I’m considering buying my own personal island in The World.

Whatcha think?

Maybe I could just live on The Palm?

Decisions… decisions…

Toothpaste for Dinner.. a new favorite site. Reminds me of Exploding Dog. Cute, eh?

Went to the John Mayer and Maroon 5 concert last week. Mayer is eh. Seriously all his songs sounded the same… pretty much each one has him singing with that whispery voice of his. Oh I admit it, I’m frickin’ biased. Bad Jen! But I’ll also admit, I like that Georgia song he sings as well as the neato guitar playing trick he did with one of his guitarists (he played his guitar and the other guy stood behind him and put his arms through Mayer’s and played the guitar too….. does that make any sense?)

Expect some photos soon. This weekend may involve a field trip on Saturday to SF and then a funfun bbq on Sunday!

For now, go back to Toothpaste for Dinner.

My internal drill sergeant (E7!) has been hounding me nonstop for the past two or three weeks.

PICK UP THE PHONE! PITCH THAT STORY!

Work has been extremely stressful the last few weeks; rarely a day goes by without me coming home with a headache. There are a lot of factors for this – but in general the entire staff is on overload.

WE DON’T TAKE BREAKS HERE LITTLE GIRL- GET YOUR CAMERA OUT! SHOOT SHOOT SHOOT!

This photography class, although entry-level and seemingly easy, has sucked a lot of time away. But this is a happy time-sucking! I LOVE this class. The professor is awesome and very positive toward the student’s work. Granted, we haven’t had a critique yet. I’m sure he’ll be honest about quality and technique, but he doesn’t seem the type that is set out to crush spirits.

This last Wednesday we developed our first roll of film. I’d say the majority of the class was pretty silent and somewhat nervous until that moment we were finally able to let our film see white light. Oh such joyous sounds! Everyone pretty much had the same thought, “Thank gawd there is something on my film!” The next step is finding out if our images look decent.

So although there has been some time-sucking (which translates to arriving back at the apartment at 11pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, shooting rolls of film throughout the week, and potentially developing them on Sundays) it has been an enjoyable time.

So what do I do with the rest of my time? Scrapbooking with Shannon, digital photography related projects, cleaning the apartment, going to concerts and movies, shopping, looking at cars (ok so just once, but I’m counting it!)

I don’t want to waste time anymore.

But because of that, I’ve had headaches almost everyday and I feel exhausted. Should I bother taking a break? Bah!

This weekend I went to a concert, hung out with my parents, saw Fahrenheit 9/11, purchased some frames (Duuudes. Aaron Brothers are having one of their $.01 sales!), spent hours taking photos, set up the TiVo, cleaned the kitchen (except the fridge, that’s a whole project itself).. and took a long enough break to have dinner and watch 20 minutes of The Fast & The Furious.

The kitchen – it’s cleeeean(er)! I am replacing some random glass/plastic-ware with a set (a set!) of glasses that I purchased at Target this weekend. They are super spiffy – titled “Vibe” ooh la la.

Alright, that’s it. I’m off to sleepyland. It is time to start the week yet again.

T & K – you are in my thoughts and prayers everyday.

It’s been five years since the last time I saw Sarah McLachlan and she’s still just as amazing as before. ‘Well, duh‘ right? The concert last night, at the HP Pavillion (not my favorite venue ever) was pretty neato smeato.

First off, I’ve gotta give two great big thumbs up to Butterfly Boucher. She opened the show with lots of energy, a fun accent, great songs, and awesome green pants!

Sarah’s stage was designed as… well the best way I can describe it is somekind of mystical forest. You’ve got moss here and there, little stages that are giant tree trunks (Ashwin’s second set of drums came up from underneath the stage on one of those trunks).

It was very choreographed for a Sarah McLachlan concert. At the LFs I saw her at, she generally stood/sat in the middle or maybe wandered close to the ones on guitars.. but that was it.

At this concert, there was a moment while she played the piano and sitting on the steps infront of her (singing with her) was Ashwin, one of her guitarists (sorry I don’t know.. maybe Sean?) and her backup singer (not Camille). That was the setup for one song. Later on they all moved to the giant tree trunk and sat around like it was time for a song at camp.

She played all the favorites and a lot off her new album. I was most pleased when she played her older songs (the songs prior to Surfacing). “Fear” was awesome, very tripped-out and of course she hits those high notes…

The venue wasn’t that great. You could hear the layer of people talking. Of course the best moment was when we all sang “Ice Cream” (the moment everyone loves!)

And of course, just now I went to Butterfly’s website and wouldntcha know, Sarah & Butterfly will be at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley tonight.

I just don’t think I have $65 for another show. But I’m sure the acoustics will be awesome.

So that marks the beginning Jennifer’s Summer Concert Series. Next week, John Mayer & Maroon 5!

We figured out where to go!

Adam, Darren, and I made a spontaneous trip to Santa Cruz today. We found cheap parking ($.25/15 min meter compared to a $10.00 parking spot) that was only a block away from the main Boardwalk entrance.

Since it was still a bit overcast (11-11:15ish) we decided to have our lunch and check out the beach until the clouds melted away.

And melted away they did. The colors popped out! Light and shadows everywhere!

Darren and I completed our rolls of film (plus I took a few digital shots as well).

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk!

Note to Self: Next time you get the bright idea to spend a few hours in the sun – bring the SPF 15.

I’m supposed to be out taking photos. Using up the last of my film in my borrowed Canon AE-1 camera and possibly moving onto a second roll, should the inspiration move me to do so.

But I’m not. I’m sitting here, “looking up somewhere to go” in order to take said photos.

Darren and I went downtown on Saturday – should we just go there again? Eh. I need a new spot. I tried walking around the complex here yesterday morning to see if anything jumped out at me. But nothing did.

I’m trying to complete a homework project. Yes, I said homework. I am taking an intro to photography class with Darren (Adam’s brother, for those keeping notes).

So far, the knowledge I’ve already obtained (from my mother, the internet, and my use of digital cameras) is simply being refined and completed as I take this course. It’s like I’ve colored in a coloring book and now I’m going over it and making sure I didn’t miss any spots, making the colors stronger and more solid within the space.

Did that analogy work? Ah well. The class is great. The only fear I have is developing. But that will go away the moment I actually do it – it’s just something new. There are a lot of factors to consider when developing film. Temperature, chemical mixes, time.. oh such precious time.

So here’s hoping I metered correctly on Saturday and some of my photos turned out nice and purty There is one in particular of a plant that I’m looking forward to seeing.

AUGH. I need to find somewhere to go.

(Disregard the fact that it’s really the 5th. It took me awhile to upload my photos!)

Adam and I braved the mass of people and went to the America Festival held in Discovery Meadow in downtown San Jose. I hoped there’d be more arts & craft booths, but the selection was very limited.

We arrived around 7pm and checked out the booths. We decided to claim a spot alongside the main entrance pathway. This seemed to be both a good idea and a bad idea. Good because we had easy access to the main walkway. It was a bad idea because many people thought “hey, i can just walk right over these people and make my way to the back!” Thanks guys.

No biggie. However, I almost lost it while in line for a Churro. It’s about 10 minutes until the fireworks are to go off and I’m standing in line with about 45 other people wanting a stick of sugar. Just up ahead of me in line is a family of about 6 people. The mother gets her wallet out and approaches the counter. You’d think she’d say “i’ll have # Churros and # pretzels..” Right? Oh no. Not this lady. This lady completely wasted the 10 minutes she stood in line prior to reaching the counter. She turned around to her family and took orders. Did the children immediately answer? Of course not. Was it timely and efficient? NO! GRRR. She took her dear sweet time.

The fireworks started and I started to snap away. 30 minutes and 100 photos later, it was over. Enjoy!

First off, I finally found some shoes!

Aren’t they snazzy? They’re super comfy and will be used for work and going out. I also bought another pair of cheapie flips from Old Navy (in a periwinkle color).

Today is a busy day – I went out with Darren and took a ton of photos (digital and film) in Downtown San Jose. Check out a few of the photos I took. Just click on the thumbnails below (which is the same location as my photoblog).