The real world can be some hectic, eh?
It kind of got in the way the past week and change, so I’ve been a little behind here. Fear not! I will be back next week with all the goodies and features I have for the site.
I wanted to give some updates about some recent things, however.
Camera
I received my camera back from the local guy and he couldn’t figure out what is going on with it. The pop-up flash now works, but it won’t work with an external. So, I’ll be sending it into Canon soon to get an estimate. Hopefully it won’t drain the bank. If the repair bill is too much, I might opt to have them send it back and go with their loyalty program. That basically is a situation where Canon would take my 30D and send me a re-furbished 50D as a replacement for a pretty decent price.
We’ll see, though, as I am saving for Ireland and I don’t want to have to dip into that account.
Until I send the camera into Canon, however, I’ve been using it, sans flash. I’ve enjoyed having my 30D back, but it will be leaving me soon again.
Photo projects
If you haven’t seen or followed my Flickr account, I would encourage you to do so. Why wouldn’t you anyway?
I’ve been taking on some photo projects and have been having a good time.
One is my Project 365. This is where I have to take one photo a day for an entire year. I started Jan. 1 and am still going at it. It’s been fun, challenging and really cool to see what I have come up with. There are still more than 300 days, however, so I look forward to keeping it up.
I also started my 100 Strangers project yesterday. The idea of this is to take a photo of a complete stranger 100 times. But, you can’t just take candids or do it without them knowing. The idea is to get permission, tell them you are posting them online and find a little about them. It’s really quite an interesting challenge. I don’t think this will end in a year as it will take me time to fill it up, but it should be fun.
To help with this project, I’m going to order some of those mini-Moo cards and have a small explanation (if it fits) and the address to my Flickr account. This way, I can hand these to the people and they can know where I’ll be posting the images.
I’m also trying to do a 12 of 12 each month this year, but I think tomorrow might be tough. I’m going to try though!
One more photo thing I’ve done recently — a press room shoot. Since I started working at the paper I’m at now, I’ve always wanted to shoot the press room. I had the chance the other night and came up with some good shots. I have a set at Flickr that you can check out if you want.
But, allow me to share my top three favorite shots from that night:
Geocaching
This is something I’ve been neglecting, somewhat. Not that I don’t want to go caching… but I’m not as gung-ho about going out in the snow and the sub-freezing temps to do it! I can wait for the warmer days, where I can plan a full afternoon of caching and not have to worry about if it will be too cold to take a 1/2-mile hike down a nice trail.
I have had some sporatic hits here and there (and hope to get at least one cache this weekend when I head to Binghamton) and I’ve been planning some days to cache… once the weather breaks, of course.
The good thing is that I’ve been a little slow recently, so I might be able to plot it well enough where I can get my 2,000th find on my trip to Ireland in late June/early July. Of course if this weather broke soon, who knows if I’d be able to hold off long enough for Ireland!
HooHaa TB Race 2
An update is needed, for sure.
If you all didn’t see, the cache containing all the travel bugs was recently placed. The race wasn’t starting until the cache was visited and someone grabbed a TB or two.
That has happened.
Four bugs appear to be headed toward Bermuda in an early jump to the race. But, who knows where they will go from there. The rest are ready to roll. Hopefully some traveling people will come by and snag some of the TBs and move them along. It’s a quick on-and-off of a major highway, so I’m hoping everything goes soon!
The race officially started with the grabbing of those TBs — so Feb. 8. The end date for the race will be Feb. 8, 2011.
If you haven’t already, please put that passage I sent you in the TB description and also please put “HHTB Race 2″ BEFORE the name of your TB, thus showing that it’s in the race. So, it should look like this: “HHTB Race 2: Travel Bug Name.”
I attached a card to each bug before it was released, too, explaining that it’s in a race.
And I saw it in one or two descriptions — please don’t encourage dipping. It’s against the rules. If it happens once or twice, I’ll let things slide as things can happen. BUT, if it continues, I’ll have to wipe out some of those miles.
Other things
Classes started for this semester (see, there’s that real world thing again), so I’ve been doing a lot of that work during my free time. Two jobs, the photos and some other things just made the blogging part tough for a bit. But, now that things have started to push forward, I can take a few breaths and move forward with everything and juggle things a little more.
The students I have this semester seem really with it, so that’s good. I’ve been lucky this year with the four classes I’ve had. I don’t know if I’m being spoiled or if it’s just how things have worked out — but it’s been a blast to deal with.
Speaking of which, I need to put together a couple of quizzes. So, off to do that.
More later!
