Dressing a Clydesdale

Every year here in Portland we have a Rose Festival with the big event being a Grand Floral Parade, 2nd only to the Pasadena parade in size. Budweiser brings out their Clydesdale's which are a crowd favorite. Here they were getting them dressed for the parade, putting their harnesses on. This was a riot. This horse turned just as I was ready to take the photo and smiled. It was like he knew I had a camera and he should smile!

The Pirate Park

There's this fun park close by that the kids love to go to. It has a Pirate theme, hence the name. There were some cool clouds, so I took nine photos and stitched them together in Photoshop. It was a little dark so I saved it as a jpg, then pulled it into Adobe Camera Raw to have some fun with it. :)

School Arts Festival

There was an Arts Festival at Riley's school. We got to see some things he did and a bunch of other neat things. I was just playing around with this photo, didn't really have a direction I was going with when I came to this. I really like how it turned out!

Water Trough

Many years ago when I stumbled on HDR I thought it was really cool, but didn't have the awesome tone mapping software. Then I found a tutorial of how to get that HDR look from a single RAW or even JPG file using Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop. I went looking through my photos for one to try and found this one. It's a water trough behind a building at our local Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens, a simply beautiful place not just to photograph but to walk around in, feed the ducks, geese, and squirrels.


I pulled it into Camera Raw, played with the settings I found in the tutorial, then tweaked them until I came up with this. While the colors are really blown out and everything, I really like how it turned out! It almost looks like something you found on an island in the Pacific in the 30's, 40's or 50's. Hopefully you like it too. :)


As always, clicking the photos will take you to my Flickr page where you can see the full sized versions.

Big Beach Panorama

I'm very proud of this photo. One thing I like about some multi-image-stitched-together photos is the photo looks nice but you can zoom in and see great detail. That's what I tried to accomplish with this. I zoomed in all the way then took 68 photos. I used Photoshop CS3 to stitch them together, and this was all done hand-held, no tripod. It required a lot of patience and framing of each photo, remembering where the last was AND the previous row was. But it was a lot of fun and I think turned out really well. There is one slight problem with doing these multi-shot photos: Look at the girl, then look to the left and you'll see her reflection again in the water. D'OH! I know I could have fixed that, but it made me laugh when I saw it and decided to keep it. :) This one you really need to click to see the larger size in Flickr and even look at the original for the full-sized version, I couldn't upload a larger version without part of it being cut off. I'd really like to get one of those Gigapan things and do more of these.

Sunflower

Last summer we went to the Bethany Nursery for a kids scavenger hunt. The kids had a great time and I took some photos. Marci told me to take a picture of this sunflower. The original was ok, but then I played around with it in Lightroom. I REALLY like how this one turned out! It looks extra cool viewed on black!

Driftwood

My Mom's sister owns a little condo at Neskowin in Oregon. We go there every year, it's a wonderful beach that doesn't have a ton of people. The kids just love it! Last year they had quite the storm that brought in this giant piece of driftwood - more like a drift-Tree! It was very cool. I thought this photo turned out really well, I like how I composed it and everything. :) No post processing done. This is from August 2009.

2009 Holiday Parade

Every year in Portland we have a Holiday Parade right after Thanksgiving. One year it rain big time and was cold, another it didn't rain but was freezing cold and cloudy. This year it was cold but really sunny too, when you were in the sun it was pretty nice. We turned a corner and I saw this view with the sky looking really nice and blue. I was supposed to be playing, but we had enough other trumpets playing so I could quickly take this pic. I think I over processed it, added back in too much color. Oops! Oh well, at least I'm still keeping up with my new photo post each day! :)

Zoo Lights

The Oregon Zoo does a fantastic job every Christmas season setting up tons of lights around the Zoo. It's really beautiful. These fish were on something spinning around. Since it was really dark I knew if I just stood there they would come out blurry, so I moved with them as I took the photo. Still came out a little blurry, but I was pretty happy with the result. :)

Morning Fog

I took this a few weeks ago when it was really foggy. It was taken through our upstairs window, which is really dirty, so it's not my lens. ;) I put the camera in B&W mode and cropped it in Lightroom. Photo #2, I'm on a roll! haha

A Picture A Day Experiment

I'm going to try something this year. I follow a few blogs where people post a photo every day. That's really cool and I didn't think I would be able to do that because I never thought my photos were that good. But after reading some other blogs in late 2009, I decided to give it a try. My photos may not be world class, but I think some are pretty good.

These won't necessarily be photos I've taken THAT DAY. They are just photos I think are neat. Some I'll have processed a lot, some I won't have done anything to. My goal is to post a photo each morning here, hopefully I'll be able to do that. :) I upload all my photos to Flickr and clicking the photo will take you to that photo on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/richtpt

Oh, and for those curious, I have a Sony DSC-H50. I'd love to have a nice DSLR, but I feel I first need to learn more about photography before I purchase that level of camera. If a professional were using my camera they could take amazing photos, so me buying a DSLR won't instantly make me take better photos.

So here's the first photo. It's from Christmas morning 2009. I left the shutter open for 1.3 seconds with all the lights off except the tree. This is unprocessed straight from the camera. I might process this later if I have time. I thought it turned out pretty good. :)

We just got a cool food gift basket at work!

Our document imaging vendor called and asked if we would show a potential customer of theirs how we use DocuWare. We said sure and spent about two hours showing it to them.

Today we got this huge gift basket of crackers, cookies, chocolates, nuts, and other stuff - but it didn't come from our vendor, it came from the potential customer! What's AWESOME!!!

Good Enough For Me does NOT equal Good Enough For Everyone Else

Yesterday shortly before I was leaving a gal at the office asked me to scan some photos and print them on glossy paper. Only one really had problems, it was faded, but the rest were fine.  I'm swamped with work but thought I could easily fit that in.  Just scan and print.  No problem.

Wrong!

I enjoy editing photos, but am too much of a perfectionist.  I spent the last four hours working on them, something that should have taken me 1-2 tops.  These are for a poster they will put up celebrating someone's 30 year anniversary here.  That's a long time to work at one company and it's nice to have the photos look good.  But it's not a family portrait that will hang somewhere or anything super special like that.  In reality, once they are done it will probably be trashed.

I keep forgetting that good enough for everyone else is usually WAY lower than what I would accept from my own work.  And I must remember the purpose for the photos.  Maybe I should create something that I can print and hang on my wall next to me about this.

Then again, I'd probably spend way too much time making it perfect.  LOL!

Mydl.Me

I came across this cool website recently, http://mydl.me/. It's called My Digital Life and has all kinds of great tips about photography stuff. Go check it out!

Comcast follow-up

Yesterday I received some excellent customer service from @ComcastBonnie on twitter.  She helped me understand a bunch of stuff - and not just related to needing new converter boxes.  I also spoke with someone on the phone who was very nice and understanding, and again, helped me understand what is going on - and took my order for two free boxes and two that I'll be paying $1.99/month.

I think blogging about it yesterday was good.  I was really mad about this and blew off my steam in my post.  By the time I talked with these two people, I was calmer and able to talk with them instead of blowing up at them.

No, I'm still not happy at having to give Comcast yet more money, but I'm ok with everything.  Oh, and last night I saw a Comcast commercial that this time said I WOULD need either a cable or converter box.  I found that funny after I complained their commercials said I didn't need anything.  haha

COMCAST SUCKS!!!!

I've been with Comcast for a long time (we have our TV, internet and phone with them) and while they aren't GREAT, I haven't really had too many problems or issues. In fact, for the last probably five years, I can't think of a single problem.

The government says all over-the-air TV will become digital and you'll need a converter box. Hmmm... I'm on Comcast, they say they have digital cable. Does that mean I still need a box?

I give them a call and ask specifically about the TV's I have connected directly to the wall outlets, not through a cable box. They tell me I'm fine, I don't need any additional equipment. Cool!

I tweet @ComcastCares asking the same question. His answer was a little confusing but my understanding was again I was fine, no additional equipment needed. More Coolness!! (Then again, maybe I missunderstood him, which is possible.)

All of Comcast's tv commercials say if you're a Comcast customer, you're set, good to go, you don't need additional equipment. WOOHOO!!

Then I get this letter in the mail from them saying I DO need additional equipment.

What they are saying is I don't need anything for the government-mandated switch. HOWEVER, Comcast is changing channels 32-71 to digital format and I need a box for THAT!

WHAT?!

Wait, wasn't I told I didn't need anything? Didn't their commercials say I didn't need anything? And now they are telling me I DO need something?! WTF?!?! What kind of missleading advertising is that?!

I know a lot of people who slam Comcast and I've always semi-defended them saying things used to be really bad but they've been pretty darn good for us for a long time. After this crap I'm not sure I can defend them anymore.

Oh, I forgot to mention Comcast will be happy to rent us a converter box. It's only $1.99/month/TV. No, it's not THAT much, but it's $1.99/month/TV more that they are getting on top of the already high prices I'm paying.

I've got friends and family with Verizon FIOS and they are very happy. I'm nervous about changing because my wife works from home and simply can NOT have her phone and internet down. But after this latest piece of crap way for Comcast to gouge more money out of us, I'm going to do some heavy research and give them a call.

Comcast, this was really lame on your part!! (And if my parents didn't read this blog there would be a lot more uncensored words here.)

How to Fix the Economy

I know how to fix everything.  It's really simple.  Ready?

Have all the economists and other financial experts LIE and say we're out of this and things are getting better. 

Yep, it's that simple.  Why?  There are a lot of people and companies out there who listen to these experts and based what they do on what these people say.  Instead of being all doom-and-gloom, these experts should say something like:

"We've been talking about this for the last couple weeks, talking with everyone in our field.  After going over the data over and over and over, we have come to the conclusion that things are definitely getting better and we are heading out of this.  Our economy is soon going to be back and no one needs to worry anymore."

People would hear this and decide they no longer have to put off buying that new car, that new HDTV, that new iPhone, groceries, clothes, etc.  Companies would start buying the things they've been putting off, like upgrading computers and software, new equipment.  They would also start hiring people again.

Why do I think this insanely simple idea would work?  Because I blame these so-called experts for the dot-com bust.  Things were going really well, not a problem, and these experts said, "The economy goes in cycles.  Things have been going up and have been too good for too long.  We are due for it to come down and when it does, it'll come down hard because it was too good for too long."  And gee, within about six months of saying that, things started crapping out.  Then these experts were jumping back on the news patting themselves on the back saying, "See, we told you this would happen."

No.  They didn't know it would happen.  They MADE it happen.  Well, OK, it's not 100% their fault.  A lot of people and companies listened to these experts and put the brakes on a lot of things based on what they said.  Had they not said anything or people and companies not listened to them, there wouldn't have been a crash, or at least not as bad as it was.

We still have a lot of people listening to these same experts and waiting to do stuff based on what they say.  And what are they saying?  "Things suck and we don't see an end to it."  "We thought we'd be out of this by now but it looks like it'll last another year at least."  People and companies hear that and say, "Wow, we'd better hold off for awhile on spending any money."  No money is spent, jobs are lost, things continue to get worse, and the experts say, "See, we told you." 

So it's simple.  If the experts would just say things are starting to get better and we are out of this, people and companies would say, "AWESOME!  Let's go spend that money!  Let's hire those people!  Let's get busy!"

But they won't.  Why?  Not because it might be wrong or anything like that.  Nope.  It's because they have HUGE ego's.  Each one wants to be the one who says, "See, I told you so."  If they'd all do this, they could never be the one who called it, never say, "Yeah, we just decided to lie about it all to turn the economy back around."  They would have to live with the fact that THEY made the economy better - and no one would ever know.

A few ego's vs. millions of people around the world who are having a real hard time right now.  Some have even done horrible things like killing themselves.  Is an ego worth more than that? 

Anyhow, that's my plan.  I know a lot of people will give all kinds of reasons it won't work, but I know it would.  Too bad it won't happen.

Sick weekend. :(

I felt fine Friday night.  Saturday morning I woke up with a sore throat and feeling all achy.  Then I worked WAY too much around the house.  Marci took the kids shopping and gave me 3-4 hours of rest time which was really nice.

Got worse Sunday.  I woke up in the middle of the night with a REALLY bad sore throat, hurt to breath.  Got up, drank lots of water - I've read many places that water is the best on a sore throat - ate some food cause I was hungry and took some sore throat things.  That helped and I was able to get back to sleep.

In the morning it was much better.  So of course I overworked myself again.  D'OH!  Was really super tired by 5pm and called it a day.  We all sat around, watching tv, playing games, and I played quietly with the kids.  Got to bed early and got a good nights sleep. 

I feel much better today (Monday), but still not 100%.  Mostly just really tired with a bad sinus headache.  My sore throat is mostly gone which is nice - those kill me more than anything.  I'm going home at lunch to get some more rest.  One more night of good rest and I'll feel back to normal or close to it tomorrow.

At least we finally got the ornaments off the tree and I can take it down now, we got the house cleaned up some, and we hung up some new coat racks which look great!  And I had fun playing with Riley and his radio controlled car he got for Christmas.  He really had fun with that - and I did too!  ;)

Resolutions so far

I'm on day 3 of my resolutions and so far I'm 1.5 for 3.

I've been eating LOTS better. WIN!
I haven't exercised yet. FAIL! :(
I have been doing better at being a better husband and father, though I think I'll always be working on this. ;)

It's been hard to get all of us back on a work/school sleeping schedule. Not getting to bed early enough and getting up too early. I'm very tired. Each night I say we're going to get to bed on time, and so far we've failed. The only time I have to workout is before work. To do that I have to get up between 4am and 4:30am. To do that I have to get to bed by 9pm. I'll try again tonight.

Right now I'm resisting the urge to have another soda and eat my cookie BEFORE lunch. Not easy! haha

Happy 2009! Resolution time...

It's a new year full of possibilities, opportunities, excitement of what may be - and the pain of dropping the 20 pounds I regained. About four years ago I dropped 40 pounds and felt fantastic! I did it by eating better - LOTS less junk - and exercising. Since then I have not kept up the exercising regularly. I'd go 3-4 weeks of doing it regularly, then something would cause me to not get to it for a month or more. Each time just as I was getting my body used to exercising, I'd stop.

One thing I have learned over the last five years is if I don't exercise, I have to eat really small portions, and I can't eat much snack stuff - cookies, candy, chips, ice cream, etc. that also includes beer. :( BUT, when I DO exercise, I can eat more and more snack stuff without gaining a pound. Plus there's the added bonus of 1) feeling better physically, 2) looking better which causes 3) feeling better mentally, and that's a BIG win!

We've got an elliptical trainer at home for those days when it's too cold or wet to go outside. Starting today I am going to eat better, drink more water, less soda, less beer, and exercise at least every other day. That's what I did before. I'll just keep asking myself the same questions I did before: Do I want that or want to feel better? Do I want that or do I want to be able to play with Riley? Do I want that or do I want to take a chance at diabetes? I ask that one because my Dad got it from being overweight. I'm 45, will be 46 in March. Riley is 6. I'll be in my 50's when he's in high school. I won't be able to keep up with him like I could if I were in my 30's or 40's, but I don't want to be sitting in a chair because I can't do it at all.

I WILL drop these 20 pounds I put back on!

My other big resolution is my trumpet. Each year I say I'm going to practice, be in shape for the Rose Parade, and I never am. Last year was the worst! Then after the parade when I'm in ok shape, I say I'm going to keep it up, and never do.

This year I have decided if I want to play trumpet, I WILL practice. Even if it's just in my car at lunch, that's better than nothing. It'll take me longer to get in the shape I want, but I CAN get there. I AM a good player and could be a REALLY good player. But I've gotta do what it takes to get there. I want to be in shape enough that if someone calls asking me to play a gig or something quick, I can.

I WILL be buzzing my mouthpiece in my car. I WILL practice in my car at lunch and I WILL practice correctly! Not just playing songs (which is better than nothing), but actually practicing the way I should to improve my overall playing.

This other one isn't really a resolution, rather something I'm working all the time: Being a better father and husband. Sometimes I do really well, sometimes I fail big time. Mostly it's because I get frustrated and mad too fast. Well, I had pretty much two weeks off over Christmas and today I feel fantastic! In fact, at an intersection where cars cut me off all the time, when it happened again today, I didn't get upset or anything. I didn't even think about it until a few seconds later when I realized I was ok with letting them go first! All day today the things that really pissed me off before my vacation haven't been bothering me at all! I guess I needed that more than I thought. So now I'm in a MUCH better frame of mind and will work hard to stay that way so I don't blow up at my family for something they didn't deserve.

So there are my two big ones. I have a lot of other ones but these are the two I say I am going to do every year and I fail at horribly. I am going to concentrate on these. Instead of picking a ton, I have just picked two so I can focus more attention on them. I will be checking in at least once a month to share how I'm doing.

To begin with, today I DID buzz my mouthpiece on the way to work and I HAVE been drinking more water and eating better. So far so good! Now, let's see if I can keep it up for more than two days. ;)