Starry Night

Tonight is one of those nights that you can see a billion stars in the sky. I really wanted to try to capture that in this photo, but an image can really not do it justice. Digital photography does have its limitations when it comes to nighttime photography, but I thought this turned out pretty good.

Oh, and one more thing. I'm now linking the image in every post to a full resolution version, so when you click on it it will open in a new window.

Mass Outages

The past month or so, we’ve been experiencing major problems with our internet connection. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but there isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t have at least one outage. This is unacceptable. We’re paying over $40 a month for this service, and I expect to get my money’s worth. I’ve called customer service about four times, and each time they give me some other line of B.S. It’s always well over a week before they can get a service tech out here, and oftentimes, when I call, there is an outage in most of the town. Why do they need to send a tech here if it’s a mass outage? The first time we scheduled an appointment, the guy showed up well after I had gone to bed, and after that day, we really didn’t have problems for about a week, so I thought it had been fixed. Not even close. We’ve scheduled another appointment, but of course the tech wont be able to get here until next Friday. The worst part of all this is that there are no alternatives to Mediacom in our area. I could always go back to Directv for the television, but there are virtually no other companies present out here for internet. There is a company called T6 Wireless which is a provider out here, but the prices are through the roof, and when my cable connection is actually working, my download speeds are well over 5 Mb/s. I guess we’ll have to tough it out and hope they’ll eventually get it fixed....

Eating Habits

It always seems like I'm eating the same things. It makes trips to the grocery store much simpler, but in the long run, dinner can get pretty boring. It's tough to enforce variety when I'm cooking just for myself. I really like the things I eat, and I don't feel like I eat poorly, but it can get pretty repetitive. Fortunately, with warmer weather comes more cooking out, so that changes things a bit. I've had this problem for most of my adult life, and I'm sure that many of you have the same problem. It's just far to easy with life's fast pace to get stuck in a rut.

On a completely (odd) side note, I had a dream that I bought an iPhone today. I've been so inundated lately with iPhone coverage and commercials, that I'm starting to buy into the hype. I'd really love to get one, but the $600 price tag is way too high, and I have a year left on my current contract with US Cellular. I'm hoping eventually that they will offer this amazing piece of tech to all the carriers, not just AT&T, and it will drive the price down. It's just too expensive right now.

New Baby! / 4th of July / Chasing Strays

Man, what a lot to talk about today. I had about three different things I wanted to talk about today. Being the 4th of July isn't really a big thing for me, but my sister Jennee gave birth yesterday to her second child, a daughter, Madelynn Clorice. We went to the hospital this afternoon to see her, and of course I forgot my camera. Needless to say, she's adorable! Babies are so cute when they're newborns. Everyone I've talked to says looks like Jennee when she was born, but all babies look alike to me... :)

When I took a walk around the yard tonight, looking for something to shoot, I saw this cat sleeping on our picnic table. Now I've seen this guy before, but never so close up. I'd really love to get close enough to pet him, even though I know that's an idiotic thing to do, but it will have none of that. This is about as close as I could get to him before he ran away. I'm convinced that this cat is related somehow to our cat Cotton.

Failed Experiments, Successful Results

This was an odd night for me, photographically speaking. I had the brilliant idea that I was going to photograph a field full of lightning bugs for my nephew, completely blocking out of my mind the inadequacies of digital when shooting in the dark. I was going to do this because in California, where Noah is from, they don't have fire flies! I never knew this until my sister moved out there. I guess I just assumed they were everywhere. Obviously, this idea didn't work. Had I been shooting film, it may have looked like I had intended. When I got my camera home, the photos I opened were not what I had intended, but for some reason, I could see something in them that was usable. They were very noisy, poorly lit, and none of the bugs were visible, but a little spooky and surreal. I just needed to tweak it. So I opened up Photoshop, played around for about 1/2 hour, and this is what I got. I'm really happy with the results! It really reminds me of some infrared shots I took a couple years ago. Very grainy, very surreal, yet also very mundane. It's something you see every day, only lit in a different light. You can view the full sized shot HERE. Believe me, that little shot above doesn't do it justice.

Grillin'

One of may favorite things in the summer is cooking most of my meat on the grill. It's very nice to put on a steak, a couple brats, or a chicken breast, then sit outside and enjoy the great weather. Being a vegetarian, Steph appreciates it as well, since the house won't smell like a steakhouse when I'm done. The grill I have now has really seen better days, but I'm holding out on buying a new one until everything at work settles down, and we figure out if we're going to be moving within the next couple years.

Wilderness in the Weeds

Our cat Punkin loves to go outside. He's constantly at the back door, staring longingly at the doorknob as if willing it to open. He lurks inside when we're coming home, trying desperately to escape at the slightest motion of the opening door. Finally, when all else fails and he's truly desperate, he howls. He doesn't squeak, he doesn't meow, he howls.

I try to imagine sometimes what it must be like for him to go from a domestic house cat to a stalking, prowling hunter. He's always slinking stealthily this forest of tall weeds near the railroad tracks, looking for the slightest sign of an afternoon snack. A few times we've opened the back door only to find his latest catch, waiting for us like a macabre offering. He always comes home in the end, however. He knows full well where his meal ticket is.