Day 27 - Jan 31st

I am completely exhausted tonight. I worked all day at the second job assembling the outside garden tables - 9 hours of hard physical labor and my back feels like someone just hammered it a few times with a baseball bat.

When I got home, I found out that the sewing machine, once again, needs repair. I regret not just replacing it the first time it broke. We've now paid more to repair it that a decent new one costs. D'oh!

Day 26 - Jan 30th

Alexander reached a milestone today in school, so he got a model Apache helicopter. Put it together himself. Did a great job! I didn't notice the juice mustache until I processed the picture :)

Day 25 - Jan 29th

Continuing the experiment with the new Macro filters. Focus today: ground crawling bugs. I went out and put our BBQ cover on top of the wood chips for an hour - it's 42 and drizzly today - just right for some bugs. Then I strapped on some knee pads, attached the filters and got ready. Whipped off the cover and snapped the fast moving critters as quickly as I could. I wanted to explain this time before showing the pictures...in case anyone isn't too fond of ground crawlers.

Day 24 - Jan 28th

I was challenged by a fellow photographer to try my hand at Macro photography. I can't really justify buying a true Macro lens, so I bought Macro filters of +1, +2, +4 and +10. I went out over lunch today - it's cold here (38 currently) but sunny. So I found a couple bugs sunning themselves on the walls.

It's a fly!

I have no idea what bug this is.

These are water droplets on top of our BBQ grill. I can't seem to locate my 52mm circular polarizer lens, otherwise these would look better. I still really liked this picture.

Day 23 - Jan 27th

Jill and I went out on a nice date tonight. We had a great time. Nothing overly fancy, but we did try a new restaurant called Blazing Onion. I had a Teriyaki-Wasabi Burger and Jill had a Thai Peanut Burger. They were yummy!

Jill looks like I surprised her - Surprise cute wife!

Day 22 - Jan 26th

Happy Chinese New Year! I looked for an ox to photograph, but found them lacking around these parts. I realized I haven't been consistent in whether my explanations are above or below the pictures, so I've decided they should appear below. Now I hope I remember...

I had to visit a government building and snapped just one picture. D'oh! I ended up with blur, but the layout was still nifty. It's digital - why didn't I snap several? Maybe I learned my lesson.

I also snapped a picture of Maranda and played with the B/W settings. I like it. Jill's shoulder was my tripod :)

Day 21 Jan 25th

I had fun snapping these this morning.

Day 20 - Jan 24th

I went next door to my neighbors yard - she is away for the winter. I wanted to see if the storms caused any damage - which they did. One of her pergolas fell over and several plants look damaged.

I snapped these two photo's while over there. First is some moss growing on a concrete bench. I experimented with depth of field and focal point and liked this picture the most.

Then I spotted her concrete deer and snapped this picture.


I've been playing around with settings on my camera to change how it records colors/brightness/contrast, etc and so these pictures are unaltered except me adding the borders and the dates. I was pleased with how they came out.

Day 19 - Jan 23rd

One of my all time favorite collectibles are mini figures by Florida artist Kathie Olivas. There were two series released last year by Mindstyle and several color variations of the figures are exclusive to one venue or another. I got a wonderful box from Kathie herself today with five exclusives in it. I photographed them on top of my partially constructed picnic table. The background is in keeping with her art, I believe :) Some of my pictures are up on the vinyl wikipedia vinyl-creep and since my photo's have been "borrowed" for eBay auctions, I guess some folks have liked them.

While outside, I spotted this tableau. I loved the arrangement and I think the photograph turned out nice.

Day 18 - Jan 22nd

Three pictures today. The first is Peter stomping bubble wrap. This is a passion for him and he goes about it with zeal. We should really video tape it. He makes certain every bubble is popped - first by dancing frenetically on them and then carefully stomping each bubble and finally hand popping the stubborn ones. Then carefully throws it away.

Jill and I went out shopping - she bought seeds for the summer. Mostly heirloom ones. They were 40% off! Plus a soil test kit and some other garden goodies.


While she was doing that, I wandered out to the outside garden and saw this lonely set of last years statuary for sale. They are just beginning to set outside garden up for the spring, so these are all kind of against a wall looking like they had nowhere to go.

Day 17 - Jan 21st

Pretty much stuck in the office all day then worked the night job, so I snapped this picture of the left side of my woodworking bookshelf. Couple custom Dunny's in the foreground. I'm reading a book on my camera so this one was the first with a few internal settings changed. I like it! I also mitigated the flash in a way taught me by one of the most EXCELLENT books my sister gave me for Christmas! (note to family - volume 3 of that series is coming soon...)

Day 16 - Jan 20th

I went and visited that same client this day. On the drive home, I stopped off here. But I didn't buy anything. I do like the looks of this outlet mall - very well done inside. But there were groups of guys in suits carrying something wandering around - and I don't feel like being approached by religious or multi-level salespeople at this time :)

It was a pretty, sunny day up there. Then, the closer I got to home, the foggier it got...

Day 15 - Jan 19th

The inversion continues. When I left the second job, the car was all frozen over on the outside and fogged over on the inside. So I snapped the first picture from inside the car looking through the frozen windshield. I also took several pictures of my coworkers standing around their warming cars smoking or chatting, but I had not remembered my portable tripod, so none of those came out well.


The second picture is of the gas station in our parking lot. Empty, well lit gas stations at night always evoke an emotional response in me for some reason. Maybe it does for others as well.

And yes, that's snow in that picture. It hasn't seriously snowed for almost three weeks - but we had gotten SO much snow that it's still hanging around - even after a few 50 degree days.

Day 14 - Jan 18th

I don't often tell folks, but one of our favorite shows of all time is the new Battlestar Galactica. LOVE that show. Passionately. I've been patient with the collectibles - Diamond has been coming out with statues but I've ignored them - just too expensive. I finally found an auction for a "Scar" Cylon raider - one of the three I REALLY wanted. So I got it at a fantastic price - compared to the SRP, I got it for $.20 on the dollar. Unfortunately, it was broken when it arrived! Fortunately, Diamond is replacing it for free :)

Day 13 - Jan 17th

Due to an inversion, we have had INTENSE fog here. Sometimes never clearing. I decided to try and snap pictures of it. I don't think these came out too badly. I captured some taillight action in one of them. One picture is of one of the houses just across the street while the other is looking north down our street. I don't think I've taken a night photograph in a long, long time.

Day 12 - Jan 16th

Stuck in the office again most of the day. One of my clients accidentally imported the wrong group of employees and in some cases the right group with the wrong information. So I connected to the client then allowed Corporate tech support to take over my computer to fix the mess. I spent a few hours basically watching someone on the other side of the country work through my computer.

Day 11 - Jan 15th

Two pictures. I went onsite to a client today and snapped these. The first shows the Snohomish valley STILL flooded two weeks after the massive rains. There is no river real close to there. So much water! Picture didn't come out bad for me blindly snapping a series while going 60 mph.


This is the client I went to go see. They are expanding and this entrance actually is blocked off. The new main entrance is unmarked. It's real nice looking inside - they did a nice job.

Day 10 - Jan 14th

We have an annual tradition. Close to New Years, we measure and weigh each child on a chart pinned up in my closet. We were a couple weeks late this year, but it's always fun to announce how much each child has grown! Not surprisingly, our newly minted teenager made some impressive gains as did little Peter.

Day 9 - Jan 13th

After so much "weather", we had a really nice day this day. So Jill and the kids did some outdoor activities. This was the group jump rope.

Day 8 - Jan 12th

Stuck in my office pretty much the entire day because of some client issues, I decided to snap my desk. I like a menagerie of figures on my desk. My shelves I like organized, but my desk should reflect my eclectic likes. So...three pictures of my badly needing dusting desk. I do keep it fairly dark in my office on purpose, so no flash used.

Day 7 - Jan 11th

Another day of two pics. I was upstairs folding laundry and snapped a few pictures. The first is of my partially constructed picnic table on our new deck. Lots of "stuff" around because of the various snow, rain and wind storms. I cleaned it up the next weekend :) I cannot wait to finish that table...


The next picture was taken of the north side of our fence. I just love our little frog art there.

Day 6 - Jan 10th 2009

We love our water cooler. We go through 2-3 five gallon containers a week.

Day 5 - Jan 9th 2009

Peter came into my office and was intently watching me while I worked on my laptop. I snapped this closeup of him.

Day 4 - Jan 8th 2009

Two pictures. The first is of our Christmas decorations drying on the porch (can you tell I like Penguins?). It poured down rain the day before and so they had to dry out for a few days.


The second picture is of Lydia. She was concentrating on doing her math and she looked so pretty. I snapped a few photographs, but the first one I like the best.

Day 3 - Jan 7th 2009

My cute stuffed penguin guards my Star Wars Kubricks and a couple series of Dunny's in my office.

Day 2 - Jan 6th 2009

Building Jill's new computer and dealing with residual toothache's from the dentist. So...computer parts and Percoset! Yes, the sub was expired, but I only took two total...

Day 1 - Jan 5th

A light dusting of snow last night. Peter had fun in it!