Sunday, October 18, 2009 by
Colin Woon
, under
Travel
If you ask most people to fly to a city 1600 miles away and then driving back in a newly acquired car, you will probably get responds like "HUH?", "Are you CRAZY?", "What's WRONG with you?", etc.
To me, the same question will yield an enthusiastic "OH YEAH!!! When do we depart???". Especially when the acquired car is a Lotus Exige!!!
#1 - Off we flew to Los Angeles to pick up AS's
new slightly used Lotus Exige.
#2 - The beauty, sitting at the seller's garage, waiting for us. AS is like a little kid at the candy store when he first saw the car. I bet I would too if I'm buying this beauty!
#3 - A little protection is applied to protect the car from rocks and bugs we might encounter through the mountain and dessert area.
#4 - Okay, a lot of protection. AS will probably want to cover the whole car with these special tape if we had time.
#5 - Greeted by the rare Los Angeles rain as soon as we hit the highway in the evening.
#6 - And the infamous LA traffic jam too.
#7 - Roughly 600 miles and 10 hours later, our stop for the night at Tucson, Arizona. Arrived at 3am in the morning, departed 6 hours later with well rested eyes and full stomach.
#8 - Yep, it's 80mph but we're not speeding. Some stretch of the highway actually has speed limit at 80mph, way out there in the no man land.
#9 - Common encounter through out the trip, cargo train.
#10 - Common theme of the journey, vast lands, straight roads, mountain range.
#11 - Other than the occasional
pee pit stop, it's mostly drive and sleep which is the main reason why I missed some interesting captures with my camera.
#12 - Yet another cargo train.
#13 - You know this car is cool when a 6 years old kid tells you, "I really really like your car.", yes, with 2 "really". Or when guys give you a thumb up as you pull into the gas station. Or when a girl tells her girlfriend, "Now that's a good looking car!"
#14 - The 1.8 liter engine at the back of this car produces 190hp which is capable of propelling this 2000lb machine from 0 to 60mph in 4.7sec, and yet it still can achieve 28mpg on the highway. I have never driven a car as quick and as responsive as the Lotus Exige. It's not the most comfortable car but it's definitely the most fun to drive. I want one too!
#15 - We're finally back in Texas again but still hundred of miles away from home.
#16 - Sunset hours.
#17 - Finally, road signs to city we're familiar with.
#18 - One last photo before the light fade away when taking photos in a moving car near impossible.
A total of 30 hours on the road including pit stop, not bad, not bad. Though tiring, I really enjoyed the trip thanks to such wonderful machine.
Wifey commented that hopefully the next time we will be picking up our own Lotus. Sure honey, I sure hope so too!
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Monday, October 12, 2009 by
Colin Woon
, under
Photography
These photos were taken the same time as the last post.
Benjamin was reluctant to take photos so everybody was trying every possible way to make him smile. The results are so cute and funny, I think it deserve its own blog entry.
#1
#2 - This one cracks me up every time I see it, every time!
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
Made some rookie mistake which causes some of the photos to have different exposures. Oh well, hope I can remember to avoid it next time.
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Thursday, October 08, 2009 by
Colin Woon
, under
Photography
Who would have thought I will make the 100th blog post? Sometime I do surprise myself.
The next milestone 1000th post...at my rate, that will probably takes 10 years. What will happen 10 years later, blogging might be a thing of the past, or would it?
For this special post, I must post something happy, unlike the last post of Houston Downtown, so depressing.
What's better than happy kids photos? Took this a couple of weeks ago. JP & Min want some photos of their kids, Janine, Benjamin, and Adrien in Halloween costume. "SURE!", I said.
Again, these are NOT my kids. Just in case you're wondering.
#1 - Benjamin as a bumble bee, Adrien as a kangaroo, Janine as a ladybird.
#2 - Priceless laugh.
#3 - Say cheese, he did, with every muscle on his face.
#4
#5 - Taking photos of kids are very tiring mainly because they don't stay put but when I captured a moment like this, it's very very rewarding.
#6 - Both looking at camera, a very rare moment.
#7
#8
#9
#10 - The girl who smile with her eyes.
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The mission - to capture some early sunrise photo of downtown Houston.
Time - Saturday morning, 5:30am.
Weapon of choice - breakfast + strong coffee + outdated DSLR with kit lens (EF-S 18-55mm IS)
Outcome - failure, kind of. The sun was blocked by some nasty cloud.
Solution - try it again some other time.
The good thing was that we bumped into "Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure" annual run and captured some photos there, which I will post later.
Hopefully I can get back into blogging and photography more often.
This one is captured before sunrise. The color of the sky was gray which makes the photos kind of bleh...so I desaturated it.
Another captured before sunrise but I use HDR (High Dynamic Range) processing to make it pop. Yes? No?
I went back to the same spot at 6pm for another shot. The sky is still gray but this time, with rain. So I took a few shot and left. Just not a day for photography.
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