another well deserved break

I took at walk with my camera at Mission Bay in the evening as a break from studying. Also I live 15min from the beach and this is a lot closer. I'm gonna be like this lady in the future...she doesn't even have chairs.


Wide angle close crop showing the density. Some pple have TENTS out. Others were grilling entire steaks on these tiny hibachi grills. It was crazy.

Some guy was like, you shouldn't shoot in that direction because of the sun's glare. I was like, sometimes I like pictures that are a little flawed, the ones you can't buy in stores and that you know you took and everyone knows you took even though you aren't in the picture. Thats what differentiates amateurs from professionals and you gotta know your place in the world. Anyhow this is my rendition of summer in San Diego...

Next time....going to the beach.

I took a 6 hour practice exam in barbri class today. It sucked. The next two days -> all day review. That's going to suck. Thursday would be awesome except I'm outta town Fri-Sun so I'm doing all that work on Thursday. So that sucks too.

You know in three years, I've seen the seaworld fireworks exactly once? And I can hear them from my place, 950pm every night....reminding me of what I'm missing.

County Fair

I took a four hour studying break today to go look at some farm animals. Yes, here in the city you have to pay money to go look at the farm animals.

I saw some sheeps in sheep cages:

I saw some sheeps get sheared:

There were exhibits teaching us about fruits, vegetables, honey and wine. In the way background you can see (barely) the chicken cages. The chickens shared a room with the vegetables.


Lots of combinations of deep-fried + various products. Also note how a wide angle lens gets kind of crazy when its vertical! No, I didn't try deep fried oreos. I did get an apple funnel cake. Tastes disturbingly like apple pie.

Didn't have the tickets to play the carnival games so I just took a lot of pictures of the prizes. It was a busy day but not busy by evening or weekend standards, most of the day-goers are poor mommies who can't afford games.

And then I played a game where I pretended I worked here. The fair's held at the Del Mar Racetrack. If I was a day worker, it would be like this:


Here's the view from the club seats - the best seats in the house. Notice the signboard has the etching of a giant whale, and there's an actual elephant under the red tents. Now you gotta remove the elephant from your mind, light up the scoreboard, put in the people in the stands chatting on their cellphones and not really paying attention, the horses on the track, and it should probably be at night. Voila, you've got a horserace.

And here's the actual track. It seems like today they're racing ambulances instead of horses. Just kidding. I think someone heatstroked.



And that was my day at the County Fair.

An Expensive Life

My brother's picture of my graduation cake. Picked up at the last minute. Strawberry shortcake. Somebody got me the lei at the $1 store. Party Yellowcat family style.


My attempt at fashion photography. It's really dark inside. I just got these shoes today! I needed them after 8hrs of con law. They were $50. I've got a thing for expensive shoes (as does everyone in San Diego) so I'm trying to wean myself off of that. This is a small victory.

Crazy Ass Focusing Games

In between bar studying, I play crazy ass focusing games with my camera, games that only interest me and disturb everyone else. For example, below I've got it focused on the second plant. It was kind of fun except this guy started following me and my camera around. I've never seen him before, and I live on the ground floor so he should have seen me before. In any case we had to terminate before he either killed me or called the cops. The killing was most likely as he followed me up to my door.


At night I play crazy ass focusing games with Muffy. Here she's in focus, but the camera box isn't. She's unhappy with the order of things. She'd rather she existed, but the camera box and modem permanently disappeared.

Actually she hates these games. And my lens or camera or me, one of us has some serious limits with regard to indoor light and any type of movement. Also, from using my old camera for so long, I know which ISO and exposure settings to use so I don't have to test, but I don't know the aperture or shutter settings automatically. And sadly, I can't seem to tell the difference...

I'm thinking the crazy ass focusing games will need to continue with non-muffy life forms.

My Life Is Lame But My Camera Came

My day:

730am: get up and discover its raining; anticipate car hydroplaning

9am-1pm: bar class with 500 of my closest friends; watch girl break down in bathroom from stress; worry

1-230pm: going home; failed attempt at healthy lunch

230-6pm: practice exam; get mail; wonder if neighbor imprisoned wife

6-7pm: assembled pieces of new camera - CF card, camera software

7-715pm: failed attempt at no real dinner

715-10pm: multiple choice questions in slow motion; attempt to live vicariously through Crispin but fail due to his failure at living an exciting life

10-11pm: discover bathroom sink is clogged; removed trap using youtube videos; documented with new camera


11pm: replaced trap but discover clog is deeper in plumbing; regret throwing out snake; move toothbrush to other sink

11pm-12am: play with camera (highlight of day); post obligatory moe picture

Moe's very dark because I used super manual mode when I hadn't mastered normal mode.

I got a Canon Rebel XT. Your friend probably has either an XTi or the new XSi. Mine's old, about 6-8 years old. I also got it with this lens. It's supposedly wide angle but I can't tell. Then I had to order a flash card. The camera's way too advanced for me and it installed 7oomb+ of software.

12am-1am: find Casino on cable; yay; bed

et al

Morning of day 4 of bar review classes. This is single handedly the worst thing I've ever done. If I died today, I wouldn't have died happy or content or even ok. I'm already convinced the examiners wrote a test to purposefully fail as many people as possible and bar class is both effective and massively ineffective. I can't do 10-12 hour days, I need a reward, and the prospect of possibly passing the bar isn't good enough, especially when tons of 'smart' people pass it, and you're assumed an idiot if you don't.

You who need not tread this path cannot understand, you just think, tough it out it's worth it in the end. It's no pain or loss on your part. But think further and realize what kind of profession am I entering where we're all trained to do 10-12hour days for 10 weeks on top of ordinary life?


Sidenote: My law review buddies would tell you I'm not properly using et al. But I'm not an english major so it's ok.

why you shouldn't buy tickets a year in advance

Our golf tickets came today. You had to reserve and get them more than a year in advance. A year ago we coulda gone. C wasn't in Michigan, I didn't have barbri classes, Tiger didn't have knee surgery. Now, it's up in the air. The most beautiful tickets I have ever seen and will ever see.

I'm going to try to sell them for $500/set. Two sets. Hopefully it flies, the market looks packed right now, will wait till later this month. I mean I can still go....the US Open hasn't come to Torrey Pines for 60yrs....but it would also be nice to make a small profit. The no autograph policy kinda turns me off.

Also my camera lens came today. It's "sigma 28mm f/1.8" something or other. I don't anticipate getting the camera body for another 3 weeks, I haven't even ordered it. But the lens is a lot heavier and scary looking than I anticipated. I'm going to put it in a box and leave it alone...

Cars & Cameras

Back when I first started law school, my car broke down. In fact it broke down the day before the first day of class, when I didn't know anyone, didn't know where the grocery store was, didn't live near any form of public transportation. I relied on strangers to give me rides until I rented an aveo and an x-5 (you can see pix from my first posts). My car was in the shop for a week.

Well, last week my car decides to break down again. Like really break down like huge plumes of smoke break down. Oh, did I mention it was the day before exams? Ya, try getting a ride from someone the day before exams, or even worse, the day of the exam. The thing is, when your car breaks down you don't get the chance to shop around and find a good mechanic that's not booked and when you go rent a car, you get last priority - most expensive vehicle. So I got a Volvo S40. It's C's car but 15 years newer. And it cost me $45/day. And the car repairs (power steering leaking into the engine oil box) cost $600. So I'm out of pocket $750. I took the exam, and then the NEXT DAY I had to take my car BACK to the shop. And I had another exam today. My mechanic told me to stop being paranoid about my car and that it's all good now.

Now, why does this even matter? Well, that was my camera money. I picked a digi SLR and I set a budget of $700 for lens and body, and that was it. I may get the camera yet though claiming it as a graduation gift.

Even with my obsolete camera though you can get great pictures of Muffy. The camera guide told me to not center my subject in the photo, but the focusing options don't allow anything but a giant centered Muffy head. If you look in detail, you can learn a lot about cat eyes.

Preview of Japan...

At some point, unknown when, I'll upload some of the better pictures from the first time I went to Japan. But for now, it's interesting to compare some of my pictures with my brother's...

Kyoto Golden Pavilion in October:

Brother's version from February:


Kyoto trees in October:


Bamboo In February:

Kiyomizu in October:

Kiyomizu, just as popular, in February.

Assorted China

What sort of person has the time to post pictures all night? Is this what it's like to have a hobby? And how lame a hobby is this? One day, I want to cover my walls with pictures of places I've been, but in a tasteful way.

Terra cotta soldiers.

Me in China. It was damn cold and smelly and crowded everywhere, but the pictures don't reflect this, and the cold haze actually softens the angles.


Here I tried to get the haze and traffic (on the right). This is Xian, the town encased in a wall.


And even out here we've got wheelbarrow people...
And that's it for China.