Go Terps

Wake Forest sweep for 2008 by the terps! The Terps win again. Fear the turtle.

Gist had 31 points tonight!


Yeah my 5D is here, so I was picture happy. Just had to get a shot of Dave watching the game.

Survey from Arielle's site

I found this on Arielle's site today. I never do these things, but for some reason when I saw it on her site today, I decided I'd go for it. So here it is. Enjoy.


1. What time did you get up this morning?
The frist time: 5:20 (Dave took the train this morning). 6:10 the second time

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Netiher. I don't care about those things at all. The only piece of jewlery I own is my wedding ring and it hardly ever gets worn. I've hated jewlery ever since I was a kid, and it has never changed.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Got me. It's been so long. We netflix everything. Besides we aren't home to much to really go to the movies.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
I really don't watch TV. But I like things on the travel channel…oh an John & Kate + 8. The personalities of John and Kate so remind me of Dave and I.

5.What do you usually have for breakfast?C
ereal, and then my cat begs me for the milk

6. What is your middle name?
Lee…its my moms maiden name

7. What food do you dislike?
Lots of things…pickles, onions, peppers. Don't try and get onions passed me, its won't work. I know, people have tried it before. It never works.

8. What is your favorite CD at moment?
Angels and Airwaves!! We've seen them in concert twince within 4 months.

9. What kind of car do you drive?
Subaru Tribeca…and I love it! Handles so well in the snow!

10. Favorite sandwich?
Anyone that knows me knows this answer...Turkey

11. What characteristic do you despise?
Cockiness (Sp?) Know it all attitudes

12. Favorite item of clothing?
My jeans from The Loft and my J Crew button up shirts (they actually make these in tall so the sleeves actually fit me!)

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go??
Tough call…Dave and I can't even decide where to go this year. But things on the list are Germany, Greece, Australia, Japan, and Spain, although I think skiing in Chile might be cool too.

14. Favorite brand of clothing?
Banana Republic or The Loft

15. Where would you retire to?
Somewhere I can ski A LOT! Colorado, Utah, Swittzerland, etc...

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?
My 30th for sure, we spent 12 days in Costa Rica doing lots of adventurous things. For my birthday we went waterfall rappelling!

17. Favorite sport to watch?
College Basketball…Fear the Turtle!

18. Farthest place you are sending this?
This is not being sent…I guess people in MD may read it

19. Person you expect to send it back first?
I'm with Arielle - don’t like these questions either

20. When is your birthday?
October 11th

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Night

22. What is your shoe size?
8 or 8.5

23. Pets?
Yup, 2 cats. Haley and Clyde

24. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us?
Nothing to exciting. We're going to Jackson Hole, WY in a few weeks and should be hiking to the top of Mt Whitney this summer! (21 miles round trip)

25. What did you want to be when you were little?
An Astronaut (and I still do)

26. How are you today?
Good. Excited about getting my new camera, is it Thursday yet?

27. What is your favorite candy?
Swedish Fish and jelly bellies

28. What is your favorite flower?
Calla Lilly - the purple ones - I had some of these in my wedding bouquet

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
Almost every weekend! We are gone a lot and have lots of exciting plans. Skiing at Mammoth, Jackson Hole, Wine Tasting in Paso Robles, etc...

30. What is your full name?
Michele Lee Schanker (used to be Lawrence until I got married)

31. What are you listening to right NOW?
Latest Angels and Airwaves CD

32. What was the last thing you ate?
Turkey Sandwhich on a wheat roll with Swiss cheese (told you I like turkey)

33. Do you wish on stars?
No

34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Blue

36. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Dave

37. Favorite soft drink?
Cherry Coke Zero

38. Favorite restaurant?
I like to eat very healthy, so we don't eat out to much. If I had to choose I'd proababy pick BJ's though. There pizza is good and it doesn’t make my stomach hurt!

39. Hair color?Red

40. What was your favorite toy as a child?
I was a Tom Boy (surprise surprise). So proabably matchbox cars or legos

41. Summer or winter?
WINTER…best season ever! But I am a skier, so I'm a bit biased. But I do love the cold weather. I'd chose that over hot days anytime. Hence why I wasn't to happy living in Florida.

42. Hugs or kisses?
Both are good.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?
Chocolate

44. Coffee or tea?
Coffee, but with flavored creamer and splenda

45. Do you want your friends to email you back?
Sure, why not

46. When was the last time you cried?
Can't recall exaclty, although I do cry, I'm quite an emotional person.

47. What is under your bed?
Proabbaly some clothes that Dave accidnelty pushed under there.

48. What did you do last night?
Went to the gym for 1.5 hours, then uploaded some photos to the portfolio section of my website (been getting more inquires lately and looking to get some second shooter jobs as well)

49. What are you afraid of?
I try not to think of things like this, and just live my life to the fullest with lots of adventure! But I guess getting something that can't be cured, like cancer.

50. Salty or sweet?
Usually sweet, unless I'm hiking or something, then its both.

51. How many keys on your keyring?
Only two or three. House, mail, and car.

52. How many years at your current job?
3.5 years! Wow time flies! We moved out here for my job and it was a great decision!

53. Favorite day of the week?
Friday (if its one of my fridays off) otherwise Saturday

54. How many towns have you lived?
6 if you consider Palmdale and Lancaster differnet towns

55. Do you make friends easily?
No not really, I'm rather shy and it takes a while for me to open up to people. Something I'm always trying to work on. I think some people think I'm rather standoffish, but its really just that I'm shy. My best friends are the ones that tried to get me to open up and succeeded.

56. How many people will you send this too?
It's posted to the blog

57. How many will respond?
No idea..

Crash Flash

This weekend I had the opportunity to take a workshop in Venice Beach. It was all about using your flash. It was basically an 8 hour class split into 2 days. They even gave us time to shoot and practice. Now I'm more of a photojournalistic style photographer and don't get to much into umbrellas and all of that. But it was good to learn how to do some of that. The best thing was understanding flash as the Main Source and Flash as Fill Flash a lot better. I now know what I was doing wrong before and now I can fix all of that with a little practice. I'm soooo excited to go out and shoot more! I took some sample photos of Dave as my assignment before going to class on Sunday. Here's a few samples of what I took. I put Dave in our doorway (since it was pretty wet out) with him very backlit and exposed and shot in manual. Not Bad! I didn't put the diffuser on, but I will from now on. What a difference those things make!

Doesn't he look sleepy!

This class really showed me how quickly I pick things up when it comes to photography. It's almost like once its said it sticks! I'm definately a quick learner and now I want to go to more workshops and classes. I can't wait to go to WPPI conference next year. I just wish I could go this year. I may try and travel up to Seattle, WA for a weekend workshop this summer.

The Photography Equipment Pile is Growing!

Last week the two pocket wizards were delivered to our door. This week my new 580EXII was delivered! What will next week bring....my new Canon 5D! Yipee! I finally broke down and ordered the new camera body! I am soooo excited! I've been wanting this camera for over a year now. I've been waiting since Nov to see if the new version would be released. With the rumors of a release not coming until Sept of this year, I decided I wanted the second body before summer and bought the current 5D!

Tonight I played around some with off camera flash. I pulled out my vail and one shoe. Yes, only one because I couldn't find the other one at the time. Here's a sample of what I did with off camera flash. Okay not the greatedt, but I was just messing around. Not trying for some astouding shot or something. I'm pretty excited to learn more about doing more off camera flash. You can really get some neat effects with this.
Dave has returned from his trip to Florida and I'm so happy about that. I really missed him. I'm so used to having him around its hard when he's not here. But I think he's really glad to be back in the cooler weather. Apparently it hit over 80 degrees while he was there...YUCK! Luckily I bought him an Under Armour shirt for Christmas. :)

Double Black

I did it...a double black diamond! Okay maybe not completely. The top was a bit to scary with me being by myself. The last thing I wanted was some broken bones with no one to drive me home! I just had these vivid images of me falling, ski patrol hauling me down the mountain in the sled, and no way to get home because I broke my leg. So to avoid those uncomfortable circumstances, I avoided the very deep moguls at the top and traversed over from Cornice Bowl. It was still very steep and I had lots of fun with it. Although Dave says it doesn't count because
1. I didn't do the top
2. he wasn't there

But in my mind it was a double black! It so crazy, every time I go up to Cornice Bowl, the sign "Experts Only" always catches my eye. I hardly think of myself as an expert of skiing, but I do love that trail!

So as you can tell I went skiing again today. Dave is out of town (went to go visit his family, while I opted to not spend the weekend in 80 degree heat and humidity) so I headed up to road to Mammoth. Skiing by myself was so different. It was weird to not have Dave to share things with. But at the same time I just went at my pace and I went all day. (8:32am - 4:07 pm with a 20 minute lunch break). Actually feeling a bit sore now!

Let the advertising begin...

I'm officially ready to advertise! After I got my new business cards last week and fell in love with them, I ordered double sided post cards! I love these too! So now I'm going to plan on finding some places to leave my postcards as ads. A coworker suggested I leave them at bakeries. So I think I'm going to try that first. I really like the blue and brown theme!

Front

Back

Here's a photo of Dave (he got new glasses). Not a great photo, but oh well. I didn't get my flash out and the overhead lighting casted shadows on his face. I love how I blurred out his shoulders though. But with a 50mm 1.4 prime, it works great.


I've been investing in some new equipment lately. Yesterday I got a great V-Day gift...my new pocket wizards for some off camera flash! But then I discovered that the 580EX didn't have a sync cable plug. So Dave said I should just get the 580EX II..so I ordered it. Kind of disappointing that I have to wait til next weekend to play around. I needed the new flash anyway because I'm going to have 2 camera bodies. So I'm narrowing my way down my photography equipment want list!

Skiing in SLC Rocks!

The annual Salt Lake City trip rocked, as always! It's just so amazing I mean where else can you stay in a city and have the convenience of 10 or more ski resorts within a half hour drive!

Recap and review of the trip:

We stayed at the Homewood Suites in Downtown. Awesome! This hotel was pretty modern, flat screen tvs, nice bed, nice pillows, and the rooms are basically layed out like apartments. The hot breakfast was decent. Although I think I liked last year's breakfast at the Residence inn better. The location was great. About two blocks from the Gateway Center and 3 blocks from PF Changs, Bucca De Pepo, and Squatters.

The first day we skied at Deer Valley. Well, I certainly can't complain. Great snow and only skiers! Snowboarders are not allowed here. So its nice for us skiers. The resort had lots of varying terrain. So lots of greens, blues, and blacks. Which worked out well for when Dave wanted something a bit easier while I challenged myself on the moguls. The opening time was 9am, which was nice because we didn't have to get up insanely early for first tracks.

The second day we skied at Snowbird. Now this place is more challenging. Not for beginners! When they say its for intermediate and expert skiers, they mean it. Lots of blue and blacks so we pushed ourselves the entire day. Lots of great powder especially in Mineral Basin. The cool part about this place is there is a 600 foot tunnel that can take you to the backside (Mineral Basin). There were some really big moguls to on some of the trails. I really liked it here, but I love to challenge myself. The day we were here we had great weather. When we went up to the top, you could see the mountains and SLC. What a view.

Lately I've been pushing myself a lot harder with skiing. Doing more moguls, etc.. So it seems that I have a trend now of falling down! I used to never fall. I had some nasty ones this trip. At Deer Valley I was going down a diamond and somehow caught powder and fell and slide a ways down the hill with my skis still attached. How embarrassing. But I popped back up and went on my merry way. Then at Snowbird Dave and I were going down a mogul run and again I caught powder. Although this time I face planted in the snow and my ski became buried while still attached to my boot! Dave apparently yelled "women down". I think he loves/gets a kick out of watching me fall because for so long I would never fall. (he missed the fall at Deer Valley).

While in SLC I just couldn't miss the UMD Terps game. So we immediately headed to a sports bar in the gateway center. The people there were great. They put us at a table right in front of a tv and turned on the MD game. Sweet! Oh and yeah, MD won again. Beating NC State by 14 points. Next is Duke this Wednesday.

Oh an I totally have to give some props to Dave for his awesome Mogul skiing this weekend. I told him he can no longer tell me that he can't ski moguls! He has improved so much, and I am so proud of him. It's been great watching him go from a total non skier (4 years ago) to skiing black diamonds filled with moguls.

So the trip was great. Great weather, great snow, and lots of fun! Can't wait to do it again next year.

I'll leave you with a view from our hotel room. I tried my best at long shutter speeds, without my tripod!

And one of the mountains near Snowbird.

The Schankers Love to Ski

Just sitting here dreaming of our weekend in Salt Lake City...we leave tomorrow afternoon! Yipee! What I love about SLC is that you have about a dozen or so places to go skiing and they are all about 35 minutes from downtown SLC. It’s just so incredibly convenient.

Anyway, I was just realizing how lucky we really are. For the last 3 years or so we have really been able to enjoy skiing at a lot of various places.

1. Zermatt – Switzerland side
2. Zermatt – Italian side
3. Breckenridge, CO
4. Alta, UT
5. The Canyons, UT
6. Mammoth, CA (we consider this our home mountain)
7. Squaw Valley, CA
8. Northstar, CA
9. Deer Valley, UT
10. Brighton, UT
11. Snowbird, UT
12. Jackson Hole, WY (coming in March 2008)

Seriously…12 places in 3 years, and that’s not including our smaller local mountains. I love the west coast!

So just have to give another great shout out to the UMD Terps! Fear the Turtle, Baby! Yeah they are now 3^rd in the ACC with a win against BC on the road. Only UNC and Duke are ahead of them in the standings. Saturday is the NC State game and then a rematch against Duke on Wednesday. Oh how sweet it would be to beat the Dukies on their court!

Another weekend has come and gone

..but that means we are a few days closer to skiing in Utah! :)

This weekend, I realllllyyyyy wanted to go skiing. Especially after all the wonderful snowfall last weekend. Two weeks without skiing is seriously to much! So we planned for a ski a day at Mammoth but we noticed that they were expecting heavy snow (multiple feet). So we didn't want to drive all the way to ski in a snow storm. Instead we made an executive decision to ski locally. We have a pretty decent place an hour from our house and they just got 6 feet of snow! So we get up early on Sunday, drove up there, in the snow and wind, bought our lift tickets... to find out that only one lift of the west side is open due to high winds. So we were told we had an hour to decide if we wanted to stay. It took us like 45 minutes to ride the lift once and ski down. So we made another decision to turn in our tickets and go home. So now we just have to find time to go back during this ski season. What a bummer. Turns out the ski resort closed this afternoon because the weather was so bad. Oh well! We'll be skiing all next weekend.

Anyway...Go Terps! The whole reason we didn't ski on Saturday was because I just couldn't miss the Terps games, which was on at 9am. So on Saturday morning we got up, turned the game on, had some coffee, then breakfast during halftime along with Mimosas. It was a pretty good morning. And of course the Terps won! Sweet! Later on Saturday Dave and I went for a run. Yes, I said Dave and I. Dave has decided that he would really like the run the Santa anita 5k in a much better time. But I told him the only way that will happen is if he trains. So we are working on it. I take him out and we run a mile or so then walk, repeat. He's doing pretty good and proud of I'm him for putting the effort it. I know how hard running can be. After he was done with his run, I went for a 6 mile run and it felt really good.

Things I Love

Five things I heart...
1. WINTER!!! - Yes its my favorite season - it means snow and skiing
2. Our wonderful Subaru - this car handles so well in the snow.
3. Zinfandel wine with dark chocolate - the best duo ever!
4. Being so close to the wonderful Sierra - some of the best hiking and skiing of my life
5. Spending so much fun time with my husband. I love our life! :)