Little conga boy

Little conga boy, originally uploaded by billaday.

The lesser known Christmas Carol... pa rum pa pum pum.

Day 300

birthday cupcakes

birthday cupcakes, originally uploaded by billaday.

It was my mom's birthday. Instead of a cake, we got her cupcakes from Violet's. My favorite is The Elvis: banana bread cupcake with peanut butter frosting. Yum.

Day 299

Don't Cry

Don't Cry, originally uploaded by billaday.

Today I dreamed,
Of friends I had before.
And I wonder why
The ones who care don't call anymore.
My feelings hurt,
But you know I overcome the pain.
And I'm stronger now,
There can't be a fire unless there's a flame.

Don't cry.
You're not alone.

Day 298

a friendly reminder

a friendly reminder, originally uploaded by billaday.

Somebody please remind me to pick up some more ink. I need more for my classroom printer.

While we're on the subject, why does ink cost so much? Is it made out of gold? If so, why is black ink black, and not gold? Yeah, that is true. You think about that one.

Day 297

Rounding third

Rounding third, originally uploaded by billaday.

Moments before scoring, Jed Lowrie rounds third as the Red Sox tragically defeat the Angels 4-1.

This was the first playoff game I've seen before. There's so much energy in the stadium. It's way cooler than regular season games. Way cooler.

Day 296

the Francis acoustic

the Francis acoustic, originally uploaded by billaday.

Shameless plug. The first draft of The Francis Band website is now live:
www.thefrancisband.com

Instead of spending tons of time on it, and then realizing that someone in the band doesn't like it, I'm putting up a draft of the site. That way, I can get feedback from the guys in the band, and tweak it. That way, everyone is happy.

This shot of Francis will be on the site. So lemme know what needs to change to make the site better.

Day 295

chair lunch dinner

chair lunch dinner, originally uploaded by billaday.

What is this thing called? The bottom of the chair knobby thing that keeps it from moving? I forget.

I used this shot of the gutter as a texture over the chair leg.

Day 294

axe

axe, originally uploaded by billaday.

We hit Round Table Pizza for lunch. We actually ate at the round table. It made the food taste better. This axe was hung above us. Kinda creepy, unless it's just a decoration.

Day 293

wide mouth

wide mouth, originally uploaded by billaday.

I took a picture of this can last December. Someone recently tweaked it, and I've been thinking about how cool cans can be.

So here's a wide angle shot of a can. It's a good stock shot. The whiteground is my sink (it worked really well).

Day 292

factory

factory, originally uploaded by billaday.

Driving home is pretty cool sometimes. I drove through Irwindale, where it's industrial and dirty. I've passed this building before, and the vintage-ness of it usually catches my eye. I wonder what this building is used for. It looks so old.

Day 291

drip

drip, originally uploaded by billaday.

Occasionally, it gets to be 8pm and I haven't taken a photo-a-day-type photo. This was one of those days. So I took my camera and marched into the bathroom. After taking some lame Q-tip photos, I saw my faucet drip. That was the A-ha moment. Yes, A-ha, as in "Take On Me."

Day 290

red light, green light, yellow light

red light, green light, yellow light, originally uploaded by billaday.

No photoshop trickery here.

Exposure time: 6 seconds.

I guess this is why people can't save up time. They would end up crashing their cars at intersections.

Sorry, that joke wasn't funny. That was hardly even a joke. But the cool photo makes up for it.

Remember that childhood game, Red Light, Green Light? Yeah.

Day 289

Fun with grain

Fun with grain, originally uploaded by billaday.

ok, honesty time.

I took some really cool pictures, but they were of my kindergarten students for our newsletter. On the way home, I realized that I hadn't taken any shots of stuff that I can post online. So I snapped this after depositing a check. Trust me, I had some other way better shots. However, I spent some time with a Photoshop plug-in Exposure, and added some nice grain.

Day 288

Isabelle on the phone

Isabelle on the phone, originally uploaded by billaday.

That's the wife. She was talking to a friend who is gonna have a baby soon. Her friend lives far away, so they talk on the phone (instead of in person). Isabelle was happy to hear from her friend, and I was happy to photograph it.

Day 287

palm trees and animal fries

palm trees and animal fries, originally uploaded by billaday.

I really enjoy In-N-Out. Whenever I'm there, I want to take pictures. It's a mixture of having a really cool (and clean) looking place, and wanting to remember the smell of grilled onions. I've taken a few In-N-Out shots for my photo-a-day, so I was thinking of more interesting angles, and different ways of telling the In-N-Out story, if you will. I like the giant logo in the background.

Day 286

A fair to remember

A fair to remember, originally uploaded by billaday.

We hit the L.A. County Fair today. It had been a while. I learned 3 things:

1. Park at the Blue Gate (not yellow)
2. You eat whatever the kids want to eat. You can't wait in line twice.
3.

ok, I learned two things. It sure was a good time.

Day 285

I Be a Pirate

I Be a Pirate, originally uploaded by billaday.

Argh! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I read "How I Became a Pirate" to my kindergartners today. They liked it. I wore this shirt as my undershirt all day. For the story, I put on another shirt over my work shirt: "Aaaargh ya' glad you're a teacher!" And then, as luck would have it, we studied the letter i... as in, "Aye, aye!"

Day 284

classic

classic, originally uploaded by billaday.

Isabelle got the new iPod classic today. It's silver. Oooh. And although it's brand new, it's already a "classic". As with most new things, I had to take a picture of it and make it the photo-a-day.

Day 283

up periscope

up periscope, originally uploaded by billaday.

Look at how gross the bottom of that stopper is (where it meets the floor).

They don't make sturdy door stoppers like this any more. Maybe because they are too hard to thoroughly clean.

Day 282

glass ceiling

glass ceiling, originally uploaded by billaday.

You can't see them, but there are actually 18 million cracks in this glass ceiling.

Thank you Hillary.

No thank you Sarah.

Day 281

vents

vents, originally uploaded by billaday.

I revisited this shot. This heater was one of my early photo-a-day shots. The original is here.

For a while, I really liked the original shot. It had a cool perspective (taken from the floor), and the pattern of the vents was interesting. As I went back to it (it was taken Dec. 29, 2006), I noticed what was lacking.

Hopefully, this shot is a great improvement. I went black and white, since the texture, not the color, is what caught my eye. I used a flash (on my point-and-shoot SD870) and got close. I ended up with a nice high key shot, where the top is intentionally washed out, and the bottom of the frame is fading into black. Better?

Day 280

crop hardlight

crop hardlight, originally uploaded by billaday.

Robert is sending his Christmas CD off this week. We took 100 photos Sunday night for the back cover. Sadly, it was really dark by the time we were able to get out there. Since when is 7pm dark time? Seriously. Any way, I could get some good light on him with my SB-600 speedlight, but couldn't get much background light/color/anything. We were at a park, so I was using available backlight. Besides, I don't have any other fancy lighting. So here's the final shot, with the speedlight mounted, with a 1/60 exposure at 90mm.

Though I was hoping to get a more interesting background (I've learned a ton with this shoot), I was happy with the color of the background. It was originally a cheesy pink, since the sun was setting. Robert liked this photo, but wanted a dark blue background. So I took a picture of the sky, added that as a layer above this photos, and changed the blending properties to hard light. Then, it was just a matter of masking around him (so he wasn't dark blue, too).

Day 279

pan the motorcycle

pan the motorcycle, originally uploaded by billaday.

We went up to Idyllwild this weekend with some friends. The girls shopped and the guys (me and Wayne) took pictures. I was starting to get bored/uninspired when I saw some long exposure ideas from Wayne. It was bright and midday, but there he was, taking 1/2 second shots, aiming at the big intersection in the town. I stole that idea, and panned my camera as bikers passed us.

Day 278

winding staircase

winding staircase, originally uploaded by billaday.

My original photo-a-day idea for today was a star trails picture. We were up in Idyllwild, and had a great balcony view of the stars and the valley. It was a full moon, though. So instead of stars, I took a picture of stairs. Just one letter difference. Special thanks to Wayne for holding my wireless flash (SB600) at the bottom of this staircase.

Day 277

fire

fire, originally uploaded by billaday.

There was a giant brown bear loose in the foothills today. At one point, there were five helicopters in the air. I drove around and took 100 pictures; it turns out, helicopters need to be far away from each other so they don't collide. Feeling defeated, I turned around and started walking to my car. This was what I saw. Not bad. The sky looked like it was on fire. I suppose it's all that smog.

Day 276

wax

wax, originally uploaded by billaday.

Melted wax is cool. This almost looks fake, the way it sticks to the tablecloth. I like the light in the background, shining through the candlestick holder.

Day 275

environmental print

environmental print, originally uploaded by billaday.

I find I'm taking more pictures for my classroom. Teaching kindergarten, I need to find examples of stuff that seems obvious to adults. This was one photo from a lesson on environmental print. Letters convey meaning.

Day 274

the foothills

the foothills, originally uploaded by billaday.

Bummer. I just realized that today's photo-a-day is quite similar to the Microsoft "sample desktop." That means it's cool, but unoriginal.

This is cool, however, because it's where I live (and not where Microsoft says I should have visited). I occasionally notice how cool it is to have the foothills right next to my home. It's tough to capture that feeling, but the depth in this shot (silhouette to light sky) reminds me of that feeling. And I suppose for that reason, this photo is a success. Even if some dude from Microsoft® sorta did it first.

Day 273

The Robert Kochis Trio

The Robert Kochis Trio, originally uploaded by billaday.

Here's The Robert Kochis Trio. I'm one of the three, but I was the one taking the pictures, so Junior Barnes filled in so as not to confuse anyone about the number three.

The one in the middle is Junior Barnes--he's moving up through the ranks. Once a bratty son (of Robert), Junior Barnes is now an accomplished drummer, percussionist, and sound engineer (and still obnoxious son). Now we just need to figure out why we call him Junior Barnes. That's not his name.

On the left is the nefarious Mark Gusek. He's a killer drummer. Besides driving The Robert Kochis Trio, he is a freak jazz drummer. Really good. He plays with Julie Day, who is also an amazing jazzer, and The Carnevel Kings.

And last, but least, is Robert Kochis, on stage right. He started the record label New Light Records, and has a Christmas album that's set to come out around Christmas (he's a marketing god). He rocks the microphone, and rocks the suburbs.

And I took the photo. If you look carefully, you can see me in Robert's sunglasses reflection (maybe).

We rock. Hard(ly).

Day 272

risk of inhalation

risk of inhalation, originally uploaded by billaday.

In real life, you use an inhaler twice. In the movies, however, they only use it once. What's that about? Do the characters just need a quick puff of albuterol? Come on. For all you screenwriters out there, make them take two puffs... talk about something scary, take a puff, then say something funny and/or brave.

Day 271

an apple divided

an apple divided, originally uploaded by billaday.

I can't remember the last time I used one of these apple slicers (until today (obviously)). In class, we counted how many seeds were inside the apple core. Then, of course, everyone ate their apple. This is quite different from teaching other grades (non-kindergarten). Good times, good photos.

Day 270

an insect silhouette

an insect silhouette, originally uploaded by billaday.

I've found that my knowledge of creatures equals that of a second grader. (I guess it's good that I've only taught second grade and kinder.) I know that this photo has an insect in it. But that's where my wealth of knowledge ends. It has 3 body parts, six legs, 2 antennae, and is sort of colorful. I would expect the same answer from an 8 year old. My picture is better, though.

Day 269

under a napkin hiding

under a napkin hiding, originally uploaded by billaday.

We played the hiding game that kids love. It goes something like this:

Everet "hides" under a dirty napkin.
I say, "Where did Everet go.....??"
He rips the napkin off his head, and giggles for hours.

And by the way, since when do 2 1/2 year olds actually USE a napkin? I have 30 year old friends who haven't grasped that concept.

fyi, this is a slow sync shot. The flash fires, and the shutter stays open for a while (one second here). It adds motion, and ideally, a sense of excitement.

Day 268

elephant trunk

elephant trunk, originally uploaded by billaday.

Maybe it's that I now teach kindergarten, maybe it's that I'm a dork. Either way, this drain thing looks like an elephant, raising its trunk. Oh yeah, this looks way cool big and on black. I like the DoF.

Day 267

stone stout

stone stout, originally uploaded by billaday.

Stone Brew just released the Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. I liked it.

"...the aroma is dominated by roast malt and cocoa. Upon tasting, the cocoa (we used unsweetened, unprocessed cacao sourced through our friends at Chuao Chocolatier) really comes through with a deep chocolate flavor and a long lasting bitter finish. The roasted grains used add coffee and licorice accents. It is a thick beer, but not sweet, with the addition of oatmeal in the mash providing a rich, silky mouthfeel that adds to the creamy texture.”

Yum.

Day 266

tunnel

tunnel, originally uploaded by billaday.

Drive on through the new tunnel. Just kidding. It's a plastic cup. Sorry. That was a lame joke.

Day 265

happy birthday

happy birthday, originally uploaded by billaday.

Landon turned one. He was having a great time playing with his bottled water (one of his favorites I hear) when he dropped it. This is the face of a boy who did not want his water on the floor.

Day 264

Beam me up

Beam me up, originally uploaded by billaday.

UFOs almost attacked me today. Fortunately, I escaped their beams.

Day 263

three napkins

three napkins, originally uploaded by billaday.

Here are three napkins.

Often, I have an idea of what my photo-a-day will be. On this day, we had plans to see Joshua Radin at the House of Blues. My sister Annie hooked us up with a meet & greet with Josh. Unfortunately, the security guy wouldn't allow my camera inside. Fortunately, I had taken this one photo earlier, or else my photo-a-day project would have disastrously ended. Yay napkins!

Day 262

Airwolf Twilight

Airwolf Twilight, originally uploaded by billaday.

I've taken many helicopter shots, and most all of them are really lame. In real life, helicopters are cool. On film, they aren't as cool. They don't make noise and move around anymore.

This is the first helicopter shot I like. I caught this one just as it ducked behind a nearby tree. There is just enough motion in the blades. Of course, yesterday's photo-a-day is also a silhouette, but you can't win 'em all.

Day 261

escape

escape, originally uploaded by billaday.

No, I'm not in prison. Strangely enough, this is outside of Lakeshore Learning Materials (it's a teacher store). Apparently, they really want to keep people out. If I had a retail store, I would try to get people in.

Day 260

Fender Deville

Fender Deville, originally uploaded by billaday.

I really like my guitar amp. It's the Hot Rod DeVille™ 410. It has four 10-inch speakers, so the tone is nice and punchy.

I used my external flash, the Nikon SB600, resting on the amp aiming at the right of the guitar cable. I like the blurry knobs in the background.

On a side note, and probably boring note, you can see the red tape on the guitar cable. I used to put red tape or red marker on all my guitar stuff. Yeah, definitely boring ending.

Day 259

crash

crash, originally uploaded by billaday.

When you're a good drummer, it's hard to not look cool.

Day 258

gaps

gaps, originally uploaded by billaday.

"I've got an oscillating fan at my house. The fan goes back and forth. It looks like the fan is saying 'No'. So I like to ask it questions that a fan would say no to. Do you keep my hair in place? Do you keep my documents in order? Do you have three settings? Liar!"
-Mitch Hedberg

Day 257

Bill the Great

Bill the Great, originally uploaded by billaday.

I ordered a drink from the Barnes &Noble Café. Since my wife works at B&N, I know most of her colleagues. Shelly took my order and gave me this cup. She obviously knows what's up.

Day 256

Bookworm

Bookworm, originally uploaded by billaday.

We sat down to watch The Departed on blu-ray, a very exciting thing for me. Sure enough, in the middle, the wife picks up a book and starts reading it. I thought it was fairly ridiculous, so I took a picture of it. Ironically, I, too, was not paying attention to the movie at that point.

Day 255

this little piggy...

this little piggy..., originally uploaded by billaday.

Being the cool uncle, I get to take the kids outside without shoes. His mom wasn't so happy about it, but I got this really good shot of Everet hanging out on the chair with a shallow depth of field (so his toes are more prominent (or something)).

Day 254

up town

up town, originally uploaded by billaday.

The beaten path in Pasadena treated me well with this shot. For years, I would only walk down (and photograph) Colorado Blvd. Just one mile in any direction has led to some cool shots.

Day 253

Double T

Double T, originally uploaded by billaday.

We had a bottle of Double T wine from Trifethen Winery tonight, acquired from our trip up the coast. It's a red blend--that means that it tastes good, apparently.

Day 252

a change in the winds

Showerhead, originally uploaded by billaday.

A friend commented a while back about my choice of subject for my photo-a-day project. He always knows when I have something new because I take a picture of it for my photo-a-day. I suppose that's true--I capture change. Change can be something new (like this not-so-brand-new shower head), it can be a change in elevation (a mountain), a change in age (someone's birthday). To me, that's what photography is about. Obvious or otherwise.

Day 251