Published Sunday April 25th, 2004



Ah.. I'm happy. I've been really happy lately, the past month or so, and i remain quite happy and content.

Friday was a rather fun filled day, more fun than most past fridays. I got home from school and took a nap untill 1400. It wasn't a very satifying nap because outside my room people were diggng and pounding away installing solar panels. Soon, we'll have operating solar panels feeding electricity back into the power grid. Woo. Anyway, Mike came over at 1400. We hung around a bit in my room, and then Mike drove stick in the civic. We drove around a bit and ended up at Robecks where we got smoothies of sorts. Drove around some more and picked up Adam. Drove around, then picked up Matt. Drove around.. Found it amusing to coast around in neutral, so we did that for a bit, then picked up Jesse.

When we picked up Jesse, we told him that the car had been acting up, and that it needed to be pushed in order to get going, so Adam and Jesse pushed it to a start leaving Jesse's house. Adam was in on the joke. When coming up on Lewis Rd. we had to stop again. We all pretended that it was a big deal having to stop, and that we now would have to push the car into a momentum again. So, Jesse got out of the car completely ready to give the car a push to get it going. Hahahaha. Poor Jesse. Some guy pulled up next to us rather pissed off for some reason, and drove by us, completely cutting us off. I told Jesse we were bullshitting him. We laughed. Was funny. Haha.

Anyway, we drove around some more, and.. rolled around in neutral some more, too. We ended up on Worth Way, coasting down, then seeing how far up the hill we could get where they're building new houses. We'd all simultaneously yell and scream "oooo! ooooh!! Almost!! goooooo!" As we failed to make it, and rolled backwards back down. Haha. I love driving backwards. .. Going 55. Weee. We went back to my house where Mike picked up his car. Adam and i were in the civic, and we were finally able to make it over the hill with a rolling start all the way Worth Way down. Mike was on the cell at the bottom letting us know of oncoming traffic. Haha. T'was funny. It was really pointless, yet hilarious to all of us for some reason.

We went to Matt's at around 1830 where we ate pizza for dinner. Tyson, Mike, Matt, Adam, Chris, Abe, Wes, Jesse, Di, Raymond and Chelsea were all there. Many, many people. It was Matt's birthday. We sat around on the couch, talked and.. well.. massive chaos as we all engaged ourself in horseplay.. Lot's and lots of horseplay. At one point we were all in Matt's rather small room. It was really fun. We left Matt, and outside his house.. messed around some more. Adam drove Wes's truck, while Wes rode on the top of the truck. I don't quite recall why.. But it was amusing. Di and Chelsea went home, as well as Tyson, Chris and Jesse. We left Matt's house and went to Jack in the Box where i had a spicy chicken sandwich. We then headed to my house where we actually had a good conversation. The only one's left were Mike, Raymond, Abe, and myself. We talked about what would happen to light in a perfect sphere of mirrors.. How it would bounce around, and various things like that. Additionally, we talked about other astronomical topics. Planets, recent astro news stories... We also talked about Coke and Root Beer.. What Coke was originally made of, and if Root Beer was really made of roots. Answers to all you need to know about Coca Cola, here and everything about Root Beer, here. It's rather interesting. Haha. If you're bored.. a history of soda. I thought it was interestng. Heh.

Anyway, over all.. it was a very, very fun Friday. .. And then came saturday.

I woke up saturday to a phone call. It was Matt. He couldn't get in touch with his parents, and needed a ride home from the airport where he had taken some test... So i picked him up. When i got home, i talked to Tyson, who shortly showed up at my house-door and we drove to Canoga.. Where i bought an EF 14mm f/2.8L USM lens. I had to pay $150 dollars in taxes alone when i bought the lens. BLAH. I hate taxes when i have to pay them. Anyway.. I love this lens. I now have 2 lenses. The one i bought, the EF 14mm f/2.8l USM, and EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens.. Wee! Look how they compare, as far as what i can capture in a shot:
(click on this image, this thumb doesn't quite do the comparison justice.
By the way, all photos are usualy enlargeable by clicking on them.)
In this photo, i overlayed 2 photos taken from the exact same location with both of my lenses. The smaller, lighter center part of the image is what i would see, and see using my 24-70mm lens, and the whole thing is what i see through my 14mm lens. My new lens' field of view is about 60% more then my other lens at 24mm. That is too say, when i had both original images at 1024 pixels in width, i had to scale down the 24mm shot to 600 pixels in width for it to overlay onto the 1024 pixel width 14mm shot to make them match up. If that makes sence. Wow. Wow wow wow. I love it. Much. I can capture 114 degrees. Thats just about like closing one eye and looking through the other. Wide-angle lenses are awesome. Heh.. When we returned from Canoga, Tyson and i went to Jack in the Box, and then i went home where i played around with my new lens. .. I can fit my entire room in one shot. Bwahahahahahahahaha:

Mwahahahaha. I love it.. Heh.. Indeed.



Anyway, later on in the evening, Tyson and Mike came over to my house.. We ate dinner here, and then picked up Matt. We then drove out to Ojai, and passed Ojai towards Taft. At the top of the mountain pass, we drove back towards Piedra Blanca, or Rose Valley, where we then walked around a bit, and took a bunch of photos. (The best results from that outting are the 3 somewhat dark and blue photos in this posting.) Tyson played with his new flash he bought, and.. I played with my new wide-angle, 14mm lens. It was fun. The stars were beautiful up there. No stupid city light polution. Hmph.



On the way home, we held down a tripod really hard to the car, and then made time-laps exposures while the car was moving.. The photos turned out pretty cool.



As you can see.. Heh.



Anyway, we got back to Camarillo at 2310ish. We drove up to my house, and then Tyson, Mike and Matt left and went to Kate's house. I stayed home and started to play with my photos... And, now, 3 hours and 30 minutes later, here i am writing this blog entry about the past 2 days. Fascinating, don't you think? Surely you do.

Heh, i've got not much more to say. Don't know what the plan is for sunday, or.. for next week. It's STAR testing week for school, senior activities for the seniors.. Which translates to Marco not going to school week. James Chang and myself were talking about going out to Anacapa, one of the Channel Islands.. He has a photography class assignment, and.. I'd just make a field day of it.. Would be awesome. Heh.. However, i don't know the likely-hood of it happening.. I hope it does. I guess we'll wait and see.. As we do with many things.

I've bought most of the things i wanted to get before going to Europe for half a year. All that remains is a laptop.. I'm still well within budget, im happy. I'm going to have 200 dollars or so more than i thought i would. Excellent. Heh..

Well then...

How about a survey quiz thingo which i stole directly from Jessica/Danielle's blogs! (i'm somewhat bored, and don't yet wish to go to bed.)



B A S i C S

[my name is]: Marco L