Camera-tastic

I was told when I moved to Colorado, that the saying goes, “If you don’t like the weather, wait fifteen minutes.” And I scoffed. Oh, how wrong I was. If we have a beautiful 80-degree day, I now know to pull out my snow pants before I go to bed that night because it’ll be a winter wonderland of snow in the morning. And if it’s raining torrentially right now, don’t bother with a raincoat, because by the time you make it outside it’ll be clear and dry. This week was another curveball—tornados. I was wondering why it looked so windy out, and it wasn’t until my boss came back from lunch that I was warned that we were on a tornado watch. Today was beautiful and sunny, so we decided to go for a bike ride…then we stepped outside and realized it was all an illusion, because it was actually windy and chilly. But at least we’re warmer and less-snowy than Arizona right now! Global warming? Psh. Bring on the New Ice Age.

Fortunately, the temperature outside hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for camera testing, so we went forward with our biking plans, with my camera slung over my shoulder. The kayakers were out on the river now that the water is running nicely, and Corey only tried to kill me once or twice by expecting me to hop stairs and navigate rocky trails with low-hanging branches on his worth-more-than-my-life bike.

I’ve also been practicing my dog photography for when I make it big as pet-photographer to the stars. It was going great until Corey decided to call Jackson’s name just as I had moved in for a close-up, causing him to turn his head abruptly and leave a huge doggy-nose-slime trail across my lens. In related news, I’m going to buy a UV filter today to protect said lens from anymore accidental nose prints or otherwise.

Off to the store!

And Bingo Was His Name-Oh!

When I was a kid, my mom and I would sometimes get up early on Saturdays and go through the paper looking for garage sales. My sisters and I loved garage sales so much that we would then want to play garage sale at home. We’d round up whatever we could find in our rooms (or each other’s rooms, or mom’s office, or the kitchen…), stick poorly made price tags on everything, and invite each other to come shop. Hardly anything was over a dollar, and trades were accepted. Sometimes you had to purchase your own things back from the seller who stole them originally, but since we all did it to each other, it came out even in the end.

Yesterday, Corey and I decided to stop at one garage sale we saw, and the next thing you know we were winding through the neighborhoods following all the neon signs to yard sales all over Golden. We did a drive-by at one sale, and saw amongst the mostly-junk, a MASSIVE stuffed dog. Corey immediately commented, “Oh man, if that were only a buck, I would totally get it to see what Jackson would do.” Sure enough, only a buck. So next thing you know we’re cruising the streets and running errands with what looks like an 85lb sheepdog’s head poking out of the pick-up’s back window. We bring it home and stick it in the hallway, and call Jackson. Jackson rounds the corner and skids to a stop, a look of doggie fear on his face. Much growling and retreat ensues. Soon Corey has convinced him it’s safe to attack, and, well, you can see how it went. Now they have a headless-dog bench seat in their kitchen. Corey named it Bingo.

I Need a Vacation or Three

Call me crazy, but I think packing for trips is almost as fun as taking them. Okay, maybe not almost as fun, but definitely fun.

So imagine my excitement about getting to pack 3 times in the next 7 weeks! First up is Sacramento the last weekend in May. Casey got promoted to varsity on her rowing team at Western Washington University, so she’ll be rowing in NATIONALS in the Varsity 4 boat. In fact, she’s rowing bow, which is the same position mom used to row when she was a rowing superstar at University of Washington. Can you figure out which one is her? Anyway, I’ll be spending the weekend with Dad & Lindy and testing out my new camera, and we’ll all be wearing our matching shirts that my mom special ordered to help cheer on Casey.

Two weeks later I’ll be heading to Arizona to celebrate the big 2-5. We’ll hit the Salt River, drink lotsa margaritas, and play some beer die. No matching shirts, because I’m not as cool as Donnyves, but maybe I’ll get some temporary tattoos made. That’d be pretty sweet. Nathan is coming with too, ‘cause we’re travel buddies now. Hopefully I’ll return less pasty white than I am now.

THEN, it’s time for the BIG trip! My girls and I are adventuring to Alaska the first week of July, which will mean our house will have 8 women and my dad in it. Good thing he’s had 19 years to get used to being outnumbered 5-1. I’m so excited it finally all came together! And I’ll have Adrienne to teach me how to use my new camera :).

So now that you’re up-to-date on my travels, it’s back to color-coding my packing lists.

Back to the Future

Sometimes I feel like I split my time between the cutting edge and the dull butter knife of technology. I bought a camera today—a Sony a300 DSLR (woohoo!). Nathan bought a 46” Samsung HDTV a week or two ago…and a new laptop. Also, we got new satellite TV this weekend, with high-def in two rooms, and standard in a third. It’s several hundred channels, including broadcasts of every sporting event ever, including your neighbor’s weekend lawn-bowling tournament. We’ve got DVD burners, GPS units, surround sound speakers, and enough cords and chargers to rope off most of Denver.

Thennnnn…there’s the other half of my life. The half where I’m forced to use a 2MP point-and-shoot camera to take photos expected to be professional-quality. The half where the projector, the screen, and the cord that connects it to the laptop are stored 30 minutes apart from each other at separate buildings; not that it matters—not even the IT person knew that the projector would require a laptop. Perhaps she thought that it would project whatever she thought hard enough about? The other day I was called down to the basement at work to help label computer parts & peripherals. As in, this is a printer, this is a fax machine, and this is a CPU. Oh, sorry, switched back to my other life for a second there—printer, fax machine, and, uh, let’s call it a “computer brain”. It’s like they just stepped out of a time capsule from the early 80s and are seeing all the technology for the first time. And error messages? It’s like they’re written in Mandarin. A couple times a day I hear, “Red light, Sarah!” yelled from across the office, and ahhh, it takes me back to childhood games of Red Light Green Light…then I go fix the printer.

I hope I’m not supposed to now sum this post up into a witty and insightful commentary on the human condition. Or maybe draw some analogy to other, greater dichotomies in life. I’m still figuring this blogging stuff out…maybe the more I write, the more insightful I’ll get, and the less whining I’ll do. Maybe I’ll even think of something to write about that’s not work-related!

p.s. New camera! Woohoo!

Logo-asms

I once claimed that I wanted to write a novel at some point in my life; considering how long I've been thinking about what I would even write about in a short blog post, I think I might need to re-evaluate my goal. Until I think of something witty and/or interesting, I'll start with a topic I've already talked about with everyone who's going to read this: fun times with work logos!

Scene: A restored brick house in Historic Denver
Starring: The Mean Boss, The Nice Boss, The Artist, & The Heroine

When we last saw our Heroine, she was hunched at her desk, frantically trying to reconcile the graphic preferences of all the major players. Sadly, she's still doing that. Hope Communities needs a new logo, but no one can agree on what it should look like.

Here's the rub: Mean Boss has decided for no apparent reason that he likes the phrase "Rooted in Hope" and wants it represented graphically...even though roots are entirely unattractive and have nothing to do with what we do as an organization. Nice Boss has decided that she really, really wants to keep the cursive "hope" that the organization has had for 28 years, even though it means the word "hope" appears twice in the logo. The Artist, meanwhile, does not like drawing trees nor reusing old logo elements, and thus has not produced anything satisfactory to either Boss. The Heroine thinks they're all wrong. All wrong! And her awesome friends agree, which is perhaps why they are her friends.

So, to the point. I've narrowed the 9172345984 choices I started with down to just three, based on input from said awesome friends. They're by no means final, but they're sort of representative of 3 different directions:

1) Line drawings
2) Gradient
3) Phantom line connection

Also, these are the three fonts and three color choices with the most support. Lemme know what you think!

Next time, I'll try to be more interesting...