Enough Rain

I should have never wished for rain LOL. The hills will be green soon and that is a good thing. The down pours today – they were a bad thing. Why can’t it just rain in the night? Never happy am I?

Went out a bought a tripod today.

Watched the second part of the Scoble Show Photowalking 5 ( Sacramento Train Museum). I found it kind of dissappointing that a whole bunch of us Sacramentians never even were a bloop or a fuzzy blurb in the videos. But then again, most of us were left in the dirt and now that I have seen the video I know where we went wrong. We should have never stopped to take pictures of the miniture train models. This my Sacramento friends is where many of us missed the boat. While we were down taking pics we missed a lot of good info when they were up there. It looks like the exited the building right after that. Oh well. If I ever go on another one of these type deals I am going to watch and listen and not take any pictures. I was diffinately over my head on this one. But it was fun.

I have the gimmie want me’s real bad for one of those Nikkor 18-200 V’s oh well. I suppose I should learn to take a decent picture first eh?

Catfish and Annie are snoozing away contently. They are happy little campers because they got chicken drippings on their chow chow tonight.

Well that’s all folks from rainy Sacramento.

A Rainy Day In San Francisco

But of course it has not rained in what seems like forever around these parts so it had to rain today. We planned a trip to the Bay Area so – we went anyway. We left Sacramento around 10:30 am so we might miss the jack-knifed big rig and it’s lost load of hay that had I80 backed up for miles this morning. Success on that note.

It was a misty, rainy, dreary, . … day.

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I was hard to take pictures as the salty mist started to coat the camera and it’s wimpy holder. Drove along scenic hwy1 and took a few shots. Checked out Fort Point ( it was closed ) and snapped a few shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. Somewhere I became obsessed with the waves hitting the rocks. I have many shots of the ocean spraying up as it crashed into the rocks. This led to the inevitable – I got wet – duh.

We decided to head out towards the beach. Along the way Mr.Bus tried to shorten my truck ( I was not driving hee hee ). The driver apparently took the advertisment on his bus to heart.

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Once on the beach I was met by the Sea Gull Mafia. I mean to tell yah – these guys meant business!

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They even held these poor tourists and their car hostage – demanding bread!

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Since the weather was so nasty and not condusive to productive picture taking we decided to visit the cemetery. Now the map machine thing was broken. Emm … where is that space in the big place? All the grave markers look the same . .. well we stopped and asked these nice guys for directions:

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And we were headed in the right direction.

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Back onto the freeway and back to San Francisco. We met up with Rae’s newphew and his gal, had a nice dinner, some good conversation, and headed back towards Sacramento.

Forum Irritations and Playground Fights

I could not think of a better discription for a title.

We all know (or should) that public forums/bulletin boards always have there trolls. That is kind of expected. Lately many of the forums that I stop by and read seem to be on a theme of disaccord. On one forum the originator and paid overseerer of the sight was fired. It sounds like it was done rather corporate like and unexpected. Many of the regulars of that forum jumped ship in support of the PAID host that was fired and formed a new forum on another service. Ok. Now to read posts from favorites I have to log onto two different forums. But now there is what can be construed from my point of view as a pissing contest has begun. If you post on the original forum the people who moved lable you a traitor. If you post on the new forum you are following a click and ignoring the fact that the host was treated so bad. Makes me stop reading them both :(. Very much like the stupid he said she said playground fights in the sandbox.

In place of these forums I have taken up reading flickr group discussions. I was starting to enjoy the D80 group until recent where the posts have gotten off photography and camera’s to PC v Mac and why Nikon should let unregistered users download printable manual rants. LOL Hope they go back to D80’s and photos soon. I have also recieved numerous invites to be a contact of someone that as far as I can tell never ever looked at a photo of mine they just want another contact in hopes that they will fav a photo or two. Another are you kidding? Again similar to the playground popularity contests and birthday invites. Would you be a contact for someone whose nick name is assquake**? Or for someone that as not one real photo in their

Then there apparently is still the blog wars over the PayPP thing. Cheezzzee.. I am sure that you all have noticed that my blogroll is very small. I read these blogs and a few others most days – because I enjoy them. Not because they are A listed or Z listed or on any list other than my own. In fact the top A list type blogs that I read are not on there because I figure if they are something you would like you probably already have them listed on your own blog roll. The few personal blogs that I read but are not on the list are not there because the folks blogging do not want the attention – yeah they blog for themselves and a few friends. Something I can in some ways relate to. After the Scoble photowalk link traffic I became very aware of a funny feeling that hundreds of folks were reading what I typed. I am not complaining it was this blogs 15 mins of fame :).

In keeping with my lastest urge to include a photo I present my playing with the macro lense, a cd disc, and water pic.

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flickr Photo Sharing

Tim also took up the challenge and posted some nice shots himself on flickr here

We are now on a mission to get creative with the water drop shots.

A Splash

Today I went over to a friends and discovered some of the mysterious workings of a Porsche. Eck gads when the hood lid is stuck and the cable breaks – you have to take the dang wheel off and the inner wheel well to hunt around for a little wire that is suppose to be an emergency release. The opperative word here would be suppose. I am glad I do not own a Porsche with milk, chicken, eggs, and beef stuck in the trunk!

Moving along down the road I stopped at a site where I have seen a couple of Egrets hanging about. No Egrets oh well. Lots of ducks flapping their wings and diving about. I have the 80-400mm lense on locked at 400mm and all my attentions focused on a duck across the little creek when I here a jingle similar to that of dog tags hitting each other. All of a sudden there is a dog jumping about the water in front of me chasing ( his owner later told me) a beaver. I somehow got the camera refocused and actually came out of the wet affair with a picture.

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Flickr Photo Sharing

I am getting better at catching the action but not clear as they could be – need to work on the shutter speed deal.

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Flickr Photo Sharing

Shine ON

Flickr Photo Sharing