PLANET3RRY

Just a couple of shots taken while walking to dinner…

Wednesday night I actually got more sleep than usual. I was in bed by 11:30 (okay, it was really close to 11:30) and after a couple of games of Solitare on the Palm TX, I was alseep. The Kids woke me up around 6:30, but I got up made oatmeal and then somehow was able to get back to the bed for some more sleep.

So, I am thinking I may have had around 7 hours of sleep. Too bad it wasn’t consectutive.

My foot is much better today, I can actually put just about all my weight on it and instead of being in pain, I can just “feel it”. My finger is better too, so now typing doesn’t hurt and I don’t have to wear a bandaid that mashed extra keys when I type.

It was a fairly straightforward day, I had a decent day trading today and took some profits on some positions. I will be requesting the money that is dogearred for Elijah on Friday, so I can get that sent in.

I threw together an episode of Gravity. Mainly because I had worked on part of it, but thanks to My Lovely and Talented Wife, that has all changed for the fall marathon training. I didn’t want what I had to go to waste, so ir’s a short episode (10 min) and it trails off after the announcement.

Next week, I’ll post what I am going to do since I will be in Dallas next week and then training will start on August 4th for my marathon. I’m not sure how much internet access I will have next week and I wish that I could get my camera phone to send posts to my “secret” blog email and I would MoBlog.

Stella’s lens covers are on order, but not sure if they are going to make it or not. It’s not that I am too nervous because I can always purchase one from the local camera store. You never can have too many Lens covers when your Father in law is involved. Someone asked how that happened. We were talking and I had gotten pictures off of Stella and she was in the chair. He went to change chairs to better see the computer and knocked it off with his butt.

So is everybody ready for Friday?

After cleaning up the carcass of the lens filter, I think that Stella is okay. I can see something in the view finder, but it does not come up on the pictures. I’ve tested most of her features and she seems to be okay. It’s just that right now, she is lens naked and so I better get my lens covers (from Amazon) before we leave for Dallas next week or I will have to shell out an emergency $20 to get a cover for the lens.

I had wanted to have a new all-purpose lens for her this trip to Dallas, but not this year… however, I probably will still be the unoffical photographer for our National Area again. This year was supposed to be the lens and next year was supposed to be the SpeedLite.

Well, at least Stella is okay.

See what My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Father did to Stella last week?

On a side note: Do you like my Mouse Pad?

It may not be much, but Stella just rolled her counter back to 0001 on the continous setting. That means in the 1.5 years that I have had her, I have taken over 10,000 pictures… let’s not try to count which ones are decent.

The rest of the story…

as part of our Christmas visit last year, I asked my Brother in Law if his daughter (my neice) would be privvy to hanging out and going on a photo safari with me. Now, I had delusions of going to cool country places such as dilapidated barns and broken farm vehicles or even some people shots. Despite not getting to go to these places, we did get to go around the In-Laws house which provided a great amount of subjects to photograph.

I have her the choice of using the 35mm camera which was much older (although same century and decade) than she OR, she could use Stella my sleek Canon XT digital SLR. Of course, the hip chick choose Stella (wouldn’t you?) and so she burned through 200+ pictures in about an hour or so. In our most recent trip to SC, I asked her if I had permission to post her pictures. She’s very good and has “The Eye” for pictures.

So you can see the Hip and Trendy Niece’s Pictures as well as mine in the Web Albums below. I don’t think she reads my blog, but I know she’ll get word if you leave any comments. I’m now in the works on how to get a decent DSLR into her hands… whether she uses the talent as a monetary gain or not… she has the talent and the sooner you can start the better.

Hip and Trendy Neice’s Pictures (221) using Canon XT 18-55mm lens

My pictures (49) using Canon AV-1 with 50mm lens and 70-210mm lens

I do have a few more pictures inside the AV-1, but I need to finish the film and have them developed. If I waited on this post until then, it would be Christmas.

This week has been fairly busy for the most part. It seems that I could use just a little extra time management and I would be about perfect. I guess that I can’t complain… I’m not getting overwhelmed. And I am not making it a plan to get overwhelmed either.  So we’ll do the short version on what’s been going on:

RUNNING
I have officially [woop woop ding ding] started into the spring racing season by my interval workout on Monday. I did a 4×800 interval session on Monday with some success. I was pretty surprised that I was able to get the faster speeds, at least initially. I kinda had some very slow recovery intervals at the end.

I am going to start training with a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM), to see how my conditioning is coming along. I am not going to use it as my main method of training, but I am going to use it as a tool to help me train more efficiently. I changed the battery of the watch section of the HRM, but can’t find the chest strap right now. Curious.

I will be a course monitor for the Knoxville Marathon. I know it will be toward the end of the race on a new section of course. So, I am excited. Again this year, I will have my own water station complete with gummy bears and pretzels. I will need to post some banners about the Phedippidations World Wide Half as well. Plus, I’ll have Stella (my camera) with me to take some pictures as well.

THE YOUNGER
Had his surgery last Friday and did pretty well. The morning was an ordeal, but he has been using that cast like he was born with it. He’ll have his cast on for about another week or so

GRAVITY@1053′ PODCAST
I have audio recorded for this episode, but I thought that it stunk and did not flow very well. Instead of posting what I have, I am going to re-record it, this time with a little bit more focus. It should be out near the weekend.

WEBSITE
I’ve added my 2008 Race Schedule to the Left Sidebar below my Trading Goals. I have included the date and links to the website, just in case you need that information or just want to reference the race.

UPCOMING
Photo Albums from my Christmas Photo Safari with my Neice

An update on the Ass Mirror 

This the view from the top of my subdivision. The subdivision is 20 years old, but one of the last lots was cleared out recently at the top of the hill. I wanted to get some pictures from the pinnacle before they start building. The day that I took these, it was clearer than normal, so you could see the mountains in the background. My next goal is to get some sunrises over the mountains before construction. Any thoughts on how to make the pictures a little more vibrant. I can always potatoshop them post production, but my equipment is bottom of the barrell (i.e. kit equipment)

This was another OHH-OHH moments. Had to run and get Stella. This is an early morning shot of the crescent moon. I didn’t do too bad without the tripod…

Found on the Downtown Street of Loris, South Carolina.

I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest of what’s been going on in my Universe. It was a very busy weekend with lots of traveling and now we are home, but it seems that we are going to be on the go… How did so much stuff get planned when our Au Pair is on vacation? I dunno.

Anyway… Here’s the scenario: The In-laws My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Parents had some Rental Property in Winston-Salem. For some reason, the furniture had to go. So Lolo (Tagalog for Grandfather) goes to Winston-Salem from Loris, SC (think Myrtle Beach) with help. The get a 26′ U-Haul from W-S, load it up and bring it back to Loris. The furniture that is staying stays, a few pieces of furniture stays with dpal-in-law and the rest come home to Tenn.

So I got to drive the U-Haul for about 8 hours, sometimes in the pouring rain, almost all of the time with high winds, and the entire time with The Loud and Lovable Skipper Doodle, who slept in the cab with me most of the time. I started to get a feeling like I had a “Big Rig” out on the highway (having to go to the ‘Truck’ side of Rest Stops) but in all actuality still just had a van on steroids. Nothing exciting happened… didn’t get pulled over, didn’t wreck, didn’t blow a tire, didn’t have kids try to get to honk the horn, no long haired blonde in a red sports car drive beside me… wait, that last one was National Lampoon’s Vacation.

We use possessive’s in our household as marketing ploys for the kids. Such as “Oatmeal” is called “Daddy Oatmeal” or Green Tea (and/or Diet Coke) is called “Daddy Juice”. The U-Haul was a source of fascination for the kids and a personal training room for The Younger (our acrobatic, daredevil, stuntkid). We constantly had to shoo them away from the truck, which ended up being called the “Daddy Moose Truck”

One of the things that I was able to secure was permission from my neice (who needs a good nickname) to highlight her photography talent with pictures from our Photo Safari from Christmas. I let her use Stella and I used my Trusty-Rusty AV-1 35mm camera and we took pictures around the In-Laws house & pond. I have a good portion of my pictures, so I want to put up a couple of albums with her pictures… they are very good. I’ll have to see if any of my trade (successes) and go to fund her a digital camera…

Our house has been in perpetual sickness. Although the kids were pretty sick free (some congestion), we have been going nuts. I still have some congestion that is almost cleared up. I hold to eventually get back to running… sometime in the near future. February is going to be really lean on the miles this month.