Saturday, October 28, 2006

Here's a slideshow for a wedding I shot for Harvard Photography on 10.21.2006.

Here's the slideshow..

Marie and Levis are a very cute couple and I had a blast shooting this wedding.


And here's a funny picture of the ladies fighting over the bouqet toss. Luckily no bridesmaids were hurt during the scuffle.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Calling all BizTalk 2006 and Host Integration 2006 CTP guru's.... HELP!!!

*sigh* Well I haven't had much time to post on this blog, due to my day job. As some of you know, im a photographer by night (and weekends), but by day I fall into the DBA/C# developer newbie/BizTalk 2006 (BT) newbie/Host Integration Services 2006 (HIS) newbie/and web surfer expert (lol) worker bee category. Where I constantly (well at least recently) have been learning and struggling with middle tier implementation and communication between our mainframe environment and our windows environment. Learning and experimenting with seamless integration between the two environments.

My current stuggle is getting BT to communicate with HIS. I have the mainframe talking to HIS and I am able to send/receive data in my proof of concept (from Mainframe HIS SQL Server) using both Windows & Host initiated requests. However, if I have an orchestration within BT that I want to tie into my HIS process. I have installed the HIS adapters for BT, but for some reason I can't expose the MsTI (which is the HIS adapter for BT) interface within my BT orchestration. What gives????

One of the problems with working with newly released applications is the lack of documentation. Since I am currently working with HIS 2006 CTP (Community Technical Preview) there are limited resources (sample code) available on the web and within the included documentation, so that's part of the reason that i've had alot of growing pains with these technologies. I have to basically rely on developer blogs and MSDN webcasts (whenever available) to find and patch as I see code available and leverage their code in hopes that it will resolve my issues.

If I cannot resolve my issues with HIS to BT integration, then I may need to write additional code (in C#) to achieve this integration...

I guess, I just wanted to vent... Thanks for reading..

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

FOOOOOD! One of my favorite types of food is sushi, so there was no way I could turn down an opportunity when asked to do a shoot.

Another new restaurant called SAWARA that is soon to open in Rancho Santa Margarita contacted me to shoot some items for their new menu and for advertising purposes.

Here are some of the images (don't they look yummy!):

Shrimp Platter:



Crab sushi:


Shrimp Tempura Roll:


(don't know the name of this dish)


Rainbow Roll:



I can't wait until this place opens up to taste some of their food. The owner is super nice and very welcoming. If you live in the area please visit the restaurant.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

I've finally been able to find time to put a slideshow together from this past Sunday's (10.08.2006) wedding in San Diego.

Here's the slideshow from the wedding.

I had the great opportunity to shoot along side of David Jay and to see first hand how he works. All I have to say is, he is a very good wedding photographer. David is very gracious and helpful and I learned alot watching him work. THANK YOU DJ!! You are the man!!

After the beach shoot with KC & Jon there was a little situation where one of the groomsmen dropped his phone over the railing and was unable to reach it due to the unsteady terrain.


So, after DJ saw the phone in distress, he figured he would save the day by hopping over the railing to reach the stranded phone.



As DJ was heroically reaching for the phone, I was unfortunate enough to see this sight.. YIKES!! That's GROSS!! seriously, who wears Primal underwear.. :) (anyway, there you go ladies, that picture is for you!!)


I also met Amber (who is a friend of the bride and groom), and is also a wedding photog. She was great and very nice! I look forward to you in the future!

Here's Amber talking photo-geek with DJ.


The bride and groom (KC & Jonathan) are very cute! They had a wonderful and very energetic wedding.

From the the boat ride, where the groomsmen arrived at the wedding in a 40ft sail boat (I was lucky enough to join them.. Yippee..) luckily I didn't get sick, cause I didn't have my dramamine (that could have been bad)..


Then the groom, skateboarding into the ceremony, that was cool!! The beautiful ceremony! I loved the surf boards!

And my favorite part of the reception, was the swing dancing!! I loved it! the bride and groom and some of their friends from their swing dancing group performed some amazing dancing! I even wanted to join in, but unfortunately I would have looked the fool! But it does encourage me to take some swing dance lessons.

Again, Thank You DJ for letting me shoot along side of you! I look forward to other oportunities.. One of the most energetic weddings i've been to..

Friday, October 06, 2006

Sweet!!! Got my new Phone/PDA the other day (10.04.2006)

The Motorola Q... man this thing has everything. I already had a phone (the RAZR 3.0) with Cingular, but needed a PDA to manage my calendar, appointments, emails and contacts. Rather than having a seperate phone and a PDA attached to my hip and risk looking like a techno geek with a utility belt. I started to research PDA/Phone combo's.

I didn't really like the PDA's that were available with Cingular, so I started to look outside the Cingular realm. I was really happy with Cingular, so I was hesitant to look elsewhere. However, as my need for a PDA became stronger, I started looking at Verizon since they have a greater phone selection.

I started with the Palm Treo 700P/W but thought it was a little bulky and cumbersome. Then a friend of mine who works at Verizon allowed me to demo the Motorola Q for a week... from that point on - I was hooked..

So I purchased the phone from Verizon, and ported my number from Cingular.

The PROS:
  • Phone and PDA as one device
  • Calendar and Appointments
  • Internet access (directions from google maps)
  • Receive emails from all of my email accounts
  • MSN Messenger (if I were using it to communicate)
  • Cheaper than Palm Treo 700 P/W
The CONS:
  • Text is a little small (but luckily I have good vision) when using the internet
  • Can't yet resolve the SENDING of email from any of my accounts
  • Can't yet sync with my Mac (but I hear MissingSync v2.5.1 will work)
  • Can't use it as a modem with my Mac (at least not yet)
  • No touch screen (which may not matter to me)
  • The normal battery that comes with the kit dies too quickly (highly suggest extended battery)
Other than that i've been happy with my Q... Hopefully I will continue to find it useful..

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Went to my godson's Tae Kwon Do tournament on Sunday (10.01.2006) located at the Ontario Convention Center. Since I haven't seen him and his Tae Kwon do in a while I figured it would be a good opportunity to take pictures.



it was an overall good day. We went to Rainforest Cafe for lunch and did a little shopping at Ontario Mills.