Badgers Win!!!

Back from Wisconsin. Cool weather and a nice reminder to get ready for Antarctica.

Surprisingly enough, the Badgers won. They were 0-4 for conference play going in. I hadn't really expected them to win. Nice to see old friends though.

Not too many picture opportunities. We only took a few walks, because of the weather. I got a couple of nice leaves turning color photos. Posted them as Weekly Photos

Creative Commons

Got to reading about Creative Commons licensing over the week-end. Decided I would open my flickr photostream up rather than just use all rights reserved. Looked like the Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative configuration made the most sense.

I can still strike a deal with someone if they want it for commercial use, such as micro-stock.

Back From Vacation

Got back Thursday afternoon from our trip to Stevens Point. It was the 40th High School Reunion for P.J. Jacobs HS. We don’t have relatives in the area, so a reunion is the only reason I get back to Point. Most of the trips to Wisconsin involve Madison and Milwaukee.

A downtown project has been painting murals around the Market Square area. Went down to take some photos. One mural commemorated opening day for the New (improved) Point Bakery on the Market Square, in 1947. That’s why I chose it as my Weekly Photo.

I recognized the two women, they usually ran the counter. And I can almost taste the doughnuts. We bought a lot of "Fat-Pills" in there as I was growing up.

Busy Week

Between the holiday weekend and teaching a class Tuesday afternoon not a whole lot of photography got done. Did get the DPS weekly assignments in. And the weekly photo has been posted.

I created an archive page for the first half of the year. The weekly photos should load faster, since there are fewer of them.

Photos for this week

I used the sewing machine feet for my DPS assignment. So that gives me the second choice photo for my Weekly Photo. I should call it weekly photo"S", since I probably took 20 or more of these guys, bracketing the exposures.

I’m going to adjust the weekly photo page to archive the first half on the year. The page will look the same except for some navigation links for the archive.

Back from the Midwest

Overall, the trip was a success. We found the gum boots in Wisconsin, and Turkey run had enough rain that we could try them out. Nice and snug with heavy socks and the walking wasn't too bad. I think they'll do the job.

The weekly assignment is Natural Framing. I had that in mind when we were trying out the boots. The trail followed a stream bed, plenty of mud, but deep cut channels into the rock. Got a photo to use for the Weekly Assignment

On the way back to Texas, we stopped in Paducah for an afternoon. They have a Quilt Museum. While Joanne looked at quilts, I went down to the flood wall. It is all covered with murals. I wanted to take a couple "framing" shots. Didn't use them for DPS, but one was interesting. It is the Ohio river through a door-way. Almost looks like a mural itself. That's the one I'm using for the Weekly Photo.

Weekly Photo Early This Week

I don't anticipate an internet connection when we get to Turkey Run State Park on Thursday. So, I've posted my pick for the week.

When I grew up in Stevens Point we had Point Beer (lager) and in the Spring, Point Boch. That's 40 years ago. Now we have a lot of alternate brewing styles, readily accepted by the market.

In some cases the label and the name sell the product, more than the taste. I haven't tried this batch yet, I want to take it along to Turkey Run. Since my buddies complain about my taste for regular Point, we will see if they are impressed with this style.

Odds & Ends

The weekly photo is up. It is one of the batch I took last Sunday. I liked the color contrasts. Particularly the drive belt.

I also posted the cat photo for the DPS contest.

Have been doing my daily walk early evening when it is a little cooler. I took the camera along to try a long shadow shot. But the sun was playing hide and seek, so I didn't get the shot I wanted. I've still got a week or so to get it.

And, I got a clean bill of health from my doctor. The growth they removed two weeks ago is nothing special. And my eyelid is healing well.

Late This Week

I'm a little late posting the weekly photo this week. But I have an excuse.

I had a minor growth in one eye-lid and had it removed on Friday. The problem is that they patched the eye for a day. My right eye is the one that actually works well. So, with that patched, couldn't even type or read.

Got to wondering if I could take any pictures using the Auto Focus (since I couldn't see through the view finder). It works, I took a self portrait of sorts. That's this week's photo.

Better Photos

I've posted the photo for the week. I've decided that rather than reduce the image size to 27% of the original, I'll upload the original to Flickr. Then post a medium link on the Weekly Photo page.

That should save me some bandwidth, not that it's an issue. Then if someone wants to see a larger version they can jump over to Flickr. That's the convention over at DPS.

I was taking pictures for the Converging Lines assignment. Next to the Mays Street bridge was a small patch of Indian Blankets. Not much wind so got a good isolated flower.

Sorting The Week-end's Photos

Decided to go with the down spout for the weekly assignment. Didn’t like the quilt blocks as much.

I did get some wildflower photos, however, while we were there. One of the Texas Yellow Stars had a bee visiting a number of flowers. I caught a good shot of it. That’s been posted as my photo of the week.

I started a thread for cold weather photography. Got some answers. It looks like the main issues are battery life and condensation. Both are solveable.

Zigzag Iris

The weekly photo is up.

It was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I specifically slowed down the shutter speed to get a little blur in the water. It does give it some motion.

I posted the assignment to DPS as well. While at the center I found a flower pot recycling bin. Lots of colorful circles.

Haven’t had a lot of time to play with the camera. Taught an all day MindManager class on Friday, so most of the week was tied up in class prep.

Update: I may have read the wrong sign. The weekly photo is probably an Iris, as it is purple. A Spider Lily is white.

Spring(clip)

I posted the weekly picture. It is the Spring(clip)-o-piller. I used it as the model for the Weekly Assignment over on DPS.

Road Trip Report

Great weather for a drive to Marble Falls. Used the trip to explore a couple of new roads. There appears to be a North South road called Ronald Reagan Blvd that connects 29 to 1431. Mostly an entension of Parmer Lane.

Only found a few places with enough Bluebonnets to warrant stopping. A lot of the road had steep shoulders, and wouldn’t have been a good place to get out.

Coming home on 29, there were more Bluebonnets than on 1431 but nothing dense.

Got the pictures I wanted. Both with the Bluebonnets on the way out, and at the Middle School after we’d gotten home. Driving back into town I noticed a large number of small blue flowers. (I believe they’re called Dotted Blue-eyed Grass.) I’ll post two photos over at DPS next Wednesday.

My photo of the week for next week will be "The famous (but rare) Texas Spring(clip)-o-piller." Constructed from a ruler, spring-clips, and a Jack In The Box Christmas antenna ball. It even had ear-muffs.

Spring in Texas

I was hoping to get some wild flowers by March 17th. We did but they were just the common yellow daisy like flowers. With the drought-like Jan & Feb, I was concerned that we might not get any Bluebonnets this year.

Finally spotted some on Easter Sunday. My wife and I drove down to the IBM campus, in Austin. She pointed out to me that they water their lawns. (She worked in those buildings more than 10 years.)

Sure enought, fields of them. Immature, but definitely sprouting. That where I took the picture for the week.

For me, Bluebonnets are the official start of Spring in Texas.

Weekly Photo Is Up

Posted my picture for the week. Not overly attractive. Just a photo of the Light Tent that I created last week.

The set-up will work but I need to add an additional light source. The objects are recognizable but dark.

Weather cooperated on Wednesday, but wanted to try the “panning” trick. I did it again today but used a higher shutter speed. Actually got one to work out of 30+ shot.

I’ll be posting it as the weekly assignment over at DPS.

Round Rock, TX

The week has zoomed by. I have been working on web related stuff rather than walk around and snap pictures.

The photo, for this week, is of the famous "Round Rock."

I am also experimenting with Flickr. The same subject but different sized photo is up at my Flickr account.

This Week's Photo

I've posted my photo for the week. I also modified the photo page to show the most recent photo first. It will still depend on the browser you are using.

Looking forward to a sunny week-end so I can wander off to someplace new. Maybe just up the road, and take a picture of the world famous "Round Rock."

Weekly Photo

As additional motivation to play with the camera, I’ve set myself the task of taking at least one interesting photo a week. Then I will post that photo on a Piquero web-page. This week’s photo is here.

The originals are JPG files but very large (1 to 2 Meg). So I’ve resized the photos to about 25% of the original. I also cropped the image to take out excess border data. That brings the files down to 54K.

I’m also going to add a link to the page over on the left hand side of the blog.