All the Pic's Collage!

Welcome to Picadai because Pic-a-day was taken :(

The purpose of this blog is to help me improve my camera skills. The goal is to post one pic per day for the year and beyond (!). Hopefully the quality of the pic's will improve along with the content.

Monday, May 31, 2010

May 31st Pic!

"Aussierang"

Found this little Boomerang magnet from Australia under my couch a few years ago...I know a few people that have been to Australia, I can only name one however that has been to my house directly after having been there. My friend Pat studied Film there for 2-3 years, I'm assuming he got this for me, and it somehow ended up at the bottom of my couch.  

BTW...I hate catching up on my posts from the weekend! I start from the earliest date (Friday in this posts case) and start writing till the most recent date and I clearly run out to steam by the end of it. 

May 30th Pic!

"The Mansion"

Pic taken at the Wrigley Mansion. That place is awesome! Eva and I went there for Sunday dinner...they had live music, half-off wine all while we got to sit out and enjoy the nice view of the entire city from Paradise Valley to Downtown Phoenix. Probably one of the best meals I've had in AZ...the food was decent but I think the atmosphere makes it 10x better! 
After dinner we looked around inside and outside the Mansion, this pic was taken from one of the bedrooms.

May 29th Pic!

"Desert City"

Pic taken at Aududon Arizona...a sort of bird sanctuary, see mission statement below. 

To further protection of birds and, other wildlife and their habitats through science, education, advocacy, and conservation

We went there so Eva could take some pic's of birds with the Telephoto lens, she didn't really get lucky, it was hot and all the birds were hiding. They have cool buildings and it's a nice walk but if you're looking for birds make sure to go really early and walk quietly. I went into to the gift shop inquiring about a bird whistle (Eva was on the verge of tears due to lack of birds...I had to do something), the guide there told me not to waste my money on it but just make a "Pssesssh Pssesssh" sound. Apparently the birds will come out to see what all the ruckus is about. After walking around for 20-30mins sounding like a through idiot (which the guide said would happen "All the non-birders will look at you funny"), we decided to give up and head home. 

P.S. I don't care about birds (read, I'm not a Birdie err..Birder)...I just want to see a Bald Eagle in the wild before I die! ....Eva's seen 2 of them in AZ! I'm just hoping some of her luck will rub off on me!

May 28th Pic!

"Heel Action"

 Eva putting on her heels in the car prior to stepping out on the scene on Friday! We started at Pearl Sushi before going onward to other venues...I mention Pearl because of how busy the place was on friday, it took them nearly 30 minutes before getting us water, and they even managed to mess up Eva's food order. She ordered a Roll that has crab in it minus the Crab...the roll came with the crab, when Eva explained that she was a vegetarian and she does not eat Crab, the waitress promptly told her it was imitation Crab and that was OK...at which point Eva told her something that sounded a lot like this...

Crab sticks (also called imitation crab meat, seafood sticks (UK), or labeled as krab) are a type of processed seafood made of surimi, or finely pulverized white fish flesh, that has been shaped and cured to resemble snow crab legs 

Source Wikipedia. 

Lesson being...don't mess with Eva when it comes to fake meat!



Friday, May 28, 2010

May 27th Pic!

"Spot"

One of the many mirror spots on Eva's wall....it was 11:30pm when I realized "Damn I didn't take my Picadai!" ...I threw Eva off the couch and ran for my camera (ok semi true). Enough about that...The Sun's fans must be REALLY REALLY upset, I can't WAIT to go to work tomorrow. I'm almost thinking about printing a Pic of Alvin Gentry (Suns Head Coach) and putting it up on the side of my cubicle. Oh how the Sun's fans will be tormented! 


"Lost to the Lakers again face!"

Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

May 26th pic!

"Pearls of wisdom"

That's exactly the type of title I'd get laughed at for by certain people. I don't care, do you know how hard it is to come up with creative titles at 11pm!? ...some people can't even stay up that late, something to do with some nerdy sounding cycles... it's all science mumbo jumbo ;) 

Alternate Names:

"Pearl Necklace" (lol)
"Boulbous" (sounds gross)
"Phoenix Lights" (???)
"Bulbs that hang outside the Gregio entrance" (Too literal?)
"Light Beads" (hmm...not bad for 11pm!)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

May 25th Pic!

"The workstation"

This is where the Picadai magic happens folks! Here demonstrating with great skill is my beautiful girlfriend Eva. Looking through the the LOST pics from Sunday...I mean what else can one do but reminisce about LOST on Tuesdays? 

Anyway...enough about LOST...it's done and I'm happy I'll no longer have to watch TV again!   Today we also went to CVS and printed some awesome pics for my new photo frames, I'm excited about it. It'll look good, I'm sure...I think.

Monday, May 24, 2010

May 24th pic!

"Sugary Rival in the Shadows" 

This has to be one of my all time favorite pics on the blog. Reminds me of a Gary Larson comic, "In a moment of weakness Pepsi failed to realize sugary foe was trailing him" the caption would read. Google "Far Side" if haven't heard of Gary Larson...the comics are absolute genius. 

This pic was all skill...set the exposure at 1/13th, Manual focus just so that the Coke Machine would be slightly out of focus and in the shadows. Now I see why being "famous" pays...had the machine in the background been anything other thank Coke..like RC Cola (wtf!) no one would recognize it!


May 23rd Pic!

"The End"

Possibly the best sci-fi show EVER in the history of TV came to an end on the 23rd. It was awesome!...My reflection can be seen in the TV!

Went to see the 4.5 hrs of awesomeness unfold at Eva's place...she doesn't watch the show but was more than happy to provide a laugh track. Yes Lost is a drama and has very few laughs amidst the mysteries and murders, but Eva was kind enough to provide a laugh track :) 

In all fairness she was watching How I met your mother and The Office on her laptop...I hear those are funny shows.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

May 22nd Pic!

"Skysong"

It is incredibly difficult to take a pic during the night when you don't have your tri-pod with you. One needs a steady hand and lung capacity to stop breathing for a few seconds. I'm not a smoker and I run, but I don't have a steady hand or a large lung capacity. So how do I compensate? Put the camera on the ground and see what happens, sometimes it's pretty cool. Above is the Skysong building on Scottsdale Rd. Inside is even more awesome, that would be a fun place to work! 
"Blur in the night"

So what if you don't want to put your precious camera on the ground!? Well then if you can't beat the darkness join it!...I like blurry pics of abstract objects, I mean think about it...you wouldn't know what the hell it was suppoused to be even if it was clear, now you atleast have a built in excuse? "hey what is that suppoused to be?" ..."I don't know it's blurry...someone needs to teach this guy how to use a camera!"....you're welcome!

"lurking in the shadows"

More like the dinner and wine were great, and passed out before mid-night in the shadows. :) 

She may have passed out but I still needed to make a stop and get my pic! Oh FYI..all pic's are taken before Mid-night of whichever time zone I happen to be in...they may be posted later but they're taken everyday!

Friday, May 21, 2010

May 21st Pic!

"Red"

Breakfast! and my favorite mug....there is no substitute for red. This mug is about 12 years old, I have two, I stole it from home when I moved, and it just sat in my shelf for 4-5 years when I gave up coffee but now it's back in the game...welcome back big red!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

May 20th Pic!

"Mr. Ovber wurkt"

Got this 'Stress Reliever" toy at work about 2 yrs ago...the face on this is actually turned upside down...it got so torn that I decided to draw Mr. Ovber Wurkt over again. The title was actually given to him by the toy company, they make all sorts of fun stress relievers. From the looks of this thing I must have gotten this in the middle of grad school.

I'm most proud of my hair drawing...it's perfect, I was surprised when I didn't screw it up.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

May 19th Pic!

"Red Dead"

Got a new video game today! ...I don't know why, my attention span is too small for even Iphone games. This game "Red Dead Redemption" is suppousedly the most awesome game ever, and will take about 20-40 hrs to beat...of which I'll probably play 3-4 hours of. Look for the game on Amazon marketplace in 2-3 months...it'll take me that long to get through 3-4 hrs of the game. I played it for 2 hrs today...but spent most of the time riding around on horses...it's a western version of grand theft auto and I'm a sucker for Spaghetti Westerns! "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is one of the best movies ever made on earth! PERIOD. 3 hrs of Clint Eastwood being a bad-ass never gets old!


May 18th Pic!

"Death by Dyson"

At Eva's place yesterday there were a ton of bugs on her ceiling, so what does one do? Bust out the vacuum and go on a killing spree of-course! Who knows what those tiny bugs could've become? 
Anyway I guess there are some inherent downsides to living next to a lake...besides your apartment being really really really hot, you'll also get bugs :( ....just kidding.

Monday, May 17, 2010

May 17th Pic!

"White Trash"

Referring to the piece of White trash littering the street! This gem was spotted on my way to pick up lunch for Eva at D'lish...It's a small eatery (I've taken one other pic there before). It was good to be back and driving my car again. I missed it. Since I missed a pic on last Thursday (Gray Box) I feel that I've more than made up for it with multiple pic updates for each of the days! 

"Hand off!"

Pretty sure she ordered the same thing I was picking up for Eva. A breakfast buzz smoothie...Banana, Peanut Butter...and bunch of other stuff that made it even more delicious.

May 16th Pic!

"Home Again"

On the way back I forgot to check us in online a day before so Eva and I got stuck boarding in the C's on Southwest. This day was less hectic however, I remembered to take pic's at the airport before I become stuck taking pic's of something around the house. 

"Bag Queen"

The bag regretted being late this day ;)

May 15th Pic!

"Mommy Dearest"

Day 2. We started our way towards Napa for some Wine Tasting, we made our way through SF. Above is a mom making her kid pose on the ledge, while heavy winds where making the rest of us hold onto our cameras with our lives. The kid was a good sport though, despite the expression on her face! 

"Cheese & Drink"

The goat cheese was excellent...so was the wine, come to think of it the whole thing was good...getting hungry again. 

"Hot Dog"

It was probably the one day I wished I were a dog...despite sitting on a beautiful patio with an infinity pool, overlooking the Napa vineyards drinking wine...I'm jealous of the dog because it got to jump in the infinity pool! 


"Well Reflected"

On the left are my Aunt and uncle, on the right is Eva photographing us and then there's me taking in the view and enjoying the day...too bad I had to come back to Phoenix :(




May 14th Pic!

"Street View"

Day 1 of the trip was SF with Eva and my Aunt. Best part was chasing down a Creme Brulee Cart, the guy has a Twitter account and one can become his friend and track him daily across SF. We found him hiding in the backyard of a fashion store called Fabric8. The Creme Brulee was ok...but the adventure was much better! 

"Twice the trouble"

Couldn't resist taking his pic. A row of cop cars lined up near our parking garage. 


"Camera Obscura"

A giant camera! it's a small building that looks like a camera, the light from a small hole above projects what's outside inside like a holographic image...too bad it was closed when we went :(

May 13th Pic!

"Best Picture Ever!"

Ok so for the first time EVER...I missed an entry on Picadai :( ...sorry. I worked a full day, after which it was time to come home and pack to fly to SF. Made it to the terminal with about 12minutes to spare. In the hurried confusion of dropping off Eva to check my bag, parking my car, catching the shuttle to the terminal, I completely forgot to take a pic!.  Whoops! The idea however was to take a pic of people waiting in the terminal or about to board a flight...another time I guess.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

May 12th Pic!

"I also ran"

That's the title to a famous song by the Flock of Seagulls...It's official today I'm running the SF 1/2 Marathon on July 25th! A day after my birthday, which kinda sucks because I won't be drinking but it's OK. I'm sure I'll find other fun things to occupy my time while I'm in SF ;)

Speaking of SF, Pic's from SF after tomorrow...will be updated on Monday when I return! and Yes, they will be AWESOME!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

May 11th Pic!

"Screw Loose"

Eva's poor purse...it's at my workshop now to be fixed. Original intent was to super glue the metal pieces back together, but upon further review I realized they were held together by small screws. I looked for small screws all over the place, the screws in my eye glass repair kit were too small, screws from the bottom of my alarm clock were too big...off to home depot! 

Hmm...I'll probably be the only guy who will go to Home Depot looking for screws to fix a purse. Good times.


Monday, May 10, 2010

May 10th Pic!

"D'lish"

Outside a little eatery in Scottsdale, D'lish caters toward people that are on vegan, gluten free diets, who like well balanced meals. Nothing wrong with that, and the food was excellent, especially if you happen to like Veggie burgers with Bacon!..mmm...Bacon!

Sunday, May 9, 2010

May 9th Pic!

"Faces"

A clay piece I picked up in India 4 years ago. The women on the bottom looks as if she has a swollen eyes, but I think it's more of an artistic choice. Anyway I plan to start experimenting with Aperture 3 a photo editing software to make my pics look a little cleaner. Can't wait! 

SF in 4 days! can't wait, will have pic's of Napa, SF, and Los Gatos soon!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

May 8th Pic!

"Allergy Relief"

So my nose has a habit of being a little runny during the summers...I always chalked it up to some left over cold/flu runny stuff (all scientific terms btw!). Well Eva diagnosed me with Allergies to pollen or something in the AZ air. It first surfaced in Joshua Tree, i just figured it was something dumb. The more and more it kept happening...the more I became convinced that I'm the first Indian to ever have allergies. Oh well...life is weird sometimes :(

Friday, May 7, 2010

May 7th Pic!

"Roma"

Last October when I went to Europe, I bought a Map to chronicle all my travels...took my camera too of course! 

A couple of weeks before the trip I highlighted all the places I planned to visit, the last place before we doubled back was Rome...highlighted and in focus above. The map was fun to look at while driving because you could stop by some famous places unintentionally. I really wanted to go to Pompeii but it was too far south for the trip and apparently it's just a large tourist hot spot. 

Few places I need to check out soon (that are on this Map!) are Spain, Portugal (one trip) and Great Britain (if they ever get their election mess sorted out) and Ireland. 
Speaking of the British...I just realized they cannot pronounce their A's! on NPR the British correspondent kept calling Obama...Obamrrrr...cute

May 6th Pic!

"Legos"

OK so not really Legos, but these are connectors to a shelving unit I bought at Target or Ikea a few years back. I listen to a podcast called "Stuff you Should Know", it's awesome and I highly recommend it. Last topic discussed on there was Legos...did you know there are 67 Lego blocks for every person on this planet? and it takes 47 Million Legos blocks to reach to Moon! If you count the Lego people as a population they're the largest population on the planet. 

Guess who's the largest tire manufacturer in the world?...that's right Legos!...those little rubber tires on their toys/cars count as tires too! 

I wish I had Lego's right now, I'd build a stand for my Ipad...oh then I'd buy an Ipad, maybe it's better I don't have Lego's right now...empty Ipad stands are kinda sad.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

May 5th Pic!

"Power Plant"

Happy Cinco de Mayo! ...too bad it had to fall on a Wed night! At corporate a few years back they celebrated Cinc de Mayo in October!...true story, they get made fun of that gaffe every year. LOL

This is one of those weird holidays where I can't celebrate it this weekend (too late) and I can't celebrate it the weekend before...but who needs a holiday to drink anyway! 

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May 4th Pic!

"Past 9pm"

Today marks the first time I ate at "Pizzeria Bianco". The wait was 2.5 hrs on a Tuesday!! but it was worth it!. We waited at the Bar Bianco and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine, after 2.5 hours of slowly nursing the bottle we were finally called to our table. 

I assumed getting people liquored up before eating was a neat trick to get them to rave about the food, but the food itself was amazing. The appetizer, was a veggie platter with some cheese, it was simple but by far the best plate of veggies I've ever had! The Pizza was great too, I'd give it a 9.8 on a scale of 10. The Duck and Fig pizza I had at Crush was a 10. 
The best part of Bianco's was the service. Case and point, Eva accedentially dropped her napkin when she got up to leave the table, less then 2 sec's later one of the staff was at the table with a new napkin. Our waiter was amazing too, since Eva was a vegetarian I opted not to get meat with the veggie platter, when he came to collect our very empty plate, I commented about how I'd have to try the meat next time, he simply nodded and got me a small sample on the house (awesome!). Not including the wine all this was under $40! 

Another restaurant I'd highly recommend is Chevourant also in downtown Phoenix. We ended up there for dessert...warm brownies...good stuff! 
Clearly it was a lot of good food based on the pic above ;)

Monday, May 3, 2010

May 3rd Pic!

"Self Portrait"

A street artist in India drew that portrait of me about 5 years ago...it's doesn't look a lot like me. I even grew a mustache during my trip but shaved it off after a week...it got a bit too tiring, I preferred the "visiting foreigner" look, it just meant I had to bargain a lot harder with the street vendors.

BTW feels great to get back to my regular blog schedule!!

May 2nd pic!

"Dos de Mayo"

Title thanks to 3.5 years of Spanish education...it might be wrong, I don't know. I'd be fluent if I took 4 years I bet! 

The Pic was taken on Sunday on the corner of Calle Guadalupe and Priest. It has one of those hole in the wall restaurants with surprisingly good food. 

This story was for Sat post but since I won't be able to put the pic up till Wed I'll tell the story before I forget...

Went to a BMW dealership on Sat (for Eva, not me, I love my Prius)...the manager/Sales persons name was Rusty Lemmon..Really! I had to look twice...It was his parents way of saying you CANNOT become a Used car salesman. Some people are just destined to be used car salesmen I guess!

Rusty Lemmon was a nice guy and all but I just couldn't get over his name...it's a good thing he gave us his business card at the end of the long sales pitch, if I'd seen it earlier I probably would've said something offensive/dumb/cliche or a combination of all three the poor guy probably hears all the time.

May 1st Pic!

 "Wine Time"

Pic sitting on Eva's camera :( will be updated on Wednesday!

As promised...a Wednesday update! This was the day we went car shopping and the Rusty Lemmon story I mentioned in Sundays update. We also went to Total Wine and picked up a Malbac that was rated #3 overall by some wine lovers association...the best part, it was only $8 and they had a killer beer section where I could create my own 6 pack...ahh to be a 26yo in a candy..err liquor store!

April 30th Pic!

"The Drive-In"

Friday was "Let's go to the Drive-Thru and watch a double feature" day. We saw "Date Night" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" 

Date Night had it's moments but as a fan of the Office and 30 Rock, it's a little hard to see Liz Lemon and Michael Scott as action stars. I'd recommend it as a light fun movie but I think it could've been a lot funnier. 

Date Night was followed by The Bounty Hunter, a romantic comedy with that guy from 300 (Gerard Butler) and that girl from friends (Jennifer Aniston), so naturally we skipped this and screen hopped to a kids movie. Diary of a Wimpy Kid looked good in the previews but unfortunately it had a lot of cliche moments, which tends to happen when adults recall their childhood moments. At the end of the day I wouldn't recommend the movie mainly because you spend a good portion of the movie hating the main character...he's mean kid with the nice kid facade. 

"3D?"



3D photography! ...put on the glasses you stole after watching Avatar and check it out!


April 29th Pic!

"Side Bar"

Waiting for the Pic from Eva...it's sitting on her Camera :(

A contribution by Eva from the Side Bar in Phoenix. They serve 60% proof absinthe, I guess 100% proof is banned in the U.S. I have a bottle sitting in my fridge from Italy but I'm too scared to try it. :(

April 28th Pic!

"Cheap Burn"

Bought these candles from Fry's Grocery stores for $1.39 each....Eva is a huge advocate of candles so I decided to splurge. These were called "Cupcake" candles, yes I felt dainty buying them but thank god for self checkout!

Long story short, the candles smelled amazing...I was craving cupcakes! but sadly they lose all the smell immediately after the first burn. Oh well I guess I'll just have lame candles.

April 27th Pic!

"Dig the Beat!"

Got this bobble head about 8-9 years ago (wow! I feel really really old!) in LA on a trip to Universal Studios with my Aunt and Sis. I still have the box it came in...it think it's time to throw out the box. My packrat days are slowing ending...slowly.

April 26th Pic!

"Trivial Pepper"

This pic is a courteous contribution from Eva (though she won't admit)...she took this at "The Vig" and took the time to edit the dimly lit pic using Gimp and learning new tricks in the process! 
I on the other hand, ate my chips and guac...enjoyed the view and drank my beer. Life of a blogger can be great when you have a qualified assistant!