Open 24 Hours / Horray for Woodman's!

This is the greatest grocery store ever. It's one of those places that has everything you could possibly think of, and some things you've never heard of. It has the greatest liquor store in the area. Hundreds of different wines, every micro-brew beer under the sun, and even though I'm not a hard liquor man, every type and brand imaginable. Oh, and did I mention the prices are the best in the area? Not to mention it's open 24 hours! Perfect!

It's a pretty good time to get groceries. At 10 pm on a Saturday, the place is a virtual ghost town. The only drawback is the kick-ass liquor store isn't open past 9:00. I love to go there and just pick a new kind of beer to try. Lately I've been getting this micro-brew out of Chicago called Goose Island. The Honker's Ale is their "basic" beer, and is really good. I'm also a big fan of the Nut Brown Ale and the India Pale Ale. If you're local, give it a try!

Insistent

This cat is crazy. Every morning, while brushing my teeth, he completely loses his mind. He sits on the toilet, absolutely demanding I pay attention to him. His eyes glaze over, his tail puffs out to twice its size, the hair on his back stands up, and he climbs all over me until I pet him. This is bizarre behavior for this one, since he's usually the anti-social type.

We had some crazy weather again today. We didn't get a whole lot of snow, but we've had 30+ mph winds, and it's been pretty cold, so most of the roads were covered in ice. The snow was blowing so much that it completely obscured my vision a few times. I was nearly run off the road by a bright yellow moving van, filled to the brim with Mexican musicians. True story. The trip home this morning, which usually takes about 25 minutes, actually took me nearly an hour. It felt odd to drive 35 - 40 on I90, but after seeing about 6 cars in the ditch and a semi jackknifed about 1/2 mile away from my exit, it was obviously necessary.

Outage!

I should have titled this post “Outrage” instead. I’m writing this on March 1^st in Microsoft Word, because my internet has been out for about 16 hours now. Once again, the Midwest has been hit with a series of pretty nasty storms, and surprisingly, this is the first time we’ve suffered an outage of any kind. The “Outrage” comes from Mediacom’s piss-poor customer service department. I called to try to find out what the problem was, and waited on hold for about 20 minutes. Funny thing about their recorded message when you’re on hold, it gives you about three different things to try to re-establish your connection. Unfortunately, two of those things require AN INTERNET CONNECTION! After finally reaching a rep, I told him what the problem was. He asked for my phone number, then said, “You’re part of an outage right now.” That’s it. All that time on hold so he could tell me what I already know? I asked, “How long will it be out?” To which he replied, “I don’t have that information.” That’s 25 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

*Update
So obviously, they fixed it. Think they'll credit me for the 16+ hours of no service? Nah, I didn't think so either....

February: In Review

Well, I'm now two months in, and I can honestly say I'm ready for spring. I never thought I'd "run out" of things to shoot in my house, but it seems I'm getting to that point. I've decided that the last day of every month will be a little "break", and that I'll be posting my three favorite shots from that month, and recounting the major things that happened.

The Bears lost the Super Bowl. Boy, I'm so glad to be thinking about that again. That was probably the biggest event for me this month. It was really great to see them there, and to spend that day with Dad watching the game.
I also learned this month that Chrysler's cutting 11,000 jobs. They haven't really said much still, but they have announced the buyout packages. If you have 1 year or more of service, they will give you $100,000 to walk away. How crazy is that?!? Too bad I'm not eligible....

Here's my three favorite shots for the month. Bring on March!!

The True Cost of Bottled Water

From treehugger.com:
"In summary, the manufacture and transport of that one kilogram bottle of Fiji water consumed 26.88 kilograms of water (7.1 gallons) .849 Kilograms of fossil fuel (one litre or .26 gal) and emitted 562 grams of Greenhouse Gases (1.2 pounds)."

Pretty stunning stuff. I read this article the other day, and I had to share it. Fiji water, which this bottle is not, is the second highest selling imported bottled water behind Evian in the United States. It's pretty amazing the price people are willing to pay for something that comes out of your sink for free. For the record, Steph buys one bottle per week, then re-fills it about a zillion times. Wouldn't want to look like a hypocrite, right?

Source

My Tools

This is the camera I use primarily to take my photos. It's a Nikon D70 Digital SLR. 6.1 Megapixel, with a 18-70 DX Zoom Nikkor lens, and a SB-600 Speedlight. Quite a step away from what Grandpa used to use, right? I also have a Kodak DX6440 point and shoot camera that I take with me most of the time, but the results simply can't compare to what I get with this.

I think it's important to note that even thought digital cameras have dominated the market in the last 5 or 6 years, and the megapixel levels keep climbing monthly, no digital camera will ever compare to what you can do with film. Some of my best shots were taken with my Nikon N65 and a roll of Kodak TMAX 200. Hopefully, once spring gets here and I actually have the time and motivation to leave the house, I plan on taking some shots with film. I probably won't get them on the blog right away, but they'll find their way here eventually.

My Grandpa's Tools

Just a camera, right? No. This isn't just a camera. This is my Grandpa's camera. This is the camera he carried with him all across Europe during World War II. This camera has traveled more than I have my entire life. Grandpa decided he wanted me to have this when I became interested in photography. When he gave it to me, it still had film in it that had been used! Unfortunately, when I had it processed, the film had been exposed at some point. It would've been amazing to see what was on it. Grandpa has a photo album he's showed me a couple times with photos from the war. He had a friend who was a photographer for the Army who took some seriously disturbing shots. He has copies of some of those, and another shot of a ship absolutely filled with soldiers. Somehow, Grandpa managed to actually find himself in the shot, and has circled the location. I really wanted to shoot with this camera, but unfortunately, you can't get any film that will fit in it. I'm really honored he wanted me to have it.