We’re now on vacation, and enjoying what appears to be more favorable weather than my house is currently experiencing. Of course, my house is better off than most of the country, at least until the next earthquake or fire pops up. The girls had a delightful Christmas and have generally been enjoying themselves. I’ve mostly been eating and watching football, so I suppose I haven’t much to complain about, which is bound to make this an uninteresting blog post.

Since obtaining network access, though, I have managed to check in on work, and I can see that I’m either going to have to put in a day somewhere or really have a miserable time when I get back into the office. Or possibly both. It’s really unfortunate to have these deadlines laying about during the holidays, but I suppose it’s the nature of the business. Mostly, though, I am eagerly awaiting the inevitable news that will be coming forth from Canon that a new full-frame camera will soon be available, and I will buy that camera and be truly happy for upwards of several days. The camera will have a 3″ LCD, and a 20 shot RAW buffer and have truly usable ISO 3200 and a nice large viewfinder, and the rest really truly doesn’t matter except that it will be in my hot little hands by mid-April. The price I’m not really sure about at this point, because it’s going to depend on what “other stuff” that the marketing department decided to throw into the mix. I’ve also been shopping for an HDTV, but I really need to see what happens with Canon first. Not because of the money so much as that if I get the new camera, who needs to watch TV anyways?

On the subject of limiting stimuli, I’ve been pruning my blog subscriptions and flickr contacts of late. There’s just too much out there for someone with my attention span. I’m still waiting for flickr to start turning on itself because it really become much more interesting then.

Last, I thought I would mention that we purchased a new eStarling photo frame for the in-laws, and my review is simply this: it does not, as advertised, understand RSS and email and all the whizzy stuff on the package. Rather, eStarling’s web site does all this, and the photo frame understands their single web site. If that web site is down or overwhelmed because everyone and their in-laws got the same photo frame, or if the company goes under, then you have a $250 version of what everyone else sells for $100.

I was going to blog on Wednesday, but Jennifer’s normal hockey game was canceled, so I spent the evening with her instead of you. Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.

I finally put up some Christmas lights last week, probably more lights on the outside of the house than I ever have before, but still not nearly as much as the guy across the street who always has something musical or animated or, more often, musical and animated. I certainly don’t mind that he has more lights than I do, but I’m just trying to give you an idea of how many lights are involved–because I am not the guy on the block who goes overboard.

It’s hard to use phrases like “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” in southern California because it’s really not. The weather today is sunny and it will probably reach 70 degrees outside. And I just heard our heater fire up, because if it’s below 72 degrees (or above 77) in the house, then the world may in fact come to an end. I don’t know this to be true because it’s never happened, but I’m just saying.

I put up our fake, pre-strung Christmas tree up a couple weeks ago, and even managed to figure out why the lights on the bottom haven’t been lighting for the last couple years. It’s one of those trees with a spinning base, which is supposed to be so that you can see the tree on all sides, but I mostly find that it is helpful for putting on the ornaments because you and the kids can just stand in one place and wait for empty spots to appear. Taking the ornaments down is just as easy. Genius.

The only downside of the spinning tree is that you have be careful about putting presents underneath it because the branches will scrape along the boxes noisily and occasionally catch a ribbon or bow and take a present for a ride. The brown shipping boxes have begun to appear on the doorstep, so sooner or later we’ll have turn off the spinny part of the tree so that we can fit the boxes underneath. Yes, the brown boxes with the UPS labels and everything. This is what happens when you move 2000 miles away from your nearest relatives. Please read back to the paragraph about the weather to understand why.

This weekend we’ll go out to some Christmas-themed community attractions, and to a party over at the neighbor’s musical, animated house, where their kids and our kids will run around the backyard, the adults will clink glasses of eggnog against bottles of beer, and we’ll chat about the weather.

If you meet Tara, one of the first things she usually says is “I’ll get big for gum!” You’ll nod and smile and then look at me and wonder how many Chinese-made lead-coated toys I’ve been feeding this child. I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that Tara can’t wait to grow up. She hears “that’s not for Tara” many times a day. She watches her sister do things she’s not allowed to do, and she can’t wait until she’s old enough to chew gum, use scissors, drive a car, use the computer, take pictures, write with an ink pen, and eat peanut butter. Of course, I don’t ever want her to grow up, but when we do finally let her chew gum, I’m going to have the camcorder out for damn sure.

You’ve probably seen this elf yourself business before, but I contend that Anna and Tara are cuter and more funny than those others.

Last night Jennifer was getting Tara ready for bed, brushing the tangles out of her hair. As the brush hit a snag, Tara yelled out and started crying. I was in another room trying to persuade Anna to get ready, but I distinctly heard Tara wail, “I want my hair cut like Hannah Montana!”

Over the weekend I shot another event. I was there on the coattails of my pro photographer friend, but ended up doing as much shooting as he did; we split quite often to cover as much ground as possible. Much like the event back in July, it was a nonstop crazy flow of activity. I was at the location for two nights but only slept about six hours total. There were models and celebrities and high rollers and executives and it was amazing to even be a part of it.

As a shooting team, my friend and I fit together nicely. He has a terrific ability to with the models and get good images regardless of their level of experience. I focused on environmental shots, candids, and making sure all the clients were happy. I took a lot of pictures in a club during the wee hours of the morning and I think they’re some of the best I’ve ever taken. I’ve finished sorting and I’ve done most of my post processing, but some of the images are so close to perfect that I won’t be able to resist fiddling with them some more.

I’m still digesting all that happened–trying to crystallize all my learnings from the weekend into something I can integrate into my next shoot–but one thing I am sure of is that I want to figure out how to bring more of that passion into my daily life. There is such a thrill to be so focused and driven for an extended period of time, being frantic and exhilarated at once, and being happy with the results as they happen. Then, at the end of the day, you pass out exhausted, sleep like the dead, then spring out of bed and do it again.