blog :: gobrett

My Take On The Tea Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:44:00 +0000

So Thursday night Kyle and I are sitting in the front room of the house with the TV on... it's windy outside. Really windy outside! Our fire alarms do a little sound off... which isn't too big of a surprise. Kyle and I look at each other and just shake our heads. The wind always seems to get our fire alarms to go off... so we don't think too much of it.

The phone rings... it's my buddy and former roommate, Alex. He's calling to chat and find out what's going on with me. We start to chat and I get up to walk around... which is pretty typical. Five minutes into the conversation I'm in the office when all of the sudden someone is wildly banging on the front door. I walk over to the door thinking... what in the world could be so urgent that this person needs to bang so wildly on the door?!?! After opening it... I'm met with some words that will make anybody's gut immediatly twist.

"Fire! Fire! There's a fire really close. Come outside I can show you."

I follow this wonderful woman who has taken the time to help save my life... out to my driveway. I look back behind my house up onto the side of the mountain. Roughly a half-mile to a mile further up the mountain is a wall of flames... looking very similar to this picture actually taken of the Tea Fire. The woman is already gone back to her car and on to find the next house that doesn't already have activity going on outside... Alex has overheard the conversation... says his goodbye and hangs up realizing the severity of the moment. Within seconds my brain makes the connection... it's super windy... the fire is on top of us... we've got 10 minutes to grab what's most important... and the rest will burn. These will be my last few rushed minutes in this house.

Kyle and I don't really panic... but we both know we have to work quickly. Dashing back inside I quickly prop open the inside door to the garage... open the outside garage door... unlock the truck and open all the doors. Quickly back inside... right to the computer. Unplug all the cables and leave them on the ground. Kyle grabs the other PC with his hard drive in it. Computers are in the truck. Another quick trip for 5 external hard drives... minus any cables. Another couple trips for photo albums and loose pictures in shoe boxes. Another trip for the laptop and briefcase. Filing cabinet open... passport... financial info.. tax info... into the truck.

Five minutes have passed since we laid our eyes on the fire baring down on us... the sun is down and the light outside is waning. Omedi comes home and dashes into his room to start filling his car with stuff. I tell Kyle to just start grabbing clothes and filling up whatever space is left in the truck. We both make a couple trips with clothes. Then we both turn our attention to helping Omedi with his stuff. On a trip to his car, Omedi drops and almost tragically steps on his glasses in the shrubs in front of the house. Luckily the glare from the front porch light gives them away to me within seconds and we side step what could have been a huge problem.

Within 10 minutes Kyle and I are in the truck... and pulling away. Kyle's car is in the shop so he is with me. Omedi is in his own car leaving ahead of us. Pulling out of the driveway I immediately begin to pray for our neighborhood... our house... the people... the 1200 students on the Westmont campus right next to us. I stop praying for a brief moment as driving away we are met with a clear view again of the huge flames headed at us. Kyle and I are both certain that our house will not be there after tonight.

Kyle and I are fortunate to have a couple different places to evacuate to... Kirsten has a spare bedroom open at her house in and Jen and Garth open there house up to us as well. We both are glued to the news all night... watching the footage of different houses burn... hoping to catch a glimpse of our neighborhood. If my house is going to burn... I want to at least know for sure... and to actually watch it burn.

Firefighters are quick to respond on this night... but they are fighting a losing battle. Winds are intense and the fire does what it wants. In fact... the wind makes the fire do crazy things. It jumps wildly around the hills of Montecito. Hot embers fly through the air... starting fires in the completely random places. One house burns while the two on both sides of it remain standing.

I get to bed around 2 AM tonight and am up at 4:45 AM checking different websites for the most recent information. The Westmont website gives me some of the best details... 14 houses in my neighborhood have been confirmed as destroyed. This hits me with mixed feelings... I had assumed the worst... but now hope was climbing back in. Which 14? Is the neighborhood still at risk? Will more burn? The sun starts to come up and I need to get in front of a TV again.

No footage of our neighborhood... but over 100 houses are confirmed as destroyed... a 98 year old gentleman from my neighborhood is the only fatality from the fire... but it's not confirmed that the fire is really the cause. Omedi had taken off to his girlfriend's house and his phone goes right to voicemail... I don't know what he knows or doesn't know. I try to get ahold of other people in my neighborhood. I finally connect with Eileen...

Her phone is dying and she can barely understand me. She had most likely sheltered in place at Westmont with all of the students and other people who had been caught on campus. She is my neighbor from two houses away and had been able to walk over to the neighborhood this morning before being forced to evacuate like the rest of us. As I scream my name into the phone so she can hear me and understand who it is she's talking to... she tells me that she is standing in front of what used to be her house. My heart sinks for her... but I have to know... can you see my house?

Yes... your house is still standing.

And quickly she gets off the phone to save battery. A warm rush comes over my body... and again... mixed feelings. My neighborhood has been devastated... but for some reason my house has seemed to make it through. A feeling of relief and sadness at the same time... and still... uncertainty.

As I write this it is Saturday night... two nights later. Evacuation warnings have been lifted in certain places... but my house remains deep in the area burned by the fire... I am still not allowed back. Firefighters will have to assess the neighborhood I live in... yellow cards to deem the house unlivable but safe for retrieving belongings... green cards to deem the house livable. The most recent information says that this may take several more days.

Here is an image of my neighborhood that someone found on a BBC website of all places. My house is highlighted by the blue arrow and a red arrow for each of the houses destroyed. My next door neighbor has lost their house! How does something like this happen?!? Fire and wind are such crazy things!

Magic Mountain

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:30:00 +0000

I don't really know the full story on how Bethany scored tickets to Magic Mountain... but I do know that Kyle and I were the beneficiaries of those tickets this last Sunday. It had been awhile since the last time I was at Magic Mountain and I can't remember ever being there on such a brisk day. It was actually pretty nice in Santa Clarita for the most part. Check out the flag in the picture above... there was definitely a nice "breeze" at the top of all the rides.

This was Kyle's first time to Magic Mountain in the last nine years... so we obliged him when he wanted to take pictures with all the characters walking around. Doesn't he look so proud! Ahhh... so special.

The lines weren't too bad through most of the day so we were able to hit all the newest rides. X2 and Déjà Vu were probably the highlights... at least that's where we got the most genuine mid-sentence screams out of Bethany.

By the end of it all... my head was feeling pretty dizzy. I probably could have made myself puke after we got off the last ride... but I couldn't let Kyle and Bethany have the pleasure of holding that one against me. After we took off and got some water and hot chocolate at the nearby Starbucks... we figured out that we hadn't eaten much and hadn't had any water all day either. After getting some water and food I think we all felt a little bit better.

It was a great day! It always is when you're with friends and you're at Magic Mountain.

P.S. I'm awfully hairy right now. I thought I might keep it around for a couple more weeks just to give it an honest chance... but I don't know how much longer I can keep this stuff on my face.

Happy Birthday Annemarie!

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:41:00 +0000

My heart is in Austin today... as Annemarie celebrates her birthday! I'm headed out there in a couple of weeks, so a flight to Austin for the weekend... although extremely tempting... seemed a little bit overboard. I did look into it though.

So I am forced to sing to her over a cell phone... which I did with my most best-er-est singing voice at the stroke of midnight. I think she rather enjoyed it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNEMARIE!
WOOT! WOOT!
I snapped this while I was in Austin the last time... ain't she a looker!!!

I Voted

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:05:00 +0000

My neighborhood always gets mail-in ballots because of the low number of residents in a large area... so I actually voted over the weekend. But I wanted to make sure that my vote actually made it in on time to be counted... so I walked my ballot into a poll today.

And I also wanted to get my sticker too! :o)

Scrolling Bliss

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:11:00 +0000

So a week or so ago... my Mighty Mouse scroll wheel decided to stop working. I tried all the tricks of cleaning the scroll ball and nothing seemed to work. So I was forced to swap it out for an old Dell mouse... uggghhh. I quickly realized how much I scroll left and right inside of Mac OS X... and how lame this old mouse was.

A new mouse was going to cost $50... but what I really want is a new Mac Pro! I figured I'd get a new mouse if I bought a whole new computer... right?!?!? My old G5 is just that... 3 years old! That's like 90 in computer years! And it doesn't have an Intel processor... which would allow me to run both Windows and OS X... which I could actually use at this point for testing of Showit Sites.

So I actually had my sandals on to head down to the Mac store and buy myself a new computer (which I definitely can't afford)... when I figured I'd perform some surgery on my Might Mouse. Heck... it was useless anyhow. I had been hesitant before because you actually have to break the darn thing to get into it. They actually glue it together as the last step in manufacturing... stupid.

But alas... after a minor surgery and a little TLC... I saved myself $3000 by giving it one last go. And now I'm back to all of my left-to-right scrolling bliss!

My California Quake

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:06:00 +0000

So... this will probably not make the news or anything... but Santa Barbara just had a little earthquake all to itself!! As you can see... the center of the earthquake was right out my back door! That line is only about 2 miles as the bird flies!

I was actually awake working when it hit... and wasn't quite sure what it was. I actually got up from my desk and went outside to see if anything was swaying or if animals were making any noises... but there was nothing. I then proceeded to my favorite USGS site to check out how much California is shakin'... and again found nothing.

So off to sleep I went... to catch myself a little three hour nap before a conference call I had this morning... not really thinking too much about it. When I woke up... there was an email from DJ asking me how much I had swayed around. A return trip to the USGS site revealed this:

So I hadn't been crazy... there actually was a little earthquake... and it was right out my back door!

Counting...

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:32:00 +0000

In keeping with my recent number crunching... I've been doing a lot more of it in the last two days. And I'm still counting minutes... that hasn't changed either.

Annemarie is coming out to California and I'm so excited!! She was out here briefly in March but I didn't get a chance to introduce her to anyone... that'll change this time! She's out on the west coast for just over two weeks and we've got a bunch of stuff planned for that time... again... I'm so excited!

I made a very bad mistake though. :o(

I was somewhat teasing around with her on Monday and said that we shouldn't talk again until she arrives at baggage claim out here on Thursday. You know... to just build up the anticipation and excitement. I was half joking around... thinking there was no way she could ever do that... but I think I may have underestimated her will power!

So now... here I sit... in silence... watching and counting the hours and minutes go by. Let me share with you...

Time that will have elapsed since I last saw Annemarie: 24 days, 3 hours, 10 minutes

Time from this post until I see her again: 21 hours, 57 mins, 39 seconds

The anticipation is killing me!

Is That A Lot?

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:12:00 +0000

Let's see here....

407 + 1733 + 2531...

That's 4671.

4671 / 60...

That's 77.85.

Is that alot?

Never in my wildest imagination would I have ever thought my phone usage would look like this. My throat hurts just thinking about this...

I need some water.

The Reason

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:57:00 +0000

So it's definitely been awhile since I've posted. I always get behind the ball... meaning to catch up... not wanting to post new stuff and then post stuff before it that no one will ever see. However... I just can't hold back on this one.

One of the big reasons I haven't gotten around to posting... is that most of my free time and probably too much of my work time lately has been spent getting to know one of the most fabulous people I have ever met! And that would be this beautiful woman you're looking at... Annemarie. I'll save all the wonderful stories for these other blog posts that I intend to get around to... but back to the reason for these pictures and this post.

Recently our dear friend and photographer Shyla had Annemarie out to the east coast to help her shoot a wedding in Martha's Vineyard. They had a wonderful weekend together... and ended up grabbing some amazing shots (check them out) of Annemarie one of the days. I, of course, loved them! Thank you Shyla, you're fabulous!! I also immediately wanted to reciprocate.

After getting a sneak peek of these pics on my iPhone, I immediately turned to my buddy DJ (who happens to be a legit photographer) while we were standing around after church. I asked him if he wanted to take some shots of me real quick... super low key... but just something. It only took him a split second to throw out the fact that our good friend and super star photographer Jasmine was coming into town this week and she'd be awesome at something like that.

So Jasmine and I traded emails back and forth a little bit... and she was sweet enough to go out with me for a couple hours this week and grab some shots. Jasmine and I have known each other for the past couple of years... but really got to know each other through living on a tour bus together this summer. We had some great conversations as the wheels on the bus went round and round. She's so much fun and has such a wonderful heart! Oh yeah... and she's got some serious skills too! I mean... she made someone like me look half way decent in some photos. :o)

You can see more of 'em here.

Thank you Jasmine for helping me reciprocate!!! You are wonderful!

Round And Round...

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:34:00 +0000

I actually grabbed this video when I was home to see the family in March... and thought it was pretty funny at the time. I ended up losing track of it on my camera and just got back around to making it a little bit easier to watch for all you guys out there.

Of course it's edited... and because it's sped up... the audio doesn't line up exactly... but this video came together really easily. The timing on all the edits just seemed to work out to make it a really, really funny video for me. After I finished editing it... I found myself laughing out loud.

Ahh... the joys of a toddler who can make anything fun!!! Completely unprompted and totally adorable to her uncle. Check it out and let me know if you got a kick out of it...

Fun With Static

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:39:00 +0000

When my sister was out to visit me in Santa Barbara last month she had the "privilege" of sleeping in my wonderful bed... while I was out on the futon.

The first night as we were putting clean sheets onto it... I was telling her about how much static the blanket I have can carry. Literally as I was telling her this the static was creating visual sparks in the dark room. She told me she had the same kind of blanket at home and that her's was just as bad.

Not too long after they got back to Vegas I got an email from my sister with a couple pictures and a video attached.

I think they speak for themselves... :o)

Love this girl!!

Backup!

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:54:00 +0000

When it comes to your digital life... do you know how at risk you are of losing it? Most of you who are reading this have probably heard this kind of thing before... but the real question I'm interested in... how many of you actually backup your digital life? When your computer decides to hiccup, cough, or just plain die on you... will all of your memories go with it? (Looking with eyes wide open at my family members here.)

If you don't already back things up... you probably fit into one of a couple different categories:

1. You have a blind faith in your computer's hard drive... thinking it will always turn on and start right up for you.

2. You feel overwhelmed by the idea of backups because you don't really understand how to go about doing it.

3. You know you should... you know how to... you just enjoy the thrill of living at risk!

I'm interested to know what most of you guys think and do about this. A few weeks back I had an incident where an iTunes file on my system got corrupted. It represented many hours of work... and would have been a bummer to lose. Fortunately I was able to use a week old backup and was up and running again within minutes. A simple example... but really got me thinking about the whole idea.

Personally I've been using a program that came with my .Mac membership called Backup. I've got a pretty decent knowledge of where all my personal files exist so it gives me the freedom to backup what I want to... when I want to... how I want to. But this is by no means the only or best way. There are things like Time Machine for Macs... or even online stuff like Mozy. Even photo sites like Flickr can serve as a backup.

Are you backing up? Are you not convinced it's worth spending a little money to do? Do you fit in category 2 and just need some pointers?

A Trip To The Zoo

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:49:00 +0000

Over the last year... it's worked out that I've made most of the trips to see my family. They last came out to visit me in Santa Barbara back in April... but not since then. So I've started to give them some grief about how they never come visit me... especially since I start getting anxious every couple months that I don't get to see my niece.

The last time I had seen my niece was Christmas... so I was able to convince my sister that she should come out to see me this month. The weather in Santa Barbara this week was wonderful... and I think they had a nice relaxing time out here. We got a chance to take Loralyn to the zoo here in town and I grabbed this video on the way there... pretty cute.

Angels & Airwaves

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:20:00 +0000

It was a few months back that my best buddy Dave was over at my place checking out the website for Angels & Airwaves. He had told me about them long before that... but I hadn't really paid much attention. However... that night he was playing some music videos from their most recent album and the music caught my attention. I love finding new music and these guys were right up my alley.
A&A came through SoCal this week and we had the chance to catch them in Ventura. Dave, Dayna, Carly, and I met up for some dinner before the show at Cafe Fiore just down the street from the theater where the show was at. The atmosphere was great and so was the food. We probably left the table too soon because we had to sit through a little bit too much of the warm up bands... who weren't anything special.

When A&A came out... I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Tom DeLonge. He's definitely changed his music around since his days with Blink-182... but I wasn't quite sure about Tom himself. Needless to say... Tom and I probably still wouldn't see eye to eye on much... but I can still appreciate his music! :o) These guys put on a pretty good show and the music was awesome... standing 10 feet from the speakers definitely let me have a pretty good listen to it!

Here's a peak of the video I grabbed with my Canon 850 point and shoot.

It was fun to open up Final Cut Pro again. I hadn't messed around with it in a little while. I stole some tricks from my new buddy Paul Rogers... who's got a bag full of them! Thanks for the new ideas Paul!

AP & LG IN SB

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 04:34:00 +0000

I've always claimed that Santa Barbara is one of the best places I've ever been... and this weekend I got the chance to show it off to some friends from Texas.

Annemarie (AP) and Lora (LG) came on over to SoCal for a surprise birthday party on Saturday night... but had Friday night and all day Saturday to see a little bit of the west coast. AP had never been to Santa Barbara and Lora had only passed through awhile back... so they decided they wanted to see what all the fuss was about. :o) So I got the chance to play chauffeur and also do something I'd never done before in SB...

We started out at the UCSB campus and walked around a little bit before heading over to the mission. After a quick stop there we headed up onto the riviera to DJ's place and a good look at Santa Barbara from his balcony. Back on down the hill... we stopped downtown and went up into the tower of the SB County building. Although it's a beautiful building... I guess I never really paid attention to it with much detail... because I never knew you could go up there. So that was a first for me. We did some other typical SB stuff... like walking up and down State Street... getting a Blenders... walking out on the pier... grabbing some food at Longboards... and having dessert at the Biltmore. The sun was out (maybe too much) and the weather was wonderful... making it a pretty sweet day! And I've got to give credit to AP for all but one of the pics in this post... she's a photo journalist at heart... and captured the day wonderfully!

On the way back down to drop AP and LG off for the surprise party they were out here for, we took out my computer to look at some of the software I'm working on. AP, who doesn't own a Mac, found Photo Booth for the first time and snapped some pictures of her and LG in my truck. I've got a couple pretty "sweet" pictures of the two of them now... so I'll only post the least horrible of them! :) But in all fairness I'll post a "sweet" picture of myself as well in the back of their rental car!. Thanks for making my weekend so much fun you two! Looking forward to the next time we get to hang out!

Good Ol' Whiffle Ball

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 05:53:00 +0000

Ahhhh.... I can vividly remember the summer days growing up. I lived in the typical middle class neighborhood... and as such... we had a half dozen or so guys that all hung out at each other's houses. We'd cruise around the neighborhood on our bikes... play football in the middle of the street from light pole to light pole... basketball in each other's driveways... take turns swimming at each other's houses... play Tecmo Bowl and MikeTyson's Punch Out on the Nintendo. It was great!!

However, the thing you'd find us doing the most... was playing whiffle ball! My buddy Brian's house was our favorite spot to play because his house was the perfect distance from the opposite side of the street he lived on. You'd hit and pitch across the width of the street... and if you really got ahold of one... you could clear the top of the roof. Ahhhh... the good ol' days.

In an effort to never really grow up... my best bud Dave and I recently got out and played some whiffle ball. It was a boys only weekend... so of course, we overslept, played some video games, and listened to loud music. But the whiffle ball was definitely the highlight!

Check out the video below. I thought it was amusing... but I was there... which always makes things more amusing.

And to wrap up the day of whiffle ball... we took a trip to 7-Eleven where I kept up the nostalgia and bought myself a very typical post whiffle ball snack!

The Best Place On Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:41:00 +0000

I consider Santa Barbara to be one of the best places I've ever been to... and I feel very fortunate to call it my home town. I find myself saying it to myself all the time... "Self... can you believe how incredible the place where you live is?!?" Then a day like today rolls along and I'm just floored all over again. Today Santa Barbara was THE best place on earth!

If you don't live here... I'm sorry.

If you do live here and didn't get outside today... I'm sorry.

And now I'm off to go play some tennis and enjoy dusk... my favorite time of day!

Oh Charlie... You're Too Funny

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 19:33:00 +0000

At the risk of repeating everything that my friends are posting... I just had to put this up on my blog for everyone who isn't part of the SB crew! It's provided me with some gut wrenching laughter in the last few days... literally laying on the floor in pain from laughter. Check out the video below... or you can join one of the 8 million who have enjoyed it on YouTube here.

Ahhhhh... that was great! My favorite part is when he gets to the point of screaming "Oooowwwwww!" at the top of his lungs! I can't NOT laugh!

10,000

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 07:43:00 +0000

There are certain context where we are used to using the number 10,000.

Our car might costs us $10,000...

we might drive 10,000 miles...

Minnesota might have 10,000 lakes...

scientists may research 10,000 BC...

you can watch $10,000 Pyramid.

Now if I were to tell you that I ran 10,000 meters... you probably wouldn't think twice about it. 10,000 meters and running fit together pretty well. However, if I were to tell you that I ran 10,000 MILES... you'd probably laugh and tell me I had misspoken.

Well... as hard as it is for me to fathom... my good friend Bethany (who is a blazing cross country and distance track runner out at UCSB) just logged her 10,000th collegiate mile this last week!!! Amazing! I'll probably go my entire life without even sniffing this number... so I can't even imagine how much work and discipline this has taken.

Bethany has kept a log through college and a few weeks ago she casually told us she was approaching this milestone. We were all so impressed that we told her we'd throw a party for her and that she should run her 10,000th mile to kick it off. We made a make-shift finish line out of paper towels and celebrated with her as she crossed. It was great!

Congrats B! I'm super impressed!

Wharrrrrrfff!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 22:19:00 +0000

My good friend, Marisa, wrote me on Facebook about a week ago to tell me that she was going to be in Santa Barbara this week. Although she didn't tell me that she was only going to be here for about 18 hours... and had plans for most of those hours! She could however squeeze me in on a morning run. Now I'm not exactly in the "distance running mode" these days... as I am trying to actually gain weight... but being the great friend that I am... I agreed. :o)

I've always wondered why it is that people throw up after they've run really hard. It's never happened to me in all my years of competitive sports... and I've had to run quite a bit. Running to stay in shape... running to be disciplined by coaches... running to make time cut-offs... but never running to the point of throwing up. Well... I found the magic recipe that works for me... very little sleep... very little food... not running further than a half of a mile in over two months... and then trying to keep up with someone who is in much better shape for three miles. :o)

Actually... I didn't throw up... but I could have. It was the first time I'd ever actually had the feeling that I could... and I was actually kind of excited about it. I'd never known what the deal was with everybody who did it and wanted to know what it was all about. At Marisa's request... I kept it in. Sadly... I don't think she even broke a sweat!

Airplane Sunsets

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:06:00 +0000

Earlier this fall, I took a flight from Santa Barbara on my way to Chicago which had me flying out of SB around dusk. Like usual... the plane here in SB took off headed directly west and then took a long slow left turn to head south towards LAX. I was fortunate to be sitting on the right side of the plane because I got to see something that you just don't get to see every day.

For as far as I could see out of my all-too-tiny airplane window... there wasn't a cloud in sight. The Pacific Ocean and sky met in the longest, straightest horizon one could imagine. And this straight edge between water and sky was so distinct because it was highlighted in these amazing streams of rich red light. The sun had just dipped below the edge of the earth but the horizon still shined with the deepest reds, oranges, and yellows. Very tough to describe, but breathtaking to say the least.

Now I've seen my fair share of sunsets here on the west coast... looking out over the ocean where it's flat as far as you can see. But there was something very distinct about being 10,000 feet up in the air and looking down at the horizon. It was almost like I could see more than the normal 180 degrees of horizon. The sunset was stretched out so much further than anything I was used to seeing. It was phenomenal!

I tried to grab a picture of it... but by the time I had picked my jaw up off the seat and wiped all my drool off the window... I couldn't get anything decent with my phone's camera. Bummer.

However... on my flight home from Christmas in Sacramento... I was fortunate enough to find myself in a similar situation. Flying south... sitting on the right side of the plane... and taking off around dusk. This time I had a little bit more time to grab some panoramic shots from about 25,000 feet up. The colors are amazing... and the horizon just goes on forever! They need to make planes with bigger windows! There's a slight tear in the image where the different pictures didn't line up... but you get the idea. Click on the image to see it bigger.

A New Trick...

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 07:35:00 +0000

Before I took off for Sacramento to meet up with the family for Christmas, my friend Chandi told me I should teach my niece a new trick. Now I'm not sure if this really counts as a trick... but I got a kick out of it... and my niece loved it.

There was actually much more than this. A lot of dragging on the nice heated tiles in the kitchen of my aunt and uncle's house... and then of course the spinning. I don't think my mother approved, but my brother-in-law was the one taking the video! :o)

Tahoe

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:00:00 +0000

It was quite perfect timing for it to snow a little bit in the Tahoe area right before Christmas. It was quite perfect because my cousin and I had made plans to go boarding while we were up in Sacramento with the rest of the family... and a little bit of fresh snow is always a good thing when there isn't much to begin with.

We didn't actually get that much sleep the night before... so when we got back to the car for lunch... we both took 15 minute naps! I didn't think I was going to get back out for the second half of the day... but 15 minutes was the perfect amount of sleep. The second half ended up being the better half of the day... and we even got a nice little sunset towards the end. A nice first day of boarding for the season... can't wait to get back to the mountains for more!

I think I need new snow gear... simply for the pictures! Pictures from the last 4 years are all identical!

Wicked

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:04:00 +0000

So my mom and sister made a trip out to New York back in October. Partly to see one of my cousins... and partly because neither of them had ever been there to sight see before. They got the chance to see a couple different shows while they were there... but they really ranted and raved over Wicked. So when I was home to visit over Thanksgiving I flipped through the program from the show... and I knew I had to see it. So I just went for it... I asked my friend Chandi to go with me... bought the tickets a week in advance... and we saw it at Pantages in Hollywood.

INCREDIBLE! Absolutely awesome!

If you're here on the west coast... it's only playing through the end of this spring... so make sure you get down to Hollywood and see it! You won't regret spending the money.

I'm A Wedding Photographer... Kinda...

noreply@blogger.com (Brett Bollman) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:05:00 +0000

So what does it take to "officially" be a wedding photographer? If owning your own digital SLR and lenses is a requirement... then I'm definitely not one. However... if borrowing the equipment from your good buddy and then shooting your friends' wedding counts... then maybe I am a part of the club! :o)

Earlier this fall, my good friend Jen asked me if I'd be willing to shoot her wedding for her in December... which threw me off a little bit.

"I'm not a professional photographer... but if you're okay with that... then sure!" I sez.

"Great!" She sez.

And just like that I had my first job as a wedding photographer. It wouldn't be until a week before the wedding that I would really start to feel a little bit of stress. Oh boy... I really can't blow this... or I might lose some friends!! Pressure... pressure... pressure.

In a very typical Santa Barbara fashion... the wedding was very low key. Ties were strictly forbidden... and the bride (who literally put on make-up and got dressed in less than 10 minutes) actually wore long-johns underneath her dress! But in no way does low key mean anything less than absolutely wonderful!

In fact... they did it the right way if you ask me. They made a weekend of it... a rehearsal, frisbee golf, wine tasting, a trip to the zoo, an evening at a coffee shop and then a wedding ceremony... all the time being surrounded by wonderful family and great friends! Check out the pics below... my first wedding ever...