Photography, Tech News and Other Randomness

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.

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.

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ConVal Takes 3rd, originally uploaded by The_Photo_Guy.

Today I went to UNH to watch my sister and the ConVal Cheerleaders compete in the Class I State Championships. The came in 3rd but only missed out on 2nd by 4.5 point and 1st by 5 points. It was the first time that I have seen my little sister cheer and I thought they did very good. It was great to see how happy the whole squad was for just placing unlike a couple other schools. By coming in 3rd they just missed being able to go to the New England Championship but there’s always next year. ConVal has only had a competitive team for 3-4 years and I believe finish 5th last year so they are a force to be reckoned.

More photos are going to be showing up on my Flickr page as I go through them, so keep on checking in.

Click here

With everything calming down for the most past after the holidays I haven’t really had much to talk about, so hear is a quick little list of things that are going on in my life right now.

Its been two months and the doctors still don’t know exactly why my arm went numb

Kate and I spent a weekend in New York City and did a Broadway show marathon, three shows in two days. We got to NY on Friday and were just wandering around Time Square and saw the theater were “Legally Blonde The Musical” was play and we decided to see what was available for tickets. We were able to get some fairly cheap so we saw that Friday night and afterwards got to meet and get autographs of most of the cast. The next day we had tickets to see “Curtains” which Kate got as a Christmas present from her dad. The show was so funny and to top it all of we got to meet the star of the show David Hyde Pierce, Kate even got her picture taken with him that you can see here. After that we went to see “The Phantom Of The Opera” which Kate got me tickets to see for Christmas. We even got to go to the 5th Ave Apple store up near Central Park, you can see me standing in front of it here (its a glass cub, the store is underground).

I’m working on 1st shift for a few weeks to learn a new machine at Timken

I have just put in for a Leadpersons position at work (kind of like a supervisor but not quite)

Katie’s being recognized for being on TV (BRT, VTC, and ACT put on an Imporv Smackdown Jan 17, 18, 19 and it was filmed by local TV station Cheshire TV Channel 8 for everyone with Time Warner in the Keene area. She did a great job and you will never see me up there doing that.)

I’m going to start reading/listening to a bunch of books at work on my iPod. I read the entire Harry Potter series at work in about a month. I’m going to start off with Douglas Adams ‘The Restaurant At The Other End Of The Universe.” Then move on to Steve Martins “The Pleasure Of My Company.” Next will be the “Lord Of The Rings” Trilogy unabridged too. Then lastly Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked”

Well I think that’s about it. The one thing that I haven’t done lately is take a lot of photographs, between work and everything else thats been going on I haven’t for the time to. I need to work on that.

Well it’s been almost a month since I wrote anything here so I figured it was time to do so. The last few weeks have been a little crazy between Christmas and New Years. Christmas started on the 23 for Kate and I with a trip to the Patriots/Miami game. There were exchanged gifts with Kate’s dad and had one of the rare opportunities to see her aunt and uncle. The next day was Christmas with the Werninger side of the family in Keene in the morning then up near Lebanon to Kate’s mom’s house. We spent the night up north then got up nice and early to head down to my mom’s and pick up my brother and sister to go to the Gagnon side of the family in Dover. When that was all done Kate and I headed home so we could celebrate Christmas with each other. Some of the gifts that we got were to seen “Curtain’s” on Broadway in NYC from Kate’s dad. Kate got me tickets to see “The Phantom of the Opera” later that day. We also got Guitar Hero III for the Wii (we need to get a second guitar so we can both play at the same time). I got Kate a Silent Brass system for her new French Horn so she can practice at home without fear of disturbing the neighbors (she’s a really good french horn player just people might not appreciate classical music). She also got a very nice mahogany music stand for my dad. I got tuned percussion tubes from Kate’s mom so I can start my own little Blue Man Group in the apartment.

For New Year we traveled 3 hours to visit some of Kate’s roommates from College. The trip up there was slow until Manchester since it had snowed that night. We had a great time there, there’s no better way to bring in the new year then with a bunch of friends. The trip home however wasn’t as fun as the time there was. When we woke up this morning we decided to go out and get something to eat before we all headed off back home, thats when it started to snow again. Everything was o.k. until we hit the Maine/New Hampshire boarder were the snow was starting to accumulate on the roads. When we got onto route 101 in Exeter it just go nasty. We traveled at 40mph if we were lucky, saw 2 accidents were one of them was caused by everyone slowing down to get around the first one. By the time we got to Dublin the storm was beginning to taper off and we could see blue sky’s but by then we had been in the car for over 4 hours (it should only take 2.5 hrs).

Next weekend it our trip it New York City. We will be leaving at some point Friday and returning Sunday. On Saturday is the whole reason the we are going, to see “Curtain’s” at 2pm the “The Phantom of the Opera” at 8pm. While we are there we might try to go skating at Rockefeller Center, maybe head up to Central Park if its not to col, and go to the “Cube” an Apple store on 5th Ave.

Over all 2007 was a great year and I can’t wait to see what happens in 2008, a new house maybe? We’ll just have to wait and find out.

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Roxie likes to climb, originally uploaded by The_Photo_Guy.

Kate was playing with Roxie tonight and she learned that she could climb up the scratching post that we got for the cats. Unlike Elphaba (our other cat) Roxie likes to climb on things like the table, bathroom sink, counter tops, and her new favorite place is the bookshelves in the office with the center piece from our wedding which she knocks onto the floor.

Today I was looking at my website stats and my site has passes 100 visitors. I know that may not be much for most blogs but I’ve only been up and running for about 9 months and spreading the word for only 6 months. Thank you to everyone that finds the time to stop by and read when I have to say. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be writing down most of what goes on in my life onto the interweb.

I got this email today saying that I was the recipient of a 1.5 million dollar Grant/Donation. Here is the message.

Fondazion De Vittorio,

http://www.fondazionedivittorio.it

Attention:Recipient,

NOTIFICATION FOR CASH AID.

The Foundazion di Vittorio, would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a Grant/Donation cash aid of
USD$1,500,000.00 (One Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) for your own personal education, and business development.

The Fondazione Di Vittorio, established 1977 by the Multi-Million groups and now supported by United Nations Organization (UNO) and the European Union (EU),is conceived with the objective of human growth, educational, and community development thereby uplifting the standard of living of people. Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide, you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the
award sum of US$1,500,000.00 (One Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) as grant/donations cash aid from the Vittorio Foundation in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament.

Note that all beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from over 100,000 internet websites and shop’s cash invoice around your area in which
you might have purchased something from. You are required to contact our office annex in DEN HAAG NETHERLANDS for the processing of your grant/donation cash aid as this will ensure efficiency in our services, meanwhile you will be given your donation pin number/payment-release- order-form, which you will use in collecting the funds. Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (A-222-****,N-900-**) in all discussions. Aslo note that you are required to send us the following information to our Executive Secretary through the through our email below,

1. Name
2. Age
3. Address
4.Telephone
5. Qualification numbers

*********************

Executive Secretary,
Name: Robben Van Luque
Email: fondazionedi@aim.com
or fondazionediv@aim.com
Tel: +31 641 649 ***

Fax: +31 847 119 ***

***************************************
All information is strictly confidential and will only be used for the purpose to which it is been requested in order to avoid unwarranted
taking advantage of this programmed by non-participant or unofficial personnel.
Please note that these grant/donation cash aid are strictly administered by Foundazion di Vittorio, under delegated powers from the United Nations Organization (UNO).
Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries,no later than 15 days after notification.

On behalf of the Board kindly, accept our warmest congratulations.

Regards.
Mrs.Georgette Maessen
(Foundation officer)

Well in an effort to make an extra dollar or two I’ve created my own Amazon store for people to shop from. Theres a link to it to the right of this posted called “My Amazon Store”. You don’t have to buy what I have listed but if you get to Amazon through my store I get a small cut of the profits. This is something that anyone can do if they have a website and it was fairly easy to set up. So if you could be so kind check it out from time to time.