Spring? My Ass!

So today for no apparent reason we got about 4 inches of snow dumped on us and it's still coming down. What's up with that? Yesterday I was mowing the grass and now I can't even see it!

Cletus has a drinking problem...

Go Check this out

Today I stumbled across this cool site called tumblr.com that is basically another blogging tool. I think I'm going to use it for more of a photo blog than anything else. Go check out my page.

Why I live here

The last few days here in Seattle have been very clear and very cold. It has made for some amazing scenery on the way to and from work. I get the sunrise in the morning and the sunset at night. Throw in a full moon and you have plenty to stare at when you should be watching the road. Maybe that's why everyone drives like crap out here. I took this picture this morning as the moon was setting over the Olympic mountains.

Ah Buckeyes, ya kill me

I gotta admit, I'm starting to warm up to the Buckeyes. It's starting to be fun to watch them dominate during the season only to get their asses kicked in the Championships. Good times...

Puget Sound at night

long exposure right after sunset

Photos from Seahawks - Cardinals

Another new update of photos from the Seahawks and Cardinals game on December 9 at Qwest Field in Seattle. The Seahawks won 42-21 to capture their fourth straight NFC West Division championship.

Photos from Seahawks - Bengals

New update on Sports Shooter from yesterday's game against the Bengals.

New Photos on Sports Shooter

Here are some photos I posted on SportsShooter.com from the Ohio State - Washington Game on Saturday. Click Here

One week to go!!

This time next week I will be on the mountain doing what I have been training for the last several months for. There is definately some feeling of nervousness and anticipation. LAst week on the 12th, Mike and I went down to Mt. Rainier to train in the snow on the Muir snow field. It was the toughest thing physically and mentally I have ever done. It was a real wake-up call for what we will be doing next week. tick-tock-tick-tock...

Training on the Big Mountain

Next Tuesday, Mike and I will be taking a day trip to Mt. Rainier to do a training hike from Paradise lodge to Camp Muir. This is the same hike that will be the first day of our hike on the 27th. So this will be the real test to see where I am at physically and mentally for this climb. It will be the first hike that we do that is almost completely in snow. This will be a new challenge hiking in snow boots. I'll let you know how it goes! We have been keeping busy these last few weeks doing our normal training hikes. We are now doing all our training with full weight packs. It's amazing how much difference that makes.

This time, the mountain won

On Thursday, Mike and I did another Mt. Si climb. We got a later start since we were leaving from Shoreline instead of my office in Bellevue. This time I added alot more weight to my pack, it was 50+ pounds this time. Well, this turned out to be a bit much! About 2 miles in, I was really struggling and decided to dump out one of the bags of dirt that I was carrying up there and that helped out. For some reason this hike kicked both our asses. We finally got to the top right as the sun was setting (see photo). Which looked nice, but it also meant that we had to do most of the way down in complete darkness. It's actually a good thing because it gives me a change to get used to wearing the headlamps as we will be doing the morning we make the summit on Rainer. We are leaving base came at 1:00 AM, so the first few hours will be in total darkness.
I am kinda discouraged after this climb, It seems like these training hikes should start to be getting easier as we get closer to the climb date, but this felt like a setback. We are going to start trying to do multiple hikes during the weeks as our schedules allow. Hopefully this will help.

Training Continues

Well, we are just under 2 months until our Mt. Rainer climb and our training continues. Mike and I did our first climb up Mt Si on monday. It went pretty well. This was definately the toughest climb so far. We have been doing Poo-Poo Point and Tiger Mountain until now and they are both great hikes, but Mt. Si takes it up a level. This is the hike that most say is the most similar to the first day of the Rainer climb from Paradise lodge to Camp Muir.
Here is a photo from a few weeks back on one of our hikes up Tiger Mountain.
June 27th is coming quickly!

Mountain Man

I have told most of you this by now, but for those who don't know, I will be attempting to summit Mt. Rainier this summer. Mike Brown and I will be doing this on June 26-28 for the WhiskerCity "Kitty Climb" to raise money for the shelter. You can find out more info by clicking here. We have been training for about a month and are starting to crank it up a notch to be sure that we are in shape to take on the mountain. I am confident we will be ready. I'll post more details and updates as they come.

I just joined the website Sportshooter.com, a collection of sports photographers and photo journalists. Go check it out!

And in a Flash, it was over...

So I had the opportunity to shoot the Seahawks/Cowboys game on Saturday and it was an insane finish. What should have been a 19 yard chip-shot field goal to advance for the Cowboys turned into a fumbled snap that we will see on SportCenter for the next 10 years. But hey, it worked out well for the Seahawks! Also, I wanted to send out a big "CHOKE" to all the OSU Suckeye fans out there, you know who you are...

Wedding Website

Well, I got the wedding website up and running, there are still a few holes that need to be filled in but here it is www.davesizer.com/wedding

HOW Wrap-up

I know this is a few days after the fact, but I didn't have the chance to make a post on the last day. The conference ended with a bang with a seminar by Sally Hogshead. She was very funny and inspirational. She has a thought of "Aspire to be the dumbest person in the room" Meaning that if you are the smartest person in the room, you are not pushing yourself. Try being the dumbest person in the room getting as much knowledge from the others in the room. That's an interesting way of thinking.

I kept seeing these guys filming throughout the conference and wondered what they were doing. Check this link to see some of the short films by FRCH that were shot during the conference, pretty funny!

Overall, this was a great time and an awesome opportunity for me to be able to take part in. I am very thankful to my management for letting me take part in this. I will be able to feed off this for quite a while.

Day Three

Day three was a blur, there was so much going on and so much to soak in! Started off early with the Adobe team of experts that went over tip and tricks for Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, and After Effects. Good stuff, I learned a few Illustrator hidden tricks that will come in handy.

The first speaker talked about "Getting a Seat at the Table: Framing the value of Design" This basically talked about the importance of design on large and small corporations and some of the success stories that companies such as Target and Apple have placed a high importance on design and how it has paid off for them.

Then, I went on to a great presentation on Flash and Flash video and some of the new technology that is out there and how it can be used. Very cool! I will be interesting to see how that can be used at work.

Then there was a speaker that talked about "Making your Website (as a self-promotional tool) I didn't agree with some of the things this guy said. He is more in the Jacob Neilson school of thought that sites should be so stripped down to the bare minimums. This works for some types of sites, but it's not a blanket solution, some sites need the "Wow" factor. But he made some good points.

Next up was "Attack of the Two headed designer". This dealt with collaboration with another designer, could be right there in your office, could be across the country. This was good info, especially with the virtual office and enterprise-wide environment at Boeing. They touched on important topics of collaboration such as trust in each other, being honest with each other, being able to give and receive constructive criticism.

The seminars ended up with Kevin T. O'Collahan (google him and check out some of the projects he has worked on such as "Yugo Next" and the Pop culture carousel that he did for the History Channel) in "Ironic Chef" This was a Designer Game-show that was a take off of the show "Iron Chef. Pretty funny stuff. Four designers were picked to go on stage and compete with design problems against the clock. Then the audience picked the winner.

The day wrapped up with huge bash called "Vintage Vegas". There was a band, DJ and lots of food and it gave people a chance to mingle and NOT talk about design. The weirdest thing I saw there was a guy in the band dressed like Slash from Guns-N-Roses that was singing the Humpty Dance. Very bizarre! The band was cool though, they did mostly 80's and 90's dance stuff.
I'm beat, More tomorrow... The final day!

What's your story?

That was the question used at the keynote by Andy Stephanovich from "Play" who spoke about innovation and creativity as drivers for designers. If you really want to know about someone, ask them "What's your story?" You'll be amazed what the conversation will lead to. It was a very inspirational presentation that touched on the five "M's" of innovation: Mood, Mindset, Mechanism, Measurement, and Momentum. Another good point that he made was that you don't always need a 180 degree turnaround when creating, sometimes all you need is a 1 degree change to make a huge difference. He left us with these thoughts when creating, It's good to get scared, and be slightly disruptive!

Another highlight of the day was the highly entertaining presentation By Chris and Dave of 3 Dogz Creative Inc,. These dudes were from Toronto and they were a crack-up They ran thru the whole alphabet of design and creativity from "Eh" to "Zed". Very funny stuff and proved how keeping it light helps fuel creativity.

Got to meet a great couple from Nova Scotia, Brian and Amanda. Very cool to hang out with and get to know. We learned some important things about Vegas, such as, Buffets all close at 10PM and in some cases a limo ride is a better deal than a taxi :-). Tomorrow is a full day that starts at 7:30AM and runs thru 1:00AM. Lots to soak in. That's all for now...

Day One Wrap-up

Finally dove into the conference with the opening ceremony. We had a networking session where we got to meet some of the other 4000+ attendees. Then we had an opening keynote by Michael Moschen called "The Beauty of Risk". Michael is a professional juggler who has worked with Penn and Teller and has also does performance art. He was pretty amazing.

Finally the day wrapped up with an opening reception with a ton of vendors for paper, software, stock photos, etc. I, of course walked away with way too many give-aways that I need to figure out how to cram into my suitcase! That's all for today, more later...

Touchdown in Vegas!

Well, finally I have arrived in Vegas!. Just got registered and I am set to take it all in. Looks like three packed days of info to soak it. There is also an eBay conference going on in the same hotel, so there is no shortage of geeks floating around here. It's supposed to be a nice (dry) 100 degrees today. I'm going to try and check out the pool before my first session starts. More
later...

Test for Video

Doing a test for embeding videos from YouTube.com. Here is my crazy dog Eva doing her signature dance.

Heading to HOW Design Conference

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

Next Monday I will be attending the HOW Design Conference from June 12-15. It will be at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas. I will be attempting to keep a daily log of the activities from the event. It should be a great time. Check back next week for more!!

Brenda in Louisiana!

For those of you that don't already know, Brenda and another volunteer Kristin are down in New Orleans right in the heart of it all on a animal rescue mission. Take a look at her blog to track her trip. There are some good photos showing what she is working in. I am very proud of her going down there and making this happen.

BT in Seattle!

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

BT made a visit to Seattle on Friday and put on a kick-ass show. Local DJ Eva started the evening off and did an awesome set for about 3 hours then around midnight BT came on and performed a laptop symphony until around 3AM. I was able to get this shot afterwards as he hung around and was talking to people and signing stuff. He was really cool. Great show, I'll definately see him again next time he comes to town

Crystal Method Show

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

This is a cool shot of a recent Crystal Method show at Element here in Seattle. They draw in some pretty good show there. We also saw Paul Van Dyk and my friend Brian and I are going to see BT there on Friday.

Great Show!

Last night I saw a great show down at the Showbox here in Seattle. It was The Dan Band. They guys were hilarious. If you do don't know who these guys are, they were the wedding band in the movie Old School. They were singing at Will Ferrell's wedding and they did a great version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". if you get a chance to see these guys in concert, DO IT!

Photo test

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

No Star Motel

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

Sunset in Seattle

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

This spot is just down the street from our house and seeing the sun go down over the Olympics never gets old.

Middle of nowhere

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Originally uploaded by aphid00.

test from Flickr

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Vegas!

Here are some photos of me and Brian relaxing in Vegas
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aphid00/