Photography is my way of showing the world what I feel, and I'm so excited that you're interested in joining me! Below you can keep up with me both in my personal life and my photography career (they seem to intermix quite a bit). So come do life with me and share your thoughts in the comments. Looking forward to connecting with you!
The madness has begun. It all started with the Illini getting snubbed (re: they deserved to not make it based on the season, but were given so much hope at the end of the year before getting it taken away from them) from the NCAA Tournament, mainly because Houston stole a spot by gaining the automatic bid beating UTEP in the conference title. But I digress.
All that aside, this is going to be a very interesting tournament, as general powerhouse teams like UNC and UConn are joining the Illini in the NIT instead of getting a bid. So that means its that time again, NCAA Tourney Time! Regardless of how much or how little you know about college basketball..or basketball in general, you have a great chance to win the pool since anything can happen! (Hence the reason that I have NEVER picked the NCAA tournament winner yet…over 10 years of playing…I digress…)
Ive set up a pool on ESPN where you can fill out your bracket and join (if you haven’t done this before, you’ll need to set up an account with ESPN first.- really simple). Not sure what the winner gets yet, but there will be a prize too (both a physical prize and massive props)! So head on over, set up your bracket, and get your game on! Feel free to also get your *clean* trash talking up in the conversation box on the site too!
————— Site:http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/group?groupID=61765 Group Name: NM Ballers Password: stepup Note: You can have up to 3 brackets in the group (any more than that and all your entries will be void for winning).
The deadline is Thursday, March 18th, so make sure you get everything set and joined up before then!
iPhone/iPod Touch App: http://bit.ly/bvM63x There’s also a free app for the ESPN Tournament Challenge, so you can set up your brackets and follow your rankings at your fingertips! :)
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And again, some quick tips for you guys in getting your brackets up and running:
- #1 teams have never lost in the first round (although a #15 has defeated a #2)
- Only once in the history of the tournament (2008) has all four #1 teams made it to the final four.
- There are ALWAYS upsets. The most common are 12 over 5, 10 over 7, and 9 over 8.
- Nobody has ‘officially’ picked the perfect bracket (getting every game correct)…you’re bound to miss a couple.
- It annoys the heck out of sports fans when you choose teams to win based on colors, mascots, locations, and other non-basketball related reasons…but you have the same odds as someone who goes by the numbers ;)
With special thanks to my pop-culture expert @angelkutty, I found out that Vince Vaughn was filming a pilot of a new TV show at The Choo Choo, a historic family restaurant in downtown Des Plaines, which was about 5 minutes from my place. So I decided to take a chance and grabbed my gear to try to get a glimpse of Mr. Vaughn (or anyone else, for that matter).
I got there near the end of what seemed like their lunch break, and once they started getting set up again, security was pretty tight.
These guys looked important :)
People were sneaking around the 2nd floor of a parking garage to try to get a glimpse of Vince Vaughn
Spoiler Alert! This is the part of the pilot where this vehicle drives in front of the Choo Choo.
The sad news is that through all of this, there was no Vince Vaughn sighting- security said he left earlier in the day. But it was still fun to get out and shoot a bit. Locals asked if I was working with People or some magazine- kind of funny! Sadly, a local wedding photographer gets no special access. Ah well, if anything maybe this filming will keep the Choo Choo where it is for a long time coming!
One thing my wife and her family has brought to my life- travel :) Prior to marriage, I barely traveled outside of the midwest. Slowly, I’ve been getting out more, and this past weekend had the opportunity to head over to Arizona- a great escape from the blizzard in Illinois. Nithya’s sister lives out in Arizona, so we went to visit them as we only get to see them a couple times a year. We also brought our nephew along as well, which was a very interesting experience as I don’t normally travel with a 4 year old. It went surprisingly well, however, I am still in no hurry to have children :)
Our travel plans were delayed for a bit when our flight get shifted between 3 different gates on opposite ends of the airport. About a 2 hour delay, causing a slight irritation from many, but we all survived. (Had to remind myself that we are being carried in midair across the United States in a couple hours…that’s a crazy thought!)
The next morning I slept in a bit, while the wife went to our niece’s ballet class in the morning. I sent her with the 5D and 24-70, and with a couple instructions she was on her way- she’s starting to get better than me with the gear!
Afterward, we packed everyone in the van and headed out to beautiful Sedona. I wasn’t sure what to expect with 3 kids under the age of 10 on a 2 hour drive (the most I’ve done was 2 kids in about an hour and a half), but they were extremely well behaved.
The skies were BEAUTIFUL when we finally touched down in Sedona!
After checking the map, we set off for a “moderate difficulty” hike to Devil’s Bridge, which was just under a mile both ways. What we forgot to take into account was that it was about another mile hike to get to the start of the trail. Would the kids last?
This isn’t a good sign for a hike with kids…
We started out with a great pace, and the kids were really excited to start hiking, and were off leading the way!
Slowly…the legs started getting tired…
And then they needed a bit of help. A mile hike feels a lot harder when you have some 30 lbs on your back :)
We finally got to the start of the trail, where the boys checked the map to see whether it was worth it to join the rest of the way. They decided it wasn’t worth it, so they stayed at the landing with my brother-in-law, while we carried on.
Photo courtesy of my sister-in-law.
Seriously, this place is beautiful.
Photo courtesy of a self-timer. :)
After the the hike, we went to Picazzo’s for some pizza- gotta love the mindset:
On Sunday morning, we headed off to church at Cornerstone in Chandler, AZ. It’s a much different style than my home church, but definitely a great experience.
They had a shortened service that day as they were doing a serve-a-thon…5 different serving opportunities that the congregation could take part it. Even on a rainy Sunday, people went out to do landscaping in the community and other local services. The option we chose since we had the kids with us as well was packing meals for Haiti Relief. It was amazing to see a community of all shapes and sizes getting out and using their hands to get the message out. I was able to get a few frames while serving as a runner during our shift for packing meals for Haiti.
In our 1 hour shift, we packed almost 50k bags of food! The first shift did about 60k, and there were 2 more shifts after us- every little bit counts!
After serving, we headed out to lunch at Kona Grill. The kids were able to keep themselves entertained with some Etch-a-sketches…I wish I had one too.
I always get yelled about being a “boring” eater…is sushi ‘un-boring’ enough?!?! (For the record, I got a burger for my meal, but it was an extremely large one…12 ounces)
We ended the afternoon with a trip to the park- this was definitely something that we won’t be able to do in Chicago for about another month or so. It was fun to be active too! I haven’t shot a basketball in almost a year now, so it felt good to just shoot around. I need to get back on the courts again.
All in all, it was a great first trip to Arizona, and I’m looking forward to more trips in the future! Like I said, more photos will be up on my personal facebook page so be sure to check those out as well!
As I was editing my last shoot, I figured it might be fun to give you all a little behind-the-scenes glimpse into how I prep my files. Since I retouch my images, there’s a lot more time involved than just shooting the day-of. This is a very quick overview of mainly just some edits (as there’s obviously back-ups, uploading images, presentation, etc. that isn’t in the clip). I think the bigger reason for me to do this was because I love jumping back to my video roots to give me another creative push. It’s been almost 5 years since I’ve done any real video work, so I like jumping back in when I get a chance as a separate outlet for creativity. Hope you guys enjoy this! Let me know what you think in the comments below, and if you’d like to see more like this or any other types of video. Take care!
Last week I had the privilege of working with baby Alexander, one of the easiest 6-month-olds I’ve EVER dealt with! He must have been extremely excited to have his picture taken because from the moment I got to Pontus and Ulrika’s place, he was ready to go. I don’t think he even had thoughts of a cry or a whine while I was there…maybe I’m just that good with kids? :)
Ulrika, Pontus, and Baby Alexander, I had a great time working with your family- a beautiful family makes my job very easy :)
Photography is my way of showing the world what I feel, and I'm so excited that you're interested in joining me! Below you can keep up with me both in my personal life and my photography career (they seem to intermix quite a bit). So come do life with me and share your thoughts in the comments. Looking forward to connecting with you!
natemathai | 
filed under: Personal
