Recently in Picture post Category

That is what the camera sensor sees after cropping. With a 72mm front side and a 13mm rear side, you get some extreme distortion. Too bad I can't find a fish-eye to rectilinear converter that actually works correctly.

Said concrete pillar must have been 50 feet long, perched on top of a wide-load trailer. And it was currently situated to cause as much ensnarlment as possible. The route it was taking across some nameless intersection in Belton, Texas was one that traffic planners had not considered. So it was currently stopped in the road as the handlers considered how to extricate themselves...

All of this was spied during a brief moment in time as I sped southward down IH-35...

Note: this in homage to UNphotographable

I haven't been seeing any Mud Dauber's nests hanging from under the soffits lately. And it seems that it may be because a new species has moved in. I wonder if these are Organ Pipe Mud Dauber's residences?

And I have no clue what insect is responsible for the tiny ones! Mini Mud Dauber's?

It's getting pretty dark out and I have busy making a pizza, but I had to take a picture. I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a HDR photo. I used a tripod, the 16-35 lens, high speed mode, and set it to take a sequence of 5 photos at the following exposure compensations (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). The only problem was a light wind gently moving some of the branches.

The almost full moon is rising above the clouds. Don't forget about the lunar eclipse, this Tuesday morning starting at 3:51 am. I wonder if I should wake up for it. I still haven't found a great spot to take pictures...

This is a picture of the 85mm f/1.2 lens against the mirror. I took it with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. With a f/1.4 bokeh, there were three levels of focus points. I choose the middle one which was the back of the 85mm lens.

I have been in the habit of leaving a B-B-Q surface thermometer on the grill at all times. I haven't been grilling anything lately. Instead, I have been using the grill as an oven that can get a pizza stone up to 650 degrees Fahrenheit. I looks like the poor thing couldn't stand the heat. How does that old saying go? Well, into the trash with you!

Before I gave the Canon TS-E 24/3.5L lens up, I had to take a couple more pictures. But there are not many large structures around here. This church is plenty large. Far larger than it needs to be. It was built for sunsets. That cross must inspire fear and terror, errr, devotion, in the parishioners.

And this water tower is large and frightening. That Dragon also inspires fear and terror, errr, athletic pride in its citizens.

I bought a Lensbaby as well and experimented with it. It is a real manual lens that uses a rubber bellows to achieve focus. You push or pull on it and twist it around to get a picture that you like. With the end result being a part of the picture that is in focus and the rest out of focus. It highlights and draws attention to a part of the picture.

I also experimented taking a picture of the Roads and Boats box cover. And, on a whim, submitted it to the geek. I was not surprised at all when it was rejected for being "too blurry". That is the whole point, people! It was also "irrelevant to the subject". Huh?

I do want to take it to Ed's some game day. I want to get a picture of Susan performing an act of goose-thieving! Then that picture would represent what was going on in my head when I was full of rage. Gooooooooooooooose thiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeefffffffffffffffffffffffff! Hehehe...

Experimenting with a pinhole camera "lens". Being a hardware/computer/camera nerd, it would be neat if they made a more sophisticated version that tells the camera the actual aperature. Not like it matters, but still... The dust on this picture is scaring me!

My battery died today. I don't seem to have a good experience with batteries. They don't seem to last a long time. Two to three years at most. Well, at least it died today. It would have been much worse if I started the truck tomorrow and it would have died.

You know you are in the country when a truck drives past you, enters into a pasture, starts wildly beeping its horn (and cows start stampeding towards it), drives up to a tractor tire laying on the ground, and remotely dumps feed into it...

Sigh... There are three things that are certain in life: 1) Death, 2) Taxes and 3) I drive too many miles in my commute!

While driving home tonight, I noticed some low hanging clouds. Made me wonder if it was a precursor to a tornado...

I went to Alamo Drafthouse's road show of Zaireeka by the Flaming Lips. It was pretty cool. I went with Jeff Shaevel and Mike. It was located pretty close to my house in Old Settlers' Park. There were four huge inflatible movie screens and speakers that were on the outside of the viewing area in the middle.

While we waited, Mike tried playing Go with Jeff.

Once the sun had set, we listened to a couple of groups. The first group was the Austin Theremonic Orchestra. After them, Pong played for us. I liked them. They sounded like the B-52s.

And then, of course, the main show started. 4 CDs, 4 sound systems, 4 movie screens. People got up from their chairs and moved into the middle. You could only watch one screen at a time and keep track of the two in your peripheral vision. So, you had to rotate occasionally to see what the screen behind you was up to.

So I watched 30 Days yesterday. This is a new series by, Morgan Spurlock, creator of SuperSize Me. It was about people living outside their comfort zones. In this show, two people spend 30 days off the power-grid at Dancing Rabbit. One of the people was a man and DR only served a Vegan or Vegetarian menu. He was Jonesing for meat real bad. Bad enough to go rabbit hunting. Bad enough to drive into town and try to buy meat. Bad enough, after being repeatedly sabotaged by the DR folks and being mocked by the other person of this show, to continue attempting to buying meat.

The other show was a P.B.S. series about living the frontier life. And there was one man who needed meat. Bad enough to talk to the local Indian tribe and get them to shoot a deer for him.

I think that I would be one of those folks. I am an omnivore and I am trying to eat more veggies. But I would miss meat...

I'd prefer to leave it to professionals to kill the cow, but if it were
a condition for eating burgers that I kill a cow every now and agin,
I guess I'd borrow a nice sharp shinken and practise full shomen cuts
with somewhat more of a focus than I do now.

  -- Graham Wills

So I am driving into work and stop at Parmer and Metric. I see what I think is a homeless man begging for money. I think that he is more creative than most. But then he turns around and I see that he is advertising for a Laundry Store.

Damn Advertisers!

...and talking on the cell phone!

Damn Cellphones!

I noticed that someone had placed a pair of fuzzy dice on the gravestone marker by the side of the road. So I stopped and investigated further. It seems that a person's name was written on the marker in a blue pen: Beah Hamaker -- March 28 RIP.

I wonder if that truck is going to a tailgate party...

I am venturing out more in my bike riding. Yesterday and today, I went North and East of my house. My trips totalled 56.5 kilometers over three hours and fourty minutes.

William and I went to the new Whole Foods store on 6th street today. It is a nice store with lots of cool things. In the bulk foods section, there are machines where you can grind your own types of peanut butter or flour.

There are also MANY stations where you can get prepared foods. There is a bakery, a chocolate fountain, a cheese station, a soup station, a prepared foods section, sushi, pizza, and many more. They are definately set up for impulse buys and the lunch time crowd.

On the way out, you can take your shopping cart down an escalator. Its a good thing that it is so far away from me. It keeps the temptation at a distance.

On the drive home, I made sure to buckle up my groceries. After all, the way I drive, the bag would have been flung around the vehicle.