Photostory Friday

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

As some of you may already know we went to see Disney on Ice on Valentines day.
We got some great seats. Really close to the ice and all the action.

The cool part is that we did get to see all of these:

Disney dancing


Pluto


Donald


The really cool part is of course Mickey and Minnie





For Emma though that entire princess thing is what is on the top of the list. So I think one of the really big highlights was this one:


Unfortunately there were quite a lot of these (and well afterward we found that we went to the incredible Disney on ice...)





But all in all. Isn't this just one of the things that makes it all worth it:


For me it was really cool seeing the entrance to China town. The first pictures I took was in daylight and yeah they were ok... but that's about it. Just ok. After dinner I took a few more and with it being darker the lights were lit and it is soo much cooler :-)


Wrapping up the day we were heading home on the Metro


Just catch a ride and it will take you half way home (yeah that's another long long story but well...)


Have a great weekend :-)

Time lapse

So I gave it another shot... well make that multiple shots ;-)

After I got the D200 with the interval option (taking multiple photos at specified interval) I was trying to create a cloud time lapse sequence last week.

I guess I did forget a few things and it got kind of messed up with exposures not matching and all that good stuff...

So instead I tried with the stars which I had a little bit of time for Friday night before getting sick over the weekend.

Last night I finally got to put it all together for the first test (well actually I got two but... ahh well..)

The first sequence is about a half hour with ~200 exposures (camera ran out of battery)




The second sequence is just over an hour and this time 500 exposures (however those stars moved on me and some just turned into a black night sky)




Now I just need to compose it right, get a little landscape thing in at the bottom and go for more exposures. I am thinking in the neighborhood of 3000 exposures. Just gotta find a way to keep the camera going and storage...

why you really don't want to take kids to the dentist

This is kind of freaky but then again... Yeah it is kind of fun ;-)

soo you want to win a photo contest???

These days there are many photo contests around.
Some with prices and some just for the fun of it. Granted it's pretty cool to have you photo displayed in a magazine or well just about anywhere.

however... you may want to pick you contest with care...

One example: Amtrak photo contest...

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nailed 'Em - Amtrak Photographer

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

I just can't believe that he was handcuffed to the wall for an hour while the good people of Amtrak was deciding what to do with him...


yeah this may be one contest to stay clear of. I am not sure I want that kind of reward...

Disney on ice - valentines day

As some of you may know we went to Disney on ice on valentines day.
Jacki had it in her post here.

I uploaded the photos to the photoshop website and you can see all of them right here:
Disney on Ice

Update on the house

Today was the day... Home inspection done and now we are just waiting for the result of the radon inspection which takes a couple of days to run.

Just in case you haven't seen it about a million times already here is a shot of the house from the backyard where you can see my new coffee room overlooking the backyard. (The big windows in the center).



Inspections do take a while so while that was ongoing Emma had a great chance to "inspect" the playground :-) and she sure did. The swings, ladders and the slide. Several times... I found that the slide does produce static electricity...



Well this may be a little weird but actually there was a part of the house we hadn't seen earlier since the door was locked and no key to be found. As we were thinking that is just a little extra room in the basement and I got my claim on it to use as a photo studio.
Granted I was wondering how I would be able to fit in but figured that well it's better than nothing and at least the family will have the basic needs covered with kitchen, coffee room, dining room and living room.

Anyway today we got to see it. Through the window I had seen there was some kind of a work bench. I did however not expect to see this one (the drawers probably works better than the ones in the kitchen).



Speaking of kitchen... Looking next to the workbench there is a small kitchen (yep with kitchen sink and all)...



And here is the workbench at the entrance to my room.



Here is a photo of the other end of the room and well with that I figured that it was bigger than I expected.
One thing I noticed was all the duct work going to several spots. Turns out that the previous owner probably had a carpentry shop in there and these are for creating a vacuum to collect saw dust from the various heavy duty machines. That being said there is actually a sub circuit breaker with 100 amps worth of secure power...



So as I thought it was bigger than expected Emma runs off to the other end of the room with a "what's this for dad?". I follow her and well, hmm the room just grew a bit...



Here is the painting room. Complete with ventilation and a door with a air filter and sealers top and bottom... Granted it's not the biggest room but pretty decent size and very unexpected...



Now my big issue is that I have previously done woodworking and do have a few machines sitting around and well being house owner there are lot of wood projects I would like to do. And then this presents itself as the perfect wood working shop in town.
The home inspection guy was very impressed with it and was mentioning how there would be plenty of local people wanting to rent that room since it has a private entrance and all the facilities a wood worker could ever need...

So what happened to my photo studio... ahh choices choices choices. It sure ain't easy but at least we actually got more than we expected!!!

ohh btw. Jacki didn't see it but she has promised this is my room which means she can't take it back. But I guess you don't *really* have to tell her about it ;-)

Just a few quick ones

So I tried a little photoshop with a photo of Emma to create hmm something nice.

Emma's reaction... yeah I don't like that. I can't see my dress... Maybe it's a girl thing ;-)

Anyway here it is.


I was standing outside trying to take a few photos of the birds in the bird feeder and just you know trying stuff out.
Then I saw a huge bird zooming over and after about a split second I realized that I actually had a camera in hand.
It was a bit of a quick shot but I kind of caught the ugly one in flight ;-)


btw. did you know they got the "skin-head" to avoid rotting meat to get stuck in their feathers? one sure can learn a lot from the birdie books ;-)

ohh and I got family photos from January uploaded. They can be found on the right hand side of the main page :-)

Have a great weekend...

Superbowl

Ok I have to admit it...

Football may not be a huge part of what I like to do. However Superbowl is different. If for nothing else they have some great commercials where companies really have to put in their best.

Every year (for the past 20 years) the best commercial is picked with the ad meter. USA Today host the list of the most popular commercials where you can see the top picks right here. This year the number 1 commercial is from Doritos (ohh their web site is kind of cool too)...

The top pick is right here:



Just hearing the sound of that one on the radio... yeah can't help but to laugh. Every body wants to look into the crystal ball and as far as free Doritos goes I must say they have a winning point.

Sure the good ole crystal ball could be a solution. But for enterprise Survey Software giving your company the right answers I would head on over to Vovici and check out the new solutions available ;-)