History of Me

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Some photos from San Francisco 2007

March 30, 2009 in History of Me, Photography, Travel | 2 comments

Continuing on with this travel theme (though probably not for long, since I don’t have that many amazing old photos from my travels), I finally got around to editing the pictures from our trip to San Francisco…. TWO YEARS AGO.

It is really weird to think that this trip was two years ago, since so much in our lives has changed since then. We had just started our photography business a couple of months back in the fall of 2006, and I was really starting to hone my photography skills.

Since Adrian was spending the week attending the WWDC Apple Developers’ Conference so he could learn all about the latest technology he’d need to produce Táve Studio Manager, which was but a glint in our eyes back then (and originally a Mac program – though now is web-based), I had a lot of time on my own. I was very excited because I’d have a whole week, practically, with just me and my camera, and lots of time to spend shooting and visiting with friends in the area.

Now, I’ll digress for a few moments:

Editing images that are two years old is a really interesting experience as a photographer because SO MUCH changes and evolves inside you as an artist in that period of time. Back then, I was a little more fascinated with photography because there was simply so much that I had to learn. Now, I’m nowhere near an expert, but I certainly know a lot more now and things are definitely more “rote” as far as taking pictures professionally goes. Back then, I saw a lot through very different eyes, and looking at these images makes that really apparent to me. Sometimes I get a little jealous of Adrian because he seems to be able to see things in a very fresh way each and every time, and I attribute that to the fact that his role in our company is solely as a photographer. He doesn’t do any editing or post processing, so he doesn’t get burned out staring at images day in and day out. Instead, every experience is fresh and creative for him, since his job is to take the pictures and enjoy it, while I know that after the shoot is over, there are weeks worth of work to be done and that soon, people will be down my throat wanting to know when it is going to be finished! ;)

This just proves to me that I need to spend more time getting myself INSPIRED and EXPLORING the world that I live in. I can still feel the same about photography that I did back then – I know it because just a few months ago, while I was pregnant and not working very much, I did a lot of personal exploration through my photography, and it really felt great. I tried to do this again a couple weeks ago when I took some photos in the rain from my back porch, and I felt a glimmer of that. I just need to do it more often, so that I can ensure that I keep myself focused and on a creative pathway.

So, here are a couple of my favorite images from our trip. Two years ago. Since Adrian took the 5D (our pro camera, for all of you not up with the lingo) for the first part of the trip, and I had it once the WWDC conference started, I’ve just noted which images are his and which are mine, since I didn’t want to just post half a trip’s worth of images.

Birds on a wire - Image by Adrian

Slanty Street - Image by Adrian

Sea Lions at Pier 39 - Image by Adrian

Alcatraz & Boat - Image by Adrian

Karen - Image by Adrian

Adrian at WWDC - Image by Karen

Mount Diablo - Image by Karen

The Mountain Goats of Mount Diablo - Image by Karen

Charlie (of A Minor Thread) - Image by Karen

Liz & Cute Mug in Chinatown - Image by Karen

Sacramento Street - Image by Karen

Chinatown Back Alley - Image by Karen

Fortune Cookie Factory - Image by Karen

Hope you enjoyed the image selection! If you liked the photos, I would love to read your comments and find out which ones were your favorites. :)

You can see quite a few more images if you visit the Flickr Set where they’re uploaded!

Captain Zoom

March 23, 2009 in History of Me, Shopping, Zachary | 4 comments

I still remember the song – “My name is Zoom and I live on the Moon! I came down to Earth just to sing you this tune! Hey Karen – it’s your birthday – today!!!”

Every year, my dad played my Captain Zoom record on my birthday. I remember coming out of my room on my birthday morning, walking into the kitchen, and my dad turning on the record player and hearing Captain Zoom as he blasted his special birthday song just for me! Of course back then when I was a kid, I thought that the song was really just for me, not some commercially produced product, lol.

Anyway, I’ve always had great memories of Captain Zoom and long before I had a baby or even thought about getting pregnant, I knew I would be buying a Captain Zoom song for my future child. Of course, times have changed, and now instead of a record, the birthday song comes as an MP3 which is emailed to you upon purchase. They also now offer songs for pretty much every milestone in your life – anniversary, wedding, and even Christmas. It’s a little crazy. I think I’ll just stick with the birthday favorite.

Zachary’s first birthday is eight months away, so I still have some time, but I’ll be picking up that MP3 soon to add to his collection.

siren.org celebrates 11 years!!!

March 22, 2009 in History of Me, Internet | 1 comment

I was just checking the whois records for siren.org and realized that my website just celebrated 11 years – it was registered on March 2, 1998, when I was only 15 years old! wow- by the time I’m 31, I’ll have had my website for longer than I haven’t!!

for kicks, I checked the wayback machine archive site and found that it recorded a LOT of one of the first versions of my website from back in December 2008. I am amazed at what is still there!

Here is the main page – as you can see, I tried to sell stuff online via Amazon’s Affiliate’s program, which I assume must have just been getting started back then, and I also tried selling my old CDs, books, and random stuff through the “store” link.

If you click on “speak” you’ll see my “speak board” that I created aka “forums”. In reality, a real ubb forum was too advanced for me to program, so I modified a guestbook perl script and built up a pretty active message board on my site, which lasted for a long time. I still miss those days…. long before Facebook, people came to MY website to chat with each other! wow, what an ego trip for a 15-year-old girl!! LOL! it only has the last archive up – clicking on the other ones doesn’t do anything – but I actually do have them all archived on my computer, still…. I found them a while back buried in my hard drive archives. :)

you can also see such hilarities as my “web design company” (lolz) and my web page en español, which features a tribute to Gloria Estefan. how embarrassing!! haha!!

if you have a website that has also lived a long life, you should check out the wayback machine, too!

7 facts

May 30, 2008 in History of Me | 1 comment

Sort of tagged by Jillian! :)

The Rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The Facts:
1. My first “blog” was an online journal hosted on Geocities. I used a fake name and started writing online in 1996. After bouncing around a number of different sites, I settled on LiveJournal in 2000, and maintained a semi-private “journal” there until now. I’ve had a few public blogs on this particular website over the past few years, but have never kept any of them up, except for this latest incarnation!
2. I have an overwhelming bath & body product collection. The amount of perfume I own is beyond ridiculous, and I have various body splashes, dry oil sprays, and body lotions coming out of every nook and cranny of my home, as well as my car!<
3. I didn’t date in high school, and I thought I would get old and have no children or husband. I once wrote a poem about it, even! Not even two years later, I met my wonderful husband, Adrian… and you know the rest of that story! Life has taken me on a completely different path than I ever imagined, and I love it!
4. Pizza is one of my favorite foods. Ever.
5. I really love plants and pretty flowers, but I do not have a green thumb at ALL. Someday I wish I could have a trellis with orchids and other hanging plants and lots of windchimes (I LOVE WINDCHIMES), but I think I probably would end up killing them all.
6. I have become absolutely OBSESSED with HGTV! I love watching all the lunchtime shows – House Hunters, Curb Appeal, Design on a Dime… it has become a daily ritual. I can’t stop myself. It’s so true how “nesting” sets in when you’re pregnant!
7. I love vintage travel items from the early 1900’s til about the 1950’s. Suitcases, transportation memorabilia, travel posters, maps, paintings, models, just about anything, and more specifically, items related to the cruising industry. I inherited this love from my dad, who is a travel expert and has had his own travel business for over 20 years. He has a large collection of vintage travel items and has been nice enough to give me a few posters. I dream of one day having a home that has enough room for me to make my own special vintage travel themed room, much like my dad’s office in his home, where he spends a lot of his time.

I don’t know who to tag, so if you feel like doing this fun little activity, then you can do it and say I tagged you!

How I Met Adam

May 5, 2008 in Friends, History of Me | No comments

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, but have been super busy with work and forgot.

My good friend, Adam Cohen, asked me to write a guest post on his blog while he and his lovely wife, Sarah, were away in the mountains of northern Georgia for their wedding anniversary. I went back and forth over and over about what to write, and finally, when I sat down to my computer to write my post for my assigned day with 30 minutes to spare, I decided to tell the story about how I met Adam and how we became friends.

You can read it here.