the package

i finally got the package from mom! we went to the post office on Saturday to pick it up. then went to Michael's parents to Madison to go somewhere for breakfast together. it was a 30 mins drive from the post-office i guess. During all that ride i was trying to open the package. if americans did everything with such professionalism, quality, and diligence it would be a perfect country. the way the package was taped was crazy - and i had no sharp object in the car, so i had to simply untape it (if i can use the word simply about that situation). anyway, right as we were on the last turn i managed to finally open the box and get rid of all tapes (which formed a ball bigger than my fist).

mom sent me 21 dvds with programs/music/movies, absolutelly adorable comfy capris (a bit longer breeches), a shirt, and a hair-barette. also she found my one-of-most-favorite cat earrings and one of my lion key-ring charms. She also sent a long-sleeved shirt for Michael.






As you see me and Anoki are of the same colors now :D

i recognized the barette. i had seen it at the cosmetics store where me and mom bought all girlish stuff - "Paris". almost all of my barettes were from there, and this one i liked for the design but it wasn't matching any clothes in my closet so i didn't get it. Mom somehow remembered and bought it. THEN she got the outfit for me. That's what i told Michael - i thought mom bought stuff in that order. later when she called in the evening she said "Irina but i must confess in something.." and i said "that you matched clothes with the barette and not the vice versa?" mom said "YES!" and we laughed. and oh well i once got a swimsuit to match my slippers, and the apple doesn't fall far from the apple-tree :))

It was 21st of March when i got 21 DVDs.. that number is haunting me. 21st of march is also Helen's birthday. i called her around 9 my time... to realize tat it was kind of late night in Armenia :)) then i kept messaging her from the bar but she seemed to be asleep. i messaged mom with a songle word (in armeninan i mean) "are you asleep?" she called back and said

- you! why did you wake me up?? it doesn't matter that you are over the ocean on the other side of the planet, you still give me a hard time! it's 8 am sunday! couldn't you wait until 9 at least??

in my defence i forgot that Armenia hasn't shifted to daylight saving time, so i thought it was 9! hehe.

macro lenses and filters

i got it! i got my order! i was all excited and going crazy :)

the package included 4 macro lenses, 3 filters, and some cleaning stuff. i tore everything down, created a mess all around me, and was sitting happily among photo equipment and computer wires when Michael arrived at home.

he however had to leave for practice with Kevin, so i grabbed my new stuff and ran out to the park. here are some test shots:




last image is taken with +10 and +4 macro lenses mounted on my cam! that plant was really tiny and i had to breath carefully not to cause the slightest movement. for scale, i'd say the diameter of the 'flower' was 2.5 mm.

but of course it's not only plants that i took photos of:


hissing at the camera


i focused on his eye and you can clearly see the reflection in it



i'll speak about filters separately as the test shots i took were really boring, but the filters are awesome anyway! as soon as i got the package i said "oh my god! this is awesomeee!" about 5 times a minute :D

and now i am looking forward to new discoveries in the macro world and i guess it's exactly what i'm going to do NOW!

bear VS bird, and a pie place

Once upon a time there lived a bear whose name was Michael (Mishka ;) ) and a bird - George by the name.they had nothing in common and declared war to each other:



however during these military actions both realized that brutal force doesn't solve anything. and so they declared truce and lived in peace from then on:



p.s. however when Michael read the story, he said they are still on war... so i guess the truce is over :(

end of this story

now right across the street there is the "Baker's square" place ...





... especially known for their pies. we went there with Brain and Linzy.



i had a lemon miringue



sitting there kind of reminded me of how i would have a breakfast (or supper or whatever) with Mary and we'd have some waffles with a coffee or a cocktail; or how i would hang out at Alex's office, have some beer (which in fact i hate and which was good only in that company) with some fish snacks and sometimes fast food; or how i'd go out with Helen and we'd have a pizza at "Tashir pizza". All three companies were so different but they all are called friends and it's one of the things i miss the most here. i guess i can't connect to some place, or objects - i can live without it. but people are what i trully connect with and build my associations with places on. so i can't say i miss 'Armenia' - but i will say i miss the people there instead.

biometrics, rock hall of fame, x-box

on friday Michael took a day off from work since i had a biometrics appointment at 1 pm. what is it? it's next step in the loooong process of the adjustment of status and all the bureaucracy.. they had to take my fingerprints (as if they didn't at the US embacy in Armenia), and for i-don't-already-know-which time i had to fill out my name/surname etc. then the fingerprints will be sent to FBI to make sure i'm not a terrorist. anyway, the whole thing took about 20 mins only.

and then... then! Michael took me to one and only rock hall of fame! yep it's in Cleveland, OH. unfortunately it wasn't allowed to take any photos or videos inside, but they have an official site and a flickr account:
http://www.rockhall.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockhall

no need to say it was awesome. it was more of a music museum where you could see how rock'n'roll was born from old blues and how later all kinds of derivatives up to metal and rap originated from it. i saw costumes, guitars, cars (!), guns, letters, and other stuff of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, U2, Pink Floyd, etc. at every step there were wide-screen TVs built into walls showing some old news footage, interviews, video clips, etc about rock'n'roll and musicians. also at every corner there was a music machine (or sometimes a little screen built into the wall) with a headphone set. each machine had a collection of one band/artist songs, or sometimes had a collection of songs from some time-span (e.g. 80s). last 2 floors were closed and from what i figured are open during summer only. however we spent about 3-4 hours, and i had completely lost any track of time. there was also a gift-shop were you could buy CDs, books, clothes, cups, and just anything. we got some CDs (the only thing that wasn't overpriced way too much).

i think some people will like the rock hall of fame and some won't, but one thing is certain - if you have a chance visit it al least once if you care about music at all. you will be emerged into the music world... and will walk a lot! my legs were hurting me for 2 days :))

then we headed home. suddenly i remembered that we needed to get more RAM for the workstation, so we stopped at bestbuy which is a huge electronic store. other than RAM we got a western digital passport for me to back-up all photos primarily. it's an external hard drive which connects to PC through USB. the smallest one was 160GB. so it's my new "flah drive" :))

and! we got an X-box!!! it's a playstation for video games, but it also allows you to hook a PC to the TV set enabling watching videos, listening to music and looking at pictures on a huge wide screen! also now there is no need to have cable TV. we signed up for Netflix account (which is about 25$ a month) and now we can watch ANY movie or a TV show without any adds, without the need to run to a store or a rental place. x-box is really awesomeeeee!

though it was such a long day we still went to "the bumpers" - the karaoke bar we go to almost every friday. Julie, the bartender, made us some very good long islands... which were also very strong. so we went home at 1 am - earlier than usual. when Michael was about to park the car in front of the apartments block, i saw something in front of the car and we stopped abruptly. "something" was 2 geese! the fat bastards didn't consider it necessary to move out of the cars way. only when we stopped they made some noise and lazily moved aside.

me: Michael! everybody's asleep, let's go kick some bad goose ass! nobody will see! (there is a law protecting animals here)
Michael: haha vicious girl. be nice to birds :)
me: nice to them??? they just ask for trouble! they think they own the world and are superior to humans!

but Michael wouldn't let me touch the precious representatives of the wild life, which are untouchable :))

Rain

i was geeting ready to go to bed. and it started raining heavily! i couldn't miss such an opportunity.. so i grabbed the camera and started trying 1-minute long exposures. it was 3am (and oh i need to reset the cam clock because of the daylight savings)


through the glass door. i was afraid that the rain will get on the lense. but i realized it won't be the true color...


... so i opened the door. this is the true color


concret of the parking lot and garbage cans. during the day nothing would make you even think of taking a photo of this. but at night and in the rain things change..


through the window with a mosquito net


without the net




photos that are smaller are uploaded to my picassa. i just want to keep my flickr for good photos only and upload "illustrational" photos to picassa or elsewhere.

daylight saving time doesn't work for me. i used to go to bed around 2.30 am, now i go at 3.30 am. which doesn't matter now but i will have to switch eventually...

never enough

i feel like i'm always not satisfied with the amount of:

• time


• chocolate


• my skills


• colors! (in my photos)


• light! (in my photos)


• organization


• movement (need to move!!!)


• time time time!

but i'm trying to do my best and make the best use of what i have... time is the worst because if it was good i wouldn't be posting at 3.00 am... anyway :)) i wanted to share this sunset. there is a story connected with it...







(not edited colors)












i was in the 'hobby' room probably flickering. George was on my desk. then i noticed the light changed. and i realized a sunset was about to happen! i knew Michael would come in a moment but oh well it couldn' take me too long to soot a sunset! so i simply grabbed my camera and rushed outside.

the sunset was about to start.. so i had to wait. i went out a bit too early as it turned out. when the sky finally turned pinkish i realized it wasn't going to be an awesome sunset. when it seemed to me it reached it's culmination i turned to go. but then i realized that it was getting more and more beautiful. so i went back and stayed until the last rays of suns died. i went to the apartment.. and a car started off. i looked in that direction and it pretty much looked like Michael's car.

i went into the apartment. definitely Michael had come from work and now had left.... where??? i was hungry! :D George was in his cage... i found my phone and called Michael.

me: heyyy! where are you?
Michael: i'm looking for you.. i thought you were at the bookstore..
me: noooo come home..

and then when he came home and we talked this was found out:

Michael came home and saw that the bird was out and i was gone. no note from me, phone was left at home. however the camera was gone too. so he decided maybe i was at the park! he went out, walked all around the pond without noticing me and came back. he thought maybe i was kidnapped! hehe who would kidnap... *me* :D.

i wasn't hiding or anything - i was just standing perfectly still not to shake the camera. in fact i wasn't even far away - just 10 steps down the path right by the pond - at my favorite place :D:D i couldn't stop laughing and Michael said i was a bad girl :D i guess he expected me jumping around the pond performing some tribal dance :)))) hehehe

cookie pants, nail polish, remote control, and dirty pigeon

i wanted comfy pants, but not ordinary ones! i wanted cookie pants - so that when i'm wearing them i don't feel guilty for eating too many cookies :D



the other thing i was dying to get was this nail polish... i wanted to take a simple photo of my nails - just like an illustration but it turmed out to be too good so i processed it some and i really like the result!



also i have registered mom at amazon and explained how to use it. so now she won't have troubles finding people going to America to send us gifts for different occasions :D haha. and the first occasion that showed up was March 8 - women's day. so mom got me the remote control for my cam from the wishlist. and oh god! i can't wait to get it!!!
and oh my god! i actually received it today!!! it's tiny and there is only one button on it unlike the remote of sony dsc-h7, but who cares? there is a "bulb" setting in shutter speed, which means i can let the photo be exposured for as long as i want! and i don't have to hold the camera's shutter button shaking the camera all the time and blurring the image... i'm sorry probably this all doesn't make much sense to many people... but well i'm happy :D

ah and also - i made peace with George.



his nickname is "dirty pigeon". currently he is sitting on my monitor and is staring at me. sometimes he tries to see what's happening on the screen and sometimes gazes at the sun until he falls asleep.






after i took these images and offloaded them into the computer i started going through them... and George was very much interested in seeing him as a model. he probably decided to continue his career as a glam model... so soon you will see more of him.





he is crazy. he uses his wings once a day - just to fly up and float at the highest point right under the ceiling and then falls down on the floor. when i try to catch him he either tries to run away or hisses at me. when he sits on my desk i am not allowed to move the mouse - he starts chasing my arm. or he will just climb on my arm and sit there... and oh god his nails are sharp!

and i am sorry probably this post hurt your eyes.. too much of red and black :) but i took so many photos that i couldn't decide which ones i liked the most from these (believe me there are many more that i haven't posted :D )