Oh boy....

Well here I am again - starting over for the - what is it? 1,000th time? How many attempts at do over do we get in one lifetime?

Now I understand

Okay, now I understand what I've always been told: you will know when you're full... Listen to your body - it will tell you when to stop eating. Well, I heard my body, but I didn't listen and now I'm feeling bloated and stuffed. I should NOT have eaten that last piece of lamb. What was it Dad used to say? That my eyes are bigger than my stomach? Well, and I hate to admit this peoples - he was right.

Can you believe it?

Well it looks like this works a teeny bit better in Opera... You patience is mucho appreciated!

Trying something new

It's good isn't it? To try new things. Well I got this little blogging app for my iTouch so we'll see how it goes. Please don't mind any typos - I'm not very good with the touch keyless keyboard!

Time flies...

As the saying goes. Life goes that way y'know? Here it is April and once again I find that I haven't written an entry in my little blog for months! But hey, whatever.

As I sit here listening to the dishwasher and trying to keep Poli away from the candle on the desk I can hear the crickets and the peepers outside chirping. and I know that spring is definitely here. But it was a sad spring for me. My mother died in early February, just shy of her 94th birthday, which was March 21st. We had our troubles, we fought and that's how I wound up in beautiful upstate New York, but I miss her. She did her best and she raised the three of us well. We all grew to be good members of society. My parents divorced when I was 12 and it wasn't easy fr her. She worked 2 and 3 jobs to try and make ends meet. And, even toward the end, when it was too difficult for her to really enjoy our Sunday chats she was feisty.

So, in her honor this is one of my favorite photos of her - taken in San Francisco on a motorized trolley tour of the city that I love so much.

Rest well Mom....

Sleepy Sunday in downtown Troy

Troy on a Sunday afternoon is not an especially happening place - at least not in February...

In the summertime downtown Troy hops. The Farmer's Market is in full swing, most cafe's have outdoor seating and the galleries and shops stand with their doors open welcoming you in. In February, however it's cold, windy and raw - not great for walking around. But I still like it here...

I love good coffee and I have a favorite place, right in downtown Troy that I like to go: Spillin' the Beans. They have a small, focused menu - the food is good if a little expensive. But the coffee is the thing for me! Deep and rich - its perfection.

Where shall we go today?

Well we didn't have to go far for this one... A couple weeks ago, before my life fell apart, we had a spectacular sunset. It had been snowing all day and was still flurrying as the sun went down, painting the sky in tones of red, orange and yellow - it was as though you were inside the sunset. The snow falling around you sparkled like multi-colored glitter being poured from the sky and it was magical. This photo was taken outside our offices in East Greenbush, NY. Since I'm the late crew I'm usually there after the sun goes down so I always make sure my little Lumix camera is charged up and at the ready when I go out because you never know when something like this is going to happen!

I haven't been very good, have I...?

My challenge to take a photo a day fell by the wayside. Life intervened and lots of stuff conspired to help me to fail - including my natural inclination to not keep schedules. So a change of tack - instead of taking a photo a day I will post a photo a day and hopefully have something inspiring to day about it. I'm not always inspired by the things I see on a daily basis and I can't always go somewhere that does inspire me. But I have been - lots of places. So allow me to share them with you. Gloucester anyone...?

Sixteen

Autumn - my favorite time of year!

Fifteen

Clouds are wonderful.

I have a great view of the sky from my balcony here in Troy - and sometimes I catch wonderful cloud formations in the western sky at sunset. Like these.

Fourteen

This is a nice little portrait of my little green-eyed monster, Napoleon.

All cats are characters, but Napoleon is singular. He has an unusual way of showing his affection for you - he bites. Not hard, but enough to make you take notice. He runs afoul of his brother, Pharaoh when he tries to express his love by chomping on Pharaoh's neck. He runs afoul of me when he bites my shins, or nose, or eyebrow or... well, you get the picture.

And here he is - the Monster of Sugar Hill himself...

Thirteen

I love cats - really I do. They are continuous sources of entertainment. While Napoleon runs around the house with his tail all poofed out, chasing straws, Pharaoh observes the festivities from behind the planters.

Twelve

New toys... we all love new toys. This week brought 2 my way: a set of extension tubes and a new lens.

I love macro photography - making small things look big. Flowers, bugs and the like. But macro lenses are very expensive so, in order to try it out before I outlay a huge wad of cash I wanted a set of extension tubes to allow me to get closer in to my subjects.

If you've seen any of my flower photographs you may sense a certain affinity (at least I hope you would) that I have for flowers. I've also mananged, in photographing those flowers, to get a bug or three. The tubes have no optics, so I plan on using them with my fast 50mm f/1.8 lens because it's the sharpest lens I own.

Which brings me to my other new toy - the lens. I stumbled across an sBay auction of an old Canon film camera that came equipped with an 18mm f/3.5 Sigma lens. Since my camera has a 1:6 cropped sensor in order to get a nice wide angle I have to go way down on the mm. Even my 50 is morelike 85 on my camera. So for my grand 'hills of home' landscapes I wanted something good and wide. And I still wanted a moderately fast lens. Yeah, f/3.5 ain't that fast, but it'll do for now to experiment. I got the old camera and lens for under $100 so it was a good deal, because the lens has good optics.

Here's to experimentation!

Eleven

This is another photo from my vacation that I love. This is me and my brother Greg taken at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

Why do I love this shot? Because it's one of the things that photography is about - capturing the moment, family and friends, happy times. This photo evokes the closeness I feel to my brother and some of the fun that I have when we're together. Greg and my older brother Terry and I all share this wonderful hobby of photography. They are more advanced than I am, b ut we share our knowledge and experiences - we learn from each other.

And that's another thing that I love about this hobby - the generosity of photographers. I've met a lot of wonderful people who share some of the many facets from expressions of true art, to documenting daily life, to self expression - and all of the people I've met both live and online have been willing to help me refine my technique and to teach me new skills.

Hope you like Eleven....

Ten

I'm going to cheat a little tonight, but I know you won't mind. This is actually a photo I took on my vacation, but I was so happy with it I had to put it here.

I took a lot of great shots on my vacation, but I especially like this one because: 1. it shows the beauty of the Milwaukee Lakefront and 2. it was exposed correctly (thanks to Ken!). I went out shooting with my friend Ken, who came up for the day from Chicago and we knocked around Milwaukee's lakefront then out to the Boerner Botanical Gardens. Ken was feeding me readings from his light meter and helping me compose. He was a photography major and for me, who's completely self-taught, it was a wonderful experience. I'm hoping I can meet up with other generous souls who are so willing to share their experience with me because we have no local camera shops or anywhere to take intermediate classes.

WARNING: Soapbox time!

You'd think that the capital of New York State would have more to offer in the way of specialty shops (i.e. photography, crafts...) rather than just the national big-box chains. The only fabric store in the area is virtually out of business - taken over by Joanne Craft and Fleece. The only camera shop that isn't a Ritz is so expensive that I can't afford to shop there - and they don't offer any classes. The closest scrapbook store is in Schenectady - 25 miles away and the best one is in Massachusetts! There are no yarn shops left, no upholstery shops, only one bead store in Troy - don't people craft any more? Have we as a society grown so lazy that we've forgotten the joy of creating something with our hands? Or is it just that small businesses can't survive in this 2nd most expensive state?

A lot of people cop out by saying 'Well New York City is so close'. Close my left foot! New York City is 3 hours away - not the place I want to go when I need to run out for a trim or a button.

People also say 'You can shop online'. I do, but I'm a visual, tactile person. I like to feel a fabric/trim/yarn/paper before I buy it. Plus my monitor may not render colors the same way the website thinks it should, so the colors I buy may be off. Did you know that even black has different shades?

For all it's flaws, Milwaukee seems to do a much better job of nurturing small businesses. Yes, Art's Camera (the most excellent photo shop in SE WI) is down to one location from 3. Yes, a couple scrapbook and yarn shops closed - but there are still others to shop at.

So please, people - if anyone out there is listening - please support your local craft or hobby store. You may not realize it now, but your hometown will be very poor indeed if you should lose your arts and craft community!

Sorry gang - off the box now.....

Nine - I'm back!

Wow! It was so busy while I was on vacation and in the week after I had NO TIME to either take or post any photos. But we're back on the horse now.

This was an interesting accident. I was sitting in my big chair and Pharaoh grabbed the arm before Napoleon could. So the little guy went over to the other chair to pout and look daggers at us both. I was trying to capture his little put-out expression but I had the settings wrong on my camera, so I had a RELLY LONG shutter speed. I managed to stay steady enough to see Poli through the fog of lights, but it was certainly not a great shot.

But it looks like one of those photos that ghost hunters take of spirits passing through a frame. I liked the effect. So this little imperfect photo turned into a keeper - for me anyway.

Eight

Apologies, gentle readers... I took the weekend off. I've been deep in preparation for THE BIG VACATION and I had to make some new clothes and do housework (so friend Kari doesn't think I'm a complete slob when she comes to take care of my boys).

Speaking of my boys - this is Pharaoh - who likes it warm. As evidenced by his position - right on top of the Pizza Hut box!

I'm testing new software tonight. Since I installed Ubuntu on my netbook I've been making sure it will do what I need ti to when I go on THE BIG VACATION. This meant making sure I could log in to my computer at work, just in case. It meant making sure I can do simple edits and convert my RAW files from my camera so that I can continue updating my blog - and hopefully not miss too many more posts. It meant familiarizing myself with the reality of installing software on a (still) somewhat unfamiliar operating system.

The adjustment hasn't been too difficult - I used to program in MS DOS, I work on UNIX all day - so I have a grasp of the basics, but the finer points are still being learned.

But - I'm getting there...

Seven

I'm a most fortunate person. Nine and a half years ago I was working part time in a college library - it was a job I loved, but I worried about how I was going to survive because 28 hours at $7 per is not a lot of money for an adult to live on. I was lucky because I was caring for my mother at the time and with her retirement and my wages we were able to live, if not extravagantly, at least we didn't want for anything. But my mother and I are not good roommates and the situation became untenable for me after about five years. Mom's health was declining and I just couldn't care for her any longer.

When she got the opportunity to move into senior housing I got a job at Quad/Graphics in West Allis. It was the best career most I could have made. That was in 1997. In 2000 I got the opportunity to transfer to Saratoga Springs, New York - a beautiful place that I had fallen in love with when I visited for training the year before.

I was nearly 10 years with Quad before it came time for me to leave. The atmosphere had changed with he death of the company's founder, the extravagant and expansive Harry Quadracci. Say what you would he was a man who knew people and he loved and nutured his company like no one else could.

After a short stint at a small printer in Rome, New York (a job that I loved so much I was looking for another after 3 months) my BFF Angel told me to apply where she was now working.

Long story short, that's how I came to work at I-Centrix. It's a company that knows what it's doing. The employees are treated with respect, as adults and the company officers not only know how to work, and expect everyone else to do the same, but they also know how to have a good time. We're serious about our work, but we know how to relax - and it comes right from the top.

One additional bonus is the view from my cube. We moved into a nice new building (can it be three years ago now???) and there's a big, open space between me and the windows, so all I have to do is turn my chair and I have a view of the trees in the greenspace next to our building.

So I'm lucky, and daily grateful for it.

My challenge here was to photograph the windows in a space brightly lit by fluorescents, white walls, gray carpet and big windows with white blinds. Once again I turned to my favorite lens, a Canon 50mm f/1.8. Yes, it's plastic. And yes, it isn't as fast as an L series lens, but for me the results are more than worth the $85 I paid for it.

Six

Chimes....

I can't abide most wind chimes - the cheap ones I mean. They bray like donkeys on market day with no finesse. And most of them are far too shrill to be tuneful or pleasant.

These however...

I saw these in a little shop in Lake George on one of Angel's and my adventures. Their song is musical and magical. Though I can't hang them outside, they hang right in front of my big patio door so I an still enjoy their music on windy days with the door open wide.

My challenge was to take a photo of them - silver against a white ceiling. They hang near my desk, so I tilted my desk lamp up toward them and turned out all the other lights. I feel like that lends a sort of drama to the shot. It's a little static, but I think I got the silvery feeling.