The drive to Sudbury was uneventful, which is always nice. The drive home was less enjoyable.

Staying with Jen’s parent’s was a nice experience. They were great hosts again, and we got to use a new futon mattress in Jen’s room instead of the old bed from the first visit. I met her middle sister and her fiance, both were very friendly and a pleasure to talk with. They had an engagement party a couple of days later; involving both families.

We drove home on Sunday; and that took all day. We left around 12:30pm and were stopped shortly outside of the city. There was a large fire in Hagar and the fire fighters had closed the highway to access a river that flowed along side it.

After sitting for about an hour, we were directed to use an alternative route around the area. Once this stretch was done, we were caught and eventually passed by the boyfriend of Jen’s oldest sister. He was eventually pulled over buy an O.P.P. officer for driving in a manner that scared one of the vehicles ahead of us.

That was the last bit of excitement in the long drive home; thankfully we had good conversation amongst us. Jen’s uncle Mike was in the back of the car, and offered interesting conversations & stories.

It was a fun 5 day trip.

We went to a local Big Al’s first, and didn’t find anything as usual. Every time I exit one of those stores I feel a little dirty. They seem like horrible places to buy animals and are over priced for most of the products sold. Not giving refunds and only offering store credit on returned items doesn’t help with the impression I have.

Ironically, Petsmart appeared to be the best source for what I was after. When we walked into the store we passed a shelf of freshwater male bettas in tiny cups. This is animal abuse in my mind; no fish lives it life in a space that almost completely restricts it’s movement. So, I suggested we ’save’ one. Jen’s proposed the idea before, but I guess we felt extra sad for the fishies; so we picked out a sad looking blue/green guy with a black face and found an awesome tiny 1.5gl betta kit with “everything” included. I chose some naturally colored gravel and Jen chose a great small piece of wood for a center piece.

We set the small tank up in Jen’s living room, and after a couple of hours running we acclimatized the little guy and eventually let him loose into the tank. Watching the fish, I felt good about taking it home. Jen fed a little flake food and we watched him swim / explore his new home for a while.

Then, I setup Jen’s new snowboard! We’re gonna take our boards to Sudbury for a little fun during Christmas.

Link

Yesterday I was out shopping with Jen when I came across Ride bindings in a store. I found myself a set of LX while Jen was trying on boots.

My old bindings are awesome, and I love em but they started showing their age last year. Based on that, I got the current version of the same model. Win.

Jen’s company christmas party was fun. I got a new pinstripe blazer for the night, and Jen looked great in a black dress. She asked me to shoot the evening, so I brought my camera gear along. The banquet room turned out to be a mix of low light incadescent bulbs and bright light flooding through a glass wall, so it made things interesting. I couldn’t directly flash people without gels; which I didn’t have on me and I couldn’t bounce or diffuse that well while keeping the nice ambient light in the pictures.

There’s a few things I could’ve tried, looking at the pictures now. I’m not very happy with them, but I can produce much better work… but at the same time I’m happy my focus calibration worked as I had hoped.

I need to get a flash bracket, some gels and a proper diffuser.

It also happens to be the most useful focal range for the type of commercial photography I’ll probably be starting at; which makes it a great business tool.

I’m pretty blown away by the difference. It’s like taking a shitty filter off a great lens.

jasonmulligan.com

Oh my!