RIP - Thoughts and Snapshots by Blaine Franger

I've decided to kill this blog. Trying to maintain 3 blogs is quite impossible so I'm taking the less is more approach and killing this one. I'll leave it up for the archives but don't plan on posting to it anymore.

So now everything separate from wedding & portrait photography (which includes my stock, commercial, and snapshot photography, as well as random life stuff) will be posted to The Blaine Franger Photography Blog.

Wedding & Portrait Photography will be posted to the Blaine and Bethany Photography Blog.

Better?

reason number 1,457 to go mac and not pc

muto

i just saw this on embry's blog... looks like it's getting passed around a lot because embry saw on his uncles blog, who probably saw it on another blog, on and on.
anyway, this guy has an imagination! wow. so weird cool and crazy. i couldn't find an explanation on how exactly he did it, but sounds like it took many months and it's all photos of his paintings on wall, animated by playing playing through the photos quickly. i'd never have the patience!!

here is the creators blog


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

pixel art

this is pretty cool. watch the video and read the explanation.

http://jasoneppink.com/pixelator/
(turn volume down, sound is loud/annoying)

just found another interesting creation by this guy-
http://jasoneppink.com/campfire/

he's got some really interesting stuff! kill some time and check out his website and blog

1,001 reasons why my mom rocks! (in no particular order)

1. She is always happy and cheerful (really, always!)
2. She loves me unconditionally, even when I'm lame and dumb.
3. Her parenting skills are something I dream of meeting up to one day (not sure if it's possible)
4. She was once an official spy for JC Penny
5. She is still crazy in love with my dad after what... 100 something years of marriage? ;-)
6. She loves the Lord with all her heart and seeks Him daily
7. She is really really funny and makes people laugh constantly
8. She was once an official pearl diver at Sea World
9. She is beautiful!
10. She strives to live life to the fullest
11. She cooks the most amaaaaaazing specialty dish called white chili that makes my tummy very happy
12. She talks in voices and says stupid things like "shoooooooooooot!"
13. I hate playing any kind of board game without her because she makes them fun like nobody else can
14. Shes packed full of common sense and smartness about life stuff (not math stuff though!)
15. She knows when to laugh and when to be serious
16. She has always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and do what I love
17. She prays all the time with my dad for us (the kids)
18. She makes super-ghetto family vacations fun for everyone by always keeping positive and laughing about situations
19. She has the BEST one liners (especially after a glass of wine)
20. She cares for everyone in her life like crazy and is always serving others
21. She loves her mom in a way that I can't even describe with words
22. When us kids were little she once dressed up as a "stranger" with a wig and weird clothes and knocked on the door, scared the crap out of us with scary voices, and then came in the house as we ran off crying... all to teach us about not opening the door for strangers!
23. She loves to take pictures
24. She puts every other scrapbooker to shame with her mad scrapbooking skillz
25. She has a knack for picking out the best dogs in the world, and then trains them crazy tricks like sneezing, balancing, turn-around, etc...
26. She is an incredible listener, and solid advice giver
27. She's so cool that our friends come over to talk and hang out, even when we're not home
28. She has always set a great example by cooking and eating healthy
29. She has long fingernails and therefore gives THE BEST backscratches EVER (sorry Bethany)
30. She quilts, crochets, smocks, gardens, sews, knits, scrapbooks, etc etc etc
31. She rocks at tennis and racquetball and unfortunately can kick my butt at both
32. She's just a flat out cool person that I really enjoy being around and love talking to, and she happens to be my mom, so I am super blessed!

Ok so maybe it's not quite 1,001 reasons, but it easily could be if I sat here and typed for the next hour... so this list is to be continued...

LOVE YOU MOM!!! HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Oh, and #33, she always has great faces in pictures! :)
She didn't exactly like the last pic, so here is a new one!

a funny memory

I always get a laugh when we come back to Michigan and my 103 pound 4 foot eleven wife hops in the drivers seat of her dads gigantic tanklike SUV. This 4X4 6 Speed Automatic Sequential Electronic Fuel Injected Single Overhead Cam 5.4 Litre V8 24 valve Lincoln Navigator weighs 6,221 pounds, puts out 300 horsepower @ 5000 RPM's and 365 pounds of torque @ 3750 RPM's.

In other words, she hops in and basically disappears in the thing. See her tiny little head poking over the steering wheel? Ya, thats her! :)

First time I ever saw Bethany was in the parking lot at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara circa 2002-2003. She was driving a new Ford F-150 with Michigan plates. She jumped down out of the truck (blue hair and all) and I just thought- "Wow, that is one tiny little girl driving that huge truck from Michigan, and she's got blue hair. I feel sorry for her"
Yes, that was my very first impression of the woman I married. :)

wikipedia + youtube

If there is something on my to-do list that I really don't want to do, I am notorious for killing time and procrastinating long as possible to put it off.
I usually end up on the Wikipedia website just reading about one thing after another because I find it so fascinating. I love that website! You find yourself clicking from one article to another because they link all the words that have another article on that topic. It's so genius, and a huge trap for wasting time. But is learning really wasting time? I think not... haha.

I stumbled upon Wikipedia's page on YouTube, and this sentence just blew me away!

"YouTube is currently not profitable, with its revenues being noted as "immaterial" by Google in a regulatory filing. Its bandwidth costs are estimated at approximately $1 million a day. It is estimated that in 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000."

Wow!!!

dear dirtbike...

it's good to be back!

juanita's marketa

Juanita's Marketa is Hood River's best kept secret. Good authentic Mexican food in a little market.

Bethany really missed her spicy mexican food during our trip, so she was obviously excited about her upcoming tacos.

There is always a dude like this eating tacos, I love it.

welcome to oregon

Husband and wife shopping at Wal-Mart

Check out them window stickers!

this blog is taking a breather

As you can see I haven't posted anything here in over 2 months! I won't be posting here during our travels, unless maybe I have something to post that has nothing to do with our travels at all. We'll be traveling until May, so I'll be posting my thoughts and snapshots on my other blog until then.

The Blaine Franger Photography Blog

Don't forget Bethany's travel blog too!

Is this real???

I think it is. Bethany doesn't believe it. Can this guy actually do that stuff or is it fake video???

dirtbike hillclimb in Hood River, Oregon

This is a little video of some friends and I playing around in the woods on our dirtbikes, trying to climb a huge hill. It's actually way steeper and longer than it looks in the video, promise! Only one guy out of 6 of us made it all the way to the top. Intense!
I'm gonna miss my dirtbike while were on our trip...

Turn your volume up because the beautiful sounds of dirtbikes is the best part! In the video I'm the guy with the really ugly red/yellow pants!

You can also click here to see it larger

snoozin

a funny moment i captured at sams club in amarillo, texas. this dude is definitely diggin his nap in the warm car while the wife is inside shoppin away.

11,015

Deleting 11,015 RAW files and freeing up 103 gigs of HD space feels REALLY GOOD.

Couchsurfing - Mike and Andrea Katz

This post is WAYYY overdue.

Hmm, where to start... Ok first I'll tell you about a totally awesome website called CouchSurfing.com



Basically, people from all over the world (223 countries and 32,160 cities) have offered their couch for YOU to crash on while traveling. It's awesome. I don't want to try and explain it all when they have already done a great job explaining it here, so check it out.

My experiences with CS (couchsurfing)... All of them have been wonderful!

My first was about a year ago in New York City. My sister Lindsey was really into CS, and had already done it in Japan and other far away places. Honestly I was doubtful, and wasn't too sure about the idea of staying with strangers. But, we ended up staying with this awesome couple in their NYC apartment, just a block away from central park. We totally hit it off with them and really enjoyed their company.

So far that has been my only "surfing" experience, but I've hosted a couple times, which was just as awesome!

And that is where Mike and Andrea Katz come into the story. They surfed with us in July, and it was totally awesome. When Andrea contacted me and I checked out their page, I could immediately tell we were all going to get along. It was such a fun time hosting them. They stayed 3 (or maybe 4?) nights... way too quick!
One of the many reasona we hit it off is because Mike and Andrea were just starting a 9-month around the world trip! A trip very similar to what Bethany and I are doing... but much more extensive.
Anyway, we are really looking forward to seeing them again because the plan is to meet up with them in Thailand and/or Nepal next year! Definitely cannot wait to dive the waters of Thailand with Mike!

Here are a few snaps of Mike and Andrea from July.

Hangin out, having fun talking late at night-
Mike requested a "hairy cleavage shot" of himself... Here it is Mike! hahaha

On their way out... off from our place in Hood River to Peru!

One last shot of the 4 of us-

Here is a snapshot Mike got of a great white in South Africa. (they went in a underwater cage with great whites swimming around them!)

Since they were at our place in July they have been to- Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Zambia, and now they are in Turkey! Crazy...
They have an awesome website for their family and friends to keep up with, and they add photos and journals often. Check it out here! http://www.thekatzes.com/

So, with all that said... please check out CouchSurfing... sign up for free, make a page and surf some couches! Also check out my page here, and add me as a friend! (especially if I know you)

getty ads featuring alien people

warning: this is a rant.

getty images is the largest and most powerful stock agency in the world. they have something like 70 million images in their archive and annual revenues around 800 million dollars.

you'd think with all that at their fingertips, they could put out a decent ad?

i subscribe to a weekly "creativity" email with news about the advertising world and all that jazz. in todays email the first thing you notice is a getty images ad featuring an alien like woman (obviously photoshopped) and the words "The new gettyimages.com - Search re-engineered"

what the heck? i don't get it.

so i click on the ad, and it directs me to the page below, featuring an alien looking dude (obviously photoshopped again) with the words "Search with more precision. Explode your thinking. Finding the right image just got a whole lot easier. Explore the possibilities."

Ok...

what the heck? i still don't get it.

i clicked around for another minute trying to make sense of it all and find the catch line. nothing. not a thing.

i mean, this is stretching it, but maybe, just maybe, the photos are a play off of "explode your thinking" and that is supposed to be what someone looks like when your thinking is exploded...?

seriously, am i missing something here or is this the worst ad EVER? what do you think? please share...

digimon is back!

my digimon camera is back! (digimon is what I have always called my little point&shoot cameras)
last time we drove to Michigan to visit Bethany's family i misplaced digimon and i spent hours and days trying to find it, but always with no luck. i bring that thing everywhere and take snaps of everything, so it was a major bummer not having it all this time. i just couldn't bring myself to buy a new one though, because in the back of my mind i knew it would show up sometime, somewhere.
so bethany was recently in michigan visiting her family, and i asked her to look around for the camera again. she did, and then she started thinking about where we went around the time it disappeared, and she amazingly remembered that one night we went to an irish pub to have dinner and listen to live music... so she gave them a call and asked if they have a lost and found. sure enough, i left it there and they kept it that whole time, almost 4 months!
so hopefully i'll be able to update this blog more often because i'll be snapping pics again with digimon.

i just swollowed a chunk of typhoid fever

yes, i sure did. our vaccination shots are all done now, and the last thing we have to do is take typhoid pills. supposedly they are "live", which means there is actually typhoid fever inside those little plastic pills. so strange.

i just read about typhoid fever here, and now i'm feeling kinda woozy.

crazy!

This is impressive! (Click it)

sore arms

there are some really exciting things happening with our big upcoming trip and some really not exciting things as well. first, the exciting: our plane tickets are now purchased for the first 2 legs of the trip- leaving for Australia on November 7th and then leaving from Australia to New Zealand on December 3rd! Then... I have no idea. SE Asia for 4 months... that's about all I know.
so the not so fun stuff so far has been getting our vaccinations! because we are going to so many different countries with so many different diseases, we have to get shots galore... and the shots are costing us $3,000! i've always kinda hated shots. it's more the thought and the sight of needles than the actual shot itself. as long as i can keep my mind on something else and never see the needle, then i'm totally fine. but for some crazy reason i get lighted headed and black out when people just talk about medical stuff, it's weird. it happened today... i had already had my shots and the nurse was talking to bethany about hers (i was even reading something not looking at them) and all the sudden i knew i was about to faint and so i rushed to a chair, sat down, and then blacked out for like 5 seconds. the nurse ran and got me some juice and then i felt better.
so anyway, short story made long... i've had 10 different shots on 3 different days in the past 2 weeks and my arms are dead! once my arm starts to recover and not feel totally dead, there they go pricking me again. bethany too!
so today i whipped out digimon right before bethany's 1st (of 5) shots in the arm. i think the progression of her facial expressions is classic. click to make it big!
only one more appointment to go in 2 weeks, then were home free! if you care, here are a some of the shots we've been getting:
-Hepatitis A (2 dose series)
-Hepatitis B (3 dose series)
-Japanese Encephalitis (3 dose series)
-Measles/Mumps/Rubella
-Menomune / Menactra (meningitis)
-Polio
-Pneumovax (Pneumonia)
-Rabies (3 dose series)
-Tetanus / Diptheria (Td)
-Twinrix (3 dose series)
-Typhum (Typhoid injection)
-Yellow Fever

worlds best smoothie

i'm not a great cook, i tend to just throw stuff together and hope it turns out. usually it looks horrible but tastes pretty good. anyway one thing i take pride in is my killer smoothies! oh boy. sometimes i wake up early in the morning and cannot go back to sleep because i'm thinking about what i'm going to put in my smoothie that day. its pretty bad.

the key is fresh ingredients. the photo below is a smoothie from a couple days ago, and i can only think of one other that came close to being this good. here is what i put in it (i don't keep track of how much of each thing):

ice
frozen bananas
frozen organic blueberries (picked by us last week)
fresh Yellow Bartlett pears (unfrozen)

"Old Orchard" Apple Strawberry Banana Juice (100% Juice, no sugar added)
little spoonful of home canned blueberry-peach jam

YUM!!!

genious new business idea

Here is a great new business idea if you would like to recover some of your costs of staying in hotels when you travel. Snag the extra bars of soap that you don't use when you check out of your room. Over the years, make sure and tuck those bars of soap away in a safe place until you have a good amount saved up. Now put on a garage sale and sell them in a ziplock bag for 25 cents. Brilliant!!!
If you want to get super crazy with your new business, snag the shampoos and conditioners too! Were talking big money now.

Haha, in case you didn't know already this is all a joke. Yes, I do have a strange sense of humor. But I just had to post this after I actually spotted these 2 bags of "Motel 6" soaps and shampoos for sale at a garage sale on Saturday. Too funny.

Our awesome friends Matt and Heather were up visiting from San Diego and we got to hang with them for a couple days before they continued their road trip to the beautiful Oregon coast.

Here are a couple more pics of some great finds at the garage sale!

what would you do?

a few weeks ago on our road trip back from Michigan bethany and i were cruising down the 2 lane highway in idaho you see above. the speed was 65. i was doing 70... ok maybe 72 at times. so i came up to a black dodge durango doing exactly 65. i would normally just stay behind the person and be fine with it, but in this case it was a flat straight road for as far as you could see. so i wanted to at least do 5 over, which is basically expected on roads like this. but this durango was a bit different. it had a couple antennas on it, and even something on the top that maybe kinda resembled lights. "is it a cop?" i thought to myself... hard to tell yes or no. then i saw his license plate- a totally normal idaho license plate without any government markings like they usually have. couldn't be a cop. so i step on it a bit and pull into the other lane to pass. well, while i was doing about 72 and was obviously passing him in the other lane we both noticed at the same time the huge letters "IDAHO STATE HIGHWAY PATROL". Oh dude... my stomach sank to the floor! Passing a cop!? Is that legal even if your going the speed limit!? So I was instantly faced with a big decision. Do I press on and just grin like everything is great and beautiful while I'm passing him doing 7 over... OR do I hit the brakes and get behind him pretending like nothing ever happened!?

What would you have done??? I would love to hear what you would do... leave a comment!

Well here is what I did:
I decided to stick to my plan of passing the durango. So I passed him doing about 71 and boy was that an awkward moment when I looked over and made eye contact while I was even with him. The look on his face was priceless... like "Boy you know who your messin' with!???" Haha. So I eventually got in front of him and kept my speed right at 70 (trying not to act too guilty by going 5 over) and honestly I was just waiting for the blue and red lights to start flashing all over. 10 seconds... ok lights anytime now. 20 seconds.... wow no lights yet. Of course Bethany made the comment right at about 20 seconds "That cop must be some rookie and he's having a hard time finding the lights switch right now!" hahaha... thanks Bethany.
The good news is that he didn't pull me over so I think my decision to press on and do 5 over was a good one... or ... maybe he just never found the switch for the lights??? :)

Arco, Idaho

This is going to be a totally worthless post... just like the last one. sorry. not sure why i do these. :)

On our last road trip we drove through Arco, Idaho and I just wanted to share 3 very random observations.

1) "Arco was the first community in the world ever to be lit by electricity generated by nuclear power. This occurred on July 17, 1955"


2) Blaine St.


3) No Arco gas station in Arco Idaho. Only Chevron, Shell, and Sinclair.


Told you it was going to be a worthless post!

grants pass farmers market

If you are ever passing though Grants Pass Oregon on a Saturday definitely try and stop by the "Growers Market". There is lots of good homemade and home grown stuff to buy... but even better, really good people watching. Man there are some seriously interesting characters there.

Here are a couple snaps from a while ago when I was there.

Phil Margera... is that you?


Matching couple-


I loved how the guy selling wood was reading a magazine no other than "Wood Magazine"

stump versus truck

any guys out there who can agree with me that pulling tree trunks and bushes out of the ground with a truck is really fun? for some reason it's just so satisfying when your doing landscaping and stuff. spend 2 hours digging it out with a shovel...or....hook a good quality rope up to the trailer hitch, throw er in low 4 wheel drive, and pull her right out. i know it's totally redneck, but whatever, it's fun.

it's actually very strategic too. you see it's all about leverage. your rope has gotta have leverage on the tree. if it doesn't, then the rope will simply slide off and break free. your tires have to have leverage too. if you have 4WD and all 4 wheels on pavement, you have all the leverage you need. if the stump has really good leverage (deep roots), then chances are, something is going to break before the 4WD tires start spinning on pavement. my dad in law actually snapped a 5,000 pound capacity tow rope on one stump!!! but if your tires are in dirt or grass, all your leverage basically goes out the window! your pretty much screwed if you have a stubborn stump with the tires in the dirt. you can see how it quickly becomes a game between the stump, the man, the rope, the tires, etc etc etc.

let the games begin!

Fro man Franger

My hair is longer than I've ever had it before. Bethany wanted to cut it today because it's getting pretty out of control. I never comb it, ever. So even though I shampoo it every day, I was getting these huge dreadlocks in the back, or maybe they are mats?

Well instead of cutting it, my mother in law recommended combing it to see if we could get the dreads out... so after 45 mins of combing, all the dreads are out and this is what it looks like!

Cheeseburger Dog (I didn't eat this!!)

The Cheeseburger dog is one of many wonderful things available for your snacking enjoyment at travel centers across America, such as this TA Travel Center in Redding, CA.

Click the photo for the extra yummy view!

Ragged Butte

Driving across the country you see lots of random funny signs. This is just one of the many. Taken in Alexander, North Dakota, a town of 217 people. Awesome.

you know you've arrived in Oregon when...

Your driving down the highway and you spot a duley truck with a suitcase, a mountain bike, and oh yes, a 15 point buck deer in the pickup bed.

Saved by a log truck

So the story is-

Bethany and my mom were driving in the Mazda ahead of me in the Honda. I wanted to take photos on the drive up to Oregon, so I pulled off to shoot for a bit. Bethany saw that I wasn't behind them anymore so she pulled off too, but she didn't realized how soft the shoulder was and how far over she got, so when she tried to get out the tires just spun out. I came to the rescue thinking it was going to be a piece of cake getting it out, but of course, I just made it worse. Normally I'm really good at getting vehicles unstuck, but this one was tough. Luckily a gigantic log truck came out of nowhere and was happy to hook us up and pull us right out. Thanks Mr. Log Truck man.

Log truck saves the day

More photos, the story, and even a video coming soon.

Another one to add to the "nasty food" collection

If you know my brother Colin, you know not to ask. You just say...."OOO...KKKKKK" and slowly walk away.

Actually, I tried it and it wasn't that bad. Bethany drank almost a whole cup. Don't ask, because I still have NO IDEA what the heck it is!

Yikes