Photos: A day in Montgomery, Alabama

The pursuit of travel and baseball took me down to Montgomery, Alabama for a day, to take in some local sights, and eventually watch some baseball.  Compared to Birmingham from just a week ago, I have to say that I liked Montgomery more.  Ironically, a lot of it has to do with the historic feel of the area, and walking around what I suppose was a major home of the Confederacy.

The first White House of the Confederacy is what’s pictured above, and it’s kind of interesting to think that I never heard of such a structure even existing in contemporary school, despite the fact that Virginia too was a “southern state.”

As much as I thought I would be looked at with a strange eye for being a Chinaman in Montgomery, Alabama, I was pleasantly surprised to have not really run into such incident.  Well, not openly.  Then again, being a Sunday afternoon, pretty much the entire city was deserted, except for the sparse church-goers and baseball enthusiasts at the park.  I’ll save the park opinions for when I eventually update the baseball site, but as for the rest of the pictures, beyond the jump.

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Photos: A day trip to Birmingham, Alabama

Since I was kind of sick at the start of the baseball season, I pretty much missed the entire opening homestand for the Braves.  Which is kind unfortunate, considering the Braves won five out of the six games they played in Atlanta, but now they’re on the west coast, and will be out there for like another week, or so it will feel.  Or maybe it’s just that I really relish the novelty in visiting ballparks I haven’t been to before, over my home park, who knows really.  So the first baseball game I went to live this year would be a new one.

Despite having lived in Atlanta for the past nine years, I’d never actually stepped foot in the state of Alabama before.  I’ve never had any reason to, and I can’t say that I’d never felt compelled to visit for any other reason than baseball.  Living where I live, I’ve had my share of exposure from Alabamans, most of them less than positive.  Too much Roll Tard and absurd loyalty to college football spawning irrational idiocy.  But with Rome and Lawrenceville already off the list, it left me with few alternatives.  And with the Braves’ double-A affiliates from Mississippi playing in Birmingham, it looked like good of reason as any to make my first ever trip into Alabama.

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So I’m thirty years old now

And there’s no better way to celebrate my 30th birthday than to go eat horribly unhealthy food and drink a lot of beer.  For months I’ve walked past Cypress Street Pint & Plate, and been curious to try them out.  A birthday gathering seemed like an appropriate enough reason to move forward with it.

I knew when I saw it on the menu that there was no other option – Sublime Burger.  Sublime is an excellent doughnut shop local to Atlanta, and like the namesake implies, this was a half-pound burger with two Sublime doughnuts as the buns.  Some might find the idea of sweet buns off-putting, but I had high hopes.  And were they ever met, because it was an absolutely fantastic burger in the end.  Only slightly sweet, and the burger itself was juicy and flavorful.  It obviously had to be a half-pound pre-cooked, because I made that thing disappear like it was the size of a McDonald’s hamburger.

But anyway, thanks to everyone who took the time to text me, call me, IM me or email me well wishes for my birthday.  It is genuinely appreciated.  And special thanks to those of my friends who came out to Cypress St. with me to partake in beer and unhealthy food with me.  Your company is a better gift than any tangible effects.

Anyway, a few photos were taken.

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Photos: Carolyn & Joe’s pre-show

Holy Deer Park holy water, Batman!

The day before the wedding of two of my longest and closest friends was met with the typical shenanigans of a wedding rehearsal where planners and the priest met the idea of incorporating Filipino traditions with some of the most painfully obvious indifference and resistance I’ve ever seen in my entire life.  Regardless, it was a fun occasion and gathering of friends, and tons and tons of food afterward while we watched Duke choke yet another NCAA tournament and David Otunga flexing.

Also, a glimpse of the air-land-and-sea burger.  From Wendeez.

I never said I was a good photographer, but I’m still getting used to my usual array of candid crap with a decent camera.

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A preview picture

Nothing says a happy wedding like trolloping around the cemetery for pictures of the wedding party.  Wonderful times.

This is one of approximately 200 photographs I took this past weekend.  They are all RAW files, and are immensely huge.  Needless to say, the days of mowing through 150+ jpegs shot with a sub-7.2MP point-and-shoot with ThumbsPlus are pretty much a distant memory.  That being said, I’m going to need a little bit of time before I post the entire set up, and I’m thinking I might break it apart between the pre-wedding, and the wedding itself.

Tonight, I decided to be responsible and do my taxes.  Best Buy digital software downloading doesn’t make it any easier, and I hate them forever even more as a result, but at least it’s done.  However, that’s one more night where I still haven’t seen the season finale of The Walking Dead, I’m going to miss RAW, and it looks unlikely that I’m going to play any ME3 either.  But still plenty of time to get this preview picture up.  The rest will come eventually, but soon, as I do not slack that hard.  With the bride and groom off for weeks, I feel no urgency to get them up.

Photos: Las Vegas trip, Allison’s birthday

A whole bunch of firsts here – first picture drop of the 2012 year, first batch of images taken with my DSLR, and first photo post with this gallery format.  Which is all in relation to the first trip out to Las Vegas in quite some time for me, the occasion being a friend’s birthday party.  No better excuse to hit up Vegas.

I often say that the mark of a good Vegas trip is going home with the feeling that you missed out on doing some things.  I ate like a pig (surprise), got to do some gambling, and saw a couple of shows, as well as enjoying the company of our large-ish group out there.  But I didn’t get to indulge in Erris Irand ribs, I didn’t play craps, and I didn’t go up the Eiffel Tower, so I can say that I left with some of those feelings of missing out.  But that’s a good thing, because unlike the last few times prior to my burnout, I have something to look forward to the next time I go out there.

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An ironic note on brog programming

Yes, I know, I’m a gigantic hypocrite, and I pretty much set myself up for this hypocrisy.

But the point really ultimately was, I simply wanted to take better quality photographs.  It simply was not possible with point-and-shoot cameras anymore.  The Canon PowerShot I got in July was okay, but it was a marginal upgrade from my prior Sony.

I’d been sitting on a giant wad of cash, accumulated over a few years of gift money, random refunds, cash paybacks, and other miscellaneous means.  Often times I find myself wondering what to do with said money; coming up with several ideas, before simply settling on nothing, letting it grow and accumulate more.

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