31-DEC-2010
Day 364 - Lego Motorcycle
(1096/365)
My 13-Year-Old & I broke open the Lego Technic Motorcycle kit this evening. There are 467 parts and two very thick manuals. There was a choice of a cruiser or a sport bike. We opted for the sport bike, though I think that was more Dad in the opting department. It took about 2 hours to assemble. All I did was search for the parts in the bags, she did all the work. The few pieces I did assemble, I basically screwed up. Its hard to believe I can disassemble my bikes and reassemble them without any trouble, good thing I don't ride Lego bikes.
Anyway, this bike is pretty cool, we acually built the motor, a three-cylinder (Triumph?) and transmission. There is even a lego chain for the rear wheel. When you roll the bike along, the pistons actually move.
My oldest is across the street on a last minute baby-sitting job, my son fell asleep already, my 13-Year-Old is now playing Zombie Farm on her iPod Touch. I think my wife will be in bed in a bit (she sets the alarm for a few mins before midnight so she can wake up in time for ringing in the new year. I am now on the MBP setting up my 4th year PaD.
Happy New Year!
30-DEC-2010
Day 363 - Ethereal
(1095/365)
Just an interesting shot this evening of some Xmas lights that are still up. Slow shutter speed and a wavy hand. At first I was trying to shoot these without any blur, but realized the error in my way.
Feel the blur!
29-DEC-2010
Day 362 - Snow Fly - Don't Bother Me
(1094/365)
Not something we are used to seeing up here in the winter. I almost stepped on him in the AM on the way to the car. I had my camera with me so I tried my best to get as low to the ground (hard to do with a bum foot) and capture him. This shot came out pretty good, it is an almost 100% crop. He is pretty much chillin out here, not moving though.
28-DEC-2010
Day 361 - Discarded
(1093/365)
Day after Xmas we pitched the tree because it was so dry, the needles were dropping off of it when we walked around the room. It made it out the door, out of the porch, over the deck and then thrown far enough over the railing to stay our of our way until spring (trailing a carpet of needles).
A little Quad Tone action in LR 3 applied to an in-camera BW Dynamic shot.
27-DEC-2010
Day 360 - Blizzard Tamer
(1092/365)
Not sure about all the hype, we got about 6" - 8" of snow over here. The battery is dead in the tractor, I had to pull the Tahoe over to jump the tractor. The beast fired up (after a long startup yesterday when getting everything ready) and I was able clear the driveway. There is no room left in the garage so the tractor has to remain outdoors.
This was actually shot BW High Dynamic in camera, then tweaked in LR3, making it into a Tritone but adding red shadows.
26-DEC-2010
Day 359 - Weaver
(1091/365)
My daughter weaving a hemp belt on her new Emilia 13.5" Rigid Heddle Loom. We braved the blizzard to head down to Portsmouth to pick up some supplies for her. She thought 400' of hemp would be enough, it was.
25-DEC-2010
Day 358 - Day got away from me
(1090/365)
Xmas almost got away from me when I realized I'd not taken any photos. A shot from my resting place on the couch watching Elf (which was apparently on all day on one of the channels).
24-DEC-2010
Day 357 - Gifts
(1089/365)
Xmas Eve we always head to my folks for "Grandparents Gifits", when my inlaws are in town, they join us as well. This was my gift, I couldn't resist a closeup of it. It was shot BW in the LX5 (High Dynamic), converted to a Quad-Tone in LR3, adding some Red & Green Highlights/Shadows for cheer.
23-DEC-2010
Day 356 - Slip Sliding Away
(1088/365)
Remember these?
22-DEC-2010
Day 355 - Emergency Room
(1087/365)
I realized around 7PM-ish that I had a little over an hour to kill before I had to go head over to pick up my oldest at her Driver's Ed class. On my way out the door, my wife calls and tells me I had to rush to Driver's Ed because my daughter had fainted and someone called 911. On the road, my wife called me again to tell me my daughter was heading to the Hospital. So I detoured to the Hospital which is actually closer than Driver's Ed, so bonus points there.
My daughter's fine, she just passed out while watching a film where a girl was on her cell phone while driving, looked down for something, and hit a tree. They showed her with skin grafts which was enough for my daughter to pass out.
This is her second ride in an abulance to an emergency room, this time she didn't need 24 stiches, so we are getting better.
After she was all set, we hit the Cafeteria for some supper, actually it was my supper, my daughter wasn't hungry for some reason. Great Lobster Roll!!
21-DEC-2010
Day 354 - Holiday Cheer
(1086/365)
Just a little Seasonal Photo Op. From the looks of this in LR, this ornament is a classic. It's got a few scratches.
I am lying on the couch trying to recoupe from a full day of no cane, my whole leg is sore from having to walk a different way, I can't bend my foot at all which puts a strain on the whole leg apparently.
20-DEC-2010
Day 353 - Winter Concert
(1085/365)
First day back to work, as I was leaving to make my daughter's concert (concert #3 for the family this season), I realized it was snowing out. Travel wa a little slower than normal. It was nice to have my first drive home (in a four-wheeled vehicle) in the snow, I wasn't regretting not riding (not that I could ride yet).
My daughter is playing Trumpet, third row back, second over from the left.
19-DEC-2010
Day 352 - A Path
(1084/365)
Just a quick abstract. My girls were in a massive baking mood all weekend, these are the underside of some muffin tins that were out of the washer, I think air drying. I added a little tint and some grain in LR3.
17-DEC-2010
Day 351 - Holiday Baking
(1082/365)
My daughters have been cooking up a storm today, there are bins full of cupcakes and cookies with signs on them reading "Don't touch". My youngest is making these real awesome cookies (helped out here by my wife) for a "Cookie Party" tomorrow, so even more baked goods that I will not be allowed to touch.
16-DEC-2010
Day 350 - MCRIBs
(1081/365)
I took my camera with me to pick up my daughter from fencing. I told her to be ready at 8PM and she actually remembered. I was a little upset, but I didn't have to get out of the car. That left me with a missing photo for the day. I was having trouble reading the sign because I was parsing MCRIB as M-CRIB, something about ALL CAPS does that to me. I didn't actually get a McRib though, they are way too messy and last night I wasn't interested in wearing my supper.
15-DEC-2010
Day 349 - Just Testing it out
(1080/365)
Just testing this scenario out (my crutches are resting on the back of the bike). Funny thing, while I am shooting this, my wife & daughter walk in (came back from my daughter's Driver's Ed class) and she started yelling at me. At first she thought I was actually going to ride (I am in a Tee Shirt, Gym Shorts, and this freaking thing on my shifting foot), then she gave me a stare and announced that I was well enough to shuttle my daughter around tomorrow night. Busted!
But anyway, the amount of work it took just for me to get to the bike and then figure out how to get on it, I don't think I'm quite ready yet.
No way I'm going to try to fit into my riding boots yet, that would be painful.
Even though I am spending most of my day on the couch, I am no longer "stuck on it".
Here's why I'm not riding:
14-DEC-2010
Day 348 - Xmas Concert
(1079/365)
So I got off the couch!!
My son's first concert (our 23rd). He is just left of center with the santa hat, with his saxaphone (pretty far back).
13-DEC-2010
Day 347 - Stuck on the couch - Day 5
(1078/365)
So I've been on the friggen couch for 4 days and I finally realize that my ankle looks like an elephant's foot. The initials on my foot (DK) are of my Doctor's. A nurse in pre-op wrote this on my foot so that I went to the correct doctor (I should have been worried at that point).
Here's the reason for the couch time:
12-DEC-2010
Day 346 - Stuck on couch - Day 3
(1077/365)
I shifted position on our sectional couch to "liven things up" but remain ready to climb the walls. From my new position, I am staring directly into our Xmas tree. What a great idea to shoot my view.
11-DEC-2010
Day 345 - Stuck on couch - Day 2
(1076/365)
I am home on the couch with laptop on lap, left foot kind of elevated (and airing out a bit). Lighting in this shot sucks, not sure what I was thinking.
10-DEC-2010
Day 344 - Post Op
(1075/365)
Catching up here. Here's a self portrait of me after coming out of the operating room. I am still under the influence of the anethesia so creativity is capped at this point. I was a little upset that I'd forgotten to bring my camera into the operating room with me though ;-)
09-DEC-2010
Day 343 - Old NH Tag
(1074/365)
Figures, I get back into Tag'ing on my last few days. Anyway, when I saw where the NH Tag had moved to this evening, I knew where I was going.
Duston's had awesome bakery, they were open too, but I didn't have any room on the bike, if you can see the backpack I have strapped to the rear seat, I am carrying two laptops home for the week I'm out. If we had a decent VPN at work, I'd only need one, but as it is, I need to haul that backpack around for a chance at a crappy VPN session.
08-DEC-2010
Day 342 - New NH Tag
(1073/365)
A fitting new Tag. I will be here on Friday for my Bionic Shifter. This is most likely my last bike photo for this riding season, which is kind of sad, there are still three solid weeks left of great riding ;-)
It was in the mid 20's this morning when I took this photo. I actually got off the bike AND took off a golve or two (I can see at least one on the seat). I think my hands froze on the short ride to work from here though.
Apparently if you want to take a photo of the Hospital sign with your bike in front of it, morning is the time to do this. There were people/cars coming in, but none leaving (that I saw).
07-DEC-2010
Day 341 - NH Tag
(1072/365)
Mudhen (Pat) sent me an email about the Tag getting closer today. It was on my way home, so I took a little detour this evening. There was no way I was getting off my bike for this shot tonight, not because of traffic, but because I wasn't about to detach my umbilical cord (it was cold tonight).
06-DEC-2010
Day 340 - Kicking Back
(1071/365)
I kind of thought I would kick back, watch the game, and do a little work on the MBP. I did kick back, I had the MBP on my lap, but never opened it until now.
One hell of a game, 45 - 3 Pats. Pats are back atop the Division now. Still a lot of football left this season.
05-DEC-2010
Day 339 - Xmas Lights
(1070/365)
I can't believe it is this time of year already. We had to get the tree this weekend as I will be out of action for the rest of the weekends before Xmas. These lights are actually on a wreathe in a different room, we haven't hung them on the tree quite yet. We are taking bets on KC knocking the tree over though. Somehow she's remained out of it, though this is due to the kids chasing her away from it.
04-DEC-2010
Day 338 - Wrapped up Tight
(1069/365)
Kala had to work pretty hard to open this present from her Grandmother. My Mom sent my son some $$ in a card for his birthday last weekend and the card was opened in the mail system (money lost). No one (not even Kala) was going to get into this present !!
03-DEC-2010
Day 337 - Birthday Card
(1068/365)
Kala's Birthday party. We had 9 or 10 12 & 13-year-olds over night.
02-DEC-2010
Day 336 - Dos Boots
(1067/365)
Not quite what I had in mind, but it will do. I was trying to incorporate my new leather hat into the photo, but it just didn't work
01-DEC-2010
Day 335 - Shuttle
(1066/365)
The Tahoe is in the shop again so I had to take my son to school on the bike this morning. We have this big storm in the region today, there was a nice 'dry' window this morning. He loves to ride anyway, so he was quite happy. We are parked in front of the school, I broke out the LX5 before we got off the bike. That case in the back that is strapped to my Givi E52L is his Saxaphone. There's not much I haven't hauled with the V-Strom!!
30-NOV-2010
Day 334 - Red
(1065/365)
I was camped out in the bathroom waiting for my wife to finish her shower. When her hair is wet, she makes for a great subject.
29-NOV-2010
Day 333 - WTF
(1064/365)
For the price I paid for this fricken solar shade, I should have received a DVD, a Hat, and a big Foam Finger. Instead, I received a migrane trying to figure out how to pair the remote to the shade. Turns out if you follow the instructions ver batum, you won't get far. I had to hold my left foot up, bark like a dog, and whistle for over an hour to get this to work. Their Tech Support had already left by the time I located the phone number. There was no help online either.
If anyone decides to get one of the Velux Remote units, I caution you to have someone else set the things up.
28-NOV-2010
Day 332 - Weekend of Procrastination
(1063/365)
A four day weekend that seemed so long at its beginning went rather fast. Sunday included. I wish I could have hit pause a few times ;-)
27-NOV-2010
Day 331 - Birthday Boy
(1062/365)
Jacob asked to go to the Texas Roadhouse for his Birthday. He was well aware of the treatment there (he's not the least bit shy).
26-NOV-2010
Day 330 - Candles & Pose
(1061/365)
Catching up from the long weekend. We no longer have any children with ages in the single digits.
25-NOV-2010
Day 329 - Key Lime
(1060/365)
Everyone else is asleep, time to steal some Key Lime pie. I like the name on the box, I told all my kids that I made the pie (not that they believed me).
24-NOV-2010
Day 328 - KC Is Shy
(1059/365)
KC was playing with and around this box this evening. She wouldn't let me get near her for a photo as she was pretty wired. This was the closest I could get.
23-NOV-2010
Day 327 - Lizard Lounge
(1058/365)
We actually kept a few lizards from the trip (at least my son did). Got them all moved into their new digs tonight, along with a feast of something like 30 small crickets.
22-NOV-2010
Day 326 - Sew What
(1057/365)
My daughter has taken to sewing (at least for an evening).
21-NOV-2010
Day 325 - Table and Mist
(1055/365)
I've never been able to stop right here in year's past to get a photo of our camper and the Fort Wilderness sign. There was no one coming or going for quite some time as we were leaving so I took the liberty to run out and nab this.
This is the best way to stay at Disney (if you camp).
20-NOV-2010
Day 324 - Going Home
(1055/365)
I've never been able to stop right here in year's past to get a photo of our camper and the Fort Wilderness sign. There was no one coming or going for quite some time as we were leaving so I took the liberty to run out and nab this.
This is the best way to stay at Disney (if you camp).
19-NOV-2010
Day 323 - Scenic View
(1054/365)
All the parks have markers on their maps for these Kodak Picture Spots. I don't know what all the fuss is about, I didn't find the spot very warm to me.
18-NOV-2010
Day 322 - Fan
(1053/365)
Fort Wilderness Outpost. Sitting on the bench waiting for a Hollywood Studios bus. This is the only day I used my 40D on this trip.
17-NOV-2010
Day 321 - The Wall
(1052/365)
No idea where this was (though I know it was in Animal Kindgom). I know my wife saw me take this photo and then remarked on it when I printed it (we have a portable printer that goes on vacation with us so I can make a photo album during the vacation).
16-NOV-2010
Day 320 - Paddle Wheel
(1051/365)
We were on Tom Sawyer's Island for this shot. I was enthralled with the paddle boat (for some reason).
15-NOV-2010
Day 319 - Epcot Fireworks (Handheld)
(1050/365)
Epcot fireworks are pretty cool, however, what is even cooler is that I have a slew of decent handheld fireworks shots using the LX5 from a few parks.
14-NOV-2010
Day 318 - Lights, Camera, Action
(1049/365)
Pretty decent timing on this shot. This was the first time we've ever seen this show too. Love the LX5.
13-NOV-2010
Day 317 - Steel Drums
(1048/365)
Steel Drums in Disney's Animal Kingdom. Just walking around the park taking in the sights.
12-NOV-2010
Day 316 - Rustic
(1047/365)
I noticed this shed (not a one-holer) on the way out of the campground. It actually housed a pump, but was made to look like an outhouse.
The LX5 came in very handy on this trip.
11-NOV-2010
Day 315 - Red Zone
(1046/365)
I bought the kids head lights for the trip. I figured they would use them in the evenings on the ride to read by. It worked.
I didn't expect them to read by the Red light, however.
10-NOV-2010
Day 314 - Catching Up
(1045/365)
Just got back from a week & half trip to Disney & Back. For some reason, I'd thought there would be WIFI at the campground, but no such luck. This was the first evenind drive somewhere on I495 in Mass. Shot out the window of our Tahoe.
09-NOV-2010
Day 313 - Bon Voyage
(1044/365)
Maria got the photo assignment tonight via process of elimination. Everyone else had gone to bed. I will be there soon, I've run myself ragged to be able to take the time off for a vacation. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, lots of packing and organizing (we aren't going to stop to go pull something out of the camper) to do.
In 24 hours we should be in the camper either sleeping or getting ready to sleep with the heat turned up.
08-NOV-2010
Day 312 - In a Row
(1043/365)
These aren't for the kid's school lunches, not yet at least. These are the three "Lunchbag coolers" that I bought yesterday for the Disney trip. We have two of the larger style bags beside these (though I think the kids had plenty of them already). Everyone will be carrying their own food & gear on this trip. We've gone from carrying just shy of a metric ton of food strapped to, on, in, and under strollers through Disney, to kids in backpacks themselves along with food and other things, to our last trip where it was my wife & I carrying the food and water.
I bought a bunch of different sized containers for sandwiches, snacks, and other things. We are going to have very good lunches at Disney this year.
Two days from today we will be somewhere in New Jersey, hopefully very close to our first stop.
07-NOV-2010
Day 311 - Eyes
(1042/365)
Another selective coloring thing. Busy day of sleeping late (yea!!), shuttling my teenager around, and shopping for the last minute items we need for the Disney trip. I think we have almost everything, save for the fact that I just noticed our Tahoe's inspection is due and I don't think I will be able to get it in the shop before Wednesday.
06-NOV-2010
Day 310 - Selective Blue
(1041/365)
Getting things ready for the trip on Wednesday. A lot of running around today for just that purpose. Looks like there will be some more running around tomorrow too.
Spent about two hours today comparing Disney Dining Packages, this will be our 5th or 6th trip as a family and we've never done a dining package yet. It helps that we will have our camper there with us, we know all the nearby grocery stores and can skip out in the evenings for restocking when necessary (take a left out of the Fort Wilderness parking lot, go for "a bit" then turn right ;)
My son was hamming it up this evening, I somehow got him to pose. I've done this exact shot of him before, complete with the selective color. To do Selective Coloring in Lightroom 2(+), you basically desaturate the entire photo except for the objects you want in color.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 Camera left, 1/8 power, triggered by Cybersyncs.
05-NOV-2010
Day 309 - Glasses Day
(1040/365)
After last night's fun with the broken windscreen, I awoke with a splitting headache, just what I needed to start the day. I had to go find my distance glasses (I know where my reading/computer glasses are, they are at work) and make sure I wore them all day. It did keep the headache in check. It's been a while since I've worn the glasses all day like this. I packed them away before leaving the building, while walking down the hall I had trouble focusing on a person walking around at the other end (at least I think it was a person).
I had 20/15 to 20/10 vision for most of my life, at some point my left eye decided it was done with that crap and slipped though I don't remember exactly when. It's hard to keep track of this aging thing.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 Camera right, 1/16 Power, triggered by Cybersyncs.
04-NOV-2010
Day 308 - Missing
(1039/365)
Pouring rain, I come out of my daughter's school this evening after attending her Parent-Teacher Conference, to find my V-Strom on its right side. Either the wind blew it over (I never shortened the kickstand after lowering it 1 1/8" last winter) or someone bumped it. Anyway, the windscreen had shattered into about 20 pieces (the wings are still in tact). Brake lever tip snapped off (like that is a big surprise in a tip over). The new Pro-Taper Raptor bars are stong though, no damage I can see after looking them over.
One of the Suzuki quick releases broke on the dash panel, I will have to order one (can't find my spare). Turn signal had popped in, I pulled it back out. Massive gouge on the bar end.
Back at home (after I'd run up to Rochester to pick up my oldest), I quickly put on my spare Super-Mega-Tall windscreen. I hope it isn't raining tomorrow, this thing is over my helmet! I will have to cut it down over the weekend, Dremel tool here I come.
Worst part, the Strom has to work for tomorrow as my spare bike's battery is dead. Which reminds me, I need to pick up a battery tender.
03-NOV-2010
Day 307 - Clear
(1038/365)
Kind of a spur of the moment thing. Not bad for being exhausted and ready to hit the sack.
Three marbles on an upside down pub glass with my diffused strobe behind them firing into the camera.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 1/16 Power Behind subject. Triggered by Cybersyncs.
02-NOV-2010
Day 306 - Jupiter
(1037/365)
I won't have time to break out the scope tonight (though it is ready to go in the garage). Instead, I took the 40D outside with the 70-200mm and mucked around with a little astrophotography. This is pretty basic stuff here, manual focus (gotta love Live View) and 200mm stuff. Using only my Manfrotto tripod.
Appearing in this shot, from left to right:
Callisto
Europa
Jupiter
Io
Ganymede
01-NOV-2010
Day 305 - Project Seal
(1036/365)
Apparently my daughters have funded some arts and crafts corporation that targets schools. There is a huge bag of crafts on our kitchen table, filled with various stuffed animal kits. This is my oldest's evening creation (hopefully after she finished her homework). It is a baby white seal (sans club).
31-OCT-2010
Day 304 - Standing Tall
(1035/365)
My son has stolen my youngest daughter's stilts and has been walking all over the house lately. I got the idea to try to photograph him this evening while setting up the flash on a stand. It came out as a bit more low key than I'd intended, though it gives me a good idea for an outdoor shot of this at some point, with the 40D and my Tamron UWA.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 Camera Left, 1/16 Power, fired into homebrew diffuser. Triggered with Cybersyncs.
30-OCT-2010
Day 303 - Fan Base
(1034/365)
I went to the MBDA Finals today in Portsmouth, NH. This is the "Big Event" for the High School Marching Bands in the area. I went to see my oldest perform (her third season has come to an end) as well as to get some more shots to alleviate my "Redeye dilemna" from last week's shoot.
I took about 600 photos today, I am going through the first pass. I normally shed about 20-40% on the first pass. Evening shots never look the same on the computer as on the preview screen on the camera. Even though we had a lot more light, I was still working at the absolute range of my lens (shooing a lot of 1/100 or 1/80 on my 100mm tonight).
While walking back from a few shots of the band after they had performed, I saw this scene on the other side of the field. It was fine in color, but I like Black and White.
29-OCT-2010
Day 302 - Long week
(1033/365)
This has been one long week. My son & I were watching "Fanboys" it was on TV (HBO or Max) this evening. Have to go fix a broken cermamic doll now for my daughter.
28-OCT-2010
Day 301 - Face Time
(1032/365)
I wanted to give Fox a little camera time here, he had just finished up a little snack and was just standing in the kitchen looking lost (he does that a lot lately). Photographing a 13 year old Shiba is much easier than a 5 month old kitten.
Clear Skies, got the Dob out in the garage, heading out to make use of the sky before the moon pops into play.
27-OCT-2010
Day 300 - KC has it made
(1031/365)
KC was sitting on the chair this evening with her paws laid out like this while I was eating. I told the family to not disturb her so I could take a photo. My oldest started playing her flute about the time I got the camera ready and I had to do something to get KC's attention back. I believe I screeched, thus the perked ears and WTF look she is giving me here.
I copied the settings from yesterday's photo and applied them to this one, so they should have a similar feel to each other.
26-OCT-2010
Day 299 - KC Revisited
(1030/365)
This is a good example of what the LX5 is not very good at. It's not suitable for active subjects and kittens are active subjects. I initially attempted to shoot her with the LX5 this evening, she was lying down in my office, behind my chair. By the time I'd secured the LX5, she was mobile.
I threw the 580EX2 on top of the 40D and went on a kitty hunt. Found her upstairs just sitting in the middle of the hall. I have no idea what she is looking at in this photo as there is no one there.
I played with some of the LR3 presets. I'm starting to like LR3 now. I am still on my trial 30 days, I do have every intention of purchasing it though before the 30 days are up.
25-OCT-2010
Day 298 - One of those days
(1029/365)
Ever have one of those days?
Another Strobist shot, this time I went for the actual LX5's RAW (RW2) file and processed it. While I liked the High Dynamic BW from the camera, I wanted to muck with some of the new LR3 settings. Turns out I've been using LR3 since I got the LX5 and I've pretty much shot the LX5 Straight Out Of the Camera since.
Strobist:
Canon 580EX2 1/16 Power Camera Right. Triggered by Cybersyncs. LX5 Manual Mode, exposure set via Sekonic L-358.
24-OCT-2010
Day 297 - Rare Smile
(1028/365)
A rare smile from Kala this evening on her Macbook. Technically, this one belongs to the State of Maine, 7th & 8th graders get Macbooks in Maine, a great program.
A little bit of a Strobist thing, I had te 580EX2 camera right, 1/32 Power, triggered with Cybersyncs. KC finished the session by attacking the light stand.
23-OCT-2010
Day 296 - Marching Band Competition
(1027/365)
Catching up from last night's Marching Band Competition. Pairing down the 481 shots I took. The bad news, I had the flash on [camera] for the band members as they were marching off the field, every single shot (I try to capture each member) has red-eye. I think it would be much easier to reshoot next weekend at the finals. Oh to have the 70-200 f/2.8 IS. . .
22-OCT-2010
Day 295 - New Scope
(1026/365)
My new Zhumell 10" Dob arrived today. My 12-year-old & I put it together and took it outside for a quick spin. Got to see some very nice detail in the moon and Jupiter. The full moon really put a damper on some serious (or just plain not-serious) deep sky viewing, but we had fun anyway.
21-OCT-2010
Day 294 - Nothing Fancy
(1025/365)
So FedEx didn't deliver a couple of packages that were supposed to arrive today (they pretty much screw up 80% of stuff they ship me). All week they were reporting a delivery today, at 1PM it was still showing today, though the package was no where near me. By 2PM they'd switched it to tomorrow.
I find myself with a bit of free time that I'd not anticipated. Still shooting the LX5, went back to a Strobist shot for today. I intended to put the flash in my sweatshirt and aim it up, but when doing a few test shots for exposure, I realized it would work better if I held it out slightly. Due to the angle of the lighting, my pupils have no detail. I have enough triggers and strobes to setup a secondary with a white card for some catch light, but I'm not going to do that now. This entire shot is handheld, I'm holding the LX5 & the Canon Flash.
Still digging the LX5.
Strobist Info:
Canon 580EX-2 1/64 Power below camera, firing up, triggered with Cybersyncs.
20-OCT-2010
Day 293 - Advance
(1024/365)
The South Berwick Fire Department put on a demonstration this evening for our Pack Meeting. Who doesn't want to see flames shooting 50' into the air?
It started with this specially rigged propane tank (with propane supplied via a P. Gagnon & Son's tank truck about 150' to camera right) complete with the Fire Trucks rolling in, the crew getting out and advancing on the fire. They set up a wall of water spray and actually pushed the flames back so they could turn a valve to stop the flow of propane.
In the words of just about every boy present "IT .... WAS ..... AWESOME!!!"
19-OCT-2010
Day 292 - Construction
(1023/365)
I got home late tonight due to a company meeting and then making up the time lost after the meeting. Looked outside and noticed the ladders had invaded our view (not that I care). Figured this might make for an interesting long exposure. It really didn't, but I'm posting it anyway.
Actually, this was resting on a 2 x 4 that is blocking the sliding door (there is no more porch, we don't want to fall out), set the 2 second timer and it appears to be a pretty stable mount.
I have to go to The Home Depot tomorrow early AM to pick up our Patio French Doors for the back porch. We should have a couple of new doors tomorrow (and possibly some new skylights too).
18-OCT-2010
Day 291 - Takeoff
(1022/365)
I found myself at the club house this evening on base for a work-related thing. As I was coming out to jump on the bike and go home, I noticed a KC-135 at the end of the taxiway, waiting. There was another 135 coming in on a very long approach from the North, so I waited (I got a decent shot of it on Final).
I didn't have a tripod, I set the LX5 on a fence post, opened the shutter for 8 seconds and set the 2 second timer to eliminate shake. There is still some blur from the LR3 noise processing as well as the thunderous bass from the engines spooling up and rattling things around.
I wanted to get a longer shot with the lights curving up, but this is a KC-135 and this is Pease, the second longest runway on the East coast (2 miles), they use quite a bit of it to get the most of the taxpayer's dollars.
This would have been pretty cool had it been a pair of F-16's taking off with Full AB.
17-OCT-2010
Day 290 - Busy Weekend
(1021/365)
It was supposed to be a crappy weather weekend, I had plans of doing a whole lotta nuthin. Instead, the weather was quite pleasant. So much so, that I tackled the rest of the garage. I have been insulating and sheet rocking this thing since last winter. I am making use of the Tax Credit (all around, not just here).
My son was a huge help, we had shelving, brackets, and all kinds of crap on the walls that all had to come down. Everything at some point had to come out of the garage and then back in (twice as we worked Saturday and Sunday). He took on the "lower tasks" like sweeping, vacuuming the dust and cobwebs out of the exposed studs, and a myriad of other things.
I'm not 100% complete on the rocking though, I used 8' panels for an 8' 5" ceiling. There was no way I was going to pay or lug the 12' sheets to save a seam, this is a garage. It looks like I will have to pick up a single 4' panel to finish the gap at the top. I also have to plug the insulation up there too, the bats were in 93" sections. I also have to finish cutting out our window in the background, I chose to cover it and cut it out later versus screwing around with cuts.
16-OCT-2010
Day 289 - Sparks
(1020/365)
We cleared the rest of the garage wall to finish insulating and sheetrocking this weekend (I hope). There was a nail embedded in the concrete that I needed to cut out, so I grabbed the Dremel. Since my son has been helping as much as possible, I figured he'd like to cut the nail (what 9-year-old wouldn't want to make cool sparks?). When he started cutting it, I realized this needed to to be captured. I grabbed the LX5 (possibly cleaning my hands first) and went to town. This is using the actual onboard flash, no off camera flash setup for this one. I had to switch over to Shutter priority to drop the speed a bit to get the sparks to be more pronounced, 1/30 was about as low as I dared to go.
15-OCT-2010
Day 288 - Nor'Easter
(1019/365)
A just plain miserable evening. We had another Nor'Easter today. The morning started out warm at about 60 degrees and raining, but the time I got to work, it was around 50 or a little lower.
This is at half time for the Home Coming game tonight, the Seniors were recognized in the Marching Band. There were what appeared to be two times as many visitor fans at the game than home fams (and it was home coming).
The band left right after this (they were soaked). They have a competition tomorrow and need to save their instruments. Marshwood was only down 21 points at the half, not sure how the rest of the game went as we left too.
14-OCT-2010
Day 287 - Me
(1018/365)
I am on a roll with the LX5 here, haven't picked up the 40D in about a week plus. I should have sent the 40D & lenses back to Canon for cleaning and servicing (hindsight).
On another note, Aerostich service absolutely rocks. My AD1 pants have some serous wear on the insides, the Goretex has warn off in places, I have a broken zipper (as of this morning), and I have a few holes that my boots have caused. I was thinking I would have to replace the pants after just shy of two years (granted these are my commuter pants so I wear them every day). I got a human (as always) this evening who passed me to Andrew in the service department. I have to send them back in December (when I stop riding due to a surgery) and they will repaired and turned around in about a week. It might cost me $30 for everything including shipping. I will easily get two more years out of them which is what I was hoping for. I knew this about Aerostich, I had a bananna suit a few years back when I had my Beemer. It looks like my next jacket will most likely be a Darien (possibly a Roadcrafter). Since I ride every day, I need gear that lasts, wears, and doesn't leak.
Strobist Info:
Canon 580EX-2 Camera right 1/128th power triggered with Cybersyncs.
13-OCT-2010
Day 286 - Flute
(1017/365)
A little
strobist shooting with the LX5 tonight. My daughter was practicing on her flute (she does this most evenings), I didn't realize how, err, "not clean" the flute would appear in the photo. It gives it that "well used look".
Strobist info: Canon 580EX2 1/16 Power, camera right, fired by Cybersyncs (love the LX5 hotshoe).
12-OCT-2010
Day 285 - Jupiter
(1016/365)
I saw Jupiter last night after the kids went to bed and tonight I took them out to view it with my Oberwerks (11x70) mounted on my Manfrotto tripod (via RRS hardware).
I decided to try the LX5 at astrophotography. This was a quick shot behind the Oberwerks. There's not enough reach here, but it is making me wonder what Jupiter would look like through my 70-200 at the 200 end on the 40D.
My other set of binocs is a pair of Canon 8 x 35 IS, great for quick night viewing, but doesn't really capture what the Oberwerks can, though I can hand-hold the Canon with the IS and there is no way anyone can hand hold the Oberwerks AND still see anything.
11-OCT-2010
Day 284 -Down by the docks
(1015/365)
Went to pick up my daughter from her gymnastics class in Dover. This is about as far inland as you can come with a sea-fairing boat. I had to go right by the marina to pick her up, so I swung by and took a few shots. This isn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it will work. I'm still getting used to the LX5, it is basically the LX3 with some minor differences, but its those minor differences that I am working on. I'm also still trying to work out a small tripod, I have a crappy old no-name aluminum job that I am testing out. I've had the tripod for years, I think it might have been my first tripod I bought after I got my first SLR (OM-10) in the early 80's. The tripod was a piece of crap then and it has survived well through the years to remain a piece of crap now.
10-OCT-2010
Day 283 - Swing
(1014/365)
Saw this as I dropped off my youngest daughter to a birthday party sleepover (8 girls for a night!)
I thought the sun was a bit higher, it would have been more of what I was intending to shoot with it peeking through the leaves of the tree. I'm not usually into shooting straight into the sun.
I actually got out a few times with the LX5, I am getting ready to upload the others in a bit.
09-OCT-2010
Day 282 - KC LX5 LR3
(1013/365)
KC napping this afternoon through the LX5, tweaked in LR3. I finally bit the bullet and am in trial mode for LR3.2. I know I will go ahead and purchase it, trial mode was the quickest. I really did it to get the ability to play with the LX5 RAW files, I uploaded one that I tweaked earlier.
I just changed my settings to import the RAW and Jpg as separate images in order to get ahold of the in camera jpg. My previous workflow was to manually copy the RAW & Jpg files to a temp folder, then move all the RW2 files into an archive & import the Jpgs into LR. I think I will go back to that as I really want to keep the Jpgs and only go back to the RAW files as necessary.
08-OCT-2010
Day 281 - Lillyput
(1012/365)
Revisiting the Shrooms. Still not what I was looking for. The blown out sky is really detracting from the overall image here. I should have turned the flash on. Actually, I thought I did, but by the time I popped up the flash, I'd been squatting for a few minutes and didn't feel like screwing around with the camera any more.
Edit: I upgraded to LR3 and tweaked the RAW (RW2) for this:
07-OCT-2010
Day 280 - Cluttered Road
(1011/365)
This was what I wanted to shoot last week when I tested out the Canon S95 (that went back to Amazon yesterday). The Canon's BW was washed out, there was no saturation and no chance of further tweaking since I had to shoot Jpg to get the BW option. With the LX5, I continue to shoot RAW + Jpg like I did with my LX3 and get fully customizable color modes.
Hmm, I just checked my Flickr photos from last week with the S95, I never posted this composition, it basically sucked. I will have to go shoot the mushrooms tomorrow though as I did post a shot of one from the S95.
06-OCT-2010
Day 279 - Whoops
(1010/365)
My new Gerbing G3's. New as of yesterday. My Warm 'N Safe were packaged up and mailed out today. My left glove stopped working within the past few weeks. I thought I'd done a little troubleshooting to determine this factoid.
This evening while riding home in the cold rain, I cranked up my gloves only to find my right hand about to ignite and my left hand getting colder...
Looks like it was the Gerbing liner after all. Hopefully I can stop the Warm 'N Safe gloves before they go out (the shipping guy told me that they'd have to go out tomorrow morning. Now I have to go pack up the liner and send that back. I can live without the liner for quite some time.
05-OCT-2010
Day 278 - Revisited
(1009/365)
I am quite sure I took a photo similar to this with the 40D in the past 6 months or so. I was testing out the LX5, walking around, trying to get KC to sit still for a second (impossible) and also trying to stay awake.
You can get some decent Depth Of Field shots with the LX series (LX3 or LX5), not to mention the ability to post your photos Straight Out of the Camera.
04-OCT-2010
Day 277 - Phat Kat
(1008/365)
KC was chillin this evening in the family room with the family. She has the uncontested run of the house for the next few days while Maria is confined to the downstairs bathroom due to a Urinary Tract Infection (painful for the cat and the owner who has to clean up the mess).
03-OCT-2010
Day 276 - Find a way
(1007/365)
Spent about 4 hours with the Webelos this afternoon hiking up, then around, then back down Mount Agamenticus (Aggie) today. On the way back down Goosefoot trail, there was this section of beech root that was exposed and running over some rocks, from the middle of the roots were two trees that had started to grow. Just plain cool stuff. The boys barely nodded and plodded along, I apparently took 7 photos trying to get something half way decent out of the G12.
I'm less than impressed with the BW's from the G12. A backpacking camera, the G12 is NOT. I fought with the battery door when trying to get the camera out of my case and then back in. It is too heavy to truly single-handedly shoot with (though I was doing it today as my other hand had my hicking stick). I think the LX5 is the best route for me. If I had my LX3 with me, I know I would have had a BW of this scene that I would like.
02-OCT-2010
Day 275 - All the kids are away
(1006/365)
And we are watching a movie (on HBO at that). My son is camping tonight (a school/community thing), my oldest was away at a Marching Band Competition, and our youngest daughter was babysitting (in the house that is about 50' behind us in this photo). We started watching a Netflix movie that was too much of a "college guy flick" so I checked to see what was on HBO, a Sandra Bullock film (lets go to the opposite extreme now). I think this was the first time we'd been able to watch a movie together since before May.
Also, I am testing out a G12. I was so busy today with projects that I never got a chance to actually use the G12 (but the battery sure is charged). I'm really starting to think that the LX5 is the logical choice for me.
01-OCT-2010
Day 274 - Burned Out
(1005/365)
Got an S95 today to play with. I took a little walk outdoors with it to test it out. For the most part, I'm not overly impressed with the in camera effects. All of the BW shots I did I had to post process, including this one. It needed a bit more contrast and overall tone work, I think I also added a bit of a vignette to drop some of the highlights in the corners.
The S95 has a number of in camera effects AND the S95 has the ability to shoot RAW + Jpg, however, you can't do both at the same time. That is very lame. I've been doing this for years in my LX3 so I feel like I lost something here.
I will say that the S95 rocks as far as a true pocket camera is concerned. All the butons and switches are well thought out, you won't be accidently tweaking the buttons when it is in your pocket or tankbag (as will be the case for me).
I have a G12 arriving tomorrow so I can pit the LX3, S95, and G12 against each other and settle on one. Right now I am leaning towards the LX5, which I didn't get yet.
30-SEP-2010
Day 273 - Sleepy Kitty
(1004/365)
KC wouldn't sit still for a photo this evening, I thought I would have to settle on some other shots that I was able to get. After I put the lens cap on the camera and stopped paying attention to her, she plopped down and started to rest. Finally got her to sit still and wow! I really like this shot much better than any of the others.
29-SEP-2010
Day 272 - Hands theme
(1003/365)
Continuing on the hands theme. My wife was on the phone, I could think of nothing less rude than taking photos of her hands with a flash popping off in her face.
28-SEP-2010
Day 271 - Football Star
(1002/365)
My son's friend is in Pee Wee football and has given my son one or two pointers on throwing a football. As of yesterday, he was prancing around the house telling me he has gotten much better at football and might make the team. I already know what my wife would say (I'm saying it too).
So I got him to 'pose' for a few shots this evening.
27-SEP-2010
Day 270 - XD3
(1001/365)
So my XD3 and my Sidi Adventure Rains will get a very good workout this week. I actually got the Pinlock to fog up this morning, but that was due to a motorcycle change out operation. I had scheduled a bike inspection for this morning and one for tomorrow morning. I took the KLX this morning because it looked like it wasn't going to rain, it held off a bit until I got the bike out of the garage, then it rained. While getting it inspected (it is literally around the corner) I asked if I could bring my Strom by since I was going back home to switch bikes and would go by the garage on my way. They fit me right in. I believe in all that fussing around with the bikes, I got the Pinlock to get a little foggy. Just a little mind yah. It cleared up some on the ride in and then dried right up at work (though I'd taken the helmet off by that point).
26-SEP-2010
Day 269 - Photo Bikette
(1000/365)
I had big plans for today's PaD as it is #1000. We were supposed to go up to the summit of Mount Washington today, it would have made for a great photo op. However, the weather didn't cooperate (New England, go figure).
My wife & I split off from our group and headed south. Took Hurricane Mountain Road, which was fun, but wet and a bit cold. My wife wasn't able to see much as her visor fogged up and she didn't want to crack it open because it was too cold. Shortly after I took this photo, I treated the inside of her shield with Cat Crap.
So anyway, 1,000 days in a row of doing this Photo A Day thing. Here's to 1,000 more.
25-SEP-2010
Day 268 - Fall Colors Inbound
(999/365)
It is hard to actually "feel fall" right now as it has been so hot. It was in the mid 80's today. I had to get all my outside work done today since my wife & I will be riding with some others up Mount Washington tomorrow (provided there is no snow up there).
It will be a very nice ride. We are going up through Maine, will ride through Evan's Notch, my first time this year (did it three times last year). Should have some beautiful colors up there. It will also be much cooler, a high in the mid 60's so we shall see a 20 degree temperature drop in one day. I'm glad for this, it makes for a comfortable ATGATT ride.
So anyway, we have one maple in the back yard that is beginning to turn red, there is another turning, but it turns yellow.
24-SEP-2010
Day 267 - Good Times
(998/365)
This shot was taken during half-time after the band was leaving the field. It could very well have taken place after the game of the century for Marshwood. A High School Football game that pretty much rivaled an NFL game. In the last few minutes Marshwood went from winning, to giving up a field goal and trailing, then another Marshwood fumble to what we all thought was to end the game. Kennebunk was just running out the clock, but they fumbled at the 50 yard line. Marshwood's first play was a "Pass and a Randy Moss Catch" as the receiver, in stride, one-handed it and got a first down plus. With 6.5 seconds left, Marshwood opted for a Field goal to put them ahead. The team was so exicited, they cleared the field to celebrate, leaving a trail of yellow flags in their wake. With only one play, Kennebunk attempted a pass to an open receiver, in the end zone, and dropped the ball.
What a Friday night!
OK, now I have to go see what our kitten just knocked over. . .
23-SEP-2010
Day 266 - KC Again
(997/365)
Busy day today. I meant to bring the camera with me to work, but forgot. I found something "Photo Worthy" too, an "Escape Pod" on the back of a motorhome (caught it with the iPhone).
I am working on fixing the Home Depot French Door screwup, getting a quote on Pella French Doors. I have to admit that my first impressions of Pella are not good, I've been dealing with Home Depot and other vendors for Special Order doors and am used to getting a quote in a matter of minutes/seconds, all done on the computer, right in front of me. At the Pella showroom, I was interviewed, everything was handwritten (a little archaic) and then I had to ask when/where the quote was. I was told it would take a couple of days. For one French Door, no real custom stuff too. If it takes a couple of days, it's gotta be expensive.
Oh yeah, here's KC. She was in her bookcase upstairs, just pulled away from eating some food, it was the best shot of the bunch since she really wanted to eat.
22-SEP-2010
Day 265 - Plans
(996/365)
Second night in a row I have spent an inordinate amount of time at The Home Depot learning about what else they have screwed up about our order. When you consider that we ordered a Front door, a Storm Door, and a set of French doors and that they screwed up the Front Door and the French Door (twice), you realize that the "we can help" part of their motto isn't really all that true. I definately agree with the "You can do it" part, in fact, you have to pretty much do it all since they don't appear to listen to you when you give them your door measurements.
This photo is of a few pages to the plans to our new deck and porch. With the exception of the French Doors, this project is a "Home Depot Free" zone.
21-SEP-2010
Day 264 - Rollei
(995/365)
Or can also be titled "what to shoot when you just got back from a 3 hour stint at The Home Depot, trying to fix your door order". I wasn't nearly as tired as I am now after researching our options after we realized the new guy at The Home Depot ordered the wrong doors. Luckily we have plenty of time to fix the problem.
I haven't used any of my Medium Format cameras in a long, long time. I really like this Rollei too, it's a 2.8, something I searched long and hard for years back. I might still have film in it too (better check on that).
20-SEP-2010
Day 263 - Red
(994/365)
Wow am I tired this evening. I didn't sleep well last night, no idea why. Was just shooting random things this evening, decided to mess with the saturation a bit, desat all but red here, then a little touch up here and there.
19-SEP-2010
Day 262 - Trail Time
(993/365)
This is the North Side of the trail I remembered from High School. Once I made it down the road a bit, it became apparent that the South side of the trail (power lines) wasn't in use any more as there is a now a golf course there.
It's also amazing how things are a tad bit different than I remember. I never road the trails on a dirtbike in Somersworth, only on a snowmobile, things like swamps aren't all that much of a problem in the winter ;-)
18-SEP-2010
Day 261 - Aggie - Cedar Trail
(992/365)
This was a bit of a technical trail for me (my first time), this part was easy, but just beyond the ridge aways was a very rocky climb up that became a drop down on the way back.
17-SEP-2010
Day 260 - Musical
(991/365)
I should have been taking a photo of the back of my camera, though a photo won't really tell the whole story. My wife spilled wine onto the back of my 40D. I tried to clean it all up but the back still smells like wine (which is pretty gross).
My son got his Alto Saxaphone this evening. He went from super happy, pinging off the wall to get his instrument to droned out in front of the TV after his sisters talked him out of playing it tonight.
After taking this shot of my oldest playing her flute, I tested her ability to focus on her playing by balancing various pieces of fruit and other kitchen obects on a cane slightly above and in front of her flute. She didn't do very well with focusing.
16-SEP-2010
Day 259 - Balance
(990/365)
I used to have a vanity plate on my Beemer called "Balance". I let it lapse after selling it (before I bought my Harley) and lost it (someone else in Maine stole it). Been testing it out online ever since (I even contacted the DMV to make sure it wasn't blocked out to me and in some odd one year holding pattern deal, it wasn't).
15-SEP-2010
Day 258 - Wife Shot
(989/365)
I left work early (for me) to rush home to meet a contractor that never showed (so he's not going to make it on the short list). My wife was reading (she always reads) and I was antsy for my PaD shot. This came out pretty good, I'm sure she will approve.
14-SEP-2010
Day 257 - Jedi Training
(988/365)
In an effort to get KC to do something this evening, my oldest breaks out the Light Sabre, something that KC usually goes ballastic over. I'm thinking that she is starting to get bored of the camera, the kids have worn off on her.
13-SEP-2010
Day 256 - Sidi Adventure Rain
(987/365)
My Sidi Adventure Rain's arrived today at work. They came in around 10am [ish]. I immediately put them on and wore them for the rest of the day.
At about 2PM I was going to take them off when I realized I could put my custom orthotics (special insoles for my crappy feet) in them which made them more snug and more comfortable.
It took about 2 to 3 miles of riding to get used to the new shifting feel. I'm not used to the rear brake feel (in fact, I almost locked up my rear on the way home this evening as I can't "fell it" yet).
I am really amazed at how the slightest change to my riding gear, style, etc affects me. I think it is because I ride every day and I get into a groove (rut?).
As soon as I got home, I fired up the KLX and took it for a spin to see how shifting was affected. For some reason, it was much easier to shift (they probably expect riders to wear MX style boots anyway).
Cool item #2 arrives tomorrow.
12-SEP-2010
Day 255 - Finally
(986/365)
This is probably the longest amout of time I ever spent on a motorcycle project ;-) I figured it would take me about an hour to install the Barkbusters & new Beemer Sportgrips. Wow was I wrong. I spent an hour yesterday, then about 8 hours today. Granted today I had to head out to a number of various stores in search of the correct Tap (8mm - 1.25) then later I needed to pick up shorter 8MM Bolts (which I had in my hand earler that day when I located the correct Tap and said "Nah, I won't need these!").
I really like the grips now, the Kawasucky grips weren't too hot. I also like the fact that I've shed the "Shrek Ears" and have a more "Dirt-looking" set of handguards now.
I am using this particular image for today's PaD to show the front break line (to the left) that was originally routed through the guard. After riding around the yard (which was a lot more fun than I'd originally expected), I realized it was rubbing way too much so I had to remove the left guard (again) and re-route the front brake line (had to pull the front fairing off to get at that clamp that was fixed to the tripletree bolts).
I am expecting to see a +3 HP gain from these (whether that is "Horse Power" or "Hit Points", I am not sure yet)
11-SEP-2010
Day 254 - New Toy
(985/365)
Finally broke down and got a Compressor. I have been eying the DeWalt D55168 for quite some time and decided to go for it today. For the first time in a long time, all the tires on our vehicles have equal pressure now.
The tank goes to 200 PSI, the regulator goes to about 140 PSI.
10-SEP-2010
Day 253 - Spring
(984/365)
Well, technically it is a "Slinky" but Spring sounds better (really, it does). I think I have reached the conclusion that I hate pizza now. It just worked out that I had pizza every day but Wednesday this week. I am ready for more nutritious food like chips and beer now.
09-SEP-2010
Day 252 - Jacket
(983/365)
I am pretty tired tonight, I made it to my first meeting at the
Seacoast Trail Riders and while I am pretty pysched to start riding some trails, I am just plain tired from today, this week, whatever it is that is making me tired.
This is an arm of my current Olympia Voyager jacket (never been washed, no really, never been washed ;-) It is a tough color (neon) to photograph, it is pretty much this bright in real life (the goal is to be seen).
08-SEP-2010
Day 251 - Eye See
(982/365)
So I am back to looking at a 'Stich (One Piece). I know I have to get new gear and I've had a 'Stich before, though it was the wrong size (too large) and it leaked in the crotch (I didn't know to apply seam sealer). I will go 'round and 'round on this for sure.
07-SEP-2010
Day 250 - Snack
(980/365)
Provided the cats don't get to it, this is my evening snack. It is ice cream with some odd processing done (to the photo, not the ice cream). I stumbled onto it while we were camping, I wasn't informed of its existence so I have to believe it is a secret. Don't tell anyone that I am stealing some tonight.
06-SEP-2010
Day 249 - KC, Kala, and Keyboard
(979/365)
KC missed Kala this past weekend. She spent a lot of time today beside her after we got back from camping. I was actually looking for KC just before this shot, I didn't realize she was beside Kala on the computer.
05-SEP-2010
Day 248 - Ben & Jacob
(979/365)
The boys are posing before we pack up.
04-SEP-2010
Day 247 - Campfire Scene
(978/365)
And on the third night, there was fire. The first two nights were too hot for a campfire, it got into the 50's (well after the campfire) this evening so we gathered around the fire ring.
I broke out the tripod for this and a few other types of shots this evening. I was trying to get as much of the deep blue sky in.
03-SEP-2010
Day 246 - Roughing It
(977/365)
My daughter on her MacBook in the wilderness (ok a camping Resort with WIFI).
She is wearing designer glasses (I think this is what they are called). She doesn't have prescription glasses and I am pretty sure these aren't magnified. She got them because they are purple.
02-SEP-2010
Day 245 - Labor Day Camping
(976/365)
We got in late again this year, backing into the site around 9PM [ish]. I broke out the tripod and took a few shots of the camper lit up at night. It was pretty hot out, too hot for a campfire. People were milling around one of my cousin's campers and catching up. I chose this photo out of a batch of about ten of varying exposures. This is a 15 second exposure, I had a few 20 second exposures with me walking around and ghosting myself into the photo. I chose this one, however, because of the image in the screen door (look low). Our dog, Fox Mulder, stood there watching me for 15 seconds. He was so still that a 100% crop is only a little soft (he does move). I couldn't believe he watched me without moving that long.
01-SEP-2010
Day 244 - Parts
(975/365)
Worked late (again) & had to scramble around with mortgage company to find a better deal (11th hour issues). Tomorrow I will be registering the KLX and will be able to do more than simply photograph the damn thing. About time I start riding it. Not sure it will be riding on I95 though.
31-AUG-2010
Day 243 - 83
(974/365)
Since I haven't registered it yet, I can only take pictures of it. Tomorrow our Town Offices are closed, so I will have to wait until Thursday morning. I get one commute then we are off camping for the long weekend. I'd bring the KLX with me if I could (there's no place to transport it though).
This is a shot of the handlebars (Center). No idea what the '83 is, its not the year.
30-AUG-2010
Day 243 - Dad said something
(973/365)
Technically I said "Smile this time". The kids see me take the camera out and they flee. I either need a smaller camera or a new set of kids.
Last night before school. Five Thirty AM is going to come up pretty fast. I think my oldest will be hit the hardest as she's been doing that normal Teenager thing and sleeping in really late all summer.
These two will be fine, they are early risers.
29-AUG-2010
Day 242 - Rough
(972/365)
I don't know where this day went. I had big plans to work on insulating the garage. Those fell through when I found out it was going to be in the 90's today. I've got enough cool fall days coming to work on the garage ;-)
I spent a good amount of time researching all the potential mods for the new KLX. I also decided to wait until Thursday to register it. It is the end of the month, there is no sense in getting a sticker in August when there are a couple of days left. My other bike's registration is up in September so I'd have both bikes with the same registration and inpsection dates which would be easier to remember now that I getting old and senile.
Technically, the 1st of September is Wednesday, but our Town Hall is closed on Wednesdays so that's out of the question. Busy day Thursday as we are leaving for the long Labor Day weekend Thursday evening after work. Where has the summer gone?
28-AUG-2010
Day 240 - New Arrival
(971/365)
I finally ended my search for a new toy. A few months back I'd all but settled on a DR650 (2007ish to be exact). Compared to the DL1000, it is a "light and nimble" bike. Even up until last week, I was set on the DR. Then I started looking at the DR-Z 400 which got me to ask the question "what else is there?".
I didn't think I'd like a 250, even though that is my suggestion to all new riders, go with the smallest displacement while you are learning. I didn't think I'd like it until I tried one that is. I tried one last night, a 2009 KLX that looked so beat up that it could have passed for a '96.
This is an '06 KLX250S with 3,800 miles on the Odi. However, you'd swear it just came off the showroom floor. I tried my best to locate bikes in my search that were well maintained and garaged. I did a good job, save for the '09 I saw yesterday.
I was pretty torn between an '05 DR-Z with only 1,600 miles on it and in showroom condition and this KLX. Better judgement won out. I've never owned a dirtbike, so I am playing it safe.
It is a true Dual Sport, unlike my primary ride which is a Dual Sport in marketing classification only. This is the kind of bike that you can commute on (at least I can) and shoot down a few power lines on the way to work (or back home from work).
The V-Strom is going nowhere, selling or trading is not an option at this time. I will continue to ride it as my primary (it is a hell of a lot more comfier) but will take out my new 'mistress' from time to time to indulge in some other pleasures ;-)
27-AUG-2010
Day 239 - Blue Angels
(970/365)
The military got a special air show today. Since my wife is in the military, she chose to invite me (and other family members). We were in the wrong place for decent photos of the Blue Angels, but managed a few. The sun was pretty much directly in front of us and played havoc with exposures.
The Blue Angels were up for about an hour, it was a great show. The weather was perfect (anytime there is no rain for an Air Show, it is perfect).
26-AUG-2010
Day 238 - Pre Show Peek
(969/365)
This is what I get for not thinking ahead and only packing my LX3 today. While other Flickr Contacts have beautiful shots of the Blue Angels, I have only memories and a shot of some T-34[ish] planes behind a gate at dusk.
25-AUG-2010
Day 237 - Hanging Out
(968/365)
KC really has it easy around here, she's always getting held. She is perfectly able to jump up to the bathroom sink where we feed her, but in the mornings this week, while Kala was away, she would look up at me and cry so I would wind up picking her up.
Here my son is holding her, then completely forgetting about her as he stares into the TV.
24-AUG-2010
Day 237 - Partial Smile
(967/365)
My son caught on the computer with his lizard. He had an eventful day, walked to the playground near the fire station for daycare, then rode his bicycle home with his older sister.
23-AUG-2010
Day 236 - He sure can sleep
(966/365)
Fox was doing his normal thing upstairs today (sleeping). I was popping the flash (white walls & ceiling) and he never blinked. I wish I could sleep like that.
22-AUG-2010
Day 235 - Got Dirt?
(965/365)
I was looking at a dirtbike yesterday on my way to The Home Depot and wound up talking about a local Trail Club and the fact that there was a 2010 AMA Enduro going on today (Sunday) in Berwick, ME (about 7 miles from my house).
I took my son this morning to catch the start (I've posted a number of photos). We soon bored of the start, I mean it was great to see all the bikes and people, but they are DIRT bikes and we were in a High School parking lot. I figured we'd go swing by one of the checkpoints.
This is the first checkpoint, it's right off Turkey Rd, about a 1/2 mile or so from the Five Corners (yes, a 5 way intersection). I've commuted this route before (not the dirt part, well part of the dirt part, but not this dirt part) so I know the roads out here well (commuting = This is the complete opposite way for me to get to work, it's a Bike Thing).
When the 400CC guys came tear-assing out of the woods, they were spitting these big ass rocks out about 50 feet or so. There was so much dust, my Canon was covered in it within 15 minutes. Somehow the lens made it through unscathed.
So I have renewed my search for a dirtbike (actually a more Dirt-oriented Dual Sport) with a passion now.
21-AUG-2010
Day 234 - KC Attacks
(964/365)
KC was mental this evening. An evening when those of us who are here (Wife & Daughter #2 are in Milwuakee) are very tired from all the work we did today, KC was on fire. She was attacking everything in the Family Room while we were watching "Where the Wild Things Are" (relevant). Her fun and our enjoyment of this event ended shortly after when she jumped up on a sofa table and knocked over a picture frame of the girls. The frame shot apart, dismantling itself in a split second, yet the glass didn't break. We were able to clean up the glass and put it all back together, but KC knew she was in trouble.
In this photo, she is attacking a pair of cardboard 3-D glasses (most likely from Spy Kids).
20-AUG-2010
Day 233 - Bracing for it
(963/365)
Another Marching Band season begins. Here is the prize for winning the "March Off", throwing a pie in Mr Graichen's face. I was able to capture this moment a split second before the pie hit his face.
19-AUG-2010
Day 232 - Law of Diminishing Fluid
(962/365)
I noticed that my clutch fluid was abnormally low this morning. It was one of those rides in where I was expecting to grab the clutch, squeeze, and then nothing. It wasn't THAT low, but you know. This marks the second time I have had to top off the clutch fluid this season. I have to check my records, but that is twice in something like 8,000 miles which isn't good. I'm guessing I have a slave and master cylinder rebuild project coming up here...
18-AUG-2010
Day 231 - Camp Residue
(961/365)
I got home about 5 hours after my son went to bed tonight. He got back from Webelo's camp (his first time out) and was so exhausted, he was asleep very early. We sent him there with a Rubermaid box filled with clothes and gear. There were no rocks or dirt in it. This is just a small sampling of the stuff left in the box. I see that some of the rocks have gold paint on them, I'm sure there is a story behind them. I can only imagine the weight of this container coming home. At the top of the frame is an unused bottle of body soap. Apparently he never took a shower the whole time there (4 days). He must have been in heaven.
17-AUG-2010
Day 230 - Trying it out for size
(960/365)
I went to Max's today for an extended lunch. My goal was to look at the 2009 GS left over. Turns out they didn't have it, it is at their NY store, they listed the photo twice to draw people in (cute).
Business must be good at Max's, I walked in with very specific questions (to check out the 2009 GS), rode in on my VStrom and everything. The first sales guy was way more interested in eating his lunch than talking or helping me out. The second was very laid back. I have to admit, I came prepared to buy a GS, a new one. I never expected to be ignored. Saves me a boatload of $$ though. I'm going to work the used market for a bit.
I really like this one I am sitting on, it is a factory-lowered GS with ABS & Spoked Wheels. The windscreen looks like something out of a Happy Meal, that would have to get replaced ASAP. This one is a 2010, it has the DOHC, something that is nice, but not really noticeable to me. I was trying to figure out where I would put all my crap. There's not as much fairing space as on the Strom.
16-AUG-2010
Day 229 - Weekday
(959/365)
It's not often I see my wife during the work week. I came home (Early to me) at around 8PM and she wasn't in. She'd taken my oldest to get her hair styled (though I'm not sure what was styled).
15-AUG-2010
Day 228 - To the mattresses
(958/365)
Sometimes you find the weirdest shit in Maine. Driving along side roads after dropping our son off at Webelo's camp (to avoid the traffic on 302) we found this very odd sight. Granted we had to do a little digging to find them.
You can't tell from this processing, but they are three totally different types of mattresses. My guess from one of the umpteen thousands of camps in the vicinity.
14-AUG-2010
Day 227 - Kittens have a limit
(957/365)
Kala was trying to get KC to pose with her for a photo. I believe we reached KC's "holding limit" for this session right about the time this shot was taken.
Today was the first day that I've been home on a weekend and didn't have to work or were on some kind of vacation (and thus, not here). I celebrated by spending 4 hours shopping for the things I didn't have time to get the past month or so. The second half of my day was spent fixing the dishwasher that decided it would stop draining at some point in the past few weeks. It is working fine now.
13-AUG-2010
Day 225 - Feet
(956/365)
This is a Tony Hawk Skateboard controller for the Wii. My son spends most of his time (when home) on this. He has completely flattened our carpet with this. It works out for the better since his feet aren't the cleanest, keeps them from directly touching the carpet.
12-AUG-2010
Day 224 - What's over there
(955/365)
KC checking out something to my left. I believe they were my feet, I was down on the ground trying to capture her photo tonight. I just realized that the full sized photo is larger than she is in real life.
11-AUG-2010
Day 223 - Aging
(954/365)
We've had a few bottles of wine in our kitchen (kitchen's if you count our first house) that have been sitting around waiting for an event to open them. I believe they have long since gone bad, the event's were never good enough. Now they remain because we don't want to throw away something that was so important.
10-AUG-2010
Day 222 - Lazy KC
(953/365)
KC up on our bed in an oddly 'lazy' mood. Kala is gone to Girl Scout camp for the week, so we all get to look after KC. At night she is roaming the house and getting into trouble too. I think she's only taking a slight nap in order to be rested up for this evening hijinks.
09-AUG-2010
Day 221 - Rotor
(952/365)
The rotor head to my son's Blade CX2 RC Helicopter was pretty handy this evening. I didn't realize it was so dusty until after I was processing it in LR. I should have known since I took it on a 'mission' yesterday (or the day before) in our family room up above the beams in the cathedral ceiling. As soon as I began hovering over one of the beams, a huge cloud of dust came floating back down towards me.
08-AUG-2010
Day 220 - Arrangement
(951/365)
I came back home by way of LL Bean this afternoon. I was a little rushed to get to Bean so I could get home at a reasonable hour. I bypassed many photo ops, including this one. I was about a 1/2 mile down the road when I decided to turn back to see if I could tip toe the Strom through the Tulips. It wasn't until much later that I realized there were no Tulips, nor did any 'tipping' actually take place (this is a good thing).
This is Route 4 in the background on a Sunday afternoon. I timed my shots to ensure there were no moving vehicles in the background (there were a lot of vehicles too). I did notice a few bikers slowing down to see what the guy in the bright orange suit was doing in the flowers beside his bike.
Note to self, I really need to get some decals back on the bike, the naked look doesn't befit it.
07-AUG-2010
Day 219 - Fox Eyes
(950/365)
Fox was letting me know he wanted out this evening as I grabbed my camera. I've had my face in my work laptop pretty much all day, trying to catch up for lost time on the "Do more with less" multiple projects. Fox's eyes pretty much reflect how I feel right now. I need to do something that is mindless now.
06-AUG-2010
Day 218 - Baseball Kid
(949/365)
Our company took us out to the ballgame tonight. We went up to Hadlock Field to watch the Richmond Flying Squirrels kick the Portland Sea Dogs butt. My son brought his glove and almost left it in the car (I talked him out of it). We were along the 1st base line, slightly in the outfield. A foul ball ripped down the line and got caught up in the tarp, my son helped the Sea Dog's player find the ball (there was a moment of confusion on the player's side) as a reward, I watched this guy carefully place the ball over the fence in a sea of kids & gloves, into my son's glove. My son was so happy after that.
After the game, he waited by the fence for an autograph, all but one player tried to ignore the crowd, he got Nate Spears' autograph. Nate Spears is the Second Baseman. Nate went 3 for 5 tonight, I believe he even led off the night with a double. This guy is a class act in my son's book, that's for sure.
05-AUG-2010
Day 217 - Staring intently
(948/365)
I haven't done any KC photos for a little bit (enjoying the open road too much ;-). This evening she was all over the place (not that this is any different from any other evening). I didn't think I'd ever get a decent shot until I got down on the ground and kind of waited. I started kicking my feet and that got her attention, she perked right up and checked out the source of the noise which made for a great photo op.
04-AUG-2010
Day 216 - Duck strong
(947/365)
Ducky is now a year old (to me) and has seen some serious motorcycle miles (well has seen the back of them at least). He was able to remain on the rack with the tent and my Kermit chair with no problems. Prudence should have dictated that I remove him to allow the gear to fit better, but screw that.
03-AUG-2010
Day 215 - Lunch in Greenville
(946/365)
We were making good time, so I took a gamble on Route 6/15 into Greenville for lunch. The road is much better than it was the last time I rode it, which was on my Beemer (RT). The stretch between Rockwood and Greenville did leave a lot to be desired though. Moosehead lake is to the left, out of frame. We had a couple of slices of pizza, while I was eating "Bob from Topsham" came by and inspected my Strom. Turns out he has an '02 (Blue) DL1000. We compared stories for a while, I think we talked for about a 1/2 hour. Met lots of great people on this trip. Hopefully Bob will be a Stromtrooper soon and I can continue my chat with him.
02-AUG-2010
Day 214 - Old Quebec
(945/365)
We walked around the city, beside the Citidel and found some beautiful views. I like the lighting in this one.
01-AUG-2010
Day 213 - Montreal Sunset
(944/365)
Had we not rented the Biki bikes, we'd have missed this scene. It was one thing to walk around in downtown and old Montreal, it was another to finish the evening off on the bikes, getting to see a view that is not possible from within the city. I actually took a number of photos, and shot a pano. I shot the pano on the LX3 though and the exposure shifted between shots so I am not sure the finished product will look all that hot.
31-JUL-2010
Day 212 - Campsite Mirabel QC
(943/365)
We arrived at the National Parc d'oka only to find it full (common theme with us) even though I checked beforehand and there were plenty of open sites. They helped us find another campground in Mirabel. We've camped a lot of campgrounds, I've been camping since I was about 3 (so almost 40 years) and this had to be the most un-tent-friendly campground I've ever seen. The Mirabel CG is a large field stuffed with seasonal campers (people who most likely are escaping the city and feel ok in closed places). Anyway all the facilities are on one side of a cesspool, er pond, the tent sites are on the other. You have to walk almost a 1/2 mile to the showers and real bathrooms (for say, brushing teeth). I think the tenting area was an afterthought. Anyway we made the best of it. The picnic table was a conversation item, it was all of three feet wide, very cute.
30-JUL-2010
Day 211 - Ready to go
(942/365)
Geared up, the bike is fully loaded here. In the white compactor bags are our sleeping bags and pads (on the side cases), along with our tent (LL Bean Mountain Air 2) and my Kermit chair strapped to the top of the Givi Top Case.
This is the only photo from this day. We arrived so late that there was no time for photos. We were supposed to stay at Russell Pond in the White Mountains, first we got mis-routed by our GPS (Saved by two older ladies along a very long stretch of dirt road at 9:30 at night to tell us the bridge ahead had been washed out since the 1900's and that others do it all the time - get misrouted that is). Once we found the campground, it was full so we had to back track a 1/2 hour to Campton. We were in the tent at about 11:30 and sleeping shortly after.
29-JUL-2010
Day 210 - Oil Change
(941/365)
I've not had a whole lotta spare time this week, I was able to hit Wal-Mart before work and pick up a gallon of much needed oil. I'm draining it right now in time for our tour which starts tomorrow evening. If memory serves me correctly, I changed the oil the night before my younger daughter & I started our tour last year. For some odd reason, this is only my third oil change this year. I must be slipping.
28-JUL-2010
Day 209 - Packing
(940/365)
Laying out the gear for the 4 day motorcycle tour to Montreal, Quebec City, and back. We will be camping (in the tent on the right, an LL Bean Mountain Lite 2) for the first two nights then staying in nice hotels c/o priceline.com.
27-JUL-2010
Day 208 - Cat Can Stove
(939/365)
Fired up the Cat Can Alcohol Stove tonight, mostly for a photo since I'd already cooked from it last week on our trip. Last week's use was for test, this weekend, my oldest & I will be on a four day (possibly 4 night) motorcycle tour to Montreal and other places. We'll be camping at least one of those nights and I needs to have my Tea in the morning (not to mention we need some kind of food in the evening after we finish riding).
26-JUL-2010
Day 207 - Happy Kitten
(938/365)
KC seems to enjoy playing with the lens cap to my Canon EF-100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. It's just the right size for her to grasp and bat around. She has been practicing her goalie skills, treating the lens cap as a puck. Her little tongue sticking out is what really made this shot, she's really into this lens cap.
25-JUL-2010
Day 206 - She Sleeps
(937/365)
Wow, this kitten can sure get into a ton of trouble. My oldest saw me calming her down earlier today and was able to hold her while watching TV tonight. She put her to sleep and kept her in a "Trouble-Free" state for about an hour.
24-JUL-2010
Day 205 - Cramp Buster
(936/365)
This little device is going to get a lot of use this coming weekend when my oldest & I take a four day tour to Montreal & beyond.
23-JUL-2010
Day 204 - Maximum Air
(935/365) My son trying to achieve maximum air off the 'jump' at the campground. He is going to destroy this bike at some point.
22-JUL-2010
Day 203 - By the Fire
(934/365)
I set up all the gear for this shot. Though it is a strobist shot, I don't remember the flash setting, most likely 1/4 power. It was off to the camera left hidden behind one of three boxes of firewood, though it didn't need to be as it wasn't in frame.
21-JUL-2010
Day 202 - Rainy Day
(933/365) The day started out well, however, it ended up very wet. My folks came up for the day, before I had a chance to break out the camera, the rains came (late in the afternoon). The first thunderstorm rolled through in about a 1/2 hour, after checking the Weather radar (on the iPhone), we realized that we were in store for a lot more thunderstorms and rain so we went out to eat. I snagged the camera after we came back and looked for something I could shoot to show the rain, but keep my camera from getting too wet. As it was, I had to clean off the lens to get the rain drops off it.
20-JUL-2010
Day 201 - Water Play
(932/365) It was a tough choice for today's PaD. I am doing this from memory and can't remember the reason why I was photographing my son in the lake. He was swimming near the boat launch, I don't remember if this was for some special reason or not. I know my girls were not swimming with him otherwise I would have photographed them too. I was close in and lowerer towards the water initially. I walked up the beach and shot down on him, I believe mostly to avoid blown out skies, but also to get this kind of effect, giving depth to the lake. I shot this with Sepia/BW in mind, I also shot this expecting him to be lost in the shadows, looking for more of a silhouette, I like this lighting a little better, giving more detail to my son than I'd originally expected.
19-JUL-2010
Day 200 - On Approach
(931/365) There is a certain badge earned for this shot which is why I made it the PaD shot. I came back from my walk with so many bug bites, mosquitoes and friggen horse-flies, a good portion when stopped to shoot this Black-Eyed-Susan too. This was the post processing I had in mind when shooting this too. It wasn't until I was reviewing my shots, some five days later, that I realized the nugget I'd captured hovering above the flower. It was actually coming in for a landing as I have the fly on the center of the flower in subsequent shots, I like this one the best.
18-JUL-2010
Day 199 - Dusk
(930/365) The mountains in the distance from the shore of the campground we stayed at. Mount Abram is in the very middle, you can't make out the ski slopes in the shadows.
17-JUL-2010
Day 198 - Boat & Moon
(929/365) Day one of our vacation (I'm catching up right now, no WIFI for the week). Our campsite was right beside the boat launch.
16-JUL-2010
Day 197 - Wild Colors
(928/365)
We got all packed up for camping tomorrow, I took my shower (the humidity was at something like 150%), came downstairs, and noticed this red lighting outside. It was simply incredible, it was lightly raining, I could hear thunder in the distance, I grabbed the camera and tried my best to capture the lighting. It didn't last long, only a few minutes. I wound up blowing out the highlights, but was able to tweak the exposure a bit and bring the red color back. While it seemed a little brighter out, I had to jump to ISO 1600 to get this. Here is where the 7D or the 5D Mk2 would have come in handy.
The utility trailer full of branches is going to the dump first thing in the morning. I have a one hour window where we are around for a weekend AND the dump is open. Those were green leaves when I cut them 4 weeks ago.
15-JUL-2010
Day 196 - I Spy
(927/365)
She is a bundle of energy and a trouble maker. There were a number of tissues on the kitchen floor this evening. The kids claim that KC left them there. I have a feeling she jumped up onto the toilet and snagged a few at some point during the day. Which reminds me, I need to tell the kids to leave the toilet seats down for the next few months.
14-JUL-2010
Day 195 - MSR
(926/365)
Four separate trips today for this little 11oz MSR bottle. I went to WalMart first on a whim, more because I knew they would have Denatured Alcohol, Dick's Sporting Goods only had the larger bottle, EMS only had the large one as well. It wasn't until this evening when I went back to the Kittery Trading Post that I was able to snag one.
The bottle is to hold the Denatured Alcohol for a "Cat Can Stove" for camping. The stove is made from a little can that holds cat food. Since we have a new kitten, we've got a few of those cans floating around here now.
13-JUL-2010
Day 194 - Alert
(925/365)
Back to kitten photos. KC was actually a bit calm this evening on the couch. She paused long enough for a bunch of photos. In fact, at one point her eyes started to close and I thought she was going to fall asleep until my son walked (or jumped) over and she woke right up. This is the "woke right up" part.
12-JUL-2010
Day 193 - Mean Streak
(924/365)
"And I'm the perfect culture vulture in the face of poverty
And I ain't met no one who told me I got class
They say never feed the animal, the boy's got too much flash
I'm a guy they just can't teach
And I always kick the castle that's been built up on the beach" - AC/DC
Had to take a break from the kitten photos.
I'm wearing my new fishing hat. The one I went to LL Bean and Cabella's for yesterday but couldn't find. Found it at the Kittery Trading Post for $9 after work today. I love my hats, it keeps my daughters in line.
Strobist Info: 580EX2 into custom reflector 1/16 power triggered with Cybersyncs.
11-JUL-2010
Day 192 - Playful
(923/365)
KC is going to be the subject of a lot of my upcoming PaD shots. My son & I came home late today to find that my wife has agreed to let KC roam the house. She was all over the place (KC, not my wife) getting into various stages of trouble. She was behind the drapes in our kitchen, a place that is pretty much owned by Maria, the current 'Queen' of the house. There were a few growls from Maria as KC was playing behind the drapes. At one point, KC stopped long enough for me to take a few shots of this one particular pose. She was fascinated by peeking back from under the drapes. You can almost see me reflected in her eye.
10-JUL-2010
Day 192 - Fun Pack Weekend
(922/365)
My son & I were at
Camp Hinds for our "Fun Pack Weekend". He is now a first year Webelo and this was our first time at Fun Pack Weekend (much to the surprise of most of the other campers). We spend so much time camping in the summer that we have had conflicting events for the past two years. Both of us will sleep well tonight. It was another non-stop event from start to finish which is not the kind of camping we are used to.
09-JUL-2010
Day 190 - Got my eye on you
(921/365)
Tonight was a KC photo shoot. I had my daughter let KC play around in our play room for a while (a long while). KC was a bundle of energy. She'd run all around and attack things. She stayed close though, still a little unsure of the house. At this point she was on the other side of the couch and popped up while I had the camera ready. She only attacked the camera once. No damage to kitten or Canon, yet.
08-JUL-2010
Day 189 - No longer free
(920/365)
My daughter's new kitten 'KC' ceased to be a "Free Kitten" today after her vet appointment. I tried to explain to her that this "Free Kitten" would cost more than the other kittens or cats that we'd found in the past.
It doesn't really matter as she is too cute anyway (the kitten, not my daughter, though my daughter is beautiful ;-)
I had her hold KC for me this evening for a shoot. Ironically, this was the very first shot taken out of a batch of about 20. I got her attention on the first shot and she wiggled too much for the rest.
07-JUL-2010
Day 188 - Refreshing
(919/365)
One of my favorites. I drank this from tap over in the UK way back when, it wasn't chilled back then and it tasted great. Now I have to have it as close to 32 Degrees F as possible. The pint bottles might start out at 32, but they warm up before they are done. This is also a lame Strobist shot as I threw the Cybersyncs on and rested the flash on the counter. I did actually use the Sekonic Meter too. All this and I put the bottle back in the fridge (it came out of our cooler that still had ice in it from this weekend).
06-JUL-2010
Day 187 - Under wraps
(918/365)
Forgotten what it was like to have a kitten in the house. You set her down for a second and Zing! she's gone. My oldest had to give KC her snack this evening (my 12 year old is off to a BDay party). She wasn't going to have any of the "wait right here" business so we had to put the laundry basket over her to keep her in place until the food was ready.
05-JUL-2010
Day 186 - Newest Member
(917/365)
My daughter's new kitten, KC (for Kitty Cat). We picked her up from a farm around the corner from where we were camping. We spent almost two years searching for a kitten at shelters, classifieds, petsearch.com, etc only to find one on the way to the grocery store due to a sign that said "Free Kittens". This kitten will be anything but free though.
The girls constructed this cage for the kitten in Kala's room. We don't want the kitten to roam free around the house yet until we've gotten a vet appointment. We have another cat and our dog and don't want to mix anything up here. Also, this is a small kitten and she keeps hiding in very small places. This wire cage was constructed from this metal shelving unit that is constructed entirely of these square grids. It even has a top to it so she can't climb out (which she can do). There is a towel floor and a brand new litter box inside for her. I have engineer children. Very creative here.
I have also finally caught up from this weekend with my PaD now.
04-JUL-2010
Day 185 - Campsite
(916/365)
Nothing too dramatic here. An odd view of the kid's tent, looking through the corner of our camper's awning. All the kids slept in the tent for about 3 nights. The last night, Kala decided to sleep in the camper with us.
03-JUL-2010
Day 184 - Keeping Cool
(915/365)
This shot is not the best, but it really captures the size of the Pontoon boat as well as the cove that we'd settled into all morning. My wife & I had done an early morning cruise (our anniversary) and found this cove not far from the campground (basically across the lake). We came back with the kids and dropped anchor. We were the first boat here, after an hour a couple more came in (including a cabin cruiser that must have been in the $200k range), by noon there were about 8 boats in this cove and across the sandbar in the background. It's hard to tell, but the lake on the other side of the sandbar was very rough, the boats were rocking all over the place (and it wasn't from lovin'), the sandbar acted as a wave break, we hardly felt any ripples.
We'd jump into the water and swim to the beach, walk around, swim on the other side, and pop back to the boat. I think we spent 5 or 6 hours in this cove this day.
02-JUL-2010
Day 183 - Deck Crew
(914/365)
We rented a 24' Pontoon Boat (with a Mecury 60 HP Motor) for two days on the lake. Here we are getting ready to cast off from the northern most marina on on the lake in Harrison, Maine. I immediately put the girls to work as my Deck Hands once we rented the boat back in Naples. I taught them how to help dock the boat, tie us in, then take us out. They are eagerly awaiting me to get on board so we can cast off.
01-JUL-2010
Day 182 - Kayak Girls
(913/365)
This is the beginning of the only trip taken in the kayaks for this vacation. The girls were only out for an hour. I spent a lot more time than that getting them loaded for the trip, then shuttling them to the beach, back, and then unloading them at home. We camped on Long Lake, an 11 mile long lake (thus the name), it would have been a multi-day affair to kayak the whole lake. Long Lake is connected to Brandy Pond which is connected to Sebago Lake via the Songo Locks. All told, there are 45 miles of lake. Lots of boats.
30-JUN-2010
Day 181 - Small Campfire
(912/365)
The day went so fast, I never took a photo. I started a very small camp fire from twigs and various small branches our first evening at the lake. I grabbed the iPhone when I realized I'd forgotten to take a photo. Saved by the iPhone again.
29-JUN-2010
Day 180 - 6TBs
(911/365)
Got my new 4TB MyBook today. I've set it up to run RAID 1 so it is 2 x 2TB, mirrored. The other smaller MyBooks to the right/background are just lowly 1TB models. One of the 1TB MyBooks has gone semi-bad. They are going crazy right now as I transfer 750GB of data across the FW800 port in order to free up the bad one. I think I can repair the bad one by replacing the drive itself. It would be even cooler to find out I can drop in a 2TB.
28-JUN-2010
Day 179 - Meadow Strom
(910/365)
I'm leaving work, its overcast as all hell, I lock up my sunglasses in my top case. No sooner than I put my key in the ignition, the sun comes out, so I retrieve my sunglasses back out of the top case. I get about 100 feet out of the parking lot and realize that I simply have to do something with this beautiful lighting and backdrop. There is an old parking lot slightly down the road. I pulled in figuring I would have some kind of shot of the bike on an old tar surface. Instead I do a little off-roading to get this shot. I had all kinds of angles, enough for me to realize the irony of having cleaned and serviced the chain yesterday while looking at all the friggin weeds I just pulled through my sprockets (in the photos from the rear that didn't make the cut).
27-JUN-2010
Day 178 - Playing a Game
(909/365)
My son playing a game with my wife this evening. Actually the entire family was gathered around our old couch for some odd reason.
26-JUN-2010
Day 177 -Used and Neglected
(908/365)
I had a 7 State Ride today, left at 7:24AM and got back at 8PM. It was 530 miles of pure fun, though my upper back, between my shoulder-blades, is sore (problem with my bars and my lack of reach). I saw this house somewhere in Rhode Island, it was in the process (I think) of getting torn down (I hope). It looked to be filled with tons of crap (hoarders?) and it was literally falling down. The roof had all these holes in it not from a fire either.
The house isn't that old, probably 70's. My bike isn't that old either (2002) but it is definately NOT neglected.
25-JUN-2010
Day 176 - Stop and jump
(907/365)
Not sure why I haven't done any jumping photos in June, since June is for Jumping. Yes, I have pulled over into a cemetary to take my jumping photo. I came up with this idea as it was an easy way to hold the camera, just use a headstone. The stone I used was not occupied, it was one of those stones that have the birth years on them but nothing else, so I didn't wake anyone that I am aware of. Odd but this was the first photo of the batch.
24-JUN-2010
Day 175 - Turtle is hanging out
(906/365)
My morning ride in, just before work, I spy another turtle walking down the street. I doubled back to help it along, taking some liberties along the way. Right here, the turtle is checking out my duck and sizing me up. I can happily say that no turtle pee was spilled on either the duck, my top case, or myself during this event. Last year, I had to save a large snapper that was crossing the street, pretty much in this same area.
23-JUN-2010
Day 174 - Fog Rolling in
(905/365)
I actually went South in Maine on my way home today, something that is hard to do as there isn't all that much 'South' of us in Maine. There are still some beautiful scenic coastal views in Kittery. This is at the Kittery Point Pier. The fog started rolling in as I hit the coastal road (Can't say roads here) so I kept searching for a good place to stop for photos. Not sure I've ever been to this pier before.
22-JUN-2010
Day 173 - Distortion
(904/365)
Golf night tonight and I'm upgrading the iPhone to OS 4 (Somehow I missed that last night). This is nothing more than my evening glass of water, slightly out of focus. I tried to pour the water with one hand and press the shutter release with the other. This is easier said than done.
21-JUN-2010
Day 172 - Somewhere off 202A
(903/365)
I just realized that I really like Route 202A. This was my first ride on it this season and I'm not sure if I rode all of it last season. I so like being the only vehicle out on the road where none of the turns are affected by the sun low on the horizon.
20-JUN-2010
Day 171 - ATV95
(902/365)
At our yard sale yesterday, this was the only thing out of our shed that didn't sell. It is still sitting in our driveway, waiting for either theft or decomposition to take place My wife & I were gone pretty much most of the day, riding through Maine in the heat. I surprised her by booking us two hours at a secluded spa with a Sauna, Hot Tub, and a 1 Hour massage. We listened to the Thunderstorms pass overhead while on the massage table (best way to dodge a storm). I took no pictures at all on the trip. We left later than I'd hoped so we rode pretty much straight through with no time for stops, save for a quick lunch in Bowdoinham.
19-JUN-2010
Day 170 - Dramatic Nozzle
(901/365)
Nothing quite as dramatic as a nozzle for a garden hose. Today was a busy day, somehow I was too busy (and just plain grungey) to take any meaning photos.
18-JUN-2010
Day 169 - My Girls
(900/365)
iPhone art for today. My wife is out of town this evening so I took the kids out to dinner (iHop) and the movies (Toy Story 3D). A rare almost smile from Kala on the right. My son is off to my right doing something. Shortly after this we started a crayon war. I showed them how to launch a crayon with a small elastic band (that was wrapped around the crayons). Things almost got out of hand ;-)
17-JUN-2010
Day 168 - Off the beaten path
(899/365)
I was out riding around this evening and noticed this dirt road jutting off to the left. I circled back (not easy to do on route 4) and checked it out. It actually went through, but came out in the back of a farm. I turned around looked for a place to stop. Just behind the 'Strom is another dirt road that is blocked by the puddle. I wasn't afraid of the puddle (I really wanted to ride through it), but the road looked pretty narrow and I didn't want to find out there was no place to turn around in there. It was flanked by some thick woods.
16-JUN-2010
Day 167 - Floral
(898/365)
Another view of a common sight for me. I think I may have done this before, desaturated all but her tatoo, this PaD has been going on for quite some time. Somehow I have held out on LR 3, I have a feeling this would be easier to process in LR3.
15-JUN-2010
Day 166 - Curious
(897/365)
I came home to a squeaky sound and it wasn't a mattress. The kid's 'Rat' [Hamster] was going to town in its wheel and was making a hell of a noise. I decided to try to capture it in the wheel, as soon as I got the camera gear to the cage, it stopped playing on the wheel. I decided to perform a little wheel maintenance and put some vegetable oil on the axle to stop the squeak. The squeak stopped and the Hamster returned. I showed my daughter why you use vegetable oil on the wheel, the hamster immediately started licking the oil, this photo was just before she went back for more. Manual focus @ f/2.8, not bad if I say so myself.
14-JUN-2010
Day 165 - Rope Lighting
(896/365)
Some rope on a shelf in the garage, I setup the flash to stretch high above and shoot through the holes in the shelf above.
Strobist Info: 580EX-2 above camera, shooting down, 1/32 Power, triggered via Cybersyncs.
13-JUN-2010
Day 164 - Finally!
(895/365)
My son finally got on the bike! Today is my birthday, I asked for a helmet for him from him so he can ride on the bike with Dad. His helmet almost matches mine, it's got cool red racing stripes on it. We were having problems locating riding gear, so he's wearing his snowsuit for now. We have a "Town Limit" for now, no riding out of town. This was our test ride this evening, I pulled over at the athletic fields to take this photo. When we pulled into the driveway, his older sisters were out critiquing his "holding on skills".
12-JUN-2010
Day 163 - Getting to the Point
(894/365)
My wife has gotten back into her cross stitching. This was a little harder than I'd thought as her right hand would block the view of the needle, she was actively stitching here.
11-JUN-2010
Day 162 - Norton Commando
(893/365)
So I am out riding around after work on the back roads somewhere in New Hampshire when I pass by a big barn with a door wide open and this guy peeking out. A 1974 Norton Commando. It was in good shape. While I was poking around, this gentleman came out of the house across the street and we started talking. Arthur & I wound up chatting for about a half hour. His idea of riding is to set a general direction and go. I enjoyed the chat, I enjoyed the ride, and I loved checking out this bike. I don't know anything about Nortons, though I now know that the shifter is on the right hand side and the brake is on the left. Not to mention, this one is "1 up and 3 down", that would be tough switching between bikes.
10-JUN-2010
Day 161 - Passports
(892/365)
I've put off the passport applications for my wife and the girls for too long. We have an oppurtunity to get expedited passports this coming Tuesday for no additional fees through the military. I'm taking my oldest on a motorcycle tour to Montreal in July and my 12 year old to Nova Scotia in July or August, time is running out. I'd like to take my wife to Nova Scotia as well, but we can't get away for more than a day at a time. We are getting her passport so that she doesn't feel left out (the girl's got theirs before her ;-)
I dug mine out of the safe to use as ID for when we have the application appointment. It looks a lot rattier in this photo that it actually is. It's only been used for two trips to Europe so far, there are plenty of empty pages.
09-JUN-2010
Day 160 - Strafford Farms
(891/365)
So I remembered the camera this morning! I had these big plans for the evening ride. I was going to get out at 5PM and head West, way west. I was going to find something cool to photograph and enjoy the ride.
I got out at about 6:45 so that plan fell through. I wound up on some relatively local back roads that I don't think I've ever been on before. As is the case for a lot of these rides, I had no idea where I was going to go, I let the GPS show me the layout and just rode. Once I hit the Rochester area, I decided to come back via what was once Route 16B, I'm not sure if that is its designation anymore. I didn't want to hit Strafford Farms, they are not the fastest service on this stretch, but they sure have a great Pizza Burger.
I'm starting to understand the impact of my bike's color choice this winter. While I visually really like the deeper red, it is a bitch to photograph and get properly exposed. I had to push this quite a bit which brought out some grain.
08-JUN-2010
Day 159 - Right here
(890/365)
A little Strobist Practice here, had the strobe already sitting on the tripod so I figured I'd try a relatively simple shot. Amazing how a simple shot takes about 20 to get it right. I did break out the Sekonic for this and it nailed the exposure as usual. I need to remember to pack the camera for tomorrow night's ride home.
Strobist Info:
580EX2 Camera right, 1/64 Power triggered by Cybersyncs.
07-JUN-2010
Day 158 - Rolling
(889/365)
The days are getting longer. I was riding until about ten past eight this evening and it was still quite bright out when I pulled into the driveway. This photo is a silent reminder to myself to pack my fricken DSLR in the bike. Either that or I need to pre-order the iPhone 4 on the 15th. With the iPhone 4, we are fast approaching the point where you can take the photo, process it (in Photoshop, I might add), and upload it all on the same device.
I believe the iPhone 5 will sport interchangeable lenses. Though I wouldn't hold my breath on that prediction.
06-JUN-2010
Day 157 - Cool Air
(888/365)
After all the rain today and the Tornado warnings, this evening the skies parted and the sun came out. My son decided to go out and practice his skateboard manuevers. I'd finally tracked down a new battery for my Cybersync transmitter today so I was in the mood for some lighting. I didn't realize he was getting this much 'air' until I got into Lightroom.
Strobist Info:
Canon 580EX2 Camera Right 1/4 Power. Fired by Cybersyncs (with new batteries).
05-JUN-2010
Day 156 - Cue
(887/365)
Nothing to tell about this one other than I was running around the house this evening looking for something to shoot and came up with this. I am now caught up with my PaD photo postings since my MBP died.
04-JUN-2010
Day 155 - Rusty Stuff
(886/365)
There was this old tractor behind the roadside stand I am beginning to like. Had to grab a few shots of it.
03-JUN-2010
Day 154 - Foils
(885/365)
My oldest is now taking fencing lessons alone. My wife has given it up. She goes two times a week about a 1/2 hour North of here. Tuesdays and Thursdays, right in the middle of the week. She's really enjoying it though.
02-JUN-2010
Day 153 - Apple Care
(884/365)
I got my MacBook Pro back from the Apple Store today. Turns out a Logic board costs a little over $1300 to replace. I don't have Apple Care either. nVidia has acknowledged a problem with their chip and paid for the cost of replacing the Logic Board. It was a pretty smooth transaction, it sucked that I lost the laptop for 1/2 the week, but I was very impressed with Apple. Not many places would be open on Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, providing service with a smile.
01-JUN-2010
Day 152 - Sweat
(883/365)
Just a glass with water in it this evening. The rest is in post processing.
31-MAY-2010
Day 151 - Hanging Out
(882/365)
After coming back from camping, I decided to move one of the kayaks to it's new location. I'm trying to make use of all available space in the garage as well as free up wall space so I can finish insulating and rocking the garage. The other kayak is going up on the ceiling as well, as soon as I move a light fixture. The rest of the clutter is due to an upcoming yard sale and the fact that I have lost shelf space during this insulation project. I might be taking crap to the dump soon.
30-MAY-2010
Day 150 - Babies
(881/365)
My daughter located this nest that was situated in a tree stump that was serving as a sign. The nest was only about 3' up (if that). The mother bird was very small and her babies (something like 6 of them) were extremely small. I'd left my 100mm macro at home, just the lens needed for this mission. Instead, I took on this assignment with my 70-200 F4L, talk about awkward.
29-MAY-2010
Day 149 - Dragon in Flight
(880/365)
I finally caught one of these guys in flight. I was sitting by the pond in the afternoon and noticed that I was next to an area that seemed to always contain at least one Dragon. It would hover in one spot and chase away other Dragons that ventured into its area or it was chased off and the new champion would do the same thing. I grabbed the camera and took quite a few shots using AI Servo. Not sure why I'd never used AI Servo for Dragons before.
28-MAY-2010
Day 148 - Unclear
(879/365)
We were sitting on this dock fishing in the evening when I noticed this scene. I took it OOF on purpose. If this photo is rotated 90 degrees to the right, it looks like the silhouette of a person.
28-MAY-2010
Day 147 - Tranquil
(878/365)
Catching up (MacBook Pro died over weekend, it's back now). Taken in front of our campsite for memorial day weekend. Evening shot, low light, had just finished setting up and realized I'd needed to take a photo.
26-MAY-2010
Day 146 - Exploring Trails
(877/365)
A few days back I got stuck behind a slow driver on my "Pre Memorial Day" Back roads commute. I was forced to slow down and started looking around, I noticed this trail that veered off to the right so I did a 180 and tested it out. I actually had my Kodak Playsport helmet cam on at the time too. I didn't go very far, just enough to see that it was very doable on the Strom. I checked Google Maps and it actually appeared as an unnamed dirt road (though it's not a road and it's not dirt). There was a river crossing that showed up on the maps so I figured I'd check it out. Turns out there is this old wooden bridge. I checked it out, there are 4 tree trunks beneath the rotting boards that felt pretty solid. I'm actually on the other side of the bridge in this photo, on my return trip back. I had a little bit of fun, I didn't follow the trail to the end, its rutted and grown in, I was worried that it might either end or become unpassable at a point where I couldn't turn the "Litre Class Bike" around. A couple hundred yards down from the bridge is a clearing that I was able to turn around in. The trail got much steeper a little further on.
25-MAY-2010
Day 145 - Oh Grate
(876/365)
It's actually the cover for the fan in the downstairs. It's hot in here this evening.
24-MAY-2010
Day 144 - Eye on you
(875/365)
Some kind of snake-lizard toy on the couch. I'm not sure if this is the original coloring, I shot it with BW preset (RAW) and then started tweaking the color in LR.
23-MAY-2010
Day 143 - Tripod
(874/365)
No way I'm using this little guy for my 40D. I think I got this little tripod with the carrying case I got for my LX3. I gave it to one of the kids and it somehow wound up kicking around the kitchen again. I might swipe it for the bike, I have one of those flexible gorilla pods, but don't use it enough.
22-MAY-2010
Day 142 - Feather
(873/365)
Just a feather that has literally been hanging around the house for some time (evident by the cobwebs).
21-MAY-2010
Day 141 - A Slice
(872/365)
Looking for an interesting shot this evening, I spied my wife lounging around so I borrowed part of her for this shot. I am really focusing most of my photos around the 100mm Macro (Pun intended).
20-MAY-2010
Day 140 - The Rat
(871/365)
There is no way I could get a photo of the girls' hamster on my own, it was pretty tough with my oldest holding it too. Of all the photos I took, this is the only one that is remotely in focus. It didn't help that I was using my 100mm Macro at f/2.8 which has a DOF of about a mm. This little thing really moves too, I should have set the AF to AI Servo, hindsight I guess.
19-MAY-2010
Day 139 - GT
(870/365)
My youngest daughter is in a Gifted & Talented program at school. She is always working on some kind of additional project that requires some form of building tasks. This is part of her greenhouse that she constructed this evening. It is pretty much fully functional, I told her she should put 1/2 an egg carton in it with some dirt and tomato seeds. She actually considered it for a little while too. I might have to introduce her to my balsa supply and make an airplane or two.
18-MAY-2010
Day 138 - Double Duty
(869/365)
I had to move the Maine Tag again today, after grabbing it this morning. There were some golfers on the hole behind the bush there (I'm assuming the 18th hole) when I pulled up, they gave me the evil eye at first. They would have laughed if they'd seen my bike with my golf bag strapped to the back. Oh yeah, I've added a comfort item to the bike today, check out that big honkin' CrampBuster on the throttle. I've never owned one before, after yesterday's 220+ mile commute though, I decided I needed to get one (along with a Vista Throttle lock, but that will take a little time to install).
17-MAY-2010
Day 137 - Early Morning Trip
(868/365)
I started thinking about hitting the Kangamangus Highway for a morning commute last week, I'd only run the trip numbers a couple of times and decided to save this idea for a day that my wife planned to stay home so I didn't have the morning duty. Before I could even ask her when her next morning would be, she told me that she was taking our son on a field trip on Monday morning. Bingo! All I had to do was get up at 4am, get on the road by 4:45-5:00 and ride for 4 hours. I got on the road at 4:45, the exif says this photo was taken at 6:35 AM, which means I'd been riding for just under 2 hours (the 1/2 way mileage point was still another 30 or so miles away). It was 39F when I left and it only got colder as I made it to the mountains. I had my electric liner pretty much near full, overpowering the Strom's mediocre wattage. I arrived at work just before 9am, 4 hours and 220.6 miles later. I made three stops, this one, a gas stop, and a stop at McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin as I was starving towards the end. I'm not sure how I will top this commute!
I worked a little over 10 hours today, then took an hour long ride home.
16-MAY-2010
Day 136 - Cat's Eye
(867/365)
I didn't plan for this to happen, but this became a bit of a Self Portrait after applying one of the BW Presets in LR. The kids got this dwarf hamster yesterday, it's in a cage in our play room. Our cat has decided she really likes our play room, a lot, now.
15-MAY-2010
Day 135 - Found a Trail
(866/365)
About a mile shy of the tag, I noticed this trail that shot off the road to the left, turns out it led to a pond that was a few hundred more feet down the road. I didn't make it to the pond on the trail, though I could see it. At this point, I've turned around and have already backtracked a bit. I'd just gone up the slight rocky embankment behind the bike, dragging the centerstand in the process. There was some mud back there too. This was a trail more suited for a DR650, though I couldn't convince my wife of my dire need for another bike ;-)
14-MAY-2010
Day 134 - Plugs
(865/365)
I'm not sure why I kept my old plugs, they were found sitting in one of my drawers in my roll away. They do make for an interesting photo though. I pushed the Fill Light and in the process may have lost a little zip on the high end (Its looking a tad washed out). Interesting that I didn't think there was much carbon buildup on the plugs when I removed them, here through a Macro lens, there's a bit more than I'd thought.
13-MAY-2010
Day 133 - New Tag Location
(864/365)
I set out this morning a little later than I'd wanted or expected. My original plan was to travel much further North and set the tag at another eating establishment, however, this one will have to do. My wife & I used to eat here in the summer, before the kids, which was a million years ago. They have great food and great Ice Cream. Of course, they aren't open this early in the morning, so I had the run of the place.
12-MAY-2010
Day 132 - Dirt
(863/365)
Not my first dirt of the year, but my first shot on dirt of the year. Out on Plum Island in Mass.
After another review, I've decided to promote this photo to today's PaD over my previous choice. This one really sums up today's experience.
I set out this evening a little late, heading for the Northern New England Tag. I'd not done my homework as the tag wasn't out on the stretch of road I thought it was, it was actually on the other side of the river to the camera left. I was able to log about 11 miles of dirt though. Ten miles of which were along this stretch of road on Plum Island. I'd never been here before, I will most likely be back with my wife & we can walk around and enjoy it. This is in the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, Plum Island. I wanted Nelson Island.
11-MAY-2010
Day 131 - Just Let Me In Please
(862/365)
My dog Fox, I unhooked him to let him in this evening and left him 'trapped' in the garage while I was shooting something on the bike. He waited patiently by the door to get let in. I took advantage of his 'trapped' situation and snapped a few photos. The door he wants so badly to get through is to the camera's right.
10-MAY-2010
Day 130 - K-Cups
(861/365)
I think my wife stacked these up on the kitchen counter to take into work tomorow. Made for an interesting shot (or at least it appeared to be interesting at the time).
09-MAY-2010
Day 129 - In a sea
(860/365)
I actually walked outside of the house today and found something to shoot. I was going for these flowers that have taken over a rocky edge of our lawn. I didn't notice the ghostly image of a shriveled flower slightly below and to the right of the main subject in the center. It is kind of an eerie life/death thing.
08-MAY-2010
Day 128 - Convex
(859/365)
I always second guess myself on Convex and Concave, though my first thoughts are usually correct. I'm shooting this into a tiny Convex mirror that I have on my bike, it sits inside my side mirror(s). When I was first out there looking for something to shoot, this idea hit me, though I had to first clean the glass.
07-MAY-2010
Day 127 - Crutch
(858/365)
These are the tops of my crutches that were resting against our bannister. The rubber cushions are in dire need of replacement. I love the DOF on the left cushion, that small band in focus.
06-MAY-2010
Day 126 - Screwed
(857/365)
Amazing what you can find when you need a photo for the day. I think this is the back side of a coat rack that fell off. I have to go check again as I've wondered what happened to that rack.
05-MAY-2010
Day 125 - Dimples
(856/365)
There was a golf ball on our kitchen table this evening. Made for a good last minute photo. I am pretty tired from last night's game.
04-MAY-2010
Day 124 - Game 2 Red Sox vs Angels
(855/365)
Got surprise tickets to tonight's Red Sox Game. Section 22, Row 2, Seat 17. Behind Home Plate. Absolutely awesome seats. The skies literally parted for this game, horrible T-Storms to the North and South. Very little rain at Fenway just before the start. Close game until the 8th when the Sox opened it up. Final Score 5 to 1 Sox!
03-MAY-2010
Day 123 - Leathery
(854/365)
My wife continues to use her Day Planner even after carrying her iPhone around for the past 9 months. Tonight she was writing in all the dates for my son's lacrosse games. When I saw the list of games come out, the first thing I thought was to add these to Outlook, the second thing I thought was which calendar, Outlook or my Mobile Me. When I saw that my wife had a completely different approach, the first thing I thought when I saw her planner was "wow, that would make for an interesting Macro".
02-MAY-2010
Day 122 - Poastal Food Drive
(853/365)
I saw this sign on my way out to check out a DR650 for sale. I made a mental note to try to find the sign again on my ride home (these words were facing the opposite way for my ride back).
I'm thinking of bringing Toast to this Food Drive.
01-MAY-2010
Day 121 - Mushroom
(852/365)
We are making individual pizzas again tonight. I bought all kinds of toppings, including these fresh mushrooms that also make for an interesting macro.
30-APR-2010
Day 120 - Foil
(851/365)
My oldest was practicing her fencing skills this evening so I figured this would make a good photo. The sword thing she is holding is called a 'foil' and not a sword.
29-APR-2010
Day 119 - Corner Case
(850/365)
One of the kids left this book on the kitchen table. I never actually looked at the cover, I believe this is the book my son was reading this morning, though he did bring it with him to school. I kind of like the DOF effect on the edge here. Not sure why I've rediscovered my 100 Macro.
28-APR-2010
Day 118 - Drops
(849/365)
I'm not sure what the heck happened today weatherwise, but it was cold and wet. For some reason I thought there was only a chance of showers today, I missed that one. The ride into work was fine, very little rain, if any. The ride home was just plain cold and rainy. However, I will take a cold and rainy ride home over a warm and dry drive home any day.
27-APR-2010
Day 117 - If I had to guess
(848/365)
One of my daughters did this, I am pretty sure it was my oldest. Leaving a transient mark on our fruit. I'm not sure if she expects us to think this is somehow her bananna, I'd expect either myself or my son will have this thing taken care of during tomorrow's breakfast.
26-APR-2010
Day 116 - Just Passing Through
(847/365)
Yesterday, at the Boston Museum of Science, my son was chosen (yet again) as a volunteer in a Science show. Prior to getting chosen a lot of the parents were remarking how he'd been chosen at every show including the previous trip two years ago and on Saturday. Somehow, he got picked out of the crowd again on Sunday when the demonstration involved shooting an ordinary pencil into a 3/8" piece of plywood. He got to verify the pencil and the wood before the experiment. The pencil was shot out of an air cannon and penetrated the plywood, lodging itself about 2/3 of the way in. It was pretty cool. What was even cooler was the fact that my son got to keep the plywood with the pencil sticking out of it. I was immediately worried about the logistics involved in transporting said treasure all the way home. We still had another couple of hours at the museum, then we had to grab our backpacks, walk back to the train station, board the train (with McDonald's food), disembark at our stop, load up our Tahoe, and finally get home. Somehow it all worked out. He wants to bring it in to school tomorrow, the "logistics worrying thing" is kicking in again.
25-APR-2010
Day 115 - Lawn Work
(846/365)
Perhaps the thing about Spring/Summer I hate the most is lawn care. I can't wait until late July and early August when the dry season hits and my lawn dies. If I could, I'd have my lawn replaced with gravel. In New England that wouldn't work out too well, we'd have weeds within two months, then have to deal with all the leaves in the fall. I lucked out this year, I never put Sta-bil in the tank last fall (that I can remember). After topping off the gas (and spilling fuel all over the place due to those absolutely stupid new "Recovery" gas cans) and giving it about three to five priming pushes, it started right up on the third pull.
24-APR-2010
Day 114 - Freestanding
(845/365)
This lone building is behind the Boston North Station, on Martha Street, on our way to the Museum of Science. You can see where this was once a building sandwiched into a block of buildings, now it stands alone. I'm not sure if this is one 4 story home, or a series of possibly 4 apartments.
My son & I were on an over night trip to the Boston Museum of Science with about 500 other Cub Scouts & parents.
23-APR-2010
Day 113 - Something about grapes and wrath
(844/365)
Grapes, or the stem of grapes, with grapes in the background. Used the Indian Summer Preset in LR. I really like the fact that the stems are so far off center.
22-APR-2010
Day 112 - More Legs
(843/365)
I was greeted with more legs this evening when I came home. It warmed up a little bit these past two days, it has to have for my wife to NOT be wearing long flannel PJs.
21-APR-2010
Day 111 - Milez
(842/365)
I try to photograph "milestone mileages" on my bike(s). I've been waiting for this one since last season. I'd actually thought I'd hit it last season and have a long spell until 40k. I kept watching the odometer this morning on my extended ride in, hoping to not miss this epic event. And, no, this is NOT a prime number! We all know it is 2659 * 13 ;-)
20-APR-2010
Day 110 - New Tag
(841/365)
I'm back in the Game! TOR is "Tag O Rama", a game played with a camera, a motorcyle, and a desire to just ride. Maine is rather large, our Maine Tag is currently dinking about in the Northern Territories. I happened to stumble on the
Northern New England (NNE) Tag last night, it was only about 26 miles away from me, not far at all. There are rules with the NNE Tag though, you have to move the tag at least 50 miles. I think this was about 70 miles away. After placing this, I kept riding west, then picked up NH Rt 28N up to Alton which was way out of my way, but what a ride. With the bike finally dialed in for the season, I can only reward it by riding it. . .
19-APR-2010
Day 109 - Brass
(840/365)
Daughter #2's instrument was hanging out (in its case) on the kitchen table. Made for a good subject this evening. Daughter #1 plays the flute, Daughter #2 plays the trumpet, if Son plays drums, we could have some kind of band action going on.
18-APR-2010
Day 108 - Blockage
(839/365)
Here is where my afternoon went. I spent hours futzing with the bike, trying to synch the Throttle Bodies to no avail. It turned out I had a blocked port, my front port was completely blocked. I tried to unblock it in place and was about to give up and just let it be. Instead, I ripped out the Throttle Bodies (again) and worked the obstruction out with a paper clip. The varnishy looking plug to the right of the paper clip tip is the obstruction. My guess is that one of the prior owners let the bike sit for way too long without running it and gummed it up. This was the first time I'd done a TBS on this bike. I've never let it sit long enough to gum up. After this was put back together, I got the TB's syncrhonized "spot on".
I took about an hour break to run to the auto parts store for some carb cleaner. On the way there, I finally swung by to take a look at a '90 R100GS that a local collector has for sale (he has 30 bikes). I'm interested, but it will need some work. I have to see if it would become my next project bike. He also had a Honda Interceptor 500 in cherry condition for 1/2 of what he wants for the GS. No where on any of my lists did I have the Interceptor written down, that was until I saw it. . .
17-APR-2010
Day 107 - Coloring
(838/365)
About once a month, I am elected to color my wife's hair. This has been going on for as long as we've been married. I think I've caught a few photos of her in that "after color, before rinse" stage, normally she is held captive in our kitchen in front of a book. She can't go far for the fear of getting the dye on the carpet, the couch (our couch is red though), the kids, the pets, the walls, etc. I like the cold tones in this photo, it actually makes it work.
16-APR-2010
Day 106 - Bell
(837/365)
No catchy title on this one. Just telling it like it is. It is a bell that one of us got from one of our "Polar Express" rides. The Conway Railroad in NH has been doing the Polar Express in the winter for as long as I can remember (way before the movie came out). We actually got tickets to it this past year, it is probably the last time we will go for a while (until grandchildren), that's a sad thought.
15-APR-2010
Day 105 - Brake
(836/365)
Lost for a photo again this evening, I spied my front brake lever. I actually got some cool things in the mail today, one of them is camera-related, with another for the camera (LX3). I ordered some RAM parts a few days back and they came in in like 2 - 3 days. I will have a symmetrical RAM mounting system off each mirror stem on the bike. One side will hold my GPS (I ditched the resovior cover RAM mount this year), the other will hold a camera mount. I also bought an adapter for the LX3 to allow it to use a standard (inexpensive) 46mm UV filter. Normally I am not into UV filters, but for the bike, this will work. I want to try to take some HD vids from the bike this year in a manner that is far more safer than trying to grab the camera out of the bag and shoot while riding. . .
14-APR-2010
Day 104 - Wanted Pet
(835/365)
So I am walking around the house looking for a photo op this evening (another late night at work) when I notice there is a hamster setup in our reading room. Not a simple setup, we're talking this is all decked out down to the food, a spare cage, and a table to hold all this. This is not something I've noticed before, but then again I've been working late for the past few months and don't get to see the family in the evenings. I am sure there is a question such as "Dad can I have a <>?". I can almost guess who wants the pet, based on the attention to detail here. It has to be my youngest daughter, there is bound to be some <> books or website links floating around the house as well.
Interesting note, there are no lights in our reading room (kind of defeats the purpose of a reading room). This is lit entirely from the 580EX-2 bounced off the ceiling. Not sure how I lived without the flash for two weeks.
13-APR-2010
Day 103 - Sisterly Love
(834/365)
When my youngest daughter saw my bring the camera out, she tried to hide. My oldest decided she would help me and tried to pin her down for a photo. Of course, none of this was conveyed to me. It looked like sisters fighting until I caught on. Tomorrow morning both of my daughters will have braces. One more child to go after this.
12-APR-2010
Day 102 - Quick Bite
(833/365)
I've eaten at this Donald's so many times when coming back from a ride, I can't count it. This evening, there was something about the deep blue sky and the well lit restaurant that made me derail my start up procedure and pull out the camera. I rejected one shot of the ground I took after I almost fell over to the left.
The end of the ride worked out to be a little cold. I have become such a wimp, when I got back and checked the temp, 'cold' turned out to be 46F. This is what I get for skipping 3 months of prime winter riding be all 'Zen' with my motorcycle maintenance.
11-APR-2010
Day 101 - In My View
(831/365)
I had to pull over this afternoon to figure out where I was, the old fashioned way. Since I haven't mounted my GPS, I am out riding around not knowing when I will arrive at my destination. I wasn't lost, I needed to check a route. So I did it the "Old Fashioned Way". I had to pull over, stop the bike, take off my gloves, unzip my jacket pocket, and fire up my iPhone. It was very exhausting, I had to wait for the iPhone Map to figure out where I was, then I had to switch to Map mode. I need to order my Ram mount so I can get my GPS back on the bike, in plain view, where it belongs.
Also, thanks to
pbeens at Flickr for turning me onto the convex mirror idea. I picked up a pair of 2" convex mirrors today for about $3.50. They make a big difference and are not at all distracting.
10-APR-2010
Day 100 - Dusty Rollei
(830/365)
This is actually from a second set of shots of my Rollei f/2.8. After looking at the first one in LR, I realized it needed to be cleaned. So I cleaned it. Then I took this shot. Really, I cleaned it. That would be persistent dust.
09-APR-2010
Day 99 - Droplet
(829/365)
This is a drop on the face shield of my helmet. Tonight was my first wet ride of the season (it will NOT be my last). I have this down pat, when I get in with wet gear, I have a place for everything so it can dry by morning. Even though I won't be riding in the morning, I still follow the process.
My 580EX-2 came back from Canon Service today. That simple little drop broke the flash bulb. It was still much cheaper to repair it than to get another. I'm so happy that it came back, I really don't like the 420EX anymore.
The red in the background is from the pattern on the top of the helmet, it is red and white (mostly red).
08-APR-2010
Day 98 - Downeaster
(828/365)
I admit it, I am a camera junkie. I'm stopped at the RR crossing this evening on the ride home and the first thing I think about is whipping out the LX3 and nabbing the Downeaster as it passes by. I have to be quick because it's only about 15 seconds tops from the time the time the crossing signals drop until the train is gone and the gates are back up. As it was, I was still farting around with the lens cap when the guy in front of me was gone. I wound up riding away with my right glove hanging from it's heater cord. (Mileage says: 33877).
07-APR-2010
Day 97 - Useful
(827/365)
There is a roll of duct tape sitting on our counter. I believe I am the one who put it there over the weekend. The kids will use it for various things when left out so I should probably hide it again. It makes for an interesting Macro subject. For some reason, I've got Macro on my mind lately.
06-APR-2010
Day 96 - The Brakes
(826/365)
A macro of one of my daughter's front brake on her bicycle. I took the bikes out of storage for the winter this weekend. They need a little work first. I didn't realize how dirty these things had gotten over the years. We do the Carriage Paths up in Acadia every year, lots of dirt and dust.
05-APR-2010
Day 95 - Dangle
(825/365)
For some odd reason, when I stepped back and looked at my keys hanging down from my top case, I figured it might make for an interesting photo. After I messed with the sliders in Lightroom, I settled on this. The background is an OOF and underexposed panel of sheetrock. I believe the orange is from the lighting, it's just been magnified by my misuse of the sliders.
04-APR-2010
Day 94 - Peeps
(824/365)
Easter is the day of celebration of sugar. I normally don't partake in the festivate intake of sugar, for some reason today I had a few peeps (in fact this guy in the foreground no longer exists). I am really feeling the tired feeling after a nice little sugar rush earlier. Another reason for feeling tired is the fact that we spent pretty much the whole day outside (though I spent yesterday outside as well). It was an incredible weekend, weatherwise. I'm going to go eat another one of these Peeps.
3 Apr 2010
Day 93 - Legs
(823/365)
So spring is here with a vengence. Temps were in the 70's today, very sunny, very dry. I got up bright and early with a goal of maybe getting the bike on the road by the end of the day. I thought I had to take my son to Lacrosse at 10:30, but my wife did that for me. We did have a Cub Scout meeting today at 1:30 as well.
I was so productive this morning that I had the bike together and running before noon. I even took it for a ride down the street and back. Shortly after the meeting I took a nice long ride.
My wife wasn't helping me concentrate on the bike today, she was wearing these short-shorts which were pretty distracting. That is another good thing about good weather. She was camped out on the couch this evening, reading a book, so I broke out the camera and captured some abstract legs.
02-APR-2010
Day 92 - Not Giving Up
(822/365)
Even though I got out late again, I spent a little bit of time in the shop and worked on the bike a bit. It looks like my tank will only need Rubbing Compound, Polish, and Wax. My side panels really need a thorough sanding, but I have run out of the good Clear Coat. I might be opting for riding over fashion this weekend.
01-APR-2010
Day 91 - Almost There
(821/365)
This was from a "Dry Fit" earlier today. I put the side panel in place before it even had clear coat on it. I had set the gas tank in place as well, I hit the tank with a lot of 600 Grit, little too much it turns out as I sanded down to bare metal around the bottom of the tank. The darker color along the bottom of the tank is where I had to repaint to cover the mes up. Since this photo, the panels and tank have come off and have four coats of clear (Spray Max 2K). The luggage is back on (Top and sides cases). I've adjusted and cleaned the chain (it has finally stretched a little). I've also cleaned the front, re-adjusted the handlebars, finished painting the bar ends and have even mounted them. I can't wait to get back on the road this weekend. It has been way too long off two wheels.
31-MAR-2010
Day 90 - Cute Little Guy
(820/365)
I snapped this on my iPhone before walking into the local Honda Stealer today. I had no idea it was going to be my PaD though.
30-MAR-2010
Day 89 - Primary Pointer
(819/365)
My primary pointing device on my Mac. I've had this mouse since my PC days, it worked nicely with the Mac so I've kept it on.
29-MAR-2010
Day 88 - Reading Material
(818/365)
I find myself in a quandry, I finished up my current read and don't have another new book to read. I'd been thinking about re-reading Zen, there are only a few books that I have re-read over the years. OK, actually only two: "The Stand" and "Cryptonomicon". I've read The Stand about 4 or 5 times and Cryptonomicon twice. I have conveniently placed Zen on top of the side panel that has just been recently mounted on the bike. The last time this panel was on the bike, it was silver.
28-MAR-2010
Day 87 - Fresh Air
(817/365)
Even though today's bike work was spent in the basement painting and applying clear coat, I was able to push the bike (it can be called a bike now) outside for a photo. If all goes as planned, I will have it on the road next weekend. This is very possible.
27-MAR-2010
Day 86 - Raised Lettering
(816/365)
This is probably my biggest disappointment with my bike painting project. After trying for about a 1/2 hour last week to mask off the raised lettering on the side cowls (I only tried one side), I gave up and removed the lettering instead. This is the lettering I removed today, the one I removed last week is all ripped apart. I could actually apply this lettering again after paint, it stayed together. I'm not going to though. The lettering is sitting on a prepped side panel, gone is the mirror shine at least until I finish the clear coat on top of the red. The side panels are the only panels that I am applying a plastic filler/primer. I have to fix up some spots from removing the lettering as well as cover an area on the left panel where the paint has flaked away to bare plastic. There's no way that my new paint would adhere to the bare plastic.
Oh yeah I'm using my crappy old 420EX, the vignetting you see here is NOT from Lightroom, it is all "underpowered bounce flash" natural.
26-MAR-2010
Day 85 - End of the week
(815/365)
I'd wanted to come home early today to spend a little time with the fam. Of course something happened at work and I didn't leave until 9PM. This morning on the way into work, I decided to go straight in because I'd be leaving at a reasonable hour and would find a shot then. I should have known better. Anyway, my wife is wearing PJ's that are appropriate for this weekend. This morning we had snow and tonight the temps are to drop to about 12F. Welcome to spring in New England!
25-MAR-2010
Day 84 - Preserver
(814/365)
While I'd wanted my "Nautical Stuff" photo to be today's PaD, I like this one better. It makes this the second time that I've used the bottom of this bridge as a PaD, I believe the first time was a few years back. I've used the bridge itself as a subject quite a few times. I am on the Kittery Maine side of the bridge. This is the lower deck, an old railroad bridge. This is not an optical illusion, there is a gap in the rail, the large portion in the background is a section that actually slides out of the way to allow smaller boats to traverse the bridge without having to wait for (or require) the bridge to raise/lower. I've only ever seen this section closed, a few years back when I was able to get a pretty decent photo of the rails. Now there is a fence blocking the way.
24-MAR-2010
Day 83 - Linked
(813/365)
This shot here may have cost me some $$. While setting up for the shot, I accidently dropped my trusty 580EX-2 on the floor, rendering it a very fancy paperweight. I actually had to pull out the 420EX, blow the dust off it, add some batteries, and give it a whirl. For a bounce shot, you can't tell the difference, though I had to push the flash up quite a bit to get the exposure correct. I've finished filling out the Canon Service Request. It will go into the mail tomorrow. Fingers crossed, I really love that flash!
23-MAR-2010
Day 82 - Webdav Evening
(812/365)
So I am thinking all day that I really need a reference Webdav server implementation, something that I can try to connect to from a Windows machine. Turns out good 'ole OSX comes with built in support as both a client and server. I stumbled on an article (
Linky ) that shows how to enable it via apache, then I tried to connect via my XP image running in a Fusion session (this is so cool). It took a while to get right, but it worked. Well, sort of. It did work, but the Windows integration didn't work like I expected or wanted.
That is my 15.4" MacBook Pro on the right there. I run an external Dell 22" monitor. I am eager to see what Apple has in store for the MacBook Pro refresh. I'm ready for a Quad Core.
22-MAR-2010
Day 81 - Function
(811/365)
I was looking in my washer this evening to make sure there were no lost socks. The light was hitting the basket just right and I got this really odd idea that this could be today's PaD photo. It definately qualifies as an abstract.
21-MAR-2010
Day 80 - Sunset Pano
(810/365)
I'm not sure what my fascination is with Panos lately. This was a quick hand-held pano I snapped just before I went in to watch my daughter's Fencing class. I thought I had about 15 minutes of watching her, I'd planned on getting some decent shots today. When I walked into the facility, she was walking out, they let out early. Good thing I got this pano, otherwise I'd be scrambling for a PaD photo today.
20-MAR-2010
Day 79 - Banjos
(809/365)
I took a quick photo of these guys earlier today before they were mounted so I could post a question out on Stromtrooper.com. Turns out I didn't need to wait for the answer, I was able to get them mounted. These are my new Galfer individual front brake lines. The one on the camera left goes to the right caliper, the one on the right goes to the left caliper.
My oldest actually helped with some of my bike work today. The temperature was incredible, it was in the 70's, she looked bored so I asked her to come help me with my bike. Imagine my surprise when she came out and actually helped. I put her to work gathering tools and teaching her some of the motorcycle maintenance items, though the work I am doing right now is way beyond normal preventative maintenance. She wants to get a bike next year when she turns 16. She will need to learn how to maintain it first though.
19-MAR-2010
Day 78 - Damn Beavers Pano
(808/365)
I find myself with another Pano this week. Oddly enough, this is "Flood Induced" as well. I travel that road you can see in the background (right) every day (when I am driving a 4 wheel vehicle). for as long as I can remember, this area I am taking a photo of, has been a pond. The water came up to the bark line on those trees in the pond to the right, behind that well head. The reason for the pond was the beaver dam on the left hand side of the photo. With the record-breaking 9.09 inches of rain last weekend, the pond overflowed and the back side (tough to see in this photo, but the end of the dam in the background) broke away with the power of the water. Soon after the rains stopped, I noticed that this pond had drained to this level we see here. That was on Tuesday, I've been wanting to stop ever since. I never expected to walk this far into the woods for this photo though, I'd expected something by the roadside. I tried walking the far bank, but it is basically swamp muck, I would have sunk away completely. As it was, when I got back to my car, I was picking ticks off me. Ticks already, see that white stuff in the photo on the right? That is snow. Ticks I tell you! Ticks!!
18-MAR-2010
Day 77 - Sometimes I Feel Like This
(807/365)
I didn't get to work on the bike, but I did so much yesterday that I feel pretty good about the frame progress. Actually, I lied, when I got home from work a little while ago, I removed the masking tape from the two frame stickers that I decided to preserve (one was the VIN, the other was a list of Torque specs). My daughter is pinging me right now to go watch The X-Files.
17-MAR-2010
Day 76 - Frame
(806/365)
I've finally answered my year-old question of "Has anyone painted their VStrom Frame?"
I am answering 'Yes'.
Bedliner takes about 15 minutes to apply the three coats (this is at coat #2) over an hour period of time. It takes about 3 hours of prep though to get to the painting stage. I had to wrap everything, including my chain and rear caliper. I'm not shooting for perfection here, I'm shooting for initial appearance. What I have missed with the bedliner, I expect to cover up with dirt and grime in the first month back on the road.
16-MAR-2010
Day 75 - Flow
(805/365)
I swung by the falls this morning (I swung by three separate falls this morning, this is also known as "the falls" at least to me). There is a stone ledge in front of the camera that I am usually concerned with getting to close to as it is about an 8' drop to the rocky shore below. Today the river water was within about an inch or two of spilling over the stone ledge. The water on this side of the falls is tidal, so I have to assume it was high tide, but even then the water level was quite high.
I set up the ND 6 on the tripod and went to town. This time I was good enough to hold my whibal card in front of the camera to get an exposure for adjustment later (that was a long shot of holding my arm out for 25 seconds too). The work paid off, normally there is a huge red shift that whacks my color so I just go B&W. I actually had to desaturate the blue because it looked so artificial. Turns out our town (South Berwick) reported rainfall of 9" during this storm. Considering the weathermen said 2" - 4" was expected, I would consider this signifigant.
15-MAR-2010
Day 74 - Great Works Pano
(804/365)
This is a highly deformed pano of the Great Works River on the west side of the new bridge. I shot this pano with an ND 4 filter in place. This might be my first Long-Exposure Pano. The steel girders in the photo are actually straight. If you can straighten this out in your mind, you can get an idea for the amount of water here. The trees in the distance form the banking at the river's curve. The house to the right sits on property that extends to this curve. While I have seen the river come up over the bank, I don't recall seeing it go so far up. This is the same river that has overspilled into our development, I have a photo in my Flickr Photo stream of it.
14-MAR-2010
Day 73 - PJ Fencer
(803/365)
My oldest has been fencing with my wife for the past 4 1/2 months so I've never had a chance to see. My wife is gone for a week & 1/2 so I get to take my daughter to her fencing lessons. The studio is horribly lit, there are flourescent lights and the walls are this orangish/yellow color, not white. It screams "White Balance" at least to me. I only brought the LX3 which doesn't have any zoom. She was in the far area, I was sitting in this little seating area that extended to where I am taking this shot, though I was another 10 - 12 feet back. It looks like I can go into the studio while they are practicing. I might bring my 'gear' with me next weekend. I was hesitant to bring the gear today with the storm in full force, though I could have had some pretty cool shots in our town of water shooting up through the sewer, knocking the manhole cover off about 3 feet or so.
13-MAR-2010
Day 72 - Front End
(802/365)
My bike finally has a front end! It's missing a couple of things like brake lines and brakes. But I finally finished my forks! With the front tire back on, I was able to take the bike off the stands and push it to its new location near the garage door. After a short-lived timeframe where it resembled a motorcycle, I popped it back up on its center stand and yanked the rear tire. I've already pulled the front sprocket, I have to replace a seal behind the front sprocket and also install my lowering links. I have to do both of these things with the rear off. If the temps warm up a bit (after we get slammed by this current storm), I will hit the frame with some bedliner.
12-MAR-2010
Day 71 - Discarded
(801/365)
So I don't want to make it look like I eat at some fast food restaurant all the time, but today I was eating a little lunch in the McDonald's parking lot and noticed this rose on the ground beside my car. I studied it for a while trying to figure out its story. I was wondering who left or lost it there in the parking lot. I was also wondering why no one claimed it, even though it was very dead by the time I noticed it, that may not have been the case when it was dropped. Of course, if it had been there for a long time, it would have been much flatter from getting run over by vehicles.
I imagine others were wondering what the heck I was doing outside in the parking lot with a big 'ole Canon white lens (70-200 F4L) taking photos of something on the ground. I already know my story though ;-)
11-MAR-2010
Day 70 - Parking Lot Handouts
(800/365)
I actually had a lunch today, I left the building and everything. My first stop was Sears to look for a replacement Torque Wrench. While the Torque Wrench didn't pan out, I got completely sidetracked on some garage gear from Whirlpool called Gladiator Garageworks. I know what I will be looking at in the coming months once I've finished the bike.
After Sears I went to Wendy's for my favorite cheeseburger. I have this routine whenever I go (which isn't that often). I pull into the adjoining parking lot (KMart, which is now another Sears) and eat so that I'm not screwing around with eating and driving. Normally there are a bunch of Seagulls just hanging out waiting for people to feed them. I've never fed them before, but I had my camera with me so I figured this would be a great oppurtunity to capture a bird or two. This little guy got a little piece of a french fry from me. He was hanging out waiting for more, but I'm a bit of a Scrooge with my fries.
10-MAR-2010
Day 69 - Partial
(799/365)
I'm only partially here today. These late nights are taking a toll. I am not the first one to ride in on my motorcycle to work this year. My bike is not road worthy and it can't get any more road worthy if I'm at work all the time.
/rant
09-MAR-2010
Day 68 - Misidentified Frustration
(798/365)
Another one of these "its at the top of my list today photos". This past weekend, I almost finished my front end on the bike. Almost. I was lining up the parts for the left fork, getting all the seals and bushings lined up so that I did it right, when I realized that the part that was supposed to be the Oil Seal, was actually a dust seal. I am very anal about ordering parts, I have a logistical background and I work in the Auto ID (As in Identification) market (bar codes). I ordered the right part (#51153-14D00), the bag had the wrong part.
So I was unable to finish the fork,
which meant I was unable to mount the forks,
which meant I was unable to mount the tire,
which meant I was unable to put the bike back down on its two wheels,
which meant I was unable to move the bike forward,
which meant I was unable to put the bike back up on it's center-stand,
which meant I was unable to remove the rear tire,
which meant I was unable to work on my front sprocket or my lowering links.
This also meant I was unable to prep my rear swing arm for paint.
I was able to source the correct part from a company nearby (in Maine) that got it to me in two days (not bad). Unfortunately I don't have the time to finish the forks until the weekend. . .
08-MAR-2010
Day 67 - Distorted
(797/365)
I got home late again, I wanted to try some kind of Strobist shot with shadows and someone had left this clothespin on the kitchen table.
Strobist Info:
580EX-2 Camera Left 1/128 Power. Triggered via Cybersyncs.
07-MAR-2010
Day 66 - Grunge
(779/365)
This is pretty much how I feel today. I had a pretty busy day today. Productive day also. I finished (to the best of my knowledge) all of the removable parts on my bike that need to be painted with the black bedliner. I put on my new handlebar, it's lightly takced on, the grips haven't been added yet (not sure if I am going to use the original grips or a different set). I was able to successfully spray myself with brake fluid in the process of taking off the old bars (nice!).
06-MAR-2010
Day 65 - Big Race
(796/365)
My son didn't do so hot in the pinewood derby today. Both races he came in last (they have a double elimination). Its all in the wheels, something had to be wrong with the wheels.
05-MAR-2010
Day 64 - Not Really Riding Yet
(795/365)
I have sooo much work left on the bike AND the temps are going to get into the 50's this weekend. I am going to have to listen to the Harleys out there this weekend, knowing my bike is no where near ready to even start, much less ride. My list of 'stuff' that is left:
- New Handlebars
- New Brake Lines
- New Clutch Line
- Replace Clutch Rod Seal
- Replace Rear Brake Pads
- Replace Rear Brake Boot
- New Rear Cush Rubbers
- New Air Filter
- Mount the Air Filter Box
- Rebuild front forks
- Install Kouba Lowering Links
- Install Speed-O-Healer
- Finish Painting Panels
- Install Gas Tank
That's pretty much it. Maybe I will just go buy a new bike ;-)
Strobist:
580EX2 Camera Left (High) 1/4 Power. Triggered by Cybersyncs.
04-MAR-2010
Day 63 - Final Work
(794/365)
So after last night's shot of my son's car and finding the fact that he didn't paint the back of it, I made a point to come home early tonight since I had the car with me at work to check the weight. He has now finished the paint. We still have to get the wheels mounted (Straight) and the weight mounted as well. Probably another 1/2 hour of work. Tomorrow evening is pre-registration, time is running out.
03-MAR-2010
Day 62 - Derby Prep
(793/365)
My son is hopefully putting his finishing touches on his pinewood derby entry for this weekend. His two prior cars are in the background. He pretty much does it all. He even cuts the car on my bandsaw. I just realized that he is not done painting as the end is missing a little something. It is hard to keep a 9-year-old boy on task, especially when I'm not home in the evenings.
02-MAR-2010
Day 61 - Pizza Power
(792/365)
The key to this photo is the Pizzeria in the background. Badger Island Pizzeria to be exact. Apparently the owner of the Pizzeria was on the news a couple of nights ago (Sunday?) in a highly emotional state giving his opinion of the lack of power on the island. I heard about this on my drive in yesterday (I don't watch TV News). The morning DJ's on WBLM were talking about the interview and they actually called the Pizzeria to talk to the owner. They got the owner and had him on the air for a little while, then they talked to his wife. Badger Island is this little teeny island between Kittery Maine and Portsmouth, NH. The Maine half of the Memorial Bridge (the Southernmost Maine-NH Bridge) is on Badger Island. This morning I decided to head to the island because of a potentially cool spot I was told about to photograph Portsmouth, NH. When I pulled into the "Cool Spot" I noticed the large numbers of Utility Vehicles (some were from PA) and figured this shot might hold some signifigance since it looked like the Pizzeria would be getting power.
No Badgers or Utility workers were harmed during the photography session.
01-MAR-2010
Day 60 - Relief
(791/365)
Today, three days after the storm hit, there are still quite a few people in our county without power. We aren't one of them (woo hoo), but still, there are a lot. I turned off quickly today when I saw all the utility trucks in this parking lot, I figured there had to be a photo here somewhere. This isn't actually a pano, I cropped out the uninteresting sky and parking lot, I can be crafty like that.
28-FEB-2010
Day 59 - Fork Work
(790/365)
Though it doesn't look it, I made some headway on a fork today. I was able to take care of a bunch of little things on the bike, I went so far as to get the radiator & throttle bodies back on the bike. I have to take my time to make sure I reconnect all the wiring harnesses and hoses that I disconnected about 6 weeks ago. I didn't expect to get to the forks at all. I removed the cap and pulled the spring out. I also removed the dust seal, though you can't see that in this photo. After I decided I was finished for the day, I put the old cap back on, the 'new' caps have a preload adjustment. This is the old spring by the way. The new Sonic Springs are still wrapped up and in a box at the moment.
27-FEB-2010
Day 58 - Girders and Water
(789/365)
My son & I swung by the bridge this afternoon on the way back from skateboarding. We were checking out the various bridges to find out how high the rivers are. I also wanted to see the results of the steel girders from yesterday. They are all in place. I am on the eastern side of the bridge, facing south. The water was really high and really moving. There is a house on the far bank to the left that had water throughout their yard.
I have seen the water level higher during our floods a few years back, but that was after a spring where we had 30 days of rain. This is the effect of a single storm.
26-FEB-2010
Day 57 - Bridge Work
(788/365)
Amazing, no one in our county has power, the roads are blocked in places due to fallen branches and trees. The river is swelling to the base of the new bridge base and they are still able to deliver and unload the girders for the new bridge. I couldn't see anything on the way home, it was too dark.
25-FEB-2010
Day 56 - No Power
(787/365)
I came home to a dark neighborhood and knew the score. Losing power in the midst of the biggest rain storm of the century isn't a good thing. I was also photo-less for the day. My wife was doing crosswords by flashlight so she got the portrait duty. I bumped it to ISO 1600 to shoot without flash to capture the actual scene. It was quite dark.
Posting a day late due to the fact we had no power.
24-FEB-2010
Day 55 - Snuggling
(786/365)
I've been coming home after the family has gone to bed so it was no surprise to see that my wife & son were in bed watching the olympics (DVR'd).
23-FEB-2010
Day 54 - On the Rocks
(785/365)
My cup almost overflowed with fizz from my coke this evening. The first thing I thought of was to grab the camera. I spent so much time getting the camera, mounting the Macro lens, flash, and monopod, that the fizz was fin. Further attempts to produce foto fizz failed. I couldn't get the AF to focus. This particular composition, however, surprised me a bit. I kind of of like it.
Now I need to add a little Scotch.
22-FEB-2010
Day 53 - The Bait Shop
(784/365)
I was given a lead on this Bait house. Turns out, I've been here before, but for the life of me, can't remember if I shot this or not (I can't find it posted). You are on the "Bait Honor System" when shopping at this establishment. There were all these little dead fish outside of it, I wasn't sure if the bait was being dishonest, or this was a means of warding off "city slickers". I noticed the little fish when I stood up after kneeling on the ground for this shot. There was what looked like a sunfish stuck to my right knee. Luckily, I wear jeans and dead fish pieces fit right on in.
21-FEB-2010
Day 52 - Rough
(783/365)
I was in the cellar taking some more photos of my "VStrom Painting Project" when I realized that the sanding drum attachment in the drill press looked interesting. I am NOT using this for the "VStrom Painting Project", it was left out after one of my Cub Scouts cut his car for the pinewood derby, we use the drum sander to make the rough sanding.
20-FEB-2010
Day 51 - Tired Boy on Platform
(782/365)
My son today, waiting for the Red Line at the Park Station. He was pretty tired by this point. On our way back from the Apple Store (Which rocked by the way) we declared a "Fun Pact", formed the "Quad-T" group and pledged to ride all the different lines back to North Station before boarding the DownEaster back home. We were in luck since there is a 'loop' where the Green connects to the Red, which connects to the Orange, which connects to the Blue, which connects back to the Green, forming a loop. Each leg is only one stop long. We waited the longest for the Red line, the rest were basically walk out of one line and right into a waiting train.
19-FEB-2010
Day 50 - They Grow Up Fast
(781/365)
My daughter's 15th Birthday today. We are heading to Boston on the DownEaster (Train) tomorrow for her celebration. It really is amazing how they can go from fitting into your hand (she was 5lbs 10oz at birth) to young adults. Her 'big' gift was Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for her MacBook (that she paid off back in December/January from 18 months of Babysitting $$).
18-FEB-2010
Day 49 - Not Sure
(780/365)
I happened to be glancing to my left when I was passing by this boat yard on my morning commute. I've probably seen this before but it never actually registered. I am trying to figure out if this is what a boat starts out as, or if this is really it's name. I might not get any sleep tonight just pondering this. If this is it's name, then it is incorrect.
17-FEB-2010
Day 48 - American Idol
(779/365)
The girls getting ready to watch American Idol. I have no idea if this is a live version or DVR'd. It's the earliest I've been home in a little while, not really in sync with what's going on around here. My oldest is contemplating her 15th Birthday in two days. In the coming year, she will be getting her permit. I'm not ready to have another driver yet (although we are starting to plan on her first motorcycle ;-)
16-FEB-2010
Day 47 - Framed Ship
(778/365)
This morning I headed over to my favorite spot, I had this feeling there would be a ship in port and viola! The only problem is that it looked a little Blah with the overcast sky. I shifted position to behind the bridge and tried to do a little framing action. Apparently, the clouds in the distance were the hairbringer of our first real snow storm of 2010. It took me about an hour to get home today. I actually had to divert back over the Rte 1 Bypass bridge since the I95 bridge was a parking lot.
The ship is called the "New Alliance" by the way.
15-FEB-2010
Day 46 - Cross Stitch
(777/365)
I was able to get some work done today, it wasn't nearly as lazy a day as yesterday. On the good side, after re-checking my valves on the bike, they are all within spec. I'm not sure what happened the other day.
I caught my wife on the couch with the fam (well, the fam that isn't sleeping over a friend's house, that is) doing her cross-stitch.
14-FEB-2010
Day 45 - One Lazy Day
(776/365)
This has been one very lazy day. A day of not running around to be somewhere. A day of doing absolutely no work (which I will pay for tomorrow). And the odd thing is, I'm exhausted right now. This whole relaxation thing is exhausting.
My wife was playing a game with the kids before she left with my oldest for fencing lessons so I set the LX3 down on the table and grabbed this shot. I didn't even break out the 40D today. I have a long list of "things I should have done" today, but I'm thinking the world will still be here tomorrow when I wake, I'll get cracking on those things then.
13-FEB-2010
Day 44 - Intake Cam
(775/365)
Well, the good news is I picked up the correct feeler gauges this past week. The bad news (and, it's not really 'bad'), my front intakes were out of spec. I got to pull more of my bike apart. Since I have the intake cam off, I decided it would make a good subject for today's PaD.
The actual 'bad' part was before I pulled this. I'd just started to settle in, I'd started the kerosene heater to get the chill out. I'd removed the front cylinder head cover, but not moved it out of the way. The CO/Smoke alarm went off and I realized that the kerosene heater was flaming (abnormal) so I jumped up to attend to the situation. When I got back, I forgot to check the status of the cylinder head cover before I turned the engine over. I posted a picture of the damage on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsansoucie/4355033844/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsansoucie/4355033484/
VStrom Info: Lt will need a 262 Shim & Rt will need a 245 Shim.
Strobist Info:
580EX-2 Camera right, above the subject, fired into a homemade difuser, pointing down. 1/16 Power. Triggered by Cybersyncs.
12-FEB-2010
Day 43 - Nanook
(774/365)
Here I am wearing my favorite winter hat. It's my Mad Bomber hat that looks stupid as all hell, but is the warmest thing in the world. I was kind of pushing it this morning, it was warm enough to not need it as temps were about 28F or so, but this was all for a photo op. My kids hate this hat, it's how I keep them in line, I tell them if they misbehave, I will come visit them at school wearing my hat. The background is an old storage building on the Tradeport, a left over relic of the Air Force Base. I was looking for something rustic.
Strobist info:
580EX2 @ 1/128, hand-held camera right/lower. Fired via Cybersyncs.
Exposure set with my Sekonic L358 (sitting on the ground at this point)
11-FEB-2010
Day 42 - Nautical
(773/365)
This morning in Kittery. Turns out I shot the boat in the foreground back on the 15th of January from the shore to camera left. I originally stopped on Badger Island to shoot some pigeons (shoot as in with a camera), and noticed this scene on the south side of the bridge. I like this one better.
10-FEB-2010
Day 41 - Bottom
(772/365)
The bottom of a banana that we happened to have in our fruit basket here at the house. I didn't do a morning shot today and wasn't much in the mood for an evening shot, leaving me with not much to shoot after getting home late. Depth of Field is always fun though.
09-FEB-2010
Day 40 - Portsmouth at Night
(771/365)
I don't think I've ever done a night shot of Portsmouth before. In general, I'm not a big "Night Shot" kind of guy, I don't know why, I'm usually at work until dark, I'm up late normally. Normally when I leave work, I just want to get home, unless I'm on the bike. I'm missing out on a whole other oppurtunity here. I have to figure a way to not blow out the North Church Steeple AND still get the city relatively exposed. This might call for an HDR-Type-Thing.
08-FEB-2010
Day 39 - NH Motorcycle
(770/365)
I have a few more shots of the old NH Motorcycle store on the Route 1 Bypass in Kittery, but I'm going to go back at a later point, once my bike is back together, and get it right. Turns out my car was in the reflection of this really cool corner window. While the reflection is cool, I think a motorcycle in the reflection would go over much better than a 2007 Honda Civic with its doors open.
07-FEB-2010
Day 38 - Exhaust in Spec
(769/365)
Well, the good news is that I was able to yank the front tire, brake lines, calipers, forks, and radiator today. This gave me ample room to check valve clearances. My front Exhaust's are all within spec, the photo is actually clear enough (at least the full res) to see the feeler gauge is .203mm. Unfortunately that happens to be the smallest feeler gauge in this set which is too tight for checking the Intakes. For all I know there is zero clearance on those puppies. In a frantic search of the house, I couldn't locate my old Beemer feeler gauge set which I think would have given me the tolerance(s) I needed. It's Superbowl Sunday, I can't imagine I'd run into any traffic trying to locate a smaller set at the local auto parts stores. I like that this set is bent, perfect for motorcycle useage.
06-FEB-2010
Day 37 - Laptop
(768/365)
I've spent a good deal of my time this weekend on the laptop, working on a small project for work. It's the first real bit of coding that I've done in a while. I've spent so much time revieiwing code, chasing down bugs, and dealing with a thousand other things, that I've forgotten how much fun coding can actually be. I was 'working' this morning while my son was skateboarding, then we went back this evening for a couple of hours and did the same thing. He'd prefer I not hover over him and I'd prefer to squeeze out some extra productivity in those hours. I feel pretty odd though, the code I'm writing is all C++, all Microsoft to boot. This was the first weekend that I've actually booted my MacBook Pro into Windows XP instead of struggling through Fusion. I have to admit, the MBP makes a good Windows machine, albeit I have to struggle through the keyboard a bit.
05-FEB-2010
Day 36 - Moon thru the Gate
(767/365)
I was panicking a bit this morning on my way in, I knew I wanted to get some kind of shot with the moon framed just right, but couldn't find anything interesting. For this shot, I am at the end of the runway (where the airplane watchers hang out) shooting through the security fence. I am manually focusing on the moon, kind of guessing it since it was cold, windy, and very bright out. In the preview screen on the 40D, the shots I took looked like they were not going to work. I didn't have a whole lot of time to shoot anything else, so I basically filed the need for another PaD in the back of my head all day. This didn't turn out half bad, good thing, since I forgot about the need for reshooting my PaD ;-)
04-FEB-2010
Day 35 - Sync in Progress
(766/365)
My day started with me applying the latest iTunes and iPhone updates, onlly to basically render my iPhone useless. I was flipping out this morning because the error code I received from iTunes wasn't listed anywhere AND Apple's support wasn't in yet (they don't start until 6am Pacific). I brought my Mac Book Pro into work with me to find that you need an internet connection to restore your iPhone. We just did a massive Network thing at work and there is no Internet for non-Work computers. I was able to get ahold of Apple around lunch, got the instructions for clearing the mess up, and actually took a real lunch. I went to a place that has free WIFI and was able to get my iPhone restored. It took about another hour to sync it up with all my songs and stuff. I am truly addicted to the iPhone, I couldn't even use it as a phone, couldn't run any apps at all this morning, and I was lost.
03-FEB-2010
Day 34 - Bridge Work
(765/365)
This morning as I crossed over the temporary bridge, I realized the crew was setting the girders on the south side of the new bridge. I passed on by, thinking "wow that would make a great photo". I made it about a mile away before turning around. I pulled right up and set up the tripod only to see them finish. I put all the gear back and noticed that there was one girder left, so I pulled it all out and set it back up. While I was shooting, this guy came over to check on me and make sure I wasn't with the newspaper. We wound up talking for quite some time, he filled me in on the finer points of bridge building. For instance, they drive these girders into the ground until they seat. They know that they have seated when, after seven consecutive whacks with this big hammer thing, the girder doesn't move an inch. The concrete that goes into the the sides of the bridge will technically be supported by the girders that are ultimately resting on rock below. He told me a lot more, but that's enough for now. The last thing he said was "Stop by anytime". I will probably do just that.
02-FEB-2010
Day 33 - Uhm...
(764/365)
This photo kind of announced itself as I hit the traffic circle in Kittery this morning. I sure hope they "take no shit" at the DQ.
Technically the driver was parked here to hit the restaurant (hit as in get something to eat) beside the DQ. He saw me standing outside capturing this scene when he came back (I was finishing up). I left without saying a word.
I took a little spot healing to the phone number, I believe the last time I shot them, I did the same thing (years back).
01-FEB-2010
Day 32 - Urban Confusion
(763/365)
While stopped at my favorite bridge photo spot, I noticed this scene off in the distance. I was about 20 - 30 feet above and realized that this shot needed to be at ground level to work as looking down at it was the wrong perspective, Memorial Bridge in the background would have been lost. The bridge you see in the background was built either at the end of or just after WWI. It is this amazing mass of metal and rust. It is also the southernmost bridge between Maine and NH. The sky was a little blown out so I added a bit of tint to it which makes it look kind of dawn or dusky like. I'm pretty cool like that ;-)
31-JAN-2010
Day 31 - Jump!
(762/365)
I should have known better than to try to get a tight shot of my son while he was holding onto a jump rope and watching TV. Its not easy trying to capture a 9-year-old with a 100mm Macro in a low light situation.
30-JAN-2010
Day 30 - Two of Us
(761/365)
For some odd reason, I got this "Studio Feeling" this afternoon and set up a backdrop, two strobes, and the camera on the tripod (along with my interval timer shutter release). I talked my wife into posing with me and we were able to get a "Non-rushed" "
52 of Us" photo for this week. This is something like the first weekend evening since the New Year where we didn't have any plans in the afternoon/evening.
My morning and early afternoon were busy, my son had Skateboarding and then we had a Den meeting. Today was "Rope Day" a group of 9 year old boys with rope! There are now four more kids in this world who know the Square Knot.
Man I love the Sekonic!! It came in very handy for getting the exposure correct. I'm getting to the point where I fully trust it, I won't "chimp the exposure" after Mr Sekonic tells me what to do.
Strobist Info: Canon 580EX-2 Camera Left 1/4 Power. Vivitar shooting into white sheet backdrop 1/2 power. Using Cybersyncs.
29-JAN-2010
Day 29 - Morning Labor
(760/365)
I came through the center of Portsmouth this morning after I realized this ship was in port. In the winter, I am able to shoot the ships from the restaurant docks, there's no one to bother me. It was another cold one on the water too. For this series, I left my gloves on and just worked a little slower. A few minutes earlier, I was in Kittery on the water shooting some lobster traps without my gloves on. My hands were at the verge of frostbite within two minutes (keyword: 'verge'). I'm not sure what it is about ships, but I get on this kick in the winters (when I'm not riding the bike) and seek them out. I am not a nautical person. I've never even been on a real ship before. I'm not even sure I would want to go on a ship, I'd get seasick, besides, what would I shoot when I'm on the ship?
28-JAN-2010
Day 28 - Portal
(759/365)
I've seen this boat on my way into work every morning for the past month or so. There are a few boat yards on my normal commute, none of them anywhere near water. I swung around to try to capture the boat, with hopes of getting the muted sun into the frame somehow. I didn't expect to be able to frame it like this though. It's not everyday I can take a shot like this into the sun without some kind of flash.
27-JAN-2010
Day 27 - Eastern Force
(758/365)
How can I not resist a photograph of the aft of a ship called "Eastern Force"? I wish I had a way of capturing the ships that dock in this particular location from their bow. I have to do a little looking and poking around, ideally I would be underneath the Route 95 Bridge, but I don't think there is a clear shot. Anyway, while I was walking back to my car from this shot, I noticed another potential shot when the sun is just right. I took a ton of handheld test shots to make sure it was framed properly and it looks like it will work. This particular spot yields a large number of PaD photos through out the year for me!
26-JAN-2010
Day 26 - Reflections
(757/365)
At the end of the runway this morning. The ironic part was the fact that a plane taxied into position and took off while I was shooting this. The only problem was that I couldn't see it from this angle. I could hear and smell it though. That thing that looks like a turtle in the middle of the photo (fence bottom) is actually some form of drain pipe.
25-JAN-2010
Day 25 - Island
(756/365)
I saw this truck in the middle of the parking lot on my way into work this morning. It was completely alone and surrounded by snow. Since it hasn't snowed out in about a week, I figured this truck has been abandoned in the lot for at least that long. Somehow I missed it last week. There is a bar off to the left of this truck, I'm thinking someone got a little too drunk one night and completely forgot about their truck.
24-JAN-2010
Day 24 - Intake Valve
(755/365)
While working on the bike, I noticed this scene after removing the throttle bodies. This is the left intake valve on the rear cylinder. The right isn't as bad. I'm having a hell of a time trying to inspect my front valves (the throttle bodies are suspended in place right above the intake, right in my line of sight).
23-JAN-2010
Day 23 - Boys Night
(754/365)
Tonight was Scout Night at the Portland Pirates. My son & I went and we brought along his friend and fellow den member, Logan (not appearing in this photo). The boys were pretty tired, they had a sleep over at Logan's house last night and didn't get a whole lotta sleep. They spent most of today together also. They were looking a little tired at the start of the game. It took a little coaxing to get my son to not look like a zombie for a quick photo.
The Pirates scored in the first period, it was looking good well into the 2nd period until the Devils scored two points. The Pirates never scored another goal, it wasn't from a lack of shots on the goal either. It was a good thing for us the game was a little lackluster and the boys were tired. We left with 3 minutes to go and was able to beat the crowd out. We were at the top of the parking garage. Last year, it was a much better game and we left after it finished, then had to wait a 1/2 hour in the parking garage until everyone below us had exited.
This is a jpg out of my LX3. I knew there was a reason I don't like jpg files coming out of a camera. The White Balance is messed up.
22-JAN-2010
Day 22 - Reach
(753/365)
I saw this tree this morning way off in the distance and decided I needed to shoot it. In this field area (near my youngest daughter's school), all the trees, bushes, and marsh weeds were covered in a hoarfrost. I wanted to make sure I could get enough of the blue sky in frame to add a little contrast.
I took a few more shots this morning, they are out at Flickr:
21-JAN-2010
Day 21 - Frosty Light
(752/365)
I stopped off at the Xmas Tree Stand again today, I really wanted to look at the For Sale sign as I thought the lot was for sale. It turns out the For Sale sign was for a snowblower. Anyway, while I was standing around in the 16 degree weather, I noticed the cool looking frost on the lights.
I shot three or four different lights, trying to get it just right. It was so bright this morning that the background was overpowering the lights. When I tried to underexpose the background, the lights were lost in the shadows. I grabbed my flash to dial in a little fill and I can't help thinking that I dialed in too much. This shot says 'flash' to me. I tried to warm it up a little to make it look more like sunlight, but it's still obvious. I might just be splitting hairs here, but I wish I had the option of doing a little off camera flash to give it some more detail. I didn't have any way to support an off camera flash this morning, that is my only saving grace.
20-JAN-2010
Day 20 - Snow Car
(751/365)
I was just here last month shooting this car that is still on a trailer in a parking lot. An old passenger bus has joined up with it, out of frame in the background. I was actually in the parking lot beside this building looking for a different shot when I realized the car was still there. I wound up with snow up to m knees walking around shooting it from different angles. Nothing a little heater on full blast couldn't cure for the rest of the drive into work.
19-JAN-2010
Day 19 - Snow Flame
(750/365)
I was trying for a much wider shot than this. Trying to capture the branches that were draped in white from the hoarfrost & snow. Those wide shots never seem to do it for me later on back in front of the computer. I am 'settling' on this cat-nine-tail that looks like it is on snow-fire. It was snowing out this morning when I took this, if you look close enough, you can see the streaks from the flakes in the background (moving from the top right to the bottom left). Just a simple B&W treatment in LR.
18-JAN-2010
Day 18 - Wheel Horse
(749/365)
We finally got enough snow this winter for me to justify digging out the tractor for help. To open up more space in our garage this summer, I parked the tractor (Wheel Horse C-120) outside along the side of the house under a tarp. The only thing I use this for is clearing the driveway, the snowblower attachment remains on the tractor all the time. I sometimes use it to move our utility trailer around the yard, but this year I cleared a spot along the side (in front of the tractor) for the trailer and haven't needed the assistance of the wheel horse. I was able to get our Tahoe within "Jumper Cable Range" of the tractor and it only took about 3 - 4 minutes to get it started while jumped.
The blades on the auger are all nicked from hitting rocks from the gravel that lines our driveway. Even with the lack of use, the misuse, and the age of this tractor, it just keeps on going. It is built like a tank.
17-JAN-2010
Day 17 - Clean Air
(748/365)
I've begun my winter maintenance on the Strom today. I had to pull the tank, I knew I had to pull the tank, there was no surprise, it was on my list, I thought I was prepared. Turns out I had an almost full tank of gas. No problem, just grab the tubing on my shelf and siphon the gas out. Well, no tubing. For three year, I've kept moving this tubing around from shelf to shelf in the garage. I looked everywhere today and couldn't find it. So off to the auto parts store to get a siphon (forget simple tubing at this point, no sense sucking down gas). Came back with a new gas can too. This photo does justice to this air filter. In fact, from this angle it doesn't look that bad at all. Except for the fact that the baffles closest to the camera are completely plugged with road crap, even after beating it up over the trash can for five minutes.
I have a bunch of small things to accomplish with the bike over my "Winter Maintenance Period", one of them, fork oil and springs, just got bigger as I need a front stand now (long story). For the most part though, the bike has been torn down, I just need to yank the air box at some point to get to the vacuum ports for a Throttle Body Sync.
16-JAN-2010
Day 16 - Ford
(747/365)
This old Ford truck is actually part of a farmer's roadside stand around the corner from our house. I've been wanting to pull over and capture the stand, today I tried the stand, but decided I liked the truck much better. Rather, I liked part of the truck much better. Temps got into the high 40's today, everything is melting and the roadside area was a big huge mudfest. I was able to sink my tripod on a snowbank and keep it somewhat presentable.
15-JAN-2010
Day 15 - Good Morning
(746/365)
Scene this morning in the harbor in Kittery, Maine. I am parked down by Warrens Restaurant looking towards the Shipyard. I had a mixture of wider shots with all the cranes and the whole lobster boat in the foreground, but like this tighter shot better. There is a little bit of blur on the lobster boat due to the 1/40 shutter and the tide. I had the camera on the tripod, so it wasn't me. In the series of shots I took over a span of about a minute, that lobster boat moved across my field of view. In fact, this is the third or fourth shot in this series, I'd originally framed the bow and the antenna only, the boat moved that much to get most of it into frame (knocking it out of focus a tad since I focused Manually on the registration numbers). It was a little spooky doing my pixel peeping, in the full-res version there is a guy smoking a cigarette on the landing on the large crane. He is looking my way, most likely trying to figure out what the crazy guy across the way was doing with the tripod, camera, white lens, and mad bomber hat.
14-JAN-2010
Day 14 - Struggle
(745/365)
I returned to the area beneath the Route 1 Bypass bridge this morning to shoot the rails. The track has been abandoned (as far as I know). It runs (ran) beneath the bridge from Portsmouth to Kittery (I'm on the Kittery Side). There is a section closer to the Kittery side that is opened right now for boating traffic to pass through. There are gates at either end of the bridge preventing access to the track. I've never seen a train on this track, I'd like to though, it would make for a great photo. Anyway, I intended to do a more traditional shot of the rail, sweeping off to the right. While taking a few shots, I saw this little weed in the distance. I set the tripod up without extending the legs for this shot. I like this composition over my initial attempt with only one rail in frame. You need two rails to give it a sort of context. If I could do this over, I'd have set up a little Off Camera Flash to make the weed pop a little more.
13-JAN-2010
Day 13 - Harmen Oldendorff
(744/365)
I originally shot this scene from across the river, beside the Route 1 Bypass bridge that you can kind of see behind this ship (not the big huge arching bridge way back, that is I-95). The sun was already up and causing Dynamic Range Hell (DRH) as the reflections were killing me. The car thermoneter read 6 degrees F, off the river with the wind, it was about 10 below.
Anyway, I jumped back in the car and hit the Route 1 Bypass bridge. On the bridge, I realized that I could get a much better angle on this scene from Downtown Portsmouth, on the docks of one of the restaurants. In the winter, before 9am, this is something that is very possible (and parking is free too). It was equally cold from this particular vantage point, in fact, my fingers froze and took about 15 minutes to thaw. It was the first time I experienced incredible joint pain during this thaw process.
So this was a death-defying mission to capture this photo. I think it was worth it. From this angle, the sun was to my back (behind the buildings), lighting this just right.
12-JAN-2010
Day 12 - Any Tree
(743/365)
I seem to take a photo of this place every year right about this time. Last year there was enough snow for me to walk up to the roof of the shed in the background (OK, perhaps it was the year before last). Anyway, I've wanted to stop to get this sign before it comes down (it's just cardboard). They actually sold out of Xmas trees before Xmas this year. I'm wondering if I could pay them $35 for their spruce or their maple trees in the background. This might be my last year photographing this stand, when I pulled up in the car today, I noticed a "For Sale" sign on the fence out of frame beside the shed. I can't believe I actually used the crappy built in flash for fill in this shot. I was too lazy to go grab the 580EX-2, honestly, I'm not convinced the big guy would have done a better job. It was a little too bright, so I did a little spot burn in Lightroom.
11-JAN-2010
Day 11- High ISO
(742/365)
I've been reading so much about the 7D and it's excellent High ISO performance that I had that on the mind this evening when leaving work. I also realized that I didn't take my photo on the way into work (I had a conference call to get onto), nor did I step out at lunch like I kidded myself into thinking this morning. This was more of a test shot at ISO 3200, cleaned up only a little in Lightroom. The other shots I took this evening just didn't come out right. You can see the flare that drives me crazy with this lens (17-55 f/2.8 IS), it looks like flames coming off the flag pole.
10-JAN-2010
Day 10 - Air Jacob
(741/365)
Jacob catching some air at Powder House Hill this afternoon. This was taken before a failed jump attempt on a different sled. He slammed his right knee into the ice and was in enough pain to warrant a trip to the Emergency Room in Wells. Nothing broken, but enough to end our Powder House trips for th day (We'd actually intended to have one more trip back a little later in the afternoon).
09-JAN-2010
Day 9 - Improving
(740/765)
Saturday morning skateboarding is fast becoming a ritual. The photo ops are pretty cool too. For this one, I broke out my Tokina and set the camera down on the ground. He spent the entire time on this ramp, starting from the other side, rolling back, then back up towards me, then he worked on his turns. 1/2 way through the morning, he was nailing the turns and finishing off in the half-pipe. He was consistent enough for me to risk having my camera about 6" from his board as he was coming up the ramp.
08-JAN-2010
Day 8 - Lights Out
(739/365)
I've been here before though to take a much wider shot:
I couldn't get over the amount of growth by the brush and prickly vines. It took me a little while to navigate the obstacles and to even clear a little place to stand, then set up the tripod and camera. It was a pretty cool morning trek. I am now back in the mode of "PaD photo in the AM" on my drive home tonight, I couldn't remember what I shot in the morning. It took me a few miles to remember.
07-JAN-2010
Day 7 - Tug Tendering
(738/365)
This was an interesting find this morning. I took the Route 1 Bypass this morning to actually get to the Route 1 Memorial Bridge, intending to get some kind of nautical theme. This particular route takes me close to the river to give me a view of the oil dock in Portsmouth. When I saw the tug, I knew what my shot would be. There is something about this particular red, my Canon 40D, and Lightroom. The processed image wants to look like this real cheesy overprocessed cherry color. It took a lot of tweaking to get it to this point. I think it is due to excessive luminanse from the early morning sun (though that is just a guess). It was cold and windy this morning but not as cold and windy as it is supposed to get this weekend.
06-JAN-2010
Day 6- Shapes
(737/365)
A little study in shapes. This is the old supply warehouse on the Tradeport (used to be Base Supply when it was the Air Base). I'm guessing this section is vacant.
05-JAN-2010
Day 5- Get Good Seats
(736/365)
Through the viewfinder, this shot looked so-so. After I got home and looked at it in Lightroom and applied a few adjustments, it was much closer to the theme I originally intended to shoot when I trecked through the snow (again without the boots) to capture something. I wanted enough of the field in frame to let you know it is a baseball field, along with enough snow to give it the "Off Season" feel. It's definately off season around here now.
04-JAN-2010
Day 4 - Out Of Place
(735/365)
The first day of my non-riding winter season. I got out at lunch today for a trip to Best Buy (Returned something and looked at the 7D which goes on 'sale' in 4 days) and then set out for a photo. After walking around the front of the sub, I realized I should have brought my winter boots to work, my LL Bean low-tops do a great job of collecting snow, not so good at reflecting it. Anyway, this is the USS Albacore, permanently on display in Portsmouth, NH. Its a cool little tour, I've done it with the kids before, just a little short (nothing like Battleship cove in Fall River, Mass). I couldn't believe that the site was open AND there were a bunch of cars in the parking lot. While I was taking photos of the front, I watched a family enter it. I imagine it is pretty cold on that thing, I doubt there is any heat. At first I was pissed at the angle with the power lines in the back, but I kind of like the unnatural feel to it now. Not something you'd normally expect to see.
03-JAN-2010
Day 3 [734] - Something Red
(734/365)
When I saw that today's FGR was another "
Red Theme", I had wanted to get an Ultra Wide shot of a Target Store, but blew my chance when I left for the dump this morning in haste, leaving my camera at home. After the dump run, I had to go to The Home Depot which is right next store to Target. Scratch that oppurtunity. The rest of the day, save for fixing a leaky shower head, was spent watching bits and pieces of the Patriots-Houston game on the DVR. Good thing I DVR all the Pats games now, otherwise I would have wasted the entire afternoon for nothing as they blew yet another Fourth Quarter lead. These are not your normal Twizzlers, my daughter got them for me for Xmas, they came in a big plastic container and are individually wrapped. I think she was thinking this might slow down my Twizzler addiction, it has, but I am still motiviated to eat them.
02-JAN-2010
Day 2 [733] - Coming Back Down
My son had a much better time at the skateboard park this week. This section he is on was too scarey last week, today, once he worked up the nerve to try it, he wouldn't come off the thing. It is like a 'V' with a gradual bottom, it's not a half-pipe, but it is close. In this shot, he'd already reached the apex and was working his way back down. He would start from the other side to the left, out of this frame. He started working on turning on the second time up the side later on. I think he will do much better later by spending a lot of time working on the basics, he's got his balance down pretty good.
01-JAN-2010
Day 1 [732] - Into the Light
We did our annual Shopping trip today. Went up to LL Bean & The Maine Mall. There is a new parking garage at Bean (actually across the street). For years we used to park right around this arrow, but in a traditional parking lot. I brought the camera gear with me, kept it in the trunk. We had just come back from Bean and I noticed this arrow and wanted to get a shot, the people walking away are a bonus. Actually, if it wasn't for the people walking away, this shot would have been deleted. Not sure I could have planned a shot any better than this today.
02-JUN-2010
Day 153 - Apple Care
(884/365)
I got my MacBook Pro back from the Apple Store today. Turns out a Logic board costs a little over $1300 to replace. I don't have Apple Care either. nVidia has acknowledged a problem with their chip and paid for the cost of replacing the Logic Board. It was a pretty smooth transaction, it sucked that I lost the laptop for 1/2 the week, but I was very impressed with Apple. Not many places would be open on Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, providing service with a smile.
03-SEP-2010
Day 245 - Roughing It
(977/365)
My daughter on her MacBook in the wilderness (ok a camping Resort with WIFI).
She is wearing designer glasses (I think this is what they are called). She doesn't have prescription glasses and I am pretty sure these aren't magnified. She got them because they are purple.
06-DEC-2010
Day 340 - Kicking Back
(1071/365)
I kind of thought I would kick back, watch the game, and do a little work on the MBP. I did kick back, I had the MBP on my lap, but never opened it until now.
One hell of a game, 45 - 3 Pats. Pats are back atop the Division now. Still a lot of football left this season.