Outdoor Strobist Help/Advice Needed? C&C welcome!

[PatrickCheung]

lately i've been taking my equipment out more often, it's nice and warm outside... so why not? but i rarely shoot outdoors with strobes... and i was wondering if i could get any pointers.

i took this shot today for my 365, as you can see, my troubles are...
-pre-focusing
-getting soft, even light on the subject
-decent background exposure...

i tried underexposing the background to give it a more dramatic effect, so i set my aperture to... f/18. i tried using the umbrella to evenly, and softly light me up, but the umbrella ate up too much light... and it was at full power... so i shot this with a bare SB-600. even with that, i had to use the dodge tool quite a bit...

anyone have any tips?

thanks in advance!

 

[bitteraspects]

find some shade