Nothing major to report. My sons first week of kindergarten went smashingly well. They have a red/yellow/green light system there, and the kids that stay on the green light all week get a prize at the end of the week. He managed to stay on green light and got a nifty flashlight. A couple of the kids ended up on yellow light and I thought “woah buddy, those kids are in for a rough year”.
On another note, here are a random sampling of photos that I took today. I like all of these for one reason or another, but if you see anything YOU like, then drop me a line. (As always, push the FS button to get the fullscreen “higher rez” version.)
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Well…I haven’t posted in quite awhile because I’ve been pretty busy. This is going to be a quick too. So…enjoy these photos of flowers that I took at my mothers house the other day.
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Just wanted to say Happy 4th of July to all U.S citizens (wherever you currently are) that are reading this. Take a moment to think of all the patriots past, present and future that make this the best country in the world.
We actually dropped some money on some decent fireworks this year, and it was worth it. They were awesome! The kids loved them and so did my wife and I. I took these just an hour or so ago and I hope you like them, because I sure do.
These were all taken in full manual mode, on a tripod with a remote shutter release. Aperture of 8, and exposure varied between 1 and 3 seconds. ISO 100. My favorite of the bunch is actually the least fancy. It’s the firework with the straight line coming out of it. It’s actually a rocket taking off, and I managed to open the shutter as it flew out. Pretty cool and I was very proud of myself. 
Anyway, on with the pics!
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These are some quick and dirty photos I took this weekend at the White River Gardens in Indy. Each year they have hundreds (maybe thousands) of butterflies flying around the enclosed garden area. It’s very cool, and if you have the chance, I highly recommend checking it out. Anyway, if you like any of these, please drop a comment. According to google, this site gets a fair amount of unique visitors each day, but no one ever leaves a comment. Yes, I realize that this last sentence was full of self pity, but I love attention, so there you go. Anywho, these were all taken with my D60, Sigma 70-300mm lens, mostly in aperture priority, though some in manual, and ISO 100, 200, or 400.
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We went to the Toledo Zoo this past weekend and although I am still looking through the photos, I wanted to at least share some of them right away. So here you go, and let me know what you think. (The shots of the water at night are from our hotel room). My favorites from this group are the Orangutan, the two shots of the Gorilla, the bald eagle, and the shot of the water reflections without the star filter. These were all taken with either my Sigma 70-300, or my Nikon 50mm lens. Also, you really should hit FS (full screen) to see these in detail. These are somewhat low rez versions, so if you see something you like, let me know and I can send you a high rez version.
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I haven’t posted in quite a while because I’ve been busy and haven’t had anything worth talking about. All that has changed!!!! Just kidding, although I am doing some cool stuff. Right now I am teaching myself PHP for a project that a guy from work and I are working on. He had a pretty cool idea, and as neither he nor I knew PHP, we thought it would be a good opportunity to learn it.
I’m using PHP 5, with Netbeans as my IDE. So far, I have to say as a die hard Microsoft .NET coder, PHP is pretty freaking sweet. Seems very easy to jump into and learn. I normally do a lot of java coding for work, and for the past 7 years I had done Microsoft .NET, so it’s pretty neat to learn something new.
Right now the project is pretty hush hush, but hopefully I’ll be able to share some info in the near future. As for pics, the last couple of days I haven’t taken any photos, but today I was able to pull out my camera and snap a few. These were taken in my backyard with my sigma 70-300mm lens.
So…on with the pics!
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We had the girls third birthday party this weekend, and it went off without a hitch. The first gallery is some random pics from the party.
Also, I got my light tent up and working, so I took some photos of some stuff around the house, and yes, those are original kenner Star Wars action figures. In case you care, the white background is called an “infinity sweep” and is used so the back and floor are seamless. For mine, I used a roll of white paper, and then used a Gaussian blur to get rid of any wrinkles that showed. My light tent is a cardboard box, some pieces of tracing paper, a roll of white poster paper, and a light. That’s it.
Finally, I added some pics I took today of the kids on the playset. I thought they turned out quite well. So, on with the photos! (click the “All Categories” button to switch the image galleries.
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I went to the Zoo today with my twin daughters and my mother. We all had a really good time. I took these photos while I was there, and to do something a bit different, I added the name of each animal to the photo. So, have a gander, and let me know what you think.
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I just wanted to throw these photos up here before heading off to bed. I took these today of my twin girls, and I like the way they turned out, so I thought I would share them. Also, I completed my home made light tent today, so hopefully I’ll have some pics from that soon to post.
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We had a brand new Rainbow Play Systems Play Set installed today for the kids. Why didn’t I build it? I’m not mechanically inclined, so I would rather pay the money to have it done right. Anyway, here are some photos of the newly installed playset along with the kids enjoying it.
Also, I added a couple of pics I took today. One of a dandelion that had changed into a parachute ball (I’m not making that up, check wiki). The others are photos of an old baseball mitt I had lying around. I threw out in the backyard and snapped these photos. I really, really like them because of how they make the mitt and ball look old and worn. Anyway, as always, if you see anything you like, drop me a line or follow me on twitter.
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