I had the opportunity to take some imagery of intricate quilts bestowed to us by my Grandma Spehr [from my dad's side of the family] which is no longer with us.  You can see lots of tender care went into the crafting of these quilts.  Chase Jarvis said it best in a blog about the importance of being with your grandparents and treasuring the time you have with family and friends.

On a totally unrelated but cool note is fellow Cosplay photographer  Ejen Chuang‘s new book Cosplay In America is ready and coming out in June.  I meet Ejen at Otakon last year and the book itself is a cool project that helps explain the whole Cosplay thing and dressing up in crazy costumes.

The big news is today I’m launching my new event photography business website at Iliad Photography .  The website’s name is iliadphoto.com and the focus of Iliad is events, special occasions and organizational pictures.

Anytime I mix photography and gaming I’m going to have a blast.  Add a popular webcomic in and it gets pretty hectic as well. And zesty pizza sauce usually helped.  The sheer number of places to eat outside the Hynes Convention Center ensured a lively discussion on where to replenish every time.

Originally I was sent up to Boston with some GXL cohorts to assist BYOC and PC tournaments but we also volunteered  into some help at consoles which was fine by me.  No major problems with the Team Fortress tournament and just some server nitpicking with CEVO mod on the Left for Dead 2 tournament.  There’s already talk of improvements for PAX 2011 East.

I also enjoyed playing Chrononauts even though I couldn’t seem to fix the timeline and return home.  When packing up the game a player discovered that the recommended player number is 1-6.  We were playing 8 players.  oops.  Seemed like a jolly time especially when using the optional rule on having to describe in detail when we skewed the timeline how our character actually did the deed.

And thanks to Intel, all the other great BYOC sponsors and exhibits.

Snow pictures from around the house.  I didn’t realize I moved to the Northwest Territories (Canada) until today.  Around three feet of snow fell total in our area of South Jersey.  Stay warm and enjoy the snow or lack of it.

Christmas is on December 18th for me this year

Altogether my Think Tank Security’s bag weight comes in at 35 pounds, which is a low enough for domestic and some international flights.  My biggest gripe with the Security was setting the bag locks.  I spent thirty minutes or more to finally get the rear lock’s combination switch to update.  In the bag picture on the bottom right you can also observe that the bag doesn’t seem to be hollowed out to form a flat wall as well.  I believe its because it needs room for the wheels or maybe I just need to air the bag out some.

Getting down to brass tacks, here’s the highlights:

Canon 40d

My three favorite lenses:  17-55is, 70-300is and a 100 or 50 prime depending on my shoot.

4 mixed Pocket Wizards and a PW mini

Lots of batteries in a small Lowepro AW20

2  ‘Justin’ clamps

Small 22inch Westcott umbrella

Alienbee B800 monolight

Complete Speedlight Pro flash mod kit

Canon 430exII and 2 540ez

Flexible minipod, 2 lens hoods and an air blower

Happy Thanksgiving.  I am now cat sitting for my sister this holiday season.  Poofy cat is already fond of my bedside bookshelf it seems.

One of my oldest NJ friends from lanpartying got married to another friend of mine and I was lucky enough to be invited to the festivities. Best wishes Devin and Steph.