Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Ok.. i uploaded that photo first for chuckles.. That’s my cousin Berglind and her husband, they were married yesterday, and while they’d hired a “real” photographer (i’m no wedding photographer, tho i’ve shot two weddings before.. found it’s really not for me) , she wanted me to take a few portraits as well. Funny how time flies.. there’s a picture in a photo album somewhere, taken in the year 1988, that shows me, age 9, sitting in a chair with Berglind, age 3, in my lap, at a beach house that her family was vacationing at in Sarasota, Fl. (My family was living in Gainesville, Fl, at the time, and came to visit them) Seeing her yesterday, looking raidiantly beautiful and grown up, i couldn’t help think of that photo , and how odd it would have seemed to me then, to know i’d be photographing her on her wedding day, and me still unmarried Life’s funny that way. Anyway, all rambling aside, i thought i’d use the opportunity to show off a few photos from these three photoshoots , since i never uploaded any of them on flickr.

One of the two weddings i shot last summer was when Berglinds’ older brother, Jón Þór (we’re the same age, and played together when we were less than 3 feet tall ), got married .. Jón Þór and his wife Guðrún are quite possibly the jolliest, cutest couple alive…

the other wedding last summer was shot in Eskifjörður, which is as far from my hometown of Hafnarfjörður as you can get, without actually leaving Icelnad.  That was likely the hardest job i’ve ever done. I drove off at 4 a.m. , to be sure to get there with plenty of time left over.  Half an hour into my trip, in heavy fog,  i managed to hit and kill a bird, that just HAD to be sitting in the middle of the damn road.  I was off to a great start.  At Vik í mýrdal, i decided to take a short nap before continuing. Accidentally slept for over 3 hours. So off i rushed, getting more and more stressed with each passing hour. To make the trip more colorful, i picked up two 20 year old swiss hitch-hikers, who just happened to have shot a wedding together not too long previously, and they entertained me with stories of how much could go wrong during such a gig.. After dropping them off, i managed to get stuck in the town of Djúpivogur, driving several aimless circles and not finding the right exit, because by then i was panicking that i’d not only be late, i’d never even manage to find the town of Eskifjörður at all.. It shouldn’t, in all honesty, even be possible to get “lost” in a town as small as Djúpivogur. My mistake was actually driving into the town in the first place.. i thought i was supposed to go thru it. I wasn’t. I actually had to stop at a cafe there and ask for directions. Come to think of it, I imagine i’m the only person to ever, actually, get stuck in Djúpivogur. So, i drove back the way i’d come, passing the young hitchhikers again, where i’d left them 10 minutes earlier, feeling enormously stupid. After a quick, desperate perusal of the map, i figured out where i was supposed to go next, and about 2 towns from Eskifjörður, it started raining. (it had been sunny the entire trip, and i was going to photograph them outdoors..this just kept looking better and better..) I finally arrived in Eskifjörður at 3:45 pm, after nearly 12 hours of travelling, a mere 15 minutes before the ceremony started, all sweaty and exhausted.. Just had time to throw on a dress and pantyhose, which i of course managed to tear in all the rush, just a little boost for my confidence before shooting the ceremony.. Amazingly, despite the murphy’s law feel of the whole day, the actually photoshoot went well, and the people were happy with their photos. So, all in all, a great experience.

.. and then reaching those goals, is that once the goal has been reached and is behind you, you can’t just kick up your heels and say “there. I totally aced that. ” and just feel content. Not if you’re me at least. You have to set a new one, otherwise, you get the feeling you’re not going anywhere…

To clarify: In March this year i started running again.. (i’ve been jogging off and on since i was 16, but became somewhat lazy in the last few years)

30 minutes on a treadmill was exhausting to begin with. I kept at it , and started running outdoors as soon as the weather started getting better.. Going from half an hour to 45 minutes , to an hour or more , in a rather short period of time.  By May, when i managed to run for 84 minutes nonstop, I  decided I would aim at competing in the Reykjavík Marathon in late August, and run a half marathon (21 kilometers)

So, i’ve been training all summer, steadily increasing my distances until the other day (or night) I ran for 108 minutes.. not sure about the distance but i figured somewhere between 16-18 km. Being impatient, I felt compelled last night to just go ahead and try for half a marathon. Yes, in the middle of the night. Alone. With no one to witness it. Doing it the other way, with the crowds and the accurately measured distance and people cheering, is altogether too ordinary.

Got up around 3:30, was off at 3:50, and ran, for what seemed like an eternity, in the morning stillness (well, it was actually quite windy and chilly, but I wasn’t passed by a single car or pedestrian, so stillness of that sort at least) . At one point, when running past a field where there’s a nesting area for several kinds of birds, I had to dodge a gull that did its very best to shit on my head.. Seriously.. it spotted me, turned and dived low, and let go with a generous glop , which landed approximately 2 feet to my left. But only because I veered two feet to the right. Too close for comfort that was. I added a generous extra half hour loop to the approximate 16 km I ran a few days earlier, and when i finally arrived back home, (ending the run with a looong grueling uphill climb, with plenty of headwind) it was 6:08. Two hours and 18 minutes of nonstop running.  If that wasn’t at least 21 km, i’ll eat my running shoes. For at least an hour, I allowed myself to bask in a feeling of accomplishment, trying to ignore the fact that my knees seemed to have stopped working temporarily, and my right ankle refused to properly carry my weight.

But now what?? Does this mean i actually have to aim for a full marathon one of these days? Knowing me… probably.

But hell. For now, yay! I did it !

ok, this is all very pointless and random.  But when eating breakfast the other day (something i rarely do),  breakfast being a bowl of cereal called Mornflakes Maple Pecan Crisp , i found myself reading the side of the box (as one does, if one happens to not have any other reading material handy) and came across what struck me as a two rather unnecessary “warnings”…

Apparently,  great caution should be shown when attempting to eat this treacherous cereal, as it can be harmful both if eaten cold or hot.

Anyone smart enough to be able to read the warning, should be smart enough to deduce, from the clattering sound produced when pouring said product into a bowl, that the product is, indeed, of the crunchy sort.

all this nonsense aside, it’s actually quite tasty.  Certainly more interesting than Cheerios..

.. In the Snæfellsnes area, to be exact,  you should stop by a place called Hellnar..  I was there last week with my kids, and found the scenery quite breathtaking..  Even tho i didn’t manage to get any particularly good photos taken.   Hellnar is close to a place called Arnarstapi, there’s actually a 2.5 km seaside path connecting the two places,  which i didn’t walk because it was really windy and my kids didn’t feel like it,  but it’s probably a nice hike to make in good weather.  At the end of this path (if you walk from Arnarstapi) you come out thru a cave-like area, and see a cozy cafe overlooking the sea, where you can warm up with a cup of cocoa and cakes.. (a bit overpriced, definitely,  but still worth a stop if you’re there).

Short interview clip with John McCain … I believe this is pretty much the definition of putting your foot in your mouth:

but wait.. there’s more!

Uh.. does this man ever mean anything he says? THIS guy may become president?? A 71 year old geezer that apparently called his own wife a cunt and a trollop in the media?? (still trying to dig up solid proof on that, but there’re rumors all over the place.. so i’ll stick to”apparently”)

This pretty much goes without saying, but I’m rooting for Barack Obama. For once, lets hope enough smart, clear-headed americans bother to vote this year. Seeing as the fate of the rest of the world is sortof in the hands of these guys. *shudder*