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Epistulae Ciceronis
A Perfectly Squiffy Jag Recent Entries |
| 11:30 am - Katie's 28th Birthday Party |
I suspect most of you are on my 1928 party invite list, but for you Facebook haters: we're throwing a birthday party for Katie on Sunday, June 21st, 1959 at 5:00PM. (Yes, that's a subtle hint at a theme). It's a potluck so you should come prepared with sides to share or meats for the grill. Katie also just bought some new patio furniture which we should have in by then; since everyone tends to lounge on the patio during summer parties anyway, we figured we'd at least make it comfortable. Also, this is a heads up that you should block off the evening of Friday, September 11th, 2009 on your calendar as you're committed to coming to my as-of-yet-unannounced-but-hardly-difficu
| 02:08 pm - John's Birthday Party |
 [+230 | Slideshow] ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} uncelestial had a pretty epic birthday party at his new home last night. The best addition (which I'm totally going to gank for my next theme party) was a greenscreen photobooth with 20+ backgrounds. Of course, the 9/11 background was the most popular - you just can't go wrong with exploding planes. I was in a quiet mood last night and took quite a few photos, although my camera managed to make the rounds so I'm looking forward to what debauchery found its way onto my memory card. Of course, I still haven't posted photos from my halloween party yet so we'll see if I ever get around to going through them. |
| 02:02 pm - Hot young co-eds! |
The cover will be $15 ($10 with student ID); for this price, you get an endless supply of alcohol (the department has done mathemetical modeling of alcohol consumption and feels confident they can honor this commitment). The party will likely start around 7:00pm and will be located at our house (1928 10th Ave. E.). Since this is a fundraiser, we're allowing anyone in who meets the cover charge - although if they're ugly we'll likely quarantine them in the basement (sorry, I have standards to maintain).
I'll be posting an invite to Facebook on Monday, once the details have all been confirmed. For now this is a heads-up.
Note: If you can't attend but would like to support the nuking-of-innocent-civis, you can also fund the Applied Mathematics Half Marathon Team, who will be running (half of) the Seattle Marathon on November 30th. Their goal is to raise $20,000 by then! [Donation Form] (PDF).
ATTN:
goldfischegirl: You'll be excited to know that the Applied Math faculty will be showing up - drunk professors, what could go wrong?| 12:57 pm - Iris and Cooper |
  The unholy offspring of getlocalgirl and caseyplusplus. |
| 12:32 pm - Willow's Costume Party |
A few weeks ago, while honoring the Woman Out Of Town (woot) Protocol, goldfischegirl, mrsimul and I crashed my friend Willow's party hell-and-gone somewhere in South Seattle (original post). Anyway, I uploaded the photos a while back but never got a chance to cross-post them here. Many of the pictures from the set were taken by Ashley as we were sharing camera duty that night. It ended up being a pretty wild party and there are some fun photos in the set.   Ashley took this one, although you'd never know. Our styles have seemed to merge over the last few years.   This was my costume for part of the night. I also ended up as an injun at some point, a cowboy at another and a farmer (?) at yet another. These photos were obviously taken by Ashley. [+28 | Slideshow] |
| 11:33 am - USO Ball |
As has been the trend lately, I was more interested in socializing than taking photographs and so I only have a handful of pictures from the party. Fortunately, popcultureicon was in attendance with his Canon 450D. The lighting was dim so I loaned him my flash and, despite never working with an attached unit, he took an exceptional set that really captures the mood of the party. Every few years it seems the Official Event Photographer role passes to a new person; originally it was goldfischegirl, then the baton was  meowlet with a World War II era newspaper (she brought a bunch of neat relics from the 40s).  Katie also really likes suxdonut's photo of the cake. Another shot of my costume, also by popcultureicon. suxdonut and clay88.[+61 | Slideshow] [Additional sets by: Ashley, Ang, and Tatiana] The 1943 USO Ball has been my favorite party at the new house, if not the best party I've ever thrown. The theme was very successful; I think it was planned long-enough in advance and offered enough quickly-assembled costume ideas that it was easy for people to come in character. Katie also did a great job compiling the background music, which helped maintain the mood. A fairly decent sized crowed showed up (I'd estimate 50 people?); probably less than the last party, but it was a diverse group of friends which kept things interesting without getting out-of-hand. Quite a few people showed up who I haven't seen in a long-time, including meowlet and seennotheard (who made a fantastic Rosie the Riveter); this made me happy. (Of course, others were missed, such as sidspencer, my father and practically all of Katie's friends who are, apparently, terrified of my parties).( Open Mic ). ( Partying at 1928 ). ( Laural's Death Fall ). ( The After Party ). ( Military Chic ). Anyway, thanks to all of the people who showed up and made it such a memorable birthday! I hope everyone else had as good of a time as I did. |
| 05:02 pm - Matt and Melissa's Wedding |
      [+116 | Slideshow] Matt's wedding turned out fantastic. The bathhouse at Golden Gardens was the perfect location for the event, and worked quite well for the photography as well. For Katie and I it was a nice balance between work and fun. It's also the first wedding we've ever shot where some family member didn't get on our case for drinking the alcohol or eating the food (inevitably someone treats us as the hired help, not realizing we're also on the guest list). Our new equipment is proving its worth; I think the wedding shots turned out nice. I really love my 40D and Katie's 1D has proven useful due to the 1.3x crop and extremely fast 15fps. We rented the 85mm f/1.2 as usual as well as the 15mm fisheye. The latter was nice to have, although we only used a handful of the shots since they look a bit gimmicky in bulk. Still, between the lens optics and the wide angle it was a lot of fun to use. We'll probably buy both lenses eventually, although Katie would rather get the 14mm rectilinear - it's hard to justify buying two $2,000 lenses, though. I still believe, at some level, that you're only as good as your worst photo - and by that yardstick I have a long, long way to go. But looking at the top 10% of my photos I'm pretty happy with this set. |
| 01:49 am - Steven and Emilie's Wedding |
     [+92 | Slideshow] |
| 10:53 pm - Ashley's Birthday Party |
[+22 | Slideshow]
Last night at
goldfischegirl's birthday, where it was rediscovered just how much fun one can have with whipped cream. Unfortunately, no one got photos of sarevilo as she was pretty damned hot - and she vetoed the three I took of her.| 01:03 pm - Wick. |
Over the next few days I grew fond of this spider. Most spiders are stationary and just hang out on their web acting creepy. This spider is nomadic and curious; he's constantly walking around checking out what's on my desk. I guess he's probably just hunting for food, but it seems inquisitive.
One day, he jumped from the top of my monitor to the top of a bottle of scotch that I keep on my desk. He's a jumping spider! It was really amazing to watch. I guess I knew some spiders can jump but it was really exciting to see it. Once he learned how to jump he started exploring the entire office - his world just got larger.
Then he disappeared. I was really worried that one of my cats had eaten him or, worse, I had accidentally crushed him. I've never felt concerned about crushing bugs, but this was different. The idea that he had been killed really upset me. But then he showed up again, on my keyboard, as though he's always been there.
A few days ago I went to the bathroom and was washing my hands when, in the mirror, I noticed him on my collar. It was both endearing and frightening. For the first time he made me nervous. I began to slowly take off my shirt, but he started crawling toward my neck. I panicked and took my shirt off quickly and in the process he fell to the ground. I felt terrible! So I held out a tissue which he crawled up on and I brought him back to my office. For a few minutes he watched me carefully and would get defensive anytime I moved - I think I really scared him. I was afraid I'd ruined things with my new friend.
After half an hour he seemed to warm up to me again, though, and came back to the keyboard where he spend the better part of the afternoon. Later on Shinji (my cat) came and lay across my arms (which makes typing really hard!) and the spider tried to crawl up onto him - although he seemed to have trouble navigating the maze of fur, so I'm not sure if he succeeded.
On Friday, I went to shut the door and noticed a different (bigger) spider caught in the doorway. His leg had been crushed, but he was still alive. Normally I'd have just crushed him, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I picked him up and moved him to the floor. He limped off. On another occassion I saw an earwig on the banister and flicked it without thinking; I smashed half of it and the other half was writhing. I killed him so he would stop suffering. I felt really terrible.
Katie doesn't get it. She think he looks creepy. I guess he does. He has these furry white pedipalps which I think look like a beard, but I suppose are pretty daunting.
As an aside, I think the spiders we kept running into in Guatemala were a variety of Nephila (known as "golden silk orb-weavers"). The variety found in Central America are, apparently, only mildly poisonous but fairly painful due to their size.
| 10:53 am - Dog and Crab Wedding |
    [+70 | Slideshow] I'm sure the legend of hotcrab and Ryan's wedding is now old news to most of you, but for those who weren't able to make it here are some photos to give you a taste of the debauchery.The short of it: caseyplusplus, sidspencer, herbaliser and velvet and I stole a Mercedes, loaded it up with various forms of entertainment and headed straight for San Francisco. Three sleepless nights, scores of friends, a handful of crack whores, two inappropriately placed manikins, a ruined swimming pool, a marching band, a marriage, a few hazy moments and countless photographs best forgotten later we returned home.Edit: Oh, and courtesy of niftybitch, here's one of me right after fierceflawless pulled me into the pool. This was back when you could still see the bottom of the pool, which didn't last long. |
| 12:33 pm - Cooper: Age One |
    [+43 | Slideshow] Cooper's about to have his first birthday, so we returned to Bothell Landing (where we took prego-photos last year) to photograph the occassion. Katie also photographed her department's graduation on Saturday and so she rented the 85mm f/1.2 lens from Glazers for the weekend. This is the lens I'm contemplating buying, but wasn't sure if it was worth the $2,000 sticker price. The optical quality of the lens is amazing; the photos posted here have no adjustment to contrast, curves or saturation - it's really impressive how much of a difference good quality glass can make. My only concern about the lens is that the autofocus performance is really poor (which is a popular complaint); I really didn't think this would bother me as it's mostly a portrait lens and thus better used with manual focus, but it made shots where the subject is moving toward the camera really difficult (like this one, of Cooper chasing a dog). |
| 07:18 pm - Isla Mujeres, Mexico (Cont) |
 [+30 | Slideshow] One more from the Mexico set (the links are to the same set as the previous post). This was the beach outside our hotel which was really a perfect spot. Katie and I spent a couple days snorkeling and ended up getting sun burns - oops. |
| 07:13 pm - Isla Mujeres, Mexico |
  [+30 | Slideshow] Katie and I headed down to Isla Mujeres, Mexico with Reg and Laural last week for a quick break from the cold. It was a fun trip, although it verified that I'm definitely not the beach-vacation type; it's fine for a few days, but after that I was getting pretty restless for some tromping through the jungle. I mean, it's just not Central America without swarms of mosquitoes, giant spiders and poisonous snakes you know? |
| 12:49 am - Casey + Holli |
 |  |
[+8 Months | Slideshow]
Today I took photos of
caseyplusplus and getlocalgirl, the latter of which has a little parasite growing in her tummy. Gross. Casey also paid me for the wedding I shot for them, which I'm going to use to buy some studio lights as well as a wide angle prime (probably 20mm or 24mm). I should have gotten those BEFORE this shoot, but hindsight, right?
| 04:08 pm
- girlstyle's Birthday
|
 [+10 | Slideshow] After the Vicars and Tarts Mixer, we headed over to Ang's birthday party. Things were pretty mellow there and no one we knew was still there. I think interimlover and I were the only two males present, which would have been a fine ratio had all of the girls not been gay*.* In the sexual way. |
| 03:36 pm - Vicars and Tarts Mixer |
 [+37 | Slideshow] The vicars and tarts mixer was alright. I ran into several people I wasn't expecting to see there. Overall, though, it was too dark, loud and crowded (neither condusive to photography or socializing). Also, most of the people disregarded the theme, which was a shame. At some point, Willow and myself and Katie crashed the neighbors party but it was too small not to be noticed so we ate some of their food, had some wine and left. Apparently the cops came after we left and arrested people, but we'd left for Ang's birthday party by that point. As a whole, I was pleased with these photos. I returned my flash, so I'm back to available lighting. |
| 02:41 am - Sara's Birthday Party |
  [+13] Sara had a small birthday event on Monday at the Rendezvous. The pictures are a bit warm and some of them expose my ignorance about syncing a flash. I think this is my favorite picture of velvet I've taken. {On that note, I wish we'd made karaoke tonight}. I also really like this photo of Katie and I, taken by quentasabass. |
| 04:02 am - Casey and Holli's Wedding, Take 2 |
[+51 | Slideshow] |
| 11:50 pm - Andrew and Gennie's Wedding, Black and White Set |
 [+3] I produced a few black and white photos of Andrew and Gennie's wedding as test fodder for my printer. The prints look pretty nice overall, although I have to use Canon's proprietry software to get the exact results I want (annoying). Anyway... I've barely touched my camera in a couple weeks. I need to get out of the house and do some photoshoots soon. |
| 05:56 pm - 29th Birthday Party; more... |
 [+17] I found 18 more photos from my birthday party. I think most of these were taken by me but, honestly, I wasn't in a state to really remember for sure. |
| 11:09 pm
- More party photos, thanks to meowlet...
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[+9
[+7]
| 08:30 pm - Portraits from my 29th birthday party |
 [+12] These is the first batch of photos developed with my Yashika 635 medium format camera which Katie gave me for my birthday. I love this camera. A lot of the portraits were blurry (see previous post) but a couple of them turned out alright. This one of meowlet is by far my favorite from the set. |
| 01:44 pm
- tyrven's Twenty-Ninth Birthday; TONIGHT.
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Just a reminder... [My House, 10p]
| 01:26 am
- gfrancie and reenigne's Wedding
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| 06:21 pm - Zolton's Pole Dancing Party |
 [+18 | Slideshow] starfish77 threw a pole dancing party at his swank downtown apartment last Saturday. Lighting was dim and (good) photographs were few, but a couple turned out. Hot boys and girls swinging around a pole; what more can you ask for?I even tossed in a panty shot for good measure. And because I'm an ass. |
| 01:02 am - Quent and Sara |
 [+37 | Slideshow] quent and daeverra demonstrate the latest in 60's fashion in anticipation of my upcoming birthday theme party.I think this is the highest quality shoot I've done in a long time, and an excellent display of my new lens. I'm very satisfied with these photos; thank you to both Quent and Sara for being such wonderful models. |
| 06:31 pm - Party, redux... |
 [+4 New] Oops, I missed five photos from the party last night that I thought were worth posting. Adding to the set. |
| 05:59 pm - Katie's Party |
 [+9 | slideshow]A few random photos from the party last night. These aren't fantastic photos, although I like this one of Ashley. Still working on the batch of Quent and Sara. |
| 01:40 pm
- Lunch with goldfischegirl and hydrozoa...
|
 Me showing Ashley and Meg how to turn any standard issue restaraunt napkin into a fantastic halloween costume in less than thirty seconds. Meg showed me up by creating this creepy little beast out of a flyer. Ashley loving her new tattoo. Ashley took the photos of me, including this one of me laughing. I promise I'll stop posting photos soon. I had a lot of random unsorting photos that needed going through, apparently. |