Cold Turkey

So I think it is time to switch. If I don't ever cut the cord and move completely over to my new website I will have fragmented followers and content and to be honest, it will be way too hard to keep both blogs going with anything worth looking at and reading.

I have tried to drag things out in the past - mainly with old girlfriends and bad habits (wait - aren't they the same thing?) and I have found quitting cold turkey is the best choice for me.

So there it is... Go over to JRBECHTHOLD.COM and go visit my blog. I am making the comment section easy cheesy japonesey - pretty much your name and an email - no need to register, but you are more than welcome to if you choose to do so.

I appreciate everyone that has left wonderful comments over that last few years and has linked to this blog - please update your blogroll to my new site - and I promise to return the favor.

Thanks again!

And so it goes...

www.jrbechthold.com

My new photography website is up and live. Feel free to go have a look! There are still some minor tweaks in store, mainly to my portfolio and photo pages, but I am pretty happy with things so far. This project has been an exercise in patience and humilty. I have come to the realization that I am not as smart as my mother thinks I am. :-) I hate .php and CSS is driving me nutz... but I am excited to learn more because I can see what a powerful tool it is.

Anyway, I will still be using this blog for everyday things etc - but the majority of my photography related posts etc will be moved over to www.jrbechthold.com and so it goes...

Game Canceled

Due to snow.
Woke up this morning to 6-8 inches of new snow. Bogey loved it... and while I love snow - I want some warm weather!

it is official

We got written acceptance from the bank today and sent over our timeframe addendum... we are so excited! An inspection, appraisal, and we are moving! We locked in our rate with our loan guy and are very happy to finally get this whole "short sale" (yea, right!) process over with and get into our new house!

(Crazy that is snowed so much today too... )

Spring Break?

And so it goes...

Lightroom, Camera... Action!

One of the nicest and most talented wedding photographers in Utah, Scott Jarvie (@jarvie), taught a free Lightroom workshop at East Bay Studios last night and I had the pleasure of attending.

I have known Scott through the wonderful photographer community here in Utah for just under a year, and I am amazed not just at his incredible knowledge and ability with the camera, but his willingness to teach and mentor other photographers - Pro and Amateur alike.

Last night's event was just one of many free workshops that Scott does for his "Tweeps", Facebook Friends, and pretty much anyone that hears about or knows him through the myriad of websites and blogs that mention this great photographer.



We had just under 50 people at the event, which was organized in under 2 weeks. Thanks to our gracious host, East Bay Studios, (of Provo Area Digital Photography Meetup and PhotoCamp UT fame) we had a great location very conducive to learning and exploring the wonderful tool that is Adobe Lightroom.

This class was targeted at beginning Lightroom users - and we actually had a few people download the trial version right at the event. Scott briefly discussed the overall setup of Lightroom, explaining the 5 modules, but mainly focusing on the Library and the Develop modules. In addition to teaching everyone his individual tricks and tips, he posted over 50 very useful presets on his website for everyone that attended the event to download - again for free.



After downloading the presets and walking through the installation process we were able to see first hand, on our own photos, Scott's great technique.

Everyone that attended, in addition to a hearty helping of Lightroom and Scott's (sometimes cheesy) humor, chipped in for pizza and rootbeer floats for dinner.

I have completely switched over to Lightroom now, after using Photoshop, iPhoto and Aperture. I am sold on Lightroom and I love its ease of use and editing capabilities. I am just getting into using presets though, and the increase in worklfow "speed" is significant.

If you are looking for some great presets to give you ideas and get you started there are a bunch of very talented photogs and companies out there with available Lightroom presets for download... one in particular I have used and like is @exequals ( Website ) go check out his website - it is a great Lightroom resource.

Scott is teaching the second installment for intermediate Lightroom users at East Bay tomorrow night, Thursday, at 7:00. Go to his website to see if any more spots are available.

Thanks again to Scott for teaching this class, and to East bay Studios for letting us crash their space. See you on Thursday!

Glory

I guess it wasn't meant to be...

Wow - crazy days...

So here is where we are on the housing front:
We have received the written acceptance from the bank on our 1st offer - we will call it the "River Home" -
We also heard that the home we found over the weekend and really liked - we can call it the "rock and brick home" - the first offer the bank received and then countered on was accepted by the initial buyers so we are out of the running on that home. Too bad, that would have been a great opportunity.

I am really excited on the River home though... we finally get to get serious about closing and should be done within 2 weeks.
Now I have to negotiate with the bank because of the missing water heater - and I am also going to request they replace the locks on the house as well.

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and good thoughts, prayers, and karma. We are really excited to move forward, move out, and move into a beautiful new house!

I will be posting photos soon!

Spring Break...

Grant informed me this morning that along with the 25 bucks I owe him for 100% scores on his recent math and spelling tests it was Spring Break this weekend. The wife is heading down to finish a mapping project in Capitol Reef and so my first thought was to throw the kids in the truck and head down to San Rafael Swell - but too much rain recently and on the forecast would make for a fun, but cold and potentially dangerous trip in those labyrinthine slot canyons.

I have been so busy with house and work related stuff that Spring Break has crept up on me this year and I am completely unprepared. Not cool!

I was at Maple Canyon last weekend checking out conditions and there is still a lot of snow - which lets be honest... we love the snow... but Spring Break is supposed to be spent hot and sweaty right? Climbing or biking on red rock - fishing in shorts on trout laden streams - running around with dry mouth in the desert... not sloshing through melting snowpack and trying not too freeze.

Maybe we will chase Mom down to Capitol Reef or go exploring somewhere down in Escalante... either way we have 2 days to figure it out... barring closing on a house we leave Friday at Noon!

What are your plans for Spring Break?



(Maple Canyon is just to the south of this little farm house, and as you can see from the surrounding mountains - too much snow for a long weekend with the kids - we want sunshine and warmth!)

crazy housing update...

Okay - so today I get home from work and am right in the middle of dinner and our real estate agent calls. We are thinking "Wow... she has heard back from the bank already! Sweet!" - Actually she was calling to say that our recent COMPLAINTS about a worthless bank negotiator have not fallen on deaf ears and that we now have a verbal agreement from the bank on our short sale - and will have a written agreement by wednesday - only problem... the house was broken into last week and the hot water heater was stolen.

Are you kidding me?

The police think someone left a window open while looking at the house with a real estate agent and then came back later to thieve the hot water heater.

Good news... with a twist.

So now we are faced with an interesting choice... it looks like we have a couple days to see how the new offer goes - before we have to sign on our initial offer (which we still like a lot - but the lot is smaller)... personally, I hope the "2nd offer" bank calls us tomorrow and accepts that offer, so then we can tell the "first offer" bank to take a hike.

And you can bet your breakfast I am making the bank replace the hot water heater.