The people I work with are in general pretty laid back and mellow, have a good sense of humor and can take a joke. Because of that from time to time we’ll pull a little prank on each other. It’s all in good fun and no one ever gets up set to the point where there is retaliation. We just have a good laugh, take a picture or two and move on.  In truth it is a good thing, because our work is so public, there is a lot of pressure, along with tight deadlines, and revisions of revisions the stresses can get to you. We are a small team of three to four people depending on the project so keeping it light is a good idea.

As with most things of this nature there is usually someone who takes the lead on pulling the pranks, I usually gravitate to that position. However yesterday I was on the receiving end, and couldn’t of been more proud of the guys. You see at work we have this “policy” that if you walk away from you computer it must be locked. It makes sense, it’s a security issue so we follow it pretty well, however, on my team it’s a rule that if someone doesn’t lock there machine and they are gone long enough it is your responsibility to change there desktop picture to something that is embarrassing, yet won’t get anyone fired. Rick once walked away from his computer and I changed his desktop picture to the Disney princesses. Rick of course had a great sense of humor about it and left it up for a month or so, just to see the reaction of people. He dealt with allot of internal request so people would walk up and see the Disney princesses across his dual monitor display and give him the strangest looks. It was priceless. Well like I said earlier, Ed got me with the same trick, so of course I took a screenshot to share with you.

One of the great things about living in Southern California is the weather. We have mild winters (last week with 3 inches of rain excluded), and great springs and falls. However every spring and fall there is an event that happens that causes havoc on my life for two or three weeks after. People in Arizona, don’t have to suffer this event as they were smart enough to vote against, it but I guess everyone here in LA was out surfing in the middle of the winter and missed their chance to vote against it passing into law. The event is Daylight Savings Time. In that fall we go back to Standard Pacific Time. The older I get the harder it is to deal with these changes. It’s just an hour, it should be a big deal, but it completely goofs me up. The why we are told to remember it is,”Spring Ahead, Fall Back”. Which is just about right, the time change in spring drops me on my head, and the change in fall lands me right on my back.

Sunday was the time change, and it went well, mostly as I didn’t go anywhere and my TV shows were on a little earlier. However when Monday came around, I set the alarm back twice and slept on the floor for 20 minutes, because my alarm clock is on the other side of the room and I was too tired to make it all the way back to bed. I was sick Monday night, and Tuesday I didn’t go to work . Wednesday morning was basically a repeat of Monday. So both of those days, I ended up being on the last train I can catch without getting fired. Also Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I had to wake up my Beautiful Wife to take me to the train, otherwise I just wasn’t going to be able to make it.

So today I get up about the right time, to get to work on time, I get up and get in the shower. I realized I took my shower with my eyes shut the entire time. I realized this when I had to open my eyes to shave. And believe me, it was not the greatest jobs shaving I’ve even done. I stumble into our room and get dressed, stumble to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal and wolf it down while watching the news. I finish getting ready, kiss my Beautiful Wife goodbye and walk to the train. Now this is the first time I’ve walked to the train in like two months. I had been really good about walking every day, but with project of large proportions looming and working almost every night, I was too tired and ached too much to walk. So I walked today, got the train on time, life was good. So in completely truth I actually woke up on the train ride into work.

Walking to work, I notice it’s a beautiful day, but somehow the walk got me noticing that slack seemed to have a design flaw. It felt like the pockets we constructed of about ten times the material needed for the job. Anyhow got to work and didn’t think to much about it, till I sat down at my desk, and I notice the fabric was gathering at my mid-thigh, and I realized that I was so tired when I got dress, that I was actually wearing swim trunks under my pants. So I called my beautiful Wife and told her, I was tired, didn’t want to be at work, left my brains on the dresser and my shorts on under my pants. She laughed so hard she cried. And that’s how the time change affected me, what did it do to you?

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written a good post. I don’t know if this is going to be one, but at least it will be longer than two sentences and a link. I do apologize for the drought of posts lately but work has been intense and now that we have our big project time and I have some room to breath the post will be more plentiful.

It's been an interesting day, week, whatever it has been. I stayed home today because I was under the weather.  Speaking of the weather it's been raining since yesterday evening almost not stop. Which leads into the weather related story of the day.  I got a call about noon from my brother K, to let me know that brother J had been in a multi-car accident. He's banged up, bruised sore and lacerated however he is wholly intact which is great. His poor truck that has moved me five times and countless others is not terribly intact. Anyhow apparently in a typical Californian driver type move, someone doing 80 in the fast lane in the poor rain and the rest writes itself. Back to the truck, the motor mounts broke, causing the transmission mounts to break and it dropped the drive-shaft. So in layman terms it’s broke. However I am just glad my Brother is okay!

In rain related news, as some of you may already know I am shooting my first wedding for a friend from the train this weekend. I am completely nervous and of course it looks like there is a chance that it is going to rain. Well it is suppose to be an outdoor wedding at 5pm, so of course I am worried about the light, however if it rains, I’ll have to take all of the formals inside. Which isn’t a bad thing it is just different! Like I said I’ve been nervous as I usually don’t photograph people and photographing a wedding is an art itself. So I’ve been reading books and some good forums. I’ve been practicing a lot lately and man is my family sick of seeing the flash go over behind them. In fact that Little Boy has taken to hiding when he sees me with the camera in my hand. I’ve been also checking out some sites that help keep some of the cost down. Photography can be a very expensive proposition, well being of modest means I like trying to make some of the tools myself. So I’ve been reading DIYPhotography.net to get ideas of how to build some of the lighting rigs I want but can’t afford to buy.

In other news, My Beautiful Wife and I have just passed a milestone. We celebrated our five year Wedding Anniversary last month. We took some time just for us, took a weekend went to the mountains to a cute little town to celebrate us. In all truthfulness it is just amazingly easy to be married to her. She is my best friend and I can always be myself with her. Five years has gone by so fast, I so look forward to the next five years.

This was a great article on how to become a Programming Rock Star. My favorite is tip number 11, eat well, exersice, and don't drink too much coffee. I know that this is the first post in a while and I promise that the next one will be better.

How many hours do you have to spend playing Grand Turismo 4 to be able to drive like that?

Today is Monday again, I am sure that I didn't have to tell most of you that, but there it is. I walked it to work this morning and it's so quiet it's deafening. Just the hum of computer fans and air conditioning. My Friend and Co-Worker "The Pine" has moved on and is now working much closer to home for more money (Isn't that what we all want). Friday was his last day. Now it is monday and it is too quiet. The routine of coming in, talking about the weekend and show each other photos of the kids before we start the work week will now have to be a virtual one. "The Pine" has been a good friend and co-worker and I will miss getting to hangout with him.

I’ve noticed a trend here lately, Have you noticed how may people are wearing bluetooth headsets. The other day my wife and I were at Disneyland and I must of seen ten guys wearing the headsets. It’s like it’s become the male version of jewelry. I just don’t get it. If you are at Disneyland with your kids, why are you wearing a headset? What phone call can be more important them spending time with our family?

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not antitechnology by any stretch of the imagination. I just follow a thought that a friend told me once. “Technology is like your underware. not the first thing you want people to see when they meet you.”