Too close for missles, I'm switching to guns....

Yes, it was that time of the year again when all of North County gathers at Miramar and looks at all of the toys that the military has at its disposal. I went all day Friday and it was flippin fun.........mmmmmm the smell of exhaust and burned up jet fuel in the air. Planes roaring overhead making the ear bleed and the chest cavity rumble......it does the heart good. The weather was rather bland as it was overcast all day, but what can you do you just gotta work with what you've got. The day was awesome, well except for the dumb announcers. Could they be any cornier?!?! Oh and the stupid gliders were not cool either, every year I dread the announcers sayin "now lets take some time to enjoy the quietness of flight and marvel at the grace that is the glider" ummmm how about NO!!!! I came here to watch stuff blow up and go deaf, not enjoy watching a plane do what a friggin bird can do and come down slowly. Oh every year I pray for a surface to air missile demonstration during the gliders flight time......but alas my prayers have gone unanswered thus far. So yeah the show was way cool and fun, but ill shut up now since im going to post A LOT of pictures. ENJOY!!!!! Shalom.

Its finally here!!!

Well the day has finally come and the new website is up and running!!!! Go and check it out, some of the galleries are still being worked on and so have little or no content in them, but they will be filling up soon. A special thanks to Dan Jarrett for designing the site and getting it up and running. He does great work, check him out if you're ever in need of good web work. Well its late so im off to bed for now go check the site. Hope you like it, Shalom.

ZO

Winter is coming...

Went shooting last night, and the air is starting to get that chilly feeling......mmmmmm I love that chilly air. Since we live in California we will never see snow, but that cold air sure feel night after our hot summer. Seeing as how the moon is nice and bright I went to the beach to shoot some pictures. I miss shooting at night im going to try to shoot as much as I can before the moon regresses back to nothingness. Here are some pics from last night, enjoy. Shalom

A Fishy Point of View III........Spawn of the Salmon!!!!

Yep, you got it......its time for another fisheye post!!!!! Ok, so I need to get a new wide angle lens cus I have been using my fisheye WAY to much. I love doing wide angle stuff but my fisheye is the only thing that I have right now that has a wide enough field of view to capture what I want. Oh well, soon enough. Ok so after the Padres game on Tuesday ( see post below ) we were walking back to the car and I decided to shoot some of the city as we were walking back. More experimenting really, but it was a lot of fun......have you noticed that I have "a lot" of fun whenever I shoot? hahahahaha.....so yeah that was my Tuesday and to top it off mom bought me a Venti Green Tea Lemonade from Starbizzle..........mmmmmmmm. Out of the house all day, got to shoot, had a beer with dad and ended the day with Green Tea Lemonade only thing that would have made it perfect would be to have my wife there, because I did miss her. Mom and dad.....you guys freaking rock!!!!! So here's the pictures from the end of the day, enjoy.

Play Ball!!!

That amazing guy next to me is my pops............dont lie, you know that you can see the resemblance!!!!!! Him and his family sort of "adopted" me when I first came to know the Lord and have been a very influential force in my life. Well on Monday mom called and asked if I wanted to accompany them and my brothers girl friend Julia ( or Julia Gulia as I call her ) to the Padres game on Tuesday. Now im not a big baseball fan, but ill jump at any opportunity to get out of the house these days, and I like to spend time with the parents.....theyre fun peoples. I know all you baseball fans out there hate me right now, apparently it was the playoff game or something against the Cardinals.......to bad the Padres got spanked!!!! Anywho, I watched about 5 innings and dad and I had a beer.....nothing like sharing fun times with the old man over some beer. After that I got bored, but lucky for me I had brought my gear, so I decided to go around and shoot some pictures. The day was absolutely gorgeous so it was a good time to be out and about. I didn't really have a specific goal as far as pictures went, so I did a lot of motion experimenting. It was a lot of fun, but it was kind of weird. The world post 9/11 is very different, and with the Patriot Act in place a lot of "high risk" areas aren't letting you shoot pictures. That includes stadiums and buildings where a lot of people gather, or power plants.....stuff like that. So I was always on the look out for security and waiting for someone to kick me out, luckily nothing happened and I happily snapped away. So here are the pictures from Tuesday..........hope you like them.

In the Event of a Water Landing...

This ladies and gentlemen is my "best" friend Josh Schmidt, him and i have known each other and managed to stay friends for many many many many years. Since i have no biological brother i would say that Josh is the closest thing i have to a brother, it has been awesome to see each other grow. Since i have know him i have always known that he wants to be a pilot, there has been a long line of pilots in the family and he continues a very proud tradition. i have been flying with Josh before and he always manages to have some kind of surprise for me up in there air that will scare the crap out of me. Well, about oh i dont know 2 years ago i think, the Flight school that he is an instructor for Grey Eagle, just happened to acquire a small plane called a Citabria. Its a small plane made specially for acrobatic maneuvers.........and its made out of cloth............................yeah, you read it right.........CLOTH!!!!! well you can imagine what would go through a persons mind hearing that, yeah all of those things went trough mine. Josh was all excited when they got this thing in and starts telling me how he wanted to take me up and do some.......rolls, stalls, loop de loops and all that wonderful stuff that makes your brains go into your feet. All the time "when are we going up?" to which i would proceed to say "let me get this straight........you manage to scare the crap out of me when we were in a plane made out of metal, and now youre telling me that you want to take me up and do "acrobatic" manuevers" in a plane that by all intents and purposes is a glorified kite?!?!?!" "ummmmmm yeah........yeah i guess i am" "youre out of your mind, i can just see it now. You pull some freaky maneuver I crap my pants and panic and manage to kick a hole in the side of the plane!!!! Shes falling apart captain!!!!!" "oh no worries" he says "we have parachutes" "oh well how comforting!! and if the chutes dont open?" "hmmmm then i guess we would be in for a bad day" So he never gave up and always tried to get me to go up, of course i refused. For my birthday this year, Josh comes up to me and says "your present is coming" of course i ask "what is it" all he does is take his hand and makes the motion of a plane going inverted...........well now i had to do it. On Monday, i finally got in the plane.................................. and it was an incredible experience that i will never forget. We werent up for long, as my stomach isnt exactly the iron gut and i came close to losing whatever i had in there. So instead of trying to tough it out i decided that we should land before i hurled all over the cockpit. I would tell you all about the day, but you would be here reading all day so instead i will leave you with some pictures. Understand that the cockpit is tiny and so the fisheye lens was the only thing wide enough to capture it all. Also, i apologize fot he lack of creativity with the shots, but it was my 1st time doing this...............but i hope to try again soon muahahahahahah. Josh you rock brotha, thanks for an awesome day and an incredible birthday present.