Photo Friday (Delayed Post)

It's Friday!  It's the first photo Friday I've had in a long time now.  What to show, what to say... hmm...

Well, over the last year since the last Photo Friday, I've really become passionate about my photography.  I'm shooting a lot and learning as much as I can get my hands on.  I have to say, my favorite place for learning, and learning from greatly talented photographers is: Creative Live.  This site streams a free class live! Yes, I said FREE.  If you watch it live or during it's repeat immediately after the live stream.  Or you can purchase the video of it for an extremely reasonable price afterwards.  I have done several weekend classes and plan on doing several more here.  Check them out, enroll, have fun and learn!

Also, tonight, I finally got out and went to a local photography meetup - Coffee & Strobes.  It was a great time.  As always, I grabbed my camera for when I left, and I'm happy I did.  At the meetup, besides meeting some cool people (who are into and love photography), we ended up doing some shooting.  The theme was - gels.  I had never used gels before, and this was a lot of fun.  Using gels to be artistic, and using gels to compensate for colour temperature in white balance.  Yeah, it was fun, and I'll probably go out and get myself some gels for the strobes and have some fun soon.

Over the last year, my photography focus has changed.  I've moved away from the fetish and gotten back to a strong passion of mine - live music!  I am going out now, almost weekly and taking photos of live music around the city.  Here is one of the photos I've taken during one of those excursions.

Chris Hendrickson - guitarist: The Chelsea Daggers

I have to say, I am loving the live music photography.  Now if I could only find a way to make some money to support my photography habit from it I'd be extremely happy!

Healthwise:  Today, even tho it was a good air day (green, no action) I have been completely tired, and my feet are swollen (as they have been lately).  I figure I've worked so hard on breathing this past week, that today was my body saying, "Take it easy and recoup... We'll do better tomorrow."  So, I've been away from the computer, and resting/napping near-by.  Overall I'd have to say it was a blah day. (Health update is for Saturday - when I actually posted this.)

Eat Sleep Piss

That is my day in general today.  I woke to my alarm and the sounds/smells of fresh brewing coffee.  Feeling good after some sleep I got up and started my 24-hour urine collection for a piss test.  The test materials showed up yesterday, so I am doing it today for me not to put it off any.  Basically, I am to go about my day normally, just collect all my urine in a special container until tomorrow morning.  So far so good.

I went about a normal day, coffee, computer, coffee, breakfast, etc... all while making sure not to be too far from my collection bottle.  So, I kept to myself a lot today and did not go out anywhere.  I wouldn't want to mess up this test by having to go when I am out somewhere, and I really didn't feel like bringing my pee-container with me anywhere.

As of the last few days, I am re-asserting an effort to gain weight.  I really need to put on several pounds for several reasons.  So today, as I have been doing lately, I've made an extra effort to make sure I eat, and the foods I eat are good for me and high calorie.  Even tho I don't think I've actually felt hungry in weeks (with the exception of one night when I woke at 02:00am hungry, when it was a really bad idea for me to eat.) I am trying to eat on a 'schedule'.  With 'lunch', I grabbed a bottle of lemonade I've had next to my computer for a couple of days.  I keep a large container of fresh natural lemonade in the fridge for easy access and well I like lemonade over water as a beverage, and well, I downed most of the bottle.  I didn't drink it all because it had an 'off taste'.  I think it had fermented a tad the last couple of days in the heat.  I quickly replaced it with fresh lemonade from the fridge - which tasted a lot better.  However I did quickly feel as if I made myself a little tipsy as if I had been drinking for part of the night.  Wow, the cheapest buzz I've ever gotten, but wow, it was quite the surprise.  Shortly after 'lunch', around 13:30-ish, I got tired.  With all the immediate computer work done I moved over to my comfortable chaise and well, up jumped Vapour and we both napped for several hours.  When I got up, it was time to eat again.

Realistically, all I felt I've done today is eat, sleep and piss.  With the exception of some minor computer work, and some tv watching,  it probably all I did do today.

Healthwise:  The air quality was bad again today (orange, air-action) and when I was active around the apartment I did find it.  Overall between being tired, drained, and mildly congested it was definitely a blah health day.

Taking Care of Business - blah

Yep, it's been a while since I've been like this, and now I've been like this for a little while.  I have a few projects that I have planned and have started, but now anytime I look at doing any work on either of them I just can't get motivated.  I really want to do the project, but right now, and for a couple of weeks, I just don't seem to care enough to work on them.  Blah.

My cookbook of family recipes remains partially typed, partially researched.  My photography portfolio just seems so overwhelming with more than 31000 photos to run though I just can't get past the initial setup of how I am going to sort and select contenders.  Live Limelight, well there has been a bunch of things going on behind the scene there, and well it's been back burnered until all facets align.  Organizing my desk and important paperwork and shredding the old and unneeded is delayed as I can not get over the piles of paper across my desk and floor.

I know the answer to all of this is to break the projects into smaller tasks and do the smaller tasks first.  Still I can not even bring the motivation to that.

Even tho I am not working on my personal projects, the things that need to get done are getting done.  I took the car back to the shop today because after having the tires rotated, the tire pressure warning light was not going off.  The mechanics were fast and friendly and they took care of it instantly.  I joined a couple of friends for a couple of drinks and dinner.  We had a great time, good conversation and tasty beverages.

Tonight I am pleasantly drained and looking forward to a good night of sleep.

Healthwise:  Today was ok.  Breathing was not too bad, given the bad air quality (Orange,Air Action) of today. It was bad according to the national sites, even tho the local news said it was a good day.  Too bad they take the best of any of the readings to report and not the overall air  quality.  Tonight I am drained, but feeling good and looking forward to tomorrow.

Sucker Punched

Today started out fantastically. I woke early as planned to a fresh pot of coffee awaiting for me. After going through my morning routine (meds, exercise, getting dressed, check email/news feeds) I took off and grabbed some self-indulgent McDonald's for breakfast. Brought it home, and ate it while doing work on the computer. After checking the air quality and temperature forecast, it looked good, so I took off to get some personal errands done.

Now, I need to mention, I had to take my piercings out while in hospital (end of January) pre-surgery and I hadn't put them in afterwards. Also, I hadn't been dying my hair or painting my nails as I had been doing for several years beforehand. Now lately, especially in the last couple of weeks, I've really been doing some deep thinking. I'm sure I'll get into more of that later, but the thoughts relevant to today were the ones on how I really was not happy with myself, how I feel about myself, and the direction a number of things have taken lately. As a good friend of mine has pointed out time and time again, if you are not happy with something that you are doing or with yourself, change something. So I did. Last week I had my tunnels and hoops put back in my ears. Now I had my hair cut and coloured black again. Today, a manicure and my nails are painted black!

After leaving the nail techs, I noticed the air quality wasn't feeling good and it was getting hot. I was close to the grocery store (next door) and that was my last errand. I ignored my feelings and did the grocery shopping. Bad idea. At the end I was hurting and drained. That was before driving home and unloading the car and putting away the groceries. After that, you might as well shot me. I was hurting, achey, and shivering! (It was only 98F! Ha! Yeah, I was not good.) Another friend came over and gave me a hand with a couple of things that I physically could not do. (There are some really good people in my life.) The forecasts were wrong, the air quality was bad and the heat index a lot higher than expected. I was sucker punched.

I have to say, making the personal physical changes has made me feel better about myself. More myself. This is a good thing.

I had planned to go to a new meetup for photographers tonight, but I was not feeling up to it. Hopefully Friday I will be up to making another meetup.

Now today I have been slammed with spam comments on Live Limelight. Tonight, hopefully I have that fixed.

Now for an early night and a good day tomorrow.

Healthwise: Today was definitely blah. It started and is ending well, but as described above, everything in-between was not-so-good. Tomorrow will be better.

I'm back.

Wow, it's been way too long since I've last updated here. An awful lot has happened since the middle of May last year until today. In a nutshell, my cousin married a wonderful woman. I hurt my side/ribs. I have seen some amazing concerts including my favorite band: Rush. I ended up in hospital and physical rehab for three months. I've recovered a lot since my coming home in March. Still getting there, and almost back to where I was last year. My sister had a baby and she bought a house. I've started a website for live local music review called Live Limelight. Oh, I am doing a lot more photography - mostly live bands in night clubs, and I'm loving it!

Healthwise: Today I'm doing ok, the heat was manageable and the air quality was not terrible. I'm trying to get proper sleep these days, it has been erratic.