The Start Of It All: Part 1

So as I said in my last post. I'll post some photos of my album on my personal facebook called "Slowly Dying of Boredom" until I get some newer boredom photos. I'm posting three today, and then tomorrow I'll post three more and be done.

The three pictures today are from my church. Let me just say that during a certain time in my life going to church was one of the few places I felt like people actually cared about me. I'm not much of a religious person and I don't want to start any religion/anit-religion fights on here so just shush up and leave your thoughts to yourself.

 Here is a pencil that, by definition, I stole from church. I needed a writing utensil in my purse and I didn't have any pencils or pens at home. I eventually returned it after I got a pack of pens.

 My name tag that I always forgot to put back after church. I did eventually remember to put it back before I moved to FL. So if I ever went back I could grab my name tag and new peoples (cause I know all the people that went to church when I did would recognize me) will know who I am.

Here is the fellowship hall (I think that's what it's called). The lady I drove to church with plays piano during the first service, but that day she had to play both so I stayed in the fellowship hall until it was over. I was not going to sit through the later, and what seems like longer, service  One is enough for me plus a lot of people at the later service don't know me and I'm not for being social around people I don't know that well.

I'm not sure what tomorrows will be. I think I'll do the things that I do when I'm bored.

I'm Back For Now

So I finally came out of my summer of rest after the long summer I had watching five boys. October was super busy for me, but now until December I'm free and the only weekend I could see really hindering my blogging is Thanksgiving. (I live in America and celebrate it if you didn't know.... I don't think I wrote that in my last post, maybe I should rewrite that and do a better job)

I have another post to write about my nephew. I did another little faux foto shoot with him and although it's not as cute as the impromptu one I did before the pictures still turned out very nice. I also still have the post about how my old boredom photography that I used to post on my facebook. I'm sure by the end of this month I will also have a fall/thanksgiving post to write. In terms of blogging this month will be a busy one and hopefully make up for the lack of in October and the lack of that will most likely happen in December.

Meet the Photograper

I don't think I've added a picture with me in it yet. Nor have I really given a real background of my photography side. So here it goes.

My name is Samantha and I'm nineteen (and a half, birthday is five months away so that's less than half way... duh). I live in Florida with my sister and (almost) four year old nephew. I moved down about a year and a half ago from Colorado.

 I started photography after one of my neighbors turned me onto it somehow and then the birth of my nephew turned me into the doumenterer (is that a word?? Yes but it's spelled this way documenter, just funner to say it the way I spelled it) of his life and the rest is history.

I have a Canon powershot sx230hs camera along with a DXG 580-V camcorder and some nikon point and shoot pocket camera, plus a canon powershot s95. Both of those however are my sisters', though I use them regularly. I'm in the market for a "new" one. I say "new" because by the time I save up the money it'll of already been a year or so old and could be out of date technology. Hopefully my mom will be getting me one for Christmas though, but she's not the best at getting "big" presents like that, especially when I live 2.5k miles away from her.

I don't go to school for photography so most the stuff I learn is from the internet or just on the go learning. My main subject is my three year old nephew, I also photograph my sister's dog, as well as some nature surroundings. That's pretty much it for now. I live a simple life and take photos....


So here we go... a picture of me.... you guys don't know how hard it is for me to post this, I normally stay behind the camera. But since I know like no one reads this blog I suppose I can make an exception.

 Yes that's me... I know probably not what you were expecting, but is it ever.

 Me and my nephew. Don't worry those two photos were taken the same day.

Ok so maybe I like to wear that shirt a bit too much... But anyway This is me on a pier in FL.

I Fail At Blogging

Yes I know don't say it. I know I fail at blogging and I don't know why I even try. Don't worry though I haven't been doing anything worth wild that would give me a good excuse for not blogging so that I could come back and do a long post about it. I even fail at the photo challenge I was doing. I got to day two and stopped. Plus the new facebook page I started is still without a million pictures and only has three "likes". It's because it's not summer. I watch multiple kids over summer vacation, so my personal summer is the school year. Like everyone else I don't feel like doing anything on my personal summer, and the weather doesn't help any either. Today it's all rainy and thundering and a perfect day to hang out on the couch watching movies and drinking hot coco. While I'd love to do that today, I have my nephew to watch (he's only three, he'll start pre-k next year though) and unlike me all he sees is a day that's going to be spent coped up inside so he has to make as much noise as possible and annoy the crap out of me.

Here is a picture of the sunset yesterday.

It's just something to get you non existent readers to keep you happy until I dust off my camera and get bored.... I think I'll crack open my ancient photo album on facebook that was really where my first boredom photography started. That's what I'll do tomorrow. So watch out for it.

Day Two: Outside

I'm totally cheating on this day. I didn't happen to get any pictures because my camera had to charge. I was looking at the list to see if I would have any intentional cheat days (old pics, pics from the internet etc.) and I found four. Day 8, day 16 (but in all fairness it is supposed to be), day 22 and day 25. Also any unforeseen circumstances could make me use cheat pictures.

But here is today's. Outside. I took this picture during Tropical Storm Debby. I wasn't in an area that got hit with damage, just lots and lots and lots of rain. Because I was cooped up inside for three days I thought the only thing worth doing would be to take a picture of the rain.

The New Camera!! YAY!!

So here it is. My new and very much loved Canon. After about three months research I finally found this camera. I had a price range of less than $300. I knew I could get lots of good point and shoots and even a couple good compact systems. I had some major requirements though. They were as listed.

• Long optical zoom, at least 10x
• At least 12mp
• Had to have a child/pet mode. With half my pictures being of my nephew I knew it'd help having a special mode just for kids.
• Had to have image stabilization. 
• Had to be a reasonable size. I wanted something I could take everywhere with me, and it wouldn't be weighing me down.

Short list of wants but when you slap a price tag of less than $300 you get an even shorter list of good quality products. I also based my choice largely on reviews of other people that used the camera everyday and seemed to have some knowledge of what they were doing. I knew I wanted either a Nikon or Canon. While on the home stretch of camera hunting I had narrowed my choices to this, my sisters (a canon power shot s95) and one other, another canon. The other Canon, can't remember the name of, I had been looking at met all my expectations, except that it was bulky. My sisters camera was a compact system with 5x optical zoom and 10mp. I knew that it wasn't what I wanted but I still liked it and with the time frame of me needing to find a camera closing in I was just about to load that one into my cart until....

... I met it. It was like the church choir sang while rays of sun rained down around me. It was perfect. Perfect price tag (about $250 about tax) 14x optical zoom, 12 mp, optical image stabilizer, child/pet mode, even had quite a few different scene modes. Including miniature, toy camera effect, color accent, fish eye, poster, snow, firework, underwater, foliage, low light, beach... ok so I did name just about all of them but come on they're some pretty cool scene modes.

Here's a generic picture of it, I thought this best represented how the product was and with no other good cameras in the house I'd be taking a pretty crappy picture of it.

Day One: Name

This is the first day of the thirty day photo challenge. It just says name, so I assume it could be any name. I decided to use mine. I wanted to get creative so I did it in sign language.

I know Sam isn't technically my name, other than my grandma, nephew and mom (sometimes), everyone calls me Sam. It's just my name. I get confused when people call me Samantha and half the time don't even respond. Every one introduces me as Sam too so after time it just becomes natural to be called Sam but write Samantha on paper.

New Facebook Page

I've made a new facebook page where you can go and see other pictures I've taken. I also will be holding photo contest (only prize is satisfaction you won). You can also post your own photos on there, I may be disabling this feature soon as the page is really just about my photography. Heres the link, go check it out http://www.facebook.com/pages/SGF-Photography/225070374170572?ref=hl

Photo Challenge; Do You or Don't You??

I was on Pinterest the other day and found a bunch of photo day challenges. If you are unfamiliar with these challenges you have a set number of days ranging from thirty to three hundred sixty-five. Each day there is a new challenge for you to take a photo, most start and end with a photo of yourself. Because I'm not sure of what to blog about now I'm thinking of doing one of these challenges on here. I've never been able to get past day five. Here is the one I'm thinking of doing. It's really creative and actual photography.

Ones I've done in the past make you get over half the pictures from the internet. (i.e. day 2: picture of your favorite movie, day 14: Place you've always wanted to go, day 25: celeb crush) It shouldn't be allowed to be called a photo challenge if you're getting pictures off the internet. But I'm starting this today (9/13) on facebook so it'd be cool to kind of do two for this. Have one set of thirty pictures on facebook and another set on here. That way I can show off my photography style. I'll post both the photos on here so you can see them, making sure to put in the description if it's the fb picture or blog picture.

The Other 99% Of My Time Spent

I swear I have a life outside blogging. It involves being care taker to my nephew during the day while my sister works. Fresh out of high school and still not knowing what I want to do with my life, I've put college on hold for a year. This gives me time to decide what I want to do and also my nephew will be in pre-k and will no longer need me during the day. Until then we have loads of fun doing crafts. Well ok he paints and draws while I do some actual crafting.

Like these clay figurines. The dogs are made entirely out of air dry clay and the panda is made from polymer clay. I use sculpey lll for anyone who cares. It was cheap and I'm just starting out with that clay so I didn't want to get the expensive stuff. 

They're a bit dusty can ya tell?? I'm not must of a cleaner. I stake my claim in cleaning the kitchen (minus mopping) and that's about it. I only clean my room about once every two/three months. Pretty much when I can't see the floor or walk to my bed without tripping over something is when it gets clean.

I also made these pumpkins out of polymer clay. They're for a Halloween decoration for my sister's upcoming party.

I know they're gorgeous, lol, I'm happy with them and other than the fact the brown is like trying to shape baby poop they were easy to make.

Now I said my nephew and I craft. He's into painting these picture frames I get from IKEA (one of my favorite stores, just fun to go and look at the displays.) they come in packs of three for $2. Can't beat that, plus they are very customizable  because they are natural wood.

The bottom two are his and the top one is mine. Normally we'd be giving the ones he painted out as gifts to relatives but one has had a birthday or a special day (i.e. Mother's day) recently.... ok so there was grandparents day but who really knows about that "holiday" other than me?? Hallmark sure doesn't.  

This is just one of many things I do when not blogging. Of course I see the irony of blogging about things I do when not blogging. I have no explanation for it and I don't care. 

Photo Shoot With Ben

I had a little mini photo shoot with my nephew. I only got about three good photos out of our thirty minute shoot. He wouldn't stay still and was more into the idea of taking the photos himself instead of staying and posing for them. The few I got though are super cute.

 Here he is with some of his cars in half a heart shape. This will definitely be sent off to be printed and hung in the house. As well as being sent out to relatives.

I was conflicted on if I liked this one or not but the more I look at it the more I love it. He has such a look of innocence on his face. I was laying next to him trying to get more personal shots and I thought I was holding my fingers right above my camera when I told him to look at them but I guess I wasn't. Obviously you can tell by his eyes and also if you look closely you can see their shadow on his forehead.

I love how you see Ben's reflection on the table.... actually that's the only reason I put this one up.

Editing Of A Photo

I know this blog is supposed to be of the photos I've taken when bored. But I'm going to occasionally post things other than that. I just got done posting about my first two camcorders (I'll be posting about my new camera within the week) and now I'm going to do one on how and why I edit some of my photos.

I use Photo Explosion Deluxe. I used it in one of my photography classes in school and it's just what I'm used to. I only had to shell out $40 for this instead of $100 for adobe ps. Most the time when I go into pe it's to put my copyright mark on it or to fix red eye. If I'm not satisfied about a photo I usually delete it instead of editing it. I know shoot me now for deleting potentially good photos. I don't have much free time on my hands to sit down and edit it well.

First up we have my sisters dog Belle. While I was taking this photo on a sunny day, she was laying the shade. Since I have no flash on my camcorder I couldn't really compensate for the back light of the sun. So the background ended up getting washed out along with some color on Belle.

This is the original. Taken with my DXG 580-V camcorder. As you can see it's not the most flattering picture. I then went into PS on my iPod to edit it. I just did the auto fix and came out with the second photo.

While this isn't as bad a the first photo I much prefer the original. This one is much too dark for my taste. I love the color on Belle.

  This I just did real quick on my computer while making this post. I bumped up to emphases on highlights and nearly maxed out the saturation. If I was a really good photo shopper I'd mix this and the second photo together to get the perfect blend. You be the judge on which you like best.

 The above was also taken with my DXG 580-V camcorder. I really wanted to get a shot of the daisies with the beautiful sky behind it. Well I got what I wanted just not in the color.

Insert picture into my px and fix saturation and voila. Here you have this beautiful picture.

I would've added a photo from my new camera but I'm satisfied with the pictures that it produces that I don't see a need to edit them. If you have any editing tips that are helpful they're much appreciated.

The Newer Camcorder.

This is the camcorder I got for Christmas '09. I know what you must be thinking.

"You got your first camcorder in (the summer, I forgot to mention that) of '09 and you knew five months later that videopraghy/photography was a hobby you wanted to take up? Good-bye I'm not following your blog, you're just another one of those teenagers who thinks that since they have a camera and instagram you can call yourself a photographer."

Yes I knew in that short time I wanted to do this as a hobby. I never said I was perusing it though, so if down the line I decide I don't want to do this anymore I won't have invested more than a $1K in it. And no I'm not one of those teenagers, I refuse to use instagram. I have a photo editing software on my computer that I use often but half the time it's only to add my copyright or remove red eye (something I've noticed my camera edit red eye won't do) If you take a good photo in the first place you shouldn't want to use an old time effect one it.

Okay enough of that. Like I was saying, I got this camcorder in '09 and actively used it until November of '11. That when the new camera came into the picture (no pun intended) I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. The reason I'm posting my old camcorders is to show how far I've come in terms of technology and what I take pictures of. Most of these first pictures, with the exception of the moon and sunset, were taken with this camcorder. Without further ado, here is the old camcorder.

 Front view. As you can see it is the DXG-580V full hd 1080p video and is 5mp. It can go as low as 3mp and up to 8mp, which is what I took most my photos with.

 Inside/side view. Some basic controls here, the power, access to sd slot, menu, and display buttons. Plus the speakers for video playback.

Back view. I also turned it on so you could see the screen. It has some internal memory, but is is currently being used to hold photos of I believe my nephew. I keep it on video mode because I can press the shutter (on top. I was stupid and didn't get a picture of the top.) while in video mode, not actual taking a video though I found out, and BAM! there was a picture. It made it easier just so I'd always be ready to take either a video or picture. On the top is also the lousy 5x (I think don't take my word) digital zoom.

On the back however we have the play button to view photos and pictures, the scroll to adjust how much light the photo is getting (I'm actually not sure what the technical term is. But it's the scale of -2 to 2 and the lower you go to darker your photo and vise versa) it's also used to turn on the light for is you're shooting at night, scroll through pictures. There are also various cable plugs back here. The record/stop record, and the scroll for settings, pictures or video.


All in all I really like this camcorder. It gets the job done and unless you're shooting at night or under some very low light this is a great starter camcorder for $150. I'll hand on to it and hopefully one day pass it down to my nephew, of course by the time he will be interested in using one they'll probably be out dated and a thing of the past. Oh well I can keep it for my future kids and tell them stories of how I took videos and pictures with it and they'll laugh at my "ancient" camcorder when all they have to do is whip out their phones and take a better quality video than with this "dinosaur". LOL!! I dream of those days. I love when my dad tells me all about when he was my age and all the things he didn't have and just how much life really has changed from the 50's-70's... possibly even the 80's/90's.  I've always thought about living back in the 50's, read my other blog Ramblings of Samantha for my whole ramble on wanting to live in the 50's.

The Days Before My New Camcorder

So back in 2009 I took a video editing class at school. The one fine print detail I didn't read was that you either had to provide your own camcorder/camera with video capability or you could rent one from the school for $150. I was broke and knew I wasn't going to rent one from the school. I asked my dad is he could help out with this. He came home one day with a $50 kids camcorder. It's a Digital Concepts 1.5mp camcorder. Here's the glorious gender defining pink camcorder I have. There is also one for "boys" it comes in *shocker* blue.

 The first ever camera type device I could call my own. This thing came with me everywhere.

 Heres the back/top view. The black button on top was how you took pictures and started/stopped a video recording. And also how you turned it on

The four button controls. I'd explain what each one does but it tells you right there.


  Here are some photos I took to give you an idea of how (awful) the picture quality was.

Ok forget what I ever said about uploading pictures of trees.... I didn't realize how many photos I actually took of them. Anyway this is of course the apple tree at my dads. I'm thinking now after I write this I should've done a side by side comparison of the other picture of the apple tree like this one. Thought there isn't much of a comparison you can see just by looking at them separately that the quality is much higher.
This is one of my favorite photos I took with this camcorder. Other than the ones of my nephew, this one, one of me and one of another tree (be glad I didn't post it, lol) are my top three. I like this one mostly because of the shadow. It speaks to me that she's trapped (even though if I left the gate open she'd be gone in a millisecond and I'd never see her again).

I love my dad to death for getting it for me and it was in a way my first camera... err camcorder. My mom had a Kodak (or Cannon, or Nikon I'm not sure it was sooo long ago.) but it was hers not mine, even if I took the most pictures with it. My camcorder however was what started my whole craze of photography. I used it to document my nephews life from the time he was four and a half months. As luck would happen my sisters took notice to my new found hobby and for Christmas "surprised" me with a new camcorder. I'd been making a lot more videos than pictures and hadn't really thought of the potential for a regular point and shoot. I figured that if I found a camcorder with picture taking capabilities that'd be ok. So next post you will see how my 'new' camcorder was and everything about it.

Way Up High In The Sky: Clouds

So like I said, clouds would be the next post after last. Somewhere between trees and my beagle I found time to look up and notice how beautiful the clouds were.

These first three were taken out in Lochbuie, CO. About forty minutes from Denver. This small (only about 4,800 people as of last year. And it's only 1.3sq miles big) town hasn't got much to offer to a teenager on summer break. So while out walking my dog in the sub division I lived in we'd stop at this little playground/bbq area and just enjoy the fresh air. While the beagle slept I took pictures of clouds. The only other thing was farm land and houses. I only took pictures of clouds I liked though and these are some that I like.

 Haven't done a black and white on here yet. I don't think I even have the color version of this one. I took this one for sheer lack of boredom but it turned out so well that I kept it.

 Not much to say about this one except that I really like it.

This was of a nasty storm that was moving in on us. However I don't think it ever formed enough to unlock it's true potential and ended up just being a light rain with some thunder.

The next one is out by my dads house. It was after some freak storm that lasted about ten minutes and then cleared up and it was sunny until the next day.

This will be the last of this post. You can kind of make out a heart in the clouds. I took this on my way up to Casper, WY.

Snow; My strange obsession

Frozen ice crystals of water falling from the sky. Everyone unique, sparkling in the light of day, fresh powder laying upon soon to be spring grass.... So I may not be that poetic. Snow, I'm talking about snow. Duh. So living in Florida I don't get much snow. One of the many things I miss about living in Colorado.

 I know I said I wouldn't put anymore photos of trees unless they were spectacular. But I wasn't trying to get a picture of the trees, just the snow. I swear. LOL. To give you an idea of how out in the middle of nowhere my dad lives. That is a dirt road just in front of the fence and those trees happen to be in the yard of one of four houses on that street. (including my dads) The funny thing however is that if you were to go up half a mile you'd run into about four or five different sub-divisions. Just one of those up and coming towns until the recession hit.

I took this photo because I'd taken one in the summer and I wanted to do a side by side comparison album on facebook that never happened. But I like it and it's one of the only photos I have of snow. The building in the top left hand corner is one of the first homes that was on the street back in the day and it so happens to belong to one of my great great relatives. So that's kind of cool.

 These two are obviously of my beagle. She loves the snow as do I. The funny thing is we got her in Florida and until we moved back about seven years ago she'd never seen, felt, tasted or smelled snow before. But the second she laid her paws on some she went nuts... ok it took her premadona self a minute to get used to the cold, but once she got the blood flowing down there was nothing stopping her from running around like the wild beagle I know has always wanted to roam a field for days.

Have I mentioned I like trees

These are about two/three years old. Most these tree pictures were taken at my dads house. It get boring there quite a lot when I'm not on the computer or chasing after my beagle who likes to escape. So for some reason I found great enjoyment in taking pictures of trees. With all the trees around my dads house I only found a couple good places to take pictures. The apple tree being one. I promise unless I take some breath taking photo of  a weeping willow or a mighty oak or even ever get a chance to see the redwoods, this will be my last post about trees.

 This one has got to be my favorite of all the tree pictures I've taken.

I guess I could've added this one to my first post about trees. As this is the apple tree in the spring. But it does look just like the winter one only it's sunny.


Next to tress and my beagle, Clouds have got to be the thing I take the most pictures of. It's so easy and theres a 9 out of 10 chance your picture will turn out perfect. The only way I've ever messed up a cloud picture was having my hand be too shaky and it comes out blurry or the aperture was too high... Yep you can bet the next post will be about clouds, actually it'll be the one after next. The next one is snow. Something I miss dearly living in FL

Sunsets

I don't normally take notice to the sun sets, I mean they happen every night and start to look the same after a while. But this one was so beautiful and really caught my eye. I was sitting on my couch when I noticed that the sky was purple, purple just happens to be my favorite color so anything purple I'm on top of. I open the blinds and admire the now purple/magenta hued sky and then it hits me. Take a damn picture it'll last longer. By the time I'd gotten my camera and set it correctly the purpleness awesomeness was gone. But it was still beautiful and picture worthy.

Moon Pictures

Ive found that when 'regular' people take photos of the moon, they turn out less than, well they just don't even turn out. It's just a dark sky with a blurry circle of white in the middle. Now I say 'regular people' because you can have a nice picture of the moon if you have one or a combination of these three things, 1. a satellite thing that takes pictures from space. 2. an ultra zoom high resolution camera. 3. A really good know how of graphic design/photo editing.  Me having non and being only your average photo editing know how person have captured what I believe to be a really good photo of the moon with my camera. I have a Canon powershot SX230 HS. I love my camera and my sister for getting it for me for Christmas. What I love even more is that it seems to know what I'm thinking and how to capture it on 'film' (as we all know film cameras are almost all gone, I've seen a few at like Walgreens)

Trees trees and more trees

So my dad lives kinda out in the boonies... not really, it just seems like it cause they live on the outskirts of a small town but five miles up the road is another town. If you know Colorado he lives in rural Boulder County, in between Eire and Lafayette. So there's not much to do out there unless you own a ranch. Which he doesn't so the way I kept myself entertained other than crafting and tending to my dog was to take pictures of random things. The thing that they have to most of out there? Yep you guessed it, trees. But since I'm there nearly year round (only spending about 125 days a year with my mom) I captured trees in all seasons and it's interesting to see them change from season to season.

The pictures basically go fall, summer, winter. There's no spring because it looks just about the same as winter and fall, there are hardly any leaves, those that are there are still green and/or it's covered in snow. The first is of my dads apple tree, it's a close-up of the leaves. The second and third are of the same trees (maybe a few centimeters off on positioning) But the first of the two is summer and the second is winter.

The One Thing I Love More Than My Camera

My Beagle Grace. I've had her for eight years, from the time she was five months til now.. She's not really a thing, well ok she is because she definitely acts like everything but a dog, but that's beside this point. She's been through thick and thin with me, and damn near everywhere I've gone she's right there next to me. And even though it'd look like she loves my mom more she really loves me the most. She's just always with me that she gets tired of it and needs a change of scenery. But with spending all my time with her I get bored very easily and she's such a good little subject that just kinda stays still.... aka sleeps and then looks at me for taking her picture, but this one actually came out good and I wasn't really taking it other than the fact I had my camera on to take a pic of the baby birds living in out apple tree and I was getting bored of waiting for them so I snapped this picture. As you can see she is also the background to the blog, I love her more than any other living being (yes it's true, even more than my parents) on earth.

Daisys... My favorite flower

Oh boy, this one is already two years old. In the Summer of '10 I stayed with a friend from church in Louchbouie, CO and for anyone whose been out in the eastern part of Colorado knows that there is nothing out there. (Go far enough and you can't even see the mountains) But where I lived was ten minutes from Brighton, which is about thirty to forty-five minutes from Denver. But any who on one of my many walks with my faithful beagle, Grace, I can across some daisys and being absolutely bored and them being my favorite flower I decided to get at a good angle and take a shot. Well ten minutes after the walk and going home to further examine my photo I discovered this.

Red Mountain

So last summer I went to visit my cousins in Cortez, Colorado. And on my way home we went through Red Mountain Pass. I love car trips but I get extremely bored and unfortunately I get car sick (well actually it's really motion sickness) if I read or draw or you know pretty much do anything that takes my eyes off the road. So I decided to pull out my camera and start snapping some pics. Most came out blurry cause we were moving but here are two that came out really nice and kinda unexpected. The top is of course Red Mountain and the second I just seemed to have perfect timing for. On our way down the pass I was taking a picture of the little waterfall and it just happened that it took right as the car had driven my cup right under it (idk it's hard to explain that one)