Misc Photos

Following A Path To Enlightenment

The PathYesterday morning when I fired up the car in the garage I could see that one of the fog lights, AKA DRLs, was out. On the way home from work we stopped at the local auto parts store and bought a new bulb. At first I thought, to be safe, I should change out both bulbs under the theory that if one goes the other can’t be far behind. Then I referred to the wealth of knowledge that only the internet could house, the blog known as “Life of Brian.” In July of 2005 I changed just the left fog light bulb and now a year and a half later the right one bit the dust. A decision was made to go ahead and replace just the bulb that burnt out.

Changing the bulb is the not so simple matter of jacking up the front of the car, removing the front wheel, removing a 10mm bolt, taking out 5 weird plastic screw/snap fasteners and bending back the fender liner. Then you unsnap a spring clip, twist to unfasten the bulb base from the housing, unclick the wiring harness connector so you can get the base & bulb out where you can see it and pull the bulb out of the base. reverse everything you just did the put it all back together. It takes about an hour. So if you had the dealer do it, it would set you back about $75. That’s just the labor, they would add about another $20 for the six dollar bulb…

Yesterday I wrote about my leave covered yard, today I posted a picture depicting just that. Yesterday I changed a fog light bulb in the car, today I posted about that. I guess I figured if that whole non-linear story telling thing worked for Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, why not for me here?

Started up, went down, still down.
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Old Choo-Choo

Old LocomotiveHere is a photo from the trip that with a little help almost isn’t dreck. It was underexposed and not very interesting, so I cranked up the contrast which washed out the colors. I then ran it through a sepia tone filter and viola, an old locomotive.

Most of the photos from the railroad roundhouse would look improved once run through a sepia filter. You know, I think if I work at it I can get 20 decent photos for an online vacation gallery, just don’t hold your breath waiting for it, OK?

It took me a couple hours of starring at the paperwork on my desk before I could decipher where I left off 10 days ago, but once I got my bearings it was off to the races and I had a fairly productive day. I hope the company doesn’t expect that everyday now…

Started up, went down, still down.
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Florida Trip Photos

I took about 114 photos on our trip to Florida and back, but most of them are dreck. The ones I took inside the aquarium came out blurry or dark. Because a flash would just reflect back off the glass I turned it off, so in the hand held shots (I steadied the camera against something) the fish appear as blurs because the little buggers won’t sit still. I took a few at the railroad roundhouse museum, but the light was wrong or the caution tape keeping you out of certain places was prominent in the frame… I think if I have ten worth posting in a gallery I’d be lucky, so I probably won’t bother.

Donna had a list of state parks that we were going to use as breaks by visiting on the trip down, but the weather was so cloudy, cold and windy that when we did venture out of the car, it was not for very long. On the way back the weather was a little nicer, so we did take a walk around a park in northern Florida. The most interesting photo from that was this tree that had a whole flock of woodpeckers on it:

1.6% of Our Fame

Banksia SkyThe picture in last Wednesday’s post was on TV. After I showed the image to a couple folks at work I was told I should sent it in to the local morning weather guy because every morning he shows a picture that a viewer has sent in. I emailed it to him on Friday and he replied that it would get shown on Monday at 5:15 and 6:15AM. When Donna asked if I wanted to get up a little earlier so I could see the picture, I told her no, I’d already seen it.

There are a lot of people at work who get up early and must get their weather in the morning from Matt Monroe because I had a whole lot of people catch me Monday (and a few on Tuesday) and tell me they saw my picture on Channel 6. One person tells me I won a coffee cup with some ground coffee. Another tells me I will probably get an umbrella. I think both of those are promotions from other stations or previous weather people, but never having watched the local morning news, who knows. I vow to watch on Tuesday morning to see what actually happens during the viewer photo segment.

I of course forget all about it. Then last night a friend from the MMC emailed me to say she saw my photo on TV on Monday and I should watch this morning to see one of hers, so I rolled out of bed about 10 minutes earlier than normal and watched the morning weather. Matt did the weather and then went to a commercial. Huh? No picture? When they came back from the break, there was Carol’s photo of some high mountains and blue sky. Oooh and aaah from Weather Guy, cheery comment from Anchor Woman and back to the news. No mention of a coffee mug. No umbrella. Nothing but using up about fifteen seconds of our 15 minutes.

Started down, still down.
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Northwest Photos

I took 124 photos on our trip to Washington and Oregon and I weeded them down to 44 for posting in a new web gallery for your viewing pleasure here (and always available from the “Northwest Trip 2006” link on the sidebar.) I’ve got titles on them, but it will take a while for me to add some captioning.

I really had a hard time weeding out the big rock photos, I’m sure some will think I left in too many, but they were just so alien and curious looking to me that I couldn’t help myself. On Monday in Oregon we went for a 1-1/4 each way hike in Ecola State Park and I only managed a few pictures before the camera battery died. I did get one really interesting photo of a giant woodpecker:

It’s Raining at Fenway Park Right Now

Both with raindrops and Minnesota Twin’s hits. It was supposed to rain all day here in Aiken, but as you can see by this picture it wasn’t at 1:45 this afternoon. And it still hasn’t.

Skyview

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At Least I Thought It Was Great Idea

Cancer Care InstituteThe other day I realized that I wasn’t using my camera anymore, it was just riding around in the cargo net in the trunk. The honeymoon was over. Then I had an idea (watch it, I know what you’re thinking), I would take one picture a day for every day in August. This way when I blogged in the evening describing my mundane day, there would be a mundane picture to help you really get a feel for how my life is being carried out. After all this thing is called “Life of Brian.”

Yesterday’s photo was supposed to be of the local used bookstore where we stopped on the way home and I selected 5 fiction paperbacks to read. I forgot to take the picture. You would have think I would have been reminded to do so when I plopped the books into the trunk, because the camera would have been plainly visible. But noooo.

This afternoon Donna was feeling a bit worn out, so I volunteered to drive her to her radiation treatment and then take her home. While she was inside getting zapped I took my camera and walked to the edge of the property and took a couple of close-up snaps of the Cancer Care Institute sign with the building in the background. Tonight I put the camera in the cradle and hit the download button. Selected the directory, as always I checked the remove from device box and hit go. Everything looked normal until the EasyShare Gallery software loaded and today’s pictures were not where they were supposed to be. Searched the hard drive to see if they went somewhere else, nope. I picked the camera up out of the dock and the LCD screen said, “Memory Card Needs Formatting. Proceed or Cancel.” I hit cancel thinking maybe I can salvage the pictures tomorrow at work.

Started down, went up, still up.
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