My partner in crime.

8:55PM "City Hall" Nashville, TN

Stuff.

Last week was a busy one for me. I think I had 3 photo shoots... one Monday, Tuesday and Friday. That along with all the other things I also do at work besides photography kept me humming along. I finally did get a chance to go out with the Huntsville Young Professionals group for a social at the Museum of Art. When I arrived, I got recruited to help pour wine along with a client of the agency so that was fun. Saw quite a few people I knew there but there were plenty more to get to know. I'm going to make it a point to try and attend these things with some regularity and get myself into some other social circles.

Anyway with all the shooting I've done lately, it's time for me to go ahead and get a wide angle lens. Up to now, the widest lens I have for my Canon was this cheapie 18-55 one. There's a 10-22 I plan on getting to cover the wide range. In the meantime if I've had to go wider, I've used a Nikon D100 with a 12-24 lens which did the job nicely. Only thing is, I don't want to have to carry around 2 camera bodies and have to learn 2 different systems just because of me not having a wide lens for my Canon. Hopefully I'll have the new lens in the next week or so.

I've also learned that I need to go wireless to trigger the power pack on the studio lights. The 15" sync cord I've been using is a hassle in more ways than one. First, it's only 15' long. Second, it gets tangeled around everything. Third, it's a pain to move the cord back and forth between the camera and my meter as I set up a shot. My meter already has the wireless option installed so it can pop the lights. I just need to get the transmitter for my camera and a receiver for the power pack and I'll be good to go.

Still, there's more stuff I need but I'll get to that over time.

I fooled around with B&W stuff more last week. I found 2 pictures from an older shoot that I converted to B&W using some new techniques in Photoshop that I had learned with some very good results. I really like the way those turned out so I'm sure I'll be doing more of that in the future.

Oh, I went over to the Museum of Art to check out the Ansel Adams and Maxfield Parish exhibit. Good stuff. I enjoyed seeing originals of Ansel's work, not only of his nature photography but some of his portrait photography as well. His compositions are stunning. I got a few ideas from looking at his work that I think will help out mine. There was one shot on display that he took in my old stomping grounds at the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I have to get back up that way again soon and spend at least a weekend there roaming around just like I did as a teenager. The Maxfield exhibit was nice too. The color palette he used in his paintings was very bold and vivid, especially his blues. I came to find out later that he was known for that.

Oh I almost forgot. My Friday the 13th started out on cue. The server at the office was hung and when I rebooted it, the data drives did not come up. Nice. Luckily, I was able to get them back with a reboot and reset sequence that saved me from painfully having to restore from backup. Whew!

Wow. What WAS that?

After spending all day Saturday in and out of bed feeling like poo, I once again got ready to go to bed for the night. This time, I rummaged around the medicine cabinet and found this Robitussin FLU stuff in there from a previous malfunction. I checked the expiration date and TA-DA, it was still good. Took it and slept peacefully and comfortably.

I cautiously woke up this morning ready for another day of feeling rough when suprisingly, I felt okay. I took it easy most of the morning afraid I was going to have a relapse or something. I did manage to go ouside and get my mail from yesterday and today's paper. It was a gorgeous day out - mid's 60's and breezy.

Normally, I would have washed my car on such a nice day but I'm thinking that wouldn't be a smart move in my situation. I kept it indoors today and got laundry and dishes done then spent time reading and watching TV.

So much for an exciting weekend.

Sick.

I don't know what happened since I was just fine yesterday. Spent the afternoon on a photoshoot for a client then went out to eat with friends. Later that night, I'm lying in bed and suddenly start to get cold. That was odd... my waterbed temperature is up, I'm in a t-shirt and PJ bottoms (not commando tonight), and I have a sheet then a comforter on top of me. I put on a fleece sweatshirt over my shirt and now my legs were cold. Put on sweatpants and thick socks then my HEAD was cold. Put on a toboggan and finally got warm. I was thinking to myself at the time, "this can't be good". Sure enough, woke up in the morning with aches and soreness and a fever. Just great.

I did haul myseld up to take a shower to see if that would make me feel better. Well, I'm now clean and still feel like poop. Spne my day laying around drinking fluids and getting rest. I hate that the weekend is passing me by but I have to get well again.

I called Kevin this morning to let him know he might want to find a backup drummer for church in the morning since there's a chance I won't be any better in time. Looks like Jeremy is on standby now. Whew. Thank goodness we have more dummers around.

This is one of the times that I really think how nice it would be to have someone around to look after me when I'm under the weather. Hmmm... wish my mom was around.

Well it's ABOUT DANG TIME...

for an update.

First off, my vacation time was well spent resting and relaxing. I had plenty of time to do some reading, go to the movies, spend time with friends - basically using my time leisurely with no planned schedule. It was very nice. I did have some kind of sinus funk that slowed me down a little but I quickly recovered in time for the new year.

Ate dinner new year's eve with Kevin's crew at Kyoto. Started off with sushi before the main course of a filet and lobster tail was served. Mmmmmm.... I had planned to join back up with them later for some fireworks but ended up at a party Scott was having at his place. There were probably 20 people there. Each one seemed to have a digital camera which was kinda funny because every few moments a flash would go off. As things started to pick up, I went out to my car and got the big camera out. Plenty of goofy stuff was going on that I got some shots of so there should be some good laughs to come out of it.

Hope everyone else had a good new years celebration. Now that it's all over with, it's back to work. ;-)

This was what was in front of my camera the moment 2006 was here.

A little time off...

I've taken this week off from work to get several things done - relax, do some painting around the house, reading... things like that. Just a nice time to think of things other than work.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas time. It was time well spent with friends and family for me. Since most of my immediate family is FAR from here, I usually spend time during the holidays with friends that had sorta "adopted" me into their families. It's nice how that works out. This year, I was over at Kevin's with Stacey, Kailyn and Zachary. I have a special attachment to Kailyn - she's the first kid that I've been around regularly (as an adult) since her birth. Just watching her grow up is exciting! A few weeks ago we were all getting ready to go and do some shopping together when I asked her to put this ziplock bag of crackers in a pocket or something instead of them just flailing around everywhere. She replied "This coat doesn't have any pockets" and went on about her business. OMG, that is a complete and totally correct reply. That's so, so cool. If I ever have kids, I'll have been spoiled after seeing how Kailyn is growing up.

Enough baby talk.

Kevin was one of the lucky ones that got his hands on an XBOX 360 for Christmas. I'm not a big console game fan anymore but the 360 might change my mind. The Need For Speed game was my favorite. Call of Duty 2 was just tough for me though because I'm used to playing games like that using a keyboard and mouse, not the joypads and such on the XBOX controllers. Can't wait to try out Project Gotham Racing once he gets it.

I've successfully been able to dodge getting sick the past few weeks but I now seem to have come down with a slight sinus thing. That coupled with the fact that I also seem to have developed an allergy to cats. I used to have cats myself without any problems so this is a new thing for me.

Merry Christmas!

No white Christmas for us though, just rain and cool temperatures. I've had a nice couple of days leading up to today. Spent time with my sister and brother-in-law last Thursday evening exchanging presents then having a delicious dinner at Simp McGhee's.

Friday I was off and I spent most of it just laying around and resting. That night I headed to Jeff's new place for this "Festivus" get together. I'm no Seinfeld fanatic like Jeff and Kyle are but I figured what little I knew about Festivus might cause some funny things to happen. I took several pictures through the night, some of which will prove to be pretty funny. After the "airing of greivances", we played a game of Cranium. During the game, I learned that the monk responsible for doing DNA tests with peas was Gregor Mendel. My answer of "St. Francis of Assisi" was waaaaay off. Funniest though was Shane's pronunciation of "famine". He had never seen that word before and pronounced it as "fuh-MEEN". We were all rollin'!

The Festivus at Jeff's attendees. L to R: Me, Matt, Kyle, Shane, Melody, Jeff, Bunny and David.

Been a week already?

Okay, so much for trying to get back to a regular posting schedule... not that anyone's losing sleep over my lack of posting. ;-)

Last week was a busy one with a brief pause on Wednesday while I fought off some kind of ailment. I wasn't feeling all that great Monday evening. Tuesday was on and off. Wednesday was miserable. I stayed in bed and rested. Drank plenty of orange juice and several bowls of chicken soup. Thursday I got back into the swing of things. Glad I nipped that in the bud. Being sick over the holidays is a major downer.

Did some of my Christmas shopping Friday with the Burns since I needed the use of their SUV for a large object I was aquiring (heh). We made quick work of the shopping then headed off to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The Burns crew stayed in the car while I waited on a table at the bar inside. Ordered something to drink and got asked for my ID. The guy said "whoa!" and asked one of the other bartenders to guess how old I was. They were way off... in a good way. At least I have that youthful look going in my favor these days. When we finally got seated, I had an awesome dinner - 9 oz. filet along with a grilled lobster tail and fresh veggies. Mmmmmm! That was delicious. We all left their stuffed.

Saturday rolled around. I was lazing around in bed thinking about what if anything I wanted to accomplish that day when the phone rang, it was Kyle. I knew he had a video job scheduled for today taping 2 performances of the Nutcracker Suite. I figured he was calling to ask me to run a camera. Well he did, sorta. My camera. Seems like the photographer that was lined up to shoot the event for the studio came down with the flu. They really only needed me for the evening show and not the afternoon matinee but because of the challenging shooting conditions - low light and fast movement, I thought it would be time well spent to take light measurements and test shots to be ready for the real deal at night. I was right.

A funny thing happened as I was getting situated before the evening performance though... you see, in the program there's a male Chinese dancer playing the part of the Sugar Plum Cavalier. His name is Wei. That's all you need to know. Now, I'm there in the floor of the center aisle checking all my camera settings and laying out my stuff so I'll know where to find it in the dark when an elderly lady taps me on the shoulder. "Could you sign another (show) program for my grand daughter? She must have laid the one you signed before down somewhere and someone picked it up." For a moment, I wasn't sure what she meant. Then I realized... oh, she's confusing me with the dancing Asian. I politely mentioned (and I'm laughing inside at this point) that I didn't sign the progam before to which she replied "Are you sure?". Sigh. I was so busy during the performance, I forgot to look back at her to see her reaction when Wei came out to perform. Oh well. Funny stuff.

Back to normal.

Hopefully, I can get back to a more regular routine of blogging. Been pretty busy the last few weeks and dropped the ball on posting.

Did any of you hear about the brouhaha regarding Sony's rootkit thingy? If you played one of about 50 different recent titles on your PC, some software was secretly installed on your PC to hide the presence of Sony's anti-copying software. The bigger problem was that this same techniqe Sony used could be utilized by hackers to hide stuff on your PC as well. I had one CD - Chris Botti "To Love Again". Good sax player. Gonna see him in March at the Princess Theater here in town. Luckily, I didn't play the CD on my PC, just in my car. Now theres a big recall of all the CD's that had this software on it and Sony's getting sued left and right.

Anyone there have a lot of spare cash around and want to buy me some camera gear for Christmas? Doesn't hurt to ask. There are a few lenses I would like. First, a wide angle. Canon's 10-22 is nice as is their 16-35 2.8L. On the long end, I'd like Canon's 70-200 2.8L IS lens. Lately, I've found that I've needed a wide lens quite often and have resorted to using my office's Nikon since it has as 12-24 mm lens. I don't mind using it but I'm used to how my Canon works and would prefer it.

Oh... also on the photography side of things - some of my drumming photos can now be seen at Drummerworld. I have photos in the Steve Gadd, Akira Jimbo, Thomas Lang, Johnny Rabb and Chester Thompson pages.

The other part of the lunch bunch - Cracker J., Kailyn, "Evil Eye" Kevin and part of Stacey's head.

Part of the lunch crew. Me and the Rose wimmens.

The Gala

Last Friday was the date of the annual Decatur General Foundation Gala. It's considered the biggest social event in town hands-down. I wish I could have taken better photos but all I brought was my pocket camera and not my big digital rig. The flash on the small cameras is pretty much useless if you get more than a couple of feet away from your subject. The picture of the group below would have turned out awesome otherwise. Oh well.

Dinner was delicious. The salad, the filet, the dessert... all very good. The best part was seeing so many friends and clients there. The tuxedos and evening gowns had everyone (for the most part) looking stunning! After all the formal honors were done, I danced with friends well into the night.

Woke up for the 2nd time Saturday around 1:00PM with a bit of a headache. Nice. Spent most of the day doing things around the house until around 4 when met up with Lesa as she was trying to take some photos of a friends decorated home in the older part of town. Once that was done, met up with Kyle and Jethro for some food at Hooters. Ran into Larry there from the gala the night before. I heard from him that one of our group had wiped out on her way from the bathroom and got all bruised up and chipped a tooth in the process! Yikes! This was after Ellen and I had left. I'll have to check on her tomorrow and see how she's doing. Kyle started making noises about needing to get in bed and Jeff pointed out how it wasn't even 9:00 yet. We did end up going to shoot pool for awhile which was a nice way to wind things down. Driving to Huntsville just to eat at Hooters and drive all the way back to Decatur would have been a waste. Even so, my wings there were good.

Today at church, all the band fun was exciting to watch. I wasn't drumming today so I got to smile at the stuff I'm usually involved in. One of the funniest parts was during one of Kyle's solos... he took off like a rocket and left the band behind... he was movin... I later found out that this was better than what happened at the earlier service where he finished his solo several measures in front of the rest of the band. See - church can be fun and exciting! Kerry had a mishap when the battery to his in-ear monitor died before one of the songs. He didn't get his battery changed out in time so when Kevin turned around to cue him to come in - as Yoda would say "ready not was he". LOL! Even so, it all came out good in the end. I've definitely had my share of mishaps too but I try to keep them to a minimum or COVER THEM UP really well. ;-)

Had lunch with a bunch at Applebees. Good times. Tried to return my tux today and found out the shop was closed on Sundays. Great. I'll have to do that tomorrow now I guess.

Oh, I made a dreaded trip to Wal-Mart tonight for supplies... water, dog food, detergent and softener (fabric, not stool) and light bulbs. Suprisingly, it wasn't crowded and I got through the checkout in like 3 minutes! Amazing I tell ya.

Some of the ladies gettin down on the dance floor.

Last Friday just a little after 6 at Steve and Lori McNutt's home. Several of us that were to be seated at the same table at the gala got together for some cocktails before the main event. From the left (standing): Melissa, Ron, Steve, Linda, Brian, Me, Michelle, Larry. Seated are Lori and Ellen.

Appalling

Wow. I just found out that one of my friends in the food service business got propositioned by a "regular" to sleep with them for $2000. When she declined, the offer came back for a kiss for $500. She declined that too. We all joked that for $500, a kiss wouldn't be too bad. While that's funny, I admire her for what she did (or didn't do in this case).

Anyway.

It was COLD this morning! Had to let Kelsey in last night as the temps dropped into the teens. She's such a good dog. I let her in and she goes straight to the back spare bathroom and curls up on the floor. That's my girl.

After work today I was tired so I laid down to rest for a bit before venturing out. I did some Christmas shopping and also picked up my tux for the thing this Friday. Saw Nikki pimpin' panties at Vic's Secret and talked to her for a little before heading on. Guess I'm in for the night - another cold one.

Soggy Sunday

I went to bed briefly last night only to be awakened by the sound of strong wind and driving rain at about 1:00AM. Normally, I'd just roll over and go back to sleep but it sounded kinda severe so I got up to see what the news was saying about it. Immediately they had a radar image up on screen showing the storm hitting my area at 1:13AM, just a few minutes away. I unplugged all my important stuff and watched the storm go by. The winds were reportedly blowing at about 70 MPH. From what I saw I could believe it! Luckily the worst part of the storm passed by in just a few minutes and I crawled back into bed.

Woke up to find I had received an email from the webmaster of a drumming site over in Switzerland. Remember the Steve Gadd clinic I attended earlier this year and took photos at? Well, turns out some of my photos ended up on this guy's site. I ran across it by accident when I visited and saw a photo of Steve that looked VERY familiar. It looked familiar because I took it! Anyway, I emailed the webmaster and explained the situation. He was very gracious and credited me for the photos which was all I was asking. Nice folks those Swiss.

I had to play the bongos for one song today in church. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to practice with hand percussion regularly so that when I have to do it, it wouldn't be so uncomfortable. When we were warming up, I started playing and realized the humidity had allowed the heads to stretch and now the bongos were SUPER flat and way outta tune. I got it tuned properly before we had to play "for real" but I'm glad I discovered the tuning problem in time or it would have really taken away from the song.

Had a good funny moment right at the beginning of the first service when Kevin turned around to me and mouthed "eight beats". I had that deer-in-the-headlights look for a moment until I realized that he was reminding me that I was supposed to do count off 8 beats at the beginning. Sheesh... getting old. Everything turned out okay though as it always does.

Rain, rain and more rain. That was the order of the day. I snuck in a nap since I didn't get as much rest because of the early morning storms. Showed up for our church's holiday dinner along with a whole bunch of others. Dana had asked me to bring along my camera which I happily obliged. From what I've had a chance to look at, I was able to get several good shots. Should make everyone happy. Now I'm stuffed. Time for bed again.

I'm right over here...

So much for regular blog updates! With the holidays upon us, I've got all sorts of things going on leaving very little time to blog as much as I had in the past. Anyhoo... let's see what's new:

Remember my friend Brian with the #20 Home Depot car? He ran weekend before last at Daytona assisted by Bernie and Bill, my partners in crime back when I was doing time at Intergraph. Anyway, going through the tri-oval on the track the car reached 208 MPH. That's right, TWO HUNDRED EIGHT miles per hour. (That's 334 KPH for my readers using the metric system) Fast no matter how you look at it. Congrats to Brian and the rest of the team for their great season. I wish I could have been there!

Earlier this week, I had that "feeling" you get right before you get sick. I immediately kept myself extra warm, ate chicken soup, lots of juice and rested. It all worked as I'm doing fine here several days later. I'm doing all I can to take care - staying warm, staying away from sick folks and washing my hands frequently. Speaking of sickness, here's a little health nugget I picked up this week: when visiting the Dr's office, bring your OWN PEN to sign in with. That makes complete sense to avoid handling something that every other sick person there has touched! Sure you can get sick other ways but that's one big source you can try and avoid.

I had some excitement Thursday night when Kyle hauled me along to a drumming clinic he was videotaping over in Huntsville. Had a good time and came away with a free Zildjian t-shirt and a drum pedal. I would have rather won one of the snare drums they were also giving away but hey, what I got was better than nothing right?

My weekend is shaping up to be a busy one - been shopping with my sister all morning then have a dinner theater to attend tonight. I play in church tomorrow then have our holiday dinner tomorrow night. Food everywhere. Yum!