after using kelvin’s lens in europe, we really learned to appreciate a superzoom, so I decided to get the sigma 18-250mm on black friday from b&h (took about 5 hours to eventually click checkout lol). our D5000 came with two lenses, 18-55 and 55-200, so this will be much better for what we use the camera for. should be able to get some money back too. this along with the 50mm prime is perfect!

I also got michele a new case, even though she already has one haha. whatevs, it was only 4 bucks.

this last weekend went from blah to rock real quick…the only thing we had planned was the basset bash and windell’s bd on saturday. but not much else. so we ended up doing so much with the nice weather, it was a refreshing weekend!
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friday huan came over, we went to stop&shop and got our food on…
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marinated some steaks with oyster sauce and mushroom.

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a little bok choy, corn, and mushroom on the side…i’m SLOWLY  learning to



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while the meat was cooking…

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i mashed up some guac, left it a little more chunky than normal…SO GOOD!


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huan chopped up about $40 worth of fresh fruit, mixed in some rum, and in the chill it goes

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choices choices…

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dinner’s ready!

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followed by some dessert!


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saturday we woke up early to get ready for the basset bash, followed by my sis’ last minute decision to go to new york so we ate some breakfast and went on our way

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we got to anna’s and she already had the pumpkin coffee and pumkin bread ready! we didn’t take pics, but let me tell you…it was good =)
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we got to the basset bash and saw all these dogs running standing around and playing fetch doing nothing. it was sad since there were a few that looked liked serena, but kingston kept the tradition alive by not talking to any other dogs, except a lab that showed up…he’s so racist against his own kind









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from there we dropped off kingston and rolled to nyc for some grub. suprisingly we never took pics of moving cars so i practiced some panning on the way…




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the rotas roll so hard it shook the street and blurred the shot

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started to get a little better

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and on to new york! the grub street festival was far from a real festival, more of a closed off section in a park.


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mmmm…street food

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and we even met up with some friends! obviously we were more excited than some


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the food was good, but we ended up leaving to go eat elsewhere…but not before picking up some kelvin slushy haha

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we went to vincent’s on mott st…a classic italian spot in the diminishing little italy. looking at these makes me HUNGRY!




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some street pics…







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and to close the night out it was party time for windell!




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yes…that is windell on an M&M, aka W&W (get it? ehh? ehhh??)

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sunday was a super-productive day. michele went dress shopping (…jesus) and i met up with george who put a new fresh CARB-APPROVED cat on betty. inspection here i come!



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i also took pics of the wheels since they are FADING. yes, original, legitimately bought, brand new RAYS GRAM LIGHTS WHEELS have faded within 2 years…let’s see where this goes when i reach out…


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when i got home i cleaned up the deck and took our garden down for the winter…i must say it was a very good harvest this year between the cucumbers and a crazy amount of jalepeno peppers. we’re gonna get some spices to grow indoors.


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jets football! finished off my bachelor’s afternoon by cookin’ up some chicken, mixing some bacardi and mountain dew, killing the guac from friday, and painting some old frames to hang in the kitchen…ahhh, life.




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the last thing we did was cut up our pumpkin…each of us wanted to do a different design so we cut up both sides haha







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i went with creepy ass pedo-tore!

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…the end.

thanks to michele’s aunt who took out her old nikon gear for us, we’ve now got some new tools to play with! more on that later. here’s some vacation food pics…it was actually alot of fun learning manual focus on the spot, good thing the food models weren’t getting impatient =)

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…still working on getting our pics a little brighter, lighting is tough!

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and finally……

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so we’ve been busy the last couple weeks…decided to move into adulthood and made our first home purchase along with some other interesting things…thanks to everyone for the help getting it cleaned up and painted.
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as much as we loved the fuax curtain wallpaper trim, it just wasn’t working.



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yea, it’s that pink…even the ceiling.


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they updated the stove and fridge which was nice


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our bedroom was a light tan, almost grey…we changed it to ‘almond’ which goes with the shades already there. score!

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our bed for a few nights……i swear, her face always looks the same like it’s just rotated into position hahhahaha

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wan’s going to make us a mantle…i’m liking his ideas so far too.

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and the backyard…

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housewarming gift from kelvin, aka ass, aka bro-in-law…real funny

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first rice cooker i’ve ever had (another gift lol)

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i liked this pic…the chinese place near us never had a bean curd szechuan style request before so they hooked it up with a quart full of tofu!

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we found this in front of some guy’s house and grabbed it for free. more updates on it after the weekend…

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we got tons of stuff from my sis, michele’s fam, and friends…like this ikea coffee table, just a little wood glue and it’s g2g!
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that’s all for now! i wanted to post a pic-a-day to help with the camera experience, so this’ll be an introduction =)
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oh and one more thing =D
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now back to work since george is coming next!

the holidays gave us a lot of different challenges with getting shots in the right light, focus, composition, and just general picture taking. most of the pics we took ended up being very mundane and can easily be done with a point & shoot, but it was definitely a learning experience. i found myself hitting up digital-photography-school.com before each occasion to get last minute tips to make the best out of our time…i had to resize for the blog and wordpress blands out the pics so check out the flickr for original format and full-size. it would prob be better to let you click the pic for the full size. note to self!

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christmas eve in staten island was truly a night i will never forget. so much food, so much family, and so much fun.

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the new addition with mom…

with gramps

and with great gramps!

santa even stopped by!

christmas day we spent at my house, there was snow on the ground and i wanted to go out, but never had a chance…

for the first time in my life, i found myself not opening gifts christmas morning and taking pics of my parents opening. hahahaha…

my dad’s such an easy present…

time to start cooking!

and another new addition! this was one of my favorite pics…

sisters

all the kids got my grandma a necklace with each one of their birthstones…

christopher, always goin for the soda!

definitely can’t wait for a wide angle, which will be our second purchase after a flash.

cleanup time!

off to michele’s fam!

so much wasted space to the right

more good food

cupcakes from crumbs in nyc

i like this picture

we have to work on focusing on more than one subject. up the aperture or manual focus? hmmm….

most comfortable position. ever.

went to see the tree in nyc, this proved to be the greatest challenge and sadly turned out the worst pics of the holidays. after reading about using the tungsten setting, i saw how much it really brought out the lights, but with our stock flash and inexperience, we just couldn’t get faces to look natural. we ended up switching to auto so the pics are usable and some post-processing would help, but next year…we will be ready!

almost got it =(

we then went to my sis’ a couple days after christmas…finally get my gifts!

the king in his thrown…

yummy dessert time!

i setup the camera to take pics in one minute intervals, it worked out for some nice candid shots and definitely made gift opening less stressful letting me focus on family time…

we all got moms the beatles collection. very cool i must say…

some post-processing will really make these look much better…

white balance was off.

cheerio!

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new years pics coming up!!

‘my foot’s sleepin on the gas, no brake pads no such thing as last…’
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we’ll start with my daily…they came with solid laces which i planned on swapping, but laziness got the best of me
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the other pair i rock on a normal basis…these are what i wear when i plan on being a little naughty and walk in the grass…
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keeping with the swoosh…
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for the lazy days where tying shoelaces is just too burdensome…
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a look back at one of many new balances i’ve worn in my lifetime. before the brand was cool, i rocked them.
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notice the care taken to keep the nose of the shoe in near mint condition.
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sfc’s (shoes for crews). they may look like normal, everyday work duty shoes…
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…BUT they have a terrific grip bottom
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dress shoes…these are required for weddings and some nyc clubs. notice the dust accumulation…
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of course nobody is nobody without a puma assortment…the black ones are also my driver’s shoe of choice.
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boarding boots…
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how bout some casual wear, ladies…
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the next foot attire is something i hold very dear to my heart.
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the jesus shoe.
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and its evolution…
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so much awesome, maybe i’ll rock this combo one day…
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something more than shoes…
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it’s replacement came around the same time as betty’s 1j…
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this is in need of a cleanup and some driving. hpi nitro rc. super fast…with the life changing plans for me next year, this might be the only race car being used next season =(
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and finally…
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saw some cool pics with extra slow shutter speeds using laser pointers and such…

all i could find right now was a maglight =)

it’s actually pitch black when taken

these were all taken with one shot (pulled from gizmodo):

sooooo michele and i decided this year to split a gift for christmas. it worked out nicely, even though my sis is yelling at us for opening it early. we (see: michele’s credit card) bought a nikon d5000 kit with the two stock nikkor lenses (18-55mm & 55-200mm). we know nothing about it but have ankur to guide us so hopefully we’ll enjoy our new purchase and maybe upgrade later. if you’ve ever seen airplane! then let me say that turning off the auto setting makes the plane completely go down. they may not be the ‘illest’, but whatcha gonna do? everyone’s a photographer, just like everyone’s a racer…