Early in 2009, Andrew and I decided it was time to remodel our bathrooms. We had never done a remodeling project, and knew we could never do it ourselves. We called in a few contractors to try and find someone to do the job for us.
We eventually picked one, and scheduled the work over Spring Break in early March. We were told that the job would take 5 days. Yeah. Right. That 5 days turned into 3 months, in a giant clusterf*ck of a nightmare remodeling job. It was finally finished during Finals week in May.
I’m still so angry about the whole thing that I really don’t even want to blog about it. I felt I had to, so 10 years from now we can look back and remember what a PITA the whole ordeal was.
Without too much detail, the contractor just kept screwing things up left and right. Then the shower door company didn’t measure right. Then the grout fell out and subfloor collapsed. Then the cement was left to harden down the drain and clogged it up. One thing after another after another – it was a horrible experience.
We are happy with our bathrooms now that they are complete. But getting there – my goodness – NEVER again.
Andrew and I took a day trip to Jerome, Arizona to shoot some images with the rented Canon TS-E 24mm tilt-shift lens. Of course after we completed the 2.5 hour drive, I realized I had left all of my SD memory cards at home. *groan* Andrew was nice enough to let me borrow his.
Jerome is a crazy little town, famous for its mining operations and being the largest “ghost town” in Arizona. It was hardly ghostly today, with thousands of tourists and absolutely no parking. We managed to snag a spot outside of the town center and walked around the hills to take some shots.
Finally, I have discovered what the “shift” part of tilt-shift actually means. It is demonstrated perfectly in this pair of images. This little pink house on the side of a hill had some crazy angles to it, and I couldn’t get any further away. With a set 24mm to shoot with, getting a pleasing composition would be difficult with most lenses.
However, being able to “shift” the lens to the left and right allowed me to straighten the walls of the house like magic. Notice the house on the left appears to be falling backwards, and the house on the right looks pretty straight. Pretty cool, huh?
Check out more pics on my Flickr page.
Little Pink House in Jerome, Arizona
Chase Field with Light Rail in Phoenix
This week, I decided to rent a tilt-shift lens from Tempe Camera. It’s a Canon TS-E 24mm beauty with true tilt and shift mechanisms. So far I’ve been able to shoot a few things around the house, and from a parking garage in downtown Phoenix. My favorite shot is this one above of the new light rail cars in front of Chase Field. It’s exactly what I set out to capture, and I’m still amazed it came out so well!
You can see the whole set on my Flickr page.
Busted Door
Mom and Dad (aka Karen and Jerry) booked a tour of Ireland with Aunt Barbara and Heather’s mother Mrs. Barcon. They left for Philadelphia and ended up stranded for 36 hours due to missing their connecting flight. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they were not allowed to access their luggage the entire time. The trip started out horribly and didn’t get much better after that.
Andrew, Amy and I were charged with watching the house while they were away on vacation. We had done this many times before, and so didn’t think much of it. A few days after leaving, Amy went over to check up on the house. She called us frantically from the front yard, saying the house had been robbed! She called the police and we booked it over there as fast as we could.
The police were checking the house when we arrived on the scene. Sure enough, the front door was bashed in. In some crazy exhibit of fate, we discovered very few things were taken. Lucky for them, all of their doors still deadbolt lock with a key from the inside, so the burglars were unable to open any of the doors. Even the patio doors had locks, so they couldn’t go that way either. The only exit was through their entrance, and nothing would fit through it with them. No computer, no TV, nothing. We determined they must have been kids, because they didn’t take anything obvious (GPS, purse, blank checks – all in plain view).
They clearly tried to take a small metal safe, and would have been immensely disappointed had they succeeded. It only contained old school memorabilia from the kids. Report cards, awards, art projects… We are so lucky it wouldn’t fit through the door, because we are sure they would have been pitched in the garbage somewhere.
We had to call Mom and Dad in Ireland and tell them about the house. It was a nerve-wrecking next few days. We immediately went out and purchased a metal security door and attached it (in the rain) to the front of their house. I fixed the wooden door the best I could. Andrew, Amy and I both stayed there for the next few days until they came back from Ireland. The police had advised us that likely, the criminals would return to the scene if the house were vacant again. We didn’t want that to happen.
Macro Buttons
So this is what happens when I get bored. I walk around the house and find random stuff to photograph. Check out my Flickr stream for new images like this macro shot of a rainbow of buttons.
We have some more family drama happening. Andrew’s Mom, Dad, Aunt Barbara and extended family member Debbie flew out on Thursday morning to go to Ireland for a few weeks on a motorcoach tour. They still haven’t made it there, two days later. Their flight got delayed out of Phoenix for 90 minutes because a passenger wanted off the aircraft after it was on the runway, and the incident escalated. They arrived in Philadelphia just in time for their connecting flight to leave for Dublin without them. After being stuck in Philly for about 36 hours, they finally got on a flight to London last night at 10:40pm EST. We haven’t heard from them since then.
We assume they made it to London and are taking a connection to Dublin this morning. We just hope they arrive in time to start their motorcoach tour tomorrow morning. I encouraged them to go 3 days early to give them plenty of time to arrive and get adjusted to the time change. Thank goodness they did or they would have completely missed their tour!
Argentine Giant Cactus Flowers
Today, I came home from work about 4:00pm to find that one of our Argentine Giant cactus plants had two blooms about to open. It’s only bloomed twice before, and each time was a single bloom – so I knew I had to capture it. It’s now or never!
The Argentine Giant only blooms about once per year and the flowers are only open for a few hours, usually late at night or in the very early morning. This time, they were fully ready to be photographed at 8:30pm. Thank goodness I just bought a remote flash transmitter for my Canon, or there is NO WAY I could have captured them.
Stamen of an Argentine Giant Flower
You can see this little fella gave me quite the workout trying to photograph; it’s blooming at the high point in the yard beyond the lowest part of our river bed, facing into the yard (of course). Could it have BEEN any harder to capture these shots?
Our Front Yard at Night
The flowers are huge – easily as big as my wide open hand. They are soft and very beautiful. The petals are always white with burgandy reverse, and the centers are bright yellow. They have this strange hand-like stamen reaching out of the center. I know I’m clueless when it comes to the anatomy of a flower, but I can sure appreciate it. This flower is gorgeous.
See more of my macro flowers on Flickr.
I Love Bumblebee!
While attending a special screening of the first Transformers movie with Andrew, I found myself doing crazy things to try and win him a chance to the premiere of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen in Hollywood. I ended up on stage as a finalist in a contest, and won my chance to submit a video describing why I was the world’s biggest Transformers fan. I produced the video, uploaded it, and was never selected to be voted on. Don’t get me started on this topic – it was absolutely ludicrous that I wasn’t selected, considering the absolute crap they ended up posting.
Anyway, I took some still shots of me with a few of Andrew’s Bumblebee figures. It ended up being a pretty good shot, and shows just how far this crazy wife will go to do something nice for her husband. We still ended up seeing the second movie at the exact same time as the premiere, since a friend of mine scored tickets in a contest and gave them to us. All’s well that end’s well, eh?
