Wow, life has absolutely improved for me since the last post. My wife has gotten more beautiful, weather has gotten more bearable (I like it nice and hot), business has picked up significantly....just grand. No complaints.

I had my first back-to-back weekend for TradeWind Productions in late May. I had a day+night of shooting for a wedding on Saturday May 21st and an early afternoon shooting a baton twirling recital on Sunday the 22nd. I wasn't sure what to really do about it at first...hire out the help and stay behind the scenes? Commit to both and hope for the best? I chose the latter. Ended up buying some new equipment shortly beforehand....since you're likely not interested in everything I bought, I won't bore you with the details here. Now, buying new equipment right before mission critical work is usually a bad idea (especially if the shoot depends upon the success/failure of the new equipment...which it kind of did).

So how did it work out? Great...the wedding was outdoors and the weather was nice. As an added bonus, the wedding was held just a few miles from my house. It was a friend that I hired a few years ago at my day job, and he is also good friends with my buddy Andy. Andy would have shot the wedding himself except that he was attending as a guest and his wife Abby would have shot him if she had to fly solo. No matter, as I paid him a good commission for the job (that's right, sell my work and you get paid to do nothing, cool huh?).

The baton event went off very well. It was a quick turnaround job so I'm done with it and it's all shipped off now. Made quite a few sales at the event, plus about an equal number of pre-sales. Everyone was very nice and the person who owns the baton studio was great to work with (she was also endlessly grateful to me, as I didn't charge for the shoot, only for the sales). Should be some good word-of-mouth advertising off this event.

More business in the pipeline for TradeWind this year, plus finishing off a few projects in the can...I'll be busy. Working in the new office downstairs now. Just finished up the work on the french doors and got a good deal on some additional office furniture...it's definitely a much nicer working environment.

The 3rd anniversary is coming up for Hilary and I, and we celebrated this past weekend (the actual anniversary is this Wednesday the 21st). Between work and all, this weekend was just the best time to do the celebrating. We had a good time together, though it hardly seems like 3 years of marriage. And as I said earlier, Hilary has only gotten more beautiful with time (I'm hardly playing to the wife here, as she usually has better things to do than read my blog...although, just in case she is reading this: HILARY YOU'RE SO HOT!). Honestly, I couldn't have found a better wife than Hilary, even if I lived 300 years. Awesome.

Next weekend we leave for a week at the beach with my ever-expanding family. 20 folks packing into 4 condos at St. Simon's Island for our annual family vacation. We didn't get to go last year because of various things, so we're all the more ready to hit the beach this summer. Always a lot of fun!

This week at work is the culmination of 6 months of development and planning for a bunch of new stuff. I'd be more specific but I can't...it's just a long, long road, and it only got harder after one of my coworkers left and I had to take on more work (although promotions are not all that bad of a thing). Still, everything starts being built out this week and we'll see where the holes are in the logic and planning very quickly. Notice "where" the holes are, not "if there are any holes." I'm quite confident of my work, but I'm not stupid enough to think it's perfect.

I have no idea how anybody ever finds time to have kids...that has got to be the biggest longshot right now. So, people in the family who are pooling money on who has kids next, this is your insider tip: IT'S NOT US.

I've been wrong before.