Photography, Tech News and Other Randomness

  As most of you already know Katie decided to change her hair color so I put two photos together to show you  the difference.

Today i added a new section to my blog, the photo gallery. I will put up photos that I take every now and them. The ones that are up right now I took this afternoon when I got home from work in the cemetery across the street. I believe that these are some of my best photographs to date and I like the mood that they created. 

In other news I am writing this post on my brand new MacBook Pro. I’m so happy that I finally have one, now I just need to get all the programs that I use on it like Lightroom 2 and maybe Photoshop CS4 when that comes out (if I can save enough money for it).

And in even better news I am back on the day shift at Timken. It has been so nice getting up to go to work at 7 am and get home at 3 pm. I will be once again be able to enjoy my life and get involved with the theater, I can start to look for a band to play with and take lot of photos. With all this new free time I hope to have more to write about so keep checking back to see what new in the world of me and my photography.

Vote for my photo!vote

I’ve submitted one of my photos to the Aperture Nature Workshops photography contest. There are four winners selected and along with a long list of prizes you get paired up with a professional photographer and photograph the Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. I’m not sure what chance I have but I thought it would be a fun thing to do. 

Yesterday I sent my Xbox off to Texas for repair. Almost 2 weeks ago lightning struck somewhere very close to the apartment, I was able to save the game I was playing and turn the system off but when I went back to it a few hours later after the storm had passed I got one red light and an error code. I searched MS site for the meaning of the code but I could not find it anywhere. I happened to stumble upon it on a Xbox users forum were the same thing happened to someone else. Lightning struck and the got error code E 76 and could find it on line. They called costumer service and was told it was a dead ethernet card. So I went online and filled out the repair request forms and waited for my empty box to arrive. For some reason the UPS driver didn’t think it was safe to leave an empty box at the back door of the apartment so I had to wait an extra day because on day to they left it. I got it all packed up and headed down to the local UPS store and set it on the counter and as the guy working there was walking up says to me, “Another Xbox?” How many are being sent out at my not very big towns UPS store that the guy would recognize the box the MS sends to people to mail there Xbox’s back in. 

So now I’m out an Xbox for 2-3 weeks and the sad part is Madden 09 is out shortly and I will have to wait a few weeks to get it. The only good thing about all of this is it isn’t costing me a single penny.      

After hearing rumors for the past few weeks Engadget at 12:15am is reporting that Nikon will be release the D700, I am writing this at 1:00am. It’s a 12.1 megapixel camera with Nikon’s new full-frames (FX) sensor. I would love to get my hands on one of these but with a price tag of $3000 thats something that I wont be getting anytime soon.

Nikon also will be releasing the SB-900 speed light in August, a PC-E Micro NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8 ED and a 85mm version as well. Just more stuff to get my NAS going.

(Update) Here are is were you can find the official press releases from Nikon.

D700

SB-900

Lenes

Last week Katie and I went to Cocoa Beach Florida for vacation, we had a great time. We arrived Saturday evening and drove the hour trip from Orlando to Cocoa Beach to the condo which was strange since it was the first time either one of us had been there without Gigi (Katie’s grandmother). The first full day there we did the normal touisty things like walked the beach (so much warmer then Hampton) went to Ron Jon’s Surf Shop, the local mall because most of the shirts that I had brought were now tents on me (hadn’t worn them since last summer). Monday we went to the Bervard Zoo were we got to feed and pet giraffes which was the highlight of the Zoo. We also took a kayaking tour of the zoo around the giraffe pen and the White Rino pen. We both got swarmed by Lorikeets when we got to feed them (one wouldn’t stop screaming in my ear).

On Tuesday we ventured out to Cape Canaveral and Titusville to visit the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. Kate nor really knew where we were going just that it was out near NASA. So we headed out in the direction that we thought we should be going and saw a sign that we had entered the refuge so we thought we were good. Next thing you know the is a large gate with and a sign saying “security badges required”, the main gate to NASA. When we pulled up to the gate and the guard saw us he knew that we didn’t want to go there and asked if we were looking for the visitors center, when we said we were looking for the Wildlife Refuge he gave a slight laugh and told us that we were way off. He then gave us the directions to the area of the wildlife refuge that we were allowed to drive in (he was right, we were way off) and we were on our way.The wildlife refuge was great. We saw a lot of birds there but no crocagators (it looked like the area was going through a bit of a drought), Kate took pictures when we saw things on her side of the car and I took them when they were on my side of the car you can see them on my Flickr page. After spending over a hour slowly driving around and walking around a bit in a couple places we headed over to the Manatee observation deck were we saw a dolphin playing, but no Manatees. On the way over to the observation deck we saw the effects of the drought with acres upon acres of forest that had burned down along a several mile stretch of road.

The next day Kate and I took it easy and enjoyed the sun some more and waited for the arrival of one of Kate’s college suite mates Nikki. At around 10:30pm we picked her up at the airport and prepared for the day to come when we would be off to Disney. Thursday morning came and between the three of us were up, showered, dressed, and ready to go in 45 minutes and were on the road to the place were dreams come true, Disney World. We almost go lost on the way but thanks to Nikki’s photographic memory of the highway system in Disney World she navigated us to were park that we wanted to go to, The Magic Kingdom. After buying our tickets and boarding the monorail we arrived at the Magic Kingdom and on Main Street USA looking up at Cinderella’s castle. Kate and Nikki were like to little kids seeing it for the first time (even though they have both seen it a number of times before), taking pictures of the castle, pictures of each other in front of the castle, you name it they took it. Finally we were off to go on the rides. As some of you might know I’m not a fan of roller coasters or rides of that nature so theme parks are not really my thing, so I was the one standing waiting for them to get off Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and Space Mountain. You could see me on rides such as Dumbo, Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a fun day over all, overcast sky’s kept it from getting to hot and the quick sprinkle helped cool us down a bit and to end a day such as that there is nothing better then a trip to Ihop.

Friday turned into a day were we took Nikki to Ron Jon’s for her first time and a day were we swam in the pool, it was also the day were I forgot to put on sunblock and ended up looking like a lobster. Later that night two very strong thunder storms rolled through but since Florida is so flat we were able to sit outside and watch it slowly move in from Orlando, I was even able to get a photo of a lightning strike. Saturday we ventured back to Cape Canaveral to visit the NASA visitors center (we wanted to go that way this time). The first thing we did was get in line for the bus tour that takes you out to an observatory half way out to the launchpads were we got to see the shuttle Discovery (which launched the day I’m writing this) on the launchpad. We also got to see the crawlers that take the shuttle out and the very, very large building were it is assembled as well as that buildings that there housed in when not in use. Photos of these can be seen on my Flickr page as well. The second stage of the tour was over to the Saturn V/Apollo building were the have a full sized replica of the Saturn V rocket hanging from the ceiling along with other things like a replica of the car that was used and space suits. You were able to see just how small the command module was that the three astronauts had to live in. This was the second time that I had been to NASA and still enjoyed every minute of it.

Sunday was another lazy day for us, we went out for lunch, walked along the beach which was crowded for the first time that I’ve been there since it was Memorial Day weekend, went back to the pool (this time I remembered the sunblock). I headed in early and apparently Katie and Nikki fell asleep by the pool and when then came in were lobsters just like me. For some reason both of them didn’t put any sunblock on that day and paid the price just like I had two days earlier but worst. The three of us went out for one last dinner in Florida and complained about how much we hurt. It didn’t help much either that our waiter forgot to enter our order in so everyone around us that showed up after us got all their meals first. After finally getting food we headed over to Cocoa Beach Surf Shop so Nikki could find some sandals. We spent the rest of the night trying to stay awake so we could head off to Orlando to catch out flight back home at 3:30am.

So with that said Florida was great, Katie and I are pealing now and we want to go back, but thats how you know it was a good vacation right? You want to go back again and again.