There’s been a lot going on in my life, but isn’t that always the case for most of us? I’ve left a job, been back to China, worked another job, started a company and started another job again. My photography has taken a bit of a sideline because I’ve been spending most of my spare time on a new product that myself and a few others have been developing.

PhotoMerchant is an online web tool that is going to make it a lot easier to sell photos online. It’s mainly aimed at Professional Photographers who want to sell their photos online and not have to worry about printing, shipping, credit card processing, storage, hosting etc. There’s much more to it than that but if you’re interesting take a look here.

I’m going to try and post a little more regularly here from now on. I think my sabbatical has been long enough.

I’m currently experimenting with a post processing service offered by TimesTwoStudios. I met Mike Long (one of the owner’s of TimesTwoStudios) in a forum a few weeks ago and he mentioned the service to me. So, I thought I’d have a go. I’ll be sure to post the results here when my images come back.

That is all.

- Derek

Some of you have (mainly family) have expressed interest in seeing some video of Luke doing his thing… So I decided to post one that Sue sent through to me the other day.

She bought him a little second hand play desk for $20. Apparently he loves it. As you can see in the video, he’s definately one who likes to explore anything and everything around him. Then again, most kids are.

Enjoy…

I decided to drive over to the Kangaroo & Kiwi on Saturday night to see if I could catch the tail end of the Rugby (AU vs NZ). Thought I meat some local ex pats as well… Maybe find out a little about the surrounding area and what good to do.

Anyway, I walked in thinking there’d be a reasonable number of fellow antipodeans, but alas, no! Everyone I could hear speaking was a Yank!

Anyhoo, to cut a long story short, Australia lost the rugby and I also ended up meeting an ex Melbournian, Josh, who actually plays for the Seattle AFL team over here. Yes, Seattle actually has an AFL team. I was surprised as well, they’re called the Seattle Grizzlies. http://www.seattlefooty.com.

On to the omelet. So Josh and his American friends invite me next door to “Beth’s Diner”, a local food spot for anyone wanting to enjoy a good meal of slop and put on a few pounds. I agreed to join them as I was getting hungry.

As we sat down, Jo, the guy in the photo put $4,000 in cash on the table and (yes, I said $4k in cash) said:

“I’ll give you this four G if you eat an entire 12 Egg Omelet.”

At this stage I was still trying to think of a legitimate reason someone would be carrying $4k in cash around… Did he just sell his car? Did he find it on the street (not likely)? Did he have extremely lucrative gainful employment?… Either way, I wasn’t about to accept the bet, it’s not something I do. However, I was hungry so I said:

“12 Eggs? That’s not so bad, put your money away and I’ll do it for free”

He seemed happy with that and called over the waitress:

“What will it be sirs?” she asks.

“We’ll have one 12 Egg Omelet for this guy right here” Jo answers.

“And what kind of filling would you like in your Omelet sir” the waitress asks, looking at me.

“Filling? Ummm…. eggs?” I enquire.

“It’s an Omelet sir, it’s already got eggs. You can have potato, tomato, cheese, chicken or beef”.

“Oh, ok. I’ll have the potato thanks” I answer.

With that she walks away. Now, I’m thinking to myself, 12 eggs, that’s possible, but 12 eggs and then a whole lot of potato inside those 12 eggs, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do that.

Anyway, cutting this long story even shorter, you can see in the photo what was brought out. This definitely doesn’t do it justice either. It was massive. The plate it was served on was the size of a large pizza tray if that helps to give it perspective. You can see the “after” shot on flickr, it’s 1/2 eaten and it still looks like about 3 meals worth of food!

Everyone had a good laugh though and I don’t think I’ll be able to eat another omelet ever again…

Why? you ask? Am I trying to give people the wrong impression of Aussie’s over here? Am I just being lazy?

None of the above.

The lovely Courtyard Marriott have conveniently ‘misplaced’ 5 days worth of laundry that I gave them on Thursday last week to be cleaned (they offer a free laundry service)… Not lost!

Anyhoo, they assure me that they’re doing everything they can to track it down, but so far no luck.

So. Fortunately all the big clothing stores over here are having sales, including Nordstrom with their Anniversary sale. I’ve bought a replacement wardrobe and will make sure either the hotel or my company’s insurance reimburses me.

Actually, clothes shopping over here is so much better and easier than in the suburbs of Sydney. The store staff are much more helpful and also the prices are much lower than in Oz. I bought 3 name brand T-Shirts yesterday for $50! A pair of designer leather shoes down from $499 to $99 (that was a find, even the shop assistant couldn’t believe the markdown) and a nice collection of Hugo Boss underwear (6 pairs) for around $25. Not to mention the jacket and shirts all marked down by around 70%. Oh yeah and also a pair of Vogue sunglasses from SGH that I know cost $299 is Oz and I got them for just over $100.

Anyway, enough of that… the main thing is I now have some clothes to wear. I’m off to have a shower and clean myself up a bit

Ciao

I walked in to find an American style steakhouse with walls covered in Aboriginal paraphernalia and all sorts of Australian souvenirs that I didn’t recognise. I sat down and was handed a menu. I opened the menu and within 60 seconds must have had a large smile on my face. A waitress noticed as she walked by and asked:

“Is everything OK sir?”

I replied, “Every thing’s fine thanks.”

“Oh my! Are you a real Aussssssie?”

“Um. Last time I checked I was. Yes.”

“Wow, I suppose you want us to cook you some shrimp’s on the barbie?”

I laugh. “No, I’ll just see what else you have here. Thanks.”

“Ok love. You want me to get you something to drink? Fosters?”

I laugh again. “Umm. No thanks.” Fortunately they had a number of Australian beers on their menu, so I ordered my favourite. “I’ll have a James Boag’s thanks.”

“Ok sweetie. I’ll be right back.”

I continued reading the menu, thinking to myself… What is Australian food? I mean, apart from steak and three veg and maybe the odd serving of kangaroo meat, Australian food is basically Thai, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Lebanese etc. etc. There’s obviously the Aboriginal selection of witchetty grub, a variety of snakes and shrubs, but generally these are not eaten by the general populous. Anyway back to the menu. Below is the first item on the list, it’s highlighted as an “Aussie-Tizer”:

BLOOMIN’ ONION
An Outback original! When our special onions are delivered to our kitchens daily they’re hand carved by a dedicated bloomologist. Each bloom is cooked until golden and served with our spicy dipping sauce
$6.99

You have to hand it to them though, “Bloomin’ Onion” (it’s a registered trade mark as well) is kind of clever.

Some of the other items on the menu:

Kookaburra Wings
Fresh chicken drumettes coated in savory seasonings and served mild, medium or hot with celery and Danish Blue Cheese dressing
$7.99

Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie
Sprinkled with seasonings and delicately grilled. Served with homemade remoulade sauce
$8.99

Walkabout Soup
Drover’s Platter
Walhalla Pasta
Cyclone Pasta
Toowoomba Pasta
Alice Springs Chicken
Boomerang Shrimp
Mac-A-Roo ‘N Cheese
Joey Sirloin
Spotted Dog Sundae

You get the picture.

Firstly, on the express way, everyone does about 10 mph above the speed limit. In fact, if you stick to the 60 mph limit, you'll most probably get honked a few times and become somewhat of an annoyance to other motorists (even though there's 5 lanes to choose from).  Having said this though, I haven't come across many drivers that are excessively speeding on the express way, most vehicles are all doing the average 70 mph. In Oz, there's always a decent number of motorists that are "flying" down the expressway.

Secondly, on the suburban streets, there's not many speed signs. I think the suburban "main" street limit is 35 mph (similar to our 60 kph) and the residential streets 25 mph (similar to our 50 kph). Anyhoo, what I've noticed is extreme caution on behalf of nearly every driver. I stop at a stop sign and the vehicles I'm supposed to be giving way to just sit there and either wait for me or wave me on. It's actually quite frustrating because quite often you get stuck in this "unspoken" deadlock.

"You go."

"No, you go"

"No, I insist, you go"

… and so on.

Thirdly, I've done a little bit of pedestrian travel and have found that as soon as one of my feet hits the roadway all cars in the vicinity stop dead in their tracks and wait for me to cross. Now most of the time I'm not intending on crossing. I may have just stepped onto the road to allow another pedestrian to pass etc. Strange. 

Anyway, these are just some of the vexing vehicular events that I've experienced. It's not what I expected.

Anyhoo, back to work.

Anyhoo, my hotel room is quite nice (see below). It's got a decent work area with a desk and office chair and the high speed internet connection is good. I'm staying at the Courtyard Marriott Southercenter. It's aimed at long stay business travelers and is very nice.

The picture on the left isn't the best angle but you can see I've got a decent amount of room to work.

Cable TV over here is just as boring as it is in Australia, although I've been watching this cool show called "The Worlds Dirtiest Jobs" in which the presenter travels the U.S. looking in search of the dirtiest jobs and then spends a day doing whatever it is the job entails. This morning's episode had him working with a pest extermination crew de-infesting a house that was absolutely swarming with German Cockroaches.

Another thing I've noticed here is that everything is big. I walked in to 7-Eleven this morning go buy some Bananas (yes that's right, 7-Eleven have a fruit section) and I passed a couple exiting with absolutely enormous slurpies. No, not one between 2 but 1 each! They were huge. A conservative estimate would put them at around 3 litres, however, they may have been bigger. 3 litres!!! That's ridiculous. No wonder diabetes is on the rise, it should be a crime to sell a sugar drink that large. No wonder every second corner has a dentist and every other corner has a doctor. They must be busy.

I drove into the city last night and went for a little walk. It's actually quite a small CBD area maybe about the same size as Adelaide.

It's a nice little city. I went and had a brief look at the "Space Needle". The whole area surrounding it struck me as a left over from some 70's "big idea" that the local council is trying to keep alive even though it's had it's day. However, there is a Science Fiction museum just below it that might be interesting. 

Anyway, there's not too much else to say so I'll leave it there. 

Well, yes. It's been around 9 months since I last posted anything on the blog… This is due to a number of reasons:

• Working too much
• Finishing a Bachelor of Computer Science… which is now done and over!!!
• Having a baby… not me personally but my wife
• Working too much… again and,
• Being a little lazy

So anyhoo, I'm off to Seattle, Washington on Saturday and thought I should kick off the blog again because I'm likely to take a few shots and I'm also planning to have much more time for photography in my life again! 

I'll be in the U.S. for around 20 days and I'll be sure to post any shots I think are of interest.

BTW, if you want to Facebook me, just search for "Derek Clapham" and feel free to add me as a friend.

By for now… more soon

SOME BACKGROUND…

This was taken just outside "The Loft" at King St. Wharf during my work christmas party.

THOUGHT BEHIND THE SHOT…

Believe it or not, I actually shot this out of focus on purpose. You can see the camera has tried to focus on all the scratches on my lens filter. Makes for an interesting effect.

PHOTO-GEEK STUFF…

SOME BACKGROUND…

This is a collegue of mine. His name is Cap'n Surly. He wakes up to dine and has no spine, he's really rather burly.

We had our work Christmas party last night. All employees attended dressed up as some type of super hero.  In many cases, the hero was made up. Some of the employees got quite creative. The shot you see above is Adam, our Executive Producer.  Note the condensation around his forhead. 

I'll be posting another shot from the night tomorrow because it was taken at 2am which is technically another day. :) 

THOUGHT BEHIND THE SHOT…

Not much to say really. I had the camera in Aperture Priority Mode because I didn't want to be constantly fiddling at the party with the varying lighting conditions etc. I was using my Nikon SB-800 speedlight (attached to camera) for lighting which performed flawlessly all night.

PHOTO-GEEK STUFF…