Tag: food

Monday monday

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5, 1/10 sec, ISO400
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello! How was Monday?

Mine was super busy… not only with work, but I had to take my car to the shop to get the starter replaced. Of course they found several other things that needed to be fixed, but I declined on all of them. They weren’t super-critical so I will look for a mechanic who can do the job for cheaper. Anyways, that was an unexpected expense and caused me quite a bit of stress.

Also adding to the stress level is my workload, which is pretty high. The highest ever for me. I inadvertently took on a huge multi-month project which started out as one simple task but then mushroomed into several large projects. It is crazy how it just got out of control, but it has pretty much become a full-time job. And then I have my regular work to do, and then my workload from another group, which is pretty crazy. It’s like in the past year, my workload went from one full-time job, to 1.5x, then a few months ago, it went up to 2.5x. Needless to say, I haven’t been able to do my primary job… these other tasks have tight deadlines and honestly, who else is going to do them? It’s pretty ridiculous.

But, like I said before, it’s mostly fun work… there is just too much of it! I guess I am having too much fun? Wait… that’s not right!

Haha, anyways, it’s so out-of-control I just have to laugh sometimes. And this project will end this month (yeah, right) and I should go back to my 1.5x workload, and then hopefully manage it down to a regular level.

But when it comes down to it, my life is pretty good, you know? I have a lot to be grateful for.

And speaking of good, tonight’s photo is of our dinner table. Mariko made a delicious Japanese curry, with yummy steak. You can see the kids reaching for the meat! It was awesome!

Take it easy, and have a restful evening!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Finding a style

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec, ISO3200
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello, how’s it going? Enjoying the warmer weather? It’s been in the 80s here in Austin this week. Lots of sun! ☀️

I read a lot of photography blogs and listen to several photography podcasts, and one theme that comes up often is that you should find your photographic style, and not have such a wide range. I don’t know how important that is to an amateur photographer like myself, but I can see the logic in that philosophy if you are running a photography business.

However, I think I have found an aesthetic that I really like, and I have been using it a lot lately. It is kind of simulating the look of film, with a nice grain to it, and also not super-sharp. I have been experimenting with creating presets in Lightroom so I can get a consistent “look” to my photos. It is still early on, but I am enjoying using it! Basically, one preset adds a certain amount of grain. The next preset adds a slight “S” tone curve. And finally, my blur preset adds two gradient adjustments to de-sharpen the entire image. (If there is a better way to do this in LR5, let me know!)

In the photo above, I have applied all of these presets, plus added a black border which I love (Nik Analog efex 2). I am also using the Fujifilm Velvia film simulation here. I think it is a good start in defining a consistent style. I still enjoy both black & white and color images, so I can’t really make a choice. I mean, I need to take my sushi photos, and they just won’t look so great in black & white, right? 🍣

Well, as you can see from the photo, we had sushi at home for dinner. While it was super-delicious, eating so much sushi-rice makes me so thirsty… I’ve had three large glasses of water already tonight!

Have a great Friday everyone!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Birthday boy’s dinner

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"Mountain of Karaage" Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO640
 “Mountain of Karaage” Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Happy Monday!

Today is Koa’s 12th birthday 🎂… just one more year before he becomes a teenager. He’s still a little kid in so many ways, but he’s growing up too fast! It’s really true what they say about how they become grown before you know it. Actually, it seems like they were young boys for a long time, but suddenly at about 6th grade they change and are little adults. The time really flies by! I still can’t believe Bay is a freshman in high school. 😮

Today’s photo is of a mountain of Japanese fried chicken , which is called “karaage”. We like to call it JFC. 😋 It is so yummy, and Koa requested NO VEGGIES. But we did have grilled asparagus as well, although I don’t think Koa ate any. We let him pass on it on his special day.

The karaage was so good that now I am thinking that I want to request it for my Father’s Day dinner. This year, my family will be with me for Father’s Day, which hasn’t happened in a long time! Usually they are in Japan for over a month in early summer, so I am alone on Father’s Day, but this summer they are making their Japan trip a month or so later than usual.

Time flies so quickly these days that I know that summer is just around the corner!

Take care, and good night for now. おやすみなさい！

– バロン Barron Fujimoto

Another quick week

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/7.1, 1/100 sec, ISO250
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Hello! We made it to the weekend. It was such a quick week it seemed! But the cold weather came back today, along with the rain. Luckily the forecast for the rest of the weekend looks sunny and warmer. ☀️ Koa has a baseball tournament so I hope the baseball fields have time to dry out before the games.

Tonight’s dinner was a super trifecta of sorts… we had takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and yakisoba. And a nice cold beer to round out the meal. The takoyaki and yakisoba are typical foods served at festivals in Japan, from small stands, so tonight’s meal reminded me of when we lived there, and of course a festival is fun so they are feel-good types of food! 😋 I find it fascinating that smells and tastes can transport you back to different parts of your life. It’s great.

The photo for today is of the sky and clouds that I saw on the way to work. Last night there was a storm, and in the morning there was a break in the clouds when I took the photos. But later in the day, the clouds and rain returned. ☔ In the evening, it cleared up and we’re looking forward to a nice weekend. I hope to take some photos outdoors!

おやすみなさい！

– B Barron Fujimoto

Sandwiches and work

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Cedar Park, 2016
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/100 sec, ISO2500
 Cedar Park, 2016

こんばんは！ Good evening!

Today’s weather was so warm and humid, but it felt nice to be outside. I went outside at lunch to buy some lunch at the food truck, and I was wearing a jacket even though it was in the 80s. I am not sure if my office is cold, but I feel like I am freezing while I work so I usually have a jacket on and then I just wore it outside and tried to warm up… and it helped for an hour or so, but then it was back to freezing. ❄️

Today’s photo is of a Vietnamese-style sandwich on a homemade baguette that Mariko made. It was super delicious, and the jalapeños were spicy! I love the heat. The hotter the better! 🔥

Well, tomorrow is Friday and I am looking forward to getting a lot done! I don’t have any meetings scheduled so I need to put my head down and crank out a lot of tasks. By the way, I am still using Toggl to track my work and that is going well. Once I got used to clicking on the task as soon as I start new work, it is second-nature now. I often switch between things, like I am gathering graphics files, and then I see an email come into my inbox. Before I check the mail, I click on the task in Toggl, and then check the email. When I am done with the email, I click on the task I was doing before that, then continue with the task. By doing this, I get a very accurate representation of where I spend most of my time. Yesterday, for instance, I spent 2h 36m responding to and writing email… which to me is astonishing. I would have never thought I spend so much time doing that! But I can’t argue with the data.

I guess I was getting overwhelmed with work for a while there, and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t seem to finish certain projects… I knew I was working hard, but I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong. But now I have the visibility into exactly where my time goes… and I can see that I simply have too many things on my plate right now. Although that is a problem, at least I can pinpoint what it is and not worry that I am doing something wrong. It’s a big step in improving my daily workload and estimating time!

Alright, it’s now getting late and I am going to read. Take care!

おやすみなさい！

– バロン Barron Fujimoto