Sunday Brunch Road Trip

Rocky Knob on the ParkwaySo a few months ago I managed to catch up with my old friend Sean. And we'd talked about catching up while he and his family were visiting his parents in Virginia. Seems like as good an excuse as any for a road trip. Destination, Chateau Morissette for the world's latest brunch.* The ride up was fun, with a scenic detour to check out Floyd, Virginia. Yes. There is a Floyd, Virginia. And they look to have quick the homegrown music scene starting to pick up there. In the course of the few minutes sitting in front of the Floyd Country Store to have a cup of coffee and borrow a WiFi connection to reroute us to the restaurant, I think we saw at least four people walking around toting guitar cases.

So, Yes. Either a burgeoning music scene or the little reported on fourth installment of the El Mariachi films. Since absolutely no one we saw looked at all like Antonio Banderas or Salma Hayek I think the safe bet is music scene.

Curiously enough, the Google took us on a beautiful, scenic gravel road to get from Floyd to Chateau Morissette. Washboard roads and SA Konis make for an entertaining drive. After brunch we did the wine tasting—which was nice if a bit rushed since we were one of the last groups to get into it.

We said our good-byes and then hit the road with a small detour to Rocky Knob and decided that we need to consider more trips to the Parkway this summer, if for no other reason than to enjoy the scenary and escape the heat.

*I have to confess, the world's latest brunch was pretty much our fault, I needed to figure out if I could ditch on a local autocross so Laura and I committed pretty late to actually making the trip.

Rogers Alley

Sometime last week, I got a call from Steve at Greenfire Development, asking if I could shoehorn in a quick shoot of the residential units at the almost, actually, really close, to finished Rogers Alley complex. I managed to get over there for a couple of hours Friday morning before another meeting. Here's a sample. I'll have to edit the rest of the set and deliver the finished files to them this week. I have to say that the spaces really do kick ass. Great use of space with lots of nice natural light.

Lebanon: Day 1

Beirut from AboveIMG_3250.jpgI'm crushed with a bunch of work right now, so editing is going slow. But I figured I'd recap a bit and post a couple of quick pictures out from the first full day in Lebanon. Which, was spent in and around Beirut, Jeita and ended with dinner in Broummana. We had a driver for the day, which was a nice luxury given the traffic in town. Okay. Need to get back into some design work now.

Last Night in Beirut

We're heading out of Beirut today. Spent yesterday around Beirut, Jeita and in the mountains to the West. Weather is fantastic. Food has been better than the weather. About to check out, so Internet availability will be spotty at best.

Attached is a view from our room at Le Meridean.

A Week Out of a Carry-On

Bag for a WeekManaged to get packed for Lebanon and only used a carry-on and a Lowepro camera bag. No checking, and associated lost bag delays, for this trip. I almost went really lightweight: ten rolls of Tmax and the M6 but i've just been way too happy with the full frame images I've been getting from the 5D.

Flying without a laptop will be a bit odd. But a good chance to see how hard I can lean on the iPhone. The downside is that I've eliminated any options for uploading pictures while on location.

So that means any images will be from the iPhone for the next week.

Not sure how much access I'll have once I'm there. But I'll post when I can.

last round of 30s

So I had a birthday this weekend. Fairly low-key event. Had dinner with some friends Friday night, worked on a video project, had dinner again on Saturday (we planned on going to The Pit, but they were closed for a private party, but we were lucky enough to get reservations at 18 Seaboard. 18 Seaboard is a pretty solid choice. What I’d call a good jack of all. But I still haven’t been to the The Pit I’ll have to figure out another reason to go. We went for a night cap to Big Boss for a few rounds of Bad Penny.

20081207-ncmapark-6-1And then Sunday. Got out early and Laura and I took the pooch to the NCMA’s Museum Park (which I always want to call the Art Park) where I took a few pictures.

Then a surprise round of karting with a few friends. Then a rush back to dinner with my parents. All in all and nice, weekend.

I have to say that as soon as I get the Sky2x site up. I’m revisiting this site. iWeb has it’s disadvantages and while the integration with Aperture is nice. The fact that you can really only publish from one file (which you can move from one computer to another) is a bit of a drag. It’s a little crazy to have to remember to copy over the iWeb file to your laptop. Or to be unable to post from

So I’ll be using some of Aperture’s publishing features coupled with a WordPress install starting early next year hopefully.