Take a picture every day. Photography is like music, or anything else for that matter, if you don't do it everyday you're going to make stupid mistakes.

So just a few minutes ago, I'm looking out my front door, debating whether to go out on the porch and watch the rain. (Our rainforest weather is back!) I've got a mug of Earl Grey in one hand, I'm eating a banana in the other hand, and I'm pretty relaxed. Suddenly, the mail truck comes screaming down the down, pulls up to my box, drops off some mail. And she sails by every house that doesn't have a box on the side of the road. (In this neighborhood, many houses still have boxes attached to their houses.)

"Lazy mail people," I think to myself. I'm not a US Postal fan. I think FedEx and UPS should be allowed to deliver mail to houses so we can put those apathetic, good for nothing slackers out of business. But whatever. I have to just let that one go. But then, she does a 180 up the road, comes back down to drop off some mail across the street and drives up into my neighbor's yard. And I don't mean that she pulled up on the grass a little bit, she drove right into neighbor's front yard, down the driveway, and then went back the way she came -- like it was just a parking lot.

Now for whatever reason, she lingered in the yard a bit. I throw my banana onto the couch, the Earl Grey is set hastily atop of DVDs and video games, and I'm running into the office to get my camera.

After she drove off, I take a quick look at my pictures on the back of the camera. "Why are they so grainy?" ISO 6400, EV +7, and spot metering. When I'd last used the camera, I was doing some low-light experiments. I essentially missed the shot because I didn't set my camera back to some good defaults before storing it. If that had been real news, I'd be really sick to my stomach right now.

The shot is actually still usable, but although you can tell what she's doing, it's not as dramatic as when she first pull right into the lawn -- so it really doesn't matter anyway.

Interestingly, another across-the-street neighbor saw it too. She was waiting to talk to the mail person for whatever reason. I don't know what twist of fate brought two of us outside just when a postal person decided to "go postal." I don't think I'll bother to send the pictures to anyone, but maybe I should. Meh.

The opportunity here is a real-world reminder that my cameras need to be ready-to-go all the time. And usually, they are -- but now I'll make sure of it.

In other news, I was up all night working on prices (and maybe I watched some Daily Show). I'm just about there for the wedding prices. Dawn hopefully had a chance to look at my draft today; she's not home yet. I'll be glad to get it done, I'm letting everything fall by the wayside while I hyper-focus on this.

Carly came over last night and we played Haze all night. Or rather, I should say that I played Haze all night, because she and Dawn went to bed at a reasonable hour.

I could go on and on about what draws me into games so much. Beyond a general compulsion to play them period, and the general fun-factor they have, each genre is a little different. With FPS games, First Person Shooters, the compelling reason is that I hate to suck. And I am kind of bad at FPS games -- especially on a gaming pad; I'm a little better if I can use a keyboard and mouse.

But when a game ends and your kills are at, let's say, 9 total, and the leader has racked something like 43 kills, it's just hard to put down. Never mind the fact that the thing I almost lead the board with was "most times died."

Sure, I don't play FPS very much, and it was my first night, and I wasn't at the bottom at least. But I really hate not being good at something. I don't know if I'm getting older or if kids are getting much better. (Or maybe they're not spending enough time doing homework.)

Anyway, as the morning sun grew brighter and brighter this morning, I knew it was time for bed. Two hours later, work paged me.

The thing about being on-call 24/7 for a whole week is that it really don't matter when you go to bed. If you sleep at a normal hour, you'll be page in the middle of the night, and vice versa. And I expected to be paged this weekend, hence taking a day on Friday to spend with Dawn. But man, two hours of sleep. (It's really sad that it's so hard to find people to swap shifts with nowadays. Things have really changed at work.)

I had to bow out of any activities today because the work call ended up being a ridiculous all-day affair. (It's still going on.) I missed out on a trip to Pei Wei and a the video game store. --We thought that Soul Caliber 4 came out today.



Turns out that it comes out on Tuesday. Silly day to release a game. But they traded in some of the more crappy PS3 games that I've purchased like Warhawk, Folklore, and Viruta Fighter, and pre-ordered Soul Caliber 4. Pre-orders get a free Soul Caliber t-shirt, so come Tuesday, I'll be geekier than ever.

The good news is that I was able to nap a couple hours, so I'm not feeling morbidly bad. In fact, for now, I'm quite peppy. The wall of fatigue will hit me a truck in a few hours, but if I have to stay up all night and sleep working and sleep during the day -- well, throw me into that briar patch if you must.

Dawn and I had a really nice time on the Little Manatee River yesterday, although it was hot. I mean, it was really, really hot. Florida in July. No breeze. And no canopy for the most part. One thing that saved us from the heat a little was a big storm that rolled in toward the end of our trip. So we did have some nice clouds for the last hour or so.

The Little Manatee river has a pretty good flow to it also, so you really don't even have to paddle. We took both cars, so we just floated down river and enjoyed the scenery. Not much of a workout! But after Dawn's last month, I don't think she needs a work out.

Little Manatee is quite different from what Dawn and I have seen so far. The river banks, especially where we put in, are very high. In that respect, it almost didn't seem like Florida. And the other thing that was different was the reddish tint to much of the water -- especially where it was shallow and the sun was shining openly. The red contrast to the green foliage was quite nice, and I found myself wishing that I'd brought a wide angle lens to capture it.

Speaking of pictures, a hot summer day at noon really isn't the best time to look for nature pictures. For one thing, the wildlife tends to be most active in the morning and in the evening when it's cooler. Second, the bright sun can make some bird shots just impossible -- the bright feathers "blow out," and there isn't anything to you can do. And of course, the bright, contrasty sunlight doesn't make for great pictures in general.

We found a couple families of turtles in the shade, however. I've seen plenty of turtles sunning themselves, but I've never seen a whole group like we saw yesterday.



I felt bad taking their picture, because we ended up scaring just about everything we came across. (Not supposed to do that.) But I don't think we could have gotten around most of them at all without scaring them. The wildlife on this river was generally much more cautious that what we've encountered in the past. You can really tell that the Little Manatee doesn't get as much "traffic" as other rivers.



Dawn caught sight of this flower fairy. I think that's what you call them. She was really busy with this flower, like a little hairstylist with wings.



Tack-sharp at 600mm from a moving Kayak. Baby.



Of course, we saw a few gators as always. Like everything else, they were very shy and usually got in the water well before we were passing. Towards the very end of our trip however, we came across a little guy that was really interesting in that he was covered in dirt and weeds. Usually the alligators are pretty clean when they're sunning themselves, but the water around this guy wasn't exactly clear.



I'm posting a crop to better show what I'm taking about; a small jpg on Blogger really doesn't do it justice. Later Dawn was doing young alligator-impersonations: "Mom says I should clean better than I do. But she's not here right now, and I'm tired..."



Back to work for me! Dawn just called and she's on the way home with Carly. Have to get the guest room ready and there is furniture to be moved.

Dawn got back from training last night and I’m happy, happy, happy. And she has a four day weekend to recuperate before reporting for duty on Monday.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get anyone to swap my on-call shift this week, so I haven’t had the uninterrupted time with her that I was hoping for. Since my weekend is essentially up in the air, I’m taking most of tomorrow off (during the day at least) and we’re going to go kayaking. There are a ton of places just to the south of us where we’ve never gone, so we’ll try something new.

I’m still debating whether or not I’ll take a camera. Whenever I don’t take a camera, I always regret it strongly. On the other hand, lugging a SLR and telephoto lens on the kayak and keeping it dry the whole time can be a challenge.

At some point Saturday we’re going to pick up Carly for the night. And I believe we have a family beach outing scheduled for Sunday morning/day. However, the new X-Files movie comes out Friday, so at some point there will be a family movie day too. I’m not sure how that schedule will end up, but I’ll just be hoping my pager stays silent. If not, I’ll have the laptop I suppose.

Dawn and I did some shopping today and I used the opportunity to pickup Haze. (Actually, I saw it on the shelf and went, “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!”) Sadly, I won’t have the chance to play for another day or so – and I’m long overdue to get back in Age of Conan. But maybe Carly will want to play when she comes over...

(I just can’t get Dawn into video games, though she admits to having fun playing Heavenly Sword.)

And in other news, I got a letter from SunTrust saying that due to the decline in the housing market they’ve reduced my HELOC limit from 60k to 41k. I don’t need the credit, but I’m a little peeved because paying down that loan, while maintaining the line, is good for my credit score. Now it’s going to look like I have a nearly maxed out credit line.

Doesn’t matter though, I’ll have it paid off in a couple more years with the schedule Dawn has been on. --And then they can kiss their interest goodbye. I know they’re just covering themselves in this economy, but I’ll think twice before getting my next loan through them.

This video is about soccer, of course, but the soul of the video works for any topic or activity. Not a bad one to start the morning with. Nike makes the best commercials.

For the love of all that is good! Why? Why?

Cakes gone horribly, horribly wrong:
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Wait until you get to the "baby cake." You'll know when you get there.

Tom, I was telling Dawn about this comic and had to go dig it up for her a couple months ago. I'm posting it here in response to your last Twitter.

[[Edit: Deleted the picture with the yellow flower. ]]

Well, I don't have a lot to report today. I stayed up all night working on photography prices, and subsequently slept most of the day. I'm missing Dawn like crazy. I can't wait for her to be home again.

So, I do this thing when I have a big project in front of me. I put everything else aside. But if you have a job skill that you're trying to keep up, or an artistic skill, you have to keep working at it every single day. And thus I told myself a while back that I would endeavor to take a picture every single day. I haven't been true to that resolution, but I try as much as possible. And you'd be amazed what you can find just be stepping outside and poking around the yard, or walking down the street.

One of the things that really appeals to me about photography is that in a very slow and sneaky way it caused me to appreciate my surroundings more. I used to think that everyone talking pictures was missing the moment. But I was wrong. I've found and appreciated so many more moments since I started taking pictures.

I missed my focus on this little bug. Too bad! I was going to call him "Ready to Fly" or something equally corny. And speaking of misses, I'm a little bumbed that pictures I post look a little off unless you click on them to get the full size. (The 2nd flower looks a little blurry.) I might have to start exporting them in Photoshop to exactly match the dimensions used by blogger.

Or I might have to pay someone to design a cool, blogger template for me.... (I think this one is too narrow.) Hmm!

As a quick follow-up post, I have to link to a photo shoot with the Gypsy King of Moldova --because it's just that cool.

Great opportunities are sometimes just as easy as asking. And talk about a story you can tell forever. The photographer that shot this is/was 18 at the time.

If you watch the video at the bottom of the blog post, the 2nd half is definitely not safe for work (or for you Mom!) Just your average gangster-rap, which is to say pretty bad. :-)

Life should be lived! And there is no better excuse for living than taking pictures.

[[Edit: You have to click through each picture to really get the best view.]]

The rainforest weather is gone. Today was as hot as hell in a frying pan. And a neighbor tells me that it's pretty much gone for good this summer. Oh summer showers, I barely even knew you.

But you know what we still have? Spiders. Our yard has been overrun with creepy Hellraiser spiders. Spiders, spiders everywhere. In fact, I've even seen a few in the house, though fortunately they weren't of the variety that I photographed this morning.

I've always thought these spiders were a little on the creepy side. Well let me tell you, now that I've had the pleasure of viewing one for an hour through a macro lens, they are more creepy that you imagined. Those little black spots? Well, they look like some kind of horrible, scabby, oozy spider disease. The red spikes are over-the-top, even from a distance, but up close you notice they have little hairs on them -- so they almost look like jagged spikes.

And let me tell you about the head and legs. They're black. But they're not just black. They're so black that they absorb light. That's right, you heard me. This spider is part black-hole, part Hellraiser character, part morbid mystery disease, part stegosaurus, and did I mention it was a spider? I don't think it worries about being eaten by anything.


I heard that spiders inject a venom into the victim's body to liquefy the insides and they sucked out the juices. Not this guy. When something flies into his web he just rolls out of bed and eats it whole.

Seriously, I can't figure out why someone hasn't made a horror movie about this guy yet.

If you need something innocent to clear your mind after looking at these pictures, I recommend Susan Christie's "I Love Onions." Although, the song is a little surreal, so it could make things worse.

Or if you're an anime fan, I found an anime award site that has reviews that I actually agree with: AGB Anime Awards. This is my new go-to list for shopping new shows.

I've never had the "pleasure" of viewing the underside of an
Arachnohellspawn before.

I'm just loving all this rain. I feel like we live in a rainforest right now. Really, someone could release some parrots, spider monkeys, maybe some florescent frogs, and we'd be all set.

But save for a couple long bouts of sleeping, I've been pretty productive these last couple weeks, and haven't gone out to enjoy the rain much. I'm a little disappointed in that. I need to buy some rain jackets for the camera gear so I can go out and shoot when it's raining off and on. The cloud cover and the rain really bring out nice saturated colors.

I'll be sad when we get back to our hot, dry, extra humid weather. But hopefully this weather will last long enough for Dawn to enjoy a little too. She says it has been excruciatingly hot in South Carolina.

Speaking of Dawn, she told me last night that she has "degenerative disc disease" between her L5 and S1 vertebrae. That is what caused her sudden bout of back pain a month or so ago, and it hit her again yesterday. The whole thing sent me into a horrible depression. But I just got off the phone with her, and I'm feeling much better. (Because she is feeling much better!)

The problem is actually a pretty small thing. And we decided that if it forces us (because I'll also do back exercises) to do healthy things we might not have otherwise done, it will be better for us in the long run. It's nice when a little things whips you into shape so that you don't have bigger problems down the road. --A blessing in disguise, as it were.

I probably shouldn't have been so depressed today. I did a ton of research on it last night and found that degenerative disc disease isn't degenerative and it's not a disease. In fact, it's pretty common and probably the most come cause of normal lower pain. And be all counts, it typically gets better over time. Of course, there are those who are quite negatively affected by it and have to get it treated, but this seems to definitely be the exception.

The idea of her having to sit out yesterday and today really kills me though. Aside from not wanting to be away from her home and family, I know she was/is really excited. And now I'm starting to feel depressed again.

Anyway, that's the news from Lake Willbegone. I might try to sign out of work early tomorrow and snap some pictures in this new Florida rain forest that we have here.

I miss kayaking. With Dawn away training, the kayaks are leaning up against the house looking sad and dirty, covered in leaves.

Since we live on the Hillsborough river (one street way to be more accurate), this photography is pretty much in our backyard. To be fair, I think you need to go a little north from where we are to really get this sort of stuff -- but not as far as you might think. We put in right off of Fowler by the university, and it was gorgeous. And we do have a little park tucked away in the neighborhood that lets you walk along the river for quite a way. --A hidden gem in the neighborhood!

Not too long ago we went kayaking along the Rainbow river. I'll tell you what, if you wanted to buy a nice house in Florida, something along the upper part of that river would be amazing. Nice big Key West style houses (among others), and beautiful views.

I've dissed Florida for a long time, but if you're a photographer it's a pretty amazing place. We have a few big "photo destinations" right here and you can shoot year round. Not too shabby.

You just have to get away from all these damn strip malls and such. When I drive from Mom's house to Tom's house in the GA mountains I'm blown away by the beauty. I want to stop a dozen time along the way. I get none of that inspiration driving around down here. But if you get off the beaten path, or better yet, onto a river, it's pretty darn nice.

As a quick follow-up post, I have to write about "Britain's Got Talent." I like Simon's other two judges so much, much better than "American Idol," and I like the show better as well. (Not that I'm not a big David Cook fan.)

And to that point, I cry every time I watch this video clip. Somehow I stumbled across this again last night on You Tube -- the only place you can seem to find the show here in the US.

There are good business cards, and then there are really good business cards. Flickr has a collection of some "really good" cards. And you can find a similar collection on CreativeBits.

I need some good business cards. I'd love to have really good ones, but I don't know where to begin looking for that sort of service, and I'm sure I can't afford it yet.

After hours of grueling web research I've decided upon silk business cards. I'll probably add some embossing and a little die cut with it. Plastic or metal cards are an alternative, but I think the silky cards are more appropriate for an "artsy" profession.

For a logo, I've decided that I really like logos that stand apart from the company name and slogan. Even better, I can use that to "sign" photos on the photo blog when I get that up and running. That seems like a small thing, but it took hours of looking at logos before I nailed down that preference:




I don't like logos such as the Century 21, or Wells Fargo, GE, or the Starbucks logo, to name a few.

The question now is whether to use 99designs or to hire a design company. The prices are quite similar actually -- about 300 to 400 dollars. I think with 99designs I wouldn't get boxed in like I might with a company; you don't have to award the prize if you don't like anything. On the other hand, a design company might do something more sophisticated with the icon -- I see a lot of quick patterns on the 99designs site.

If you Twitter in the woods and there is nobody there to read it, have you really written or said anything at all? Starting off a blog is a little depressing. I feel like someone on Lost writing in a journal.

On the work front, how long do you suppose it takes 7 tech and 2 account managers to remove three routes on a database server? The answer is approximately one hour. And that is even after typing detailed, numbered instructions. "Back up this, delete that, test this…" Offshoring has done nothing but increase my job security. It turns out that if you unleesh three nations worth of IT people, your ratio of good to bad is still the same as it ever was, if not worse. And good people will always be in demand.

I'm really enjoying photography though. It's fulfilling, though a little slow right now. I desperately need to shoot at least 6-12 portraits over the next month. It's funny how as a small business with nearly no budget you play a back and forth game with your cash. A little to get started and get that first customer, then a little more to improve equipment and marketing, a few more customers, then more improvements and advertising…

On a side note, "Planetary Funk Alert (Vocal)" from LTJ Bukem's September 200 Progression Sessions really rocks my socks. If I listen to it much more I'm going to make myself sick of it.

Amazon Prime is heavenly. My seat cushion came today. I've been having to sit on a pillow because I've decimated the padding in my chair by sitting for 18 hours at a time. Eventually I'm going to get a HermanMiller Mirra chair. But I have to figure out if I need a B or a C size first. Apparently getting the wrong size will result in numb legs…. The new cushion is good though! I'm feeling a difference in my back already if you can believe it. I measured my chair and got the larger size so that it fits perfectly.

Speaking of cushions, I'm still loving my Micro Bead pillow. I think when Dawn comes back she is going to steal it and I'm going to have to order a second one. :-)

I broke down and bought a labeler to replace the crappy little one that thought it was always running on low batteries. I always dreaded getting it out, and this week I couldn't even find it so: Brother PT-2700 Desktop Labeling System.

And last but not least Planetes came at the same time as my seat cushion. I got a little bug to watch some new anime and this looked interesting. It's a story of a group of people who have to clean up space debris. Should be campy and fun.

Nothing will ever replace Haibane Renmei or Twelve Kingdoms though.

With this post, I enter into the world of Blogging!

I am terrible, terrible, terrible at keeping in touch with folks. And I think that is because my brain doesn't have a very good sense of time. Or maybe it's because my sleep schedule is so off that I never know what day it is. For example, I'm absolutely baffled how it is Friday already.

Anyway, I hope this will let me keep in touch with folks better.

Here is an image that I'm editing from the wedding I shot last month down in Key West. I wish I could do down again next week with Mom. Who knows, maybe I'll get down there for a couple days regardless.

By the way, the groom's ring here is inlaid with elephant hair, which is apparently quite thick. Those guys from South Africa are very manly men. :-p