Miles and Miles of Stairs

Gosh, I just love this song.

Stairs to the Attic - The Antlers

Week 9: Tall Trees, California

I've lived in the Bay Area almost my entire life and I absolutely love it. Not having to battle cold or snow makes me feel very spoiled. I moved to Palo Alto - Spanish for "Tall Trees" - about a year ago (ALREADY?) so I thought it was appropriate to stay local this week.

I had the idea to take photos around the University area of Palo Alto at night and then again 12 hours later in the morning. I wanted to put the same photos side by side to show the different views of the city but I was feeling inspired to learn more about photoshop so I took it another direction. I'm really happy with what came out of this project - each group of photos is from a different place downtown.

Stanford Theatre:

Bryant St & Hawthorne Ave:

CalTrain Station - University Ave:

University Cafe:

Week 8: Bike Transformation

(Ok, I know it's not ACTUALLY week 8. I'm going to choose to humor myself though and say it is.)

Let's start with a little bit of "Fixie 101," shall we? Wikipedia defines a "fixie" (aka a "fixed-gear bicycle") as:

A fixed-gear bicycle (or fixed wheel bicycle) is a bicycle that has no freewheel, meaning it cannot coast — the pedals are always in motion when the bicycle is moving. The sprocket is screwed directly onto the hub. When the rear wheel turns, the pedals turn in the same direction. This allows a cyclist to stop without using a brake, by resisting the rotation of the cranks, and also to ride in reverse.

Easy enough right? Right! So it should also be noted that fixies are culturally associated with hipsters. Hipsters amuse me. Will, is by no means a hipster - I can't even get him to tolerate 5 seconds of Animal Collective - but he does have an unexplained fascination with fixies.

Will started transforming his road bike a few months back, and since then I've learned more about bikes than I ever thought there was to know. For example! A lock ring, is the piece of the bike that locks the cog to the rear hub. Impressive right?

So he got this new exciting frame and I decided it would be pretty neat to document the entire process end-to-end. These photos took place over a couple of days, and a lot of them were taken in our apartment - which is cramped and has miserable lighting and in no way can accomodate bike maintenance.

The entire process can be seen on my flickr - but here are the highlights.

Updating my blog!

Oh hey, blog!

To my four very precious readers, I have not forgotten about you. I have some very exciting things in store. TWO blogs coming this weekend - get ready, you fixie-riding hipsters.

Where have I been? Well - I was here:

Then I was here:

Next week, I'm going here:

But for now, I'm here. So that means only one thing - it's time to update my blog.

And I got a camera bag. It's no Marc Jacobs but it'll do. Big things.

Superbowl Sunday

Ahh Sunday night already?! Whyyy?! Oh weekend, I thought we were just getting started.

I haven't been able to take any photos yet this weekend... I need some inspiration. I was dragging my feet because I really just was not sure where I wanted to go and what I wanted to photograph. I've decided now but the weekend has already slipped away. Hopefully I'll be able to get out sometime in the next couple days.

In other news, the Google Superbowl ad was absolutely amazing.

Week 7: Napa Valley

How awesome is California? Snow one weekend and amazing spring weather the next. I had a hard time choosing where to go this weekend... but we had some friends in town and they wanted to go up to Napa to go wine tasting. Twist my arm.

Napa is much different than Livermore. It's super touristy (read: expen$ive) but beautiful. All of the wineries are really extravagant and are like mini-resorts.

Our first stop of the day was Reynolds Family Winery. The coolest part about this winery is this pond outside covered in red algae - making it look like clay. Oh! And they poured us some fancy wine for saying nice things about them on Twitter. Gotta love that.

Next we headed over to Peju Province Winery which has stunning grounds: fountains, stained glass, absolutely amazing. The wine isn't bad either. We stayed there for some time even got to check out the art gallery they have upstairs.

Finally, we headed over to Mumm. We've been to Mumm before, they make sparkling wine (not to be confused with champagne) - and they have a great little tour and a knowledgeable staff. Thanks to the weather cooperating, we got to sit outside and enjoy a view of the vineyards.

Really really happy with the way the photos came out this week. Choosing only a few to post was difficult but there are more on flickr.

Does Marc Jacobs Make Camera Bags?

Seriously, do cute camera bags exist or must I be forced to nerd out? Now that I have my sleek fancy (compact) camera, do I haaaaaave to get the giant canvas bag? Marc Jacobs, Louis, are you listening? I think there is a significant opportunity for you to bring together two of my favorite things here. You'll thank me later.

Okaaay, back to work. Sometimes being a grown up is hard.