KBBQ at home!

For a long time I have deeply enjoyed a genre of foods known as KBBQ or Korean BBQ. Such establishments commonly have little gas powered BBQs embedded into their dining tables, and provide, for some nominal fee, limitless meats to be grilled therein. Today I did the unthinkable. My mother, God bless her, brought home, presumably from a Korean market, an otherworldly amount of Korean style marinated short ribs. I made them, and sautéed some mushrooms and green onions, and toasted up a baguette. KBBQ! At Home!

ISO 1000
35mm
f/4.0
1/30sec

I went to the park yesterday and I saw this little humming bird buzzing about some flowers while I sat in the parking lot listening to the end of the Denmark-Camaroon game on my car stereo. Its too bad the Cameroon is out, but it turned out to be a great day in the park and some neat shots of a tiny bird.

ISO 3200
300mm
f/22.0
1/640 sec.

Graduation

Last night my little brother and the Foothills class of 2010 graduated from High School. It was a bittersweet ceremony marking the end of an era. Over the past four years I have spent countless hours in mentor ship over many of these young men and women, and with this ceremony, my role as their High School church councilor comes to an end. A mixture of pride and excitement mingled with sadness at their moving on marks this occasion for me. I can only hope that future generations of youth will be as dear to me as these one.

I was unsure which version of this photo I liked more, so I thought I would simply post two.

ISO 3200
140mm
f/5.0
1/125mm

San Diego

I spent some time in San Diego last weekend, and they have some very awesome architecture. This is the hotel that we stayed in. It was a good weekend with some good kids.

ISO 1600
21mm 16mm
f/9.0 f/2.8
1/800sec 1/20sec

Jerusalem Cross

For the past few months or so I have been searching the internets and the occasional jeweler for a chain and pendant to wear about my neck. I wanted something like a cross or crucifix, but had trouble finding something both tasteful and within my price range. To the rescue,my dear friends Al and Bev Zembrowsky recently returned from a trip to Israel and were kind enough to think of me during their travels. They brought me this Jerusalem Cross in sterling silver. I may never take it off.

ISO 1600 (in hindsight I should have used a lower ISO)

35mm (with macro adapter)

f/22

1/250 sec. (with a bunch of external lighting inc my 430ex)

Bun Thit Noung

So my mother has been on a streak, she has been making all these wonderful, colorful, childhood favorite Vietnamese foods for me to eat. Guess who has been eating and taking pictures of them. This is Bun Thit Noung. Or rice noodles, with grilled pork and shrimp. There is a mysterious melange of vegetables and herbs in there, basil, mint, some herbs that don't have recognizable English names. Some pickled carrots as well. Topped with crispy garlic and fresh home made fish sauce. Oh yeah. its good.

ISO 1600

16mm

f/4.0

1/60 sec

Banh Canh

When most people think of Vietnamese noodle soup, they think right away of pho. Its too bad they don't know about pho's thicker noodled brother banh canh. Rich pork broth, thick rice noodles, skrumps, crunchy garlic and fish sauce come together to make one of my favorite breakfast/lunch/dinner noodle soups. Yumm.

ISO 1600

26mm

f/2.8

1/80 sec