I don't recommend it) and some pinballing at Shorty's, I decided to call it a night.

It was a super saturday.

weekend fun and done.

is it horrible that i am actually a little thankful the weekend is over?

i think this week i will work on boring.
more boring is what i need in my life.