13-NOV-2008
Its Evening
A rare (lately) SP from this evening. I am decked out in my comfortable attire, complete with my very worn Boston Red Sox hat. It works that this is a Black & White as this hat is no longer Boston blue.
Not sure what it is, but I am very tired this evening.
12-NOV-2008
Trumpet
My daughter had to finally oil her valves for her trumpet tonight. I was able to grab the camera & flash and catch her practicing (something I'd not been able to do before).
11-NOV-2008
Long Commute
For most people that commute in a car, it is all about the quickest way to get to work. Commuting on a motorcycle is a whole different experience (for me). I find myself trying out different routes, looking for a longer ride in. This morning, I was able to stretch my 'normal' 17 mile, 25 min commute into a 129 mile, 2 hour 45 min commute by way of Gray, Maine. Even though I left with a thick frost on the cars (in our driveway, the bike is garaged) and temps about 30, I had a blast (literally).
People at work really didn't get it ("Why are you trying for a longer drive?").
This is the only shot I took on the trip at the service station on Rte 95 South in Maine, just south of the Gray Maine On Ramp.
I wanted to find a landmark to capture in the bike, but at the time I was a bit cold and wanted to get back on the bike.
10-NOV-2008
Wired
Dug out my Daughter's Christmas present from last year (not the breadboard, that is mine). We started on a line following robot but didn't get very far. After trying to get back to it for months, we sat down and went over a multi-meter tonight. I broke out the breadboard after we finished to show what we'd probably do next to learn about various electronic components (it's easier to test the components when they are sitting still).
10-NOV-2008
Homework
My son doing his homework (I didn't question the fact that he was doing his homework on Sunday).
Today I feel like I am about 50. I finished up with the bike (nailed down the low-beam headlight problem) and I cleared a good chunk of lawn (leaves). My back is killing me right now.
My son is also eagerly awaiting our nightly "Lego Star Wars" session, we are doing pretty good.
08-NOV-2008
[This] Weekend Project Complete [Kind of]
So the rear tire is finished, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to run into town and chase down a 24mm socket that I thought I already owned, locate & trim a piece of wood for a make-shift bead breaker, locate a number of tools that mysteriously moved, and had to hit up my neighbor (two doors down) to use his compressor, this would have taken about an hour to an hour and a half. As it was, it took about 4 hours.
I was able to take a quick spin around the neighborhood to make sure all is well in the back end. Felt much different back there, a bit firmer, and a lot more stable (much less front wheel wobble).
After parking the bike again, I had to address the low beam issue, this meant removing the left fairing and screwing around with a wiring harness for a few hours. I didn't finish as we had tickets to a local play & then all went out for dinner. I will need to finish the rest of it in the morning. You can barely see the missing left fairing from this angle.
07-NOV-2008
[This] Weekend Project
My original weekend project: Replacing my rear tire.
The rear is not that bad, at least from this photo it doesn't look that bad. Get a little closer (I'm not gonna macro that!) and you see a lot of flat spots, some scalloping, and what appears to be a decent sized puncture that didn't go far enough to puncture the walls (it hold air quite well).
I say this is my original weekend project because this evening I had to tack on cleaning a contact on my headlights since I had to ride home this evening (in the dark and rain) with only my high beams on. Luckily a single search on my favorite
VStrom Website turned up the fix.
06-NOV-2008
Forklift
I vowed today to get a PaD shot at work today. Even though it was raining out, I had my trusty "Bike Cam" (LX3) with me & decided to head out into the warehouse to find something interesting to capture. Our lovely forklift is what I settled on, it has a nice dark quality to it (I realize it might be a tad too dark though).
Can label it "Industrial Art"
05-NOV-2008
What are you doing?
My dog was a bit curious this evening while I was snapping a shot of our our banister.
I like the shot of him (Fox Mulder) better. . .
04-NOV-2008
Drips
Draw no parallels between today's PaD and the current election. . .
I replaced the washers in our faucet over the weekend, something that I am having to do a lot of lately. I used to only have to do this once a year (plus). It is now down to every six months. Unless there is something loose, I might have to replace the faucet itself as I noticed it dripping this evening (which is what gave me the idea to get some droplet shots).
I was bouncing the flash off the ceiling for this. No tripod, monopod only. I think I will retry this shot (or kind of shot) at a later date with the tripod. It was pretty tough to get the focus correct[ish]. I need to use the tripod to get the surface of the lens parallel to the droplet paths (both planes) to get the focus just right. On the 100mm Macro, there is a very shallow DoF.
03-NOV-2008
OK Button
Nothing super special tonight. In my desperate search for a PaD, I came across the OK button on our printer. Though the button says 'OK' the macro of it isn't all that OK. . .
I wish I'd taken a photo of a button with the word "Easy" on it.
02-NOV-2008
Tower
Had our Cub Scout Pack hike at
Mt Agamenticus this afternoon. I was a little shocked to see so much ice along the northern face of the mountain (hill). Otherwise, it was a beautiful day and a great time was had by all.
As I was walking back from getting my son away from a whiffle ball game so we could leave, I saw this scene with the tower and the jet contrails in the background. It made for an interesting scene. I shot it with a number of various settings on the LX3 and decided the Dynamic color was the best (it was what I'd originally intended to shoot it as anyway).
Simple cropping in LR2 and a mild tweak of the blacks. I had to be careful with tweaking this image as I could see some jpg artifacts come into play with all that blue sky.