Prior to 2010 I had never been in our nation’s capitol before. It wasn’t for a lack of desire to go see DC, but rather I never had a solid opportunity to go. That all changed when my girlfriend Amanda moved to Washington DC in January for a 2 year work rotation. Now I have been to DC twice and it’s fast becoming one of my favorite cities.
There are so many things to see and do that every step on the town feels like walking through history. In another blog post I’ll try to elaborate more on my experience and share more pictures, but for this particular post I am concentrating on some photographs I took during my most recent trip over the 4th of July.
On the night of the Fourth Amanda and I decided to sneak onto the roof at her work to watch the fireworks. Her building is about 12 stories high and has an ideal view of the fireworks that are set off over the national mall a few blocks away. It is a highly coveted spot and each year her workplace auctions off tickets to watch from the rooftop. We lost the auction, but decided that we were going to attend anyway. The worst thing that could happen was getting asked to leave. Fortunately, nobody was there to check tickets, so we walked right up and took our seats.
A few minutes later the fireworks started. I decided that I wanted to take as many photos as possible and “learn” how to shoot fireworks with my camera. I have a solid camera with many settings, one of which is a fireworks mode. I started snapping photos in this mode and noticed that the fireworks didn’t look very good. So I changed the exposure time and voila! Excellent pictures.
I think they turned out well… hope you do too!
Jeff Sauer’s Smugmug Feed
Travel Photos
Traveling Fireworks, Fourth of July, Independence Day, Washington DC
This post was written on my 29th birthday. May 18, 2010.
I have long considered 2004 the worst year of my life. Sure, a lot of good things happened this year (I bought my first house and my brother got married), but I was miserable.
Maybe it was the fact that I was severely overweight (I weighed 295+ pounds). Maybe it was the fact that I was very bitter over a failed relationship. Maybe it was the $10,000+ I had amassed in credit card debt. Maybe it was the fact that one of my best friends, a star athlete who seemed to be in perfect health, was diagnosed with cancer at age 23. Whatever it was, life in 2004 seemed to be a series of bad outcomes with little end in sight.
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Stories motivation
The Minnesota Twins, my favorite sports team, opened their new stadium this year. I am fortunate enough to have season tickets to this beautiful venue.
These photos consist of three events:
- Target Field Open House in March
- First Twins Exhibition game vs. the Cardinals on April 2nd
- Second Twins Exhibition game on April 3rd
The stadium itself is beyond what I ever expected – it’s simply beautiful and is perfectly designed and executed on all fronts. There isn’t a bad view in the entire stadium. There are sections that are protected from the weather/elements and others that are completely exposed. Some of the seats are heated!
Target Field is a great place to watch baseball. Enjoy the view!
Twins Target Field Photos
Sports Photos
Photos Minneapolis, Minneapolis Skyline, Target Field, Twins
I waited in line for 2 hours to buy the first iPhone the day it came out. I bought the second iPhone (the iPhone 3G) within 1-2 months of when it came out (AT&T subsidized it)… and I recently bought the iPhone 3GS when I was in San Francisco.
As the story goes, I was leaving Silicon Valley to go to SF when my phone battery died. Rather than buying a charger, I bought a phone at the Flagship Apple store in Union Square. Although it sounds like a major exercise in excess, I must add that I had intended to buy the phone when I got back to MN, and the poor battery performances simply forced me to play my cards sooner.
The phone purchase experience from Apple was exemplary, and I really had no problems. In fact, I’m enamored with Apple for producing such an amazing piece of hardware. Really, I have no beef at all with the phone; just the service provider. Read more…
Stories Apple, AT&T, iPhone, iPhone 3GS
Mid January I found myself in New York City for the first time. A lot happened during a short period, and I would like to share with you the story of how I got there. Welcome to a weekend in New York.
To start, I should first give you some background as to why I was in NY in the first place. One of my clients is a household name in the baby products area (if you have a cute baby, you say they look like my clients logo). Their offices are in New Jersey, about 30 minutes via train away from NYC. To get to NJ, I fly into the Newark airport, which is literally across the river from the city. Close enough that you can see statue of liberty out the plane window as you land.
The first time I visited this client, I vowed to make a serious effort to stay the weekend in NYC while I was there. My reasoning was simple; there are a million things to do in NYC, I had never been there, and I have friends who presently live there. When booking flights for the next trip, I told my boss to book my return flight for Sunday, because I was staying the weekend in the big city. This actually happened to work out perfectly, because we had been in talks with a similar company to ours about licensing a piece of software. Their offices are in Brooklyn, so we would be able to meet with them during our client trip.
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Traveling Ground Zero, Hudson River, New York, Sully
1. I think I could be a stand up comedian, but my jokes would be filthy. Sort of like Bob Saget in the Aristocrats. You wouldn’t see it coming (unless you’ve been to bachelor parties with me). Speaking of Bachelor Parties, I once had a flex off at 4 AM with my buddy Kev. Neither of us were worthy of a victory, so it will go down in history as a tie.
Most Underrated Movie Ever?
2. It is quite possible that I am the biggest fan of the movie Cable Guy in the world. I genuinely think that it’s a hilarious movie. Plus the fact that it bombed in the box office and a lot of people didn’t like it just adds fuel to the fire. America just wasn’t ready for Cable Guy!
3. I have gone to several countries without a plan. Each time I was able to get around via public transportation and order food by pointing at menus. Now that I think about it, I guess I did have a plan for where I’m staying, so saying I have no plan was a lie.
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Random Cable Guy, Corvette, Ditka, Heroes 2, Kristi, Nieces, Random
Funny Video Search
I have done a horrible job of promoting my own projects recently, so most of you have no idea that I have been posting videos on Funny Video Search since September of this year. It really has been an easy gig finding videos (tons of friends and web sites post great videos), and I’m able to update 1-2 times per week… which is far more frequently than the once every 3-4 months that I have recently been posting on this blog.
One of my 2009 goals is to publish more content on Jeff Sauer dot Com, as well as get Funny Video Search to reach thousands of visitors per day (right now I get less than 20… almost all through search engines). Hopefully if I have my friends help spread the word, this can be a reality.
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Websites Funny Videos, Portfolio, Tracy Morgan
During the (rare) occasions that I see my readers in person, a common sentiment I hear is “you talk about Chipotle way too much!” Well, I guess I am sorry, but I write about the things I love.
Fortunately, I don’t have bad break-ups more than once a year, so I need some material to plug on this blog in order to keep it afloat (and yes, I realize that it is barely afloat, but fuck off if you’re going to give me a guilt trip). Unfortunately, my fat ass eats Chipotle like 14 times a week, so it is usually what I am doing when it comes time for blog posting.
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Stories arizona basketball, arizona wildcats, lute olson
My Grandparents have been married for 60 Years, and this past Sunday my Grandpa was asked to MC/Speak at the party. The speech went over very well. Everyone laughed when I had hoped they would (and sometimes when I didn’t expect it) and I got a little emotional at the end… and from what I hear, there weren’t many dry eyes in the audience. Thought I’d post it on here in case anyone wanted to read about my awesome grandparents.
Hello, my name is Jeff Sauer, Grandson of Norb and Lenore, and welcome to our celebration of 60 years of marriage between Lenore and Norby, or as we affectionately call them; Lenorby.
I will be your master of ceremonies for this event, and I hope that you’ll soon find that you are in good hands. Grandpa chose me to host this event because he says I remind him of a young Bob Hope.
I have no idea what that means, but I am taking it as a compliment.
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Stories anniversary, golf, grandparents, insurance sales, speeches
