a quick open letter from the land of vacation

Dear Dad,

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for teaching me how to do the whole f-stop adjustment thing. OMG. I'm finally able to take the kind of artsy, short depth of field pictures I've been trying to achieve since, oh, 1997 or thereabouts. And some of the results are AMAZING.


Love,
your now exceedingly trigger-happy photographer-daughter


(P.S. to everybody else: if you have to come to Japan during the summer, aim for Obon; the special events make up for the way you melt to death in the heat and humidity. If any of my shots from the light-up at Kiyomizu-dera come out, they alone will have been worth all the suffering.)

Also!

Almost forgot this. (Technically it's now the 11th where I am, but I'm pretty sure it's still the 10th for most of you, so it isn't exactly late.)

The last excerpt from With Fate Conspire is up; one last scene apiece for our protagonists. You can read those, or start at the beginning and read the whole thing.

(But be warned: the excerpt skips over some intervening bits, so as to focus on Eliza and Dead Rick; when you pick up the book, don't overlook those!)

Twenty days and counting . . . .