Kirsten and Josh

I did an engagement shoot this morning with Kirsten and Josh who are friends with Kristin and Ben (I photographed their wedding earlier this year). We started out with some skyline shots, but then things got cold, so we went inside to the Lincoln Park conservatory which was a welcome burst of hot air. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the shoot today. As a side note, they have a really nice train exhibit setup in a couple of the rooms which was fun to watch. If you have any youngsters, it would be a nice visit during this time of the year

Steve

2007 Year in Review

I love the Jib Jab year in reviews they put together. If you haven't seen it already, click here to check it out. It is really, really funny!

JIB JAB YEAR IN REVIEW

I'm waiting for a package at ups tonight. They've put everyone in a special room in the back to wait

I'm waiting for a package at ups tonight. They've put everyone in a special room in the back to wait, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

We won something! Or maybe not....

A while back Carolyn entered me in a contest for the best proposal story. If you haven' heard about the proposal, click here to see the post. So a couple weeks back we got an email from brides.com letting us know that our story had been selected. We're not sure if we won anything, but our story is now on their website. Here's a link to their site.

Isabel came over today

We had some fun visitors today. Nick and Nikki brought Isabel over. Here are some pictures... We're off to do some last minute shopping and then we're having dinner this evening at our house.

Macy's

As you guys know, I moved into a new house about 6 months ago and I’ve been working with Macy’s to order furniture for several of our rooms. I’ll start by saying that I’ve always liked shopping at the State Street store. I didn’t think that much would change when it was bought out by Macy’s. Boy was I wrong! Carolyn and I having being trying to resolve a problem with Macy’s for the past month and the process has not been enjoyable. I’ll spare you the lengthy details, but it basically comes to us asking to exchange some furniture within the designated 3 day window, and them saying we didn’t request it. We were even o.k. with paying the 25% restocking fee since the reason for the return was more about taste, not about Macy’s delivering the wrong piece. We’ve made numerous calls to customer service and talked to several managers and they still will not honor the request to exchange the furniture. I’ve never really been the type of person to say that “I’m never going back to the store”, but I’ve reached my limit with Macy’s. Until they resolve things, I’m not going to be shopping at Macy’s. Has anyone had a similar experience with Macy’s? Does anyone have stories of a positive experience with Macy’s? Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Big snow last night. About 9"

Big snow last night. About 9", originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

2008 Calendar

I've been working on a calendar for 2008 and the cover is going to be a collage of pictures I took from the year before. Here's what the cover looks like right now.

This weekend is filled with holiday parties. Last night we had about 25 people over to our house for Carolyn's work party, which was a progressive dinner party that went from 3-12. It was a fun time and everyone enjoyed playing dance dance revolution on the Wii.

The best gloves on the planet

I finally found the best pair of gloves on earth. Behold the Uggs winter gloves, in brown of course since that's my favorite color these days. I had to buy a new pair because my other gloves finally kicked the bucket (although the hole on the index finger made it perfect to use my iphone). These gloves are pretty expensive, but I think they're worth it since I'll be using them almost every day. Hopefully these will last for a while.

Party time

Party time, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

photo.jpg

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Ice Ice Baby...

Wow! I'm finally back to an old fashion blog post. As you can tell, I've recently become addicted to taking pictures with my iphone and having it auto publish. If you want to set this up, you need a Flickr account. Once that's setup, they give you an email address which you can link to a blog account. After that, all you do is email your photos to Flickr and they're automatically published. And it only takes about 30 seconds to do the whole thing.

So if you're in Chicago, you know about the snow/ice/rain we got over the last 24 hours. It was fun to see all the ice form on trees last night. Here are two shots I took from my office window last night.

Just finished putting up the tree

Just finished putting up the tree, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

It's the first snow of the season!

It's the first snow of the season!, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

View of the night

View of the night, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

View of the day

View of the day, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

It was a cold day today!

It was a cold day today!, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Blue sky

Blue sky, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Sunny skies over Florida

Sunny skies over Florida, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Hanging out at the airport

Hanging out at the airport, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Alligator

Aligator, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Cruise

Cruise, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Yummy

Yummy, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Some south beach sights

Some south beach sights, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Miami

my vacation is almost over. We're spending the night in Miami and then driving back to Naples. We went on a cruise today to look at some celebrity homes. And right as we pull up to one of the homes, SHAQ is there hanging out on the dock. He only was there about 20 seconds so I didn't get a good look at him, but still pretty cool. We're going to little Havana for some Cuban food tonight so that should be fun.

Another Delicious Bass

Another Delicious Bass, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Beach

Beach, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

Hanging out on 5th avenue in Naples. Gotta love the palm trees.

Test

Test, originally uploaded by Steve Goldhaber.

iPhone

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Hello from Naples

This week I'm down in Naples Florida to visit my parents. David, Catherine and Josh also made the annual trip. Here are some pictures from today's events. As some of you know, it's been a Thanksgiving tradition to make apple struddle a couple days before Thanksgiving. The recipe is from my mom's grandmother, also known as Ma Tschinkel who was from Austria, and was passed down from over 100 years ago. Making the struddle is a large project and requires several people. We always use the large round table in the family room to roll out the dough. After that, we add apples, bread crumbs, raisins... and then we roll everything up and bake it in the oven for about an hour. This was Josh's first time helping out and he seemed really excited to put on his chefs hat and apron.

Carolyn and I are going to the everglades tomorrow for an airboat ride and hopefully some alligator spotting. Oh.. I almost forgot.. I caught a large mouth bass today in the backyard. It's the first time I've actually caught something in the backyard.

Isabel Grace Hartman

It happened 2 weeks earlier then it was supposed to, so it was definitely a surprise when we got a call from Nick this morning. Carolyn and I went over to see Isabel and she is very cute. Here are some pictures of newest member of the Hartman family. It didn't come as a shock to the Hartman family that their newest addition is a girl... that's the 9th granddaughter/daughter on the Hartman side and the second on the FlorJanic's. Congratulations to Nikki and Nick and Happy Birthday Isabel!

I love Jelly Belly Jelly Beans!

||| CLICK ON THE ABOVE PICTURE TO START THE SLIDESHOW |||

Here's a little project I put together for an art fair. I shot this in under an hour and put together a quick slideshow.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Pretty much everyone loves Jelly Belly Jelly Beans. They love them because of their moutwatering flavor and overall juicyness. But at the same time, there are some flavors people can’t tolerate. Maybe it’s coffee. Maybe it’s licorice… either way, people at some point have tried a flavor that they love or hate. And if you’ve ever seen this happen, their reactions and facial expressions are priceless. This project documents the wonderful reactions (both good and bad) people have when they eat Jelly Belly Jelly Beans.

whoah... look at what just happened!

I was just looking at my blog traffic and noticed that I've crossed the 10,000 mark. Since this blog's inception, which is just over a year ago, I've had 10,500 visitors stop by. This really has been a fun thing to keep up over the year and I plan to continue to do it in the future. It's strange to think that I could be blogging indefinitely... and if that's the case, in 40 years, think of the history that would be recorded here. Think about how your son or daughter could go back in time before they were born and look at what you were up to. We don't think about this now since blogging is always in the present, but I'm sure in 5 or 10 years people will appreciate this. Thanks for everyone who has stopped by over the past year to check out the blog!

Steve