Chuck E Cheese isn't always insane ....

As a parent, I usually dread going to this giant people trap with the "other" mouse ... but I will say, at 9am on a Saturday morning when they just open up, it's quite fun. Only one other child here, lots of running room and you can play whatever you want without elbowing others ...
 
Doesn't hurt that there are employes running around testing all the machines and there's an abundance of free tickets too ...
 
Carter loves Deal or No Deal

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It's lunch time!

I guess I am still not accepting of this gorgeous warm weather yet after weeks of rain, glad it's here and I am not working today. Sitting down to enjoy lunch outside .... wondering why everyone who works at the Weathervane in Kittery has an accent and is from Eastern Europe, it's like a bus just pulled up and everyone got jobs!!

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blueberry peach tart ...

tastes of summer, for this month's doorknob challenge, i made a blueberry peach tart. i just had a slice of it, absolutely delicious. brown-sugar, ginger, cinnamon syrup instead of regular sugar/cinnamon combo. thumbs up also for the silicon tart pan instead of metal, it doesn't stick, holds form and absolutely great cooking medium, crust browns perfectly.

to view the entire recipe (instead of having to re-write it here), follow over to the kitchen doorknob blog

Posterous test posting ...

.... test posting to check out connections to other linked sites ... hooo-rah.

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heathrow terminal 5 perspective ...

i had some time to kill recently while sitting at heathrow terminal 5 - the british airways terminal. it's got some great trusses, angles, structures, repeating architecture and of course with a ton of time on my hands and nothing better to do than to capture some of it. post processing consisted of color correction first, b&w conversion, contrast, and brightening.

chicago part 2 ...

a few extra shots from chicago trip, ferris wheel almost looks photoshopped - i think if i test a few different crops on that picture it might be more interesting. post processed the trees to oversaturate, brightening up the greens as much as possible. and two perspectives on the last shot, i can't decide which i like better the color or b&w version...

chicago part 1 ...

it's been quite a busy last month and change. i've spent a lot of time in an airplane, can't say i've been anywhere that exciting, normal jaunts to la, chicago, nyc and the like, that and the small hop through london to get to bahrain in a weekend. lots of pictures though during this time, just haven't had time to process and post them up as well as write about them. this is of course on top of work and photog-clients. here's a start from the chicago trip, this is a 3-frame rough stitch of the chicago skyline. post processing included color correction, saturation, contrast bump, warming polarizer. click for the full-large version which is 11,000+ pixels wide (and 20mb).

the underground rice paper market ...

when i was younger, my aunt or granparents would get these stacks of special rice paper. my cousins and i used to make this concoction of lime juice, lots of very very hot thai chili peppers and soy sauce. recently i was craving these things, it's odd, i know, but i had to have them. my cousin lan didn't know where to get them either so we turn to my aunt, di em (pronounced yee-ahm). anyhow i guess it's not as simple as rolling up to a store or something, telling them how many sheets you'd like and being on your way. nope. it seems these things are only produced in the back alleys and secret basements of the southern california underground (kidding). she calls someone, tells them how much she wants and then picks them up from their house. beelan noted that once these people die or move, my connection is going to be a tad screwed.

unlike normal rice paper (probably the white kind everyone is aware of), this kind is a bit tougher, you have to really wet it with warm water. it's a tad sweet, maybe slight sour/salty. it pairs well with the spicy sauce that it gets dipped in. i honestly have never ever seen it used for anything else, outside of my grandpa making ginormous egg, sausage burritos in the morning once in a while. i can't imagine an eggroll or springroll made of this stuff, a bit too tough. it's a funky, tasty snack, although my concoction this time comprised of a lot too many habanero's, but it is quite tasty. so i was lucky lately, on a trip to the west coast for work, my aunt delivered me some. i guess i should stock up.

two month old abby ...

i seem to love babies, here's 2months or so abby, such a little cutie and a great little subject ...

and some more ari ...

it's clearly been insane lately, finally had time to sit back down and blog some tonight. here's a few more of ari from a few weeks ago, such a little character.