Georgia checking out a rabbit in the yard. Both animals were so motionless I could take several HDR photos of them.
I ate at New Seoul for lunch today with some former coworkers.
I went on a hike today after work.
I was invited out to see my friend Sarah and her husband's new house in Lake Mills. After a tour we headed out to the Aztalan Yacht club for a brew.
My three year old Sony DSC-V1 never fails to amaze. This image was resized to 50% and cropped. Using full manual mode, I dropped the flash to the lowest setting and used a larger F-stop to put the whole toad in focus at once. I just ordered a new DSC-T100 today for a more pocketable camera. I also tried the Casio V7, but the picture quality was terrible. At any zoom level the pictures were blurry and the color was splotchy. The Sony on the other hand had sharpness near my V1, with awesome image stabilization.
This is a baby goose munching on bugs near the UW Lake-Shore path.
Taken waiting for the bus. I've been taking the bus to save gas money. I love my car, but now I hardly have any need for it. My roommate's car self-destructed today. A chunk of the exhaust fell off on the beltline and narrowly missed the car behind him. He's picking up a Civic Hybrid tomorrow. I've really been thinking about cars since I started not needing one quite so much. A car I love, but avoided when searching for the car I have now is the 1990-94 Lexus LS 400. It's the hugest boat of a car made in Japan in the 1990's. If I'm only driving a few dozen miles a week, I don't care how much gas the huge V8 would drink. It was a $55,000 car new, and you can easily pick one up for under $3000 now. Heck of a value if it's still reliable. But then again, 1990 is the same year as my roommate's rusted out jalopy.
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7am at the bus stop.
HDR image of a chimney. This is part of a real estate photo-shoot I'm working on.
Cute cat.
The weather today was perfect. I took a chair outside and sat in the shade for two hours with a mug of coffee, a Japanese phrase book from 1985, and my Sony DSC-V1. My goal was to be out there long enough that the birds and little critters would become accustomed to me and I could get some cool shots. I ended up with a number of good photos, but this one was the cutest by far. Amazon.com delayed the Sony DSC-T100 I ordered until next month, so I canceled. Amazon's shipping times have skyrocketed since they started selling things through other companies. I'm probably going to order through SonyStyle.com later today. It's a bit more expensive, but I would have had my camera by now had I gone with them in the first place.
Chii admiring himself in his newly cleaned tank. My toads have been very restless lately, and giving them a new environment only helped for a short time. With the warmer temperatures they would much rather be out courting the ladies than chilling in their bachelor pad.
Just like last Monday I saw a bunch of baby geese on the way to the gym. Goslings?
The rain let up today just in time to walk to the bus stop.
Myris and I had to hurry to the gym, there was a storm heading in. We could see the sheets of rain coming down in the distance. We made it to shelter just as the rain started coming down.
I took several cool photos today. Unfortunately the code for this site only allows one photo per day. The last two weeks at work I've been building a database driven web application to display FAQ help pages. This website started as hand-coded html files. Then I wrote a Java program to generate the html automatically. That was a huge improvement, but amateurish. Once I learned a bit about php and css I redid the site again. The next step will be to build a database to store the information like I'm doing for my work project. That will allow me to have as many pictures as I want. ;)
I received my Sony T100 today! Here is the first T100 photo for the site. This camera has an incredible macro mode. This is the full shot scaled down to 700px wide, then cropped to 3x2.
I'm very happy with my new Sony DSC-T100. The image quality for such a small camera is astonishing. This camera is so good, it's almost impossible to buy. No local stores have any in stock, and Amazon was warning me of a month wait. I ended up ordering it from a somewhat shady online store in New Jersey. They called me up and tried to sell me all kinds of accessories I didn't need. That kind of place. But they shipped it right out, so I can't complain.
Chii was trying desperately to escape his tank all morning, so I thought it couldn't hurt too much to let him hop around my room for a bit. I haven't done this before as toads are quite sensitive to chemicals with their permeable skin. The moment I gently set Chii on the carpet he hopped about obviously enjoying himself. He hasn't had room to use his powerful legs to their fullest before. After tiring himself out he sat in one spot and looked around. I took a cute video of him looking off, and then rotating in place to look at me. When it looked like he'd had enough, I scooped him up in my hands and carefully returned him to his tank. The three reunited toads sat in a circle for some time discussing the matter with toad-telepathy. Chii has looked relaxed since his adventure.
If this were a toad, I could probably tell you the species. Subterranean rodents-- I'm not so clear. I'm going to say chipmunk, but I really don't know.
I love my T100.
This car is an example of what you might call "medium-pimping."
I took some cool macro shots of old computer electronics parts at work this morning. This chip was literally made out of gold. They didn't mess around back then.
This is one of those tiny sweat-bees that can hover.
I had a picture of a mosquito up earlier. But then I went out for a bike-ride / photo-shoot and came up with a few better pictures.
Grilling over at my folk's place.
A flower in the backyard.
The view from the top of the Pharmacy Building's glass staircase. I've always wanted to climb to the top for a picture.
Everybody loves Cheetos.
Over lunch I went for a walk in the field behind my building.
I attended a charity concert with some friends this evening.