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I figured since I just disparaged my kids in my previous Monev The Gale post that I would bolster their image a bit.  If you were to ask either of the twins what their favorite TV show was they would probably either answer “Crabs” or “How It’s Made”.  “Crabs” refers to Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel which is the name I gave it when I introduced them to the show last year.  They watch it with me and root for Sig and Phil with me.  I love that they love “Crabs” simply because I love it.  Now if only I could get them to eat crab legs with me…

How It’s Made is, in my humble opinion, one of the most fascinating shows on TV.  It is put out by those wiley Canadians and I think it is kind of old because it has the most awful graphics within the program and during the credits (with the exception of the cool line drawings that they use to illustrate certain concepts when introducing a new segment).  To sum it up, manufacturing machines are insanely cool and I am always asking myself what kind of machine built that machine that is building those things.  It is simple enough to remain entertaining to my two boys.  Keep in mind, they are five years old.  Having had these kids in basketball and T-ball has revealed that while they are both tall and have an athletic build for their age, perhaps they are more apt to become intellectuals than athletes.  Of course if I ever get around to creating my Sig Hansen fan website and that catches their attention, they will just grow up to be a dork like their father.

I sold my beloved Monev the Gale figure on ebay recently. I bought this figure on a whim for $35 at a comic store way back when I first visited Phoenix (before I lived here) for a job interview. I had never even seen an episode of the Trigun Anime that the figure came from but the details on it were so insane that I have to pick it up.

Monev graced my desk for a few years until finally I decided I was too old and just not hip enough to get away with displaying action figures in my workspace. Voltron was relegated to the toybox at home where, thanks to my sons, it will never be quite the same, much like the two “DUB City” Scion xB models that ended up in said location two years ago. Kids have a way of destroying intricate pieces, destroying the amazing details and dulling the glossy sheens on my toys with a quickness. For example, the rear window of one of the afore-mentioned xB models was popped out of place after being dropped by one of the kids no more than three minutes after I have removed it from its packaging. I kid (no pun intended) you not, three (3) minutes. I yelled, kid cried, xB ended up being just another kid toy in the box of thousands.

Okay, so I get a little sentimental about seemingly trivial things. Perhaps I am just living out the things I could not do when I was a kid, buying the toys I could never afford, clinging to my youth, whatever. I would ask my therapist but I have not seen him in like six or seven years Photography was good therapy though. I took out my dSLR and popped a few hundred frames with my telephoto lens. Most were unusable because I was experimenting and the depth of field ended up being way too shallow. Still kind of cool and definitely satisfying.

Conditions this weekend were perfect for flying kites and taking pictures. It has been all too rare that I get to go out and just take pictures for fun so for me, this was a good weekend. For my kids, I am sure they would hav much rather just been out flying the kite without me laying in the grass behind them barking orders like “move to the right, put your hands up a bit and stop fidgeting!” Someday they might appreciate the results enough to humor me.

As for post production, you might notice some color variances. Some images have a little more red to then, others more blue. I was torn between the two looks. The ones with more red give a little more of a warm appearance which goes good with the whimsical summer-like nature of the photos, but living in Arizona, I get sick of seeing redness in the sky. The dust in Phoenix is red and so while you can get some amazing colors in the sunset, red-tinted skies usually mean pollution. Blue skies like the ones on this day are rare so while the more blue-tinted images make me happy, they do appear a little cooler than the red-tinted images. That’s probably why I like them more. Blue skies and cool air are about to get pretty rare over the next six months here, and my triple-digit-heat-induced-grumpiness is about to flow in abundance.