[Music] Rocketeer Cover

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XMPoxQmsWk] Here's a song I recorded with a couple of my friends. Elliot came to me asking to record some songs with Kristen; this is one of them. Elliot wrote the third verse and chorus. The signal chain for the audio was SM58 > Behinger Mic100 Preamp > Mixer > Behringer UCA222 > Computer. Video was shot with a Nikon D7000 and a 35mm f1.8.

[Food] Macaroni and Cheese (A Recipe)

Hello readers, today, I bring to you a recipe. I made a killer macaroni and cheese today with a good friend, so I just had to share my recipe with all of you.

INGREDIENTS

Alright, let's start off with the ingredients. Just a disclaimer, I don't measure most of my ingredients. I prefer to eye everything, so my proportions probably won't be the same as yours. This recipe is for 2 pounds of pasta, which will feed a rather large amount of people. The less the pasta to sauce ratio is, the creamier the end product is going to be. Adjust amounts as needed.

-2 pounds of Shell Pasta (or Elbow Macaroni or just about any pasta your heart desires) -6-8 cups of grated cheese (I used Extra Extra Sharp Cheddar, Extra Sharp Cheddar, Gouda, Gruyere, and a little bit of left over Pepper Jack, feel free to use whatever cheese(s) you want) -1/2 cup Butter -1/2 cup Flour -6 cups of Milk -Bacon -Potato Chips -Pinch of Nutmeg -Salt and Pepper to Taste (I didn't use any salt as the bacon and potato chip topping are already salty)

You can add other seasonings if you'd like (Worcestershire sauce, mustard, spices, etc.)

PREP WORK

Cut up your bacon. I like my bacon to be about 3/4 inch wide by 1 inch tall, but again, whatever you like.

Cook your bacon.

Drain your bacon and set it aside. I like to reserve some bacon fat for later. If you are a health nut, get rid of it.

Grate your cheese. Please don't buy shredded cheese to save some work. It really is better when you grate it yourself. Set the cheese aside. I recommend covering it with plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge for later.

TOPPING

Now, for the all important topping, I've been using potato chips. This was inspired by Chef John of Foodwishes, the greatest internet chef to live.

Crush up your chips. You can crush them in the bag or put them in a Ziplock back if that floats your boat.

Here's where that reserved bacon fat comes into play. You can use butter instead. Put some bacon fat (or butter) into a pan, then add your crushed potato chips. Make sure you have enough fat to coat all your chips.

Cook them medium low until they get nice and brown. The difference should be noticeable, but they shouldn't be anywhere near burnt.

SAUCE (and Pasta)

Now that all of that is done, it is time for the sauce. Start off with a roux, which is just equal amount of flour and butter. This will act as our thickening agent. I didn't get a photo, but it's not much to miss out on. Melt your butter, add the flour, and let it cook until the mixture gets light brown; don't let it get too dark. This is where I add my nutmeg and white pepper. To this, we are going to add our COLD milk. Note, cold milk. Hot Roux + Cold Milk = No Lumps. Thank you to Chef John again.

Bring this up to heat as we are going to turn off our heat when we add the cheese.

Let it get to the point just before it boils. Once it gets there, turn off the heat and add about 2/3 of the cheese. Stir until the cheese completely melts. Save the rest of the cheese for the topping.

While you are making the sauce, get the pasta going. Cook the pasta a minute or two less than what the directions say on the packaging, as the pasta will continue to cook later in the oven. Drain and set aside.

FINISH IT

Put the pasta in a baking dish and mix in the sauce and about 2/3 of the bacon. As you can see here, we got some spillage of the sauce, but that's okay.

Once that is all mixed together, we are going to top it off with the remaining cheese and bacon that we saved and the potato chips. Feel free to layer the topping as you want. We pretty much put a lasagna of toppings on top of our macaroni.

Bake the whole tray of glory. Honestly, I'm bad with oven temperatures, so I always guess, much like my eyeing of ingredients. I baked mine at 375 for about 15 minutes. Just put it in the oven and let it cook until the top gets brown and the cheese melts, but make sure you keep an eye on it.

Enjoy. Thanks for reading and post your thoughts or comments.

New Layout

Hey guys, I just overhauled the look and feel of my blog and I think it's a lot better. This layout allows me to have much larger thumbnails for photos. My sister and I came up with my new header, which describes my blog in pictograms. Check out her blog here! The only gripe I have about this new layout is the size of the text, it's a bit large, but it's not too bad. I hope you guys like this change as much as I do. Thanks again for reading and feel free to leave any feedback on the change of layout or my blog in general.

[Food] George's Breakfast Burritos

Earlier this week, I celebrated the end of finals with some good ole comfort food for breakfast. George's makes the fattest breakfast burritos around this area and their chili cheese fries are pretty top notch around here as well.

You have to douse these things in their homemade ranch crack sauce. They call it ranch, but it's not thick enough to be ranch. I'm not a fan of regular ranch, but this stuff is straight up addicting. You can put it on almost anything and it will bring happiness back into your life. My sister isn't a fan of breakfast burritos or ranch, but she loved it. The reason why this baby (it weighs more than your average newborn) so big is the massive amounts of hashbrowns they throw in here. Some people hate that, but I love it. Besides the potatoes, you get eggs, salsa, bacon, and cheese all wrapped up in a large flour tortilla that is just slightly crisp.

Now these are some glorious chili cheese fries. There are many, many little burger joints in my area that make some good chili cheese fries, but I must say, these are a notch above the rest. I can't really put my finger on what it is, but the fries, chili, cheese, and onions work together so well.

My sister and I shared this and we couldn't finish it; I'm not a weak eater either. Not to mention, I was full all day. Best of all, it only cost around $8. Talk about a deal.

George's Hamburgers is located on 815 W Commonwealth Ave. Fullerton, CA 92832. Check it out for yourself and feel free to leave your thoughts here.

[Music] "Beamer, Benz, or Bentley" Drum Cover

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zh3OYJFGew] Hey guys, here's my first musical post. This is a little drum cover of "Beamer, Benz, or Bentley" by Lloyd Banks and Juelz Santana. Now, I don't normally enjoy popular songs on the radio because honestly, nearly all of them suck, but wow, this song was so catchy and I knew that it would be fun to play along with. So I made some time while studying for finals and did the cover.

TECHNICAL INFO: The video was shot on a Nikon D7000 with a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens at 1/30 second, f/2.8, and ISO 3200. Yep, that video was shot at ISO 3200, pretty clean, eh? The video and audio were synced together in iMovie.

The audio signal was something like this: Shure SM58 over snare, EV N/D 757A over the floor tom and ride pointed towards the snare as well to cut down on phasing issues. The mics ran into a Mackie mixer (with slight EQ and a tad bit of reverb), which ran into a Behringer UCA 222 interface, into my MacBook Pro, and into Audacity. I'm personally not a big fan of Garage Band only because I'm not that used to it quite yet. I plan on messing around with it in the future.

"After the jump"

Just a heads up for everyone that's been visiting my blog as of late. I've been noticing that the majority of you have been visiting my homepage and not clicking the "Read the rest of this entry »." Now, I'm pretty sure most of you have been visiting to see the photos from concerts I've shot. I only put one picture on the homepage to keep any slowdown of your computers to an absolute minimum (see how considerate I am? ^_^). You have to click through to see the rest of the photos. Okay, that was just a friendly reminder/lesson so that all of you could enjoy the photos to their fullest potential. Thanks again for reading.

[Photo] Wiguna Project Album Release Concert Preview

Here's a little preview of the most recent show I shot for my friends over at the Wiguna Project. They just released their debut album, Give Us the Weekend. I'll have the full album up soon, I just need to figure out how to process the RAW files from my D7000, which I used as a second camera during the show. That might take a couple days.

Ben Clement opening up

Frontman Jeff

Little brother Justin playing a song for his girl

Anthony Chatman, frontman from their old band

Contest Entry and Updates

Hey guys, I just entered a Think Tank contest and I need your help. Please vote for my photo here. I will put up more details about the shot at a later time. I'm also in the process of going through and making minor changes on the photos from the Wiguna Project album release concert, so expect those in the next couple days.

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic day.

[Photo] All Day with the Nehemiah Band

I had a glorious opportunity this past Saturday to spend all day with my favorite local band, The Nehemiah Band. For one low price, you got a concert, seminars, a Clippers game, AND hang out time with the band. Now, I have never met a band that works so hard to build relationships with their fan base. It's pretty cool when the band knows you by first name. Sweet. The Nehemiah Band is probably one of the most creative groups out there. For one, their music. Wow. I don't know how to categorize it, but simply put, its pure, passionate sonic bliss. And then, what other band out there throws an event like this one? Spending ALL DAY with the band?

[EDIT] Seems like I forgot to add that the sans facial hair Alex Hwang emceed the event and Stephen from Feats in Inches ran sound. They are both wonderful musicians as well. Make sure you check out Alex Hwang and Feats in Inches!

Back to the actual event now. My good buddy, Ben Bae, opened up with his friend accompanying him on vocals and keys. Ben was great as always.

The Nehemiah Band played their set next. It was filled with energy and awesomeness.

They included plenty of crowd interaction and free merch as well.

After the concert portion of the event, we were able to attend 2 seminars of our choice. Each member of the band taught in their fields of specialty. Mike Whang did one on Acoustic Guitar and another on Songwriting, Gilbert did one on Bass and the History of Music in the Church, DJ Descry, the married man, did one on Dating, Kevin Kim did one on Electric Guitar, and John Chong did one on the Music Industry. I attended the latter two, but I wanted to go to all of them.

We grabbed dinner, then it was off to the Clippers game. I'm not the biggest sports fan in general, but wow, that was one heck of a game to go to. Even though the beloved Clippers lost to the Knicks, we witnessed Blake Griffin in all of his blazing greatness. 44 points and some monster dunks. Holy shmoly that was a fun game to watch. I don't have any photos from the game because I realized I was shooting JPEGs the whole day and switched to RAW. My software doesn't support the D7000's RAW files quite yet, so those photos are just sitting on my disk waiting to be converted. Good thing I accidentally shot JPEG!

Raffles were held throughout the day and I won a ticket to tonight's Clippers game against the Hornets as well as play time on the Staples Center floor, but I couldn't make it, so I gave the ticket to one of my friends. Hopefully he'll use it well.

Well that was All Day with the Nehemiah Band in a nutshell.

For all you photo geeks out there like me, I shot most of the show between ISO 800 and 1600. I started out at 800 on Ben's performance and slowly crept up to 1600 during TNB's set. I was shooting on a Nikon D7000 with a 35mm f1.8 at around f2.8 for most of the show.