re: Fun With Sony _____
It's hard to believe I last posted here in
Nov. 2011, at that time feeling bad over a three month hiatus.
jcoffin, congrats on adding a son to the family! Must be over a year old by now. No need to be objective there... You've a right to be proud!
Bill, I love the Arctic photos, especially the fox!
pegelli, those Wroclaw pictures are outstanding. Lots of other good stuff, but those are special.
Mark, love the colors on those underwater shots.
Mikal, sorry to dodge commenting individually but you have posted some nice sports shots.
As for me, shortly after that last post my life was turned upside down. In a good way. All-consuming but good.
My wife and I had started house-hunting and ramped it up to a fever pitch toward the end of November. On Dec. 12 we made an offer -- 2 days before foreclosure -- on a house on 15 acres in California's Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a short sale, ~40% off what it sold for in 2004 and a price that wouldn't even buy a hut in the adjacent Silicon Valley. The next two months prior to closing at the end of February 2012 alternated between packing to move, doing inspections and repairs on the home(to get a good appraisal), and waiting... nail-biting, agonizing waiting.
After that, it was installing hardwood flooring myself prior to the move, painting the interior, moving, more repairs, cutting trees(one had about a 4' trunk), bringing in 170 tons of rock/gravel for the lane(like a driveway only 1/3 mile long), building a shed, and too many more things to list.
Here are some of the photos I've taken since my last post. All were taken at home except for the motorcycles.
Honeysuckle:
Before/after composite taken with a Sony P&S(Sorry) but it shows some of the tree clearing/gravel work:
Also taken with the same P&S(Sorry), Sony WX-150 from the "driveway"/"lane":
We're at a high enough altitude that we can see the Milky Way most clear nights. I need a filter to cut the light pollution from Santa Cruz/Monterey:
Really should have had my tripod with me...
This is the view from the front room, the great room, and the master bedroom window/deck above the great room. On a clear day we can see the Monterey peninsula:
It's even beautiful when cloudy:
I threw a couple of pounds of California Poppy seeds down the hill beyond the ferns pictured earlier but only a couple of plants grew and bloomed. Will try to plant more this fall:
Sacramento Mile, July 27 this year. The light wasn't good but I did what I could with it:
130MPH in the straights, then pitch sideways into the turns -- probably still over 100mph here, feet up, checking traffic...
Anyone care to guess what my new toy is?
I cut one of the trees to about waist high, as level as I could then put this big blue ceramic bowl on it for a bird bath. A piece of slate propped in there at an angle makes a ramp so the smaller birds aren't "out of their depth". The first was taken some time back just by sneaking up; the rest were taken from a blind. I need to set up a reflector to manage the light -- will try this weekend.