My New Leica

Actually, the title should read "Our New Leica" because Leica isn't exactly a camera in this instance -- she's the newest member of the Runfola family and is what is considered a "teacup" chihuahua because of her extremely small size.

Born December 3, 2009, Leica was given to us by a family friend whose chihuahua (one of seven different breeds of dogs he has) had two puppies. His wife, apparently, didn't want any more dogs, so he offered us one of the two pups. We acquired her on January 28, nearly two months after she was born.

Since becoming part of the family, she has brought everyone much joy, as well as grief. The grief has been brought on by the difficulty of housebreaking her, but with all three of us taking an active roll in the process, she has already progressed immensely and is running to her "puppy pad" to evacuate. Because she is still a puppy, she isn't always able to control her bodily functions (just like a human baby) and makes on the carpet, but we're always there to clean up after her and spray the area with an odor neutralizing spray.

I've taken charge of the majority of the training and have already, in less than two weeks, taught her to sit. We are now working on "stay" and, after only a couple days, I am able to walk 8-10 feet away without her moving. Daily walks are done without a leash, for now, and she does really well walking by my side and keeping pace. Occasionally, she'll fall behind when something catches her attention, or she'll run a few feet ahead and wait for me to catch up. Walking back, she knows exactly which path to take to get back to our apartment. Leash training will commence soon.

As mentioned before, we're having lots of fun with her and look forward to many years of more fun.

Rainfall Totals for Mira Mesa, California

As promised, the rains have finally hit San Diego. For those of you watching the news, you are aware of some of the devastation caused by the heavy rains, mudslides, winds, and surf, especially those counties north of San Diego. We haven't seen this kind of storm in a loooong time, and my son and I are actually enjoying it! Just this evening as the brunt of the storm was overhead, he asked me if we could go driving in the rain. Naturally, I had to oblige as I love driving in the rain -- what a blast it was (yes, I did drive safely).

We also received a digital rain meter from a friend which we have been diligently monitoring every 12 hours since the storm started, from 6am-6pm-6am. However, I'm only entering rainfall totals over a 24-hour period. Be sure to check back daily as we continue to update it.

Rainfall Totals in Inches for Zip Code 92126 (will be updated daily as long as it rains)
Date	Daily Total	Cum. Total
Jan. 17,2010	0.02	0.02
Jan. 18,2010	0.95	0.97
Jan. 19,2010	0.58	1.55
Jan. 20,2010	0.81	2.36
Jan. 21,2010	1.35	3.71
Jan. 22,2010	0.29	3.99

Large Storm Headed Towards SoCal and San Diego

Looks like we'll be getting the heaviest storm I've ever witnessed here in San Diego starting this Sunday. According to the Special Weather Statement released by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), we could receive record rainfall! Check out NOAA's statement, below, and then my screenshot of this evening's weather report following this statement (those measurements are inches of rain, not snow!

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN DIEGO CA 159 PM PST FRI JAN 15 2010 CAZ042-043-048-050-055>058-060>062-162200- ORANGE COUNTY COASTAL AREAS-SAN DIEGO COUNTY COASTAL AREAS- SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTY VALLEYS-THE INLAND EMPIRE- SAN DIEGO COUNTY VALLEYS-SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY MOUNTAINS- RIVERSIDE COUNTY MOUNTAINS-SANTA ANA MOUNTAINS AND FOOTHILLS- SAN DIEGO COUNTY MOUNTAINS-APPLE AND LUCERNE VALLEYS- COACHELLA VALLEY-SAN DIEGO COUNTY DESERTS- 159 PM PST FRI JAN 15 2010 ...BIG CHANGES IN THE WEATHER NEXT WEEK... A SERIES OF STORMS WILL BRING PERIODS OF LOCALLY HEAVY RAIN AND STRONG WINDS NEXT WEEK WITH SNOW AT THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS. THERE IS STILL A LOT OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE EXACT TIMING AND RAINFALL AMOUNTS...BUT THESE STORMS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE QUITE VIGOROUS...AND BRING LARGE RAINFALL TOTALS TO THE LOWER ELEVATIONS AND HEAVY SNOW TO THE MOUNTAINS. THIS ALL WEEK LONG EVENT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE RAINFALL OF 5 TO 8 INCHES NEAR THE COAST...TO 20 OR MORE INCHES ON THE COASTAL MOUNTAIN SLOPES. TYPICALLY WETTER LOCATIONS ON THE COASTAL MOUNTAINS SLOPES COULD RECEIVE 30 OR MORE INCHES OF RAINFALL. EVEN THE DESERT LOCATIONS ARE LIKELY TO RECEIVE BETWEEN 2 AND 4 INCHES OF RAIN. SNOW LEVELS WILL MOSTLY FLUCTUATE BETWEEN 5500 AND 6500 FEET WHICH WOULD CONFINE HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TO THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS IN THE SAN BERNARDINO AND SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS. AROUND 4 FEET OF SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE AT THE HEAVIEST LOCATIONS. WITH THE RAINFALL AMOUNTS EXPECTED...THERE IS HIGH LIKELIHOOD OF FLASH FLOODING...ALONG WITH MUD AND DEBRIS FLOWS...ESPECIALLY IN AND BELOW RECENTLY BURNED AREAS. THERE COULD ALSO BE ROCK SLIDES ALONG MOUNTAIN HIGHWAYS...MAKING TRAVEL IMPASSABLE AT TIMES. THE HEAVY SNOW FALL AMOUNTS EXCEPTED...THERE IS A POSSIBILITY OF AVALANCHES FOR AREAS LOCATED BELOW THE STEEPER SLOPES OF THE HIGHER SAN BERNARDINO AND SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS. THE STRENGTH OF THE JET STREAM DRIVING THESE STORMS IS OVER 200 MPH AND THE STORMS THEMSELVES WILL BE MOVING RAPIDLY ONSHORE IN QUICK SUCCESSION. AS A RESULT THERE ARE LIKELY TO BE STRONG WINDS THROUGH MUCH OF NEXT WEEK. OVER THE COASTAL WATERS GALE FORCE OR HIGHER WINDS ARE EXPECTED. OVER LAND...DAMAGING WINDS ARE LIKELY TO PRECEDE THE ARRIVAL OF EACH STORM. WIND GUSTS BETWEEN 50 AND 60 MPH ARE POSSIBLE FOR THE COASTS AND VALLEYS...WHILE THE MOUNTAINS AND DESERTS MAY HAVE GUSTS 70 MPH OR HIGHER. PEOPLE SHOULD STAY UPDATED WITH THE LATEST FORECASTS. LISTEN TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WEATHER.GOV/SANDIEGO FOR THE LATEST UPDATES OF FORECASTS AND WARNINGS. $$ SMALL/BALFOUR

Weather Report Screen Shot -- that's inches of rain, not snow!

Ocean Beach Pier

Inspired by my good friend Bob, and by the 15' waves San Diego has been experiencing the past couple of days, I decided to head with my wife down to the Ocean Beach Pier this evening after work. Thanks to rush-hour traffic, we arrived at the pier just in time to catch the last few rays of sunshine before the sun set over the horizon. Hoping to at least catch the Green Flash to make our visit worthwhile, I set the camera to Continuous Mode and rapidly shot off about 50 frames in rapid succession. Unfortunately, atmospheric conditions were not conducive to rendering a Green Flash :( Additionally, the pier was closed due to wave damage, so we decided to walk down the steps to the beach.

With daylight quickly diminishing, I scanned around for interesting subjects to "paint". Except for a few lonely people, the beach and boardwalk were rather empty. Seeing a lady walking towards us with her dog, I decided to "paint" a few pictures of her -- the "paintings" didn't quite turn out how I had pictured them, but I was pretty happy with the results nonetheless. After the lady with the dog passed by, a young man walked in front of us and I managed to get a couple shots of him as well. Below are two of my favorite photos from this evening.

Evening Beach Stroll with Dog

Lonely Beach Stroll

The Best of 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, I'd like to share a small selection of my favorite photographs that I've taken this past year. Some of these photos made it either to my website or this blog, while others did not. Many of those that did not make it to my website were either not "artistic" enough or I just didn't feel like sharing them. Either way, they still hold a special place in my heart, which is why I'm sharing them now in this slideshow.

The song selected for this slideshow is "Little Green Bag" by the George Baker Selection. I first heard this song in the movie "Reservoir Dogs", and then again while watching "So You Think You Can Dance" in which Pauline Mata and Peter Sabasino performed while in front of a giant backdrop of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. Their dance was one of my favorites and you can watch it here.

Enjoy the slideshow!

Christmas Portraits

A couple weeks ago I was asked by two friends to take some Christmas portraits of their sons and some of the whole family, as well as a couple of maternity shots. I had just bought some new equipment a few days prior and was eager to try it out (for those interested, I bought a new Nikon SB-600 flash, two flash stands, and one backdrop kit to hold the roll of 6' wide backdrop paper my Dad had sent me some time ago). Below are but a few of the pictures taken.

BTW, the second picture of Andrew has been Photoshopped. Can you tell which part? If you guessed the Christmas tree, you're wrong. It's the present sitting/standing/leaning on the overturned box! Andrew was becoming a bit irritable (most likely from the heat of the costume) and wasn't cooperating fully. We managed to get a smile out of him by fake coughing and gagging. In the rush to shoot the picture, we left the gift out of the picture, but I added it later by copying and pasting it from another picture I took after this one.

Halloween 2002

I was recently discussing with a friend a Halloween costume I had made for my wife back in 2002 for her company Halloween costume contest. At the time, she was working for Qualex, a subsidiary of Kodak, which was mainly responsible for processing film dropped off by customers of larger chain stores such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, etc. I used to work for Qualex, too, but left the company in 2000 to enter the world of fiber-optic technology.

Two weeks before Halloween, Gena came home from work and informed me of the upcoming company Halloween party and costume contest, and also of the grand prize: a 4.0MP Kodak Easyshare DX4900 digital camera, which was announced by Kodak February 22, 2002, and retailed for approximately $500. No sooner had she finished telling me all this when I was struck by inspiration and told her I would make a costume guaranteeing that she would win the camera (hint: anything company-themed is a good guarantee of a win).

With only two weeks to plan, design, and build the costume, I had no time to waste and worked on it every day up to one hour before the contest when I pulled up to the side door of the company to drop off the costume. The production manager opened the door for me and was so blown away by the costume that she immediately paged the whole company over the intercom to come to the Film department. Once everybody was gathered around, they all agreed, hands down, that Gena should receive the grand prize -- no voting was needed.

And that was my first foray into the world of digital photography.

Below are some pictures of Gena's costume, as well as the digital camera that we won (all taken with the new camera).