Groceries... again

Our Saturday night ritual is still intact. In addition to our groceries, we pick up some stuff for Stephanie's Grandma Johnson, who lives here in town near us. Additionally, this week we decided to get groceries for two weeks, so this massive pile of bags are what we were left with.

One more thing, in yesterday's RR Star, there was an article about charges filed by the Local Union regarding the hiring of "tmeporary workers". Yes, that's me. Basically, they filed charges with the NLRB against Chrysler Corp. because our "contract" directly violates the collective bargaining agreement that they ratified with DCX. This case is now going to arbitration. As far as I can tell, this is a really good thing. It means that I may actually learn my fate at Chrysler much sooner than I anticipated. I always thought I'd hear something closer to September, when the international contract negotiations begin, but now we may hear something much sooner. Keep your fingers crossed!

Night Shots

Since my sleep schedule's a little off kilter, and my sunlight time is limited, I decided to take my camera out tonight and play in the dark. Night time photography is tricky, and digital camera usually don't do so well in the dark, but these shots turned out pretty good. I really like the above shot the most, but I was pleased with this one as well:

Mii and Me

I got my Wii back! The Nintendo Wii has this really cool feature called the Mii Channel. It allows you to create virtual representations of yourself, to be used in various games like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Here's mine! I also have great ones for Stephanie, Jon, Justin, and Dad. Dad's is DEAD ON.

Oh, and for the record, even Miis will blink when their picture is taken.

Remnants

Hi, my name is Jason, and I used to play Magic: The Gathering. I've been an addict for 10 years. I've been "sober" for about a year. Now it's confirmed, I'm a huge geek. I know that many of you have had your theories about it, but now it's absolutely confirmed.

Yes, I used to play Magic. I gave it up about a year ago. It just lost its appeal. It used to be so much fun, but when they started releasing a new set of cards every three or four months, the cost just became too much. I used to play in tournaments, and actually won a few of them. When I decided to quit, I sold all the rares and some of the uncommons on eBay. I actually made a good amount of money on the sales. Now, I have thousands of commons and uncommons in boxes in my office, still looking for a home. Still interested Cory?

Favortie Shots #1

On days like today, when the weather isn't agreeable and I'm quickly running out of things in my house to shoot, this blog can be a bit frustrating. I've decided to dip into my collection of shots I've taken over the last few years, and start a new series called "Favorite Shots". I promise I won't do this often, since this is supposed to be a "Photo a Day" blog, but sometimes, when you have these average days, finding something interesting and relevant can be very difficult.

The first in this series was taken at my former employer, Belvedere USA Corporation. I left Belvedere for Chrysler about 9 months ago, and I spent nearly 12 years there. This shot is of our welder, Hassel Byrd. Hassel is a great guy. And old salty Virginian, he always has a smart-ass comment on pretty much every topic. I had a good time working with him. This shot was taken originally for my photography class, with Kodak TMAX 100 black and white film, and I printed it myself. I have the original hanging in my office. This is one of my favorite shots.

Covered in Cats

Poor Stephanie. She can't sit down without her two cats, Bear and Chloe, climbing all over her. Bear's the one on the top of the couch, Chloe is on her lap. This is pretty much a nightly ritual.

Well, I heard some promising news at work last night. The Union Steward told us that right now, the buyouts Chrysler is offering are making the rounds through the company. He said that eventually, they will come to our plat. This is great news for me, since if they're buying people out, they surely won't be laying anyone off. Hopefully this is one step closer to full time employment.

Before & After

I decided to play around a little with Photoshop today, and show some of you that aren't familiar with the software an example of how a photograph can change from the original shot. The photo above is what I started out with. It's a pretty lousy shot. The color balance is off, it's underexposed, and pretty boring. Just so you know, this was intentional! I'm not a horrible photographer! After about 1/2 hour in Photoshop, this is the result:
As you can see, the end result is far different from the original. This is just one example of the many, many things you can do in Photoshop. I only spent 1/2 hour on this, and took a pretty boring picture, cleaned it up, and made it a bit more interesting. Obviously, I could've spent far more time on this, and made it really great, but for the sake of time, I didn't. You could literally spend hours on one photograph, but the end result would be stunning.