Err, Hello, Is This Thing On?
Long time, no see, LJ true believers. :P Sorry, I know I've neglected this thing for the better part of 2 months. Bad habits, I swear. Anyway, what I've been up to during this time.
- First, happy birthday to our intrepid leader, lifftchi, as well as Texas cutie bombaycake. I hope you guys have a wonderful day today. Because I'm not up to punching fate in the face today to tell him to make your day better.
- Second, because I'm clinically mandated to mention it, Touhou Project cosplay contest, sponsored by i360.com on American Cosplay Paradise, has it's entry period closing tomorrow, after which there's voting. There's a really nice Marisa figure and a real copy of UFO up for grabs for the best costume. Also, this is the part where everyone who does have a shot from me but needs me to deal with a couple of those probably out to poke me to get at least those done. ^^;;
- Anime Expo came and went. I actually had a pretty good time, though for a while there, my brain was completely fried. I'm really feeling the power of LACC now that the JW Marriott is in place. There's probably a lot I could write about my AX experiences, but I'm guessing if I do so, it'll be under the auspices of writing for the site.
- SD Comic Con. Was just there for a day. It was kind of nice having a chance to just wander around. It's the first time that I can remember that I actually managed to get through the entire dealer's hall. Even managed to stick around and watch masquerade (hoshikaji as Momohime... ::swoon::) and then grab dinner with the AGSMA crew.
- Weddings. Went to two during the period. For one, we were commissioned as the primary photographers. Thankfully, the wedding was a bit more relaxed rather than the seriously formal weddings I've been to (oh man, you guys should've heard the speech from the best man - embarassing as all hell, but hilarious and in the good natured spirit of the folks). I also found out that I really really need to cut back on how I shoot at weddings, because I managed to blow through a lot of data, on the order of 35GB just by myself (for a one day affair!). The other one was Kixi-con, which was much more of a joyous occasion since it was kixies getting married.
- Awesome photoshoot over at an abandoned refinery up in Ventura! Thanks to akusesu and co. for letting me tag along. I admit I didn't shoot many cosplay photographs, but I got enough environmental shots that I really do want to go back and do something more up there.
- And of course, there was Nisei Week weekend a week ago. It was kind of interesting roaming around. Since I'm part of the Japanese American community, the event has been sort of a cultural homecoming event for me for a long time, way predating the time I've been involved in the anime community. But it's interesting to see just how much of the community outside the Japanese American community were roaming around, enjoying the sights and sounds and food. Kind of touching in a sense. I just wish the Japanese American community were a bit stronger and more robust than it's become. :|
- Photographs. Yeah, no, I'm convinced that I'm not very motivated at all to attack my backlog. I know I said I'd be posting these up somewhere in unprocessed, and I will once I can find a logical sound way to do it. I'm actually half tempted to just pay for a Dropbox 50GB account, set up some batch scripts to do my work, and go from there. In fact, I'll likely do just that. In the meantime, I've managed to draft Chris into helping me attack the selection part of my backlog. Hopefully, his mind will work better than mine.
- Life in general: I'm decidedly more mentally relaxed than I was a couple of months ago. There's a good reason for that, but I'm not really going to go into detail here.
- Going forward - Cons: The most obvious thing staring back at my schedule is Dragon*Con in... oh God, a week and a half. Well, geez, I'd better get my ass in gear planning that. Then after that will likely be PMX and maybe Mikomicon (no decision at this point). After that, it's back to the front of the calendar year. Right now, nothing is set in stone for next year. You'll perhaps notice there's a certain con missing from that list that I've been to the last several years. I'm actually passing on Yaoi-Con this year. Instead, I'm making a trip out east that weekend to have some fun with some of my friends out there for the Halloween weekend. So no buttsecks for me, no sir. :P
- Going forward - Shoots: Effective Jan 1, I'm going to be severely cutting back my shoot schedule. There's no point digging myself a further hole I can't dig out of. Until I finish my backlog, I'm going to hold back on any requests for shoots. This is something I'm forcing myself to do. It's not that I won't shoot, but I'm probably not going to be doing much unless it's unusually special conditions.
- Also, yeah, I've been ridiculously distracted more by Twitter and somewhat by Facebook. I actually do keep up on reading journal entries on LJ, though. I'm just getting really lazy about making them.
- So, um, howzit doing?