Updates!

(Click us to make us Larger, we hate being squished!!!)

Today's PaD, after seeing many of you come up with these neat lookin' collages, I decided to try and make one of my own, so here it is, not as fancy as some, but I think for a first time, it came out well, and yes one of these pics is from today (Shadow) so I still took a PaD!

Ok, Updates, first of all, my 80's entry (referenced in this blog here) came in 57th, with an average score of 5.309, better than my average, but slightly lower than I had hoped, you can view my entry here , the original that I was trying to copy is here and for those of you who really are wondering how I did it, I copied the exact method Bon Jovi used to create it, which can be found here, under "Slippery when wet"

Next, got my order in from Mpix Monday, 2 8 x 10's on single matt, wow, they look awesome, I placed the order friday PM as some of you might remember, they shipped it within 2 hrs!!!! and it arrived here 11am Monday morning, cheaper than dpc or smug, and WAY Faster, especially than DPC, wow!

Wow, another month of PaD is done, this is amazing, 1/6th of the way there, to all those still alive and PaDing, congrats!!! Lets all keep it up, and thanks again for the comments!!! I did cleanout my List a little more today, being the end of the month, but this time I just removed a few that were inactive for weeks, and I do mean weeks, so a few more comments will be coming to those still going, I try to visit everyones PaD at least every other day, try, lol.

Next a little confession, my fireworks shot from Monday, hee hee, well its a PS'd piece of work, the fireworks are real, and did happen that night, at that location, but not all at once. Since my tripod was used, all my shots are the same background, just different fireworks bursts, in different spots, North Conway is so lame, they only shoot them off one at a time for the most part, saves money that way, GEEZ!!!! So using layers, cut and paste, and a bit of background erase here and there, I merged 6 or 7 shots together to make the final pic.

1991 Metallica, Track 4, Monday 27 Feb

Fireworks in February?!?!

Yep, thats right, the local chamber of commerce, AKA Band of thieves, sponsors a winter carnival each year, hoping to draw more tourists (to fleece them of their money) to the valley. These are launched from about midmountain on Mt Cranmore. Course they do it the wrong week, they usually run it the week after school vacation week, when the valley is still populated with leftover tourists, they need to do it a couple of weeks later, when its much harder to get people to come up here. But hey it worked for my purposes, getting to play with fireworks some more! And no I didn't buy a "winter carnival button" to enjoy these, I found a vantage point that didnt require one, LOL, unfortunately I think come next year my vantage point is going to have someones 3k square foot 2nd home on it :(
This was taken in some extreme cold conditions, temp 5f, winds steady at 20mph, brrrr. f8, 50mm, 5seconds, iso 64, tripod, remote shutter release etc.

The Funk Begins

Hmm, just another day, not a particulary good one, many many reasons there, been in a funk, I get in one every year around this week...., should pull out of it in a few days. Been watching my 80's score go up, down, up, down, basically no change just minor fluctuations, not helping my mood any. Which brings us to todays pic, Yeast, not sure why, but for some reason when I was making pizza dough the other night, I thought this would make a good PaD. An alternative view, a macro of the yeasties may be seen here. DOF is off on it, f2.5 1/40th second, handheld, lightbox, iso 64. DOF isnt shallow enough to blur the bottle while keeping the yeasties sharp, nor deep enough to keep both the bottle and the yeasties sharp and happy, oh well, it is what it is. Maybe a touch overblown, maybe, not sure, could be this old crappy monitor too.....

A Good Day,

Ah, woke up this morning to 22 new comments on my site, 22, unbelievable, and yes they were real comments, not spam, wow, course they were all from a lady that had left me a note on BetterPhoto but still, a very nice way to wake up this morning, she also sent me a lovely email. :) Also finally heard from the guy I interviewed with, there gonna have another round of interviews sometime in the next week or so, and I'm invited! Woot!,
Also, one of Brenda's Managers is in a local cover band, Midnight Quarter, I had fixed one of their photos a while back for them to use as a profile pic, and they were pleased with it, well I had been playing with making them a design for a while, and finally got one I liked, turns out they liked it too and are gonna use it at least on their web site!!!! Plus I've been invited to bring my gear to one of their next shows and get some pics, should be awesome, they are an old school hard rockin' band, Woo Hoo! This should be fun!
Also placed my first order of pics from Mpix today, they should be here around tuesday, I'll let you all know how they look, they are a bit cheaper than Dpc!

Ok, here we have Shadow, she is my computer buddy, course that could have something to do with the fact that most mornings while I'm waking up I have a glass of milk going, and well you can see who gets to share some.





And here she is again , today for the first time thanks to this thread on DPC I decided to play around with masks in PS, scary stuff, but I think I am starting to get the hang of it, in this example I masked off Shadow, then set an area of 50% luminosity around her with a 50pixel brush, then applied gausian blur at 25pixels to everything around her to obscure my trashed office. While I realize this isnt purrfect (lol) I think for my second attempt at masking, it came out pretty well, this has some serious PS'ing possibilities!!! Woot!!

23 February 2006

What a nice day, got some long overdue money in the mail, and to be honest, I had given up ever seeing it, so doubly nice, and got my first comment from a stranger, a positive comment to boot, at BetterPhoto.com, ahhh, a nice day! I also finished re-arranging all the photo files on my hard drive into a somewhat logical system sorted by subject, rather than date. One thing I do notice is that since I got my camera in Sept of 04, there has been an increase in my photo skills, and since I started the PaD, it has been even more noticable!
Todays Pic is an attempted reshoot of a pic I took a few months back, and just wasnt happy with, the original can be found here, This time I decided to leave the cookies whole, but only cause I forgot that in the original I broke them, lol. This did not come out like I wanted it too at all, and with about 30 minutes before midnight I don't have time to do a reshoot, and its pissin' me off, I have got to get some better lights or better bulbs or something, cause these standard 60 watters arent doing it for me, wonder if those new bulbs that supposedly look like natural light would improve this or not? My lighting setup is pretty much shown here except I've added a 3rd light, identical to the other two on the top. Now I'm going to have to try another reshoot in the future, hmmm, opinions or advice welcome on these two!

A Church, and a Rant.

Note; This should be clicked to enlarge it, as it looks so much better!!!!

Once again back in North Conway Village, this is the First Church of Christ Congregational, and dates back to 1775. Info, 8pm, f8, 5 seconds, iso 64, about 70mm, tripod, manual mode, no flash.

Rant On!
Ok, today due to my growing dis-satisfaction at DPC I went and registered at BetterPhoto.com, I even uploaded a few pics to my portfolio, and entered a contest over there! not saying I'm going to leave DPC, also not saying I'm going to stay, just exploring other options for the moment....
Why am I dis-satisfied with DPC you ask? The change in attitude over there is what has most influenced my decision to go a wandering, when I joined DPC almost 2 years ago, it was a very laid back, helpfull place full of warm freindly helpfull peeps, (like what you find amongst us PaDers) now it seems to be full of people looking for validation of their own feeling of granduer (deserved or not) and ways to manipulate the system in their own favor, i.e. the recent absurd thread about if the 80's challenge could be the 1880's. Another example is the amount of cheating going on over there, it seems almost every challenge in the last few months has had to be "recalculated" enough already, apparently the penalties for this are no longer steep enough to discourage such behavior. I'd say its time to stiffen these a bit. I'm also extremely tired of members of the SC who are on massive power trips, and so afraid of offending anyone, that they in turn offend many more people than they hoped to please. Also figuring in is the lack of site growth, i.e. the LONG promised overhaul of DPC Prints.. Yes I understand these are all growing pains, but if dpc is to continue as a leading site in the internet world of photo sites, then they must be addressed, perhaps it is time to hire some paid staff to assist D & L. There have been many talented long time photographers exiting DPC lately, go back to the winners of 1,2,3 or 4 years ago's challenges, and see how many are still active on the site, this alone ought to be a wake up call to management.
Rant Off!.

Bleh

Thats all I have to say about today, Bleh, started to reorganize all the photos on my hard drive, ughhhh! Previously Ive had them in a system sorted by date, but its getitng to hard to find stuff with so many files, so I'm moving them into a system set up similiar to my website, but what a pain in the butt!!!. And Btw, I still havent figured out what to do with arranging my office, leaving it as is for a few days, see if inspiration strikes, lol!

No word on the job yet, figure the guy got back to work today from his vacation, wonder if i should email him tommorow, hmm....

Oh yeah I tried some Elvis sandwiches for lunch (Brenda made them, thanks love), Supposedly these were his favorite sandwich, grilled, bread (wheat in my case), bananas, honey, peanut butter, and bacon, interesting, not sure I'll try them again, but interesting, think I'll stick to the traditional peanut butter and bacon, or bananas.

Ok, once again we're back in the heart of North Conway village, this time on the Conway Scenic Railroad's property. This railroad takes tourists on scenic runs through the valley, with durations lasting from about an hour to 5 and even runs dinner and special occasion trains all featuring restored vintage rail cars, a pretty good way to spend the day. This is just one of the auxilliary buildings, at some point in the future I will put up more shots from here I'm sure.....

Frustration

Ok, today has been a day of frustration for me, my office space here at home is like 10 x 10, my table that I use as a desk is 2 x 7, I also have an office chair, and a big leather "guest" chair with matching huge ottoman, all of which I cram into said office. Well today I decided to rearrange my office, on the third setup, still not happy, but I have managed to throw out a bag full of trash! As of right now, I have everything in here, but the ottoman, grrrr, and have given up for the night. So todays PaD is Thomas again, although this time you can see his full face, LOL.
f 2.8 (although I swear I had it on 2.2), 200mm, big flash, bounced off the ceiling at a 30 degree angle, iso 64, manual mode.
(((HUGS)))) for Soni!

Thank You!

Woot! It's now official, I have recieved more comments in this PaD project (276 as of publishing this) in 50 days, than I have at DPC in about 20 months, you my loyal readers and commentators ROCK!!!!! Thank You. Thank You. Thank You!!!



Todays pic is a cork from a bottle of Korbel, way back for New Years 2000 when we were still dating my wife and I decided that as neither of us had ever tried champagne before, what a better occasion to! Ickk, we both quickly decided it tasted like bubbly Budweiser, and hated it, but ever since then I've kept the cork from "our" bottle. Somewhere along the way it seems to have aquired two fortune's that we got with some chinese food as well. It used to hang around my desk at the job I had back then, then was in storage for a while, and a couple of days ago I discovered it while cleaning out some storage crates we have around here, and I figured it'd make a good PaD subject, so here it is!

Ok, 365 million dollar jackpot, one winner, in Nebraska ?!?!? Wow, that is an amazing sum of money to win like that, I figured for sure it would be split amongst a few at least, I hope whoever won it uses it to do some good, way too many rich assholes out there as it is.

Warning possible challenge entry preview!

Greetings,
Ok, Since Ive seen others do this, now I'm going to, above is a tiny sliver of what I'm thinking of entering into the 80's challenge, mind you this is only the tiniest of slivers, as I don't want to give away the entry, yet. This took up most of my free time today, so thats why it's doing possible double duty as my PaD shot. Also, As I havent been a paying member over there for a few months now due to a general dislike of the way things have been going there, I'm not sure if I'm actually gonna enter this or not, as I'd have to pay at least the 5$ for a one month membership. Should I come to my senses and decide to avoid the voters flogging, I'll post the whole thingy here soon, but for now, all you folks get to see is this teaser, anyone have any ideas what the heck I'm doing??? The only clue I will provide for now is that it involves a plant mister, and a trash bag.

Thar she Blows!

Yep, a nice windy day in the valley today, winds holdin steady about 20-40mph, gusts much higher the mountain recorded gusts over 137mph, temps not too bad down here either, about 20, only drawback is the power keeps flickering all day, havent lost it yet for more than a few minutes at a time (I Love my UPS!!!!) but its flickered plenty, over 100k customers in NH are without power as I type this, so I guess we're living right or somethin! So as I'm making dinner tonight (Homemade Pizza again this time a Hawaiian Buffalo Chicken) , I look up above me on the top of the kitchen cabinets, and whom do I see, but Thomas, son of Scamp and Munchkin, watchin me cook and enjoying the warm fragrant air coming off the stove immediately below him, so I snapped this quick pic as evidence of his mooching, lol.

Conway Public Library

(Click for larger view, looks better IMHO)

Welcome to the Conway Public Library, recently added onto, why I don't know, as a large percentage of the local high school graduates can't read, and its been that way for a while, but apparently there are quiet a few special interest groups who support it, and the rest of us pay for it in our taxes every year . This is actually the 2nd subject for today, the first round was a construction site in town where a new hotel is being built, and I as not at all happy with the way the pics came out, so I decide to go out after dinner and find something else to shoot. Still not totally happy with this, I think at some point I'm going to go back and try a different angle, hmmm so more than likely you'll be seeing it again.

Hoping

Mr Greenbear is hoping for a lottery win, powerball is 300 million, heck of a lot of money, could do a lot of good for a lot of people with that much money, and for a lot of bears, lol.

Happy Valentines Day

Woot! Ok, today is Brenda and I's 10th Valentines day together, wow, doesnt seem that long, wow! And while $ is a little tight right now, I still managed to suprise her with a few things. Here we have Mr Greenbear (Duh!, It is a Holiday!) and his new friend Mr Valentines Bear, who was a gift to my wife today, they are reading the local paper together looking for the valentines day greeting I put in there for Brenda. YES I did play with the add in PS to make it easier to read and more noticable for the web. The paper prints these every year, and off and on throughout the years either Brenda or I or both of us manage to put one in.

Bacon Chicken Ranch Pizza

Yes, I know its just a little overdone, like maybe about 2 minutes worth, grrr.....Ok, the original recipe can be found here, but of course I modified it, so here's my version;

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cupHidden Valley® Original Ranch® Dressing
1 package/3 oz.Cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoonsTomato paste
1 cup Chopped cooked chicken
1/3 cup 3/4's cooked bacon, sliced into 1/2" pieces
1 pizza dough for large pizza
Shredded Mozzarella cheese (how much you use, depends on how much you like cheese, I love it and use at least 8oz!)

Preheat oven to 450°F. Flour one large pizza pan, place shaped dough onto pan. Combine dressing with cream cheese and tomato paste. Stir in chicken and bacon; spread mixture on pizza. stopping approx 1/2" from the crusts edge. Sprinkle cheese over all the crust, again stopping 1/2" from the edge. Bake at 450°F.for 15 minutes, or until hot and bubbly. Remove from oven and allow to setup for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Thank you Soni!

Chess anyone?

Hmm, just playin around with the cam and the lightbox for todays pic, 1/2 second, no flash, tripod, lightbox, f8, iso 64 yada, yada, yada..... Someone else out there had a chess thingy going on, so I thought I'd try my own, not bad, had this originally against a white background, bad idea, the lighter pieces are way too close to white, ughhhh. I sooo need to make my lightbox bigger!! This just barely fit! WOOT! US Womens hockey, 2nd shutout!!! In a row even!!! U.S.A. !!!! U.S.A.!!!!! U.S.A.!!!!!!!

11 Feb 06

Ok, I've decided the one thing I hate most about being unemployed, is the waiting, and the uncertainty, grrr, bugs the heck out of me, I'd rather know whats going on, feel like I'm stuck in limbo, grrrr.
Lets hear it for the USA's olympians!!! Woot!!!! GO TEAM!!! Watched the girls hockey team kick some Swiss butt today, awesome looking team!!!
Course I could always win powerball tonight, 250 million, that would solve a lot of problems, lol.

Fuzzy Ranting

Ok, so I was supposed to hear on the new job today, well I sort of did, what I heard was that he has had something come up at work, and hasnt otten around to making a decision yet, but that I am definitely in the running and had a great interview, he may be on vacation next week, but he said he would let me know his decision either way as soon as he makes one. Hmm, not sure what to think about this, its not bad news thats for sure, but not quiet what I was hoping to hear today...hmmmm.....

Rant On!
Ok, A phrase came up on DPC in a forum that really bugs me, thats "Hate Crime" What the F*ck is this crap??? Any crime is a hate crime, no one commits a crime against someone else as a jesture of love, there is no "Hi Honey I love you, so Let me beat you senseless" card at Hallmark, Geez this is more PC Crap! Designed to offer special protection to minority groups who perceive themselves to be persecuted by society, and adopted by gutless politicians pandering to the special interest voters, they make me sick. Every day in this country white males are victimized by members of one minority or another, yet are these crimes labeled "Hate Crimes" NO! But, let the roles be reversed, and its a possible "Hate Crime" Get over it folks, crime happens, and the only thing that is gonna deter it is stiff penalties, quick prosecution, and a populace that has the opportunity to be armed to defend itself Period, certainly not any so called "Hate Crime" legislation and prosecution.
Rant Off

40/365 or 10.96% Done!!! Woot!

Greetings,
Or perhaps I should say Cheerio, as those across the pond do! That's right, its back into the kitchen cabinets we go for todays pic, a macro again of course. The original from which this crop was taken may be viewed here. Lightbox, handheld, 1/20 sec, f3.5, macro mode, manual mode, macro adapter on the cam. Still a little bit chilly here, 20's in the day, single digits in the night, not bad at all by northern NH standards was out talking to one of the neighbors the other day in a tshirt. Well tommorow I should here the results of Wednesdays interview, everyone wish me luck, I really hope I get this job!!!!

08 Feb 06

Ok Once again we are in Downtown North Conway NH, this is the public skating rink which is set up each winter in Schouller Park, right across the street from last weeks Downtown North Conway shot. Usually this rink is packed with folks skating, but for some reason tonight it was empty, so Wallah! I had to seize the moment. Alternate crops of this pic can be viewed here.

Ahh, finally were back to winter weather up here in the mountains, 20's for highs, nice and crisp at night, ahhh, winter, helps the maple sap flow too!!! Had a nice job interview today, 1hr 45minutes of nice, was one of the more enjoyable interviews Ive been on, with what seems like a very nice company, hope I get the job, its an admisitrative / clerical type much more suited for me than the last one was!I should hear by the end of the week, so everyone keep your fingers crossed for me!

Crunch 'n Munch

Had a craving last night for this stuff, hadn't had it in years! Still just as good as I remember, craving solved, now I can forget about it for another 4 or 5 years. Additional pics can found here. This did not quite come out like I wanted, think the perspective was off a bit, dunno, comments and advice appreciated.

1/25 sec shutter, f2.0, iso 64, macro mode, and macro adapter on the cam, no flash, lightbox used, handheld.

Hiding

OK, first this is Sunshine, another of our "kids" for some reason, when we let any of the "kids" in the bedroom, one of their preffered spots is under the bed, now there is a heater vent under there, which I'm sure is attractive to the heatseeker in them, but otherwise we allways wondered what they do under there, so tonight I crawled under there with the cam to see what I would find, besides dust balls....
Selective desat of everything but Sunshine, burned the background outside of the bed, adjusted contrast a bit, cloned out a few bigger dust bunnies, flash on 1/16th power, f2.8, 1/250th shutter, manual mode, iso 64 of course.
Thank You S!!! You truly define friend!!!!! ((Hug))

Superbowl Sunday!

Ok, make no doubt about it, I'm a diehard Patriots fan, but since Denver got lucky, and knocked the Pats out of the running, I've been rooting for the Steelers, and think it would be a nice touch to see "The Bus" in what may be his final season, win a SuperBowl, in his hometown!

Some answers for Acrotide, Nards656 and Karen, who posed questions to yesterdays PaD, yes that is ice that the reflections are cast on from the hotel, that pond is all of about 2' deep and freezes easily, and while this was more of a frozen snow cone consistency slush, it still did the trick nicely I think.

Todays Pic is a macro of a portion of a Three Musketeers chocolate bar, sliced. f2.8, 1/25th, handheld, macro mode, macro adapter also on the cam, no flash, lightbox, 72mm, iso 64. A Closer crop / alternate view made be seen here. Things I've learned from this shot, when slicing candy bars, dont use a serrated knife, the tool marks make for the weird stripes you see in the open end of the bar, funky yes, desireable no! Also learned, move fast when dealing with chocolate, it melts fast under hot lights (even 3 60 watters).

North Conway Grand Hotel

This Looks awesome Larger I think (hint!!!)

This is the North Conway Grand Hotel, Located behind the outlet capitol of NH (Settlers Green OVP). I've been playing around at this location off and on for months, never quite getting what I wanted, until tonight, I think I nailed it with this one, this is actually the back of the hotel. Good thing I got it when I did, I think this spring their starting construction there for another 40 suites, and maybe a bigger pool or somethin like that .

Woot! SuperBowl tommorow, for those loyal readers out there, you'll remember I predicted (Way back on Jan15th!!!) the Steelers would make it way back when the Pats were eliminated, glad to see I was right, GO STEELERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

03 Feb 06

Ok, this should of been posted at about 1120pm on Friday, but for some unknown reason Blogger decided any attempts at posting I made were greeted with;

"Error We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it."

So anywho, now its up, finally! Just a silhouette of my Mama Cat, Munchkin, something very different than I usually do, but I like the colors and warm feel to it, so here it is!

Evil Empire

The local Walmart, or as I like to refer to it, the Evil Empire, taken after closing.

TonyV, you asked about a different crop / angle on yesterdays PaD, well you can find it here, this is actually the same time / angle just at 200mm instead of the 28.

Ok, and for those wondering since this is a holiday, where Mr. Greenbear is, well even though it is a festive occasion, he absolutely refused to be associated with a holiday known for its association with oversized spoiled rodents, (Dont ya hate finnicky models!) look for him to be around for valentines day though!

North Conway Village at night

North Conway village taken right after sunset, 8 secs, f8, 28mm, tripod etc the lights in the center climbing into the sky are from Cranmore Mountain Ski Resort lit up for night skiing. (Click for larger, and better version!)