Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO1250 “Homework Kitty” Cedar Park, 2016
こんばんは！Hi, how’s it going?
Tomorrow my wife and kids are leaving for a summer vacation trip, so today was spent preparing and packing. In the photo above, you can see our son Koa working on his Japanese homework, and our kitten Yuzu is keeping him company, as cats do. 🐱 I took the photo using standard Fujfilm Provia film simulation, then I edited the JPEG in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2, which is a great way to convert to black and white and find just the right look.
Starting tomorrow I will be a summer bachelor for a while but I still have two cats and a dog to keep me company so I shouldn’t be too lonely. I’ll also have some tasks to do around the house and I predict that I will be spending a lot of time at work too, trying to get ahead on projects while I have the chance to put in a few extra hours.
This will be maybe the 4th time I’ve been a summer bachelor so I am pretty used to it and know what to expect… but this year will be different in a not so good way – Mariko did not cook a big pot of curry for me to live off of! What am I gonna do? 😧 🍛
This evening after dinner, we went to an arcade called Pinballz to play some games. This arcade is really cool because they have dozens of pinball machines, from very old classics to some relatively new ones. It was so nostalgic to see all these machines from my childhood memories! Isn’t it cool when you can awaken those memories that haven’t seen the light of day for many years? The human brain is amazing… memories that have been buried for so long can somehow reappear!
Pinballz also has old video games as well, many of them I haven’t played for 30 years or so, including Zaxxon and Wizard of Wor. I had a lot of fun playing those games with my brother back at the mall in our hometown. A wonderful period of my life, the ’80s!
Besides all the fun games, Pinballz Lakeline also serves food and beer. Mariko and I shared a nice draft brew while we played pinball with the kids. I was so much fun… I’m looking forward to visiting again in the future.
Today’s photo is of my son showing off his skills. For the post-processing of this indoor shot, I first used Perfect Exposure, which is a free plugin for Lightroom. It can quickly fix poorly exposed photos, like the ones I took in the dark arcade, which has lots of different types of lighting. Next, I adjusted the vibrance and saturation in Lightroom, added a little bit of grain, and voila! All done.
As you can see from today’s photo, we had sushi! It’s my son’s 15th birthday today, so we went to his favorite restaurant to dine on delicious Japanese food. Our friend prepared this amazing selection of sushi, which included some beef! It was all so yummy, I could have eaten all night.
I’m so happy that our kids are relatively open-minded about food. My wife and I love to try so many different kinds of cuisines, so Bay and Koa are used to giving new foods a try. Of course they have certain foods that they really don’t like, for instance Bay cannot stand mushrooms, and Koa doesn’t like sushi rice (although he likes the fish). I am pretty sure that in time, they will grow to enjoy these foods as well! 😄
The photo below is from the box of uni (sea urchin) that we enjoyed. It was from Japan and was super delicious! I wish I could eat it every day. 🍣
Tonight’s photos were taken at a relatively high ISO of 6400, but the Fujifilm X-Trans II sensor handles it amazingly well. I don’t mind shooting at 6400 at all with my X100T, in fact, I have the Auto ISO range from 200-6400 which is something I would use only in extreme situations on my dslr. I think it is fantastic that cameras keep getting better at high-ISO. It’s the area where I think we can benefit the most.
I used the Fujifilm standard Provia film simulation for both of these photos, and in Lightroom I adjusted the white balance a tiny bit, deepened the blacks, brought back some shadows, and bumped up the vibrance a little. I then added a slight vignette and a some of grain, which is pretty much my standard look these days.
I hope you had a great Thursday. We’ve almost made it to the weekend!
We made it to the weekend! And my kids made it to the end of their Summer Camps. Bay attended a 3D Printing & Product Design camp at UT Austin, where he learned how to use Autocad and created a prototype aquatic propulsion system using the 3D printer. The instructor said he was a great student with an eye for detail. I’m so proud!
In the photo above, you can see Bay presenting his product. He said that he was familiar with the software already since they use it in his engineering class in high school, but it’s always good to get practice and use it on a new project.
It was a busy week for the entire family, with Koa also going to camp, and Mariko being a chauffeur for Bay. I think everyone is exhausted and looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I know I am!
こんばんは！Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there!
Today was a super busy one for us because both Koa and Bay are starting week-long summer camps. First off, Koa is attending a percussion camp down at Texas State University in San Marcos which is about a 45-minute drive south from us and today was his check-in and audition. He’s pretty excited because he gets to stay over in the dorms! Plus there are a lot of fun activities planned and many different classes where he’ll learn a lot of different kinds of percussion. I think he’ll have a ton of fun! 🎼
After dropping him off, we decided to stop by the Kyle Flea Market that we passed by on the way to the camp. It was pretty fun, but super hot! Although today is only in the low 90s, the flea market warehouse was not air-conditioned so it was sweltering! 😅 We didn’t find anything worth buying but it was still interesting to see how much junk was for sale.
Next up was lunch, which I got to decide since it is Father’s Day. I was presented with two choices: Shake Shack or Burgerfi. I think I was pretty much guided to choose Burgerfi which was fine with me. The burgers were yummy and it really hit the spot! I chose the “Conflicted Burger” which was one meat patty and one veggie-patty. It was pretty good, but I think I should have just gotten a double-cheeseburger with jalapeños, which is exactly what Bay ordered. Mariko had a cheeseburger with fried egg, and I had a bite… definitely a good combination!
Next up on our Sunday list was to visit the UT campus to check out where Bay’s 3D Printing & Product Design camp will be held. Mariko will be dropping him off and picking him up each day so she wanted to make sure she knew the location. Once we checked it out, we walked to a cream-puff bakery called Cream Whiskers for some ice coffee and matcha cream-puffs. It was yummy!
When we left the bakery, it was close after 6pm so we headed home and then watched game 7 of the NBA finals, and that brings us up to the present!
Oh, one more thing… my Father’s Day loot!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/17 sec, ISO6400 “Father’s Day Loot” Cedar Park, 2016
I received a bunch of cool stuff:
Sweet treats and trail mix from my parents
Yo-kai Watch game for the Nintendo 3DS (or my 2DS)
Food-grinder attachment for our mixer so I can make fresh burgers 🍔
5-year Diary. Each day has five entries, so you can easily see what you did on the same day the previous year
Now it’s almost midnight and I didn’t get to play Yo-kai Watch yet… maybe I’ll get to play tomorrow. 🎮
I hope you had a great weekend. ☺️
おやすみなさい！ – B
Like this:
LikeLoading...
My camera & photos
I use a Fujifilm X-series camera for most of the photos on this site and my Instagram. Why not pick one up for yourself?
