Kathleen McGivney

Blogmonkey strikes again

iMonkey, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

Those of you familiar with my other blog, Susan Bulloch's blog, or Paul Mooney's blog will probably recognize the blogmonkey. He was born in a small bucket in a Lotus Stuff Store at a Lotusphere conference a few years back, and ever since then has traveled the world, usually with Susan but sometimes with Paul or me when Susan has to stay home. He's been involved in many adventures, most of which involve him getting extremely drunk or stealing tech gadgets. This time, he tried to steal my husband's new iPhone while we were at dinner with Susan last night. Fortunately, we caught him in the act and were able to distract him with food and sake.

The blogmonkey is in Boston right now with Susan at a conference, and I'm sure he's getting into more trouble as we speak. Hopefully Susan will catch him in the act a few times, because if there aren't photos, it didn't happen.

The Vegas Experience

Holy crap, how did I end up in space?, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

My husband's birthday is the day before mine (his is August 11, mine is August 12). Last year, we went to Las Vegas and celebrated our birthdays with Team Leo (you know who you are!) and also got engaged; this year we decided to reprise our Vegas birthday adventure and headed there for a long weekend. Our plans included eating at Nobu (where Atom popped the question the previous year) and playing poker. Nothing too fancy, just a weekend in Vegas with our friends.

We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton for a couple of reasons - Hilton points, their poker room, and easy access to the monorail. We will not be staying there again, for a couple of reasons - the room was pretty crappy, they removed the poker room, and they are no longer going to have the Star Trek Experience, which included two fun motion-simulator rides and a space-themed casino. The lack of poker room and rides, combined with the poor quality of the hotel rooms, leaves the hotel with exactly zero draw for us.

We did have fun while we were there, and I shot a few photos with my trusty Nokia N82. The photo above is of the Enterprise that is hanging from the ceiling above Quark's restaurant and the entrance to the rides. There are a few more photos after the jump.

Peanut butter cookies

Peanut butter and butterscotch cookies, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

So, I love peanut butter. It's tasty, it's nutty, it's salty, it's a little sweet. It goes great on toast, because it gets all melty, and it's a fabulous ingredient in cookies. So, since I've been baking a lot, I decided I should incorporate one of my favorite ingredients!

I've found a few recipes lately at my new favorite foodie blog, Smitten Kitchen, and checked it out to see what kind of peanut butter cookies she might have on hand. I found a good one, and as soon as she mentioned that it was similar to the cookies at Billy's in Chelsea, I knew I had to make them, because I always pick up a cookie there for my husband after my hair appointments in the neighborhood.

I adapted the recipe slightly from this one. Instead of making bigger cookies that would flatten in the oven, we made ours smaller and deliberately tried to keep them small, round, and bite-sized. Also, we used butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips. We kept the peanut butter chips in for obvious, peanut-buttery reasons.

I'd usually post a recipe after the jump, but we made so few changes from Deb's at Smitten Kitchen that I don't think it's necessary. So check out her recipe to get all the details. And yes, I will make these when friends come to visit. I'll make a lot, because they go reeeeeally quickly!

A Tree Grows in Los Angeles

Roots, originally uploaded by kmcgivney.

I've been going through a lot of film negatives lately, some new, some old. I used to shoot tons and tons of black & white film, and I miss it. Looking at some of these negatives has inspired me to pick up one of my old Leica SLRs and run a few rolls of b&w through it. Since I have a better scanner now (his name is Atom and he procrastinates much less than I do) I should be able to post more film shots soon.

This image is one of my favorites from my film archives. (Calling them "archives" rather than "piles of old negatives" makes it sound fancy and organized.) I took it while walking around the grounds of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church near downtown Los Angeles. A friend of mine and I were out shooting just to see what caught our eye. As we were walking around the grounds, I saw this knotty old tree behind the church near the rectory, with its bulging roots displacing parts of the nearby sidewalk. I thought it was an interesting subject and I liked the way the light was hitting in only in certain places because it was streaming through the branches of another nearby tree, so I captured the image.

If I recall correctly, I was using fairly high-speed black & white film, not because I was working with low light but because I like the large grain in higher-speed films. Sometimes a grainy look can impart a certain aesthetic to a photograph that I find appealing. For example, another image that I shot during this outing is of a side of a building and some trees and landscaping next to it; the grain in the image makes it look as though it was taken 80 years ago rather than with a modern camera. It gives it an artistic, somewhat painterly quality that I really like in a photograph.

More scanned negatives coming soon, as soon as my scanner gets home from work!

Wedding photobook

Like my friend Ed, I'm an avid user of MyPublisher for photo books. My husband and I have made several, most notably one with our photos from our first trip to Italy last November that we gave out as gifts to friends and family. We're very happy with the quality of the books and the speed that they are printed; we had a rush order a few months ago and the books were printed and in our grubby little hands in 4 days (with overnight shipping, of course).

What I had overlooked until recently was the ability to share a completed book online. Ed highlighted that capability when he posted his comparison of online book printing services, so I figured I'd try it out for my wedding albums once it was completed. We had an absolutely AMAZING photographer and we love his work - believe me, it was difficult to narrow each book down to "only" 44 & 46 pages of photos each!

So, if you'd like to see a bunch of sappy photos of me blissfully gazing at my fella (along with some photos of friends and family and reeeeeally cute ring bearers), check them out by clicking the book cover.

The first version above is the one for family. The one below is a second version for friends that has more of them in it. If we'd tried to put every photo we loved into one version of the book, it'd easily be 60+ pages long!

They're both great and we really love both of them. We can't wait to see the finished product. We should soon, since the first book is already printed and on its way to us!