Harmony, laughed in every shot except this one
Me (Jason)
Cory, Nice form!
Steph, Bowling Ninja
This thing is awesome. The Pizzazz Pizza Oven is one of those few random, odd appliances you may buy that you'll actually use more than once. We got this for Christmas a couple years ago, and we've used it ever since. Usually, when you buy something like this, you use it a couple times, and then it collects dust for the next 10 years or so. Not in this case. I highly recommend it.
Huzzah! The first of our flowers for the spring! Too bad we're taking them out this year. We've decided to take out all the perennials this year and put in some bushes. Much lower maintenance, much more concealing of the ugly foundation. I will miss seeing this every spring, but I think we'll probably transplant some of them. Anyone want some Lilies?
So here's the deal. Our wonderful ISP, Mediacom, decided to take about 16 hours to fix our internet outage. It seems like every time we lose service, it takes an inexcusably long time to get it up and running again. Anyway, I was so irritated about not reading my email, checking my RSS feeds, etc., that I forgot to shoot a picture. Meh. So here's the second in my "Favorite Shots" series. This one's entitled "Local Growth". It was part of a series I took for my photography class where I was trying to illustrate the over-development of our area, and from this, the destruction of the "family farm". My teacher, who's lived in the area his whole life, was actually getting visibly angry/irritated looking at my shots. I guess the message got across! I got an A. :)
This is what happens when you dig a massive hole in the ground then leave it for the next two weeks. The open pit next to our house is obviously still there, with no fill to be seen. It's beginning to look like a small pond over there. As I sit writing this, I can hear frogs out there singing in the night. I really feel like I'm near some kind of lake or something. It should be great if they don't fill it before mosquito season.
Wow. What a beautiful day. A balmy 74°, I was only able to enjoy a few hours of it. By the time I get up, around 5 pm, the sun is already starting to go down. I did, however, enjoy the time I spent outside.
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. 
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:
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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....
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!
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.
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....
