happy birthday to rick!!

wednesday was rick's birthday!! after working (and driving) all day long on tuesday, i stayed up until 2 am baking rick a cheese pie, decorating our apartment and finishing his birthday card. and of course i didn't let the cake finish cooling before i put the icing on... :( you can see the funny result here. on wednesday, i was exhausted!! i surprised rick by having aldrin bring a chuckie cheese pizza over for dinner, hehe.



we had a good time laughin, and eatin and findin silly things online. and although we kept rick's birthday pretty low-key, it was still an awesome night because it was the first time i got to spend rick's birthday with him!! the past two birthdays have consisted of long-distance celebrations and priority mail. one year i even sent rick a slice of carrot cake from my school and my mom and i took photos of the happy birthday messages we wrote on the sidewalk with chalk, hehe. we've come a long way.

color-licious

some of my new uploads on flickr...

stoop
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

pink azaleas
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

man's best friend
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

workin with CJ.

tuesday and wednesday i worked as 2nd assistant to CJ. the first day i was mainly a gofer, which i didn't take to too well. in fact, i called dave, complained and told him i decided i want to work for him for the rest of my life (which i would gladly do). i ran to CJ's hotel, and to the paint store, and then the 1st assistant/studio manager asked me to run to supermarket to buy more soda (and trust me, we didn't need any more soda). OOOO, guess where the 1st assistant got her photography degree... BROOKS!!!! my favorite place on earth, hahaha. poor Brooks' alum/students. this girl is pretty well established and works for 6 photographers but it seems she has lost her shot at becoming a photographer. she feels like she doesn't have a style... and that's after three years at Brooks!!

ANYWAY... on tuesday i did dishes, varnished a veneer panel and painted a large square of linoleum "weathered brown." it was exciting to be involved in the making of the set (for about two minutes) until the fumes started to get to me. on wednesday i served as the model fill-in and packed up a very large desk. each afternoon lunch was catered by local places like Tender Greens and Bamboo!!

the shoots were pretty fun. there was an earth, wind, fire and water theme which involved a lot of hair and makeup. it was interesting to see how CJ works and what a different style he has compared to the other photographers i've worked with. CJ is really precise. he starts with sketch and follows that sketch to the very last detail. instead of shooting a bunch of various shots, CJ has ONE shot in mind and he achieves it. personally, that method would scare the crap out of me because i like options, but if you have a high-end client (in this case, Geiger Furniture) and you sent them a sketch for an ad they are paying big bucks for, i can see why you would want to be precise.

overall, CJ was really professional and personable and i would like to work with him again. he said he'll contact me the next time he has another shoot on the west coast. :)

monday at venice beach

on monday i drove to culver city (got lost on the way, of course) and met with photographer CJ Burton to find out what i'd be doing for the shoot on tues and wed. the meeting lasted all of 5 min. luckily i brought my polaroid camera to take some photos in venice, otherwise the trip would have been a TOTAL waste of gas. my goal was to find the infamous starry night mural in venice beach.

i stopped in aardvark's (a thrift store) and was highly disappointed... the clothes were more costume-y than wearable. from there, i ventured down to venice beach, which reminded me of the bad sections of the seaside boardwalk (down the jersey shore) circa 1990s but with more bums. and instead of wafts of garbage, there are wafts of urine... so maybe venice isn't like seaside at all. needless to say, i wasn't too impressed but i still wanted to take some photos.

i parked on a little main street and was paranoid about getting ANOTHER parking ticket, so i made it back to my car with PLENTY of time to spare. i called hal to see if he wanted to meet up. he had a meeting with someone but asked if i could kill an hour so i drove around the block a few times and found what i believe is the ONLY FREE parking in the area. i couldn't believe it... free parking in california?!!! that's unheard of.

i walked down the nearest street to get to the ocean walk and took a photo of a cute little mural i found along the way. i walked to the graffiti wall on the beach, wandered around snapping polaroids, and peeked down every side street hoping to find the starry night mural. i found this guy who sits with his dog (who wears sunglasses) that i remember seeing on mike's (wakejunkie) flickr. later i saw a bunch of little asian girls get yelled at by the tattoo parlor guys for getting too close to the dog while the man was sleeping.

i walked pretty far down the ocean walk before turning around and heading back to the street that would eventually lead me to my car and *TAH DAH!!* found the starry night mural. i don't know how i managed to walk right past it, but it was on the first street i walked down to get to ocean walk. in fact, it was DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM the other mural i took a photo of!! haha.

naturally, by this time, there was an BIG, ugly yellow utility truck blocking half of the mural. i, being the sometimes nervey photographer that i am, walked up to the men sitting in the truck and said,

"excuse me, are you guys planning on staying here all day??"
"why do you want to take a picture??" the passenger asked, looking at my cameras.
"yeah."
"well then i guess we can back up, but just for you."
so the guys had to sit there, watching me take my polaroids and then moved back to their spot after i was finished, haha. i was trying to hurry, so the first polaroid i took is more faded because i just held it while i was taking the second photo and i was standing in direct sunlight. :( as i was leaving one of the guys asked if he could take a photo of me and held out his camera phone. i laughed, trying not to drop my camera as i juggled the polaroids, my other camera and my bag.

my plans to meet up with hal had to be postponed (the lady he was supposed to meet up with was late) so i headed back to the apartment.

What did the mom tomato say to her little kid tomato when they were walking into town?

..................Ketchup!!

thursday: i bummed around. all. day. long. i called dave who will have some work for me the end of the week. he wants to have another casting call. rick brought me home roses... just because (aw!) hehe. i did dishes and played scrabble and boggle online with my mother. she always beats me at scrabble (only online) but i always beat her at boggle. rick and i watched The Best Years of Our Lives, a black and white film (from 1946) about three WWII veterans who return home and must adjust to being a civilian again. it's a REALLY good movie. i highly recommend it. there's a man/actor in the movie who has hooks for arms and he is amazing with those things!! the movie has really good story line; only one thing irked me and that was one of the main characters' sons. he was barely in the movie and they his family never invites him anywhere. it was almost as if he was just a fill character. i didn't understand his purpose or significance in this film.

friday: turkey burger night at aldrin's house with tim and their friend fonz. aldrin made his special turkey burger patties mixed with bacon served with ranch dressing and potatoe chips. i made some veges to go along with the burgers. we rented The Jerk, a classic steve martin comedy. rick and i stayed at aldo's til 11 pm then we stayed overnight at rick's parent's house while they were in washington d.c. i also got a package from my mom filled with eastery goodies and my dad's old camera AND a package from my aunt stuffed with a new spring-y bedspread. :)

one of many crazy hats:


why skippy doesn't like tim:


saturday: worked an easter promo in a furniture store from 10:30-4:00. i was the polaroid photographer. good pay, easy job and it was fun. it was kind of a funny scene tho... me talking to a giant bunny. i felt bad for the guy (paul berg) who was the bunny though... that suit was hot!! and he talked in his bunny voice the entire day, in case any kids were lingering nearby. paul was pretty interesting though, he's a puppeteer and has worked on a few snuggles the bear laundry detergent commercials as well as Men in Black I and II. (he controlled the lungs of the little alien who lived inside the big alien's head). after work, rick and i got some jamba juice and watched 13 going on 30 on tv (cute movie). later that night, we picked up his parent's from the airport.

easter sunday: my mom had groceries delivered to the apartment again!! :) this time she sent over mangoes, pineapples, strawberries, swordfish steaks, asparagus, grapes, clementines and beef jerky. my mom is the best!! rick went to church and then we went to his parent's house. we were expecting a low-key BBQ with his parents, but his old neighbors stopped by as a surprise. they were very nice, brought a cake and stayed for dinner. the daughters (nicole and racquel) are our age and are living in pasadena now, so we will probably go out with them sometime. rick's sister and her family stopped by and rick's niece isabel taught me some new patty-cake rhymes. then rick's neighbors all came over and lots of funny old stories were exchanged.

my mom loves me:


monday-wednesday: i work for photographer CJ Burton. wednesday is ricardo's birthday!!!!! so hopefully i won't be working too late that day because i have a few plans up my sleeve ;) i just hope i have the time to accomplish them all!!!!

richard branson and other evils.

we waste too much money and too much of natural resources for space exploration. people like richard branson need to find better money grubbing gimmicks. by 2009, branson hopes to launch civilians into sub-orbital space on Virgin Galactic. tickets will be $200,000. and the sickening part is that people will pay that. "RICHARD BRANSON is in negotiations with British television networks to launch a talent show for aspiring astronauts." branson built a huge spaceport in upham, new mexico... an area coined as "uninhabited," yet 30 miles away lies a resort spa town with natural hot springs. years from now, the surrounding towns will be scratching their heads, wondering why cancer rates have skyrocketed (pun intended).

"According to the Virgin Galactic website, Branson has plans for orbital space tourism and proposes putting a hotel in space. It is expected that some of the future spacecraft will be able to dock with a space hotel." ~wikipedia

why can't rich people invest in cleaning up the environment instead of producing more waste and garbage on earth and now in space??? i shouldn't tear branson into too many shreds, he did offer a $25 million prize to first person or company who removes billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases from the earth's atmosphere. what a humanitarian!! and he did "pledge" $3 to "fight global warming." a greedy billionaire who owns an airline company and rocket company couldn't possibly want to gain public approval by seeming concerned about the environment, could he??? and he certainly couldn't be wanting to promote fuel alternatives to allevate the high costs of gas/diesel so that his companies would be paying less at the pump...

"Branson's $3 billion wasn't philanthropy by any definition: The Virgin conglomerate chieftain promised to invest profits from his transport operations for the next decade in different types of nonpetroleum fuel — especially ethanol, most often made from corn — in the process scooping up hundreds of millions in federal corn-ethanol subsidies, profits, and political advantage. The supposed anti-global warming benefit of Branson's commitment, meanwhile, is false: Distilling ethanol from corn consumes more fossil energy than what's contained in the final bio-fuel product.

Tad Patzek, a professor in UC Berkeley's geoengineering program, has published studies showing that when one accounts for the petroleum used to produce fertilizers, corn seed, transportation, waste-water disposal, and other farming, refining, and delivery tasks, it takes six times as much energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than that gallon creates when it burns in your pistons. And all that excess energy consumption exacerbates, rather than reduces, global warming and U.S. energy dependence." ~matt smith editorial seen here.

i'm all for alternative fuels and cleaner emissions, but what i am concerned with is our water supply. fertilizers and waste-water from the crops alone will significantly contaminate our water supply. i hope scientists are working as hard to develop plans for waste-water reduction as they are for sending tourists in space. demand for clean water already exceeds supply in many countries. at this rate, i bet we will run out of fresh water in our lifetime. some alliance needs to formed between countries to better conserve and protect our water resources. think of this: only 3% of the earth's water is drinkable. our bodies are made of 70% water and there are 6,706,529,744+ people in the world. that's a huge demand. (if you want a better idea of how drastic our overpopulation problem is, go here).

here is a fact that is easier to digest: If all the world's water were fit into a gallon jug, the fresh water available for us to use would equal only about one tablespoon.

water issues aside, biofuel research and production would be great if every one wasn't so damn greedy. right now...

"In Malaysia, the production of palm oil for biodiesel is a major industry. The development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87% of deforestation. In Sumatra and Borneo, 4 million hectares of forest have been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in Indonesia. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers. Hundreds of thousands of small-scale peasant farmers are being displaced by soybeans expansion. Many more stand to lose their land under the biofuels stampede. The expanding cropland planted to yellow corn for ethanol has reduced the supply of white corn for tortillas in Mexico, sending prices up 400%. In the development of biofuels... they do not pay attention to long-term effects. The economy is broken up into competing units of capitalist control and ownership over the means of production. And each unit is fundamentally concerned with itself and its expansion and its profit. The economy, the constructed and natural environment, and society cannot be dealt with as a social whole under capitalism." you can read the entire article here.

i want to start using the word "holiday" as a verb.

"...one of the most enjoyable holidays i ever had! a really great place to holiday." ~something someone from england would say.

rick went to a friend's house to watch a movie and then stayed over his parent's house so he could get up early to go to church with his sister and niece. i stayed at the apartment and had myself a little chick flick night. i watched The Holiday and ate a lot of chocolate pudding. i thought The Holiday was really cute... i'd say it runs along the same lines as Love Actually. it's an intertwined story that splits into two separate stories and then rejoins... so it's actually TWO chick flicks in ONE!!

Kate Winslet's character is my favorite and her performance seems the most genuine. Cameron Diaz wasn't bad, but whatever movie i see of hers, i feel like i'm just watching the same character experience a different day. maybe it's because she adds her own goofy, alluring quality into EVERY character she plays. Jack Black's character was charming and of course Jack Black sings goofy songs and does his little "doodley-dee" sounds in this movie too. i haven't been a Jude Law fan lately, but he thoroughly surprised me in this film. he's extraordinarily believable in this role. so if you're not a fan of his, don't let that stop you from seeing this film.

the premise/story is cute and improbable (is it really THAT easy to house swap with someone living abroad in less than 24 hours?!) but the improbability will make you want to keep watching. i cringed when Diaz and Winslett were messaging each other online... why does nearly every writer have their characters read aloud while they are typing?!! we can SEE the text. you know the charactors' setbacks are going to be resolved and that the movie will end happily, but there are enough small plot twists to keep you on your toes and prevent the movie from being terribly predictable.

overall, i'd actually recommend this one.

photo outing

sneak peek at the new polaroids:

razorwire
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

chain link fence
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

prickly pear powerlines
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

he's sticking out his tongue at you!!
Originally uploaded by jena ardell.

don't forget about the instant gratification tees too!! (please excuse another shameless plug, but i'm just really excited about them).