So! The show was pretty fun last night. I had to wear a cropped hoodie for my first outfit, which was a little odd at first, because, well, when was the last time *you* saw my stomach? ;p But, I found that these days, I'm actually rather comfortable with my abdominal muscles... and my abs... and my cloits... (sorry, obligatory Strong Bad joke) Anyhoo, the other outfit was the "Napoleon Dynamite jumper," which was pretty fun, and actually was comfy and fit really well.

It's kind of interesting to do runway shows, because I get thrust into a group of name-brand-wearing, pop-star-loving fashionista types. I really have to put aside my preconceived notions about what those sorts of girls are like, in these situations, because I have to be on a team with them, and share a tiny space with them. And you know? A lot of them are pretty nice. I won't likely be hanging out or becoming super best friends with them, because, nice or not, we still don't have much in common. But, they're all right.

This show also attracted some more "alternative" chicks, too, and they were actually pretty cool. Alternative models are fun, and they're always up for the really cool, experimental ideas. They also seem to be more aware of the absurdity that often comes with modeling, yet they're still able to have a good time with it.

In other news, things are going well in other avenues. I'm thiiiis close to being done with a web project, and it's actually turning out really well. It's a small, low-budget project, but I'm adding some features that are simple-but-cool, so it'll still turn out pretty impressive, I reckon.

We also seem to be getting significantly more calls and e-mails inquiring about our photography services, as of late. We even have a few weddings in September and October, which is unexpected, given that it's not really peak wedding season anymore, by then. That's really awesome and encouraging. Wooooo!

In closing, I find these way too amusing: Laugh-Out-Loud Cats!

I AM SO TIRED AAASDGKFHASDFLKHASLKFH

Both weddings were fun, though, even if they were tiring. :) The one in Seaside was relaxed and groovy, and they invited us to hang around for drinks and karaoke, after we were done shooting. (yes, they had karaoke at their reception. I kind of love that idea! XD)

Shooting rockinghalo's wedding on Sunday was fun, too; everything was laid-back and fun--her sisters kinda cracked me up during the posed portrait part of the afternoon, heh--and they had awesomely photogenic locations for both the wedding and the reception. :)

Oh yeah, and the crazy jumping around shoot on Saturday was fun, too! We ended up not being able to shoot at the Chinese Garden because they're anal about people taking pictures there (siiiigh :p), so we hit up Washington Park instead. You can see some hoppin' mad pics in the photog's Flickr gallery. (yes, the makeup and hair was my fault, LOL)

Anyhoo, totally exhausted, and really sore from all the jumping around and wushu practice on Saturday, and I'm ready to sleep for a million years or so. But other than that, feeling pretty good.

EDIT: If anyone who lives in or wants to live in Portland wants a new job, we're hiring a web developer at The Job. Let me know if you have interest, and I'll throw you the info.

Hair pictures! Pardon my crappy cell phone camera, and the horrific fluorescent lighting here at The Job:

( Two in here )

When I got home yesterday, it was combed forward and kind of looked like a sassy, girly Bruce Lee. (Maybe if I have his haircut, I can learn his moves faster? No? ;p) I think it'll look good as it grows out, too--I aim to grow it longer again--and my old one definitely wasn't, unless I spent a ton of time on it, and we all know I'm too lazy for that. ;)

Hooray for damnportlanders! We were late getting to the meetup, because I didn't want to eat crappy bar food for dinner, but it was HUGE and fun. I met fiercerose, and somebody whose real name I remember but whose LJ name I'm blanking on, and of course giapet for a second, and lots of other people. A smaller sub-group of us played Apples to Apples, and I tripped hilariously over a brick garden ledge when I hadn't even imbibed a drop of alcohol, and it was all very relaxed and groovy.

So, yeah, I've definitely concluded that it's pretty much like I was saying last night: internet people? Not scary. If you're meeting them in a dark alley at night, then yeah, that's a risk, but generally speaking, the worst that'll happen is a bit of social awkwarness. Hell, I deal with that plenty already by just being me, so no real difference there. ;p

It's only Wednesday, and the weekend is looking packed. Saturday is wushu, sailing, and hopefully going to monkeyhole's gathering, so I will finally meet him and sarapada and also see rmalena! (the latter is now also a newly-minted Portlander, woo!) Sunday is a fitting for the runway show, and a shoot directly afterwards. I'm doing some crazier wardrobe styling, and this really cool and friendly lady is doing the makeup and hair, so hopefully it'll be all artsy-looking and nifty. All of that is in the mid-to-late afternoon, though, so I at least get to have a lazy morning. :)

Other stuff is going on, too, but I don't have time to blab about it right now, so... ::pwing!::

Man, Mondays are so fired. Not for any particular reason, really, but just because it's Monday. Mondays never seem to feel very good.

We did yoga and went running last night, and it kind of wiped me out, but in that good way. We've gone to a different gym location the last couple of times, and I'm thinking that this location's instructors have a nicer balance of strength and flexibility poses in the workout. The other ones did mostly flexibility and, yeah, I think I'm pretty okay in that area already. ;p

I think that tonight, I may attempt making tacos with buffalo meat! They had it on sale at Fred Meyer recently, so we picked up a pound of the stuff. We'd had buffalo meat fajitas at the Rock Bottom Brewery a couple of weeks ago, and they were quite tasty. Buffalo is supposed to be a lot better for you than beef, too, so hey, why not? :)

I have also learned of a couple different weekly knitting groups in my area, so I'm definitely going to one of those soon. I'm sure I have at least *one* scarf kicking around that I haven't finished yet.

Also, I got my comps from the watermelon seed shoot in the mail the other day, so since at least one of you asked:

( Here it is )

I was hoping they'd use one of the more fun ones, but I guess they settled on dainty. :)

That's all!

Woooo it's Friday! This weekend is going to rock.

First of all, YAY PLUNDERATHON! If you're in Portland, then you'd best get yourself a piratical costume and walk the streets with us. :D

I'm going to yellow/green belt Wushu today, and I'm jazzed about that. The basics will be like what we did at UO, so it should be more challenging. AND, I'll hopefully get to try out the new straightsword the UO crew got for me. <3 I'm not sure what the situation is as far as when I'll get to train broadsword, but any sword training is better than none.

I might do another runway show, and hopefully it'll be better organized than the one I did last year. There's an entirely different crew behind it, and quite a few sponsors, so I have high hopes. The casting for that is also this weekend, so I should know relatively soon. :)

There's also a crafting group that I might go to... assuming that we don't go rafting! XD Thomas might be setting up the raft trip, so we'll see if that happens or not.

I have tons to do today, so I'll be brief.

Fun times at the Kennedy School McMenamins last night! It was Ben's idea to get a posse together and celebrate The New Job, and it actually worked! My tiny, tiny social network up here is basically, one person from this crowd, one person from that crowd, etc., but even after throwing all these far-flung connections togther, everyone got along great. :D Most folks took off early, but me and Ben stayed to watch a movie there, which was pretty awesome. (3 words: Beer. Pizza. Couches.)

Photoshoot tomorrow. Not a paying one, but it's for that designer from a while back who took a shine to me, and there will be lots of wacky clothes and makeup. She's nice, she makes fun clothes, and she doesn't treat me like a fat chick. (there's going to be a plus model at the shoot, and it's actually *not* me :O) It should be fun and interesting.

Anyhoo, I won't be in Eugene this weekend like I previously thought, because the photoshoot got moved to a location here in Portland, and I have *buttloads* of work to do on my website, and for clients, too. Fortunately, Goo mentioned that they might come up and train this weekend, so I am *definitely* doing that. Kiddie wushu is definitely wearing on me. Otherwise, Ben's going to Eugene to visit his fam and go to some wedding reception thinger, so it's just going to be me and my crappy bike biffing around town until Sunday night.

Speaking of my crappy bike, I think I may stop by the bike shop and see about getting that thing fixed up some. It *still* needs help, even after all the upgrades Ben did recently.

Bugger, this was supposed to be brief! Maybe the blogging itch has finally come home to roost, heh.

EDIT:
( OH NOES, Zombies! )

If you're bored, take a look at some proofs from a shoot I did in November. (as in, all the ones in the navy blue wushu outfit with the screen behind me) If you're *really* bored, pick 5 favorites!

Bear in mind that these are unedited proofs, so you'd be picking based on how scary/pretty/whatever I look in them, and shot composition. Any technical problems would be corrected, and they might be converted to black-and-white anyway. (the artist tends to work in black-and-white) There are tons more, but I'm having trouble paring it down any further than what's online.

The sword-in-hand one is kind of a given, because it is awesome and totally sums up the entire shoot.

Also, POLL: for the ladies in the audience, what are some thoughts that come to your mind, when dealing with the issue of size? (yes, as in weight) How has it affected you in the past, how does it make you feel now, etc.

I ask, because the photographer who did the wushu stuff discussed size with me this past weekend. (I'd mentioned last time I was up that I'd previously been really overweight) He says that's one issue he hasn't really taken on in his work, so we're thinking about ways to tackle it through photography. I certainly have a lot of thoughts about it, but they're all from my own experiences and perspectives, so I'd like to hear some other thoughts. :)

I was late to everything in the world on Friday and Saturday, and that sucked. Late to lunch with junsiew, late to my haircut appointment, late to wushu (but only by 5 minutes), late to hanging out with the Posse, and late getting started on our slideshow photo review. Jeeez.

On Saturday, I got twisted around in Portland trying to get to Washington Park, and was late to my first shoot. Fortunately, the guy was from out of town and didn't seem to care much. (a few pics from that shoot are in the Flickr gallery) Then, I biffed around Portland trying to find my next shoot, and 45 minutes after I should have been there, the guy realized he hadn't told me that the shoot location was in Vancouver, not Portland! The light was going away by then, so we're going to reschedule that one.

Fortunately, I was *early* for my shoot on Sunday morning! That went really well; he had some nice equipment and a fun space to work in, and the proofs look friggin' awesome... as soon as I get photos that I'm allowed to post, you'll know. Unfortunately, the guy with the killer lighting technique that I was supposed to shoot with on Sunday afternoon had to cancel, because he had to watch his kids. We're working on rescheduling, though.

On a more positive note, Friday was pretty fun, in spite of the lateness. Wushu practices are getting smoother and more organized, and we got a surprise visit from David and Ken! I also got to hang out with my homeys later on, and meet Jeff, otherwise known as Natasla, heh. :) He seems like a cool guy, which I pretty much expected after all the running around on WoW that we've done over these many months.

As for the slideshow photo review, we pretty much rocked that shoot. That was easily my favorite shoot yet, and I loved the results. :D I put up quite a few photos. More will go up soon, once I finish retouching the rest.

On Saturday, after I got done shooting, we biffed around downtown, and stopped in at twinki79's restaurant! I think we got there during the busy hour, because she was running around all over the place and didn't have a lot of time to chat or anything, but it was good to finally see the place and get a good meal. :) We found a neat bar downtown sometime after that, called Shanghai Tunnel... they had a bunch of good beers on tap that we'd never even heard of, so that immediately impressed us. We also found out about a really cool Star Wars Exhibit that's coming to OMSI later this month, so we might have to get an expedition together for that sometime!

After getting back to Eugene yesterday, I actually fired a gun! :O It must be an Oregonians-outside-of-Portland thing, because it seems like I meet more and more people who own firearms and used to "go shooting" as an activity. ;p Anyhoo, I didn't hit a damned thing, but I might've done better if the lighting wasn't so bad. The .22 rifle seemed to be about my speed... the .3006 and the pistol I tried had more recoil than I was comfy with. (yeah, I know, I'm a sissy ;p)

That's all!

Project: Non-Disgusting Tilapia was a success! I worked from this recipe, but I only made 1 filet, and opted for olive oil and grilling instead of margarine and baking. The sauce was pretty yummy. Those filets cook *fast*, though. It got done way before the veggies did, and I was super-hungry, so it was kind of torture waiting for everything to get done, sigh.

I think I'm going to have to do a truckload of prep work for the party food... enough that I should probably do some tomorrow night, so I don't have to cram it all in on Friday. Yep, I *am* being overambitious. ::laughs::

Oh yeah, I got my photos from the shoot last Saturday in the mail! (that was fast!) I put a few that I liked on the ol' Flickr account. Hey, maybe I *can* look marketable!

It does make me think about taming the crazy haircut, though. It's going to be haircut time soon, so I'm thinking about what I want to do next! I'm kind of hoping to work something out with my new stylist where I can trade some website work for an awesome cut-and-color job. (her suggestion) The holidays are lurking out ahead, though, so I'm more reluctant to do something to my hair that Mom will hate, heh. She's cranky enough about the fact that I'm keeping it shorter these days. ;p