The Vast Supper

See what I did there? Not the Last Supper, but the Vast Supper!?!? Man I am so clever I can barely stand it sometimes. ;)

The full list of Thanksgiving dishes:

• Turkey: grilled, stuffed with vegetables, and pretty dadgum moist
• Mashed Potatoes: whipped mountains of the good stuff, this is the most important dish for the Carlson Thanksgiving
• Giblet Gravy: Giblet is such an unattractive name for such a delicious (and mandatory) part of dinner
• Green Bean Casserole: Complete with standard fried onion topping
• Fresh Corn and Wild Rice: If by fresh you mean frozen, and by wild rice you mean wild rice blend, we had this dish covered!
• Sweet Potatoes: Cubed and baked with olive oil, rosemary and brown sugar
• Dressing: Street name: "Stuffing," this is my favorite dish of Thanksgiving, hands down. Why we don't have dressing/stuffing more than once a year is beyond me
• Salad: Take it or leave it. I left it, not wanting to waste precious Thanksgiving room in my stomach on a fresh salad with our signature Italian dressing
• Cranberry jello: thanks but no thanks, but the jello mold with fresh cranberries and nuts is still a recurring part of our dinner
• Pies: pumpkin and pecan. Texas pecan, thankyouverymuch

My grandparents, Nana and Pere, fresh from their home in Florida. Best part of the night was when they asked my 23-year-old sister if she's "performed" in front of the Supreme Court yet?

A certain someone loves her gravy. Although, her title of most gravy-drenched plate was quickly usurped by Pere.

Victory! Although in the end, the meal got the best of me, putting me to sleep by 9:00.

This concludes my coverage of Thanksgiving 2010. Thank you, please come again!

Preparing the Carlson Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving Dinner is a multi-day production at the Carlson house, one with many moving parts, and a schedule timed down to the minute.

I added my own little entry at 12:15 - too bad that's the one thing that didn't get accomplished!

Putting the bird on the grill.

Starting to get some grill marks.

Yes, this is my eye-surgeon mother on her hands and knees cleaning the floor. You're looking at the source of any Carlson OCD symptoms.

Yes, my precious sister helped prepare Thanksgiving in her own special way.

Table set with fine china, the good silverware, and a stuffed turkey toy centerpiece? Check.

Caribbean Rum, courtesy of our Trinidadian guests. Thankyouverymuch, I'll have another rum and coke.

This mountain of mashed potatoes makes all the preparation worthwhile.

Food Coma

So before the food coma set in after the big dinner last night I had taken some 350 or so shots of everything from preparing the food, cleaning the house, guests coming over and eating the dinner. But one shot is a particular favorite, and it wasn't even taken by me!

Boonie (typo and it stays) used my camera to snap a few shots as I was adding coals to the grill. (Yes, we grill our turkey. Cool?) Pretty gosh-darned cool picture:

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all!

Just dropping a quick hello and Happy Holidays before I get sucked into the swirling parental vortex of Thanksgiving preparations. So far, I'm scheduled to peel potatoes for four hours (no joke), make corn and wild rice casserole and brie and garlic-stuffed mushrooms.

Pray for me.

Before the impromptu high school reunion at Whitlow's last night, we grabbed some pizza at Pupatellas:

Framing your shot

One standby photo composition technique is framing your shot.

By lining up a "frame" in your picture - which could be tree branches, fences, windows - you help director the viewers' eyes to the main subject. I have a couple examples of framing - but only a couple. It is one technique I always seem to forget, but should do a better job using.

Sorry about the overexposure on the dome. I'm still learning!

Sorry about the totally wacked-out colors.This is a really weird picture - but is I like the frame of the wrought-iron details.

Culinary school lunch

Last week a friend got us reservations for lunch at the Art Institute of Arlington's culinary program. Set on the 12th floor in a Rosslyn office building, there were spectacular views of the District to compliment the cuisine.

In addition to learning to cook, the chefs-in-training also have to do a rotation in front-of-the-house service, with everything from busing, taking orders and general restaurant management.

The table centerpieces were bright and cheery.

I'm not a fan of pork. In fact, it kind of really grosses me out. Why I ordered a student-version of a bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin is beyond me. The whole time I was eating it, it reminded me of the stink that comes out our garbage disposal.

The star of the show was without a doubt the sparkling strawberry limeade. It was totally refreshing and not overly sweet. The only thing that would've made it better is if it was mixed with Fresca. And no, I'm not kidding. My theory is you can add Fresca to just about anything to kick up the flavor.

Weekend View: Kennedy Center

OK this isn't high-quality photography. Or even "meh" photography. It's straight-up ghetto mobile-phone photography. Hope it doesn't shock you.

My view from the Concert Hall stage at the Kennedy Center during a recent rehearsal.

The Washington Chorus put on it's Essential Rachmaninoff program, and can I just say how thankful I am to be past this concert! Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful music, but those Russian words are brutal. Just when you start feeling comfortable, the tempo picks up, and you're lucky to even get the notes right, much less the diction!

You'll never guess what I did this weekend...

I went to downtown Silver Spring, Maryland and survived! I crossed the safety of the Virginia border Saturday night to grab dinner with a college pal, and was rewarded for my courage.

We went to Austin Grill, a Tex-Mex restaurant that serves up delicious sandwiches along with typical "Mexican" fare. The music was bizarre, starting with grunge hip hop until a dreadlocked band kicked in and played reggae.

My favorite series

These four pictures are my favorite sequence I've shot so far. These aren't the exact order I took them in, but I re-ordered them to make more sense. Taken at one of the main marinas in Annapolis.

Little devil

This little guy is definitely up to no good.

Sure he's pouring a jug of water in that basin, but you can tell by the glint in his little cherubic eyes that he's got more sinister plans.Either that or he's embarrassed that he just sharted or something...

Shallow depth of field

For as much as I learn about photography, one of my favorite things remains pictures with a very shallow depth of field. There is something magical to me about a photo that is tightly focused on one area with a blurry foreground and background.

This is one of the reasons I love my 50mm f/1.4 lens. It gives me a wider-open aperture of any of my lenses, so I use it alot. Sadly, that lens is also the one that I shattered on a Rosslyn sidewalk a couple months ago. I'm still using it despite it missing 2 layers of glass, so maybe it isn't broken?

Crappy day outside

So the weather is a total emotional drain. Not only is it dark leaving for and returning from work, but then having it be rainy and cloudy all day does NOT improve my disposition.

These flowers help brighten my day - can you believe I took these in November!? Shouldn't they be dead by now!?

The one where I survived Maryland

One thing about the DC area is that, when you pick a suburb, you're likely to move again, but never EVER to cross state lines. For instance, a family could move from Alexandria to Arlington to Fairfax, but they wouldn't even CONSIDER making a move to Columbia or Silver Spring.

People pick a state and stay loyal to it.

Since I'm an Arlingtonian, I know the truth: that Maryland is a state run by criminals for criminals, chock full of criminally inept drivers. You can recognize a Maryland driver without even looking at his tags: he's the one driving 35 on a 45 mph street with his left turn signal blinking unbeknownst to him.

And yet, the other day I found myself driving up to Annapolis. I was only going for a day trip, but still my blood pressure was up, and my knuckles tightly glued to the wheel as I tried to maneuver around the achingly slow and swerve-y drivers.

I attended a PhotoTour Excursion of historic Annapolis. A group of eight spent four hours trolling the streets and docks of the town looking for good shots.

The good news is I got some pretty nice pictures. The bad news is, chances are that I'm going to shoving them down your throats for the better part of a week. So enjoy!

PS. Bokeh in the background! Nailed yesterday's Flickr Friday challenge.

Flickr Friday: Bokeh

I know we've talked about Bokeh before. It's the beautifully out-of-focus backgrounds of some pictures that often form lusciously soft balls of unfocused light. Bokeh is easily one of my favorite photographic effects, and to help prod me into creating more bokeh images, here are a collection of some beautiful pictures from Flickr.

By Dave Gunzenhauser
I love the narrow band of focus in the bottom portion of the screen that gives way to beautiful bokeh street lights.

By silicon valley dude
Such a romantic shot. The composition is unusual, and the bokeh gives it a very dreamy feel.

By Bryan Leung
What a stunning picture! A clever idea, and the bokeh adds to the cacophony of vision without glasses.

By Roger Lim
The soft bokeh compliments the round grapes.

By Bob Bray
Love this picture! The crisp, translucent bulb and the hexagonal bokeh look perfect together. I love these dark shots, and have so much trouble creating them myself!

By Gabriel Asper
This may be one of my new favorite pictures! Gorgeous sillhouette with colorful bokeh in the background.

By Gage Young
Beautiful portrait with a nice soft background. Love the light in the trees.

Spam is fun

Usually I just delete spam comments without even skimming them, but a couple of them caught my eye recently, and I think I may need to pay them more attention:

There are a lot of adjectives I'd use before "magnificent," but hey I'll take any computer-generated compliment I can get.

Yes. Yes it does.

I'll jusy approve your coment right away!

Another pretty girl

Dayyyuuum girl why you so fine?

Newdo Signs

Not to be outdone by the Rally to Restore Sanity last week, the Newdo Crusties (alumni) let it all hang out when making signs for the concert There are so many Newdo slogans and sayings, that we only skimmed the surface with these few signs:

I Bleed Newdo Blue

Many of you know I was (am) a marching band geek, but did you know I also did a Capella at school? How my parents ever thought I was straight, I don't know.

Anyways, this past weekend was the fall concert for my old group, called the New Dominions, AKA Newdos. And let me tell you, homeboys/girls put on a fierce show:

They covered everyone from Katy Perry to Michael Buble.

Fall portrait

Finishing off a rip-roaring weekend. Leaving you with a picture I took of Stephanie Friday afternoon:

Flickr Friday: Annapolis

Later this weekend I'll be going to a photo safari-type thing in Annapolis, MD. I've never been to Annapolis before, so I took to flickr to get an idea of what kind of shots will be there for the taking.

This'll be my first photo tour, and I have really high expectations:

Full Sail Chesapeake Bay Bridge

by Bill Thayer

Annapolis Sunset Cruise

by Mike Fitzpatrick

Drake in Annapolis Harbor

by Michael Oberman

Annapolis 3

by Mark Brueggenjohann

Sunset at the Annapolis Waterfront

by JA|Foto

Vine covered building

by MattandDonna

Chesapeake Sunrise

by ramislevy

Feeding seagulls

by Bob Boyer

After all this inspiration, I hope I come back in a coupla days with some great shots!