I spent the past weekend in Sedona. Saturday I took a hike onBrins Mesa Trail. That evening I dusted off my old tripod to take some night shots. I didn’t realize it until I got out, but there was a full moon. It made for some interesting photos.

Several months ago, my good friends Stuart and Katie had their first child, Caleb. Like any new family, it’s a big adjustment. Caleb makes the 3rd baby that friends and family have had while I’ve been in Phoenix. Being around all those babies has given me a glimpse of what it takes to be a dad. It’s both scary and exciting.

My desk has been a mess for quite a while. I’m a piler, I pile all my documents until the stack is almost unmanageable, then I file and clean. I got to that point last night, probably inspired by Arielle who cleaned her desk last week. It started with the desk then moved to the storage on my desk, under my desk, then to the closet. I ended up throwing away a full bag of trash, another full bag of recycling, making 3 trips to move things into storage in the garage and dusted almost everything. We now have double the free space in the office closet and on the shelves between our desks. I still have a few small stacks of papers to file, but it’s clean.

Arielle and I met up with our good friends, Laura and Vinny, in Las Vegas for a weekend getaway. It was a nice vacation after the amazing busy spring we’ve had. It was also the first real vacation we’ve had in over a year. It’s easy to get caught up in daily life and not stop to take a weekend for yourself. It was relaxing to not bring the laptop and unplug for the weekend to have a little fun with friends.

My flight back to Phoenix was at 6:15am. Which meant I had to get up at 4:30am to make my flight. (50 minutes from Ray’s house to the terminal, including dropping off a rental car) I had enough time to grab a Cinnabon and relax for a couple minutes before they started boarding. I couldn’t have timed it better.

I got back to Phoenix in time to vote in the special election.

While In Raleigh I caught a ride down to Charlotte to attend, my good friend, Jak’s wedding. I’ve known Jak since before I started high school. My mom and his mom were very good friends. During high school we ran in different circles and started hanging out more when I we went to college. After college we roomed together for several years. Eventually Jak moved back home to help his family. Shortly afterwards, I moved out to New Mexico. We kept in touch and visited when I would back to North Carolina.

When I found out Jak was getting married, I made sure that I’d have that weekend free. Jak has always been a very nontraditional guy. His wedding was very much the same. It was great catching up with some people I haven’t seen in years. Congratulations Jak and Wendy, you are a great couple.

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My favorite North Carolina photographer and business partner Ray came to town to assist me with Jeremy + Nipa’s Wedding. While he was in town, we went up to South Mountain to go some location scouting. Ray was kind enough to stand in so I could take some test shots.
Just to let you know there’s a pretty steep drop off on the back side of that wall Ray’s on.

Arielle and I headed over to Aunt Toni’s house for Easter dinner. A lot of fun was head. Several bottles of bubbles were blown, poker was played, bottles of wine were consumed and a good time was had all around. It was a nice day of relaxation before the craziness of April hit.

We met our cousin Bella shortly after we moved to Phoenix 3 years ago. It’s really neat watching her grow from a baby into a little girl.

Shortly after I got back in town from Vancouver, our good friends Laura and Vinny came for a long weekend. The last time we saw them was back in October. It was a very fun weekend and a nice break before wedding season kicked in full steam.

Alyssa is a great kid. It was a very enjoyable day hanging out with the family at Tempe Town Lake. Arielle took this one since my hands were full giving a piggyback ride.

When I was in college, I never thought about data management, I just wanted to make pictures. Over the years, I’ve switched from an unorganized stack of DVD backups to using a very organized RAID and online backup system. This has been a life saver when trying to find old photos. Over the past 2 years, I’ve started keywording all my photos. This will help in the future and my archive grows. My current archive for the past 3 years comes in at just under 200,000 photos. This year, I’m expecting to add a between 75-100K photos.

When I returned from Vancouver, I jumped into the start of wedding season. I did a quick check of my gear and realized there was no way I would make it through my first wedding before my hard drives filled up. So, I needed more hard drive space. My 1TB Raid had filled up. I checked out B&H and ordered the 4TB version of my current external drive. This should get me through the fall before I’ll need more space.

Click for more unboxing photos.