I'd Like a Dozen Please

The dogwood is a tree and and flower.

Air and Space and Spies Oh My!

A couple, going on several weeks ago, Kirsti quite conveniently for me, was only a few hours away at University of Maryland for two weeks. I hopped in my car and met up with her for some crazy capers cunning schemes funtivities.

First we went to the Air and Space Museum.

We saw spy planes...

Teenie helicopters...

The Enola Gay...

Other planes as well.

We saw the Discovery Space Shuttle...

and Christmas ornament satellites

We considered seeing The Hobbit in IMax but it was expensive and not until later.

We then headed to Bethesda because there's a famous cupcake place or something. Before getting cupcakes we looked for somewhere to eat. We were going to eat at a place that serves a salad that includes angel hair pasta, wontons and honey mustard dressing along with the regular salad ingredients.

Parker's, apparently

But instead chose the Thai place Kirsti originally wanted to go to, which got my immediate approval once I saw the starfish door pulls. 

Tara Thai

We then waited in line for cupcakes.

Georgetown Cupcake

And managed to each choose only two "one for now and one for later"

I chose Caramel Praline Crunch and Red Velvet

Back in College Park, Kirsti had mentioned that there was a statue of the ridiculous mascot that is Testudo the Turtle. "Fear the Turtle" is their slogan. "We need to find it and take photos of it like people do with the Nittany Lion."

Kirsti obliged and took a normal photo with Testudo.

I insisted on sitting on him like the Nittany Lion.

When Google image searching to see if people actually flock to the turtle to get photos, I found that they do but not nearly as much as Penn Staters, and also that apparantly the thing they do with testudo is to leave garbage around him. I'm guessing thats not really why they leave stuff but I don't get it. 

Source

We head into DC for dinner and there's a Pizza place right off the subway. Pete's "Apizza"pronounced A-peetz." We were confused but I realized that If you actually listen to how it's said it sounds like "Pizza Pete's." Ahhhh I get it... It was good.

The we found a Target and it had not only wine (crazy to someone from PA)...

and an escalator for the carts.

I mocked and then decided I had to have this Union Jack eye shadow.

Back into DC...

We stopped by the FBI building where I forgot that White Collar takes place in New York

Then went to our main destination: The Spy Museum.

Featuring an exhibit of 50 years of Bond villains.

Mmmmm redundancy...

The spy mobile, I know that's not really what it's called.

Oh and we weren't *technically allowed to take photos but I did find a couple of photo taking thingies that you can pose for photos in front of... if no one is walking through the shot because there's stuff to see. I guess they were banking on not being all that busy. 

They take your picture when you get there. You'd think for the $20 admission price a digital copy would be free not $30. I took a screenshot of the preview. 

Why didn't we do Charlie's Angels!? (aside from not knowing
what the background would be?)

Famished after all the learning about spies we did we sought out a restaurant for lunch. They didn't have the one thing I wanted so I settled on beer battered chicken fingers. Really good but I still wish they had the lamb au jus I wanted. 

Behind the Scenes

Hey look, I have another job. Just another day banquet serving. And the blue shots are supposed to be blue, the whole room was up-lit with blue lights, actually pretty cool. But this is: behind the scenes of a wedding.

Scrapbooking Returns

It's been months and months but I've finally started scrap booking again with things being slow at my banquet job. Having Sundays off is magical. So yeah finally getting to my trip to Boston from September of LAST year.

I Love the Smell of Paper in the Morning

Pens made out of paper. What a world.

So I was at this technology expo. I was actually one of the "vendors," tho not technically vending anything, we were telling people about our technology services. So I didn't take too much time at all of the other booths but, naturally, what I liked most was the discovery of the pens that one of them was giving out which were MADE OF PAPER. 

So so much excitement of the existence of these. I mean, come on, biodegradable pens!? Smells like napalm I mean victory. This photo doesn't really show them for what they are but they are literally paper rolled around the ink part of the pen (okay that part is still plastic) and then the cap is a crimped tube of paper as well. When I first saw them I thought they were some kind of food (sugar packet) product. So much better.

The moral? Everyone now, who has the ability to choose the promotional materials for their company, go get these. I even looked them up for you.

What I Did Today, Day 7: Coffee Break

Finishing up the "week" of photobooth strips with one of my favorite things. I take mine with cream and sugar. And note the reusable cup. Saving the world one coffee cup at a time!

What I Did Today, Day 7: Coffee Break

Also, I like the photostrip thing so much that I'm bringing back a weekly feature! Let's all give a round of applause to the new and improved: Fotostrip Friday! Whooooo.....

Click-Click!

Not much to talk about today. I'm thrilled to have gotten back the digital version of my first set of 'real film' (as I keep calling it, as opposed to that fake film?) photos (see previous post). I know that I'm learning so I'm okay with them not being perfect, or shall we say "artistic"... Yeah let's go with that. And I actually liked a few of them. The prints should arrive in a few days and I'm excited to get those also. 

Inspired by my results I went out and took another roll of film this past Friday and will start on another soon. Then I have to go buy more! I don't yet know what different film speeds will have on my pictures. I think I'll stick to the 400 since I don't feel like needing a tripod yet. It's hard enough for me to not feel ridiculous carrying around my camera as it is. 

Anyway. Uhhhhhh? I think I don't have any other news that's divulge-able at this juncture. I am pleased to announce that I am adding two new comic strips to my list of comic sources: Pearls Before Swine and Amazing Super Powers (the latter being a web-only comic). And they are making their BYATR debut today!

That'll do it for this week. Actually, I think I'm going to move to Antarctica. Yeah, gonna go live with the penguins. I'll get a tuxedo to wear so that they will accept me as one of them.

I need a guy who carries waffles in his wallet.

The Results Are In! [Part 1 of ?]

I GOT MY PHOTOS BACK!!! For anyone who doesn't understand my over excitement, I recently commandeered my dad's film SLR camera and finally took pictures with it, sent the film away to be developed and got my results! What I didn't think about when I asked for his camera in lieu of dropping $600ish on a digital SLR is that there's no white-balance (adjusts colors so that they look right because outside light makes things look different on film than indoor light), and no preview. I wish I could white-balance but not have the preview does add some mystique to my venture into photography. 

So I got a list of ideas of stuff to take pictures out and went crazy! I tried different settings for each subject, and wrote down what they were so I could know how I accomplished each photo. I also used my digi so that if I really failed I could show you all what I tried to take a picture of. I will include them just for comparison's sake even for the ones that were pretty good on film. I also determined that I should get some more lenses. 

Oh and I want to credit everyone who gave me these suggestions but I'm at work and already spent enough time doing this so that will have to wait!

Enjoy!

Moon: digital.

The moon: Film.

Penn State's admin building: Digital

PSU Admin bldg: Film

Sundial: Digital

Sundial: Actually came out better on film!

Obelisk thing: Digital.

Obelisk: Film.

Cherry tree: Digital.

Cherry tree: Film. Played w/ focus some.

Planter: Digital.

Planter: Film. Lacking a focal point...

Fish tank: Digital. Way better than the film one.

Fish tank: Film. See. Not very good.

The digital one of this was so bad I'm not going to bother:

These don't have digital counterparts. They were actually taken first before I thought to use my digi to cheat with what f-stop to use.