Another weekend photo update...

Weekend at Jim and Mary's

Not much to report, we went up north for the weekend to Rachel's aunt and uncle's cottage (photos are tagged so click on the map view!). Went golfing, out on their boat and had great barbeque food, all in all very nice.

Hitting up Vegas next weekend for a free (not to mention ridiculously rare) Blindside concert, woohoo!

Photos from the weekend

I need to do this more often...Make sure you click on the map view - they are geotagged so you can see where we were, enjoy! (man, geotagging is both awesome and easy)

adventures in minneapolis/st. paul (july 2009)

A photo update...

OK, so it has been awhile. Why not some pictures then you ask? alright then, here it is! pretty much our trip and drive to calgary and banff to visit chris and nikki, followed by some random photos to bring you right up to this afternoon. enjoy!

 

 

 

You learn something new everyday...i guess a blog can have only 4 photos? not much of a photo update.

go here to view the rest.

http://picasaweb.google.com/pxpaulx/920BlogPhotos#

Someone care to show me another new trick? why am i having such a hard time creating that as a hyperlink?! in the meantime, copy and paste to your heart's content!

on the subject of...

buying and selling (a previous topic of mine); i think a part of my photography hobby has somehow become buying and selling lenses; although i enjoy testing them out, ultimately i look for deals and usually sell (and i usually make money - cases in point $25 teleconverter sold to someone in england for $140; lens given to me for free because it had some glass fungus (which i fully disclosed to the buyer) sold to someone in australia for $200!) so, one mans junk is another ones treasure.

this leads up to our trip to visit our friends in calgary, and doing some banff/jasper touristing for a few days. I'm finally starting to feel like my camera setup is good, and i'm getting excited about taking photos again. the last thing i want to be able to have with me is a second body, to go with my 6 lens kit.

i was debating whether to drive our crv out there, or take our yaris, but with gas going ever higher the debate is pretty much over. plus, since the yaris is going to need new tires (they're down to under 4/32 tread already at 33K miles, not very good), the difference in gas cost will pretty much buy those tires, so we'll probably put them on early.

not really sure what the point was there.

ok, my dad got his permanent resident card today, which i petitioned for him to get, that went fairly quickly, and didn't require any interviews in person so that is good, now he doesn't have to worry about getting work visas and can live in the US and do whatever he wants (Except vote, which i can now!). nothing else new, hope you enjoyed the clip from the last post!

In Rainbows

Ok, I found this today on a tech blog, if you're a fan of radiohead and/or have listened to their new album In Rainbows, give this a watch (even if you're not, it is cool) the song doesn't start until a minute in, so be patient (or drag the cursor and be impatient).


Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

Wow, that worked! ok. enjoy.

dawn of the internet dead

So, an update. my blog's title is pertinent today, as we cleaned out the kitchen. Things to donate: a handheld vacuum, some storage containers, a little george foreman grill, and some other odds and ends that were just wasting space. (also, not related to the kitchen, 8 button up shirts, 3 sweaters, a pair of shorts and socks). Donating is one thing, the sad part was seeing all of the long (long long) expired food in the back of the cupboards. It covered 2 feet of counter, and the stove, and ultimately filled 2 trash bags. I think going forward we need lists of food so this doesn't happen anymore, that is just too wasteful (even that comment implies I can tolerate a certain amount of waste, which is sad, but i'd like to think my level of that kind of tolerance is lower than average at the very least - maybe average to an average canadian, and above average to an average american).

The photo above, if you were wondering, was just a snap in fargo, nd, down an alley. sorry its not processed, it could be brighter, and well, just better. but, it was the first time in awhile i felt inspired to pull out my camera, so that makes it great to me.

And now to my stock footage:

ok, i didn't take my camera because they said they wouldn't let you have one if the band was a bigger (not local) act when i called. i figured mxpx was probably big enough to have a big dslr end up getting called too professional and having to take it back to the car anyways. that was my mistake, i probably would've been ok, and it was a cool venue. so that is the reason for my mxpx stock photo, haha. the show was fun, we still enjoy going to shows, but it is definitely starting to make me feel old, its kinda weird. i mean most of the kids there were probably like 7 when we started listening to mxpx. maybe they feel old too, so it can't be that bad. this tour in particular was their first karaoke tour, with a couple songs sung by fans (i'm definitely a fan, but not of getting up on stage in front of alot of people). the fans were not good at singing, but it was alright. i still like going because mike is light years ahead of what he used to be on bass. their albums don't really give him his due, he's constantly throwing down blues and jazz and walking bass lines in every song, its fun to watch as a (non-practising) bass player. so that is that.






last but not least, rachel and i joined the gym a month ago and it is awesome. i can't believe how much my body has gone to hell; i've never really been of the skinny persuasion, but i could hold my own until i was maybe 22 or 23, basically until i had surgery and hospital complications around then, and gained a ton of weight afterwards. i think i posted before about losing some weight last year, that went well just with diet, but it wasn't going anywhere anymore. we've been going to the gym everyday its just around the corner literally and i've been dropping about 1 1/2 pounds a week, plus where did all this energy come from? so that is awesome go me.

That was fast.

Ok, an eventful week so at Christine's request, an update!

I'll start with the followup to the last post. I had my citizenship interview today. I was nervous and excited, didn't really know what to expect. The form I received said to allow 2 hours for the interview (seemed long, since all they do is ask some civics/history questions, make you read a sentence and write a sentence, prove you can speak english, make you prove you're actually married and not a fraud, and some other mundane things).

Interview time was 10:20, and it said not to arrive more than 30 minutes prior. I get there at 10 to 10. I already knew where the building was, and it is about 5 minutes from my work, so no problem there. Walk in, through security, up to the second floor and put my form in a bin - not even a person there to say put that here! by 10am i was already in the interview - it is a legal proceeding, so i swore to tell the truth - no problem. Asked me all the above (you know, between the brackets), while checking things off on my forms (no idea what he was even checking off, it certainly wasn't civics questions) Asked if I'm married, looked over my bills and said no problem there, made sure I'd never stated I was a citizen, or that I'd voted in the US - no and no. He used to work in customs, so we talked alittle shop (being that I'm in anti-money laundering, I know all the schemes they deal with). After the civics questions he asked me where they brewed Labatt's - funny guy! I then had to prove I can read and write - I read, 'It is sunny outside today' and wrote 'I live in Minnesota.' Tough stuff. That was about it, I was done and in the car at 10:15. So it is close to the next ceremony, which is on aug. 15th - i might get into that one, otherwise it will be at the end of september (that is a big one though, downtown MPLS and one of our senators and the US attorney general are speaking at it, so that would be interesting).

So I guess I'm pretty up from that, it was a breeze and I'm almost an American now. Prior to that, a pretty depressing week I guess. I haven't been able to lose any weight in the last month and a half (at least I haven't gained anything) - its still my fault, changing diet can only help so much, I need to start exercising. But on top of that, one of my coworkers is quitting for a better job too, he's pretty much the last to leave of the people that I talk to on a regular basis, so that really sucks. I need a change. I wish i could be a photographer, but where do you even begin?! maybe i'll take some classes, or read some books, but that still leaves me at work most of the time, which is becoming increasingly boring and now with pretty much no one to talk to (at least another guy that is my age) its gonna suck even more. Then of course the bridge collapsed in MPLS on wednesday evening, pretty scary, and definitely tragic, not to mention it will take a good two years + to replace and cause major headaches (i'm thinking for the general public as we live on the southside and don't use it that often). I went down to see the bridge (but couldn't see much) after my citizenship interview this morning to see for myself, and take a few pictures (nothing breathtaking as you can't get close, but you can see them on my facebook). Anyways, that brings me back to my interview this morning.

I don't need to become a citizen, I could live here the rest of my life without it. But I knew I eventually would. My dad asked me to - I can petition for him to become a permanent resident, which is what I am now. He is far from perfect, and I easily could not speak to him for some of the things he has done. But he's still my dad, and maybe he can have some sense of normalcy again - it seems like he is always moving to me and never in one place anymore, although he has changed, he does seem to be happy, and I can do this one thing for him. So he prompted me, but he is not the reason why.

I moved to the US just before sept. 11th. I couldn'tve cared less where we lived, we'd just gotten married, had hardly no money, and chose the cheapest option. I learned what it was to be an American back then though. That they do care when it matters, and take action. Like them or not, they show their cards, and when push comes to shove they make the right moves. I'm not talking about the government, I'm talking about the people. I saw that again on a smaller scale on wednesday night. Americans are about action, and I hope that I can be the same. So I'll be an American and hope that I can live upto what that means.