No Spoilers Please

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“TTL Uke” Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/15 sec, ISO2000
 “TTL Uke” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going?

So, we watched Avengers: Infinity War the other day, a week or so after it opened in theaters. During that time, both my kids were avoiding spoilers and friends’ conversations about the movie, and I guess they were successful in making it through the week spoiler-free!

But speaking of spoilers, I was watching the Japanese taiga drama Segodon yesterday, and the title of the episode was shown on the screen. It was “Nariakira’s Assassination” and I was like, “Nooooo!!!” What a spoiler! But as it turned out, it was just an assassination attempt which he survived. Whew! 😌

That got me thinking about another spoiler I stumbled into many years ago. It was before Star Wars Episode 1 came out, and I happened to see the tracklist of the soundtrack. One of the titles of the songs was “Qui-Gon’s Noble End”. 😨 What a bummer to see that before watching the movie huh. Oh well, I thought that movie wasn’t so great anyways.

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Today’s photo is of my ukulele but shot through a view camera. I thought it was a neat perspective. BTW, I used Snapseed to edit this photo instead of Lightroom like I usually do. My desktop computer’s data hard drive is on the fritz, so I wasn’t able to load the library. I have everything backed up, so I’m not too bummed that it’s on its last legs, however, my backup is a few weeks old and I’m currently doing another one this evening, but it’s kind of stuck. I’ll let it go overnight and see if it finishes.

Regardless, I have ordered a new hard drive so we’ll be up and running on the ol’ desktop rig in a couple days. It’ll be nice to declutter that drive, although not by choice. I have all my important data ready to restore, but other things like downloaded media and dorama weren’t backed up and I probably won’t try too hard to transfer all those things to the new drive. If I really need them, I can download them again, right? 😄

I hope you had a nice day!

おやすみ

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Flour or Corn?

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"Still Life by Otaku" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/30 sec, ISO800
 “Still Life by Otaku” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going?

So today the taco trailer visited our office building and of course I couldn’t resist. I have a view of the parking lot from my desk so I can see which food truck is gracing us with its presence, and also see how long the line is. And one of my co-workers is my taco-buddy so I enjoy Taco Tuesday at the office. 🌮

When I was growing up, and there was the choice between corn or flour tortillas, I always chose flour. I really couldn’t understand why anyone would prefer corn tortillas. I’m pretty sure it was because I liked to eat tortillas plain, and I once chose corn tortillas which were really dry. So, I kept with flour as my choice all these years.

But now, living in the land of central Texas, we eat soft tacos a lot. And I prefer the double-corn tortilla style for these smaller tacos. I think it just tastes amazing! I could eat carnitas, onion, cilantro on corn tortillas every day.

Today, however, I decided to try flour tortillas with a pork-belly filling and it was really delicious. The pork belly is really greasy and the flour tortillas soaked up all those flavorful juices nicely. It was somewhat eye-opening! I guess I have to rethink my tortilla game, or maybe just get used to calling an audible every time I order. 😆

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Today’s photo is what I call an Otaku Still-life, with Fuchico in the starring role. These little toys are nerdy things from Japan but they are really fun to take photos of. And then I had to also put some pencils and washi tape in the background to fill the frame. I admit it’s an “11:59 pm photo”, but I like it nonetheless.

I used my Ultrapod to hold the camera, then I positioned the elements while referencing the LCD screen. I then used the 2-second timer feature to reduce camera shake. In Lightroom, I added some grain to the final image, which I think adds a lot of character. I prefer a little roughness over a super clean look.

I hope you had a nice day!

おやすみ！

Morning Momentum

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"New Strings" Cedar Park, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/80 sec, ISO6400
 “New Strings” Cedar Park, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going?

These past couple weeks have been extremely busy at work. It’s funny that sometimes I have so many projects lined up that it feels like it would be almost impossible to complete them all, and then I finish one of them and it seems to clear a roadblock and I am able to make a huge amount of progress on many of my other tasks. It’s kind of like a magical wave of momentum!

What I have noticed is that it happens quite often, so now I try to set myself up to kickstart that momentum in the morning. This is not really that mysterious or difficult to do. It’s often just the completion of a small morning task, or a productive meeting, or even a chat that can get the ball rolling.

What is great about this is that with each hurdle that is overcome, a bunch of stress is shed and that is a wonderful feeling of relief! I actually enjoy having that bit of pressure or stress when a project or task is looming because I am anticipating the amazing feeling of relief that comes with finishing the project.

Since projects come in never-ending cycles, it’s actually kind of cool to know that I have all these little wins to look forward to. In the past, I’ve been kind of depressed because it seemed like work never ends, but you know, I’d kind of feel at a loss if I had nothing to do. It’s so strange how people change…

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Today’s photo is of my new Aquila ukulele strings. I love them! They certainly aren’t anything fancy nor exotic, but they sound a lot crisper (more clarity as Koa told me) than the strings that my ukulele came from the factory with. I’m very pleased!

I hope you had a nice Monday!

おやすみ

Ukulele and Avengers

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"Waiting for the Movie" Austin, 2018
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2, 1/125 sec, ISO3200
 “Waiting for the Movie” Austin, 2018

こんばんは。How’s it going?

Today my new set of ukulele strings arrived in the mail! After that debacle yesterday at Guitar Center, I guess mini-karma came into play and my Amazon order came a day early, and on Sunday, no less. I strung up my ukulele and it sounds so much better! And the low-g sounds really good too. The reason why I wanted to make the switch is because I wanted to play one of the songs from Kiki’s Delivery Service, and the tabs/lesson I found uses the low-g. I’m making some good progress on learning the song so I am pretty happy.

I really enjoy playing the ukulele because I think it sounds nice and relaxing, plus it’s only got four strings so my brain can understand it. A regular 6-string guitar is too complex for me, I’m not embarrassed to admit. 😆

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This evening we all went to see Avengers: Infinity War. I won’t give away any spoilers but I’ll just say that the interaction between the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor was so funny. Easily my favorite part of the film. I’m really not that big of a fan of superheroes, but Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor are my favorites so it was cool to see them together.

I hope you had a nice Sunday!

おやすみ！

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