Europe Trip - Part 1 - London

From December 4th through December 13th 2009 I was traveling Europe with my two friends; Dave and Mike. Mike and I had some paid time off to cash in and Dave is on sabbatical from work until January, so the three of us decided to take a whirlwind trip through Europe. Our first stop was London, England.

London was the easiest and probably the most boring city to travel in. Everyone there speaks English, which is helpful, especially with it being our first stop in Europe. Our first day saw us hopping out of the metro at Piccadilly Circus. We hiked south to check out Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. These attractions are all near each other, making it a convenient first attraction for us to check out. Afterwards we hit up what ended up being a tourist trap Italian restaurant. While my pesto spinach lasagna was rather tasty, Dave's sheppard's pie and Mike's fish and chips were less than satisfactory. Also, it cost us an arm and a leg, not to mention that the only beer they had was lame.

After lunch we headed north and checked out the National Gallery and British Museum. In London most of the museums were free of charge and they allow photography, which was amazing! These two museums were what you would expect from a traditional museum. The National Gallery was full to the brim with paintings from throughout all of artistic history. The British Museum was similar to what you would find in a Hollywood history museum; Egypt sculptures, Greek statues, and old stuff from cultures around the world. Both museums were a bit generic, but still really cool.

After scouring London all day we checked into our hostel; Palmer's Lodge. We were in a 30-bed room, but the place had free wifi and a bar in the basement! We settled in then checked a nearby pizza chain called Pizza Express. It was actually one of our best and cheapest meals of the trip, I highly recommend it.

Day two saw us at St. Paul's Cathedral. This is one of the most massive and beautiful buildings in London, I was completely blown away. We walked around it and then checked out the inside, which was equally stunning. Though the do not allow photography inside, I was able to sneak a quick video. Shhhh its a secret!

We then took the Millennium Bridge across the River Thames to the Tate Museum. Above is a photo I took of the bridge as I passed under it. The Tate was full of a lot of modern art, which is not my favorite, but was fun nonetheless. Did I mention it was also free? I like free things! After the Tate we wandered east a bit and grabbed some food from a street vendor. To finish the night we crossed London Bridge and got a stunning view of Tower Bridge as the sun fled the sky.

By this time it was late afternoon on a Sunday in London, which apparently means that most every shop in town closes up. Fortunately for us our hostel had a bar! We spend the rest of the night drinking hard cider and enjoying free wifi internet.

The next morning we hit up a local joint for some English Breakfast and ciders before boarding the bus to the airport; for Paris awaited us!

I am processing photos from the trip as I type this, they will show up on my flickr photostream.

Doppleganger!

Well, I splurged a bit and bought a brand new Nikon D300s. It was probably going to happen eventually so it is best that I got it over with quickly. So far I have been extremely happy with it. I will be taking it with me to Europe for my adventure with Mike and Dave. In the coming weeks I expect to be posting many photos (and maybe even videos) of our European exploits.

The photo here is a project I have been playing with compositing several images of myself. My twin brother will find this ironic, no doubt. I was inspired to do the whole doppleganger composite thing from one of my favorite photographers Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir. She has a whole bunch of her "Gemini" photos with composites of two or more of herself.

You can see more of my photos on my flickr photostream.

Mad Caddies - Hell's Kitchen - Tacoma, WA

I don't know why it took so long to see the Mad Caddies in concert, but it was worth the wait. They were one of the bands that I listened to a LOT when I was in that really impressionable stage of music discovery in college. My friend Lisa and I got to go see them live at an extremely small venue called Hell's Kitchen in Tacoma, WA.

I contend that there is no better way to enjoy one of your favorite bands then live at a venue so small you can smell them. They did not disappoint, they rocked the crowd like they were in an arena of 10,000 people. Words cannot explain the electricity that was flowing through the room.

I split my time between dancing/ruining my voice singing and taking photos. I was surprised to get a couple of good photos despite the dark room and raucous crowd around me. At one point I even lost my SB-600 flash on the floor when I jumped into the fray. I was able to recover the flash later, so all was OK.

After the show I was completely exhausted, and I might have caught the flu, but it was worth it 100 times over. You can see some of the photos I nabbed on my flickr photostream.

Faux Finish - Toy Gun

I just finished up putting a new finish on this plastic toy gun. I employed a lot of the techniques I learned at Scott Allen Caplan's "Faux Finish" panel at SteamCon. You can see the work in progress photos along with descriptions of the process on my flickr page. This was a fun, cheap, and easy project. It is ideal for someone who is interested in prop making. I plan on using these techniques to finish some from-scratch project I have planned for the future.

50 posts and SteamCon!

Yay! This is my 50th blog post! To celebrate, I will tell of our adventure at the first ever Seattle SteamCon. As you can see in the corresponding photo (courtesy of Nate Zimmer) our regular costume crew is back at it. This time we got all steampunked out. The event was at the Marriot in Sea-Tac. The venue really hit the style, though it was a bit small.

To see photos I took at the event, check out my flickr at it's new URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doranwa/

We met some really cool people there, my two favorites were Andrew Fogel and Scott Allen Caplan. Both these guys did panels on building and finishing props. I learned a ton of stuff at the 'con and am really excited to get some good prop-building in for next year's event!

To-Do List

I recently found myself with a growing list of things I really should get around to doing. This list only existed in my head, so these things left my conscious thought as soon as something more important or shiny grabbed my attention. Most of these were little things like "call Bank of America to activate new credit card". After a while these things piled up so much that I decided to consolodate them all into one to-do list. I chose to get a to-do list plug-in for my Google home page since that is what pops up whenever I open a web browser. I am certain that almost every smart phone, computer OS, web browser, and toaster has some kind of application like this (I am looking at you iPhone users).

Once I had the list I organized it into high, medium, and low priorities. The high priority stuff gets done today, the medium priority stuff gets done this week and the low priority stuff gets done when I have time for it. At the end of every day I check off what I finished and promote new things to high priority for the next day.
I highly recommend that everyone comes up with some kind of system like this. Treat the high priority items as "do this before I get to play today" type of things. If you can stick to this system you will be astounded at how much you can get done in a week.

Photography Assistant and a Portrait

This past weekend I got to be a photo assistant for Ron Martinsen, an extremely helpful and talented Seattle area photographer. Mostly this meant I got to hold things and aim bounce reflectors at the model. I was able to glean some extremely helpful photography hints from Ron as he worked. Working with a pro is probably one of the best ways to improve your photography, hands down!

The next day I tried to put some of what I learned to practice and shot some portraits of my beautiful and patient fiance, Brittany. The photo here is my end result and I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

Where I Go to Get Crafting Supplies

One of my newest hobbies has been crafting costumes and props for events such as the Penny Arcade Expo, the Portland Pirate Festival, Steamcon, and Halloween. Over the past couple months I have amassed a collection of favorite shops in the greater Bellevue/Redmond, WA area to look for tools, parts, cloth, and materials. Here is a list of those shops:

Hobbytown USA

http://www.hobbytown.com/

Address: Cleveland Street Square

16421-A Cleveland Street

Redmond, WA 98052

Phone: (425) 558-0312

Tap Plastics

http://www.tapplastics.com/

12021 NE Northup Way

Bellevue, WA 98005

Mon-Fri 8:30 to 6, Sat 9 to 5

Phone: 425.861.0940

The guys here are super friendly and they are right across the street from Lowe's.

Vetco Electronics

http://www.vetco.net/

12718 Northup Way # 100

Bellevue, WA 98005

(425) 641-7275

Pacific Fabric

http://www.pacificfabrics.com/

1645 140th Ave NE

Bellevue, WA‎

(425) 747-3551‎

Be sure to check what they have in their "remainders" pile. It is th ends of rolls of cloth and are sold at a discount.

Hardware:

Lowe's

11959 Northup Way

Bellevue, WA 98005-1919

(425) 646-9031

Harbor Freight Tools

http://www.harborfreight.com/

14506 NE 20th St

Bellevue, WA 98007-3764

(425) 746-1303

This is THE place to get cheap tools.

Crafts:

Ben Franklin Crafts

http://www.craftsandframes.com/

15756 Redmond Way

Redmond, WA 98052-3830

(425) 883-2050

Michael's

http://www.michaels.com

15600 NE 8th St # D4

Bellevue, WA 98008-3927

(425) 747-1221

Thrift Stores:

Goodwill

14515 NE 20th St

Bellevue, WA?

(425) 649-2080

Value Village

16771 Redmond Way

Redmond, WA 98052-4472

(425) 883-2049

I hope this isn't my only 15 minutes...

It looks like we got a little recognition from the folks over at G4 for our PAX 2009 Team Fortress 2 costumes. We also made it into a piece Kotaku did on the cosplay at PAX.

G4
Kotaku

September and the Portland Pirate Festival

September has been a crazy busy month. Work has been a madhouse, we have all been pulling some long hours, hence, no blog post in a couple weeks. This past weekend, however, was the Portland Pirate Festival. Each year around this time our gang puts on our best pirate garb and heads down to PDX for merriment and fun... dressed as pirates!

This is an extremely memorable event as last year I took the opportunity to propose to my now-fiance Brittany.

We also went to the Chinese Gardens in Portland, of course I took a bunch of photos. You can see a couple of them on my flickr photo stream.

Completed Rocket Launcher and PAX 2009

After many long nights and hard work, I completed my Team Fortress 2 rocket launcher. We also made props for the medic, engineer, sniper, scout, and spy. Our gang put in a lot of long ours to get it done for the Penny Arcade Expo and it was well worth the effort.

We were not the only TF2 cosplayers at PAX by a long shot, but we were among the best. All day we were asked for photos of our gang, it was quite a celebrity moment.

For some studio shots of the costumes, check out my flickr page.

Team Fortress 2 Rocket Launcher

Over the last week I have been puting a lot of time into the rocket launcher for my Team Fortress 2 soldier costume. A good reference of the rocket launcher in-game can be found at TF2wiki.net. Here is my progress:

This is the removeable nose-cap. It is designed to pop out so I can put things in the body of the rocket launcher while I walk around PAX. The cap is made out of a piece of styrofoam that was carved to shape then finished with Bondo all-purpose putty.

This is the flanged tail end of the launcher, also carved out of styrofoam, epoxied to the main body piece of PVC pipe, then slathered in Bondo. Here you can see it before and after being covered in Bondo and adding the two rings to the back end.

Here is the sanded flanged end with the two rings and the cone-shaped part on the back end of the launcher. The cone is a funnel that I picked up at an auto parts store. The ring at the end of the cone is cardboard that has been expoxied to the cone then covered in Bondo.

PAX Costume: Team Fortress 2

The Penny-Arcade Expo is less than 2 weeks away so our gang is putting together our costumes! We've decided to go as the blue Team Fortress 2 characters. I will be going as the soldier. So far, I bought a WWII helmet, some combat boots, pouches, and materials to make my rocket launcher. Over the next week I will have more updates on the status of the rocket launcher. The main body of it is a 3" diameter PVC pipe.

Britt is going as the sniper, so she needs a rifle!

Hurricane Hill Hike

Me, Britt, Mike, and Erin spent the weekend camping and hiking in the wilds south of Port Angeles, WA near Lake Mills. The hike up Hurricane Hill was a real challenge, but Mike and Erin pushed us to get to the top. I am extremely glad that we made it to the top, we were rewarded witha breathtaking view of the lake and valley far below us. Along with some photos, I shot made a time-lapse by putting together 120 photos that were shot every 5 seconds.

Flickr photostream

High atop Hurricane Hill from William Doran on Vimeo.

Formula D

This weekend we got fast and furious! I am not usually into tuner cars or drifting, but I was not planning on missing this exciting photography oppertunity. I actually had a lot of fun for my first drifting event. I had a little trouble shooting the cars through the fence, but I was able to nab a couple decent shots. Check them out on my flicker photostream.

Home Made Flash Diffuser/Gel Holder

I ordered this set of Roscolux Filter Swatches for $4 on Adorama. The idea being that I could use them to gel my on-camera flash and my SB-600 speed light. First, I took the filters off their spindle and made a little box to hold them in.

I also picked up a frosted piece of thin plastic from Marshall's, it was designed to make cut-out stencils. For my purposes it will make a good diffuser for the rig that will be going on my on-camera flash.

The contraption was made out of matte-board and super glue. It fits right over the on-camera flash on my D200 and is masking taped in place. In the below example you can see shots with just the normal flash, the diffuser, and the diffuser/colored gel:

The Next step is to make a similar contraption for my SB-600 speed light. As you can see in this example, I used 2 flashes, my on-camera flash with an orange filter and my speed light with a green filter taped over it.

Camping/Hiking on Mount Rainier

This past weekend our gang of pals headed down to Mount Rainier National Park to camp and hike for the weekend. I was eager to try out my new Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. You can see the lens in action in this photo taken by Nate Zimmer. There is me taking a shot with the friendly chipmunk roughly 6" from the lens and the corresponding photo! That shot was taken at the Fremont Lookout, at over 7,100 feet!

Britt has been getting into photography, which is awesome! I gave her my Nikon D60 and she went nuts! She even started her own Flickr page! It is truely exciting to have your fiance get into your hobbies with you.

I put a few of my shots from the journey up my flickr.

Seattle Sounders!

I played soccer growing up. No, that isn't strong enough. I LIVED soccer growing up. They say that soccer is not a matter of life or death, it is much more important than that.

So, when I heard that the Seattle Sounders FC was going to be practicing on the field we have at work, I was pretty damn excited. They had a small warm-up session then split up into small teams to scrimmage. They played half-field so the action was fast and exciting.

Naturally I had my camera with me and caught some really awesome shots of these guys! The photos can be found on my flickr page.

Cougar Mountain

Mike, Britt, and I went for a little bit of a hike at Cougar Mountain. We all brought our cameras and shot to our hearts' content! Not only was it a wonderful day and a great exercise, but we also got some fun photos! Here is one of my shots that I got on the hike. We were hoping to run into some wildlife, but all we got was this snal... and it might just be a shell.

Flickr link.

4th of July Weekend!

This past weekend, 4th of July weekend, my mom flew in from NY and we had a blast! On our first day's adventure we took a trip up to Deception Pass. Day two took us through the Seattle Arboretum and downtown Seattle. That night we shot off fireworks at Nate's parent's house to celebrate the birth of our country. Day three found our cheeky adventurers in Mount Rainier State park.

The weather held up for us beautifully all weekend long and we were able to take a lot of amazing photographs! I have posted a bunch of those photos on my flickr photostream.

Woodland Park Zoo

After the Solstice Parade, Britt and I strolled up Phinney and checked out the Woodland Park Zoo. We have been there before, but not with my camera, so I was able to take a TON of awesome photos! Many of the animals were out and about today, though the big cats were napping. Some of my favorites were the red panda, the tiny owls, and the goose who thinks he is a flamingo. It is also ironic how some of my best photos are of squirrels. Flickr link here.

Fremont Solstice Parade 2009

This past weekend some buddies and I went to the Fremont Solstice Parade. The weather threatened to rain on us, however the sun peaked out and gave us an amazing day! I brought both my cameras with me and shot a whole bunch of photos, what a great day for it! I ended up with quite a few good photos and made a new set on my flickr page for them. Later on Britt and I walked on up to the Woodland Park Zoo. The photos of the cute animals will be posted soon!

Little Planets!

Following the Little Planets inspiration, I decided to try my hand at it. Using software to stitch 29 photos together and the Photoshop filter "polar coordinates" I made my own little planet. This is one of the most fun things I have done with my camera! This particular little world is from Microsoft's new Studios West, where I work.

Grilling!

Well the summer here in the Pacific Northwest has finally turned nice, and that means it is grill season! Britt found a really nice used grill on craigslist for a good price and we gave it some good exercise this past weekend. Aside from the standard hamburgers and hotdogs we also grilled up some steaks and portabello mushrooms.

Kelsey Creek Park

Britt and I took a walk down to Kelsey Creek Park.  It is only a couple miles from our new place and the weather was really nice today!  The park has a lot of animals so I brought the camera, naturally!  Check out more of the photos I took there on my flicker photostream.

Upstate New York Trip

This past weekend I took a couple days off work and flew to New York to hang out with friends and family from back home.  It was a crazy busy time, but it was also a BLAST!  It was a really great time had by everyone, and I took over 1100 photos, including this one of old Katy Whiteface, the family dog.  Activities included but were not limited to:

• Shooting photos for a wedding with my ma.
  
• Helping dad work on little bro's house.
• Sake bombs in Ithaca with the brothers and friends.
• Shooting photos of little bro's soccer game.
• Hiking up Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca.

Botanical Gardens

Britt and I took a walk today, the Botanical Gardens are only 2 miles away from the house we just moved into.  Of course, I took my camera with me!  I also busted out my 18-55mm lens, I had fun with some wide angle stuff, especially this pagoda looking thing I have posted here.  The rest of the photos can be viewed at my flickr site.

Snikt!

So I've decided to make my very own Wolverine claws.  These are my cardboard prototypes.  I am really pleased with the outcome.  Now I have to decided if I want to go through with making these out of metal or just going with something easier, like plexiglass.

Photoshop Fun!

Recently I have taken to Photoshopping fun things I hear on the daily podcast Buzz Out Loud. First was my smash hit Clubbin' Baby Seals and next is this gem, the iPhone Nano! Last week the buzz crew was speculating on what Apple would do next with the iPhone and joked about them making a nano version. So here is my concept for that phone! Notice that it only has a single button and the screen displays only one app. I have no idea how one would dial out of this thing, maybe all voice commands. I e-mailed the flickr link to the Buzz crew, hopefully they enjoy it as much as the baby seals!

Time Lapse Photography!

I created this video by setting up my Nikon D200 on my back porch and set the time lapse to shoot once every 10 seconds for 2 hours. Then I compiled all the frames together in Quicktime.

Back Yard Time lapse from William Doran on Vimeo.

Goosed!

I took my bike out the other day for a jaunt through Redmond.  I had my camera with me and I spotted a couple of geese grazing in a park as I passed.  Naturally I pulled over and nabbed a couple shots of my feathered friends.  This particular guy was not at all pleased at how close I was to him, he even hissed at me once.  So I snapped my shot and then left him alone to graze with his goose lady friend.

Emerald City Comic Con 2009

Wow! What an amazing weekend I had. My buddies and I spent Saturday April 4th at the Emerald City Comic Con. To top it off, it was my birthday! We all had so much fun and I got some decent photos to boot! I made a new set on my flicr with more of the comic con photos. Check them out here.

Some highlights of the con:

• I got some signed swag from Scott Kurtz of PVPonline, Gabe and Tyco of Penny-Arcade, and Brad Guigar of Evil Inc.
  
• Our buddy Beau got a signed drawing from the Batman artist Bruce Timm.
• Nate got a signed drawing from Clerks, Kim Possible, and Danny Phantom artist Stephen Silver.
• BEST OF ALL, I got a signed photo from Jewel Staite; Firefly's Kaylee Frye. To top it off I got her to talk to my twin brother on my cell phone and wish him a happy birtyday! So cool! I really appreciate celebrities who will go out of their way to please their fans.

After the con our possee headed up to Capital Hill and had a really fun party at Dave's apartment, it was such a blast!

Tailoring 475!

So this weekend is the Emerald City Comic-Con. I was debating what I wanted to dress up as and I fell back on my standard pirate costume. It was an obvious choice since I have invested so much in it during the past year.

I decided I needed a new vest, so I dusted off the sewing machine and made one from scratch! Back in October I bought a really cool pirate trenchcoat, so I designed the vest to go with it. Here are a couple photos of the vest and the vest/coat combo:

Nature Photos!

I Finally submitted a photo on DPChallenge.com.  Their topics this week were Flora and Fauna.  I went with fauna because I nabbed this nice shot of a daddy goose protecting his nest.  Some of my others I put up on my flickr.

Long time, no post!

I have been busy!  To come clean, I have been playing a lot of World of Warcraft.  Though I have also gotten back into my workout regimen.  So I think that about evens out.

I have been having a lot of fun with my Nikon D200.  In fact I won the contest I entered at Cnet's Indecent Exposure podcast!  Apparently I have a nice Nikon travel mug headed my way.

I have put a couple more photos up on my flickr page.  Right now I am working on my photography skills and am planning on entering the contests weekly over at DPChallenge.

This past weekend we had a shindig we called Meat Storm '09.  It featured some tasty pork ribs and a BBQ beef roast.  The ribs recipe I followed was Alton Brown's from the Good Eats episode Pork Fiction.

Photo Dump #6

I added a few more photos to my flickr photostream. Also I submitted this shot of my fiance with her lolly pops to the weekly contest over at Cnet's Indecent Exposure podcast.

Flickr Link

Fire Photos!

There was a fire in our apartment building at about 4am last night! We woke up to some nice fire fighters banging on everyone's doors to let us know we had to get the hell out. So naturally I grabbed my essentials, my camera and network hard drive. I was able to get a couple of good shots of the lights and smoke. I think my favorite shots I got were of our apartment complex once the sun was coming up after all the action.

Apparently a wall outlet a couple floors below us went rogue and started a fire inside the wall. Fortunately nobody was hurt and none of my stuff was damaged.

Fire photos on flickr

Photo Dump #5

I uploaded a few of the decent photos I took this past week or so to my Flickr account. In other news I picked up a used D200 camera body from a guy on Craigslist. I got a really good deal on it and it is in pristine condition! I plan on taking it out this weekend to put it through its paces!

Flickr link.

Photo Dump #4

After gorging ourselves on German beer, Mike and I stopped at Glaziers to window shop before heading to Gas Works Park north of Lake Union in Seattle to take some photos. I did manage to get a bunch of pretty good shots there, not to mention it was a lot of fun.

After Gas Works we grabbed a pint in Fremont then headed up to Queen Anne to see if we could catch a decent sunset. The sunset was pretty good, though not as good as Oswego, NY, of course. I was also able to score a decent obligatory Space Needle photo. All in all, it was a good day for photography!

Flickr link

German beer, German food.

So Mike and I went out to Seattle today to scour the landscape for decent photographs. Before we could trek the mean streets and parks, we had to fuel ourselves. We chose Feierabend, a local German restaurant/bar. We frequent this place monthly, and for good reason. Even if you are not hungry, this is the place to fill your belly with amazing German beer. If you are also hungry, what luck! Feierabend's vast selection of authentic German food is something to behold, and be eaten! Some of my favorites are the pretzel, the hammock, and the bratworst plate. Today I tried a friend pork cutlett on a roll with coleslaw and Mike sampled their bratworst sandwich. They were both delicious, though we both agreed that the pork sandwich was better.

Celtic Bayou!

We have a local haunt called the Celtic Bayou in our neighborhood. It is a restaurant/bar that serves a wide selection of beer as well as Cajun/Creole and Irish food. We have been there many times, including St. Patty's Day. This place never disappoints. Work was slow last night so we took a break and went here for dinner. The Irish tater-tots and hush puppies are always a must for appetizers. I ended up getting the étouffée, which was delicious.

It also helped that they had Green Day on the stereo all night long. This place is really worth the trip if you live in the Seattle area. Other good dishes are: corned beef and cabbage, blackened chicken, gumbo, and jambalaya.

Photo Dump #3

Here is a collection of photos from this week. Most of them are from a train trestle we found that crosses a man-made river near downtown Redmond.

Flickr link

Sammich!

This morning Britt and I decided to check out Mike's Brooklyn Deli and Bagels in downtown Redmond. They exclusively serve Boar's Head meat in all of their sandwiches, usually a good sign. Britt got a chicken salad sandwich that was reasonable and I got this tasty-looking corned beef sandwich. The corned beef was amazing, it was everything corned beef should be. The meat was tender and juicy, not overcooked. It really was a bad-ass sandwich, I think I will be going back for some of their signature sandwiches in the future.