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becker is a self proclaimed computer and camera geek from mission viejo, ca. his electric personality and photographic talent have helped him become one of the most sought after wedding photographers in the nation. feel free to leave a comment or send him an email any time. thebecker@mac.com
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Published On: Feb 05, 2007 06:57 AM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Feb 05, 2007 06:57 AM
The Longest Day of My Life (and a long post)
After going to bed at 2:45 Monday night
(technically Tuesday morning) my alarm went off at 4:00AM and sprung out of bed.
I know myself and I know if I just lay there, I'll fall right back asleep and
miss my flight. After a quick shower, I left at 4:20 to pick up Jessica in
nearby Ladera Ranch. We arrived at LAX at 5:35 for our 7:00AM flight. Plenty of
time right? Well, we noticed the line at the ATA counter was unusually long for
that time and it was moving quite slow. The murmurs spread rapidly through the
line one we found out our flight to Maui was cancelled and would be rescheduled
for 4:45PM about 11 hours
later.
The thought of driving in morning traffic back to South OC, only to head back to LAX in wicked traffic a few hours later didn't make sense so we were relieved when the airline offered to put us up in a local hotel for the time we had to wait. We also got vouchers for a free ticket for anywhere ATA flies, so it wasn't too bad. But then we step off the shuttle and got to the "hotel". The woman working the counter seemed to be put off and very annoyed that our entire flight was checking in for a few hours and wasn't very nice, but oh well, no big deal. As we walked down the hallway toward the elevator, the scent of death started to fill our nostrils. With each step, it was as if we were getting closer and closer to the corpse. It was hard to describe, but just be thankful that these photos do not record smell:
The room looked as if it is usually rented by the hour and I used my flip flop to remove the bedspread. The thought of lying down in the bed was disgusting, but after only getting an hour or so of sleep the night before, I just had to crash. We did get a good 4 or 5 hour nap, waking up around noon and we were quite hungry. The neighborhood didn't have a lot of options, but there was a Sizzler across the street and I told Jess that I hadn't been to a Sizzler in about 15 years. My friends and I were so poor in high school, that we'd all go to Sizzler, chip in and have 3 people buy the all you can eat salad bar, and then 6 of us would sit down and eat for hours until we were asked to leave.
So I convinced Jess that Sizzler was a good idea and we went. Big mistake. It was so gross. I can't believe I used to love that food, I mean I loved it. We barely touched our food. I got the "steak" and only had about 4 of my all you can eat shrimp. The salad was nasty... brown, room temperature lettuce... no beuno! I felt sick immediately. And just for the record, lunch was $31 for both of us (remember that for later in the story).
The sign should read: "How to get Dysentery"
So after lunch, we walked back across the street to the stinky hotel and just hung out for another hour or so, then took the shuttle back to the airport. Thankfully we already got our boarding passes and just went straight to the super long security line. I travel a lot and I am used to getting a full body cavity search with my camera gear, but amazingly they just waived me through this time. Whew!
Thankfully, we got to sit in the front of the plane, which is extra nice on long flights. We watched a few episodes of Surface on my iPod and also slept for a while. Instead of landing in Maui at 9:30AM, we got there at 8:00PM basically robbing us of an entire vacation day, thanks a lot ATA! (by the way, our flight was cancelled because the copilot wasn't able to get enough sleep between shifts. sounds like poor scheduling by the airline -- oh well!)
After checking in at the Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei, we headed over to Ruth's Chris for a real steak. When traveling, we usually don't like to eat at places that we can eat at home, but it was late, we were hungry, and my GPS showed that Ruth's Chris was only 3 miles away. By the way, I love my Garmin 330 GPS because it's awesome, but also because it's portable. I just undid the big suction cup in my car, packed it in my camera bag, and plugged it into the rental car. I makes finding where you are going in unfamiliar locations a snap. It'll make sure I don't get lost on my way to the destination wedding tomorrow!
Anyway, back to the steak. So, we basically ordered the same thing we got for lunch: steak, salad, a shrimp appetizer and some broccoli au gratin! Mmmmmmmm! Dinner with tip was $150. I couldn't help but thinking of how our two dining experiences demonstrated perfectly that you get what you pay for in life. The $31 meal was gross and I felt that it was a rip off even at that cheap price. After our experience at Ruth's Chris, I had no problem spending 5 times as much because everything was awesome. The USDA Prime beef was prepared perfectly, the salad was fresh and crispy, the bread that comes out first was piping hot right out of the oven and the service was amazing. Our waiter Steve was on it! Truly a professional waiter and you could tell that he takes pride in helping create an amazing dining experience. His tip was more than we paid for lunch and I was happy to give it to him because the it was worth every penny.
I couldn't help thinking about how this story translates to wedding photography (among other things). YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR! Some photographers charge $1000 or less for complete coverage including albums. Some photographers, like myself, charge 10X as much (for much better pictures, much better final products and much better service). From what I've learned and witnessed in this business, a lot of brides are not satisfied with the cheaper photographers, and they are surprised that those photographers didn't do a great job. I posted a while back about a bad wedding photographers blog and caused quite a stir. All I am saying is don't hire a "Sizzler" photographer to document on of the most important days of your life. Treat yourself to a great piece of steak like myself! (Ok, that didn't come out right, but you get the idea right?)
Wow... sorry for the long tangent. I meant to just write about my long boring day. After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed at about midnight Hawaii time, 3AM PST (about 23 hours after I first woke up). Today, Wednesday was a lot better and I'll blog about that tomorrow before I shoot my destination wedding at the Fairmont Kea Lani.
The thought of driving in morning traffic back to South OC, only to head back to LAX in wicked traffic a few hours later didn't make sense so we were relieved when the airline offered to put us up in a local hotel for the time we had to wait. We also got vouchers for a free ticket for anywhere ATA flies, so it wasn't too bad. But then we step off the shuttle and got to the "hotel". The woman working the counter seemed to be put off and very annoyed that our entire flight was checking in for a few hours and wasn't very nice, but oh well, no big deal. As we walked down the hallway toward the elevator, the scent of death started to fill our nostrils. With each step, it was as if we were getting closer and closer to the corpse. It was hard to describe, but just be thankful that these photos do not record smell:
The room looked as if it is usually rented by the hour and I used my flip flop to remove the bedspread. The thought of lying down in the bed was disgusting, but after only getting an hour or so of sleep the night before, I just had to crash. We did get a good 4 or 5 hour nap, waking up around noon and we were quite hungry. The neighborhood didn't have a lot of options, but there was a Sizzler across the street and I told Jess that I hadn't been to a Sizzler in about 15 years. My friends and I were so poor in high school, that we'd all go to Sizzler, chip in and have 3 people buy the all you can eat salad bar, and then 6 of us would sit down and eat for hours until we were asked to leave.
So I convinced Jess that Sizzler was a good idea and we went. Big mistake. It was so gross. I can't believe I used to love that food, I mean I loved it. We barely touched our food. I got the "steak" and only had about 4 of my all you can eat shrimp. The salad was nasty... brown, room temperature lettuce... no beuno! I felt sick immediately. And just for the record, lunch was $31 for both of us (remember that for later in the story).
The sign should read: "How to get Dysentery"
So after lunch, we walked back across the street to the stinky hotel and just hung out for another hour or so, then took the shuttle back to the airport. Thankfully we already got our boarding passes and just went straight to the super long security line. I travel a lot and I am used to getting a full body cavity search with my camera gear, but amazingly they just waived me through this time. Whew!
Thankfully, we got to sit in the front of the plane, which is extra nice on long flights. We watched a few episodes of Surface on my iPod and also slept for a while. Instead of landing in Maui at 9:30AM, we got there at 8:00PM basically robbing us of an entire vacation day, thanks a lot ATA! (by the way, our flight was cancelled because the copilot wasn't able to get enough sleep between shifts. sounds like poor scheduling by the airline -- oh well!)
After checking in at the Maui Coast Hotel in Kihei, we headed over to Ruth's Chris for a real steak. When traveling, we usually don't like to eat at places that we can eat at home, but it was late, we were hungry, and my GPS showed that Ruth's Chris was only 3 miles away. By the way, I love my Garmin 330 GPS because it's awesome, but also because it's portable. I just undid the big suction cup in my car, packed it in my camera bag, and plugged it into the rental car. I makes finding where you are going in unfamiliar locations a snap. It'll make sure I don't get lost on my way to the destination wedding tomorrow!
Anyway, back to the steak. So, we basically ordered the same thing we got for lunch: steak, salad, a shrimp appetizer and some broccoli au gratin! Mmmmmmmm! Dinner with tip was $150. I couldn't help but thinking of how our two dining experiences demonstrated perfectly that you get what you pay for in life. The $31 meal was gross and I felt that it was a rip off even at that cheap price. After our experience at Ruth's Chris, I had no problem spending 5 times as much because everything was awesome. The USDA Prime beef was prepared perfectly, the salad was fresh and crispy, the bread that comes out first was piping hot right out of the oven and the service was amazing. Our waiter Steve was on it! Truly a professional waiter and you could tell that he takes pride in helping create an amazing dining experience. His tip was more than we paid for lunch and I was happy to give it to him because the it was worth every penny.
I couldn't help thinking about how this story translates to wedding photography (among other things). YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR! Some photographers charge $1000 or less for complete coverage including albums. Some photographers, like myself, charge 10X as much (for much better pictures, much better final products and much better service). From what I've learned and witnessed in this business, a lot of brides are not satisfied with the cheaper photographers, and they are surprised that those photographers didn't do a great job. I posted a while back about a bad wedding photographers blog and caused quite a stir. All I am saying is don't hire a "Sizzler" photographer to document on of the most important days of your life. Treat yourself to a great piece of steak like myself! (Ok, that didn't come out right, but you get the idea right?)
Wow... sorry for the long tangent. I meant to just write about my long boring day. After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed at about midnight Hawaii time, 3AM PST (about 23 hours after I first woke up). Today, Wednesday was a lot better and I'll blog about that tomorrow before I shoot my destination wedding at the Fairmont Kea Lani.
.
Posted: Wed - August 2, 2006 at 09:07 PM