Yearly Archives: 2010

I’m back from Pennsylvania! It was a weekend of God, family, friends, and shopping and I wish it never ended. I want to delve in to the God part for a second – don’t worry, I’m not going to preach. I just want to be bold enough to ramble about him whenever I please, without care of losing people’s interest. There is such distaste attached to the word GOD and it’s really unfortunate because he is actually the most beautiful thing in life, but so completely corrupted by the religious systems of the world and misunderstood by the majority. I wish that I could change that; wipe out RELIGION, which has grown into such an emotionally-charged and negative thing/subject/word/topic/issue/whatever, and just simply show you what I see, show you God through my eyes. Because if you see what I see, I know that you’d like it.

On another note, always remember to buy travel insurance whenever you leave Canada, even if it’s just for a day (or at least be aware of your company’s coverage). It’s so easy to overlook something like this, especially for short weekend trips. I know I do. I’ve been spending weekends in the U.S. for as long as I can remember, without ever making sure that I’m insured in the event that something happens. Not to be morbid or cliché, but life is so fragile and so unpredictable and anything can happen. My uncle’s appendix ruptured during our stay in Pennsylvania and he had to go under the knife right then and there. Without insurance, you’d better be able to pay up or consider yourself screwed – welcome to the U.S.A!

Photo below is of my cousin’s little boys. :)

Another quick post! This is my cousin’s little boy – we set him up in a mini rocking chair on the sidewalk and he loved it. I love taking photos of kids – they naturally make a beautiful photo! When I have my own kids, they’re going to feel like models because it’s going to be a photoshoot every day! I’ll borrow other people’s kids in the mean time though.

I’m still in Pennsylvania but headed back home tomorrow and stopping by the shopping outlets to do some damage. I’m excited!

I found internet, :). I don’t have time to write anything right now but I wanted to quickly post this photo from Montrose, Pennsylvania just for you, :). It was taken right on the front porch of this cozy little place that I’m staying at. I’ll blog all about it on Monday. My long weekend is nothing short of fantastic so far, I hope yours is, too. It’s bed time for me and I wish you sweet dreams.

I’m going through a sun flare obsession and have been pointing my camera right at the sun and carelessly shooting away at it for twenty minutes at a time. After I finish, I see black spots and floaters all over my field of vision, at which point I realize that I’ve done something terrible to my eyes. Staring directly at the sun is very, very dangerous and can cause blindness – duh, I’m so caught up in my own little photographic world, that these simple dos and don’ts have gone way over my head. I have a nagging feeling, so I went and booked an eye appointment for next Saturday because that was the earliest time available – I hate that. I sound like an overreacting nut, but I’m especially cautious with matters of the eye because my brother has a history of retinal detachment and has permanently lost a part of his vision. Whenever I forget, he reminds me not to take my eye sight for granted. I can’t imagine losing a PART of my vision, let alone all of it.

On anther note, blindness from photography? That’s love. Photo below is the result of shooting at the sun and potentially going blind.

I am road tripping down to Montrose, Pennsylvania at 4:00AM and will be back Monday evening. I am bringing my laptop with me in case I can connect to the internet and post a photo a day. If not, I’ll catch up on Monday. Have a supercalifragilistic long weekend! They only come around once in a while.

Haven’t done Wall-E in a while, so here’s one.

I made my own favourites icon. See it? Look on your browser tab or where the website URL is, there’s a little red heart now. :)

Have you heard of the upcoming Toronto reality show Lake Shore? A Canadian version of Jersey Shore? Some Torontonian fist-pumping adventure? GTL Toronto style? HAHA, here comes another guilty pleasure show – so atrocious, yet so gripping because you just. don’t. get. it. and it’s simply satisfying to sit there and say “wtf?” and laugh your head off and then say “wtf?” again. They’re auditioning for people like this train wreck over here, so if you feel you fit the profile, then you should audition! I kid. Don’t do it! Auditions ended anyway. The point of the show is to throw eight (supposedly attractive but I’d describe them more as sleazy) twenty-somethings from diverse backgrounds, together in one camera-rigged house for some stupid but entertaining phony drama. Oh TV, the garbage you bring to our lives.

It’s Friday tomorrow. I’ve got happy tears.

I’ve become an overnight fan of Regina Spektor. The song you’re listening to (unless you’ve pressed the stop button because you hate it so much) is called The Calculation and it’s by Regina – a song with a perfect portrayal of love and how unexpected it can be and how there’s no calculation or formula and you can’t go about it with exact precision, although we often do. Ah, she’s so poetic, and fresh, and different. I love discovering music that you don’t hear on the trashy radio.

I’m going to Pennsylvania this weekend to a town called Montrose for a church retreat and some family time. I hope there are good things to take photos of.

The travel bug is biting me hard. I’m thinking Los Angeles in November or December and then throw in a little Vegas in there since it’s only 270 miles away from LA. While in Vegas, I have to see The Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show. And then next thing you know, it’s January 2011, vacation time at work refreshes, and I’m booking a Contiki tour to see more of Europe. That’s what’s going to happen, my friends. Stop planning, start making things happen.

PS. Happy September. I wish I was going to class next week to pick up my heart that I left at Ryerson University.

I find that the older I get, the less I care about what people think about me. Anyone else feel the same way? I wish this transformation started sooner because when I was younger, tripping in the hallway at school was actually the end of the world. Now it’s think what you want, say what you want, tell people what you want – doesn’t bother me much. It’s human nature to judge, to talk, to think we have the other person all figured out. Nine out of ten times, we’re probably off on a tangent. Things aren’t always what they appear to be but we’re all suckers for gossip, so that’s the crappy part. If you can walk away from gossip, raise your hand. You deserve a star. On the flip side though, if we’re all comfortable and confident enough in our own skin, we can keep doing our thing even with the whole world laughing. Kind of like the story of Noah’s Ark (lol). You know yourself better than anyone else and you please who you want to please and that’s that. Happily ever after.

Ah, and here is one of my Venetian masks from Venice, Italy. I bought two while I was there. The other one will be unveiled in the next little while. They’re so beautiful; I wish I had a masquerade party to go to. Anyway, I got SIX mosquito bites in fifteen minutes while shooting this in the woods by my house. Mosquitos dig my blood. Maybe vampires do, too. Perhaps Edward Cullen from Twilight would like my blood more than Bella’s. Just maybe.

Congratulations to this superstar for getting a big fat raise today. You deserve it, love. I’m thrilled for you. Twice baked potato at the Keg is on you!

Man, does it feel GOOD to be powered by WordPress. I have been so resistant to change with web design. I’ve loved Notepad since I was 13 when I first learned how to make html-based websites. I never progressed from Notepad. Notepad was the one. CharlenePrecious.com is an entirely html-based site built with Notepad (I’ve disabled all site navigation except for the blog because I’m working on a revamp.) But honestly, it’s a royal pain in the butt and enough is enough! I committed to moving on and tackling WordPress. Everything is practically automated. Super low on stress and hassle once you’ve configured and customized everything. BUT. And this is a big but. Until you’ve configured and customized everything exactly to the way you want it, it’s still a pain in the butt. Not easy especially when you’re very particular about how you want your site to look and work. I know I am. Anyway, what matters is that it’s here. A Photo A Day is an official photo journal. You can read all about it here. I am so excited! Welcome, welcome!