Home For Awhile

I returned from Sacramento this evening from a quick work trip. Everything was quick except the flights. And that'll about do it for the traveling for the next few months. The dry heat was an odd change from the sharp humidity here in Florida. It was pushing 100, but it only felt like 80 here.

Back from The Great Northwest

After nearly a week traveling around Portland, eastern Washington, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, it's nice to be back baking in the humidity of sunny Florida. The weather was rather chilly for June. In fact, the locals are so fed up with the weather, they're referring to this month as Junuary. Of course, the day I headed back to the airport, it was started to warm up.

Portland is quite a contrast from Jacksonville. The Jacksonville city leaders might learn a thing or two about city planning if they were ever to take a visit. New construction projects are carefully integrated into the existing landscape - unlike the razed fields that mark a new housing project in much of the country.

The Coeur d'Alene resort was impressive. It's popular golf course with a famous floating (and moveable) island green was a treat! If only I played golf a little more regularly...

MacBook Air & TSA

Apparently, the MacBook Air design is so good that some TSA employees didn't even believe it was a real computer.   

It sounds like they've got it figured out now.   I can only imagine how frustrating this would've been.

I had heard about the blog a few weeks ago.  A quick glance suggests it might actually be worth reading.   

Sunny with highs in the 70's

We enjoyed this weekend at Shelby's, around the beach, or shopping at the Town Center (I continue to wonder what will support the high end shopping now that the luxury of cashing out home equity is no more).   The weather has been just perfect, a little cool in the evenings, but so comfortable in the sun during the day.   The searing heat is just around the corner, so we're trying to the make the best of the weather.

Bonnie heads off to St. Louis tomorrow for a class.   So I'll be holding down the fort.   I'll have plenty to keep me busy - a few books to page through, maybe a movie (Sicko should be arriving from Netflix soon), and with a wedding assignment next weekend, I'll be double checking my gear. 

The last few evenings we've been enjoying HBO's The Wire on DVD.  As Bonnie put it, "It's like Law and Order, but a little more raw."

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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.

Funny French Lakes

It's back to the office tomorrow for me. Bonnie gets the day off. Why my line of work doesn't observe MLK day is beyond me. After the new year the holiday drought lasts until Memorial Day.

My trip out west was good but cold. Mid week, we started out at about 4 degrees. My travels took me through 3 states in a week - Washington, Idaho, and a slice of Montana. Here's a few photos. Probably the most interesting sights were the two major lakes along my route. Lake Pand Oreille, which we saw from Sandpoint, Idaho, was beautiful. What amazed me was the fact that this lake is over 1100 feet deep in some places! The great depths make this lake a unique area suitable for military submarine testing. Not much was happening on the lake now, but it looks like a hip place in the summer. Also of interest was Lake Coeur D'Alene, home to an impressive resort with golf (with a floating green), boating, and skiing.

Heading North

Northwest actually. This evening, I'm traveling to Spokane, Washington for work. What better time of the year to connect through Minneapolis than mid January? The weather doesn't look too bad today though, so hopefully the flights will be on time.

I'll also see a bit of northern Idaho - specifically Coeur D'Alene and Lewiston. The sights should be stunning as I'm looking for some good photo ops.

A Quiet New Year

Bonnie and I are hanging out tonight at home. We managed to pick up a cold bug sometime in the last few days. So we're both less than 100%.

Yesterday we returned from The Villages where Bonnie's parents have been getting their new little retirement house in order. It's quite a place.

I've got just a few hours to come up with some resolutions... Hmmm...

Airport Observations

So we're sitting at the Jacksonville airport. It seems Southwest has
greatly complicated their boarding process. Previously they just had
three lines, but now they've subdivided those lines by what appears to
be seat rows. All we heard the last 20 minutes was the poor gate
attendant trying to explain the new process. And it doesn't help that
half these people haven't flown in years.

Speaking of inexperienced travelers, we also overheard a woman asking
for help with her ticket. She was trying to understand the connection
process. She'd never flown before. The lady who helped her realized
that her connecting flight isn't until tomorrow. Doh!

A Weekend of Rest

This busy October has finally started to settle down for me. I returned from Idaho on Friday. I spent the week out west traveling for work. Boise, Twin Falls, and Sun Valley were among the stops. Unfortunately there was little time for any sightseeing. My point and shoot only found its way from the case a few times. We traveled hard and ate well. Now I get to look forward to catching up on Monday.


Prior to the Idaho visit, I was down in Port St. Lucie, Florida for a photography workshop. We spent a great four days shooting and having loads of fun. I figured southern Florida couldn't be much more humid than north Florida - so much for that theory. The humidity was intense and the rain fierce. But fortunately, the weather didn't impact our schedule. This was the fourth workshop Chris put on the United States. It was also one of the smaller gatherings. But that kept the schedule flexible and the level of personal attention high. I was one of the more experienced shutterbugs in the group. A few the attendees were just discovering the world of DLSR photography.

Having gone through some of the workshop photos, I've finally had a chance just to relax.

Oh, and I had to pick up a copy of Apple's latest OS X upgrade... More on that later.

Another Busy Weekend

The busy month continues... The in-laws were in town this weekend and Bonnie wasn't feeling well. She was actually considering not going in to work - so she must not be in good shape. We passed the time with a sampling of Wii Sports and Wii Play. While we don't play the Wii that often, it's always so easy to just pick up and play with some rookies. Nintendo is on their game!

It's another short week for me. On Thursday morning I'm heading down to Port St. Lucie for a photography workshop. I'm really looking forward to a great experience! I'll return from the workshop with barely 24 hours to turn around and head out to Idaho for work. After that trip I should finally have a weekend to myself.

Fighting Illini

We're recovering from a great getaway weekend in Illinois. I can now say I've experienced the Big 10 (and a whole lot of corn fields en route). It was a great game between Illinois and Wisconsin amid the sea of orange. And the Illini pulled out the win! For an early October afternoon, it was surprisingly warm.

The ride home from Illinois was also an experience. We began our trek home on Jet Blue from Chicago. The leg room was ample (especially for Bonnie and me) and the satellite TV kept me somewhat occupied during the ordeal.

After sitting on the ramp for maybe 15 minutes we were informed of a computer glitch. We would return to the gate for a rebooting of the airplane - even airplanes get those damned blue screens of death. With the restart unsuccessful, we had to change planes. So about 2 hours behind schedule, we were finally on our way back to water logged Jacksonville. Our heads hit the pillow about 3am with $50 JetBlue credits on the way.

San Francisco Images

The vacation photos are up (if you're interested). I've been playing with the controversial new iMovie. Whatever you think of its capabilities, it makes some great little slide shows. And the ability to upload them to YouTube is wonderful. All it takes are some half decent images and one Apple application and you'll have a better YouTube video than most of the junk on the site.

The punishing Florida heat is finally starting to subside... Ahhh... Now we've just got to make another month or so through the end of hurricane season.

And if only I could decide what to do about my car purchase.

Back Home

We've settled back in from our San Francisco vacation. Those red eye flights are brutal. Anyway, I got a few good photos. I'm going through them now, hopefully they'll be posted this weekend. Vacation photography is tough. You never know what to expect and odds are that someone has a better shot posted on Flickr.

I've been asked several times what I'm going to do with my iPhone refund. Yes, I probably paid too much for my iPhone. But as MacWorld says, that's the price for a few months of 'cool'. I've a got a few goodies in mind - unfortunately they're all a little more than $100.