New Camera

So for my 40th birthday (sigh) I bought myself a new toy.

I've been looking at cameras again. Back in High School and College, I really enjoyed photography. I was a photographer for the HS newspaper, with full access to the B&W darkroom! After that, I worked in a couple of photo labs in Montana and California.

One of the reasons I gave up the hobby was the cost of processing, and the lack of quality. Back when I was in the darkroom, I developed my own stuff, and printed the pictures the way I wanted to. When I worked in the photo labs, I had less control, but I did have my employee discount, and I was able to control several elements of how my prints were processed.

When I started my "real" job, I was able to buy a nice camera, and a few lenses. I was able to make some nice images, but overall, I wasn't having as much fun. My prints would come back too dark or too light. I would also realize that my composition was wrong. I needed more practice! I needed to shoot more and more rolls of film. It started out to be an expensive, not-so-much-fun hobby. So I put photography on hold for a while, and had fun doing other things.

Since that time, digital photography started coming out. The early cameras where about 1 Mega Pixels. Jill had one of those (Merry Christmas dear) and she loved it. I would look at the prints she made (from her ink jet printer) and "poo-poo" them. "Look at the pixels by the eyes" I would say. "This technology stinks! It will never catch on!"

More years passed. 1 Mega Pixel cameras turned into 4 Mega Pixel cameras. Ink Jet prints were no longer being done, and the local photo labs were printing digital prints onto real photo paper. Things were looking better. I no longer "poo-pooed" this new technology, and started seeing the real benefit. Take as many pictures as you want, review them on the pretty screen that is on the camera, and download the ones you like onto your computer. Point and shoot cameras could now make decent looking photographs, which could be printed large and hung on a wall.

Last year, when Jill got her latest digital point and shoot camera, I got a little jealous. We bought the camera for our UK trip. I took her old hand me down camera, and took a couple of hundred photos during the trip. I had a great time, and made some great pictures too!

So I was content to use the super small point and shoot camera. It fit in my pocket, and took nice pictures. However, a few things were happening that would really piss me off. First of all, I would take out of focus pictures. Why the camera wouldn't focus at infinity during a sunrise landscape shot is beyond me. I also wanted to control the size of the aperture, to control the Depth of Field. While technically possible, I needed to memorize a large book, and navigate 10 levels of menus before I could adjust it. I was frustrated that I could not quickly create the images that I knew I could.

I'm not sure exactly what happened, or when it happened. A good friend of mine got a nice Digital SLR camera (DSLR), a Nikon D80 last year. This camera is not your simple digital point and shoot. It is larger than most film cameras were 10 years ago. You can buy lenses to place on this camera, which are just like a "real" camera. Then, about 2 months ago, my neighbor got the same camera. I started to feel the itch again to get back into photography.

But the camera is not cheap (but I am) and it was hard to justify to myself that I should spend a ton of money for something that I essentially already have.

Then I turned 40....

I figured I had to do something when I turned 40. I needed to go an buy a sports car or start hanging out in strip clubs.... something life changing. So I threw caution to the wind, as well as a few dollars, and bought myself a nice Nikon D80 DSLR camera, with a beautiful 70-300 telephoto lens.

I've been out several times taking pictures, and I'm having a blast. I want to post a few pictures a week of what I've been doing. So check back if you want to see whats going on.

Here are a few from my first trip out.


I'm finding that I really enjoy nature photography. I can go for a walk in a local park, and it is full of birds, bunnies, and deer. Our backyard is full of squirrels and bunnies. I figure I can practice on them, and by the time I make it out to someplace like Yellowstone, I'll understand my camera enough to take some great shots.

That's it for now. More pictures later.

posted by RICHARD

Why?

This has happened to me several times, and I'd like to know why...

I go to the gym in the morning. I'm usually done with my workout around 8:30. When I goto my car, I usually see several other cars "circling" the lot. When I happen to have a day when I get a parking spot close to the front door, and I walk towards it, there is a feeding frenzy with the nearby cars. They seem to race each other to get into position to take my spot.

My quesion is this. Why are you going to the gym to begin with? Most people go running on the treadmill. Would walking an extra 30 yards to the front door be such a bad thing? I can understand that during a rain storm, or when it is cold out, that the extra 30 seconds walking is a big deal, but this happens to me on nice days too.

One day, I had to make a phone call in my car after my workout, and when I made it to my car (I had ROCKSTAR parking that day) I had somebody waiting for me already. I wanted to just sit and make my call, but I felt obliged to drive over to the empty area before I made my call.

posted by RICHARD

More updates coming soon!

I hope to "revive" this blog in the upcoming days. I have lots of cool things to add, but for some reason, I haven't added anything in a long time.
Upcoming titles to look for:

• Being in Sturgis, South Dakota during Harley week (not on purpose!!)
• Driving on the wrong side of the road in Scotland.
• Don't throw your cigarette butts out the window in Santa Cruz!
• Running in the cold.

posted by RICHARD

Automatic Weapons update

I haven't been running the last few weeks. Call it my summer coma. When winter turns to spring, I am full of energy, and need to be outside every minute of every day. After a few weeks, the excitement of the sun wears off a bit, and I just want to lay around.

The laziness wore off this week, and I finally made it back out to the park where I run. I was still curious to find out what prompted the police to show up with automatic weapons a few weeks ago, so I found the park employee I had talked to a few weeks ago, and asked her what she had learned. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of an update. But she did say that a day or two later, management sent down some flyers about "dangerous animals" and a "what to do if" type checklist. She speculated that somebody reported seeing some sort of animal, and that they didn't want to take any chances.

Was she telling me a story? Or was it the truth? I don't know. I thought they would call the park rangers instead of the police if there was an animal to be caught. But there were no signs posted around the park warning us about dangerous people or animals. So it is hard to tell.

When I was done with my run, I was walking to the spot where I stretch. This area is close to the big "kid zoo." The park has a big jungle gym setup on the side of a hill. It looks like one of those McDonalds play areas, but about 10 times bigger. Anyway, a mom was trying to get her two young daughters to come out of the tree area to go to the car. When the kids were ignoring her, the mom said, "You better come out of there. (pause) I hope the bears don't eat you!"

At first I thought it was a mean thing to say to a young child. By lying to the child, and manipulating her feelings, it might scare the child the next time they come out to the park. (It worked though, the kids came out of the wooded area!) But then I thought about the cops with guns I had seen earlier, and then the lack of warnings telling me to stay out of the woods. Should the park warn us if there are dangerous animals in the woods? Should they tell us about the report, and what the cops found? Or is it better to be oblivious, and go play where the bears might eat me?

Tuesday's BunnyCount was high. Somewhere around 15. About half were BabyBunnies. BabyBunnies have no fear of joggers, and won't run away until we are about 10 feet away. But at that critical distance, they run fast, but don't know where to go. Instant entertainment for us joggers!


posted by RICHARD

Even more weird things I've seen while out running

You know, sometimes I think the world throws things at you, just so you can tell others.

During my run yesterday (6.5 miles with 6- 2:00 intervals) I come across a guy cross country skiing.

Granted, I was on a cross country ski trail, but this is the first week of June, with the temperature of 80+. Haven't seen snow for a long time.

It looks like this guy made/bought a device which looks likes skis, and has rollers on it. Imagine 2 2x4 boards, each about 5 feet long. Sandwich these two boards together, and put some ball-bearings and springs between them. So you can push off and "glide", then pick up your other foot, and the springs will push the "ski" back in front of you, so you can land and push off again.

I swear, I can't make this stuff up.

Running count:
BunnyCount: 4
turkeys: 1
deer: 1
turtles: 1

Apparently the turtles are laying their eggs now. They try to get as far from the water as they can. I think that is why they are coming up on the trails more-and-more lately. It has been kinda fun seeing them.

Oh, and today is 6/6/6. We played volleyball at lunch, and our team won. There is no connection, but I think there was a chance I did see a snowball...

Enjoy!

A Great Band, OKGO

Last summer, Jill and I went to see one of her favorite bands, The Kaiser Cheifs, which was a great show.

One of the opening bands was "OKGO."

If you haven't heard of them, which you probably haven't, you might want to check them out.
http://www.okgo.net/

It is hard to explain their music. Fortunatly, they have some downloads on their site. It sounds like they were heavily influenced by "They Might be Giants", but they were the drama geeks in high school instead of band geeks.

For an example of what I mean, have a few beers (the more the better!) and check out the video "Ping-Pong Instructional Video" on their page: http://okgo.net/video.asp (Some people should not be allowed to operate video cameras!)

They have music videos on this page as well. These are a little bit more "normal" than their ping pong video.

Anyway, they've got two albums, OKGO and OHNO. Their first album OKGO, is the better of the two, in my opinion.

I don't know if they will ever be mainstream, but that doesn't mean they don't make some good music. Plus they put on a killer live show.

Enjoy!

More running and oddities

So I went back to my favorite park to go running again yesterday. Tons of kids in the play center, and everything looked normal/safe. No yellow tape anywhere, so I figured that everything was safe from last Tuesday.

I did a simple fast run (1 mile warmup, 3 miles fast, 1 mile cooldown) and stayed on the main trails. Mostly because I know the distances, but I also didn't want to go off into the "scary woods" where the police were headed a few days ago.

My run went off without a hitch. Nothing too weird happened. Here is my count:

BunnyCount: 5
Squirrels that looked like bunnies: 2
Pheasants flying and squaking in front of me: 1
Bikes with no pedals: 1

A no pedaled bike? Yeah! This guy went by me in a bike that had no pedals. It looked just like a rowing machine in the gym. You sit back and pull a bar, and the bike moves forward.
To me, it looked like a torture device!

After my run, I went into the snack shop and asked the gal if she knew what happened Tuesday night. Her eyes got real big, and obviously hadn't heard anything. But now she is going to "ask around", and I'll go back in a few days and find out.

Enjoy!

Automatic Weapons

How's this for a first post title? "Automatic Weapons!"

Ok Richard, what are you talking about?

On Tuesday, I went out to my favorate running location, Hyland Park, for a nice long run. (6 1/4 miles with intervals!) The weather was perfect, my body was behaving properly. It was a great run.

As with most of my runs, my brains goes into overdrive. This year, I've taken off the headphones, and decided to listen to the nature around me. It also allows my brain to go off and think of things, almost like a REM sleep state. I was thinking about what to post on this blog, as Jill had helped me set it up the weekend before. One of the things that came to mind was to count the animals which I see on my run, as well as other oddities. So, here is my count from yesterday
BunnyCount(tm): 8
Baby Geese: 5
Baby Loons: 1
Turtles on the trail: 1
Smokers: 2 (In three years, I've never even seen 1)
Automatic Weapons: 2

Huh? Automatic weapons? In Minnesota suberb? Whats up with that?!??

After my run, I was by the main building, doing my stretches. I saw a park maintence worker hanging around his truck. A few minutes later, a Bloomington Police car shows up, and starts talking with the park worker. I can only hear every 3rd word, but I can figure out that the park worker is giving a description of a person to the policeman. I keep on stretching, trying to listen but not get in the way. Pretty soon, a second police car shows up, and the two policemen start talking to each other. By this time, I'm walking back to my car, and I think to myself that I should ask one of the cops if I can help. After all, I had just spent the last 70 minutes running the trails, and I might have seen the person they were looking for. I turn around and head back to where the two cars and policemen were. The two cops had popped the trunks of their cars, and pulled out some type of big automatic weapons. I'm not a gun expert, but these looked like the guns Rambo would use. One was a big M-16 type gun; big, black, and all metal. The other guy had a smaller black gun, with a hollowed out stock, which looked like it snapped into place. It almost looked like a gun a gang member would use in the movies. The each strapped their guns onto their back, and headed down a trail. I decided NOT to get involved at this point, and let them go on their way.

But the quote of the day came a few moments later, when a woman in a mini van came driving up, and noticed what was going on. From her car, she called out to the policemen, asking "Is it safe?" She had her kids in the car, and this park has a huge play area that usually has dozens of kids playing. The cop turned to her and says, "Umm... sure. It is safe down here", and turns around and heads down the trail with his partner.

The woman looks at me, and say, "I think the kids are going to have to do without the play area today..." and drives away.

I goto my car and drive away also.

I didn't see anything in the local news web pages, but I'll keep my eyes and ears open.

Jill had the second best quote of the day, "Mental note.... Bloomington police are well armed."

Enjoy!


posted by RICHARD (ignore the next line, Jill and I share one account!)