A Weekend Away

The amazing thing about a camera phone is that it is always there. Sometimes your regular camera is packed away, stuck in a pocket or even just left behind. When you take a vacation, having the ability to capture a quick glance or a moment that will only last a second is too important to trust to anything less than a good camera.

This weekend we went to our friend Donielle's wedding. The three of us packed up, headed west and found ourselves heading to Port Angeles. It was a non-working, work weekend. We took our Sony equipment along to shoot some pictures at Rob and Donielle's wedding, but way too many times did my big camera stay in the bag.

We had fun building sand castles on the beach, running around the town, hitting the Olympic Game Farm and even just the relaxing drive up the peninsula. We passed through Port Gamble and saw a bit of their Civil War reinactment. We drove through Sequim and other crazy little places too.

The only rough part was the fact that Evie wasn't in her own room, which really confused her the first night. She kept trying to open the hotel door to get in her room. We eventually got her to calm down and fall asleep. Thank goodness for Netflix on my phone. Only 4 episodes of Word World and a few Care Bears movies and Evie continued here happy streak.

The trip was amazing. The hotel isn't all it used to be, and the service was a bit rough. The town though still has some much charm, but Ara and I both decided its not all that kid friendly. Maybe next time we will do a bit more research about kids fun in the area.

She definitely had a good time at the game farm, watching the yaks was fun for her. The business and elk were beautiful and she really loved the aquarium.

Well, we had way more fun this weekend than I can put into words on this blog, so I'll let a few of the images tell the story for me.

Life at Work...

It's always fun to write about something mundane like work. There are things to complain about, things to be happy about and most of all, things to describe.

First off, I work at shur-loc Fabric System. We make products for the people that print shirts, banners and even radar controls for fighter jeta. I've been there for 10 years. I started off in production mastering panel assembly and order processing. A few years back, I was also put in charge of our online presence and advertising.

It wasn't until recently though that we brought on a person that seems to be sharp enough to replace me on the production floor and allow me to run the floor and work with more end users.

It really is a wonderful job, despite all the headaches that come with it. The benefits are far from awesome, but the biggest benefit is that. The flexible schedule allows me to spend more time with Evie and Ara than any other career choice that I could have made.

So to make a long story short, the image above is from the newest instructional video that we are making. Pretty soon it will be done and you can watch it on shurloc.com.

Netflix Makes A Triumphant Return

The Evo is back with all its netflixing magic today as the newest update in the Android Market is now offered for the Evo again. Call it luck, skill or just awesomeness, but you cm start rocking those episodes of South Park and Stargate SG1 on the go once again.

Sick Baby...

Just a day ago, you were bouncing around like the world was perfect. Last night, that world crashed and your ear infection returned. I hate sitting in the living room while you cough, hack and wheeze yourself to sleep.

Those precious hours where you actually get to rest are supposed to be relaxing for us, but when you are sick, they stress us out quite a bit. Hopefully this second round of your medicine will clear this up, just like the last time. If not, it will be one more trip into Dr. Baer's office before the trip to Portland, and more medicine for you.

Feel better soon Evie. We both don't like seeing you sick.

Tablets Make Life Easy

You know, I love my HTC Evo 4G. I do have to admit to really loving the tablet idea though. To have a bit more real estate for text, keyboard and photos on screen sure would be great.

Unfortunately, the tablets are coming with prices that just don't work for a single income family with a toddler. Someday, maybe someone from HTC or Motorola or even Samsung might read this and see what a major marketing ideas providing a tablet to someone that captures life from it could be. Heck, I already share my love of the EVO here and at http://evocentric.blogspot.com so how much more free advertising can I give them?

For now, I'll keep blogging from my wonderful Evo 4G and just hope that someone wants to send me a fun.

Blue Skies, Wet Roads

Mornings like this are wonderful, but frustrating. The weather is fantastic, but the roads are still soaked from the overnight rains. It's hardly the end if the world, but it's going to be wonderful when everything dries out.

This is already shaping up to be a crazy busy weekend, so I'll see how the posting goes. We'll be in Duvall and Seattle for photo shoots on Saturday and a visiting a new church on Sunday.

Life is pretty good today!

Garage Sales

This was actually Ara's idea, but she still hasn't done it so I'm stealing it. Nobody reads this anyways so it's all good if she wants to do her own later. But now, back to the topic...

Garage sales. Big ones, little ones, in yards or on the sidewalk? Yes, Monroe has garage sales on sidewalks. I didn't believe it either, but Monroe is strange.

Usually communities have a twice a year sale, or maybe a different road has a sale on a rotating basis, but Monroe doesn't. Monroe has this amazing pattern of sales everywhere, all the time. During the rain, tarps go up and the sales continue.

The strangest one has to be what you see at the sales. Most of the time, the sales are a collection of crap that Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul wouldn't take away. It's garbage or broken down furniture that nobody wants. It's pretty funny to watch. I'm almost positive that this stuff is just taken from one yard to another and then another... The owner just hoping for one sucker to buy it.

The best sale of the summer, so far, had to be the kid in the image above. Either he cleaned out his room of broken stuff or he dumpster dove at the apartments to get this stuff, but mid day, on a sunny weekend, he was out front on the road having his own sale!

Gotta love Monroe and garage sale season!