Finished Jedi

こんばんは!

This evening we finished watching Episode VI of Star Wars and we’re now fully prepped to see Episode VII! And we only have less than two days to avoid all the spoilers… so far I’ve done pretty well. 😎

Earlier in the day, we just relaxed and enjoyed our coffee, breakfast tacos, a couple episodes of Psych, and printing more photos on the Instax printer. I’m totally hooked on it! So much fun. I’ve printed 20 so far, and all have been from Lightroom. My workflow for these is to crop the photo to 4:3 ratio, lower the exposure a bit (the printer overexposes) and bump up the vibrance. Then I export at the proper size/dpi (more on this in a later post) to a Dropbox folder. On my phone, I download the photo from Dropbox to a local folder, then fire up the Instax app and print away! I have yet to print directly from my X100T, but I am looking forward to doing that. Maybe on the plane!

Just two more work days, and then it’s off to Los Angeles for the holidays. I’m pretty sleepy now (thanks to a couple glasses of wine) so I’ll end it right here. 🍷 Talk to you again!

おやすみなさい!😴

-B

The blog must go on.

Hi all! I’ve been blogging for quite a long time now (over 16 years!) but lately I wanted to start writing 📝 just a little bit every day. So, for the past week and a half you may have noticed a daily post from me. I’m trying to make it part of my daily routine, which has been difficult in the past but I am making a larger effort this time. I have a laptop set up next to the bed, so before I climb under the covers, I’ll sit at the laptop, with my cat Miki 🐱 joining me, and tap out a few words to share what has happened in my day, or a photo or two. It’s really easy and I have no excuse not to.

I’ve enjoyed blogging (even if mine is nothing special) because I find it therapeutic, and making it a daily thing gets me to think about what my priorities are, and if I am giving them enough attention. I won’t write anything profound (I don’t have the talent to put thoughts like that into words) but my mind gets an extra jolt ⚡ of activity… and that is a good thing!

To tell the truth, I have long been inspired by Tao Tsuchiya’s daily blog! She’s one of my favorite actresses and (with the help of Google Translate) I enjoy reading her blog daily. It’s inspiring to see her dedication to journaling for so long!

Over the years, I’ve seen a few of my favorite blogs get retired, and I understand the reasons why the blogger decided to stop or take a break, but for myself, I don’t think I can ever stop doing this in one form or another. I think it’s a lot of fun, and has been a completely positive experience for me ever since I started. I think the most challenging thing for me in blogging is coming up with a title for each post! 😖

Well, it’s actually Sunday morning that I am writing this, but I woke early before anyone else and felt a bit inspired. I’m sure the coffee ☕ helped too.

It looks like today will be warmer weather-wise. ⛅ Hope you have a good one!

またね!

-B

Relaxing Saturday

Hi all! Saturday was a time to rest and take it easy. I did a little shopping while the kids were at Japanese school, and then we had a big pizza for lunch. It was delicious, especially since I have been craving pizza for a couple days.

On Tuesday we will watch the new Star Wars movie. We have been watching all the older movies, starting at Episode I and moving through them to get ready for Episode VII. Today we watched Episode V, and it was of course fantastic. Bay laughed a few times at the “primitive” special effects, like the stop-motion animation Taun-tauns and AT-ATs, but overall, he said it was way better than all the other ones. 😃

Early today, I bought a small photo album to keep my Instax prints in. A friend told me that the Fujifilm albums were on sale at the local camera shop, so I picked up a white album that holds 108 photos. It’s pretty good! I’ve been going a little nuts, printing out a bunch today – 13 prints in all. But it is so fun and I have really enjoyed going through my old digital photos on the computer to pick out ones to print. Some people say that 80 cents per photo is pretty expensive. But for myself, I’ve gotten a lot of joy looking at these. And when I am at the end of my life, which would I be happier about: A) Printing, sharing and enjoying memorable images from my life, or B) that I saved 80 cents?

"Instax Printing" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/60 sec, ISO400
“Instax Printing” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.

The weather is supposed to warm up in the next few days, so I am happy about that. ☀ But still, be careful with your health as we head into the holidays, especially if you are traveling!

おやすみなさい!😴

-B

Early Present

Hello! How’s it going? It’s Friday so I am sure it’s going well! Today I worked from home because I had a couple of things I needed to take care of at the house. It was nice to be able to stay at home because the weather has turned pretty chilly! I think this morning it was in the mid-30s. But I was nice and warm in the house. 🙂

One of my Christmas gifts I received early is something that I’ve wanted for a long time now – a Fujifilm Instax Printer! It’s so fun and cool! I’ve always wished I had an Instax camera, but when the Instax printer was announced a couple of years ago, I knew I had to have one. And finally, it happened!

"Instax Print" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/125 sec, ISO1250
“Instax Print” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.

What I love about it is that it fits in nicely to a simpler lifestyle. This little printer doesn’t require any cables or ink. It runs on two batteries and you just pop in a pack of film, then you print wirelessly from a smartphone or from a Fujifilm camera. The prints that it creates are really cool and distinct. I prefer it to the ZINK printer I have, and I’ll write more about that later. But for now, I am just going to enjoy the Instax! I love it! ❤

"Instax Printer" USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/50 sec, ISO6400
“Instax Printer” USA. Texas. Cedar Park. 2015.

おやすみなさい!

-B

The Sun in the Morning

こんばんわ!How’s it going?

It’s the time of year here where on my commute to the office, I drive straight into the sun. At about 7:20 AM, the sun is rising right into my eyes! As you can see below, it makes for a more difficult drive… in fact traffic slows down to about 20 mph in the long stretch of highway until it turns away from the sun.

USA. Texas. Austin. 2015.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/480 sec, ISO200
USA. Texas. Austin. 2015.

Well, it’s almost Christmas and I think we have all of our gifts ready to go. With online retailers, gift-buying has gotten a lot easier! I remember 20 years ago having to drive around to all the stores to buy gifts. Now I can do it from the comfort of my laptop. How times have changed!!! It makes me wonder what the future will bring.

Tonight will be cold once again, so please take care!

Good night!

-B