our very random night

so bethany and i were pulling up into the costco parking lot yesterday evening when my phone rang. conversation went something like this:

him- "hey blaine, i'm a photographer from NY and I'm doing a shoot right now at miramar air base, i'll pay ya 170 bucks to come over and help me out for an hour, but i need you right now".
me-"well, i'm at costco shopping with my wife, i can help you but i need to drop my wife off at home before i come down"
him- "no time for that, bring her with you, it's a huge party with tons of food, dessert, open bar, etc... she'll have fun!"
me- "ok, were on our way!!"

so we helped him out with his shoot for about an hour and then we were invited to join the festivites of the party. it was a huge real estate companies party and they flew in 400 of their employees from all over the country to attend this party in an airplane hangar! how cool is that? they had jets, planes, helicopters, and tons of stuff out for people to explore and check out. so bethany and i had this awesome dinner together, dessert, and a couple drinks, then we explored all the flightcraft for over an hour. tons of fun.

so that was our very random and unplanned night. beats shopping at costco!

Blaine's tip of the week

I recently tried Starbucks' new "Tangerine Frappuccino" and must admit I was disappointed. But I've learned that in every bummer situation you can always find something positive in it and take away something you learned, or something you will change in the future... So from my lame drink at Starbucks comes "Blaine's tip of the week". Hopefully I can think of one simple little tip to share every week or so that will make your life a tad more simple and enjoyable.

Anyway... the Starbucks story:
It was a hot day in California and our friend Amy was in town visiting so we decided to hit up Starbucks for a cold refreshing drink. Bethany and Amy got some kind of coffee drink, but I have always and will always hate the taste of coffee, so I get the non-coffee frappuccino things (the vanilla and strawberry flavors are insanely good). This time I was captivated by the big signs advertising their summer tangerine flavor, so I decided to give it a whirl. Well, unfortunately it wasn't anything like the vanilla or strawberry. It actually tasted just like an orange Slurpee from 7-Eleven. Only difference is that the Slurpee costs a third of what the Starbucks drink costs.

So there is my simple little tip. Save 2 or 3 bucks and go with a slurpee rather than the tangerine Frappuccino because they taste exactly the same. But of course if you want nice atmosphere and somewhere to sit and read, 7-Eleven doesn't offer that, so then it might be better to stick with Starbucks.

what the heck is it?

A new what the heck is it! Even if you don't have a clue what it is, leave a comment and let us know the first thing that popped into your head... It's fun hearing how people perceive things differently. Remember, "what the heck is it" is always an everyday object that you have definitely used or at least have seen, maybe even very often. :)



*Update* The one and only Tim Halberg got it! It's the speaker thing at a movie theatre that you talk through to purchase tickets!

road trippin

I wish I could say it was me that is road trippin, but it's not (soon though!). I just came across this on the internet, it's pretty cool. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but maybe I will someday when I have absolutely nothing to do. In the first 30 seconds they drive through my hometown of Hood River, Oregon! I miss it up there!


"Road Trip is a short film composed of 12,397 pictures taken automatically from the back seat of a car while driving accross America from Portland, Oregon to New Hampshire. The pictures were taken over 5 days, every 10 seconds, in June 2003. The original, unprocessed shots were assembled at 15 frames per second into this movie."

Check it out

sailing on the 4th of July

we had a great 4th of July yesterday. my buddy Taylor chartered a sailboat out of the San Diego harbor and we all went sailing out in the ocean during the day, then after some tasty BBQ'd carne asada burritos at sea we sailed back into the harbor to watch the fireworks! it was awesome because we were in the middle of the bay, next to downtown San Diego and we could see 5 different firework shows going on simultaneously all around us. when all the grand finalies were over, there was so much smoke it looked like a totally foggy night. Taylor, Bethany and I stayed the night on the boat too.

for the first time ever i didn't try taking a bunch of photos of the fireworks and just enjoyed watching them instead... so here are a few snapshots from our day. and no firework pictures... :)


the crew
one huge ship on it's way in from Ecuador... carrying all those bananas I love to eat!
Taylor and Matt
Our boat
the harbor
my love and I
Bethany sandwich
my love and I again
i was driving the boat back into the slip late at night when this HUGE aircraft carrier almost plowed us over. it came out of nowhere. were all lucky to be alive. actually..... not really. this aircraft carrier is a retired warship in San Diego, now it's a museum... so it is docked and not moving... we just passed on by. :)

check out my photo blog for a couple more pics....

mmm breakfast

this is what i had for breakfast today. mmmmm. fresh strawberries and blueberries on "go lean" and "grape nuts" cereal mixed. i've always loved cereal, especially the healthy kinds.
yesterday i made these awesome huge breakfast burritos for bethany and i. they were so yummy and huge, we didn't eat for the rest of the day after those. I forgot to take a pic... next time though. as if you care... :-)