Favorite iPhone Apps: Diptic

Just wanted to share another one of my new favorite iPhone apps: Diptic.

I love it for its easy way to make quick collages from my iPhone pictures, right on my iPhone.  It's a great way to capture a theme or event:

And it's great when one picture isn't enough to capture all the dimensions of cuteness, like this little guy:

 

 

And then it's really easy to save back to Photos, e-mail the pic or upload to the blog.  There are lots of layout choices and it's ridiculously simple to use.  Worth the $1.99 to me!

March Madness

I have to confess that when it comes to watching sports I was raised with the same approach as some have with religious services. I'm there for the Christmases, Hanukkahs, and Kwanzaas of major sports: Super Bowl, World Series, US Open, the World's Strongest Man competition (Fingal's Fingers, anyone?), etc. To my credit, though, I have personally grown to watch and cheer on teams via family (Michigan State), marriage (I can't believe how much Nebraska Husker and Tom Osbourne knowledge I have absorbed these past years), and proximity (how can we not root for the Gamecocks, when we can see the stadium from our house?). And of course, ever since getting involved with MMA, I love watching the bouts on UFC or Strikeforce. Finally, (and some may consider this not a great reason to watch sports) I'm glued to games when I've got money involved, whether it's a bet, football pool, or...March Madness.

I blew my brackets early this year on St. Patrick's Day, i.e., the first round, argh. But we're still sucked into the tourney, however, especially with some stunning upsets. And as usual, I'm rooting for the underdogs. At this point, there's a possibility there will be a 11 seed team in the final game and if not, an 8 seed. Is this a Cinderella story yet?

Also, much respect has to be given to the Women's tourney. Unfortunately, there is hardly ever any madness in the Women's tourney. This year, though, major credit to Gonzaga, the first 11 seed to reach the Elite 8. Sadly, their journey ended with a huge loss to Stanford. And the other surprise was seeing Tennessee get crushed by Notre Dame, especially after seeing the clip of Pat Summitt in the halftime locker room before Tennessee rallied back from losing to beat Ohio State: "It makes me sick to my stomach!" I vote for Jane Lynch if a movie is ever made about Pat Summitt. Looking at the Final Four (all 1 and 2 seeds, as usual) it looks like there may be a rematch of the fateful game where Stanford broke UConn's win streak, which should make it really good.

Looking forward to the Final Four games in both the Men's and Women's tourney this weekend. What can I say, sometimes it's nice to watch a game without fretting about losing money.

Favorite iPhone apps: Labelbox

One of my new favorite iPhone photo apps is Steply's free Labelbox:

Really easy to use--just pull up a pic and select a labeling tape.  I was hooked as soon as I saw the Dymo-styled label (there are more "tapes" available for, I believe, 99 cents):

The only thing is that it's a bit of trial and error figuring out how much tape to lay but it's really easy to do over so it's not that big a deal.  The slight pet peeve is it has a habit of changing orientation for the edit (though it will save in the original orientation).

But really, the pros definitely outweigh the cons (especially for a free app), ta-da!

Plus this comes in pretty handy when you need to "black bar" some identities in what may be incriminating photos:

But it adds an arty look to it, right? It's free, handy, and fun--I recommend it.

Sweet and Sour

My SoCal friend told me she had a Christmas gift that she hadn't gotten around to mailing to me. Needless to say, it was worth the wait:

Inside those five Jelly Belly ziplocs: Sunkist Fruit Gems!

These were on my Amazon wish list for the longest time. One of my favorite sweets--combining high gummy volume to a light granular sugar dusting. Not to be confused with Chuckles. I ate a whole bag on my flights back to SoCar. Thanks Lady.

Sigh. Something sweet to remember my trip from.  Especially when I came back to a messy house of Sonic wrappers, pizza boxes, and stuff just everywhere--though Paul swear he did a lot of picking up as he side-eyed the girl.  I went into a minor rant of my God what would you guys do if I died suddenly?!  Paul nodded solemnly, yeah, we'd be like two bachelors...it would get really messy here. 

AND, I continued, you'd probably donate all my craft stuff! 

Paul paused stiffly, and then answered in an obvious tone similar as if I asked if folks should wash their hands after using public restrooms, Oh my God yes! I would TOTALLY donate all that craft stuff.  He sighed thoughtfully.  Well, maybe Velina would want some...

Man, I gotta remember not to die anytime soon.

SoCal to SoCar: the little things

As sad as leaving my friends and family in SoCar was, I was blessed with the little things to ease the pain. Like free wifi at the Denver airport:

Discovering this awesome Cinnamon Spice tea by Harney & Sons at the airport:

And discovering a passenger who had taken this same flight earlier in the day had left his drink coupon behind in the inflight magazine. A Barcardi & diet coke totally hit the spot:

Thank Heaven for the little things.

SoCal: last day

Sigh. The last day in SoCal is always the hardest.

I was able to squeeze in some PinkBerry froyo with Linda:

And one last Happy Hour with a few friends, including this awesome guy:

Smart, funny, and can sing! He has been a huge support of my decluttering efforts and is super sweet with dogs. And he is thisclose to being as good a sports gambler as me.  And taking a page from Linda's blog: PS - he's single. Can I do a #humblebrag for him and mention that he has done a production of West Side Story, including the full choreography? And he loves Glee. No wonder we get along.

Anyhoo, I know there's going to be a melancholy after I leave here and it's not going to be about the weather and food. I'll be missing all the good people. Sigh.

SoCal Checklist: Vy Da, Indie Movie, Photo Shoot

Such a productive, satisfying day!

Got to enjoy these hard-to-find rice cakes at Vy Da (and they are PERFECT here) with my super trooper friend:

Got to check out an indie film (which are really hard to come by in Columbia, SoCar) with my indie-movie pal:

And I was able to squeeze in another photo shoot thanks to a very patient, game (and wonderfully photogenic) friend:

What a blessing she is to a growing photographer like me.  She totally came through for me.  I had a certain theme planned but I had to come up with a different shoot due to a rainstorm.  And frankly, I liked my new gameplan/shoot.  It kind of has a story and I would love to share it once I get my subjects' approval.  Because thankfully, she was able to dig up another subject for me who was ridiculously patient for my shoot.  Did I mention it was raining?  He turned out pretty darn photogenic too:

Unfortunately, one of the things that wasn't helping me was the rain that got on my lens (ugh-more than I realized!) and that the rapidly changing light proved challenging in terms of getting decent exposure.  It was very rare to get one that was the composition I wanted, with satisfactory exposure, and FOCUS (which proved the toughest in the rain).  But I did get a few, like this one:

Afterwards, we took our soaked bodies and got some hot soup and noodles at Ajisen Ramen:

Thank L and W for such a great shoot!

Great way to end a great day.