Monday Monday… Oliver the Engineer, the cook, the photographer, & the writer

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Today is Monday.  Oh joy!  LOL.  After a weekend like I just had, it is hard to come back to work again.  I figure that’s how a lot of people feel about Mondays.

At work today there wasn’t much going on.  Work for the most part was pretty quiet.  Nothing too dramatic happened.  The only event of the day was that I had to attend a meeting.  It was at the meeting that a possible bombshell was reported again.  Now after weeks / months of working on right of way another change maybe in order because of a design change that was not known until today.  When I heard this I was like, holy crap, the shit hit the fan once again.  Oh boy, I wonder who is going to do the fix this time.  I truly hope its not me because this one is not my fault nor is anything else that happen prior.  But boy my boss had a look of what, and confusion once again.  I had to cringe when this was reported because my boss was not prepared for this once again.  Sometimes I just don’t know what he does and what he knows about the project.  After the meeting was over, I headed out for lunch.

Lunch today was cool.  It was nice for once to have lunch by myself.  I had lunch at one of my favorite markets in Kearny Mesa.  This supermarket is called Marukai Market.  I got a Bento box, some Ahi Poke, and Jasmine Green Tea.  And boy it was delicious.

After lunch I returned to work and boy was it another quiet afternoon.  So for the rest of the afternoon I prepared for my meeting tomorrow morning.  And I left on time at 3:30pm.

After work I headed over to my friend’s Lori’s house to pick up some stuff for our PPSDC promotion.  I plan to distribute the promotion material tomorrow at Nelson’s and George’s Camera stores.

And for today’s dinner I kept it simple and made chicken adobo.  Which has become one of  my dinner mainstays.  My chicken adobo recipe is made up of Chicken, Bay leaves, peppercorns, garlic, soy sauce, and vinegar.  And all I do is just let it simmer on low heat. After about 45 minutes it is ready.  Serve it warm and over rice for best results.

Now with dinner over, I put on my photographer hat on and did some work to chip away at my photographer tasklist.  Today’s main task was to finish and upload the HOBY pictures that I took for the California Central chapter.  As I’m writing this the rest of the pictures are still uploading.  I’ve edited roughly 800 pictures for the kids to enjoy and help bring back the memories.  I will need to upload the rest of their package tomorrow and those items are the videos that I took during the seminar.  So hopefully soon all will be uploaded and the kids will be able to enjoy the pictures and relive that weekend.

Lastly, this evening I spent the majority of the evening playing catch on my blog post.  So already today I have already written two other post in addition to this post that you are reading.  So hence why this article is a shorter than most.  Hopefully tomorrow’s post will be longer and more exciting to report.  Because today was very boring and there was nothing on my end to report.

Lights, Camera, Action…Oliver the Photographer

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On Sunday, my photography journey takes to Los Angeles for a photography workshop.  For this workshop, I got up at 5am to get ready.  I was getting picked up by Dave and Andy at 6:30am.  Luckily the night before I packed up everything.  And surprisingly I didn’t write a packing list this time which until recently I wrote out a packing list for everything.  Looking back on it, I was a bit frazzled just trying to make sure I got everything pack but as always I packed more than I needed.  Go figure.  So I was ready and waiting at 6:15am.  I decided to wait outside of my house so that I would just be there and ready to leave when Dave and Andy arrived.

At about 6:40am Dave and Andy arrived and we headed off to LA for the shoot.  Driving up we had a varied conversation about photography, freeways, and why certain things are the way they are for example how America isn’t as free as some people would like to think.  It was a good conversation.

After driving for about 2 hours, we finally made it with incident to our shooting location. Today’s shoot was put on by The Socal Photography Group and McCaddenSpace Studio was hosting us.  McCaddenSpace studio is a 3,500 square feet working studio that we had the run of the place.  The studio had many awesome vignettes, one of my favorites was the Kitchen setup.  I dug the kitchen because it was a simple 1960s style kitchen that reminded me of the simpler times again.   And it was one of the locations that I planned out to shoot in for the day.  The studio had other areas such as a awesome bar setup, a record lounge area, and some of the best retro furniture.

One of the first things that we did when we arrived was to grab some food.  Dave was looking for some breakfast food so we headed up to a place called the Hollywood Corner to grab some food.   After waiting for about 15 minutes for the food we both headed back to the studio to some relaxing and planning for the day.

However did we know that there was a little problem brewing.  The issue that started to brew was that people were all running behind.  While some of use showed up early and on time, others we really behind, and one of the most important components of the shoot that was behind was the hair department.  So it was then that we started to look through our phones, facebook, and other means to search for a last minute hair person.  I guess I didn’t understand the gravity of the problem but it was fun to try to figure out we can do the hair ourselves.  All I knew was that I wasn’t going to photoshop any hair.  That for me was a definite no.  I couldn’t comprehend doing that.  But our anxiety was soon over when our hair department arrived.  And the ease and fun returned.  However because they were late we all started later than we would have liked.

Before any shooting started we all did our introduction and house rules.  When I did my little speech, I just tried to make as simple as it is possible.  And I didn’t mention that I won the last competition.  🙂

When the hair department arrived I waited for about 15 minutes for them to prep and than I decided to setup my lighting for the photograph that I had in mind for the shoot.  It took me about 15 minutes to setup the light and scene for my photograph.  However it took another 30-45 minutes or so to shoot because my friend Betty was quickly asked if she could be photographed.  So I waited until she was free.  After waiting I finally got the opportunity to work with Betty once again.

Betty is one of the models that I met at a previous shoot, that I became good friends with.  She is just awesome.  I really do enjoy working with her.  The both of us just work very well with each other and we collaborate very well.  This would be the third time that I worked with her on a shoot.

So after waiting, I finally had the opportunity to work with Betty.  So with the lights all set up.  I prepared her for the story that we were going to create.  One reason that I love working with Betty is because she takes a story that I create for her to act out and take it and makes it work even better.  The story for today’s kitchen shoot was the “murderous wife.”  As always when I get ready to photograph, I act out the scene with my model.  I give them the motivation and a reason for the photo.  I find by doing this it helps both the model and myself.  And it also allows for collaboration to take place.  After spending about 15 minutes of shooting together we finished out portion of the shoot.  At the time it was basically the only thing that I wanted to shoot well mainly because I planned and envisioned the shot that I wanted.

It’s nice to look back and see where I have been.  So far the journey has taken on a journey where I didn’t see myself going.  Over the years I have gone from a trigger happy photographer to a thoughtful photographer.  I still have a lot of things to learn but I know that so far my journey has been good.

I’ll have to save the rest of the day of shooting for another post.  Because frankly I’m a bit tired.  I actually did play some catch on my blogging because Saturday I forgot to post my Saturday post, and then yesterday arrived home late to post my post.   And shortly I will work on today’s post.

 

Two Lunches & a Dinner…Oliver the Foodie

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Today was another foodie day. You would figure that I eat a lot. Which is true if you take all the times that I show that I’m eating at face value. One of things though that you should know is that I do eat within my means. I usually order the small portions of the meal or I take the portions that I don’t finish home for future meals. I highly believe to eat within my means and not to over indulge in food. It’s a step that i’ve taken in recent months when I learned about the Palieo diet from my friend Saviz and also from reading a blog called Nerd Fitness.

It being Saturday, I traditionally have a lung with my mom. It’s one of the things that we do. It’s tradition. It’s the time that we usually catch up on things and plan future trips. On this Saturday my dad decided to join in. We had lunch at one of our favorite ramen places in Kearny Mesa called Santoka.

Santoka is located inside the Mitsuwa supermarket. Mitsuwa is a japanese market where it seems that quality takes priority over quantity.

One of the apparent things about this supermarket is the presentation. The presentation from the neatly organized rows, fishes, and meats, is a treat for the eyes. Seriously it makes you look at food in such a different light.

Well Santoka, serves a very good ramen special.  It’s freshly made and just delicious.  You might be wondering why a person is eating ramen noodles on a warm summer after.  Well I’ll tell you, because it’s just that good.  It is worth the few minutes of feeling a bit warm to have such noodles.

After eating lunch, my parents and I, headed to the Marine Corp exchange to grab a few items that we needed for the week.  Nothing too exciting from here to report.  So I’ll just spare you the details on this.

Well after the exchange, we headed home.  It was when I got home that I called up my friend Dave to see what he was up too.  The night before, Dave mentioned that he was planning to have lunch with another photographer whom we spoke about the evening before over dinner.  I ask if I can join them since I wasn’t doing anything else for the afternoon.  So I messaged my buddy and made arrangements to meet them up with them.

The photographer that we met up with is Andy, also known as the Andy the unknowphotographer.  I know of Andy via twitter and recently learned that he moved to San Diego from Florida.  It was a couple of weeks ago that I learned this and I was pretty excited to hear that he had moved here.  So the night before I mentioned to Dave who he was and what he was all about.  And I guess later that evening he contacted Dave and make arrangements to meetup.

So we all decided to meetup in Little Italy’s Craft and Commerce for lunch.  For lunch I just had C&C’s corndogs.  They were delicious.  I didn’t eat much because I already ate lunch prior.  So I was pretty full but I didn’t just want to sit there.  During lunch we a good conversation about what we do with photography and got to know each other.  It was good afternoon of getting to know each other.

However it was after lunch that didn’t prove to successful.  So the plan was to go shooting but for the life of my I couldn’t figure what, what to shoot or where to shoot.  Then Dave made a suggestion to shoot at San Diego’s Pride.  Pride, is San Diego’s annual celebration for the gay and lesbian community.  Pride was being held in Balboa Park which was relatively close to were we where.  So we made our way to get there.  When we got there, we had to find parking.  Dave and Andy found parking relatively easily.  I on the other hand was unable to find parking.  After about 20 minutes of driving around I was unable to find parking.  It was just about then that Dave called and said that they were not going to Pride because it cost $20 / person to enter which was a little to pricey.  So once again we had to find something to do.  It also just about then that I remember that my WDS buddy Greg invited me to attend a potluck on a farmer in San Diego’s southbay.  I invited Dave and Andy to that but they declined.

So after we said our see you laters, I gave Greg a call and see if he had left and to check if he had left yet.  Upon calling him he just informed me that he just got home from store.  So I knew I had some time to meetup with him and get some food to bring to the potluck.

At first, I didn’t know what to bring to the potluck.  It was when Greg suggested that I just bring a snack food so then I decided to head to Sprouts and grab some cherries.  Once I decided to head to Sprouts to bring my contribution to the potluck.

Shortly after picking up my cherries, I headed to meet Greg.  But when I called he mentioned that he was a bit behind so I took the opportunity to fill up on gas so I wouldn’t have to do that later.  After filling up on gas, I headed back towards Greg direction so that we play follow the leader to the farm.  And after picking up Greg’s brother and getting a few drinks we were off to the potluck.

The potluck was held at Wild Willow Farm.  It was a great evening.  At the potluck everyone in attendance brought many different types of homemade food.  As always I get to place I have to get a vibe for it.  But after about 5 minutes of getting a feel for it, I jumped right in and endulged in some of the most delicious homemade food.  One of my favorite was a salad made of kale.  It was nice refreshing crunchy salad.  Another one of my favorite was the salad that Greg made.  Greg’s salad had arugula, peaches, and homemade dressing.  Very delicious and a nice treat.

After dinner, Greg, Ryan (Greg’s brother), and I join in the drum circle that had formed nearby.  At first we watched and observed what was going on.  Soon after we all sat down and enjoyed the company of the others in the circle.  Then Greg and Ryan jumped right in and started playing with the drums and shakers that we all got to play.  After sitting there for awhile Greg gave me one of the shakers and I slowly started to play.  And little did I know it, I finally got into it for a bit and let the guard down.  During the whole experience it kept reminding me of the simpler times in life and how lucky we are to just spend time with friends and hanging out with them just having fun.  Hopefully soon again I can attend another one of these amazing potlucks.  Until next time.

 

 

 

Dinner…Oliver the Foodie

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Note:  First I’m writing this post on Saturday morning.  The reason I’m writing this on Saturday is that I simply forgot.  Yesterday was a good evening of good food and good friends.  And when I got home I decided the chill and read a book.  Then about 5 minutes into my book I fell asleep.  Oops!  So I guess today I will be writing two post.  Okay now on to the post.

Yesterday was awesome because it was Friday.  Fridays are the day at work where can you actually almost get away with murder because of the fact that it is the last day of the work week and for the most part a lot of people don’t show up.  Not because they don’t want to but because a lot of people are on their 9/80 work schedule.  So parking is easy and actually productivity levels go up.  Not a lot of people in the building means that its quiet.

Also another tradition at work happens on Friday.  It’s Hawaiian Shirt day.  Every Friday my coworkers and I wear a Hawaiian shirt and impose the same rules as Tie Tuesdays.  And so far no one has gotten a free lunch out of the deal.  So I’m working on changing it up and trying to change a few rules to make it happen.  But so far I have not been successful.

It being the end of the week also meant that I was finally going to have some dinner with some really good friends that I’ve been trying to schedule dinner with for the past few months.  And today was the day that everything worked out for us to have dinner.

My friends Barb and Rowell are married.  I was fortunate enough to meet Rowell when I was starting in my photography pursues.  He was the first photographer friend I made and he was the first one to believe in my abilities to photograph a wedding.  I’ve second shot for him several times.  He truly help me more than he’ll know in my photography.

And I met Barb via Rowell, obviously.  Now that I think about it, I met Rowell when he was still single and they were dating.  But back to Barb.  I met Barb via Rowell but via social media.  I think it was a conversation either on Facebook or Twitter, I can remember.  But I think we started talking about some food and gave some suggestions on where to eat.  Well from there we struck a conversation and eventually a friendship.  I think the first time we met in person was when I was meeting Rowell for a payment from a photography a gig I did with him.

So fast forward to today, Barb and Rowell are married, and they have their first child, Gabe.  And Gabe is freaking awesome.  Kind of reminds me of when I was young, doesn’t cry and always seems just happy, at least that what my mom tells me.  So how can you not believe in what your mom tells you.

So being fellow foodies themselves, Barb, Rowell, Gabe, and I decided to meetup at Prep Kitchen in Little Italy.  Prep Kitchen is an amazing place that brings the food from farm to table.  What a great concept, like Miho Gastrotruck, they get their food ingredients from local resources.  Love the concept and hope it continues.

Prep Kitchen has such a cool vibe.  I said it looked a pinterest board come alive.  The board would be a restoration warehouse inspired style board.  The ceiling of the place that we sat in had a recycled wood boarding that was made into a rib-like structure.  And one of the walls was made up of recycle stair railing supports.  Great vide and design.

Other than great design the food was awesome!  It definately was stuff that I didn’t have before.  I started out with a Chilled gazpahco of Watermelon and Tomato with some mint.  Talk about a nice and refreshing for the summer.  Definitely a must try if they have it on their menu.  Between the four of us we shared a cutting board of olives, cured meats, cheeses and nuts.  For my main course I had Prep Kitchen’s WNL Burger which had Gruyere, Cured Bacon, Caramelized Onion & Farm Egg.  With a side of fries. OMG talk about delicious!!!  I had the burger cooked on medium.  All of the ingredients blended very well.  The farm egg was perfectly cooked and the yolk had a delicious cheesy flavor that added so much more to the food.  The bacon was just off the hook.  Egg and Bacon is one of my favorite food combos ever!  The onion and gruyere add that extra kick in the mouth that made the burger just out of this world.  The fries where also well seasoned with I believed was some truffle oil and some good salt.  To go along with my dinner I had a cocktail called the somersault.  Watermelon with some pepper, oh man was it good!  I would highly recommend Prep Kitchen for a good evening out to dinner.  After dinner we grab some gelato at Cafe Zuchero.

The evening couldn’t have gone any better.  It was filled with good food, good friends, and good conversation.  What else could you ask for on a Friday evening.  And to end the evening I did a act of random kindness.  When I got to the parking lot where I parked my car I noticed that a couple had just arrived and haven’t bought their parking ticket yet.  Knowing that it cost $12 to park there, when I arrived at my car, I asked if they just arrived and if they bought their ticket yet.  They said no.  So I just told them, let me give you mind.  So I did.  I just save someone $12 and I knew that my ticket wouldn’t go to waste.  Spreading a good is a nice thing.  So when the opportunity presents itself I do it without thinking about it.  So the Friday evening was a great success.  Hopefully soon I will be able to do one again soon.  🙂

Just Another Day…Oliver the Engineer, Oliver the Foodie

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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.  🙂