Archive for December, 2007

Vacation!
- December 26, 2007 -

As announced before, I’ll be heading out for vacation early tomorrow morning, beginning with my church retreat in Michigan. Due to this fact, I’ll be away from my e-mail and (most likely*) blogging for while. I’ll be back responding to everyone’s e-mails by January 7th, 2008. So until then, have yourself the happiest New Year, and get ready for a 2008 that you will NEVER forget!

*If I’m able to gain a solid internet connection at the conference site, I might do some photo dumps to get a glimpse as to the goodness that we’re experiencing up there. No guarantees, but feel free to check in!

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natemathai | filed under: Personal, announcement

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[12.24.07] Monday Night Recap
- December 24, 2007 -

• [Bears] Now this is the team I remember from last year. No real offense, amazing defense scoring all the points. If only they did this throughout the season. At least we swept the Packers this season.
• [Illini] We’re having a tough season so far, but we beat Mizzou in the Braggin’ Rights game. Go Illini! Can’t wait for the Rose Bowl on New Year’s…
• [ChristmasGifts] I’ve never been a big Christmas gift person but there are two I want to talk about. First…

I bought my niece a digital camera! After a couple minutes learning to hold it, she was off snapping away telling everyone “Say Cheese!” (she wouldn’t take your picture unless you said it). I wonder if she’ll be an apprentice or competition…
And then my girlfriend and I exchange gifts and she got me…

A monopod! Totally unexpected. It’s on my Amazon wishlist (along with many items which i doubt anyone would buy me), but she went and got it for me! She really is supportive! Also, she bought me a new sweater and some socks…all very practical gifts. She’s the best!

• [Fantasy] Obviously. The final matchup of the season, and I outscore my opponent by over 100…And I score more than every other player in the league (minus the one who won the whole thing…stupid LaDanian and his great Monday Night game). If my guys played up to potential all year and not just the last two weeks, I would be in the top 3. Instead…second to last.
• [Vacation] After a busy first year of work (both corporate and photography), I’ve got my first extended ‘vacation’ this week. It’s a good time to relax and get refreshed. I’ll be out in Michigan from Thursday-Sunday for a church retreat, so I’ll be back posting and responding to e-mails shortly thereafter.
• [1More] I’ve got one more party left on my plate- a Christmas party with my extended family (70+) on Tuesday evening. Maybe I’ll post before I leave…but I highly doubt it…here’s to hoping :)
• [HolidayCards] It didn’t seem like much of a contest, as this was the selected card:

…I got a bunch of responses (you’d expect), so here’s some excerpts of my favorites (hope they don’t mind me posting)…
– ‘OMG he’s so adorable’
– ‘Absolutely hilarious…that picture just made my day!’
– ‘Wow…he’s really…mature-looking.’
– ‘Man, that baby looks strange…’

Again, wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas time, and I look forward to amazing things in 2008. Much love, everyone…God Bless!

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You’ve been promised, we’ve been waiting
Welcome Holy Child
Welcome Holy Child

Hope that you don’t mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
But long-awaited Holy Stranger
Make Yourself at home
Please make Yourself at home

Bring Your peace into our violence
Bid our hungry souls be filled
Word now breaking Heaven’s silence
Welcome to our world
Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us
Tender brow prepared for thorn
Tiny heart whose blood will save us
Unto us is born
Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us holy
Perfect Son of God
Perfect Son of God
Welcome to our world

~Welcome To Our World – ChrisRice

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natemathai | filed under: Personal, [MNR]

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75 Years | (Her) Siblings Christmas
- December 24, 2007 -

On Saturday evening, my extended family got together for a pretty big reason. My godmother (my father’s aunt), and one of the sole reasons why all of us are in America, turned 75 years old! This lady has been such a foundation of prayer and solid living in our family. She is one of the most selfless people you have ever met, and there are countless people (both inside our family and outside) who can attest to this. It was an emotional time for many as people stood to share of how she’s touched their lives and wish her a happy birthday. With both sets of my grandparents being in India my whole life, she was who I knew as my grandmother (and the grandmother of our family). It’s a blessing to recognize the life she has lived and the passion she still has. Here’s few looks at the celebration…

After that I high-tailed it to my girlfriend’s house to have a little “siblings” Christmas party (centered around the relations of her sister and brother-in-law). The fun thing about it is I pretty much grew up with these guys my whole life! It’s amazing how God had placed us all in the same church or community growing up, and now have used the bonds of marriage to bring us even closer. God is good! Our celebration had the obligatory food, fun, and fellowship: pre-made snacks as well as ordered food, great conversation and reflection on the past year, an entertaining game of white elephant, and a rousing competition of Catchphrase (…everyone might seem like a good calm Christian, but boy are we competitive)! All in all…good times. 4 parties in from last Wednesday-Saturday. Here’s a quick look:

Since I have time to post today, I’ll get the real MNR out as well. Keep an eye out…

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Christmas Parties (1&2)
- December 21, 2007 -

This past Wednesday I had two different Christmas parties that I was invited to: (1) my weekly small group bible study was getting together for a ‘potluck and PS3′ party in Mundelein, and (2) my college friends were having a ‘order in and talk’ party in Des Plaines. The small group one started at 7, the college one at 7:30. Impossible? Maybe for your average person, bet definitely not for ME!

I picked up my one of my roommates who would do the party crawl with me, and got to Mundelein at around 7:20. Whoever says boys don’t know how to cook is lying. We had ribs, chicken (BW3s), gyros, brats, cookies, puppy chow, punch…we FEASTED! And whoever said that boys don’t know how to talk? For the time I was there, we watched the Detroit/Boston game, and finished it off with a rousing game of Bears/Packers in PS3. (For the record, I [Bears with Orton as QB] won.) Here’s a quick collage of the event. Don’t we look fun?

We left a little later than expected, and got to the college party a little before 10. The “feasting” was much different, as we just ordered pizza (I was already stuffed anyways). It was a great time of catching up with each others lives, relationship statuses, reminiscing on the past, and so forth and so. I kept the camera down a bit and just enjoyed the conversation. Doesn’t this interaction look a little bit different than the one type above?

Different types of food, different groups of people, different conversations…but all in all, a great night. And this is just the beginning. Tomorrow I got 2 more parties (one birthday, one Christmas), then another Christmas one with the family on Sunday, followed by an extended family Christmas on Tuesday, before heading out to Michigan for my church’s winter retreat. Trying to finish the year out strong…and already getting excited for 2008. I love my life!

_______
Question: Do you like the collages better than the individual pictures?

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natemathai | filed under: Modern Events, Personal

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"After" & After…
- December 20, 2007 -

I normally don’t post the process of my image corrections and things of that nature, but I decided I would post this one just to give an idea of the type of retouching that’s available. Now, this isn’t “Before & After”, as the retouch happened on a partially processed image already. This was taken from an earlier e-session with Jane & Alan.
Originally, I performed some basic adjustments and color correction to the photo, as I do with all images. Then, I performed my secondary processing, what I like to call my “creative” or “artistic” processing. I don’t do this with every image, and it varies from shoot to shoot. Some people go crazy with these things, and although I do enjoy them, I only try to make these types of adjustments when I feel it will truly add to the image. At this stage, this is what the general final print would look like:

I really liked this picture, but there were a couple of things which jump out that could be improved. If I could go back in time, I would have moved the yellow cones out of the way, as well as asked the drivers in the cars to move (where were the drivers?…who knows…but I still wished they moved). Instead of just giving up on the image, though, it proves to be a great example what a little extra time and effort can get you. After a bit of editing, I was able to get this:

Many people who just saw the first one image might be pleased…but doesn’t it feel better knowing what’s possible with the second?

My goodness it’s late…good night everyone!

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natemathai | filed under: Couples Lifestyle Sessions

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[12.17.07] Monday Night Recap
- December 17, 2007 -

• [Dolphins] They finally won a game! Although they started out 0-13, at least they won’t be placed in the record books of NFL history as the first winless team. Keep celebrating, guys…you deserve it!
• [Fantasy] This week and next week, I’m in a battle for last…er…second to last place (I’m trying to win…right.). I finally have all my players playing up to potential. Being up 40+ points going into the final week makes me confident I won’t be in last. But anything is possible…right? Can’t start celebrating yet…
• [RoseBowl] My girlfriend can be very cute. She told me that when she found out the Illini were going to the Rose Bowl, she was thinking of taking me there. I laughed…she asked why. I then went on to tell her that the game was New Year’s day, in Pasadena, California, and the cheapest tickets are around $250 each. She responds with ‘oh.’ It’s the thought that counts.
• [HolidayCards] Keep the votes coming (either on facebook or the blog), as I’ll be sending them out this weekend.
• [Clarity] I first got glasses my junior year of high school. My sophomore year of college, I went and got my eyes re-checked, and a new pair of glasses. I haven’t been too fond of how I look with glasses, plus didn’t feel they were that vital, so I don’t really wear them often. But then they broke on Thanksgiving, which forced me to go to the eye doctor again. This time I went all out: contacts and frames! My goodness is the world a whole lot clearer! I’m on my trial pair of contacts, and I love it. We’ll see how I feel about my new frames.
• [MNF] Bears vs. Vikings, Kyle Orton vs. Tavaris Jackson…what?! I’m sure it looked like a great matchup at the end of last season. At least they let Orton throw and Hester play offense more. All we needed was him to not make a mistake- one bad throw at the end, and we’re officially out of the playoff race. Oh well, at least Urlacher looked like a beast again.
• [GPS] At first I thought if I could just get GPS on my iPod Touch, I’d be set. Now, I’m not too sure.
• [ChristmasEve] Due to the holidays, I can’t guarantee an MNR for next Monday…but we’ll see…keep an eye out through the remainder of this week though…got like 5 holiday parties.

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natemathai | filed under: Personal, [MNR]

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Holiday Cards!
- December 16, 2007 -

A little bit ago, I had expressed my desire to make holiday cards for Christmas, but expressed my issue of not having a wife and child(ren) to place on it. But recently, I had done a couple shoots for birth announcements/Christmas cards, and I just felt that I needed to do something. Being a recent grad, I don’t have the funds to mail everyone a card this year (nor can I guarantee they will arrive by Christmas). But what’s the next best thing? An e-card! (of sorts…)

I figured I’ll send it out as an e-mail to friends/family, but I’ll let you guys help me choose which one to send out. Here they are:

Card #1

Card #2

So leave the comments…do you guys like card #1 or card #2?

:) Merry (early) Christmas everybody!

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Trend Setting
- December 14, 2007 -

A few people have forwarded references of this article on to me this past week, and so I wanted to take this opportunity to let everyone know that, even if you feel your voice is small, you will be heard.
This past year, I’d taken on a small role in my church to simply give the general announcements after our large group meetings on Fridays. And so, in order to spice up the time, I searched for a buzz word- one that would get people hype. There were two that I felt would be strong: “Holler” and “Woot”. Now I had been using holler for a couple years now, and so I might not have carried the same ‘new-ness’ with the people that I was hoping for. Luckily, the ‘woot’ stuck. Initially, it took some time for people to lower their pride and ‘woot’ back, but through the year people got more and more comfortable.
You might be thinking, ‘How do these two correlate?’ It’s obvious. After these meetings, the kids started taking the ‘woot’ into the schools and communities, and it just kept spreading. From a local church, it’s now gone nation-wide, and being recognized by a dictionary as the word of the year. Now that’s amazing.

Inspirational Message…
You might not think that your voice holds any weight in the big scheme of thing. You might feel so small. But everything has impact. Your words and actions will impact those you interact with. And likewise, they will impact a broader group, and so forth and so on. What message are you getting across? What change are you making in the world? How are you making a mark in your society?

:)

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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Positional Power
- December 12, 2007 -

There are so many reasons why people are turned off by Christians (and the Christian faith). I’ve been reading a book called “UnChristian“, which was basically a 3-year research project on this subject, looking from the view of those not of the Christian faith commenting on the belief systems and the people. It’s very eye-opening to see the faults in the Christian society (and not necessarily the faith itself) to learn how to correct it.
Normally, I’m a bit turned off from people who use political issues as a pedestal to preach the faith. Many times, it simply puts a foul taste in the viewers/listeners mouths, as its not done in a loving way. Also, in an effort to try to seem as if Christians have all the answers, they speak in a way that’s either disrespectful or illogical, which does not make others open to it either.
But in the 3rd CNN debate, Mike Huckabee was asked a question regarding his view on creation vs. evolution (ummm…why is this so important for selecting the next President?), and he answered it remarkably. I’m not stating a political preference or posting loyalty, but simply posting a quality response.

Don’t try to act like you know everything, but don’t be scared to say what you believe is true. Props, my friend- mad props.

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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I dislike the RIAA…
- December 11, 2007 -

I’m not a proponent of downloading music/videos through P2P sites. Claiming ignorance, I used to…having Napster, Grokster, Bearshare, LimeWire, and Kazaa (sometimes all at the same time). The more I gave it thought and researched it, the easier it was for me to just get rid of it all. When dealing with personal entertainment, it’s not worth it.

With that being said, I still have a strong dislike with the regulation by the RIAA, and their views on their copyrights. Being a member of the ‘creativity industry’ through photography, I understand the importance of retaining your copyrights, and the financial loss that could amount if there was no regulation. I wouldn’t be overly excited to have a client scan a picture that I took of them and then make 5,000 copies to send out all over the US (why 5,000 people would want there picture, I have no idea).
But then I stumbled upon this article, which blew my mind. I mean, seriously? Basically, they are claiming that copying the CDs to your computer for personal use is stealing. What? Ultimately, they are saying if you want to do that, then buy another CD. Now, I provide a CD of web images to my clients. What if I told them that if they wanted to copy it to their hard drive, they would have to buy another CD of web images, and then destroy the CD after copying? Ridiculous? I think so.
General consumers are not trying to steal at every opportunity they get. When you provide a way for them to fulfill their desires, they in turn will support what you offer. Once the big companies break down the barriers separating them from the people, and start building ‘relationships’, there will be a much greater balance on both sides of the ball.

[...oh, in case it was unclear...you have the right to copy your web images to your computer, post them on blogs, or email it to families/friends...we're cool like that...]

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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[12.10.07] Monday Night Recap
- December 10, 2007 -

• [Bears] I really don’t know…I really just don’t know.
• [Fantasy] Last week really hurt me, so I’m now playing for last place in my league. How sad is that? My opponent had the perfect counter for every one of my weapons. I have Jay Cutler giving me 25 pts, he has Brandon Marshall who caught all his passes. I have Addai running wild, he has Payton Manning throwing wild. I got hosed…
• [HolidayParty] Why does it seem like there’s only 1 day that everyone can have a party? I have had 2 invitations for next Wednesday, and 3 for the following Saturday. Sadly I can’t be everyone at the same time.
• [OutdoorParking] I park on the street outside of my house, and I don’t enjoy the winter weather. Yesterday morning it took me 25 minutes to scrape the ice off of my windows. When does this end again?
• [LazyDays] This past weekend was a bit confusing for me- I had no meetings or anything scheduled. Outside of church on Sunday, I spent both Saturday and Sunday at home. It was really odd…I felt like I was missing something. These types of days are nice to have.
• [TShirts] It was (jokingly?) suggested to me that I should make nmathaiphotography T-Shirts…and something I had considered before. If I did decide to make shirts, how many people would be interested to buying one? Now, I’m not all about a blatant branding, so it’s not like you’d be walking around with a huge “N” on your chest. Let me know if you’re interested (oh…and if you have a design idea, feel free to let me know that too!)
• [Niece] I’ve posted many times how I love taking pictures of children. Well…that’s mainly when I have to capture them in their own element, unaware of the camera. When you try to pose them…it’s a completely different story. Word of advice: never try to take a child portrait an hour or two before they are supposed to go to sleep- they won’t be that keen on cooperation. She’s a blast to hang out with, but my goodness did she not care for pictures today. Not sure which will be used for the holiday card (if any), but I here’s some of what I dealt with:

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natemathai | filed under: [MNR]

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Flashback [2004]
- December 9, 2007 -

I was browsing through some of my old photos this weekend, and my goodness, it’s amazing to see how terrible these are! I mean, I remember looking at all these images when I first took them and was pretty proud. Mind you I started out with a 2.1 megapixel HP Photosmart, but still.

During my Junior year of college, my small group bible study took a trip to Turkey Run, and I was just remembering how beautiful the place was. Such great colors, such a serene area…I wish I could take personal retreats out there every month!

It’s important to grow in knowledge. Whatever our skill set and gifts and talents are, we should constantly be trying to improve. But we must never forget our origins, the foundations of what we’re doing.

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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S&P #002
- December 6, 2007 -

iGoogle (what you need)

Now, it might seem like I’m a huge proponent for Google…and I am. The basic services that they offer is amazing. And from the beginning, I’ve enjoyed working with their services (gmail, blogger, calendar, docs, analytics, etc.), and some have proven more helpful than others.
iGoogle is pretty much a personalized homepage…and many companies are jumping on board with the concept. You pretty much have the option to put whatever you want on this page. And one of the options iGoogle has is making multiple tabs for different things, allowing you to be as “organized” and specific as you’d like.
After messing around with all the different apps provided, I’ve shrunk my homepage to what I consider my “necessary 3″.

[Gmail]
By simply opening my internet, I have a quick look as to whether I have any new mail in my Gmail inbox. Now, some people have various notifications on their computers to let them know when they have e-mails, and if you do- STOP IT! It might seem to be making your more efficient always knowing when you have new e-mail, but it becomes more distracting, and slows down your work. By stopping these notifications, I’m now able to not get interrupted while I’m doing other things (because I have ADD that if I see a notification, I must check my e-mail), and now am less “tied” to my inbox (free-ing me up so much in life). All that to say, I put gmail on my homepage.

[Google Reader]
I’ll probably have another S&P in the near future about Google Reader, as it’s been a huge time saver for me. Essentially its my blog reader. I’m subscribed to 20+ different blogs, and google reader collects all the information in one place (and inbox for blogs). So now instead of checking all the sites to see if they’ve made a new post, I get all new posts brought to me. Less time wasted searching the internet hoping that someone will post. Now, I read all the blogs on my time, in one site.

[Weather]
The last thing that I really care about is the weather. It’s just nice to know what’s going on outside.

Now, it’s really easy to get out of control with everything you can do with google homepage. Before I got hooked on Google Reader, I had a tab called “blogs” where I added the RSS feed for each blog I followed. So I would have to click on the tab to view the blogs, and if there was a new blog post, I’d have to click the blog to go to their site. It’s still going to like 15 different websites, but at least I would know I’d get something new. Then there were apps for ‘picture of the day’ and ‘pacman’ and other ‘free mp3s’ and things like that. These things DO NOT speed up your efficiency, they slow you down. It might be fun at first, but ultimately, we’re trying to get the things we need to do done as quickly as possible, and open up our time for more important things.
For computer efficiency, a great way to check how ‘efficient’ you’re being is to figure out how many clicks it takes for you to do task. The more clicks, the less efficient. In my blog reading example, we can assume one click to open firefox, one click to select the ‘blog’ tab, and then one click to go to each new blog (and one click on the back button to see my list of blogs again). So if there were 10 new blog posts, then I’d have about 23 clicks. Now, I have one click to open firefox, and then one click to view each blog as a popup in my homepage. So with 10 new blog posts, its now 11 clicks. I’ve cut down my clicking by more than half…now that’s efficient!
For people who are ‘addicted’ to blog-reading and anxious to check your e-mail, this should help you greatly.

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natemathai | filed under: Personal

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[12.03.07] Monday Night Recap
- December 3, 2007 -

A little bit of a bunch of stuff here…

• ::EDIT::[FacebookPhonebook] I found this interesting thing with Facebook…a printable photo phonebook for all your contacts that put their phone numbers online! Just login and go to http://www.facebook.com/mobile, and then click on the button at the top called “phonebook”. It’ll show all your buddies avatars in alphabetical order by first name, and list the numbers that they’ve posted. How awesome (and somewhat stalker-ish) is this?!
• [BEARS] I am speechless. An ugly finish after an amazing start. One request: Let Devin play. He drops one pass (which would have been an 81-yard touchdown), and we don’t hear from him after that. Put him in opposite Berrian, and you’ll get the deep ball open. Rex has the arm…we’ve got nothing to lose here on out…
• [ROSES] The brighter side of my side: THE ILLINI ARE GOING TO THE ROSE BOWL!!!! With BCS as crazy as it is, the 9-3 Illini were invited to the rose bowl for the first time in 20 years. Proud to be an illini…proud to bleed orange and blue.
• [HolidayCards] I felt like it’d be good to send out some nice Christmas cards out. The only problem is I don’t have a wife or child to put on the cover. I’ll spend 2008 looking for some good shots, I guess, and you can look for a card (or request it) for December 08.
• [FANTASY] I had Vince Young sitting (19 points) and Culpepper playing (injured). To make matters worse, my regulars came up empty: Cutler: 2pts, Addai: 6pts, Patriots D: 1pt. To make matters worse, the Patriots still won. I mean, if the D is going to give me 1 point, at least end the undefeated season! (If Boller had Rex’s arm, he would have reached the end zone)
• [SLEET] Saturday night was freezing rain and sleet. I drove out to Joliet to pick p my girlfriend with limited visibility, and then back to Chicago. This morning, you could barely tell any snow had fallen. Weather is crazy!
• [STRIKE] I’m actually a bit happy that the writer’s guild is still on strike. My week’s have gotten so busy I haven’t had time to watch TV, so this strike is helping me not fall behind with The Office.
• [GLADIATORS] On ESPN Classic, they’ve been playing the old school American Gladiators episodes. I loved that show growing up. At first they were showing the commonly remembered ones. But lately it’s been the original ones, where the platforms were cardboard and the referees were masked…it was kind of scary. Word has it that there’s a new one coming out on NBC soon…I can’t wait!
• [BULLS] In case you missed it, we lost…again. Hmmmm…
• [BW3-iPodTouch] I went out with a few friends to BW3‘s tonight, and it was an interesting time. It was a good time of just chilling and eating, but I think the main highlight came when I found a great use for my iPod Touch. The Score radio station was at BDubs during Monday Night Football, and they were playing a trivia game during the commercials. Well, with free Wi-Fi there, I browsed online and found the website where they were pulling the trivia questions from- with all the answers! After a whole lot of screaming and waving to get their attention, we came away with two T-Shirts and a hat (what are we going to do with Miller apparel?). I think they started catching on. I mean, who knew Curtis Strange was the first golfer to win more than $1 million in a single year, or Martin Luther invented 9-pin bowling, or Arnold Palmer was the “Athlete of the Decade” in the 60′s? I did..that’s who. Oh, and who brings Hello Kitty cards to BW3′s? That would be Jane.

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natemathai | filed under: [MNR]

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Jerry and Betsy’s Engagement
- December 2, 2007 -

Since I haven’t posted since Monday (and also haven’t posted since gettin my Macbook Pro), I figured I might as well throw a few pics up. This Saturday, my friend Jerry got engaged to Betsy, who is originally from New York. Although I wasn’t hired to work this event as a photog, I did have to run the sound board on behalf of Up All Night, so I was still working to some extent. But not having to work meant I relaxed a bit, and just wandered around stealing a few shots here and there:

And since I’m not working, instead of having to pose people, I just steal other people’s poses (and not wait for them to look at the camera…it’s more…dramatic…)

The reason I wasn’t working was because they had hired Kenny Nakai. Kenny was my small group leader in college during my sophomore year, and was one of the first to really challenge me to step up more (after God chose to greatly humbly me out at U of I). Although I wasn’t the greatest small group member whatsoever, he did play a strong role in my campus life. He’s since moved back to the Chicagoland area, and doing his thing well. Here’s a few of the man at work:

…everybody chimps…

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natemathai | filed under: engagement

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