This past weekend was Travis' 26th birthday and we all did our best to make it the best day/birthday yet!
Before work, I had the time to swing by Kroger and pick up his favorite energy drinks so he would have plenty of energy to get him through the day, through the bar that night and through the following day. After work, we found ourselves as The Dublin Pub and I found myself with the biggest bar tab I've ever had...that's saying something. The following day, we might have had a little too much fun and didn't make it into work, luckily for us, we've got sick days and vacation days! Thank goodness because we needed one!
That Friday, we loaded up the car and headed to the Embassy Suites in Columbus for my first (real) gambling experience. I only took $100 because I didn't plan on losing a lot, but I also planned on having fun. I ended up losing everything I took, but we had a good time and Travis ended up coming out even, which is good since he took $350! When we were coming home Saturday, we were racing him and his roommate because Liz (my roommate) and I had planned a surprise party for him!
We had such a good time! Thanks for everyone that helped out to make this surprise possible and hopefully the best birthday for him yet!
At work I’ve been doing everything I could to be recognized
as a photographer (I’m a part-time wedding photographer) so when my supervisor
asked if I’d be interested in traveling to NAIAS to photograph the event, I was
ecstatic! Luckily, my partner in crime for the trip, Tim, was just as excited!
My Car!
I had the daunting task of choosing a day
to go and after much debate and asking around to others who had attended an
auto show before (yes, this was my first!) I decided on the first Industry Day,
Wednesday, January 15. And boy, oh boy am I glad I did because it was the perfect
day to go! After booking a hotel and filling up my little 10 gallon tank of my
2010 Honda Civic Hybrid (I still need a name, any suggestions?), we were ready
to go.
Wednesday morning, Tim and I started our trip to that state
up North. After driving through a blizzard (ok not really, but close) we
arrived at our destination: The Holiday Inn Express in Downtown Detroit.
All our equipment - not pictured: iPas
When
we first walked into the Cobo Center, it was exactly like it had been described
to me, the Disney World of Cars! Cars everywhere, people everywhere, staff
everywhere, just plain fun! I swung my Nikon D3 and Nikon D40 on my shoulders
and we started with Audi
before working through the entire show. I won’t bore you with specific details,
because Tim has already done that starting here, (I’m
totally kidding about him being boring by the way), but I do have a few things
worth mentioning.
Photographing the models (cars that is) proved to be an
exhausting task, even though people wouldn’t think it to be. After all, you’re
just carrying around 10 lbs. worth of equipment; it can’t be that hard, can it?
Wrong. My first piece of advice would to be to take a normal book bag if you’re
carrying anything, not a drawstring
bag. By the time we finished exploring the entire show, my shoulders hurt so
badly from my drawstring bag! Never again.
After chatting it up with a fellow photog in the Kia section
(read about all the details here from Tim), I’ve
come to the conclusion that I’m not weird enough to be a professional,
full-time photographer, as I really don’t have weird facts of knowledge and
honestly, I can’t keep a conversation going with a complete stranger for longer than five minutes.
Me and Tim after an exhausting day!
To
be honest, Tim and I really had a lot of the same experiences while we were at
the show; however things changed when we got back to the hotel. I had promised
I would have all my images uploaded for our co-workers to use by the time they
all hit the office Thursday morning, so as soon as I got to my hotel room the
editing process started. Uploading all 2,000 images took about two hours, so
once they were uploaded to my Mac, I began my process of elimination and narrowed
the field down to about 600 images to edit. I did some quick fixes to any
images that were in desperate need of them and then began the uploading. While
I was furiously uploading away, Tim was snoring in his hotel. I finally hit the
hay about midnight.
Just a glimpse into how
nice the staff was!
At 5:45 I decided to wake up, for no reason at all, to see
that my upload had failed, so here we are, two hours before I had promised to
have pictures up, and there’s nothing. I grabbed my computer and phone and
headed down to the lobby for breakfast and so I could try this for a second
time. Again, all while Tim was sleeping. The hotel staff was fantastic though.
They were very friendly and curious as to what I was working on and even
offered to refill my orange juice for me so I could continue working (major
kudos to you Holiday Inn Express staff!). Finally after a third failed attempt,
I admitted defeat and told the staff 1/3 of the pictures were uploaded and I
would do the rest upon my return and called it a day (at 10 am). At this point,
Tim was finally awake, but going for his morning workout.
Me with the Nissan GT-R NISMO
Once we got the car back from the valet, it
was time to hit the road again, and time for Tim to finally do some work. As I jammed out to the Biebs and Nelly, Tim
chuckled to himself in my passenger seat as he listened to his recorded
thoughts about each display from the previous day. He worked on blogs the
entire ride home while I sang along to my favorite country hits and yelled at
all the drivers on the road, so I guess all my late night and early morning
work was being balanced out in the long run. At this point, he asked what my
favorite car or display was, and I answered in a way that might seem odd:
“Well, Nissan
and Toyota
both photographed really well, but I also really liked the colors Subaru
used for their vehicles.” To be honest, during the show, I was so overwhelmed
by everything that I hadn’t really
paid that much attention to anything because I had my eye glued to my
viewfinder in fear of missing something, and it wasn’t until I looked through
my images that I really was able to appreciate the vehicles we had seen.
I’d be lying if I said I was sad to have my first work trip
come to an end, but I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for the next.
NAIAS was definitely an experience, but it has landed us a trip to Chicago in
two weeks for the next show and I’m even more excited to have Press Creds for
that! So until next time, cheers and enjoy Biebs too!
It hasn't been easy, but I finally decided to really tell Travis how I felt about him. I know we haven't been together for that long, but honestly, he's different from anyone that I've ever been with. Even at the beginning of our relationship, I knew I had found something special with him. I have to say I was a jerk and started a lot of fights for no reason whatsoever, other than I was mad at myself, but thankfully I was (somehow) lucky enough that he didn't leave me because of this.
I had wanted to tell him for a while, and he came over to my house. I was laying on his chest when I looked up at him, kissed him and then told him I loved him. Without hesitation, he told me he loved me too and I couldn't wipe the stupid girly smile off my face. He loved me too!
Then this morning, I decided to ask T about the first day he knew he loved me. He’s a lot better with his words than I am and even though it was just an ordinary day, he made it sound beautiful.
“I was at the grocery store, getting groceries and started thinking ‘I wonder if Marci would like this, or I wonder if she would like the smell of these candles,’ and that’s when I knew that you were something different and special. I knew I more than just liked you.”
I nearly started to cry. I know this man loves me with more than anything I could ever explain and more than I ever deserve. And he’s better with his words than I could ever imagine being, but when he asked me when I knew I loved him, I told him the best I could.“We were at the hotel after [my friend’s] wedding and you started singing to me and made me start dancing with you just because that's what you do. I melted at that moment and knew I was supposed to be with you.”
Honestly, I think he's the reason it never worked out with anyone else.
Wow! It's been a VERY long time since I've written a blog....well a LOT has changed in my life since the last time I wrote. After thinking everything was going to change in my life, it changed a lot more than I thought it would.
I ended a four year relationship, moved out of my mother's house, started renting a house, got a new roommate and her dog, continued my job at NLM, but was recognized as a photographer and was offered many new opportunities with that, started shooting weddings by myself (through Nick, just as a head photographer), and found myself an amazing man (featured on the right ;))!
Cassidy turned two and has started talking a lot. She will call me on the phone and have (very short) conversations with me. They usually consist of "come see me. I miss you. Bring Kugel" and then she hangs up, but she's getting so big! It's crazy!
When I moved out, I moved in with a girl from work, Liz, who is one of our graphic designers and her 10 month old "horse," Charlie. Since moving in, Kugel and Charlie have become best friends.
So far in 2014, we've seen an arctic cold front come through with negative temperatures and even more negative wind chills. I brought in the New Year with some of the best friends a girl could ask for and I've traveled to Detroit for the 2014 North American International Auto Show (see pictures here). Next month starts wedding season and I'm SOOO excited to be shooting one of my best friend's sister's weddings! And the week after that, I'm headed to Chicago for the Chicago Auto Show with PRESS CREDS so we'll get into all of the press conferences!
I'm going to start trying to update my blog a lot more often. I have started hating writing recently so I'm going to start trying to enjoy writing again, by writing about things I care about. So cheers to 2014 and here's to more blogging!
