Roland's Schoolwork

Roland came home from school today with one of those "what do you want to be when you grow up" type of assignments. This is the first time he's ever expressed this and, well...it was very cute, and very insightful for a 9 year old, but I'm kinda partial so you decide...I think Val and I need to hire him to do our marketing for us!

Someone get me a tissue :)

-Bruce

Random Pics

Just some random shots from the weekend. I was in a collage mood ;)

Val is not under the weather, she's SICK! Like icky, wouldn't wanna be ya, sick. So send her some love and wish her well!

Take care. And don't forget to wash your hands. And take your vitamins ;)

-Bruce

Star Wars According to a 3 Year Old

This is just too cute, a 3 year old girl telling her Dad what the Star wars movie is about. According to Dad:

"She explained the whole movie to me in much greater detail but unfortunately I didn't have the camera going. When I finally caught her talking about the movie again she delivered this truncated, but still funny, version...Believe it or not, she has seen the movie only once, and I spread it out over three days so it wouldn't be too much all at once for her."

 

I know my kids were young the first time they saw the movie but probably not this young. And I know it didn't make quite this much of an impression on them ;)

(Originally posted on Gizmodo and CrunchGear.)

-Bruce

Under the weather....

Ok, so what exactly does that mean? "Under the weather"... what a weird term and yet I just used it to describe being sick right now. Oh well, when I'm feeling a bit better, maybe I'll google it and find out why. Bruce and I were just talking about colds and germs and stuff on our way up to Hartford the other day, we went to this great presentation by 2 awesome photographers, Mike Colon and Bob Davis (Bob did Eva Longoria's wedding!) Anyhow, we had a good time, got some great information and are working with some of the techniques they described so we will have some new and fresh stuff for your weddings, and to be honest, we can't wait to start the season now! Oh, where was I? Am I rambling? Germaphobic? Maybe, but does it help? Um... no. So I'm on the couch watching mindless TV on a Sunday, which is quite a change for me...and by the way, did you ever watch "Dirty Jobs"? It's too funny! Time to find that other box of Kleenex, agh.

We Have a Winner!

Thanks everyone, we have our winner for the free portrait session! Stephanie S. (aka Quick Draw) was first, within just a few minutes of the post last night :)

Thank you!

-Bruce

Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now

So I was in a hurry for lunch today and I ran to Dunkin' Donuts for a coffee and a bagel. Ok not the most nutritious choice for lunch, but it was a wheat bagel ;) Just ham and egg, no cheese so not too awful bad. Anyway, I got to the window and the manager handed me my coffee and my bag with the food in it.

He said, "I threw a flatbread sandwich in there for you to try, no charge."

Me: "Really? Thanks very much! Why?"

"A lot of people come for lunch and they order a bagel sandwich not realizing we have these new flatbread sandwiches. Just thought you might like to try one!"

Ok, ok I know it was a simple marketing ploy, but hey you know what? I thought it was a cool idea and it sorta made my day! And here I am telling all of you about it ;) so I guess it worked.

But it also inspired me! So...I'm returning the favor. I want to give the first person that emails me (bruce AT thesweetestdays DOT com) a FREE portrait session. Yep, remember that Valentine's Day post about the new portrait sessions we're doing? One of those. For you. Or you and your family. Or you and your dog Guido. Free. Zip, zero, nada. No strings attached.

Just send me an email and tell me you want it. First person I hear from wins! We'll figure the rest out from there. I'll come to your house. Maybe this weekend. Or we can wait for summer and go to the beach. That way you'll have time to get your hair done. You can get Guido's hair done, too. Whatever you want. And hey maybe you can bring a flatbread sandwich for me, those are good!

Ready, set, go.

-Bruce

Thursday Links

And it looks like they're almost all either wedding or photography related links, too! For a change ;)

Here's a weird one: If you happen to have a digital picture frame and it came from Best Buy, you may want to take a closer look. Apparently a bunch of them came from the  manufacturer with computer viruses on them. Not a major deal and easy to fix, but still. Might wanna check yours out. Effected brand was "Insignia" and the model number is NS-DPF10A. Original Washington Post mention is here.

Ok first off, I'm no prude. (Can a guy even be  a prude??) And I get the whole fashion thing, I mean we kind of have to to even be in this business. But check out this NY Times article about wedding dress trends. Is this what's coming? Seems a bit over the top to me, but I'll let you make up your own minds ;)

How 'bout this: a wedding ring with the point sticking out! OUCH! Designer Tobias Wong has come up with this killer (literally) wedding ring design that can "cut skin down to the bone". Hey nothing says romance like a terrorist weapon on your ring finger ;) Only one article linked to this and I couldn't verify independently so who knows if it's real or not, but man I would not want to be on the business end of this thing!

The most bizarre wedding cake I've ever seen. And then there's Mario.

Ok last one, if you haven't heard about this yet you need to check it out and see what you think. Lindsay Lohan recreates the "Last Sitting" photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe. Totally NOT SAFE FOR  WORK. Or home for that matter. Go to a library. You'll feel better if you do this anonymously ;) Very bizarre. I mean, given all of Lohan's antics of late, and considering Marilyn was basically drunk at the time of the shoot and died six weeks after of an overdose...WEIRD. But I suppose WEIRD sells magazines these days.

Ok that's it for today! Enjoy the snow tomorrow!!

-Bruce

Freeze, Nobody Move

207 people freeze in place in Grand Central Station at exactly the same time and stay that way for 5 minutes. My questions are:

1. Was blinking allowed?
2. Was anyone, um, accosted? Hmm, no I suppose not, it is after all a kinder, gentler NYC now ;)

Wicked cool, check it out:

MILK Desk

Quite possibly one of the coolest desk ideas (and websites) I've seen in a long time. I can only imagine how much they cost!

And what chair would you get for a desk this cool??

-Bruce

Gone Fishin'

I'm baaaack! What a crazy week it's been, I haven't even had a chance to post the pics from "Me and Roland's Excellent Adventure" in Florida last weekend! So here we go...

The view out the window of our kitchen last Friday as we were leaving for the airport. Feet don't fail me now!

Roland in front of the marina. No he's not named after Roland Martin, he's actually named after his grandfather (my Dad) but hey, if you're gonna visit Roland Martin's marina in Florida and your name is Roland, people remember you!

When we arrived, it was late Friday night and we were greeted by this notice in the hotel room. Lovely ;) Off to Wal-Mart to get bottled water!

The streetlights on the road where the marina is located are bass! I'm home!!

 

The marina is on one of the canals outside of the lake itself. Normally you have to go through a set of locks (you can see the entrance in the back of this pic) to get out to the main lake but with the terrible drought they've been having, the lake is so low that the locks are just kept open full time.

Roland was a little anxious to wet a line ;)

Here's the entrance to the locks as we head out to the main lake.

 

Our guide, Boyd. He lives on Lake Superior in Michigan and owns a charter fishing operation there, but comes down to Lake Okechobee for the winter to guide for bass. The three of us had a great time!

And here's the video of Roland's very first bass! He's a had a few on before on trips we've taken here in Connecticut, but never landed one. This is what we came for!

My number 1 with his Number 1.

And one for Dad ;)

Lake Okechobee is paradise. Well if you like bass fishing. For everyone else, not so much. Why? These guys:

No water skiers, no jet-skis, no pleasure boats. Nothing but bass fisherman, for the most part. I think we need some 'gators in Connecticut!!

Sunrise on day 2. Gorgeous!

Roland was tearin' it up!

 

Ok, ok I was having fun too!

Ok that's enough fish stories for now, hopefully we haven't bored you too much!

Peace!

-Bruce and Roland

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Of course, it is so very cool to have a worldwide holiday named just for Me! Okay, so maybe I have that backwards and I was named for St. Valentine, also my great grand father's name... but I think I'll keep it as 'my' holiday!! :)

So whatever you're doing to celebrate L O V E.... do it with style and enjoy the day! Of course, if you know someone who got engaged or maybe you got that ring you were hoping for, drop us a line and say hi! We'd love to hear your story!

Keep it sweet!

Love this photo!

A friend in Colorado sent this photo to us and I just love it so I thought I'd share with you!

Bridal Show & Chinese New Year too!

This weekend I went to the bridal show at the Mohegan Sun. I haven't been to a show in a while and it was a fun change of pace. My friend's daughter is getting married in October, so I got to see what's some new and cool things for weddings, there was a great band performing ... but I can't remember their name! Agh!! But I got to see some of my friends there too! So if you need a Justice of the Peace or a DJ, maybe some Professional Bagpipers or a beautiful and yummy cake, let me know and I'll give you some great referrals. I only make referrals for business professionals that I've worked with and really like because I want you to be happy with them too!



We didn't know it, but there was also a celebration for the Chinese New Year too! There was a parade through the casino that included Paper Dragons and drums and cymbals (yes, it was LOUD!) and lots and lots of people, I tell ya, it was wild! I saw people clutching red envelopes and found out later that they were given out with money in them as a tradition, more things I need to go read about, I think! :-)

Hey, Bruce should be back from vacation today, so I'm waiting for the big fish story too!!

Pet Peeves... or Rants... whatever!

I just got done reading one of those "how to save money on your wedding" articles... and I got to wonder who writes this stuff??? Have these people ever really planned a wedding? Okay, let's change that to have they ever really planned an awesome wedding? Or perhaps there expertise is the Great American Redneck Wedding? No offense to the rednecks out there, but there are some things you can do...and some you just shouldn't. I think I'll start posting some REAL tips and tricks of the trade here... I did some wedding planning in the past, including an incredibly awesome wedding when my daughter got married a few years ago for a fraction of the cost of the 'national average'... and by the way, where do they get those figures?? Okay...enough rants for now.... lol

Something New on the Website!

Hey there! I just posted Wendy and Will's slide show, check it out www.thesweetestdays.com when you get a chance and thanks guys for letting us be part of your awesome wedding!!

Thursday Links

Ok folks just some quick links before I head out for a long weekend. I have a few posts cued up to launch automatically while I'm away (What? It's technology, what could possibly go wrong??) so check back every now and then, or just plug us into your RSS reader and be done with it, will ya? ;)

Sorry but any comments will hafta wait until I get back to be published through. I hear our hotel room doesn't even have a phone so wireless is probably out of the question. Besides, Roland and I will be out fishing or wrestling alligators or flying around the swamps in a airboat. Or maybe just hangin' at the hotel pool drinkin' beer. What kind of beer is best for a 9 year old? (Oh I'm kidding, relax...I'll make sure it's light beer)

Hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll post some pics (who me? take pictures??) when we get back!

See ya!

Bruce

__________________________________________________

Retrevo is a web site designed to match people with electronic equipment they're looking for. No it's not Gadget Dial-a-Date, think of it more as an index of electronic equipment. You can find product manuals,  get recommendations on a particular item, or even find support for something you may already own. It's an interesting concept and along the lines of our Valentine's shopping post the other day, they have some gadget shopping ideas for you as well.

__________________________________________________

Rumors of Microsoft wanting to buy Yahoo (my favorite potential name I've heard for the new company? Microhoo!) has Flickr users up in arms.  I must say, I'm a big fan of Flickr too and would hate to see it ruined. This new group on Flickr is for folks to voice their opinions about it and boy have they ever! Some pretty funny stuff in here and currently it's showing 2,539 members and still growing!

__________________________________________________

This is amazing. One family's ritual of taking a photo of each family member on June 17th of each year since 1976. So cool to see the transformations throughout the years! Check it out here.

__________________________________________________

Amazing "Web Trend Map", hard to read with this snapshot but if you click on the link, it's an intricate map of everything hot on the web right now. As a twist, it's an actual map of the Tokyo-area train routes.

__________________________________________________

Have you heard about Google's 411 telephone information service? It's totally free, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411. It works great and you can even get an SMS message sent that includes the information about the business or number you called about. Check it out here.

Seamen's Inne Tasting Event Photos

The photos for the Tasting Event we did at the Seamen's Inne are finally available. For those of you that attended and took a card with the link on it, that link now works. If you didn't get a card you can click here.

My apologies for the delay, we experienced some technical glitches (read that OPERATOR ERROR) that made me think the gallery was ready days ago when in fact it wasn't. I am a dope. I take all the blame. I need to take a remedial reading class...

Anyway, if you pre-registered you should find a coupon in your email for a discount on prints. Additionally there is a special 2 for 1 deal on prints until March 5th.

So there ya go! Sorry for the delay :(

Bruce

Happy Birthday, Roland!

I can't believe you're NINE YEARS OLD today?? How can that be when I haven't gotten ANY older at all?? I don't get it??

 

And I can't wait for our big adventure on Friday when we go on one of these:

To get here:

Where we'll hopefully hook into a few of these!

Happy Birthday, kiddo! Friday will be here before you know it so hang in there!

Love,

Dad

Nikon D60 DSLR Camera

We get a lot of questions from clients about cameras (gee, I have no idea why!) and especially lately it seems a lot of our clients are considering moving from point and shoot type digital cameras up to digital SLR cameras. Nikon announced the new D60 model at the PMA show last week to mostly luke-warm reviews and one of the main sources of info I go back to time and time again for the real deal on this type of stuff is Ken Rockwell's site.

Ken is a very experienced photographer and has been maintaining and updating this very useful site for years, mostly at his own expense. He buys all his own equipment, does not receive samples from manufacturers and because of that I feel you get much better content and honest opinions.

His thoughts on the new D60? Pass. Yep, buy a D40 for several hundred less. Read about it here. The other nice thing about his articles is that you can get as much or as little out of them as you want. If you're a camera geek (guilty) and want all the deep technical details, they're in there. But if you're just learning and want the basics without getting bombarded with tech talk, his articles are structured so they can be skimmed quickly and you can take what you want from them.

Hey if you're getting ready to take that next step with your photography hobby, you'll want to bookmark his site and start digging into the material. There's a whole lotta learnin' to be had ;)

And as always, email us any questions you may have, we'll be happy to help too!

Enjoy!

-Bruce

Win Some, Lose One

New York Giants 17

New England Patriots 14

Congratulations to Eli Manning and the New York Giants for their awesome upset in today's Super Bowl! No one gave them a chance and they didn't listen to any of it. They kept their heads down and got the job done. Bravo!

Plaxico Burress caught the game winning touchdown and we'll never forget what color his jersey used to be...

AND one more Steelers fact for the night; Fox had a poll running to vote for the best football dynasty over the decades and the Steelers of the 70's won by a huge margin. Of course they did!

-Bruce

Kids

Yeah, kids, gotta love 'em...sheesh...

Valentine's Day Shopping

Ok guys this post is for you, time to get a move on. Don't fear, all is not lost. Uncle Brucie is here to help. If you've done nothing to this point, well, you're still ok. Plenty of time left but that doesn't mean you can sit around wasting it! Chop, chop! Here's plenty of ideas to get you started, you supply the credit card!

Apple: Yes the computer, iPod, iPhone, iTunes, iTake your money company (oh I'm kidding). The iPod Nano now comes in pink. $199 and for an extra $25 get a groovy Valentine's play list of 25 songs pre-loaded. And they'll even gift wrap it! And if pink's not her thing they have lots of other colors, too.

Proflowers: Get a dozen long stem  red roses for $49.95 with a free ruby vase. Are you a two-dozen kinda guy? $69.95. How 'bout three anyone?? $99.95. Or the Ultimate Valentine's Day Gift including chocolates and a Teddy Bear for $79.96. On a budget? Sweetheart tulips in a vase for $29.99.

Vermont Teddy Bear: Every Teddy Bear under the sun and plenty of Valentine's Day ideas, $49.95 and up.  My favorite? The "Love Me Tender Elvis Bear"!  Bummer, I couldn't find a photographer bear? ;) What's up with that?

Pajamagram: What girl doesn't LOVE pajamas? Lots of cool styles to choose from and plenty of  Valentine's ideas for under $50. And they come delivered in a hat box with some other goodies for her, too! Whether she's into comfortable pajamas or *ahem* something else, you'll find it here!

Victoria's Secret: Speaking of *ahem* something else, there's   plenty of it at VS! And there's an entire "pink" section, just in case you're looking for something to go along with that pink iPod! Shop online or find your nearest store here. (Does anybody know who Victoria is? And what exactly is the big secret??)

Godiva Chocolatier: What more can I say? This is a no-brainer! Plenty of choices and simply the best chocolates! (Ok, ok they're MY favorites, get your own blog!) Easy online ordering and a nice selection of Valentine's Day collections but really it's hard to go wrong with anything on this site. Just find something within your budget and order! (And hope she shares with you!)

Jamie Oliver's Valentine's Day Menu: Ok so you're not a "plunk down the credit card on some impersonal gift" kinda guy? Want to impress her with something extra special that you did yourself? One of those types that just has to go above and beyond, eh? Head on over to Epicurious and check out all the instructions you'll need for a super Valentine's dinner (and it's a great read!) straight from Jamie Oliver!

The Sweetest Days Photography: Yep that's us! We're offering  something new and we thought: why not announce it here because  it just might make a PERFECT Valentine's gift for that special someone in your life. (Ok this isn't just for the guys out there!) Of course you all know we specialize in wedding photography but we're now offering a package especially for those of you that want to get some portrait or family photos taken. Our goal is to create unique, one of a kind portraits that you or your family will cherish forever and without the typical hassles and stuffiness you might think of when you think of portrait photography. So what's the deal? How's this sound:

We will come to your home, or meet you at whatever favorite place you may have in mind to photograph you, you and you're sweetheart, you and your family, you and your sweetheart's family (well you get the idea!) and create beautiful custom portraits.

We will travel a reasonable distance to any site within our coverage area (please double check with us!) Bookings are subject to availability, weddings come first! Again please check with us when you inquire.

This package includes:

• 1 hour photography session on site (not counting travel and set up time of course!) You will be amazed at the amount of shots we can get in one hour's time :)
• All images edited, checked and corrected for color and exposure, some artistic enhancements such as sepia, black and white, "special sauce" (can't tell you about that remember?!), etc. The same relentless quality standards, care, and creativity that you've come to expect from us with our wedding images will be taken with your portraits as well.
• Up to 100 images in an online gallery that can be shared with family and friends (exact image count will vary).
• Online shopping cart for easy ordering of high quality prints, enlargements, and other photographic products at  our standard print prices. (Please note: these are NOT proof prints! These are the same high quality photographic prints that you would get in any of our wedding package galleries with online ordering!)
• Our introductory price for this unique package is $279 and includes a $10 credit towards print orders for you and each family member or friend you invite to your gallery!

We're really excited to offer this to our customers as a way of getting some unique pictures of you, whether it be at your home, or a favorite park, the beach, whatever! Maybe that spot you drive by on the way to work each day that you've always thought would be a perfect place to take some pictures; we're up for it! Give us a call at 860/376-5566 or email  us at "info AT thesweetestdays DOT com" and we'll be happy to answer your questions!

So there you go, plenty of Valentine's shopping ideas for you guys and hey girls, don't be shy, send this link off to that guy in your life who may not be one of our regular readers. A little nudge always works! ;)

Enjoy!

-Bruce