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It was 1999 (I think). I had just graduated from middle school, getting ready to start my first year of high school. It was that summer, when my brother and I made our yearly pilgrimage to the northeast corner of Florida, when I met Sassy. Just for a little background – my dad is a dog lover, tried and true. I can remember occasions driving through Jacksonville with him when we were much younger (Ace of Base and Big Mountain’s “Baby I Love You Way” jamming on the radio) where he would spot stray or neglected dogs chained up in their front yard and his heart would break. He had a heart for animals, and to this day will tell anyone that, “Dogs are better than most humans.” In a lot of ways – he’s right..

The companionship and unconditional love that a dog can express is simply powerful. When I met Sassy over 11 years ago, I knew she was special and we formed a bond immediately. That first summer, and many hot summers after, we spent evenings on the couch playing video games, watching TV and raising hell in the backyard inflatable swimming pool. She was a shy, sweet, loving little food scrounger who would be at the door waiting for my dad, myself or my brother every time we came back to the house.

She was a rescue, and just a puppy when my dad found her roaming the streets of Jacksonville all those years ago. I had the opportunity to grow with her over the years.

Here we are back in the summer 2000, back when we were both just puppies. She’s wearing my nerd glasses and playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 with me (notice the cheat guide)

Here’s another shot with her from that same summer with Buster and Fancy (all who have since passed). All three were vying for that BBQ Chicken Breast (Sassy probably got it, she was the favorite).

Over the years, we both grew. We matured, grew fatter, grew a few grey hairs, and ultimately got into relationships (her with me, and me with my girlfriend – now wife Amanda). When I started dating Amanda in 2004, my Dad immediately expressed to me just how jealous Sassy had become of the new girl in my life. I can recount many phone calls, where my dad (talking as Sassy) would ream me out for finding another woman and promised the day when she met Amanda, that she would “tear that b*tch up.” The threats and animosity were all confirmed, when Amanda and I made a summer roadtrip to Jacksonville in the summer of 2007. Upon walking in the house that first day and the subsequent days after, Sassy growled, rejected and flat out did not like Amanda.

Here’s a shot of her, just hours after meeting Amanda for the first time. My dad had to sit between the two of them. The look on her face speaks for itself, almost saying “She had better not even LOOK over here.”

Here’s a few more shots of her and I from that summer.

Fast forward to 2008. Having recently graduated from college, my brother, myself and his then-girlfriend made a summer trip to Jacksonville to visit my dad again. Sassy was just as excited to see me, and we spent another few days hanging out. From what I remember, she didn’t like Jenny (brother’s then girlfriend) too much either. Living in a male household, she grew to resent other females moving in on her “turf.” Here’s a few shots from that trip..

Then, less than a year later in March 2009 I got to see her again. I had just got a job in Houston, TX and stopped off for a few days in Jacksonville to spend time with my Dad (mostly Sassy) before I started real life as an adult. Here’s a few snaps of her from that trip, begging for food, and ultimately getting what she wants straight from my dad’s hand. Here’s an old video I took of her during that trip as well.

These last few weeks, Sassy had gotten much weaker and only within the last week or so she stopped eating and going to the bathroom; it wasn’t looking good. After a few trips to the vet, some blood work and an MRI, it was determined that Sassy’s liver wasn’t functioning properly anymore, and was likely causing her pain. My dad called me with the bad news this past Thursday night, and informed me that she had been put to sleep. Understandably, he was heatbroken and emotional in a way that can only be expressed by watching this short video – Last Minutes With Oden. I’ll miss that little girl greeting me during my visits to Jacksonville, her incessant begging for food, her shy demeanor, and cut-throat attitude towards females.

Looking back, that dog and I formed a lot of memories that will stay with me the rest of my life. Since Thursday, I’ve thought about it a lot more and realized that there’s potentially a lot of memories I’m missing out on by not having a dog. Sure they’re a lot of work, they crap all over your yard, and will probably bark at squirrels and piss of my neighbors – but its worth it. I have a feeling we may be making a trip down to a local shelter within the next few days. If we end up with a female, I’ll have a hard time not naming her Sassy.

Rest in peace girl, all dogs go to heaven.

June 30th 2011; about 4.5 months ago, I decided to do something I had been putting off for the longest time. I went out and bought a drum kit with the hopes of learning the ropes. I went into this having never played the drums once in my life; truly starting from square one.

I decided the best way to keep myself motivated was to create a video journal or “vlog,” to chronicle my progress as time went along. Since then, I’ve posted 21 videos including some lessons and a slew of drum covers of songs that I enjoy.

It wasn’t until I posted my latest cover last week, that I looked back at my first cover and saw just how much I’ve progressed. Check out the videos below to see it for yourself.

Playing drums for Two Weeks

(It’s pretty painful to I watch, I know)

Playing drums for 4.5 Months

What a different 4 months can make, it’s crazy. I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it and can’t wait to see where I’m at in another 4 months or more. Go subscribe to my channel to see my new videos as I post new ones.

Anyhow, I hope this inspires someone out there to pick up an instrument or to go for it and try something they’ve been meaning to for awhile. You’ll be glad you did.

In other news, I recently photographed a friend’s wedding in Austin just a few weeks ago. The venue was on Congress Avenue, just blocks away from the famous 6th street and the Texas state capital. I had such a blast. Check out the blog post with a few of the shots up on my photography website here. Comments are appreciated!

A friend of mine recently made a comment regarding my Facebook and social media stream, saying “The question is not what can Matt Garza do, but what can he not do?” If you know me, I’m the last person to ever “toot my own horn” or to consider myself a “jack of all trades.” In fact, that couldn’t be any further from the truth (at least in my own opinion). I feel as if some people (including myself) harbor a lot of insecurity about their abilities, talents or skills (especially relating to careers and making money). There are a lot of times where I think to myself, “I wish I was better at X” or “I should learn Y, so I can make X amount more dollars.” Anyhow, for most of 2011 I’ve made a concentrated effort to focus more on things that I legitimately enjoy doing. Now don’t take this the wrong way, I enjoy my career and consider myself very lucky to have found a job in an industry I’ve grown to love over the years. However, I’ve seen colleagues, friends and family get so wrapped up about their career and the pursuit of monetary gain, material possessions and wealth that they lose all sense of adventure and joy in life. I’m talking about people with raw talent, beauty, and God-given endearing personalities..

Kind of funny that a good friend of mine linked me to a hilarious video regarding “work-life balance” just a minute ago, in the middle of writing this post. While I’m not writing this specifically from a work-life balance perspective, in a nutshell what I’m trying to say is “do something new.” That thing you’ve been meaning to do for so long, but haven’t had the time – make the time. That hobby you’ve always wanted to try, but haven’t had the money because you spend it all on slap chops and shake weights – sell them and do it. That inspiring idea you had while watching a Youtube video, log-out, shut down your computer and go give it your best shot. If it means something to you, and brings joy to your life – that’s all that matters (man, that sounded very motivational-speaker-like).

Anyhow, while I laughed at my friend’s comment on my Facebook wall it made me realize that the results of doing things which I enjoy, always turn out better than those that I don’t. If you know me or follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know that lately it’s been a series of goofy photo shoots, time-lapse videos, photography related posts or my pursuit of learning to play the drums. More on these below..

As I continue to learn and improve my photography skills, I’ve tried to have some fun along the way. While my ultimate goal down the line is to become a professional wedding/portrait photographer, I enjoy exploring other creative avenues within photography and videography. If you remember my last post back in January I linked to a video from an amazing photographer (Josh Owens of Mindrelic Photography) – a timelapse video featuring sights around New York City. This was one of those inspiring events in my life where I saw a video which had a lasting impression on me. I saw the challenges it may present to me (both technically and mentally) but knew that I had to take a stab at it. I spent the next four months around the city of Houston snapping thousands of images, all with the hope of creating something which I was proud of. The video below is what resulted and while I know I have a lot of things to improve upon, I completed something which I had no previous knowledge or experience doing, something new.

Since then, I’ve finished two other timelapse videos, one of which was picked up by Kotaku.com – one of the biggest video game sites on the internet.

A few weeks ago at work, I had another idea pop into my head. It started off as a discussion between a co-worker and myself regarding our “Corporate Picture Day.” Once a year our photo club at work will sponsor a corporate picture day, where anyone with $5 and business professional clothes can come and get a new professional head-shot taken for use on your Linkedin/Facebook profile. I found the idea kind of funny and figured I’d put my own spin on it, so I took my own with a more ridiculous approach. The full album is here, but some higher res versions are posted below.

Then lastly, I’ve had a desire for years to pick up a musical instrument – mainly drums. Despite having watching countless drum cover videos, lessons and hours spent drumming on my steering wheel on long commutes to work – I always managed to convince myself out of it. Three months ago, I decided to take the leap and commit to learning how to play. I started a drumming video progress journal that I call “The Drum Vlog” where I profile new techniques, covers and beats that I’ve learned along the process. I bought an entry level kit and started playing towards the end of June, three months ago, and have already come a long way. Check out my introduction video below for some more background, and hit up my channel to see the rest of my videos (I’ve got 13 posted so far, with more on the way).

Check out my new profile on 500px.com as well. I haven’t renewed my subscription to Flickr Pro in quite some time. 500px looks to be my choice for profiling some of my better photography work.

As always, thanks for reading. This week, get out there and try something new. There’s always time to procrastinate, but far more time to regret things you never tried. You never know what may come of it..

2011 is here, and so is the realization that I’m getting old. Getting married and buying a house might play a part in that, but time is something I’ve been losing a grip on lately. For the past few months now, sometimes I’ll zone out at a stop light or something and wonder how I got here. Not in a literal sense, but how have nearly8,760 days passed in my life already? If you consider the average US life expectancy, I should live until the age of 74, which leaves me about 19,856 days left in this life. I don’t think about this in a morbid sense at all, but more of a deep curiousity.

What have I done with the 8,760 days I’ve been alive thus-far? Have my 8,760 days been meaningful? How many of those days have been dedicated to the pursuit of selfish desires, or material posessions? How many of those days have been spent sitting in a computer chair? (could be a scary statistic)

In all seriousness though, probably the thing I think about most is how many of those days have been spent helping or serving others? I’d bet a million dollars they wouldn’t total over 100. That’s such a mind-blowing thought to me and has had me thinking; what am I going to do with my remaining 19,586 days left?

My sole resolution for 2011 is to spend much more of these 356 days helping others, uplifting others, being there for friends, family and complete strangers. My hope is that in another 8,760 days, when I’m sitting at a red light in Houston, Connecticut or Colorado (please God, let it be Colorado) I’ll have a much better idea of what I’ve done with my time on earth.

Anyhow, enough with the numbers..

As far as life updates, things are going well. I spent some much needed time back home in New England for Christmas with family and good friends. Last Christmas in 2009 I didn’t get a chance to see everyone I wanted to see, so I made a point of it this year. Check out my Christmas 2010 photo album on Facebook if you’re curious.

I’ve been stepping up my photography game lately as well. Thanks to a fellow photographer friend from church, I’ve booked another wedding for January 29th which I’m pretty stoked about. I’ve also had another good friend of mine get engaged this week and will be shooting their engagement pictures this weekend, as well as their wedding in March. As a result, I’ve been saving for awhile and finally pulled the trigger on a new lens. I picked up a Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8, well known as one of the best all-around pro lenses you can buy. I posted a few shots I took yesterday with the new lens.

Also, I’m currently shopping around for a new camera bag to haul all my gear around in. I’ve had a Lowerpro 200AW for a few years now and I seem to be out-growing it. I’m learning towards the Crumpler 8-Million Dollar Home bag. Anyone have any suggestions or reccomendations?

I shot another wedding video back in November that I never posted here, so if you’re curious..check it out.

I also stumbled across an inspirational dude who does time-lapse photography via Twitter, Mindrelic Photography (his Vimeo page here). He does all of his time lapse work with a 6ft dolly set-up from Dynamicperception.com Kind of makes me want to purchase one and give it a whirl.

Check out his latest NYC Time Lapse video. Tell me it’s not amazing..

More updates soon..

Change. It’s an understatement for what’s taken place in my life this year. Engagement, Marriage, and now home buying? Talk about a whirlwind of events.

While I never really expected to purchase a home this year, it’s something we’ve certainly been contemplating for awhile now, and something we’ve been preparing for. This past April we recently re-signed our apartment lease for another 13 months, thinking we’d at least wait that long before purchasing a home. Well, about a month ago, we kind of set ourselves up for trouble by chatting with a Realtor who attends our church. After chatting about our situation, we agreed to have her show us a few houses in the area (not to mention, lots of research on the side, finding the style and type of house we like).

After realizing just how much potential was in our immediate area, just how affordable housing was, and just how low interest rates on home loans are currently; we decided to get more serious. We checked out a few different neighborhoods in the area, some older, some newer, some houses with pools, some with huge yards and some with people inside showering with pizza crusts strewn everywhere, while prospective home-buyers were inside (seriously, it was sketchy).

Then we drove down a culdesac in a small neighborhood close to our apartment, and found our home. The home was built in 1995 and had a really nice modern touch to it. Everything about it seemed to fit what we wanted. Nearly a week later now, we’ve officially put in an offer, which was countered and now accepted. We’re going to receive the purchase agreement contract today, which will be signed and sent out (more or less making it official). I’ve scheduled a  home inspection for next week on Tuesday, where I’ll walk through the entire house with the inspector to get an idea of what sort of shape it’s in. Barring any huge issues after the inspection, the paperwork circus begins and we sign our lives away. Check out a video walkthrough of the houses that I recorded.

To make a long story short, we hope to close by November 19th and have everything moved the following day. This does mean we’ll have to break our apartment lease, costing us close to $1700 (yikes), but we’ll be more happy paying close to what we currently pay in rent, for something we will ultimately own. The ultimate goal is to pay off the mortgage in 15 years, allowing us to own the house outright before we’re 40 – or building up tons of equity in the next 5-7 years or so, sell it, and buy a home back in New England. Time will tell..

In other news, I shot my first wedding video two weeks ago for some close friends of mine here in Houston. They had talked to me about having me do one, but I was a little hesitant. Most of my video-making experience has been with my Flip Camera, and mostly for fun (check out my Youtube channel to see some of my stuff).

Anyhow, with my new camera and Stereo Microphone in hand, I went to give it my best shot. Check out the results below.

Pretty good right? Thanks to that video, and it spreading around through the bride’s friends, family, etc..I’m in the process of booking another wedding video for November. If I can start seriously marketing myself a little better, I’m feeling like I could turn this into a viable source of income on the side. I’m thinking I could have an edge over the competition, offering video along with photography packages. In order to do this successfully, this is going to require more equipment and most likely an assistant photographer to help me out at events.

(check out my other teaser video I did a few weeks back for a music festival in our area, I’ll be putting together a documentary for them)

Exciting times ahead, requiring more blog posts. Check back soon and thanks for reading.

So as you can tell, my site is back up after about three months of being MIA. During the confusion and mayhem of my wedding month, I had forgot to re-register my domain name on Godaddy.com. I purposely set up my account to automatically charge the $12 to my debit card every year, so I didn’t forget. Only problem was, Amanda and I got new debit cards and got a single bank account, therefore expiring my old debit card information. So while off on my honeymoon, Godaddy had tried to recharge my account to no avail and decided to lock down my account, which for some reason they weren’t unable to unlock themselves (morons). Anyhow, after some brief shens from my good friend Ryan Reed; hi-jacking my domain for some laughs, my site is back.

So where to begin. A lot has happened in the last three months. The most important being my wedding. It was an awesome day, filled with friends, family and some general awkwardness thanks to a close relative of mine. Regardless, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The subsequent honeymoon a few days after was an awesome time as well (with plenty of stories to tell, which I’ll reserve for a separate update). For now, if you haven’t seen the three part video series I put together from our honeymoon, check that out here, pictures are here. I can’t explain to you how awesome it was to spend three nights in a jungle tree-house.

Over the past month or so, I have been putting more time into my photography ventures as well. It’s something I’ve grown to enjoy and have slowly gotten more experience with over the two years or so I’ve owned my Nikon D80. I decided to start my own site, with a gallery, contact information & more to sort of market myself a bit better and start making some money on the side. Initially, I was going to purchase a photography site template from Bludomain.com and hook it up that way, but after some thought and research, I decided to try and build it myself. Overall, I’m pretty proud of it and with no Flash reliance at all, I’m hoping it’ll be more reliable and accessible by more people. So far, I’ve been getting some leads and have a wedding booked for October 16th and a few other things in the works. Check it out here: Solidstatephotography.com (go like my page on Facebook too!)

As part of my photography developments, I picked up a new camera body last month – a Nikon D300S. I wanted an upgrade from my dated Nikon D80 and wanted two camera bodies once I start shooting weddings and events a bit more. The most exciting part about the upgrade, was this camera’s ability to shoot 720p HD video, which for most people, is kind of an added extra. If you’ve been following my blog and know me well enough, you’ll know that I quite often put out videos on my YouTube channel for fun. I’m hoping with this camera, I can step it up a notch in the quality department and include video packages along with my photography stuff. I plan on posting more of my commercial stuff on my Vimeo Channel if you want to check out what I have so far.

On a more personal level, life in TX has been great. Married life is sweet. We’re both staying busy after work. I started playing Tennis a bit (and getting absolutely schooled). We’ve been involved a lot in our church and it’s youth, which has been an awesome experience. I think it’s important for people my age, who’ve made a fairly nice life for themselves to mentor younger kids and show them the right path. It’s something I’ve been more committed to lately and have found to be really rewarding. Not to mention, I might as well be 18 too, so I can relate..

We’ve been getting pretty serious about getting a house soon as well. The real estate market down here in Houston is at a record low, rates are at record lows. We’ve got excellent credit, we’re pre-approved at a low rate, we’ve got some money put away for a down payment and an extreme desire to bust-a-move out of our apartment. The only thing really holding us down right now is our apartment lease. We’d have to pay close to $1800 to break out of the lease, which we could pay, but could also simply wait until April 2011 until our lease is up. We’ll see what happens, but if we stumble upon our dream house, we might be moving sooner rather than later. I’m just making sure it’s something that’s not going to be rushed. Time is something we have plenty of, so time we will take..

Anyhow, thanks for reading. Look for a full post on our honeymoon coming soon. It’s good to be back!

This past week or so has been a mixed bad of emotions for me leading up to our big day. A lot of excitement and anticipation, with a pinch of nervousness and wishful thinking. These past couple of days have been a huge realization for me, that the act of marriage isn’t quite the mending and molding of myself and Amanda’s lives and relationship, but the lives of our family as well. You see, I’m the kind of person who likes to make everyone comfortable in any situation. I’ll be the first to introduce strangers to each other, break the silence and do my best to have everyone mesh well together..

While we’ve dated over 6 years now, and have built relationships with eachother’s family..my one hope is that those relationships develop further and that the bond Amanda and I create will carry over to our family. My one regret these past 6 years is that I didn’t work hard enough to form that family bond early-on. I feel as though 6 years have passed and our families haven’t had a conversation about life, hobbies, ate dinner, or even got a little tipsy with eachother. I mean, shouldn’t that have happened by now?

It is 2010 I guess – where a Facebook post  is considered common correspondence and family interaction is becoming an even more rare occurrence. Anyhow, this isn’t something I say with frustration, anger or regret, but with more hope than anything. Tomorrow is our rehearsal dinner, where our families will come together for the first time to mingle, eat and have a good time. More than anything in me, I hope it’ll be a time where relationships will flourish and bonds will be built. It’s a tall order to bring together a group of very different people; people with different political views, religions, backgrounds and histories, and while I don’t expect it to be perfect, it’s something I’ll be fighting for. Pray for me.

In other news regarding the wedding, it looks like we’ll have around 85 or so people attending. I’m really stoked to see the yard tomorrow and how it’s all turned out for the big day on Saturday. For those who haven’t heard, we decided back in February to hold the ceremony and reception on Amanda’s parent’s property in Uncasville, Connecticut. They have a good section of land towards the end of a dead end road in a really scenic part of Connecticut. There’s been some extensive land work being done in preparation and is looking to be pretty incredible. I’m excited we’re having it in Uncasville, opposed to a more expensive, not so quiet venue at Harkness Park as we originally intended.

Tomorrow we pick up our marriage certificate at the local Connecticut town hall, pick up our tuxes and get on with the rehearsal around 3:30, followed by the rehearsal dinner around 5:30. I’m stoked to see family, friends and have everyone meet their new side of the family.

For those of you keeping up with my blog, after Saturday you will hear no-longer have to suffer through my long, contrived wedding posts or details. Trust me, I’ll be just as happy as you will for it to be over. Let’s be honest – a man can only take so much when it comes to choosing which table centerpieces mesh well, what colors the invitations need to be, or what type of flowers we should order.

(In all honesty, I did very little. Thank me for the cake and pig roast, the rest was all her idea.)

Look for an update in early July when we return from the honeymoon. I’m sure I’ll have tons of video and pictures to sort through from Costa Rica. I’ll post a mega-update at some point the week we return (if we return).

Lately I’ve had an urge to just go out with my camera and do some exploring. This has been going on for a few weeks now, but I always found a reason not to go out. Today, I made myself take some time after work and get out for awhile. I decided that I’d hit up my favorite local cemetery (scary I know), Pillot Cemetary for some exploring. I stumbled across it one day with Amanda and kind of fell in love with it. I’m not a morbid person or curious at all with dead people..but the location itself is extremely serene and quiet.

On top of this, one of my contractor friends at HP buried his little girl there a few months ago. Him and his wife have had a previous miscarriage, but this most recent baby was born healthy..but quickly deteriorated and died about a week after birth. They buried her at this same cemetery..and I wanted to see if I could find her and pay my respects. After going today, I’m pretty sure her grave was left unmarked as I looked for awhile..but had no luck.

Behind this cemetery, there’s a huge clearing..where it looks like they once mined some kind of mineral, that has since depleted. This clearing sits behind the cemetery and fairly close to a small water treatment facility which is more or less abandoned. Once I finished poking around the cemetery, I went out into the clearing and took a look around. This time, I noticed a strange sort-of small plateau little section off to my right. It almost looks as if the dozers had mined around it and left this circle of land intact – I wondered why? I was able to zoom in from where I was with my 300mm lens and was able to see an abandoned shack and what looked like house shutters through all the brush. Naturally curious, I trekked over and up this little mound.

Once I got on top of the hill, I immediately noticed this dilapidated little shack..with it’s front door eerily creaking and swaying in the mind. I approached pretty nervously and kept hearing some strange scratching sounds. My initial thought was, some kind of raccoon had turned this little shack into their home and was about to burst out and snack on my ankles. I stood around from a distance and snapped a few pictures, before calming my nerves and getting up close to it. The scratching I heard turned out to be a low hanging tree branch scraping against the metal shingled roof. I got up close and took a few pictures next to it, but still didn’t have enough cojones to actually go inside. I did find a rolled up section of newspaper that must have been sitting outside for quite some time. It was a couple of torn pages from a 1968 Atlanta Journal newspaper, still readable. I read through a bit, reading some of the old comics, decided I should take it home and threw it in my camera bag.

I moved around the side of the “island” a little more and stumbled across a yellow shingled, broke down house right in the middle of all the trees and overgrown brush. The windows were smashed in, front deck rotted out..and 100% creepy. Snapped a few shots of the front entrance, got fairly close to peek inside..but once again didn’t actually go inside. I told myself I would come back with more people. Something about falling through a rotting floorboard and injuring myself alone in abandoned house didn’t seem appealing.

Snapped a few more shots and walked around a bit more before deciding it’s best I leave. At one point, standing alone next to this creepy old house..I heard a very faint cell phone ring which started to creep me out, especially since there was no one else around. I hopped in my car and went home. I’ll be going back for sure with more people and plan on going inside that creepy old house. I wonder if there’s any other old artifacts along with that 60’s era newspaper I found. I’m sure by now, everything’s been looted and pillaged out of it; but that won’t stop me from trying. Check out the pictures below, or at my Flickr page

May 2010 – how quickly you have come about. Hard to believe I’ve been engaged for 4 months, with the wedding coming up next month. While most things are planned, I’ve found that my excellent procrastination abilities are showing themselves strong. Less than two months to go and I haven’t spoken to a tux rental company, haven’t ordered our wedding bands, and are still putting together other various details of the big day. My approach tends to be, “It’ll all work itself out,” despite how long I procrastinate, which Amanda doesn’t necessarily enjoy hearing.

While I think I’ve explained part of our honeymoon trip to Finca Bellavista, a treehouse community in the Costa Rican jungle; after much thought we decided that spending our entire 7 days in a treehouse, living in a rough environment might not be the best idea. As a result, we’ve only booked three nights in the treehouse and have booked our final 4 nights at a might nicer – more inclusive and luxurious place called Hotel La Mariposa. We’ll be staying 4 nights in one of their Premiere Ocean View room’s and decided to get the 4 night honeymoon package; all for an incredibly reasonable price. To get from Finca Bellavista to La Mariposa is going to require a fairly long drive, and we plan on stopping, checking out the sights and maybe do some Geocaching. Anyhow, it’s going to be an exciting whirlwind of events with the bachelor party, wedding and honeymoon spanning over nearly three weeks.

Anyhow, this past weekend was enjoyable. We took another trip down to Corpus Christi for another SCCA autocross event. Making the monthly journey down there is such a therapeutic trip and is so nice to get away from the big city for awhile. Our good friend Jake, who gladly let’s us crash at his place for racing weekends was out of town but was gracious enough to still let us stay. This month I was particularly excited to get on the track and see how my car compared to previous months, as I got a collection of new modifications over the past couple of weeks. A friend of mine was selling his Speed 3 and was getting rid of some modifications before selling the car stock to the dealership. As a result, I managed to pick up a bunch of new mods for only $600. I got a Cobb Accessport, HKS SSQV, CPE Dash Gauge-Pod, Boost Gauge and Volt Gauge (all which normally retail for over $1200). With the new mods, I was significantly faster than previous trips and my car felt like a completely different beast all-together. I have a few more mods in mind, but those will have to wait until after the wedding and all the craziness that will be the next two months.

As a side note, I’ve been focusing more on photography the past couple of months. Not so much with actual new work being put up (with a few exceptions) but putting together my site gallery. I’m going to be working more this year to get more commercial gigs lined up and getting more and more clients to shoot and hone my skills. Last week I put up an ad on Houston Craigslist for people looking for photography work and have had some pretty interesting leads I’ve been working to line up, including people needing real estate head-shots, wedding rehearsals and other various things. I’m excited to buckle down more this year and get my skills up to par. So check out my newly released gallery page HERE. Still needs a couple refinements which I’ll be working on over time, but it’s more or less complete (thanks to my buddy Ryan Reed for helping me configure his PHP Photo Gallery – “The Phig” – into my site).

As far as Houston life is concerned, things have been going really great. Amanda and I have been hanging out a lot lately with some of our church friends. I’m really thankful for those dudes and am really lucky to have them in my life. We’ve been talking more lately about what our plan is going to be for next year, once our apartment lease is up. We’re going to do all we can to bank as much money as possible before April 2011 and leading up to then, start looking at houses in our area. I need to do some more research, but we’re looking to put down as close to 20% as a down payment and have done some searching in our immediate area (77070 zip code) but wouldn’t be opposed to getting something in The Woodlands, TX – a really really nice developing area with all kinds of nice parks, housing communities and shopping areas. Our good friend Tovey just closed on a gorgeous house in The Woodlands and since we’ve seen the area a bit more, it’s had us thinking. Anyhow, that’s still a ways off..but nevertheless exciting to think about.

Was having a discussion with a good friend yesterday about how much more active we’ve been since we’ve moved down here. My image of Houston was completely the opposite before moving here, but I’ve been involved in a couple of different softball leagues, have started playing soccer with co-workers, started bouldering and all kinds of other things. I can say too that I’ve physically felt better, have gained strength and have generally been in a better mood. Thinking back to my life up north, it just seemed pretty stagnant. Outdoor activities were limited (especially with the weather), most friends were more interested in playing video games (you know who you are <3) and much more time was spent inside. It’s been a nice change I plan on keeping up.

Anyhow, check out some recent photos from autocross and my other travels around..

This past week I fired up my Brinkman smoker for the third time and I have to say, this time the results were pretty exceptional. I was able to find a pretty simple recipe for smoked baby back pork ribs and figured I would add my own little spin on it.  The recipe couldn’t be any easier, it’s the smoking process that takes up the majority of the effort. On with the goods.

Ingredients:
- bowl of applewood chips (these are used for the smoking process, soaked in water overnight)
- 5 lbs Baby Back Ribs
- 1/2 gallon apple juice
- 1 head of garlic – separated into cloves
- 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
- 2 cups barbecue sauce

(serves 5 people)

I started off by taking the two racks of ribs and cutting them into 4 rib sections, basically making them into 5 portions for the 5 people eating dinner that night. Once separated, take the rib sections and throw them in a big pot. Pour apple juice into the pot until the ribs are covered. Bring to a boil and remove from heat

Once removed from the heat, let them sit for 15 minutes (make sure you save the apple juice in the pot, this will be used later). I used this time to get my charcoals started and prepped the smoker. Pile your charcoal up, douse with lighter fluid and light a match.

Once the charcoals are ashy and hot, spread them out evenly on the bottom of the cooker. Fill your smoker water pan up with cool water and place inside the smoker (I used the water that I soaked the chips in, to add more apple flavor). Take your woodchips and spread them over the coals (i use a smoker box to stack my chips in), either way works.

Brush the grate surface with a little bit of olive oil to prevent sticking during cooking.

Remove your ribs you had sitting in your pot of apple juice and bring them over to the smoker.

Throw those babies on the grill and cook them for 6.5 hours at 225 degrees. It can be tricky to maintain the temperature with charcoal, but my $15 digital thermometer made this process fairly easy. Once the temperature began to drop and the charcoals started going out, I’d simply restock by throwing a handful or two of charcoal back in. Over these 6.5 hours throw your garlic gloves periodically into the coals to add some garlic flavor to the ribs.

Here’s the ribs two hours into the smoking process.

When the ribs are close to done, start to prep your barbecue sauce. Scoop out two cups of apple juice from the pot you boiled your ribs in, add two cups of barbecue sauce (I used the Stubbs Original BBQ sauce – oh so good), and the tablespoon of granulated garlic, mix together. Once your ribs have cooked for 6.5 hours at 225*, remove them from the grill. Baste each rib section in the BBQ sauce and wrap each piece individually in tin foil. Throw in a 350* oven for the final 3o minutes of cooking.

Remove your ribs from the foil and enjoy. Pour a nice bowl of the BBQ sauce to dip your rib meat in. The apple flavoring and the bit of BBQ sauce I added into the tin foil gave the ribs plenty of flavor for me, to the point where I barely needed to dip the meat in the BBQ sauce. So far, this recipe has ousted my last baby back rib attempt and it’s so much simpler. Here’s the final product: