Six Peeps

THREE CRAZY DAYS.

Let me just tell you what a crazy few days it’s been. Long story short, a long time ago I signed up for the Surf City Half Marathon in Huntington Beach. Time went by.

Then, like a month ago, my friend Jim Kennedy asked me if I am still planning on running this race. I looked at my calendar. Turned out I had booked a wedding the day before in AZ. I immediately responded, “not this year, I have a wedding”.

But after some thought, I decided I could at least try driving from AZ to CA after my wedding! If I could manage to stay awake behind the wheel, I could leave the wedding at 10:30 PM, and drive to Huntington Beach and arrive by 4AM. Then, I could sleep for a couple hours and go run that thing.

Somehow I couldn’t visualize actually doing that, but I went for it anyway.

I arrived in AZ on Friday and made my way to the amazing Arizona Biltmore, where I met with my future bride and groom, Lisa and Nick for some engagement photos. The Biltmore is an amazing property and many thanks to Becky from the Biltmore who let me conduct an engagement session there! Meet Lisa and Nick:

We had a GREAT time and I’m excited to go through their photos later this week! The next day, after canceling all of my credit cards because I thought I lost my wallet, I headed out to the FireSky Resort in Scottsdale, and photographed a great wedding! Meet Janelle and Shaun!

So yeah, after that wedding, I got into my rental car, a Toyota Prius, and started the drive to Huntington Beach. I spent the entire drive with the interior light on to stay awake better and went throuh my entire iPod collection. Eventually I made it. That was more grueling than the ensuing half-Marathon!

I arrived at Jim and Stephany Kennedy’s casa, and made my way to my room at about 4AM.

It felt like I closed my eyes for like 2 seconds when suddenly Jim was knocking on my door telling me to “Wake up, gotta go!”. In less than an hour, I found myself standing here:

Rewind a little, here’s a quick photo we took as we were leaving, that’s Jim on the left, myself, and Heath, who is a really great guy, the husband of Jim’s studio manager, Michelle. I met heath in Cozumel a couple years ago when we all went out on this really awesome vacation. I secretly wanted to beat Heath, but he’s in awesome shape and edged me out by 4 minutes! Jim is terrified of the cold weather. I was thinking it was nice and warm out! These Orange County People, I tell ya.

So I managed to keep about an 8-minute-mile pace for the race, which was OK considering the sleep I got and that I am not the lightest I’ve ever been (I’m workin’ on it!). I wish I could find out how I ranked among the Clydesdale (runners over 200lbs). The course was AWESOME. Views of the ocean the whole way. We were literally right along the beach. It was an awesome course and a beautiful morning. I love just being surrounded by tons of healthy, happy people.

I managed to find Jim as I just passed the turnaround point. As you can see, he’s very easy to spot: Just look for the guy with the full body suit and a yellow shirt. It was his first half-marathon and he did awesome, finishing under 2 hrs which was Jim’s goal. Nice job!

Last year at the PF Changs Rock and Roll Half Marathon, I did a video of myself as I crossed the finish line. I decided to do it again. Why? I have no idea. But here it is.

After the race I found Jim

Then we found Heath but I look stupid in that picture so I am not posting it!

Check her out! This made the drive worth it! (this and being out of CO and into the beach, and hanging out with great friends!)

So my result this year:
Overall: 1359 out of 11783
Men: 958 out of 4268
M 30-34: 169 out of 645
Age/Grade: 54.34% Place: 3343
Finish: 1:49:11 Pace: 8:20

So, better than average. That in mind, I’m happy.

There were lots of dogs out today. Everyone knows that I love dogs. Here are a couple I found: Bulldog Puppy:

This dog belongs to Heath’s cousin and was VERY cute (taken inside Jim’s studio):

So there you have it! Today I’m just going to chill out here in Huntington Beach, heading back to cold, snowy Colorado tomorrow!

Adios!

February 8, 2010 | (1) |

Family Photography, Awesome new deals!!!

YeeHAW!

I am pumped. We are now offering family photo sessions for just $169!!!! It’s nuts! But we found ways to reduce our costs without reducing the quality of our sessions and have come up with a brand new option for people who can’t afford our previous prices! Please go to www.neversaycheese.com

I am going to be shooting a lot of these myself! So in anticipation of Spring, sign up for yourself or gift a session to a friend! Limited sessions are available for our new $169.99 deal.

Here’s our swanky new Costco handout cards:
(psst: see that guy in the bottom right??? That’s my Dentist, Dr. Greenhalgh. If you need a dentist and live in Denver, HE IS THE MAN. Take it from me - a guy who used to be scared of the dentist.

February 5, 2010 | (0) |

OH SNAP! Workshops for Point-and-Shooters!

Yay! I just got my new logo! Thanks to Marco from Colorado Springs for making this for me. I will get his web site and post it here soon. He’s a really great, intuitive graphic designer.

Check it out!

Now I am ready to start scheduling my Point-and-Shoot Photo Field Trips for amateur photographers! This is gonna be FUN, just in time for spring!

More details to come. If you are interested in this for yourself or as a gift, just let me know. I am thinking of doing a few of these to get started for cheap. So if you are interested, please email me at mark”at”cafierophoto”dot”com

February 5, 2010 | (0) |

Little Bear Saloon, Evergreen, CO

Howdy Partners,

Last weekend, Elle and I stopped into the cool town of Evergreen, Colorado. It’s like the wild west out there and is a very fun quick and easy escape from the big city. We stopped in to the Little Bear Saloon on a Sunday and enjoyed a couple afternoon pints of beer. Good times! Live country western music and an incredible old bar made it a really fun experience. Here are some pics:

This is where I tied my horse.

The inside looks just like an old Saloon from any old Western movie: “Hey bartender, howa ’bout a whiskey”

They have bras hanging everywhere and live country western music. This fella here was singing everything from Cat Stevens to Simon and Garfunkle. I approve.

There are just a ton of cool things to look at. I spotted this cool old cash register.

And I started a big ol bar fight over this here cowgirl

And in spirit of my upcoming presentation at WPPI “Will Work for Food: the Art of Achieving Virtual Wealth through Trade”, I sent them a trade card. Here’s the cover I whipped up for it. We’ll see if they “bite”!

February 5, 2010 | (0) |

Potpurri - been a good life so far!

I didn’t do anything too exciting this AM, but I want to keep my streak going of blogging every day. So I thought I’d post a few random pictures that I ran across when I was cleaning the other day. I love running into old photos from back in the days before digital.

This is from the Pike’s Peak Ascent. I ran the Ascent (from Manitou Springs to the Summit of Pikes Peak - 13 miles and about an 8,000 vert gain) like 4 times and the Pikes Peak Marathon (to the summit and back, 26 miles) once and once only. These are my friends Jim Wonhof, a nationally ranked grappler at one time (far left), Terence, who went through a wild, long-hair phase is now clean cut and me. Terence always did really well. He’s a crazy crazy person with a love for self-punishment. When we ran the Marathon he came in like, 32nd out of about 800 who signed up. I remember seeing him coming down from the summit (I was still going up). He looked wreckless. I was sure he was going to eat it, but he never did.

Last year I trained really hard to run the Ascent. It had been 5 years since I’ve done it last and I was determined to not only run it, but break my best time. I was ready. At the preliminary qualifier races I was ahead of my best times from years ago. Then when the Ascent came in August, we were launching our first Costco road shows. I had to be there for that. I was so mad. But alas, I have cleared my calendar again this year and am not going to let anything get in my way, as long as I can help it! This is the first year that I ever ever trained throughout the winter, so I am feeling optimistic!

Here’s the route for the Half Marathon

This one is of my dad and I, at Keystone. It’s where I learned to ski. I can’t say I loved it from the beginning. I remember when I was like 6 years old, having a total tantrum. I wanted to go home. I imagine I was about 9 or 10 here. This was when I was starting to love skiing.

I had a lot of great memories from Keystone and Arapahoe Basin. It’s funny to think that like 23 years later I’d end up working there!

Some people never understood why I was patrolling. “I thought your wedding photography business is going well!” Funny how when I pick up jobs with patrol and now as a pedicab driver in downtown Denver, people seem so confused. I love getting paid for doing fun stuff.

Kind of like rafting! I did that for 5 years in College and right after. Lived in a little two man tent. Here I am yelling at paid customers! Not too many jobs out there where it’s acceptable to scream at your clients!

Anyway, sometimes I forget what an great life I’ve had so far. I have always liked living life to the fullest. I plan on continuing the legacy of having fun and living life!

January 29, 2010 | (0) |

Another Trail Running Post

When I woke up this morning and looked outside, I was excited to see the dusting of snow that we got. So I grabbed my trusty $159 Digital Elph, my dog, some hot coffee, and drove out to my regular running loop!

I love how different that trail can be from the most slightest variations of the weather. Sometimes I can’t wait for spring showers. I like running in the rain, too. But the snow makes the scenery truly beautiful!

The Ascent of this trail run is perfect - it gets your heart pumping and is just long enough to get a good sweat going! There’s that dog again! It was unbelievably quiet this morning. I love getting to the trails super early. Sometimes living in the city, I forget what quiet is. I live off of a busy street and my office is on Broadway… so I am surrounded with noise all day long. So to find myself in the middle of a trail somewhere and I can’t hear a single thing… it’s almost surreal!

I broke out the macro feature of my p/s camera. I am amazed at Canon’s macro function. It captures so many details and I had my lens like, 2 inches from the leaf!

The final stretch back to the parking lot. The fog was thicker than pea soup!

Another shot. I had a little photoshop fun with this one.

That’s it! Not a bad way to spend a Thursday AM!

January 28, 2010 | (3) |

Who say’s you can’t have an adventure on a Wednesday?

This morning, my friend Kieran and I headed out to St. Mary’s Glacier, which is just out side of Denver, a little bit West of Idaho Springs. We skinned up on our skis, peeled off the skins, and skied back down.

It was a quick little adventure, I will call it a mini-adventure, but it made for about an hour of awesomeness to start the day. It was crazy windy at the top and cold in perfect glacier form. The ski down was fun, and there was a nice long section of very skiable snow , surrounded by hard, windblown chicken heads.

Hiking up: Kieran

I love the backcountry, feels like you’re on another planet

Kieran grinds his way up. I am all about taking photos, but he needs to get to work.

The top was HARD and windblown…

…but there were still some good turns to be had!

January 27, 2010 | (0) |

Another Trail Running Photo of the day…

I had another great run out in Morrison today, just enjoying the cool morning air, the quietness of the trails, and the never-fail beautiful sunrise! Again, these were taken with just a $159 digital camera (Canon Elph SD1200).

And I scored another great shot of my little-G!

January 26, 2010 | (1) |

New Week’s Resolutions, and another day of ‘Thanks’

It’s Monday Morning and I’m doing something new. For the past 10 years I have been a goal-writer. Almost every day I sit down with one of my home-made goal books and write it all out: my goals for business, health, adventures I want to take on, and write a list of all the monkeys on my back that I plan on tossing. It feels good to toss those monkeys.

But today I decided to do something slightly different and I think it’s going to make for a nice Monday AM ritual: I write out my New Week’s Resolutions. I like them a lot better than New Year Resolutions. First of all, everyone loves writing New Year Resolutions because it makes us feel pumped… for a new start, a clean slate, a chance to do all of those things that we never made a priority the previous year. It’s exciting!

But we do this only once a year? That’s stupid. Most of us forget about our new year’s resolutions in a matter of weeks. It’s one of life’s greatest hypocrisies

I’d rather do it every week! It forces me to keep my goals and resolutions more realistic and closer to home. Mondays are very important. And writing out my New Week’s Resolutions forces me to ask myself, “So what are you doing to do with your life this week?”.

Here are a few things I came up with for the week of January 25, 2010: Skin up Arapahoe Basin. Gonna do that tomorrow! A blog post will become of that!; Get a winter Ascent up Bierstadt on the calendar with Tom; Finish my 2009 register (time to do those taxes! - one monkey I will be happy to get off my back); Get my new online shopping cart up and running and my new credit card merchant account set up; follow my diet - another week of no cheating… and another week of no missed workouts; hand-write a letter to 3 people (email is so boring).

There’s a lot to do folks. You just never know when your fate is going to be handed to you in the form of cancer, or a horrible earthquake, or any of the other millions of ways to die. Let’s make the most of this beautiful week!

I love my new Monday routine:

January 25, 2010 | (2) |

Wedding Venue Revisited: Castello di Modanella, Italy

I was just going through some images from my favorite wedding venue to date: Castello di Modanella where I have photographed a couple weddings already. Such a beautiful place right near Siena. I hope to do some more shooting out there someday! These are just some castle details that I am preparing for Fabrizio, the GM at Modanella.

The venue is unreal. It really is. It’s a 1000 year old castle, and preserved so well. I remember climbing around to get the following shot, up these old, old creaky ladders. Just amazing!

But I will start with one wedding photo - all of the guests…

Check this place out! My bride’s mom was getting this very image printed at a frame shop and she said someone offered her mom something crazy, like $10,000 for it.

This was actually very similar to the view from my apartment window when I stayed there.

No, that’s not the Castle, it’s one of the guest homes on the giant Castello property.

The rooftop of the Castle made for a cool and colorful abstract

Oh and they are situated on a winery, they make all of their own wine.

The managers at Modanella were first class. Every day it seemed, they were bringing me some of their amazing wine and food from the restaurant, straight to my apartment. Amazing.