Anyway, in the meantime, I had the privilege last Saturday of going down to Old Sac to meet up with a former student (he’s attending a different school for his senior year) to take his senior pictures. I think we spent most of the time making fun of each other, but all in all, it went pretty well. I’m not done with the post-processing yet, but I wanted to toss up a couple that I liked from towards the end of the shoot.

I had so much fun with the light — I couldn’t have asked for better portrait-taking conditions. :-)

I have a bad habit of flipping off inanimate objects when I’m irritated with them. And since I’m weird and like to chronicle random moments, I’m slowly accruing a small gallery of pictures of me flipping things off.

This prompted a friend today to tease me about it, asking me if I was going to flip him off over a joking remark he made. I happened to be at my desk at the time, waiting for a student who ultimately didn’t show up for her appointment… and since I didn’t feel like working on the mound of paperwork I have to do, I opted to do this instead.

This is a quick and dirty Microsoft Word version of the Homeland Security threat level chart. I would have much preferred Adobe Illustrator, but beggars can’t be choosers… and besides, I would have spent way too much time in Illustrator tweaking things, and I did have to do paperwork at some point.

Anyway, so in case you wondered what it takes for me to flip something off, wonder no further. :-)

(And for those who wondered, his remark only earned a threat level of green, or “Stony Silence.” Sorry Josh – you’ll have to try harder next time.) :-D

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Cool pictures of mundane things: oil drops on the parking lot at my bank, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.

I stopped at the bank today and saw this and had to stop in the middle of the parking lot to take the picture. I think the people walking by thought I was a bit odd… Oh well–it was cool!! And since when do I care about people thinking I’m strange? Seriously now. :-)

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Leaves: A hundred thousand reasons why I love fall. :-), originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.

I snapped this picture of a tree outside of my work this morning with my cameraphone. I wanted to just stand there and stare at the tree, to watch the morning light play over it.

Instead, I had to content myself with a couple of pictures and a handful of glowing leaves.

I love autumn.

Senior day pics013 (Custom), originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.

I took this picture last May at our senior breakfast… OK, so I’m just now getting around to getting them uploaded. My cop-out excuse is that Flickr is blocked at our school. :-) Anyway, I’m not especially thrilled with how any of the student shots came out from the senior breakfast, but I did like the food shots. And now I want strawberries, darn it.

More pictures are here at my gallery for work pictures. :-)

Look--it has a heart! I didn't even notice this until I got the picture onto my computer. So cool.

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I like the angle on this one.

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One more picture.

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Anyway, one of the bigger employers there is SureWest, a telecommunications company. They have what is without a doubt the most interesting-looking building on base (which is how everyone refers to McClellan Park, even though it’s technically not a base anymore.) I somehow don’t think it looked like this when it was still an active air base.

Front of the SureWest building in McClellan Park. The windows are coated with some colorful reflective coating--it's so so neat!

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Oooh, shiny

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Tree reflections

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Anyway, I finally got around to bringing my camera with me and going to take pictures of the planes, just because I find most modes of transportation quite fascinating (hence my minor obsession with trains that a few people have commented on.)

I spent a long time trying to figure out how to crop this one, and then gave up. You’re just going to have to settle for the panoramic shot. Horrible, I know. Sorry about how weird it makes the page’s formatting–you’ll just have to click on it to go to Flickr and see the whole thing.

CalFire planes on the tarmac at McClellan Field.

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[Hums] “One of these things is not like the other; one of these things doesn’t belong…”

Hangars at McClellan Airfield.

Random 001, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.

I know those of you who live in climates where it snows in the winter are probably laughing at me right about now, but keep in mind that I’m a native Southern Californian, so driving to work and seeing snow-covered mountains (even if they are a 75-mile drive from here) is still amazing and awesome to me. I love it. :-)

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Sun through the window at work

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Last night’s trivia round was “moderately hard”, according to the Trivia Master, but the questions led one team to name themselves “Moderately Hard, My Ass”. The questions killed us, and as a result we did uncharacteristically poorly (not helped by the fact that I second-guessed myself on two questions and so we missed them both!) So as a consolation, we decided to stick around and play darts. As a side note, if anyone knows someone in Sacramento who has a strong sports knowledge, we’ll buy ‘em beer if they want to be on our trivia team. We have a major hole in the sports knowledge department… Guess that’s what happens when you get a bunch of geeks together.

My trivia team: "Drinkers With a Trivia Problem"

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Yesterday I went skiing again (I have two more free passes left, and then a coworker is going to give me one for taking senior pictures of her son, so I’m pretty set for what’s left of winter.) It was kind of a lousy skiing day, all things considered – the time change (ok, and a late Friday/Saturday night) left me groggy, I got on the road late, got to the cheap rental place late and they were out of my size skis and poles, I ended up standing in a long line to rent poles at the slope because the ones I had just weren’t going to work, it was a lot colder than I thought it was going to be, and to top it all off, then I decided I’d try something different, and after I got stuck and had to take my skis off to walk out, I ended up getting stuck almost waist-deep in the snow. Bad bad move. However, at least I got to be outside on a very lovely (albeit cold!) day, and I got a change of scenery.

In Spanish, "Sierra Nevada" means "snowy saw". Quite apt, eh?

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