Yep, that’s what I’m doing! So how was everyone’s Memorial Day weekend? Mine was great - got to see friends, ate a buncha food, threw a Revs game in there somewhere, saw Angels and Demons with Laura…all sorts of good stuff.

So that’s it! Test over.

Oh, you want to know what I am testing, exactly? Well - its the wordbook plugin that basically posts to my profile every time I update my blog.

Since I’ve basically been a no-show here on my blog in 2009, here’s a few things I’d like to share as far as my work goes.

As usual, we have a ton of web initiatives taking place over at Gillette Stadium for both teams!

Continue reading A few things to share

I was so determined for awhile there, too! More coming soon, I swear.

Last week I had the privilege of meeting one of the world’s top sports photographers - Sports Illustrated’s Peter Read Miller. Admittedly, I did not know him by name before I was asked to join him and several other photographers in an event run by Canon at Gillette Stadum. However, I surely knew his photos and if you are a sports fan - you probably do too.

The whole thing came about because of the MIAA High School Super Bowls that were being hosted at Gillette Stadium the weekend of Dec. 6th. Canon had invited Peter along with his assistant, Max, and a local high school photo contest winner (I apologize but I don’t have his name! He was a great photographer with an amazing future ahead of him) to speak to a group of high school photography students from Stoughton that were going to be shooting the MIAA events over the weekend through Canon.

I was asked to also speak at this from the perspective of a Patriots employee who had a photography background. I talked about my experience shooting the ‘Media Days’ at last year’s Super Bowls (photos here) and what it was like finagling my way around a crowded room full of football players and national media. I showed six of my own photos (see the Wes Welker photo to the right) to the crowd of about 20 kids.

I went on after Peter, so it was a little nerve racking going on after a 30+ year veteran at Sports Illustrated, but the kids seemed to like it, so it worked out well. Peter basically showed his favorite photos from over the last 30 years and gave some back story to some of them, which was pretty interesting.

Max went on after me and he also spoke about his experience at last year’s Super Bowl, which was actually a video he shot interviewing other photographers on what it’s like getting into the photography business these days.

Afterward, while the photo students were enamored by Gillette Stadium and shooting photos of everything in sight, I had the opportunity to pick Peter’s brain a bit from everything to equipment to shooting techniques, so for someone who was there to lend their experiences to others (me), I sure learned a lot in the mere two hours I took part in this event.

So last night I was in the area of the South Shore Plaza in Braintree, and remembered, “hey, - the Apple store!” I needed a new case for my first-gen iPhone and what better place to pick this up, right? Wrong.

I got to the store and immediately was approached by an store worker and asked if I needed any help. At this point I was looking at a $1299 Macbook that I can’t afford (and I’m still pretty much a PC user anyway) so I gave the usual “no, just browsing” response that I always give to overzealous salespeople at retail stores.

I slapped myself a few times to deter any thoughts of actually making a frivolous purchase and headed over to the section with the iPhone accessories. There were a TON of difference cases - hard plastic cases, leather cases, button snap cases, etc. - they had everything you could think of. I found one that I liked, but noticed it was specifically for the iPhone 3g. Bummer. Picked up another one that would be perfect - but it was only for the 3g. Case after case, only for the 3g. It was like the first gen iPhone didn’t exist!

I had given up at that point and went over to Laura who was checking out Apple’s hard drive selection (which was dominated by LaCIE drives - UGH - that’s another story for another time) and had another salesperson approach us and ask for help. Instead of my usual nice way of saying ‘leave me alone,’ I said,”I need a case for my iPhone (showing her my phone with half broken case) but you only seem to have cases for the 3g, am I missing something?”

She says (nicely, but matter-of-fact), “no, sorry we only carry cases for the 3g.”

“I just bought this at the end of March, it’s not even a year old!” I exclaim. “That’s kind of harsh, nothing for older phones?”

“No, but you can probably find one online,” She says.

Awesome. Go all the way to the Apple store, and they point you right to the internet. Why have a store? Why put out new products and pretend the older versions don’t exist? Guess that is the apple way - move forward and no looking back. I love my iPhone, don’t get me wrong, but that was quite a frustrating trip to the Apple store.

Side note: Overheard while browsing the hard drives was another Apple sales associate having a conversation with a customer. She was talking to the customers about viruses and security and said:

“…there’s no such thing as a virus for our (Apple) computers. If someone was smart enough to write a virus like that, they’d be working for us!” I almost fell to the floor laughing at the smug way she said it, like it was impossble or something. If what she says is correct, however - the people responsible for these viruses should be sending their resume to Apple ASAP!

As one who edits video quite a bit, I amost feel like I’m cheating a bit using Animoto. However, they do a really good job of displaying photos in a non-slideshow like manner. I haven’t used it for anything other than ‘party’ photos thus far, like Rich’s 30th birthday (below).

Yeah, I’ve went and changed my blog theme once again, and this is still in the works (is anything ever final?). Anyway, I am on vacation this week so I’ll be making this look better in the near future.