To get your ovaries pumping.

519.85

The amount of this month's electric bill.

(gasp)

Obama

Obama: It's Not Funny Anymore, originally uploaded by The Searcher.

What -- what is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

My dad, Daniel and I gathered around our tiny tv last night and watched Obama's acceptance speech. We were not disapointed. Not the tiniest bit. The twitterverse was filled with responses, including mine. Turns out Obama is the most followed on Twitter.

I think it's important that we elect Obama. And I'm hoping like hell you do too.

Quotable: My dad, my son and I

My dad: Penn's hungry, but he doesn't know what he wants and I don't know what to fix him. Maybe we should just go out for breakfast.

(FYI: Penn loves going out to eat.)

Me: No, he can eat food here. Hey Penn, I'm making pancakes. Do you want butter and brown sugar or butter and syrup?

Penn: Butter and sugar.

Me: I let him make a small decision to distract him from the fact that I just made the big decision for him.

My dad: Oh. Psychology.

Quoteable: Salim Nourallah

but tonight i'm feeling overwhelmed
by how out of control our negativity is
so many petty squabbles
fights
divorces
break-ups
arguments
feuds
and for what?
us human beings
with our big mouths
and big egos
full of our ideals
and ways to improve the world
but ultimately too weighed down by our own flaws
to do anything about it

---Salim Nourallah

Some people are so genuine with the few words they put out there and the small bit of the public life you get to see that you just "get it" and you hand over your respect in a handbasket for their ideas, goals and art. I don't really know Salim that well.

But he gets my handbasket.

Lifestyle Portraits

A while back I shot the packaging for Ellaroo Baby Carriers. One of the shoots was at Erica's studio. One of the models was Lan. Our funny backstory is that despite being equipped with hair and makeup (by Kinome) and wardrobe, they liked what I was wearing and the model and I happened to be the same size. So, yes, you can go to Baby's R Us and buy a fabulous baby sling that comes with a picutre of a beautiful model wearing my clothes.



Lan just had her third baby girl, Celeste.





And she still, of course, has the other two that I originally fell in love with. Due to unavoidable circumstances, Penn had a chance to fall in love with them too.









There are a ton of great photos. It's hard for me not to share them all.

I've recently become interested in shooting an actual birth. If you're pregnant, and would like to record that moment in a thoughtful, artistic and extremely unobtrusive way by a photographer who is also a mom, feel free to contact me.

Johnny Citizen at Pleasantry Lane Studios

Johnny Citizen at Pleasantry Lane Studios, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Johnny Citizen is back in the studio.

Staycation

The staycation was good. Really good. Words-can't-do-it-justice good. I'm full of sighs and good thoughts and I want more.

Much love and thanks to Daniel for planning such an unforgettable weekend. And much thanks to my dad for watching Penn so the weekend could be had.

Click here to see a few photos.

Zenfolio Homepage

These two photos made the top 30 for Zenfolio's featured photo on their homepage. We'll know in 7 days who gets the spot. Very cool.

15% off Renee Rouleau

Renee Rouleau has been in business for 12 years and she's having a sale to celebrate! Sale ends August 24th.

I love getting her newsletters full of great information. And great pictures. :)

The Orwell Prize

George Orwell comes at a very influential time in our Jr. High careers and we're all the better for him and for his "Animal Farm" and "1984" which reminded us that all those books we were lugging to and from our lockers were not just about homework assignments and five paragraph essays.

Now his journals are being published online.

From 9th August 2008, Orwell’s domestic and political diaries (from 9th August 1938 until October 1942) will be posted in real-time, exactly 70 years after the entries were written.

Orwell’s ‘domestic’ diaries begin on 9th August 1938/2008; his ‘political’ diaries (which are further categorised as ‘Morocco’, ‘Pre-war’ and ‘Wartime’) begin on 7th September 1938/2008.

The diaries are exactly as Orwell wrote them.

The little one shoots too.

Penn's self portrait via a shutter release cable he's holding behind his head.

See more.

Barbecs for the Fail. An uncommon review.

It was a rainy Monday evening and the idea of washing another dish was as painful as my hunger, so we decided to go out.

Normally these childless evenings of dining amongst the public are filled with uninterrupted and satisfying conversation, another round for Daniel and the prospects of cuddly digestion over a new episode of No Reservations.

Instead, I picked Barbecs. Because I wanted something new. Because I'm reading Kitchen Confidential which inspires me to seek adventure in dining. Because everyone in the White Rock area flocks to Barbecs and appears to come back happy.

We chose to sit outside on the patio versus getting trapped by thrift store checkered table cloths and beamed up by the brightest fluorescent panels ever known to man. Conversation was literally dampened by the pounding on the metal roof, the free facial mist with organic road tar and the lovely view of the backside of a huge red vinyl sign advertising a "Chicken Fried Steak special!" which should have been our first clue.

The host put out her cigarette to bring us a drink and the waitress put out her cigarette to take our order. The menu is long. Four pages of variety! And typos. Unless you've heard of "chaddar cheese."

I skipped to "The Vegetarian" titled portion of the menu and ordered a Veggie Patty Melt, description: Vegetarian patty topped with vegetables and cheese on grilled rye bread. Daniel ordered something in Spanish that meant eggs, meat and tortillia's, ingeniously kept warm by pressing them between two fleshtoned cafeteria plates pulled fresh from the dishwasher.

The waitress put out her cigarette long enough to bring us our food. Mine looked remarkably like a dead cow and Daniel's taste test confirmed.

Bringing a vegetarian a piece of poor dead cow is about as insulting as bringing a Tuscan snowy Chianina cattle connoisseur a frozen veggie patty. Seriously.

I interrupted the waitress' cigarette break again to tell her that my vegetarian fare was looking a lot like beef and set myself up for another wait. Daniel asked, "Would you like to try some of my sort of half cooked potatoes?"

Meanwhile I made up tragic backstories for the folk around me and tried to guess which customer went with which car.

She brought me my food with cheerful commentary, "Now he gets to watch you eat."

AWESOME! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY ROMANTIC DINING EXPERIENCE HAS BEEN MISSING!

Then she had the brilliant idea to give me a discount on my drink and fries to make up for it. To which I replied with my newfangled concepts involving logic, "Why don't I just get the veggie burger free since that's what was messed up."

Upon paying she commented, "They just look so much alike!" And I can totally see how all those carrots look just like a freshly taken life.

We immediately felt nauseous and it occurred to me that one who could not tell the difference between carrots and beef might also find it perfectly acceptable to fry up a vegetarian patty in a big ole pan of pig fat.

And then there was Pepto.

"But I read good reviews about this place. On the internet! Written by people who use computers! "

And they were wrong.

I totally just pointed out the policeman on the premises as backup to my, "Please be good" speech

You'd think a kid who got to go to work with his mom almost all of the time and got to watch auditions for the Price is Right models with promises of ice cream afterward, if he was good, would be stoked.

Kids! They never work the way we think they should. But they sure are cute.

The actual story shot for Lakewood Now.

Random photo of the day: Dogs

Random photo of the day

I told you the ladies were going to flock to you tonight., originally uploaded by carissabyers.

He is still blissfully unaware of exactly how many points his cool goes up when adorned with the fedora.

You are Smiling

*photo by Vanessa

Last night we trekked to Denton for a Sarah Jaffe EP release. Opening was Robert Gomez. The crowd wrapped themselves shoulder to shoulder around the stage and they listened. And they gave the kids in the back who weren't listening (seriously people, how does it make sense to come to a show and yell over the person with the microphone?!) a stern hush.

That's how Denton rolls. And I like it.

We hugged the plentiful stringed instruments with the fleshy bits of our ears and I drifted off in my head onto an imaginary Super 8 film of my life with a live soundtrack.

Art makes us think. It challenges our intangible thoughts and shows us these convoluted and ridiculous paths. Those who make the journey and figure out how to lead the rest of us the way, are artists.

This morning I watched the Best of 2007 by The Curious.

If you watch it, you'll be overcome with a strange combo of silly happy and longing for something. And I think we'll all find out what that is if we can agree to collectively ditch all those tiny things, all those tiny thoughts and rigid planograms for the day, and laugh more. We need more room to laugh. Myself included. You know what I'm saying.

I'm saying, I've linked for you some artists who lead my brain down beautiful streams of thought and it's my weekend wish that we all spend a good deal of our time off from the obligatory, smiling. And noticing how good it all is.

second shooter

I was the second shooter for Turk last weekend.

Superfun!

A few more of Samantha

Wishing her luck in Buffalo!

Save Ross Avenue

So apparently there is a big stink about some people wanting to rename Ross Ave to Cesar Chavez Avenue. What the crap? So many issues in the world that would benefit from a good discussion and some thoughtful thought and attention and website and petition and money and etc.

Renaming a street? Get a life. Sign the petition.

Involuntary Nap

invountary nap, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

This is kind of how I feel today.

Last night I happily crawled into bed at 10:30 on our free night. (The night when Penn goes to see his dad.) I wondered if my lasagna and overwhelming happy wasn't setting us up for a nice coma. But I can't seem to stay awake today either.

Luckily, Penn is being stellar and occupying himself nicely. He brought me a blanket and pillow and tucked me in and for that I play cooties with him when I can lift my head. Except, he cheats.

<3 Flickr

Click here for Flickr add-ons and mashups.

Blue Sky Days

Blue Sky Days, originally uploaded by The Searcher.

The Chinese organizers put on a brave spin. The conditions were a true test of athletic ability, according to Ming Smith, Secretary of the Olympic Positive Messaging Bureau. If visitors could only see above the choking smog, they would see the sky was a glorious deep blue, for the entirety of the games. As promised.
(read more)

I love this guy's stuff. Some of it is a bit rated R if you scroll too far back through his flickr, but I'm still fascinated by his wit in art and writing.

And Daniel was reading this out loud to me last night.

Happy Birthday Eric Neal

Last night I got to hear one of the most enjoyable sets of music in honor (and staring) Eric Neal's birthday.

I brought home two key thoughts:

1. Harmony feels good. Harmony is a song that hugs me. I want more hugs out of my music. Less backup, more hugs.
   
   
2. The one surefire way to make your music amazing is to add Eric Neal to the mix. No, seriously.
   

Obvious

Last night at bedtime Penn's giggle box got turned over into a fit of silly laughter and syllables that probably resembled words to him. It was obvious he had somehow scored a bag of weed without telling me.

I recorded the end of it on my cell phone.

Quoteable: Design Sponge

And I have to admit the whole parenting thing gets a little stickier when you’re running your own business. In our house, I am the parent that is more “available” since my boss (aka me) allows me to leave whenever I want, thereby giving off the impression sometimes that I could be a stay-at-home mom or a part-time working mom with free time galore. In actuality, I have less time than most folks since my work requires me to work pretty much around the clock. So when other moms start asking me what my kids are involved in, I start to feel guilty that they aren’t “scheduled” enough, you know, with school, playdates, italian language classes, and early ninja training.
---Design Sponge

The above paragraph struck a chord with me when the supersweet neighbors caught me shipping the kiddo out to the gymnastic center for summer camp. "Aw," they said, "mom gets some free time to herself. Well, you deserve it!" [pats back]

I'm sorry, I get what?

It's not all bon bons and soap operas in here, people. I'm very much on the wire, but balancing isn't always as easy as it looks. Go ahead. Call me. We'll start a contest. Person to hear, "PENN I'M ON THE PHONE!" the most wins free leftovers. Person who has the most emails from me that start with, "Apologies for the delayed response ....." wins our leftover tickets from Chuck E. Cheese.

Quoteable: Merlin Mann

Quoteable, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

--Merlin Mann

Four years old

We love noggin.com, originally uploaded by carissabyers.

Recommending noggin.com, pbskids.org, uptoten.com and fisherprice.com.

nonfiction

In a perfect world there would be sleeping in on Sunday so that there is only time for coffee and sleepy morning family grins in the bed. Friends and children would come over to play while I made lunch. We would sit around the table over plates involving pita stuffed with pepper jack cheese, tomato, spinach, avocado and doused with sun dried tomato and garlic balsamic oil. We'd pile to the side mashed potatoes topped with fresh lemon slices and pile to the side of that fresh mango.

The children would toss toys back into the box while the adults digested and then we'd haul our happy tushi's to the bowling alley where we'd bowl average joe scores on overpriced lanes, drinking overpriced beer and soft drinks.

And then there would be naptime for the whole family, more food, baths, bed and relaxing.

Life is sweet when reality is as good as anything I could make up.


Click here for a few more.

Feathers ruffled

I remember sitting in a small college dorm room back in 2000, playing cards, making coffee, and yelling youthful caffeine fueled insults at the CNN ticker tape that fed us election updates. It was a fairly diverse mix of Democrats, Republicans, Hippies and those who wouldn't tell you who they voted for, but We were certain the American Public was as optimistic and intelligent as Us and that this was just the equivalent to a good basketball game where our team would pull through and and sink the winning shot while the clock was running out.

This was just the exciting part where we would hold our breath and wait for the ball to slide through the net so we could start the celebration and get on to telling the story of how close it was, pat some backs and buy some beers.

That's not how the story went. The taller one of my friends that worked for the student newspaper, I think I saw him cry.

It seems so obvious why McCain should not be our president. But the election seemed obvious to me back in 2000, too.

The insults I yell across the room to the news ticker aren't as vibrant or colorful anymore. My mouth is bitter. I'm older and this is for real now. Health care and the economy and housing costs and taxes and the environment and gay rights are not just check boxes to debate in essay form and use later as part of a class discussion.

What I'm saying is that college dorm room I was in existed all over the nation and we're all grown up now. It's practically a different era in terms of options to communicate and all I'm saying, in short is, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW HOW TO SEND A GOSH DARNED EMAIL.

"I am learning to get online myself," McCain told The Times. "And I will have that down fairly soon — getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator. I don't expect to set up my own blog, but becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need."

McCain explained he didn't feel the need to send e-mails.


John McCain has said he rarely uses e-mail or the Internet. During the Republican primary, he referred to himself as computer illiterate. And earlier this month, he told The New York Times that he depends on his wife and staff to show him Web sites.

---McCain's Technology Outlook

I don't care too much if you, Mr. General Public, understand how to use The Internets or if you know how to type or send one of those confangled email doo hickeys.

I know if I were to hire a photographer's assistant, they would not be qualified for the job if they couldn't send an email.

BUT I CARE VERY MUCH IF YOU THINK YOU WANT TO REPRESENT MY COUNTRY TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE AND GOOGLE MAPS ARE JUST TOO MUCH FOR YOU. ALSO, I'D PREFER A GREAT COMMUNICATOR, THANKS.

You know what, McCain? Here you go. Just in case the general public fails me again, you might need this:


View Larger Map


In the meantime ...

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Lemonade for Leadership

Shot for Lakewood Now.