Memorial Day and Eclipse Photos

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by (c) Joe Rosenthal / The Associated Press.

Story Behind Iconic Image of Firemen Raising Flag During 9/11, by Sarah Morgan, OneModelPlace.com, Sep. 8, 2011.

We’re celebrating Memorial day weekend and the blessed freedom we enjoy in this country and state purchased by the blood of countless patriots to whom we are eternally grateful; together here at Home Sweet “Turnerville” Ranch today setting up the backyard “Ghetto pool” for the Summer season, along with grilling some burgers.  Sunday, We had the privilege of attending a friend’s son’s graduation celebration in which he performed a beautiful piano recital.  He played several classical numbers all very well.  Friday, I just hung out with friends watching the Texas Rangers win the first of a three game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays!  Life and Freedom are good!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you a couple of the solar eclipse photos I took last week. This was an annular eclipse that occurred just before sundown here in North central Texas.  The sun set before it reached totality. At first it looked like clouds would obscure the sun, but they broke up just in time! In order to shoot the sun, I had to use the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder.  I also made a cardboard shield to go around the camera so I could stare at the screen on the back without staring at the sun, and put the camera on a tripod. I took a wide range of exposures using manual mode ranging from zero to -5EV and ended up liking the ones around -4EV the best. I also used two different lenses, a Tamron 90mm Macro and a Pentax 55-300mm.  Both photos shown here were taken with the Pentax fully zoomed to 300mm.  I did not use any filters. This first one was shot at 1/320″, f10, iso100 and the second at 1/80″, f10, iso400 (the sun had nearly set at this point).
Markets: Out of Stock.   by John Authers and Kate Burgess, CNBC.com, May 24, 2012. me:Really interesting investment article to read. Dangerous walks to school.  by MORFES Art Design &Oddities, May 28, 2012. me:Wow!  Check out this blog!  And you think your commute is da-craps and your dad walked up the hill both ways in the snow!

“Amazing Siding”, How Sweet the Song!

A long, silly Facebook thread that I recently got sucked into brought back out of the darkest bowels of my brain this silly little ditty I came up with several years ago when I was bored and had listened to Hal Jay shill for the umpteenth time for the “Amazing Siding” company.  So, since this thing is forever burned into my memory, I now have the overwhelming (probably insane) urge to inflict it on share it with you, my loyal readers.  You probably have to have listened to the old Hal Jay and Dick Siegel Morning Show on WBAP Radio and their commercials for Amazing Siding (and thus be able to imagine hearing them singing this on the radio to the tune of the beautiful old hymn, Amazing Grace) in order for this to make any sense at all; otherwise, you may just want to skip on down to the next post!  Anyway for you hardy souls with too much time on your hands who are still reading this, here it comes: (1)  Amazing Siding, how sweet the stuff that saved a house like mine! It once was in bad need of a paint job, but now it looks divine! (2)  ’Twas ‘Siding that saved my home sweet home, and ‘Siding my fears relieved. They came right out and took good care of me, and now I truly believe! (3)  Through many tempests, storms and hail, it has already withstood. So I recommended it to everyone in my whole neighborhood. (4)  When it’s been there a hundred years, baking in the sun, it’ll be no more peeled, cracked, faded, or worn; than when it was first put on!

Sam From Sales – My Worst Valentines Sample Hal & Dick, et. al. Morning Show Segment.

Breaking News:  [t.u.] apologizes for pubic affairs commencement typo! by Eric Pfeiffer, May 21, 2012. me:They always laugh at us Aggies for stuff like this, so HAHAHAHAHAHAHA – ROFLMAO!!! XD

This Week in Wildflowers, News & Politics

About all I did this week was take a few wildflower shots.  I was reasonably happy with them except that it has been very windy in the latter part of this week making macro shots much more challenging.   This photo that’s turned into an ongoing project of getting the best shot I can of the beautiful red “Standing Cypress” flowers.  The plants are over three feet tall and the wind has been whipping them around quite a bit making macro shots very difficult.  My aim is an image of the flowers back-lit by the evening sun.  On my first evening I captured one that I really liked except that I was forced to use a faster shutter than I wanted necessitating a wider aperture resulting in a less than stellar depth of field / focus.  I tried again the next evening (still somewhat windy) and managed to get a much better focus using a different stalk that was caught at the top in a barbed wire which greatly reduced it’s movement in the wind.  The problem with this one though is that there is a parallel barbed wire running through the picture, which is not bad, but a bit of a distraction because it seems to be the first or second thing people viewing it have noticed.  I’m thinking about trying one more time this evening if this stupid wind will die down a bit.  If I do get a better one, then this one will be replaced, otherwise I like this one the best so far.  In all cases, dialing down the exposure by -0.7ev seems to produce the best color.  For this photo, I used my Tameron 90mm macro at 1/100″, f16, iso640 (-0.7ev). Another photo (below) ended up being black and white because after shooting the color ones, I decided to try it with my yellow filter and then this interesting beetle appeared on the flower, so I had to shoot right then, without time to remove the filter, resulting in a shot I really liked being b&w. Oh & don’t forget the annular solar eclipse Sunday Night at sunset!

	<<<<<  Reagan Warned Us About [The Obamanation] me:Please watch this! Fringe Postmortem: What’s in Store for the Fifth and Final Season?  by Natalie Abrams, TV Guide, May 11, 2012. Dupes for the State by Walter E. Williams, Townhall.com Apr 04, 2012. me:Good words about private property rights Plastic-Eating Fungi Found in the Amazon May Solve World’s Waste Problem! by Emma Hutchings for PSFK, March 7, 2012. me:Yet another reason envirowhackos and sustainability nuts shouldn’t get their panties all in a wad!
The Obamanation signs law making Free Speech a FELONY “We are watching YOU!” – the “SS” (Secret Service)“‘Abstinence-only’ sex education has been shown to actually *increase* teen pregnancies. So why in the world do a majority of US states still require that this approach still be taught as the best approach?“ me:If a vaccine is given out that is known to be 100% effective in preventing a disease and one refuses to take it and then contracts the disease, then is that a “failure” on the part of the vaccine?! “‘Reaganomics v. Obamanomics’ – In a Wall Street Journal article in February, 2009, I noted that the emerging Obamanomics followed the exact opposite of every policy of Reaganomics in great detail. I predicted that it would consequently get the exact opposite results. That is what has happened.” By Peter Ferrara, “Obama’s Debacle“, May 16, 2012. me:Spot on – over sixteen years of nearly unbroken prosperity vs. nearly four years and counting with eight percent plus unemployment, record gas prices, record welfare roles, zero investment returns, and no recovery in site! Utah School Fined $15,000 for Accidentally Selling Soda During Lunch by Jonathon M. Seidl, The Blaze.com, May 17, 2012.  me:This is what happens when you accept federal money, as nearly all of the government schools have done¡

My So-called Life This Week

I had the pleasure last Sunday of doing the photography for our church’s high-school senior graduation celebrations, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon Sunday developing and cropping them.  I took several different composures of each graduate at the podium and almost all turned out well!  I also did photos at the following luncheon along with their childhood memorabilia displays. This (background image) is the only decent outdoor photo I took last week.  I was watching “FRINGE” Friday night, when they went to commercial and I happened to glance outside and the sky was all glowing this creepy bright orange after a brief thunderstorm, so I grabbed my camera and went outside and took this out in the front yard.  Very fitting for an evening of “FRINGE” watching!  This week’s season finale was really good, but they didn’t leave us a big cliffhanger, even though they promised us one more season next year! The good news is that my photo came out in the May issue(pdf) of “Weatherford Now” Magazine and it looked ok to me. They even put a cropped version on page 3!  I then emailed them about payment and asked about future work and they said that they would be using me for more work soon but that I needed to send them an invoice for the payment.  This meant digging up my old invoice boilerplate from my free-wheeling computer consulting days and cleaning it up a bit.  The issue’s cover photo was really good.  It was a beautiful local wildflower scene.  I mentioned it to the editor in my email and she said that another photographer had just happened to shoot it while taking a break and they liked it enough to make the cover with it!  I’m so jealous, lol, so wished I could have done that shot! I tried last weekend to get some shots of the “super moon”, but there was too much clouds and haze to get any of the moon as it first rose.  I did snag a couple of shots after the moon had risen fifteen degrees or so and peeked out in a small break in the clouds, but they weren’t particularly good. I’m so bored this weekend.  I was going to go see a friend perform in the musical “Fiddler On The Roof” up in Denton tonight and then hang out with him and some other friends afterwards; but, being the procrastinator that I am, I waited until the last minute to get tickets and low and behold, they sold out.  He was playing the rabbi.  The show is at the old Campus Theater in the square in Denton, a cool old single-screen theater I went to as a child.  I remember the creepy balcony.

<<<<< “Agenda 21 For Dummies“. me:A must see for anyone concerned about “sustaining” our liberties! How to speed up your Linux machine. by Andrew Gregory and Graham Morrison, Tech Radar, May 6, 2012. me:Done most of this, but still a useful read! A set of top Computer Science blogs. by Dr Tom Crick, May 7, 2012.  me:Must read some when I have time! Add Linux power to wireless routers with advanced tips and tricks for DD-WRT.  by Carla Schroder, IBM DeveloperWorks, May 8, 2012. Ubuntu 12.04′s Great Flaw: No Hibernation Feature¡ by Christopher Tozzi, The Var Guy, May 4, 2012.  me:Seriously?

by Independent Journal Review, May 10, 2012.

Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra); Thanks Jana W!

Oregon school lands new professional track in exchange for famous waffle iron! by Cameron Smith, Yahoo Sports, May 11, 2012. me:This is a cool story about creative financing! Glad they could get their track!   Dell tests open-source laptop for developers. by Barb Darrow, Gigaom.com, May 7, 2012.

Students Behaving Badly, An Aggie’s View

Photo courtesy (c) 2012 – Montreal Gazette.I decided to write about this story because it hasn’t had much coverage in our media and because I find it fascinating in that I have a kid currently enrolled in the best and second biggest state university here in Texas (Texas A&M University) and am coughing up almost all the tuition and living expenses.  I’m also expecting it to rise each year with inflation.  Readers above the forty-ninth parallel are probably already well-informed on this issue.  This is a story about how a very large bunch of university students in the Canadian Province of Quebec decided to boycott their spring classes after the provincial government announced that tuition at public colleges and universities would rise starting next year by a whopping $1,625 total over five now seven years. Photo courtesy (c) 2012 – Montreal Gazette.Tuition increases are routine around here in Texas and almost everywhere else in North America, as our fiat currencies continuously shrink in value due to inflation and ever more tax money gets diverted to the ever-expanding government black hole.  The boycott has been going on for nearly three months now, but latest word is that some sort of “deal” may have been reached.  Apparently students at most universities in Quebec have some sort of “unions” that “collectively bargain” or something with school administrators on various policy issues.  In a traditional labor union, the power of persuasion it’s members wield is the ability to withhold their services and thus (hopefully) cripple the company’s ability to operate and make a profit.  I’m still not sure what the power is that these student “unions” hold over their universities. Don’t students (and/or their parents) normally pay their tuition for each semester up front, then if they refuse to attend class, they simply either fail or don’t get a grade and thus lose their tuition money?  I assume most of their parents are paying most of their tuition?  This was true for me when I was in school.  As a result, if I had even MENTIONED boycotting my coursework, my dad would have literally ripped me a new one and ordered me to get my butt back to class immediately or else get out on my own and pay my OWN way.  This was true for most if not all my friends too!  So, I ask, WHERE are all the PARENTS?  So, my one word to the students is just “REST”! It’s stories and images like this that remind me how proud I am to be a Fightin’ Texas Aggie, from a university where most of the students marching look like THIS! <<<  But I guess, as tuition goes, you get what you pay for!  GIG’EM!!
video ad: “If I wanted America to fail”, (c) 2012 by FreeMarketAmerica
	Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores by Patrick Richardson, Daily Caller, April 25, 2012. me:More proof validating this campaign ad’s point! Georgia Grandmother Foils Robbery By Getting Into Shootout With Suspects by CBS Atlanta, April 24, 2012. me:Now there’s “one tough grandma!” An entire day represented in one 360° photo! by Robert T. Gonzales, IO9.com. Photo by Chris Kotsiopoulos. me:That’s incredible!