Slowing Coming Together...

Hey, well, what do you know.  I'm the one that was retarded after all.  I guess the blog app does save drafts every once in awhile, so most of what I typed didn't get lost.  Shows you how much (and the lack-of) I know.  So here we go, this was the entry that was intended for July 18:

Well, my 4½ month condo adventure is finally coming to an end.  It's utterly amazing how retarded the situation got.  I swear, I will never buy a condo ever again.  Having neighbors above/below you should only be "acceptable/tolerable" when you're renting/leasing an apartment.  Because at least, it's someone else's problem and they need to take care of it.  Not your nightmare.

So in my excitement to welcome my wife and son home, I bought one of them big ol' Costco bears to surprise them.  (Okay, mostly for my son since he loves bears.)  How can one resist such a hug-able giant teddy bear?

Work on my bathroom ceiling is being done as I type this.  The mold remediation took an entire week, which spanned across the the 4th of July weekend).  The dehumidifier/HEPA filter combination was rather deafening... almost like being at an airshow on the tarmac listening to the propeller warbirds lining up for a take off.

But at least the mold's gone and my wife and son moved back in to escape the triple digit heat that was blistering them at my in-laws'.  I'm sure after awhile, you sort of get used to the blazing inferno... but I'm good with 70s year-round, thankyouverymuch.

As one can see, my boy is quite enjoying the company of his new buddy. 

Now speaking of airshows... I guess I had forgotten to mention that I was at the Chino Airshow mid-May.  The show almost didn't happen for me as it was a weekend full of odd weather.  I had signed up for the Sunrise Photo package.  For starters, I woke up late... enough where I had to skip my usual morning shower.

It was cold... and there wasn't much of a sunrise.  The skies were overcast and gloomy, and a storm front was moving through.  I was hoping that the bad weather would have moved along after Saturday, but nope... somewhere around 7:30-8am, the rain started falling.  I hung around for another hour, hour-and-a-half before thinking that my day was washed out.

I made my way back to the car, rather soaked and was going to just head back home.  If the weather didn't improve and the ceiling remained low... there wasn't going to be a show.

But before I threw in the towel, I called up a buddy to have him check on the weather for me, naturally with huge skepticism.  If you live (or lived) in southern California, you know how inaccurate the weather man (or mostly woman nowadays) are.  Or if you've ever watched the movie LA Story (w/ Steve Martin), you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

So my buddy tells me over the phone that according to the reports, the storm cell should blow through by 11am.  All this while it rained like cats and dogs as I huddled in my car with my sweatshirt soaked and me shivering to the bones.  But hey, it was a long drive from West L.A. to Chino... and it'd be equally long driving back.  So I said to myself I'll just hide in the car for another hour and see what happened.

And sure enough... slowly but surely, the rain lightened up.  As I sat in the car, slowly drying off... I notice more and more cars pulling up into the parking lot.  Well then... the show must go on.  I was glad I stuck it out a little longer and managed to capture a number of photos.  (See my Smugmug galleries.)

I managed to track another bee-in-flight.  I've shared the photo elsewhere and have received great feedback.  In case some of you are wondering... no, there's really no skill involved in capturing a shot like this.  It's pure luck and patience, as you machine gun through the burst in AI Servo mode and hope you captured something worth publishing.  All you need to make sure is that you've got enough light so that your shutterspeed will be sufficient to get you a crisp/sharp photo and that your aperture is narrow enough to get as much of the little bugger within the DoF.

Should this photo inspire some of you to go out and shoot some bee macros... just make sure you're not allergic to bee stings (though I've yet to be stung while taking bee photos).  Bees are pretty laid back.  They may hover around/near you.  But as long as you don't make any sudden, jerky movements, or God-forbid you start swatting at them, you're pretty safe.  My parents think I'm nuts and wonder how I don't freak out when there are a few bees hovering around me.  I just laugh at them as I watch them scuttle away in fear, making movements that I'm sure some bees perceive as threatening.
 
And last but not least, my little boo bear is home, sound asleep in his crib again.  The wrongs of the world are righted again... if only for a brief moment.

Oh, I lied... one final note:  I bought myself a used 5D (no, not the Mark II).  They're going for relatively cheap these days and it seems like a worthwhile investment to give full-frame sensors a try.  I do not intend on replacing my 7D for a number of years.  The 5D should supplement my shooting style, not replace it.