Random Mews

We had less than 50 trick or treaters this year - half of all previous years. We projected Hallowindow II (www.hallowindow.com) into the kitchen front window. I handed out candy as a witch, with Andrew “chained” to a rock on the other side of the river bed.

There were only about 6 homes on our street handing out candy, which was really sad. Everyone seemed to love our house, as we were definitely the most festive in the neighborhood. We consider this the least effort we have ever extended for Halloween, too…

See photos on Flickr!

Jessica the Witch

2008 marks the seventh anniversary in our new house, and therefore our seventh Halloween in the neighborhood. I thought it might be fun to recap each one and summarize all the crazy (and often time consuming and expensive) ways that we have scared the neighbors and their kids.

• 2001: The Thing - Our first year was pretty basic. We lit up the house with crazy colors and hung a giant spider on the garage. I dressed up like a cow and Andrew was the grim reaper. Our friend Mike Mogan came over in a full camouflage suit that he hand-made, and pretended to be a bush until the kids (or parents) walked past. Then he would stand up and follow them until they screamed and ran away. See 2001 pictures on Flickr.
• 2002: Blacklite Ghosts - We carved several pumpkins this year and made our front kitchen into a ghostly scene. Blacklites illuminated ghosts hung from dental floss as well as a skeleton scene complete with Tarrot cards. We don’t have too many pictures, and didn’t know how to take good ones at the time… But trust me, it was cooler than it looks. See 2002 pictures on Flickr.
• 2003: Hand-carved Tombstones - This was a very sad time for me, and I wasn’t feeling particularly joyous. I hand-carved six tombstones out of styrofoam and painted them with grey and black latex paint. Andrew dug a hole in the front yard and we had a skeleton coming out of the grave. We carved several pumpkins that turned out really cool. Overall it was a solemn year, but the pictures are great. See 2003 pictures on Flickr. Also see my scrapbook page of 2003 here and here.
• 2004: Haunted Maze - By far, the most awesome Halloween we have done! We actually build a haunted maze in our garage. A full blown obstacle course with dead ends and a monster inside (aka Andrew). Mom and Dad stood out front directing the kids and daring them to go through it. Andrew followed them around inside scaring the crap out of them. I was at the end on the garage side yard handing out king sized candy for those brave enough to make it through. This year cemented our house in folklore for years to come as kids excitedly exclaim “Oh yeah, I remember THIS house!” as they run towards our home on Halloween. It was freakin’ awesome! Too bad it cost us several hundred dollars and took about 8 weeks to build, or we would do it again. See 2004 pictures on Flickr. Watch the Haunted Maze video on YouTube. Read my short blog entry about Satan.
• 2005: Zombie Prom - We made a sweet music mix with songs like “Pretend We’re Dead” by L7, and hammed up the dancing fun with an awesome scene in the garage. We had a real mirror ball and lots of fog machines, disco music and a skeleton party scene. It was so much fun! See 2005 pictures on Flickr. Read my blog entry on Zombie Prom.
• 2006: Haunted Graveyard and Flaming Pumpkins - Having just finished all three of the Wilton cake courses, I decided to make a haunted graveyard cake with Andrew’s help. It was a huge hit at work and was as delicious as it looked! By far one of the coolest cakes we’ve ever made (except for Optimus Prime, of course). We had a major scene going on with dozens of strings of lights, a lightning effects light machine, several fog machines and tons of extra decorations. As we were putting it all together on the eve of Halloween, around 10pm we went outside to put on finishing touches and someone had stolen everything right out of our yard. About $300-$400 worth of equipment and lighting was gone. We were absolutely crushed. We posted a sign on the garage about what happened, and torched the pumpkins with kerosene. It just knocked all of the Halloween spirit right out of us. See 2006 pictures on Flickr. Watch the Flaming Pumpkins video on YouTube. Read my blog entries here, here and here.
• 2007: Witch Kitchen Jars - Lucky, our solid black kitty, joined us in August of 2007. Inspired by him and the Harry Potter series, we did a Witch Kitchen scene complete with dozens of disgusting filled jars. Each one was labeled to perfection and organized in a disorderly fashion surrounding me in the kitchen. Dressed up as a witch in full garb with a bubbling cauldron and a broom, I sat in the kitchen and scared the kids by poking at them through the screenless window as they walked by. See 2007 pictures on Flickr. See my blog entry about Lucky.

Well, there you have it. This year will also be spectacular, I’m sure! We’ve got our very own copy of Hallowindow and plan to scare the kids like crazy. We are also planning some really cool confections for the coworkers that are sure to please everyone.

Get ready for a Happy Halloween, 2008!

In honor of our favorite holiday, I decided to theme this week’s portraits with Halloween in mind. Andrew sat in like a good sport, favorite mask on head, and let me take some cool shots. Below are my favorites from tonight’s session.

My mom has recently come into the modern age and has begun text messaging me, emailing me and apparently…. reading this blog.  So, I’d like to say officially, HI MOM!  Glad to have you stopping by now and again!  Hope everything is going well up there in the great state of Michigan!  =)  *hugs*

For one of my upcoming assignments, we have to submit a self-portrait for critique. I thought it would be best to get started early as this cannot be an easy task. We need to set up, light, diffuse/reflect, pose and fire the shutter on our own.

I don’t have ten hands so I thought a low-key image would be best, using a single light source. I used a clip on lamp with a regular 60-watt bulb, diffused by a 36″ Lite Disc about 10″ from my face. I draped up a black backdrop behind me and wore a black shirt. ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/4s at 55mm.

This is the best one I could manage on my first attempt. It’s neat although maybe next time I will wear my contacts so I can see myself in the lens. I had no idea where my borders were or how the light shining was on the right side of my face.

School is back in session, and this time, it isn’t just for me! My little brother started Kindergarten on Tuesday morning. I can’t believe how fast he is growing up! My DaD sends me pictures all the time and I am so thankful for that. I feel like I am there with him although he barely knows me. It’s amazing to see how fast kids grow up, especially when the kid is your little brother. He’s 4 1/2, and I’ll be 30-something tomorrow, so there’s quite an age gap between us.

As for me, I started a Portrait photography course at one of the local colleges. It’s nice to get back into the creative process again, and have a good reason to use all of my camera gear. Hopefully I’ll have some work to show soon.

Andrew and I took a very spontaneous trip to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend.  We decided Thursday night to leave on Friday after work.  We wanted to see some of the stuff off the beaten path that we never bothered to see before.  We stayed at The Orleans (you can’t beat $40/night) and kept the whole trip rather cheap.

We visited outlying casinos like Tuscany, Sam’s Town, South Point, Green Valley Ranch, and the brand new Eastside Cannery.  We found this hilarious slot machine called Super Happy Fortune Cat. What made it amazing was the inset: Now with Lucky Hampster! We HAD to play it. HAD to.

We went through the Atomic Testing Museum, found our way through lots of neighborhoods and checked out several new freeways in the area.  We briefly considered going to the Erotic Heritage Museum but it looked too creepy even for me (so you know it must have been awfully creepy).

We saw Stomp Out Loud (incredible show!) at Planet Hollywood, and visited the Stratosphere late at night.  We also went to one of our favorite new places in Las Vegas: The Pinball Hall of Fame (www.pinballmuseum.org).

I posted lots of pictures up on Flick for you to see.

That’s a hard question to answer.  Especially when it comes to a human being.

Andrew and I have started looking further into the beginnings of a family.  We went to a foster-to-adopt session last night, and discovered that it’s not the route we want to take.  For many reasons, straight adoption is the way we want to go.

So, I started investigating adoption paths more seriously.  China’s rules are awfully strict; Guatemala is having legal troubles.  South Korea’s children are generally not adopted before age 3.  I was leaning toward Russia all along, and it seemed feasible when all the websites explained the average cost of adoption was $25-$30k.

Well, someone needs to update those websites.  I jumped on a forum of people currently adopting from Russia.  I read post after post, topic after topic of women whose journey to adoption from that country have averaged over $45k, some upwards of $60k, for a single child.

How can we justify spending that kind of money for a child?  That is about half of what we owe on our house…  That’s way more than I spent on my entire college education (including my Master’s degree).

If I bring a child into this household, I don’t want to be paying off the debt forever instead of saving for her college education.  That just doesn’t seem fair to the child.

Is it really worth it?

I went to see the Hydrogen Road Show with Mom yesterday out at Gateway Community College. It was incredibly hot outside, and of course they held the show in the parking lot so we only stayed for about 20 minutes.  It was easy to tell that the automotive representatives were nearing the end of their roadshow because they really didn’t want to talk to us.  In fact, most of them were just downright rude.  Maybe they just weren’t used to the Arizona heat.

We saw the Toyota Full Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV), BMW Hydrogen-7, Volkswagon Touran HY-MOTION, Nissan X-TRAIL Fuel Cell Vehicle and the Mercedes F-CELL.

The cars were generally neat to see.  I got to sit inside the driver seat on all of them and push some buttons.  :)  In a lot of ways they are exactly like the cars of today, with some minor adjustments.  Most of them had less trunk space due to invasion of extra tanks.  Some of them have warning stickers on the steering wheel that say “OUTDOOR PARKING ONLY.”  The Nissan rep was telling us it’s because they are essentially bombs on wheels!

I was most impressed with the Nissan X-TRAIL SUV.  It had a lot of room, was incredibly quiet when it was turned on, and had a nice clean look.  The Mercedes F-CELL was pretty neat too, although I was certainly crunched in the driver seat.  It was really tiny inside.  My knees were smashed into the steering wheel and it wasn’t really evident how to adjust the seat or the wheel.  I guess that’s why they call them “concept cars!”

I’ve posted the rest of the pictures on Flickr.

I absolutely love icanhascheezburger.com. For those who don’t know, it’s a website that allows users to submit everyday pictures of cats, and caption them for us human types to laugh hysterically at.

This one cracks me up! I laughed for about 10 minutes straight.