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.

Outside!

I'm sooo happy we moved the clocks ahead. It's nice to actually see the sun again. I really enjoy outdoor photography, and especially love shots like this. There's so much complexity is something as simple as the bark of a tree, when you look at it like this, it's really pretty amazing. I love to take something you see every day and try to show it in a completely different way.

Okay, I know I said never again on the cell phone shots, but I saw something today that I absolutely had to share. We were at the grocery store, and I saw this display for these horrible new drinks obviously targeted at kids. They're milk drinks that are flavored like candy bars and Starburst. Wow. My teeth are rotting just thinking about it, and oh! Wait a sec! Yep, I just gained three pounds. Anyway, here's the display:
And as you can see, whomever made the sign obviously has a great sense of humor:
Any parent who gives these "milk" drinks to their kids should be rounded up and summarily executed.

Pez

Every year for Christmas, mom gets us Pez dispensers. Call it a tradition. This year, we got another, but as you can see, it is about 12 inches tall, and dispenses full packages of Pez instead of individual pieces. Pretty crazy.

I hate working Saturdays. For me, working 3rd shift, tonight is my Saturday. We generally work three Saturdays in a row, then we get one off. It sucks pretty bad, but at least I'm still working.

Spectral

As I've said before, I have some sleep issues. Today I had an odd dream that really inspired this shot. In my dream, I was coming up my basement steps, when I saw this dark, ghostly image hurtling at me from the top of the stairs. It was clearly some sort of spirit or ghost, and its intentions were not good. When it hit me, it was like a gust of frigid wind passing through me. That's about all I can remember. I don't know why I was in the basement, or why the spirit wanted to harm me, but it scared the hell out of me. Pretty odd, right? Anyway, when I was thinking about my photograph for today, I recalled a shot a guy did for our basic photography class very similar to this. His shot was slightly different, but had similar results. I guess maybe I need to lay off the hallucinogenic drugs right before sleep....

Baseball Fever

I've caught it. Every year is the same thing for me. New hats, new shirts, the occasional video game, this awesome jacket, I can't get enough. I love the build up every year that precedes the MLB opening day. I was just watching the Sox pound the Brewers in a spring training game, and I thought to myself, "Why am I watching a spring training game?" 19 more days!

Spring Breeze

It smells so good in our house right now. We've had some amazing weather the last couple of days, and today we had the windows open all day. There's nothing better than having those windows open for the first time in the spring. I guess that could be another of my unofficial starts to spring.

They did some more digging today next door, but I think they are all finished now. Naturally, being in a small town, all the neighborhood kids had to come see the hole. It makes me a little nervous seeing them climbing around near such a dangerous area, but I'm not their parents, so I keep my mouth shut.

Excavation

We have a great house. It's just the right size, it's in good shape, and the price was right. It has the worst location imaginable. To the north, two lots up, is the town's bar. You'd think that would be great, right? Go have a couple drinks, then you can walk home! Not so much. It's not great at all when the drunks are leaving at 2 am. To the south, about two lots down, are railroad tracks. When we moved in, those were my main concern. It's actually not as bad as you'd imagine. The lot in between the tracks and the house is the subject of this shot. The lot is basically empty, except for some buildings that are no longer in use. There used to be a fertilizer plant here, but that's no longer the case. We received a call last week telling us there would be some work done on the lot. When I got home this morning, there were about 6 trucks lined up in the street, and this backhoe tearing into the earth. When I woke up this afternoon, there is now this massive hole about 70 yards long. Apparently the owners of the property have to remove the soil in this area due to contamination concerns. Makes me feel great, considering we have well water....

I've added a link to the webpage where my images are hosted, Flickr.com. If you'd like to just view all the pictures I've taken to this point and in the future without going through the entire blog, you can use that.

Digital Black and White

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you will never get the quality of true black and white film from a digital camera. There are a lot of tricks and tweaks you can try in Photoshop, but wouldn't it just be easier to shoot film? This procedure is probably the quickest one I've found recently to convert color digital images to black and white. You could just desaturate it, or set your camera to "B&W", but what you generally end up with is a washed out, low contrast image. When taking photography classes, we shot Kodak TMAX 100 exclusively. We developed our own film and printed our own images in the darkroom. The shots I took in those classes are some of the most beautiful photographs I've ever taken. I'm really looking forward to shooting film again this summer.

Spring Ahead

Tonight we set the clocks ahead. This, to me, is one of the "unofficial" starts to spring. The picture above is another. I love seeing the first of the perennials start to push through the frozen soil. I'm a big fan of tulips, and while I know these are daffodils, I still get pretty excited. The post office in our town is usually the first to have stuff like this, but we do have some ourselves. We have some tulips around our house, but mostly our perennials are lilies and irises. We also planted a lilac bush in our first (or second?) year living here. I love lilacs, but the blooms never stay around long enough. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the official start of spring is April 2nd, the home opener for the Chicago White Sox.

Packing My Wii

Well, I'm sending my Wii off for service. I bought my Wii on launch day, November 19th. The unfortunate reality of buying a launch system is that at some point, there's a good chance it may malfunction. Just ask any long time Xbox 360 owner! Luckily, Nintendo provides a 1 year warranty on all its hardware, so I'm not paying a dime to have it fixed. I'm also sending my DS Lite for the problem I mentioned previously. I'm already having Nintendo withdrawals!

New Growth

I really don't know what to write about today. Today was one of those average days that just go by without notice. I went to work, I came home, I slept, I ate, now I'll go to work again. In ten years I won't remember today. It amazes me the simple fact that as you go on, days like this slip in to obscurity, simply because they were not extraordinary. I suppose it's a function of the mind to forget these days so the important ones are remembered. It just seems a little sad to me.

You can add this shot to the daily growing series, "Random Stuff In My House". I'm actually pleased how this shot turned out. I'm a big fan of onions....

There has to be a change, I'm sure
Today was just a day fading into another
And that can't be what a life is for....

A.Duritz, Counting Crows
Amy Hit the Atmosphere
August and Everything After

I Love Shooting Zombies!

I love unique tees. One of my favorite sites for shirts like this is Threadless.com. All their designs are actually submitted by users, then voted on by customers. The most popular designs are made into shirts! Here are a few I've bought from them:
Dark Side of the Garden
Are Trees Electronic?
Shadow Bunny

Another good site for geeky tees is Thinkgeek.com. Here's one I bought from them:
Viva Miyamoto

I have about 7 or 8 really geeky cool tees. I'm always on the lookout for more!

Spin the Black Circle

We have a modest collection of records whose sole purpose seems to be to collect dust. In an age where you can fit hundreds of these large black platters on something that can fit in the palm of your hand, to say records are obsolete is an understatement. However, there is something comforting and nostalgic about the feel of music played from a record. The warm sound, the hiss and pops, it has a personality that an mp3 file can't replicate. I guess that's why we'll have these records and the player around forever, but the cassettes and 8 tracks are nowhere to be seen.

Wii-motes!

You have no idea how long I've been looking for these. Ever since I bought the Nintendo Wii on launch day, November 19th of last year, I've regretted not getting the maximum of four remotes. I've been looking in the stores for more every chance I get. Until Sunday, no one has had any. For some reason, retailers are holding the stock they get until Sunday, then they put it out for sale. This essentially means unless you go to the store on Sunday, you aren't going to fins these or the system. After reading several rumors online about possible availability this Sunday, I decided to call our local Target. As you can see they had them in stock! My wonderful wife Stephanie was kind enough to stop in and pick a couple up for me.

On a side note, Steph was quick to point out the absolute stack of clothing she was able to buy with the same amount of money spent on these two hunks of plastic....