Weekend!!!

It's approaching 5 oclock on Friday which is fantastic because that means it's the weekend! THere's still something stuck underneath my AAAAAA key so everytime i type Aaaaaaaa it makes a snapping noise and I hate it. I wish it would just get stuck underneath the q key because nobody ever uses the q key...very often.

Today while at work while on down time I was browsing the internet via stumbleupon.com. This is a very cool toolbar/site that you input areas of interest, click a button, and a random site loads up for your entertainment. Here's some interesting things I "stumbled" upon today (in ascending order):

1. http://us.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide - for 11 years not a single movie has topped Titanic in the box office. The closest to it is one of the LOTR movies (2003) but still below Titanic by about 700mill. InSANE!!

2. http://www.unusualhotelsoftheworld.com/ - unusual hotels of the world, including a revolving hotel on the Mediterranean and a dog shaped hotel in Idaho. Take a look, it's very cool.

3. http://www.biblemap.org/ - self explanatory, bible map searchable by book and chapter. Very cool... A little slow to upload but still cool.

4. http://www.pandora.com/ - my most valued find of the day. How did I not know about this site!?!? It's an amazing music radio site that can find music similar to a band you input. For example, I put in Anberlin and they gave me an "Anberlin radio" complete with Anberlin and bands like them! Wow! haha I'm amused.

5. http://musicovery.com/index.php?ct=us - another cool music radio site. Not as easy to choose certain bands as Pandora, but still ... very awesome.


Anyway, yesterday I had a fantastic day. I can't really tell you why it was so great, it just was. Here's a few reasons however (in descending order):

5. Donatos Pizza for lunch. Angi got me hooked on this pizza/sub place just down the street. I try not to eat here too often as Pizza is not good for my waist line (hehe) but I treated myself to Donatos and it was oh so tasty.

4. Fun office camaraderie. Angi Peter and I spent most of the day joking around and laughing. This always makes for a fun time.

3. A nice sunny day, not too hot and not too humid. Fantastic!

2. Dinner with Deanna Soviar. A blast from the past and a friendly face down here in the carolinas. I went to SC to Deanna's school/town and got to see the area and we went to eat at the restaurant she works at. It was fun!

1. Driving home from Rock Hill, windows down, cool breeze, music pumping, and a lightnight storm up ahead. This drive home was just what I needed - relaxing, fun, and well... fantastic!

This weekend I have a few things going on which should be fun. I'm looking forward to coming home next week!!! I already have lots I hope to do and plenty of people to see. Hooooooray!!

A whirlwind trip to Miami and lots of waiting

Well, I've just recently gotten home from a crazy less than 24 hour trip to Miami. This weekend was more interesting than I anticipated. I'll tell you all about it - but first a picture from awhile back... This is from a visit from Eric. We were just finished with a delicious dinner at PF Changs and about to go see Chronicles of Narnia. This was a great night!

So Sunday began with me checking out a church. I talked to that lady I had mentioned earlier (the one I met at the pool while working with Sean) and she told me the information - and I ended up meeting her and her family in the parking lot. So, upon first impression I found the church to be very different from what I'm used to and very, well, uncomfortable. I won't go into details here but basically later that day after talking with Peter (one of the people I work with and the person I went to Miami with) I found out it quite possibly was a cult. Yikes. After thinking about some of the things I found odd, I can see why people say that about this church. But Peter told me about this church he and his wife go to occasionally and it sounds pretty cool. I'm going to check it out I think. It's an Evangelical Presbyterian church - and it's mostly people under 30. So I'll fill you in on that if I go check it out.

Ok so now onto the rest of the day. Around 2 oclock Peter picked me up and we headed to the airport. We got on a plane to Miami, Florida and after a VERY bumpy ride we landed... only to sit in the airplane in a thunderstorm for the next hour and a half. uGHHHhhh! PLUS there was this creepy man sitting next to me who kept leaning into me and randomly humming. My personal space was being extremely violated and I was not happy about that. We eventually got off the plane and waited at baggage claim, waited at the shuttle stop, waited at the rental car place, and finally got somewhere when the rental car place guy said,
"Do you mind if we upgrade you to something bigger at the same cost?"
We said "Sure!" Hoping for something sweet like ... well... i dunno what we were hoping for. But... We get to parking spot 307 and there is a Mercury Grand Marquis (and I'm not sure if I spelled that right) So by bigger, the guy must've meant longer and more boat-like. After laughing at that and making a few jokes, we jumped in our cop-car and took off... for another 45 minute car ride to the far far far away hotel. By the time we reached the hotel it is 9:45 and by the time we find a restaurant it's 10. And by the time we stuff our faces with food (I was so hungry I was starting to not be hungry anymore... you know the feeling?) it's practically 11. We go our separate ways and I go into my hotel room to watch tv and wait for Eric's call. Eric is at DTS this week so I only get to talk to him after 11:30 or so. YUCK but I'll take it I suppose.

So I bet you're wondering, why are you in Miami Rachel? I'm getting there. The next morning, I meet Peter down at the free breakfast at 7:30 and we take off for the Miami Dolphins/Florida Marlins baseball stadium at quarter till 8. Sean Busher Photography signed on to do this Bank of America Fantasy Baseball thing last summer and decided to do it all again this summer. Basically, they travel around to different cities/stadiums and take pictures of Bank of America's biggest clients with current or alumni baseball players from that team.

After finally finding where the BoA people are in this huge stadium, we start setting up my work station (a laptop, 3 printers, a powerstrip/potential fire hazard, and a card reader) and realize we don't have any photo paper! Using Peter's GPS on his (low battery) phone, I maneuver the rental car (I know, I know, I wasn't supposed to but we were stuck!!!) to Office Depot, buy 2 packs of 5x7 photo paper, maneuver the boat back to the stadium and find Peter taking the pictures of the alumni players with the BoA clients. Then after the pictures are taken, Peter hands me the card and it's my turn to work frantically while Peter continues to take candid shots of the richest people in Miami playing baseball/taking tips on how to pitch/swing/etc from the Marlins players. So I get lost trying to find the banquet room we were set up in and almost get locked out of the stadium in this fenced in area. I manage to yank the door open and eventually find my way upstairs and start adjusting the exposure, putting a cheesy BoA/Marlins logo frame on the images and then printing out all 41 of them. I have to make sure each image prints correctly and also change an ink cartridge on the way. Then I wait for Peter to be done, we get the all clear from the BoA people and off we go to the rental car place using Peter's GPS phone which dies about a mile away from Thrifty. We manage to find it then catch a shuttle to the airport. After another very very very bumpy airplane ride, we land in Charlotte, get stuck in traffic, and finally get home. That's my whirlwind trip to Miami in a nut shell, and here's some pictures:

A sign for I-75 all the way down in Miami? Sigh, I could've been home in like 20some hours!

The entrance to the stadium.

The Florida Marlins/Miami Dolphins stadium. If you look at the random screen near 1st base with the black figure behind it, that's Peter. It must've been 100% humidity and 100 degrees, and Peter chose a long sleeve black shirt with black pants. Everyone kept saying how miserable he must be.

And here's me being cheesy. I guess in the coming months I will see the Oakland A's, the LA Angels, the Boston Red Sox, and maybe a few others. Be jealous, very jealous haha... Too bad Bank of America doesn't have affiliations with the Detroit Tigers... or I'd be super excited!!!
I'm gonna go lay out by the pool now on my day off!! yay!

Finally Friday

Well, it's Friday. I'm exhausted. It's been a long week, and I don't even have much to look forward to this weekend other than not having to wake up at 7AM. On Sunday I'm heading to Miami with Peter for less than 24 hours (we'll be flying back Monday afternoon) for a Bank of America project. I will be doing many of these throughout this summer - Boston, LA, DC, etc. This week I did a few more projects that kept me entertained but the most exciting part was being able to utilize the video tutorials that Sean subscribes to. aaaaaaaaaaa (there's something underneath my A key and its not typing very well aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazaaaaaaaa oh well i give up) After watching quite a few videos, I'm learning so so so much! Pretty exciting.

I'm going to keep this short. I will try to take pictures of my Miami adventure so you have something more interesting to see. I'm hoping for sun tomorrow so I can enjoy the pool - otherwise I will be quite bored.

Big Church, Family Fun, and Flavor Ice

Today was a looooong day and I still have a couple hours left before I crash into bed tonight! Eric left around 4/4:30ish this morning after another fun filled weekend (I'm so spoiled that he came to visit me twice in less than 2 weeks!) He successfully made it to St Louis this afternoon, so now I can be less worried about him :) He's visiting his family out there - and helping out with his brother's kids/stuff because he broke his arm in a car accident a couple weeks ago. So anyway, about my weekend...

Saturday was a pool day followed by dinner with Tina and Rick. We went to the Charlotte Cafe. It was just the four of us, and we had a blast. We talked about all sorts of things that I can't currently remember but I know both Eric and I left there saying we had fun, haha. Sunday morning we went to check out this non-denominational church called Forest Hill. It's a BIG church with concert-style worship complete with thumping bass and colored lights and 2 giant screens on either side of the stage. I wasn't a huge fan of the music style but the graphics/videos were really cool and the pastor was really good. Next week I believe I'll check out one of the satellite locations - there's one right by my apartment. Eric said sometimes they do their own worship and just show the pastor's message on the screen, which sounds better to me. Also, it will probably be smaller.

Later that day, Eric and I went over to Ashley (my cousin) and David's house for a Father's day cookout. We were there from about 3:30 to 8 or so. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with family and eating great food! Ash and David have 4 or 5 dogs, which REALLY made me miss my Roxy. sigh.

GOOD NEWS though!!! I'm coming home for the 4th of July! I'll be home thursday night and will stay through monday morning! I'm super duper excited! haha yeah I said super duper. I bought my plane ticket an d everything!

Today at work I started a new project - a banner for the wedding section of Charlotte Photo Basics (if I haven't explained before, Charlotte Photo Basics is a sort of side project/extension to Sean Busher Photography that utilizes their own network of photographers for local projects. Sean wants to focus on national stuff, so his time is becoming more valuable. He chose not to lose his local/current clients by creating this company and sourcing the work out to hand picked photographers.) I spent the whole day working on a design and I'm pretty excited to have this type of project where I can see it through to the finished product. Sean's out of town for the next 3 weeks almost, so I'll be working a lot with Angi on more business things - but I'll also get to work with Peter on the photoshop stuff. I'm learning so much!!!

Ok I'm hungry and exhausted. I never managed to fall back to sleep after Eric left this morning so I'm going to pass out early tonight!!!

Can't sleep

It's currently 6AM and I can't sleep, so I might as well catch up on my blogging. This week was pretty long, but it had a lot of good parts and some not so good parts. I did get to shoot a little this week - a real estate shoot. With the wide angle lens, this job isn't too difficult once you get the hang of it. Sean asked me if I would be willing to go out on my own next time a real estate job came in and I said sure... so we will see how that goes!

Yesterday I went to Alexandra's graduation party. I haven't seen her in a very long time, so it's hard to believe she's going to be in college! Sunday I am going over to Ashley and David's for a cook-out, which should be fun. Eric came back for the weekend and unfortunately leaves Sunday night so hopefully that won't be too sad...but I'm sure it will be.

I'm really missing home lately. It's just so hard to believe I won't be home until August, especially since I miss my puppy, Roxy, soooooo much. I keep trying to think of a way to have somebody bring her to see me, but that is just too far to travel with a dog...but I can dream can't I? I miss my parents a lot too (I know, surprising right? kidding) and my house and Mr Freeze and Barry Bagel's and church and of course my friends. It's weird not being around Ash all the time. We've been pretty inseparable since we met a few summers ago and summertime is usually when we had the most fun so this is pretty odd for us.

But really, don't get me wrong here. I'm having a great time down here and I really enjoy my job - er, internship. Thursday after work Angi and her fiance invited Eric and me to go with them to "Live at 5" and "Epicentre at 5" which is basically 2 big parties in uptown Charlotte. We went, and we had a great time hanging out and talking. Afterwards, we hit up a bar called Cans for some dinner. Next Thursday Angi, Chad, whoever else we can get to come and I are going to go check out this new bar called Howl at the Moon. It's a dueling piano bar!!!!!!! I'm so excited for that! It opens up that night so hopefully it'll be a lot of fun.

Random thought: I cannot WAIT for the beach!!!!

Oh and I must not forget: HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY to my favorite nephew Cyrus!!! Breena, give him a big huge giant hug for me!

I think that's it for now, my loyal readers. Enjoy your Saturday and if you're in Toledo - go eat some Mr Freeze ice cream for me.

Love, me

About my day...

Today was an eventful day, that is for sure... It started off normal enough but quickly became an adventure. Sean and Peter came up with a new project to work on and we decided to shoot it today, so off we went to Walmart to pick up some supplies.

Purchased: 1 pair of adult goggles, 1 pair of child goggles, arm floaties, inner tube with rhino head, regular inner tube, snorkel and goggles, and 2 subway subs (for Peter and I)

We then headed over to the neighborhood pool that Sean grew up going to. Somehow, Sean turned a possibly creepy situation (hi, we would like to come into the pool and photograph children underwater) into free admission and the blessing of the member coordinator. Then after talking to some parents, Sean used this absolutely sweet camera with an even sweeter underwater case to shoot some kids under water. It was awesome.

While Sean was shooting, I sat with the 2 moms we talked into using their kids. We talked about how I just moved to Charlotte recently and where I was from, etc. Then one of the moms whose name is Katherine mentioned something about church so I asked what kind of church she went to (which was a suprise to me, as I had no idea that was going to come out of my mouth) and surprisingly, amazingly, she said she goes to a non-denominational church. After I explained that I had been looking for a church and went to a non-denom church in Toledo, she invited me to come and gave me her cell phone number! What a God-thing. I was pretty amazed.

On with the day. So after over an hour of sitting in 95-100 degree heat, Sean, Peter and I headed back to the office. Next, my turn. I had my very own photo shoot today. I'm going to keep this top secret until the image is done and up on the site so you all can be surprised. It's going to be hilarious!

So it's finally starting to hit me that I'm actually graduating college! I looked up flights today and they aren't TOO terribly expensive so I think that's the route I'm going to take to get home for the big day (graduation day!!!) I'm looking to come home Thursday afternoon/evening (Aug 7) and leave Monday afternoon/evening, leaving me with at least 3 full days at home. Yay! Mom says I can have a little barbecue/party thing after graduation, so I'm pretty excited about that. We all know that any event with Jean Holt's name on it is going to be a GREAT event!

That's the update... I didn't get home until pretty late tonight and I have to be back at 8:30 tomorrow so I'm pretty pooped. Leave me comments so I know you're out there!!!

Missin Toledo,
me

Shark Suit: the start of a great weekend

The previous post contains a pretty sweet picture of me in a shark suit. Now let me remind you that this was taken last Thursday and last Thursday in Charlotte was a whopping 100 degrees. OUCH! I was soaked in sweat (ew) by the time I was relieved of the duty. Basically Sean and Peter decided that their next creative project involves a shark suit. So, I'll let you all know when it's up on the site so you can see me in all my shark glory. 

So it's monday and I'm back at work, watching Peter work on Photoshop madness. I'm learning so much, I have to take notes. This past weekend was so much fun! Eric came into town and we had a jam packed weekend. Friday we went to Carowinds -  Charlotte's lame-ish version of Cedar Point. We spent most of the day in the water park burning our feet. Then Friday night we ate at PF Changs (yummmmm) then walked down the plaza to the Cinema to see the new Chronicles of Narnia movie which was EXCELLENT! Saturday we spent the day at the pool then made dinner. Yesterday we went shopping (used the gift card to Target from Ann!) and went to eat at On The Border (again, YUMMMMMM)! 

Movies seen this weekend : 2 Days in Paris, The Eye, Into the Wild, King of California, Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian

Food eaten this weekend: Kung Pao Chicken and delicious dessert from PF Changs, Eric's delicious noodle/garlic/ginger dish, Turkey Burgers, and Chicken Fajitas from On the Border. 

Such a great weekend! More laterrrrrr

Missin T-Town a lot today! 

Shark Suit

I will explain this later. But yea, that's me. 

!rach