Coffee, Photography, & Sushi… Oliver the Writer, the Photographer, the Foodie

Yesterday I had a great pleasure to attend a photography business workshop. The workshop was insightful, informative, and fun.

The time leading up to the workshop was awesome. I actually got off work early enough that I was able to complete a few of my task that I wanted to complete today. The first and foremost pressing task was to get another batch of HOBY DVDs out to the kids. So with all of the work that I did the night before I was eager to get them sent off to the kids. Hopefully next week the kids will receive their packages.

After mailing off the package I saw that I still had some ample time so I decided to head over to the bank to cash in my monthly paycheck. I didn’t go I my normal bank because I wasn’t going home because of the photography meeting so I went to the closest one to work. It was cool heading over there and cashing my check. And getting my check was a little delayed because when they are passes out the check I was a meeting so therefore I couldn’t get my check. And the reason for the not getting my check is because I am one of the few people that doesn’t have direct deposit. I honestly didn’t get direct deposit because they was a cute teller at my bank that I liked and so I would always get her to cash in my check. What can I say other than, I’m only human. But unfortunately she has since moved from bank to bank. It’s been all of the same bank but the branches are not too close so he moves to different one every once in awhile which makes it hard to predict if she will be there when I cash my check.

Well after cashing in my check I looked at the clock and I saw that I had some time still so I decided to get some coffee at a place that I have been wanting to try out. So I checked the traffic via Waze and made my way to place.  After driving up via Washington Street, I made it up to the Tea & Coffee Collective.  The Tea & Coffee Collective has been a place that I have been wanting to try out for awhile.  And since I had the opportunity and time, I decided it was about time.

When I first get there, I found out that I didn’t the change to feed the meter.  I figure just my luck not to have the change avalible.  So I went digging in my car hoping that I would find some.  I was only fortunate to find one quarter so I put that in the meter and then just decided to head in, purchase my coffee, and then ask for change.

The Tea & Collective Collection is a simple laid back storefront.  It reminds me of the simple times and the not in your face fronts that we are use to seeing in other coffee places.  One of the most notable features of the collective is the very large COFFEE letters painted above the store.  When you enter the collective you enter through a actual door.  What I mean by this is that you actually have to turn the knob and then push.  For me it was something that you don’t run into everyday but when I run into one it puts me at ease.  Once inside the collective, you will notice the simple layout.  To your left is a peg wall where local arts and crafts hang in what looks like hand made frames which highlight some of the local goods on the display and on sale.  The bar is located towards the back.

It is at the bar that you place your order.  The menu is simple.  On this visit I ordered a Iced Coffee.  I do love coffee warm but my preference is to have it iced.  The coffee is favorable and strong.  Since I had some time I decided to take a seat at one of the tables and do some writing, thinking, and planning in my very handy always there Moleskine notebook.  I know a lot of people romanticize the idea of writing, sipping on coffee, and sitting in a coffee shop as cool and even hipster.  In the act of doing this it does change your mindset that lets the creative juices flow from your head to paper.

Coffee, a @moleskine, a pen, and ideas. #writing #thought

I sat inside the Tea & Coffee Collective for about 20 minutes just writing some ideas and just taking in the quiet, then I headed off to the meeting.

The meeting was down in Mission Valley.  The meeting is part of the Pricing, Processing, and Profit tour created by Shoot Dot Edit.  It was cohosted by the San Diego SmugMug group.  The toured featured Zach & Jody Gray, Leeann Marie, and Jared Platt.  The one thing that made this tour special was that it was in the home town of the Shoot Dot Edit founders Jared Bauman and Garrett Delph therefore the crew from Shoot Dot Edit came out as well.  The presentations by all of the presenters were awesome, informative, and very business oriented.  Overall a great tour!

How do you build a freeway? Economics of Scale from  @jaredplatt #sdetour #business #engineering

After the tour I met up a few friends for Sushi at one of the places down the street from the hotel.  It was a nice meeting and chat about food, health, photography, and just doing some catching up.  Overall it was a good day.  It was also there that I realized that I should just let some things and move on.

Food & Photographs… Oliver the Foodie, the Photographer

Sunday was for sure a foodie day.  It was one of those days that wasn’t planned at all but you just went with it.  The foodie day began with me waking early around 9am to see what I had to do for the day.  I soon realized that I didn’t have that much to do today so I dug up some old pictures and worked on them.  My home headed to church and then shortly after my dad came home from he’s round of golf that he plays every Sunday.  With it being really close to lunch, I asked what he wanted to eat and he immediately mentioned that he wanted to try out a cheeseburger in Pt. Loma.  So I said okay.  At first I was like hmmm, this isn’t what I had planned exactly for eating but it will do.  Eventually I considered this another opportunity to find another place to eat.  My mentioned that the place was called; Jimmy Famous American Tavern.  So to yelp I went to find out where it was and what people would recommend from that place because I had  no idea.  After yelping it I found that it had some favorable reviews.   So it was go.  Now we just had to wait for my mom to get home from church and then we were off.

Finally arriving at Jimmy Famous, I saw that it was in one of the newly renovated seafront properties near the airport.  The buildings were new and modern.  It had a clean, maritime look, that made it completely different from the other building around.

Jimmy Famous is located on the lower level of one of the buildings in the new complex.  The entry was relatively small but once you entered you were greet to a very awesome open space that the daylight filled.  The venue was filled with woodsy, metal, oversize letter, and retro chic decor; I would say it was a pinterest board come alive.

Jimmy Famous is known for the burgers.  From their reviews on yelp a lot of people recommended getting their classic or cowboy burger.  I remember seeing a picture of the burger with a knife in it and I thought fancy.  So we were sitted and we looked over the menu.  The menu was simple and straight forward.  The service was quick.  After a few minutes of deciding what to get, we placed our order, and then what didn’t seem like more than 5 minutes our food was there.  I was it was a; Wow that was fast moment!  When we got our food the photography of food commence as always.  It took me a bit longer than usual to take the photograph.  But I managed after a few tries to get the picture.  I got the cowboy burger.  It was good and filling.  The burger also had a nice bite to it as it did have jalapeno pepper in it.  I ordered a green salad to go with it, I figure it would be better than getting the fries which are good as well ( I had a few from my dad).  Overall it was nice Sunday lunch to have and enjoy.  The place was full of people that were enjoy the beautiful Sunday afternoon in San Diego.   It was just one of those laid back days in the city.

After finishing lunch we headed home to chill out for the rest of the afternoon.  My parents both passed out and nap while I did some work on the computer, editing more pictures.  Those pictures are finally being uploaded as I am writing this post.  So with the quiet afternoon, I got another good set of pictures out of the way and shared.  It was also during the afternoon that I realized that today was the deadline to enter photos from the workshop that I did last week.  So I finally downloaded those pictures from my camera that has been sitting on the floor for awhile ( I have some other photo jobs that I need to get sent out so personal photo project get pushed back).

Now with the afternoon almost over my parents woke up and one of the first things that came out of their mouths was what was for dinner.  So the normal conversation of what to eat ensued and like most afternoons, the respond of; I don’t know was blurred out, and would remain unresolved or stay until someone mention a place and either there is an agreement or a reason for a veto on that idea.  Then the; I don’t knows usually commence further and this is usually my cue to go away for a bit and thing about it.  Today my dad mentions that he would like Chinese food.  Hearing that I knew it meant one thing, Chow Mein from Golden Chopsticks.

There is one thing you should know about my family and that is that we are pretty consistent on eating / getting food from places that we have come to love and we pretty much stay consistent with that place.  So any mention of any of these places usually makes figuring out what to eat a lot more easier than usual.  So when I heard Chinese food I knew that I would be calling one of our favs and that it would be done and ready in about 15 minutes and would require a drive to National City.  A drive you say?  Yup, a drive.  I really don’t mind driving.  I usually figure out how to avoid traffic if there is traffic and usually Sundays are pretty chill in the city so it wasn’t a problem.  And plus I would do anything for my parents, sister, and friends to help them out.  It is the least that I could do for the people that keep up humble and support me in my endeavors.

Now with that decided, I ordered – Beef Chow Mein, House Fried Rice, and their house salt and pepper chicken.  All delicious and I highly recommend them all.  FYI, I know if you are reading this post and you read yesterday’s post, you are thinking piggy or man you ate a lot this weekend.  It may seem like that but I do eat them in moderation and usually i haven’t over indulged since changing to the modified palieo diet.  Okay back to the story.  With the order placed.  My mom and I got in the car and headed down.

The drive down was pretty chill.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Mom and I just talked, caught up on things and just drove.  Good times and mom and son hang out time.

After picking up dinner and some Filipino treats at the Goldilocks near the Chinese food place.  BTW, I am now the Duke of that place on yelp.  🙂  We headed home and soon after ate.

During and after dinner I worked on two pictures that I needed to enter to the competition.  And worked I did.  It’s been awhile since I have some images my signature look but I knew what I wanted to do so I had to do the work.  Luckily enough I got to practice some of the techiques over the last few months and in those months too, I got to learn a few new tools for the belt.   So I used those and in little under a hour I got “signature” edits done on the images that I was planning in submitting to the competition.  And once I did, I sent them off.  On my soon to be new website / blog I will discuss and show how I do my “signature” edits and how they differ from the normal edits.  And with those pictures out of the way I finished a few more pictures from my trip to Austin and San Antonio from this last Thanksgivings holiday and finally posted them on my Flickr gallery.  And as of this writing they are about 90% done uploading.  So if you are reading this you can check them out here: http://www.flickr.com/olasis.

Well until tomorrow.  Have a great one and thanks for reading.  🙂

Just Another Day…Oliver the Engineer, Oliver the Foodie

Today was seriously an uneventful day.  Once again, the rush and push of getting stuff done ASAP was gone.  One of my coworkers came back to the office today which makes our group almost complete again.  There really wasn’t much to report on the work side of things today which if you have been following my recent post you know that there’s been a lot going on lately.  So I guess in one regard this is a good post / update about work.  And the top it off, tomorrow is Friday so the work week is over.  Bravo for that!  🙂

On the bright side of the day today.  I did get to be my foodie self today.  After about nearly a week and a half I got to have a burger from my favorite food truck; MIHO GASTROTRUCK.  I’ve been enjoy MIHO’s food for awhile.  And everytime I get a chance I seek them out.  MIHO makes awesome food but on top of that, they are the coolest gang of people around.  Juan, Kevin, Matt, Christina, and the rest of the crew, MIHO are as passionate and genuine as they come.  I’ve had a great time getting to meet them by showing up where they serve their food.

Today’s lunch was great because they brought back their classic burger which has been off of the menu for awhile.  Oh because the one thing I didn’t tell you about MIHO is that they get most if not all of their ingredients from local sources in and around San Diego.  With that their menu changes weekly and seasonally which I enjoy because you get to taste the season.

Which I think these days people don’t comprehend that as much, especially the younger crowds.  The reason I say that is because growing up I would hear stories told from my parents about how they would only have apples around Christmas time because that was the only time they were available in the Philippines.  And when I think about it today, it hits you that apples and other items are available all year round.  Having it available all year round, I think doesn’t allow you to appreciate the food as much.  So that’s why I appreciate the seasonally available food so much more.

But getting back to MIHO, there food is seriously always delicious and fresh.  Give them a follow on twitter at @mihogastrotruck or see what their weekly menu is and what are up to by visiting their website; http://www.mihogastrotruck.com.  Give them a try and you’ll understand why I always go to them when I’m looking for delicious lunches.

Today also was just a relatively quiet day because I didn’t have to cook dinner this evening.  The reason for this was that I prepared and cooked a lot of food yesterday which meant that we had leftover for dinner tonight.  And since I don’t eat as much as I use too it was enough for my parents and I.  And since I didn’t cook today, I finished dinner relatively early.   And with that I was able to hang out and catch up with my good buddy David.

David is one of my good friends that I hang out with on a normal basis.  We both just get along very well.  He’s one of the friends that I have that I can just bounce ideas off and get some honest feedback.  But also he is a friend that I learn things from as well.  We actually have a conversation, well that depends on what you mean by conversation.  Conversation in terms of talking, yes we do that but if you mean conversation as in talking and see each other’s faces, that would be a negative.  All I mean by that is that we equally both enjoy our iPhones, especially when it comes to pictures.  We chat but we chat with another looking at our phones.  LOL.  But still it’s one of those things that we don’t do often but here and there we catch ourselves doing it but our conversations do continue despite the fact.  I forgot to mention David is also a photographer.  He absolutely takes great photos and I dig he’s style.  Check out some of he’s work here: David J Crewe Photography.

Another cool thing about David / Dave is that we enjoy discovering new places around town and enjoy a good meal like myself.  So this evening I took him to one of my favorite places in the Uptown Area of San Diego, called Barrio Star.

I discovered Barrio Star, serendipitously one evening after a photowalk with some friend at Balboa Park.  My buddies Greg, Ellen, and Hollie, where originally planning to eat at a pizza place following the photowalk but we found out that it was close for the evening so we had to look for a place and Barrio Star was that place.

Barrio Star is a great place with a great environment that serves what I like to call refined clean Mexican fusion food.  What I mean by that is that the food they serve here is refreshing and just right portions.  But there dishes are too die for.  I highly recommend and love their Brazil Bowl with Carnitias.  It is absolutely delicious and refreshing.  And it would be safe to say that Dave would agree with me that this place is a must try and experience.

And lastly to close off the evening we grab some gelato from another of my favorite places, named Gelato Vero Cafe.  Gelato Vero Cafe is located in the Mission Hill portion of San Diego off Washington Street and Interstate 5.  It’s a small cafe that has ample sitting for small gatherings or a good place to hang out with a friend or two.  If you need more room or can’t find room within the cafe or outside sitting area, head upstairs for more room.  Gelato Vero is a great place to have some good old gelato and chat with a friend and even do some people watching.  With that that closes another day for the books.  I hope you enjoyed.  🙂