School Picture Day

Yesterday was school picture day at our school. Being discerning consumers (ie cheapskates), we decided not to buy the school’s package of photos, and opted instead for a little photo session at home before school and work.

It didn’t work.

James was mad the whole time, and I couldn’t get him to smile at all; in fact, I got a couple of pictures where he had tears becaue he wanted to ride the bus, but couldn’t. (We didn’t put them on the bus, and opted instead to drive them to school so we’d have time for a portrait session.) Anna was the complete opposite, and was too smiley. Of the 30 exposures I made, there might be two or three that will be worth printing, and everyone was stressed and upset.

Now I know how my dad felt when he tried to take family pictures. It was awesome. Dad is a professional photographer, and he’d always time things so we’d hit the right light, and he had these fancy Hasselblad cameras that cost more than our cars, but he could hardly ever get a decent picture of his family, because we’d pull faces right as the timer went off.

One shoot in particular stands out in my mind: We drove down to Sundance in Provo Canyon (I think), and Dad got out his camera, set it on the tripod, and set the timer. I would guess he shot two rolls of film. (For you digital natives, film is a piece of chemically treated acetate that reacts to light. Look it up on Wikipedia.) Between Andrew and me, we managed to ruin every single frame he shot, by doing bunny ears, pulling faces, or (no joke) sticking our fingers in each others noses.

Ahh… karma. I guess I got what I deserved.

Why Aaron and I are such good friends

See Aaron’s posts here and here.

Darn skippy.

PS Julie says Aaron needs to fix his blog so that she can comment.

New prescription glasses at a great price

So, being the curious fellow that I am, I try to read a lot of interesting stuff from a lot of interesting people. One day I stumbled upon an article on 43Folders about buying prescription glasses online. Being a long-time wearer of spectacles, my curiosity was piqued. I read the article, which pointed to a blog called Glassy Eyes. Ira Mitchell, the owner of said website, got fed up with the whole prescription eyeglass system, did did some research, tried a whole bunch of glasses, and started a blog to tell about his experience. I joined the rest of his readers and tried a purchase from Zenni Optical. That was two weeks ago.

Yesterday my new glasses came in the mail. The prescriptions seem pretty good and they came with anti-scratch, anti-reflective, UV blocking lenses. All for about $20 a pair. Wow. Last time I bought glasses (4 years ago), I probably paid 10 times that amount just for frames. And when those frames got broken, I was very sad to have to shell out that much again to keep the lenses going. If only I had known.

There is a downside to this process. You can’t try things on in the store to see how they fit or look. I did OK with my purchases, but Julie doesn’t like the new frames as much as she liked the old. The old rated 9 on her scale, and these are only showing a 7 on her scale.

Pictures to come.