Couple of ramblings for this late Saturday afternoon

- You can tell that I am not used to wearing tank tops, due to the fact that I keep trying to raise the shirt up to put deodorant on.

-Florida summer Hell Heat is here...this entire week has felt like a daze, due to the sweltering heat. I wanted to adventure today, but am forgoing any such ventures due to the fact that I start sweating profusely after being outside for 10 seconds. No, seriously, I was pretty sweat free in my car yesterday, and the 15 seconds it took to get inside my house from my car, left me bathed in sweat.

-I had a mission yesterday....to edit my photos from this week, and to finally work on a Packing list. I got neither done...ended up feeling like crap from the heat and then I couldn't focus. Right before bed though, I did half of the work on the photos. I finished today. And now I am doing various photo related organizational things. List comes later, along with some other stuff on my todo list!

Well, no lightning....

Art of Animation Resort Photo venture: Since my lovely time described in my last post…I hopped back in the car, and made my way back to the Art of Animation resort. Very many little annoyances threatened to make me explode…but thankfully I kept my cool! I spent a good amount of time walking around trying to make the last of the sunset light, while the intense clouds loomed over head. Got a few shots of the Finding Nemo section, and was able to walk into one of the buildings. Nice motif inside, simple but pleasing. Found a hidden mickey on the floor.

Cars section: Next I meandered over to the Cars section. THIS is the crown jewel of this resort, I think. While the Nemo section is brilliant and has a lot of great things in it, I think some of the beauty gets lost in the fact that the pool area is HUGE, and a little too spaced out. Great for the pool users, but it doesn’t feel as tight as Cars. You are greeted by two huge lit billboards on the side of the buildings, and then follow a “road” down into the inner part of the area. There are many Cars laid about the road, light up and gazing at you with their eyes. The theming in this area is top notch, from the upside down cone cactus planter, to the beautiful painted simplistic mountain ranges on the building sides, to the light up cone lamps. And there’s even Cone Teepees in the pool area for families to gather in!

Side story: I was waiting at the end of the Cars pool area, with my camera propped up against the fence towards the last building to take a photo. A man was talking a shot of his kid against one of the cars there, so I waited. Then he needed the kid to take a photo of him. This took a few minutes. He’s seen me waiting a few times already. He finally mentions something to the kid “well that’s guy’s waiting to take a photo” but then stops to check the photo the son took, and makes him retake it. 3 times. And then makes the kid move to the other nearby car to take more photos. This entire encounter takes 10 minutes. 10 minutes of time, this bastard KNOWS I’m waiting to take a photo. Thankfully at this point of the evening I had embraced my inner bliss and these annoyances were bouncing off me like bullets off superman. But seriously…come on! I ended up zooming in as much as I could with my wide angle and took a photo of him look like a dumbass on the car. I will be posting it as soon as I edit the shots haha.

Bridge over to Pop Century: I took the Millennium bridge over to the Pop Century resort. That one also has some superb theming. There’s one part where you walk through a foosball field, complete with foosball players 2xs the size of you.

D-Street: Passed by Downtown Disney to do a Vinylmation trade. No luck there. (Earlier in the day I got a pirate from the POTC series that not only has a hat, but also a hook hand!) They did have the Nerds Rock Figment, which I had totally forgotten about! He’s pretty awesome. Got a churru on the way back to the car, and I think that was the highlight of my evening…haha…that churro was awesome!

Drive: I wanted to stop by Magic Kingdom to do some night shots of Storybook Circus, but it was getting late and I just felt like I’d be spending 75% of my time trying to get into and out of the park, so I just drove around for a bit and then headed home.

Lightning's next...

Long day at work....nice and fulfilling though. Head to hotel, bathe, change, and get on my way to the Art of Animation hotel to do some photography. On the way I realize I left my ponco. Annoying, but not a huge deal. Get to the hotel, park. I pack my umbrella in my bag, making sure its tied down so it won't fall out. It wasn't raining, barely a cloud in the sky.

I finally step out of my car. I'm getting ready, and I feel a drop. Then more drops. I try to run for it but my camera is out so I try to get my umbrella out. Its tied down too well. I finally manage to open it still tied to my bag. As I get to the building, a huge wind gust flips my umbrella and almost  breaks it.

Thoroughly annoyed at this point. But trudging through. I decide to try to shoot some of the lobby til it stops raining, even though I don't have much interest in shooting the lobby. I go to take a photo and....

I left the motherfucking battery, in my hotel.

I couldn't possibly be having any more George Costanza of a week if I tried.

Any home remedies for feeling overly crabby? (Some beach north of Half Moon Bay, CA)

Any home remedies for feeling overly crabby? (Some beach north of Half Moon Bay, CA), a photo by ohhector on Flickr.

Found this guy on some random beach in California. I was traveling with Carolyn, Ivel, and Mike from San Fran down to Half Moon Bay, when I decided to turn down some random street and we ended up at a beach. I haven't been able to locate which one is is...I always end up being in a crappy wifi situation when I want to look...but I will find out at some point.

The beach was interesting, there were some small rock tide pools by the stream that fed into the ocean, and a lot of dead sea life (including Mr. Crab up there) washed up on shore.

There were even a few seals hanging out near the end of the beach, chillin on the shoreline. These little kids came running full speed and their parents were totally oblivious to what was going on, so I kindly yelled at them to stop. They booked looked at me with a "huh? why?" face and I explained that they had to stay 300 feet away.

Sorry kids, I know it sucks, but being responsible doesn't get an excuse because you are young and wanna have fun!

Fix this mess

My state of mind (and of body) the last two days: complete mess. I've been struggling with a lot of personal inefficiency and complete lack of focus and drive, in all aspects of my life. This has been going on for a long time, but it's been really taking it's toll this last year since starting my new job. Why has that made it worse?

Well, now I am home a lot less than I used to be, due to traveling for work. When I am traveling, it's very near impossible to be productive with anything. After work, if I go back to my hotel room, I immediately want to leave. I am never comfortable standing still as it is, but these pseudo crappy hotel rooms are just not inviting, plus a bigger part of the issue is that I'm not at these places long enough to feel comfortable. So I end up driving around. Or if I do stay at the hotel, I just fall into the usual internet distractions.

Ok, fine, so then when I DO get home, THEN I am totally productive and make the most of my time right? No...I either fall into these weird slumps where I just cannot get anything done, or fall back into the distractions. I do many little things to change this, to spur a change inside....rearrange my apartment's layout, give myself tasks, etc. None of that seems to work.

So I enter this neverending cycle where nothing every gets accomplished, and the bare minimum of what I have to do (usually related to menial tasks like getting pills paid, and prepping for work) is all that gets done....but THAT takes days to do when it should take hours at most.

I definitely need another internet break...but that's not the point of this post. I am merely rambling as I usually do, and here I go back into my main point...

So after a few days of the unfulfilling ritual described above, I am finally on my way to getting my work prep and packing done. Then I notice that my Sunpass transponder is nowhere to be found. I use a portable one for my rental cars. I end up spending an infuriating 3 hours searching throughout my apartment, my car, I even drove to the car rental place late at night, and stalked the back of the building to see if the car I rented was there, but it was not. I could have sworn it was unlikely to the point of near impossibility that I had left it in the car, because I remembered putting the rental cars ghetto sunpass back into place, and didn't see mine. So the most likely scenario was that I took it home, but ended up losing it and most likely throwing it away by accident as I cleaned my house.

This possibility really upset me, and my night was annoying ruined. I finally admitted defeat, and went on my way trying to finish my list of things to do.

This morning, when I picked up my rental car, there was no luck with the transponder. Eventually, as I was driving to Orlando (taking 95 - partially because it would leave me a bit closer to where I needed to go, and partially so I could avoid tolls [not that I couldn't just pay for them outright, but it would totally mess up the way I expense tolls for my job, which was another frustration added to the original one of losing the thing]), the guy calls me back and says it was still inside the car, it had just been returned. A bit annoyed because of the inconvenience of the tolls and expensing, but at least I wouldn't have to buy a new one.

What else had me annoyed and flustered? Well, I had intended to bring all of my photographic gear including tripod so I could do some nighttime HDR photography at the new Disney resort after work. I was really excited for it, since I decided earlier in the week one of the reasons I am so lost and unfocused lately is because...well, I have nothing to focus on! So when I get to my hotel in Orlando, I realized...I totally forgot the damned tripod. So frustrating. Oh, and an item I had taken out to bring with me, to demo for work? Yea, left that too.

@#!$!#@$!#@$#@!$#@!$#@!$#@!$#@!$#@!$#@!

I've been putting off making a "pack" list for my travels, that has different variables for the locations I am going and if I am planning any side trips or ventures, just to have something solid and concrete to make the packing process faster, and make it so I don't have to rely on my crap ass memory to remember everything.

As soon as I finish this lengthy and venting blog post, I will start on said list.

Thanks for reading my long rambles...it's been a long time since I've been able to write out something like this, and it's been honestly very refreshing and helpful. The same way that I think getting back into my photography will help, I also think that getting back into writing my thoughts will help...hence this blog!

Hello, world of blogging/journaling/venting/textual yelling

It's time for me to have an internet say, so to speak, that consists of more than 140 characters and that I can't tag anyone in. I've missed writing...even if most of the time it's just to vent. That's a release I've denied myself, and I think it's time to start up again. Plus, I plan on doing some sort of "adventure" blog chronicling and reviewing parks and other cool things in Florida, and this will serve as good practice for writing and promotion.

Let the games begin!