2nd Stripe

With a touch less fanfare, I was awarded another stripe this evening. Now I might last a little more than a minute with a senior student.   There's still so much learn...  

Fill it up

At $3.25 today, gas is getting a little ridiculous.   Maybe I should've bought a Prius instead of a BMW.   I guess I'll just make the most of my growling combustion engine while I can still afford to fill the tank!

Thank Your English Teacher

Hopefully your understanding of the language isn't nearly as poor as these blogs like to highlight:

Apostrophe Abuse

lowecase L

Lunar Eclipse

I wasn't the only one to throw a few pictures up on Flickr of the eclipse tonight.    I took a quick glance at what I shot (since it's past my bed time) and picked two images.    Not bad, certainly not the worst two on Flickr.   Maybe I'll have a chance to play with them in Photoshop this weekend.  Goodnight!

Racing Around Florida

I'm just winding down after a very busy weekend. We attended a big wedding on Saturday for Bonnie's coworker. Bonnie sang during the ceremony so, we made an appearance at the rehearsal too (with dinner at the Casa Marina on Friday). The reception was held on the 35th floor of the Modis building right downtown. Dinner was wonderful and the view was great!

Today began at 5 this morning for me. I attended a Strobist lighting seminar in Orlando.   Learning the tricks  to enhance an otherwise dull photo with off camera lighting is great fun.   The seminar was simply a hands on consolidation and review of the fundamentals.     Seeing the setups in action is probably the best way to learn.     Now I've just got to keep practicing to hone my skill.

Luckily I didn't get held up by a little race held in Daytona today.   I was quite worried about the drive since the traffic was backing up at 7 this morning.   But it seems that race fans don't leave early so I was fine on the way home.

Lens Rental - Nikon 80-400mm

While spending over $1400 on a Nikon 80-400 VR lens would be fun, it just isn't very practical.  So I decided to rent one for a week.   If nothing else, I learned that it makes a lot more sense to spring for the Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR instead (which I rented last summer for the Tips From The Top Floor Workshop).     Both lenses are beefy by any standard.   But the 70-200 is a bit more versatile and slightly easier to handle.   I found the zoom ring on the 80-400 in a lousy position up against the tripod collar - zooming was tricky on or off the tripod.    While just as bulky, the 70-200 is significantly faster and accepts extension rings, which will get awfully close to 400 mm. 

That being said, I got some great shots at the zoo and beach over the weekend.  Shooting in aperture priority typically meant shooting wide open at the zoo.   I've just realized that I don't have any images in a mid range f stop, which should technically be sharper.  Wide open, the focus plane is razor thin.   Despite that challenge, I was able to nail the focus on several images. On an animal (or model), that's typically one or both eyes.

Hopefully I'll have a few of the beach shots posted tomorrow night.     

Google Apps at Work?

Yes! With this new version of Google Apps (watch the video), Google is clearly aware of people like me who loathe the productivity options available at our workplaces. Anyone working in even a small corporate environment knows software is updated less often than Microsoft releases a new version of Windows. But virus and security patches are made daily, which are installed without any thought to the productivity needs of the employees. 

Work with me for a week and you'll hear me complain about Outlook at least twice. At my work place, we're blessed with a whopping 70 megabytes of email storage, yes - 70 MEGABYTES. As of today, Gmail is granting me 6404 megabytes - FOR FREE! The worst part about Outlook is that when it comes to finding a particular message, well just don't bother because you won't find what you're looking for. Searching in Outlook is pathetically poor.

Perhaps Microsoft is finally getting the hint as evidence by its offer for Yahoo. In the meantime, I'll be giving Google Apps a serious shot.