winter_in_asia

For those of you who are interested in following the RLP Blog, I've set up an RSS Feed since we moved from our old home (thereversedlens) to our new wordpress blog.

The feed can be found at reversedlens.

I found an awesome mix CD on the side of the road the other day and have been able to identify all but 3 of the 22 tracks. Two of them are covers, which renders programs like Shazam! useless. I figured out the original songs, at least.

#1 - Cover of Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" featuring prominent piano and a female lead vocalist. It's by Detroit artist MoZella on her "I Will" album.
#2 - Cover of Eliot Smith's "Between The Bars", also with a female vocalist (Regina Spektor?) and prominent piano. I'm almost certain that it's not Metric, though it could be an alternate version of the Metric cover. Chris Garneau, "Music For Tourists".

I'm willing to do some more looking, I'm just not quite sure where to look. Any ideas? Both were found through iTunes and Everyday Music is holding copies of the CDs for me.

Thanks to whoever threw out their mix disk! I love it!

There is a half-mile stretch of pavement between Scholl's Ferry Road and the private school I attended for twelve years. It is a long, straight stretch with two lanes and a few houses lining the quarter mile closest to Scholl's. On the west side of the street is a chain link fence and holes 5 and 6 of the Oregon Golf Club. It is a picturesque approach to the school that includes a bridge so narrow that some of the parents will wait on one side or the other rather than cross at the same time as another car.

The straightness of the road and the length make it a severe temptation to students who wish to speed. It is so tempting, in fact, that I have personal knowledge of two of my classmates who were caught drag racing down this road. Campus security banned them from driving to campus for two weeks. I'm sure they're not the first students to do it, nor will they be the last.

On any given weekday morning during the school year, the road is bustling with cars: young parents in Volvo station wagons and SUV's, high school seniors speeding down the road at twice the posted limit. It is a ritual that each student must go through, every day of the school year.

School is full of these rituals -- the smells of the cafeteria at lunch time, the colors and sounds of campus at various times of year, the road to school, high school assemblies. They serve as way points, markers for how we grow and change over the course of our lives. These way points are constants that remain in spite of the change that occurs around them and around us.

The fascinating thing, and really the way we can measure ourselves, is how we view the constants. There was a time when the road seemed a dauntingly long stretch; by the end of my time at the school, I was surprised when I measured its length at only half a mile. It seemed tiny, a short processional to my daily academics that was typically ignored in favor of the food I was frantically ingesting before 8am. Smells were the same way; they pointed to events in the course of a year or a day. The smell of the cafeteria meant gastronomic risks and socializing. The smell of spring meant sun and laying in the grass during recess and free time.

I attended an assembly at the school today. The teachers, the announcements were all the same as they've always been. The students are frozen in time, the only thing changing is their faces and the style of their clothes. In my eyes, it used to be a different animal, but I can see now that this was just me changing and seeing where I stood in relation to everyone else. It was like a series of pictures where the photographer moves around a central object: the pictures are more about how the photographer is looking at something than they are about the object he's looking at.

I am the photographer. See how the world stays the same as my eyes change.

I ran into one of the Yelp ambassadors at an event a couple weeks ago. I knew what Yelp was, but had never gotten into it. After chatting with Don for a while, though, I decided to give it a go.

It's so fun!

If you do not have a Yelp account, I highly recommend it. It's a great way to find out about a business without using a site like citysearch that takes advantage of the businesses it shows off.

I know theamazingjosh is on Yelp, but are any of the rest of you? Send me your info and I'll add you.

A recent jaunt to Costco in Aloha yielded a case of Mexican-produced Coke made with real cane sugar. In spite of my lack of love for Coca Cola, I find the cane sugar stuff to be great -- and it even comes in glass bottles I can save for later. But I'm still looking for something else.

I would like to find some Dr. Pepper made with real cane sugar. I've had it before thanks to a small bottle ritzcrackerman purchased for me while he was down in Texas and visited the plant. I'd like to use some to stock my photography studio for when we meet with clients, but that requires finding a local source. Plus I want some for myself.

Last night was dinner at Popeye's. Chicken was on sale, 8 pcs. for $4.99. We ate some and then headed up to the studio to meet with a client and secure their deposit. I'm really excited about shooting that wedding -- the reception is at The Secret Society, a local ballroom / recording studio.

This is what I eat when I'm really tired.

1 can stewed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
2 small cans sliced mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
half an onion

Sauté the onion until caramelized. Add in garlic and mushrooms, cook for 2-3 minutes. Add in stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. Salt and pepper to taste, simmer for 10-15 minutes. Serve.

I just e-mailed my mother-in-law with my clam pasta recipe. Don't know if I've ever posted it here, but it's one of those things it's hard for me to canonize since I do it off the cuff every time.

- 2 8oz cans of chopped clams, drained
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 8-12 small crimini mushrooms, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely diced
- 1/2 pint cream
- 1 medium lemon, zested and juiced
- Capers
- Olive oil
- Salt & Pepper
- Italian seasoning (if desired)
- 1/4c dry white wine or sherry


In a sauce or sauté pan, cook onions and garlic in a small amount of olive oil and water until onions are translucent. Add in mushrooms and cook until soft. Remove from pan. In the same pan, sauté the clams until they are firm and coated in the remaining olive oil. Add in a little extra if necessary. Remove from pan and mix into onions, garlic and mushrooms.

Deglace pan using the white wine or sherry. Add in cream and lemon zest. Simmer for 3-5 minutes over medum heat to reduce. Add in mushrooms, onions, garlic, and clams, simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add in lemon juice, capers and salt and pepper to taste. If desired, you can add 1 tsp italian seasoning at this point.

Serve over angel hair or penne with bread and Cesar Salad.

The new RLP (read: Professional) blog is now live at the RLP site. Take a look and let us know what you think!

http://blog.reversedlensphotography.com/

Note: this is not an announcement of my personal blog moving. While I'll probably re-post somewhere else or back up my personal LJ, winter_in_asia is probably not realistically going anywhere. I will probably just limit the communities and personal journals I subscribe to.

I'm seriously considering starting a new wordpress blog for myself somewhere else. After many years on LJ, I'm contemplating going somewhere else.

If I do it, I'll likely leave this account open as a way for me to read my old reading list and comment as needed. In the meantime, I've cut down my reading list pretty significantly, mostly deleting communities, but also taking some personal journals off as well. I found myself just skimming most of the stuff on my FL.