So it’s Saturday and I was biking Hines Drive (again). It was extra windy so it was ext a difficult biking, but I’d got the 25-mile Tour de Troit next week so I thought maybe I should do the whole 15-miles today.

It was extra green today, so that was nice, summer has been so dry, the grass has looked like straw and I’ve been waiting for tumbleweeds to roll out in front of me.

I did get to see a dear running (galloping?), I had seen it a few minutes before and waited for it to come out the woods, but it didn’t so I started biking and it caught up to me again. I didn’t even stop to take this one, it’d have gotten away if I had!

I saw this guy go zooming by on his Lightning F40. He was flying (I didn’t stop to take this one either) I saw him pass the bikers in the distance and look how far away they are still! He was flying!

One of the photo groups went out to a park at sunset to do some silhouettes. I’d never done this before so I made sure to attend.

There were twenty of us, so we were always asking the two models to move. We pretty much needed them between us and the sun.

A few of these I cropped and a few I tweaked a tiny bit in iPhone on the iPad. When I say tiny bit, I mean one click and a drag (not a dozen adjustments).

I cropped a few too. When the contrast was just right there was too much black below the figures.

If I’d gotten a little lower on this one, I think she’d really look like she was floating.

I was surprised at how much red you could still see in the ribbon in this shot.

The bicycle was tricky because she needed to go slow and also not accidentally ride down the hill she was atop of.

This one I think I cropped too much, but maybe I was cropping something out. Regardless, she’s too much of the image but I love this one, I need to find the original and take another look at it.

I took hundreds of bad ones. Why? Because they kept moving. We didn’t have control over them moving, so we just kept snapping. But I got lots of good ones too!!!

It’s World Backup Day! It’s not that you should only backup once a year, it’s an awareness day. So I guess it should be called “Backup Awareness Day”. But seriously, you should backup your important documents and photos all the time. Why? Because you’ll be very sad / upset / angry when you lose those files. Please notice, I said “when”, not “if”. Moving your photos to a different device (and deleting off the computer) is not a backup, it’s the only copy. Multiple copies is alwaysrecommended!!!

If it’s an important document, save multiple copies. If it’s your resume (CV), save it as “Resume March 2012″ so that you’ve got previous versions of the file if something happens. If you’ve made massive changes to that document, just e-mail a copy to yourself; the copy in your mail account is an off site backup. When I do new technology plans (100 page documents) I save new versions every few hours, I don’t want to think I moved those 10 pages from section 7 to section 5 and realize later I never pasted them, I can go back and get an earlier version of those pages later.

If it’s photos, don’t wait until your camera is full, that’s the only copy of those photos, if you lose the camera, it gets stolen, or something else weird happens, you lose all those photos!!! Even uploading them to a site like Walgreens, Costco, Kodak or wherever you might send your photos is a backup (it’ll cost to get your photos out, but at least they aren’t lost); these places don’t guarantee that they’ll keep your photos but they do want you to share them and print more copie$ of them, just be sure you’re uploading the largest possible size photos. Facebook is not good for this, they do not keep high quality versions of the photos, they will not be good for printing later.

Every so often back your documents and photos up to multiple DVD (standard DVD’s hold more than 4 GB) and make multiple copies; once you’ve got them sorted making five copies isn’t much harder than making one copy. Keep a copy at your Mom’s house or at your kids house or in your safe deposit box. You don’t want all the copies at the same place in case there is a fire and they all burn down. Then you can delete these photos from the cloud and you’ve got more space for more photos.

The last few versions of the Macintosh OS will back up to an external drive via Time Capsule and you can go back in time and look at what version was on the computer at a particular time (it’s very cool and easy).

There are off site services you can use (I use Dropbox).

Syncing your photo to your computer generally backs up the phone numbers, calendar, photos and more. The latest version of the iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod touch) will back up automatically daily to the iCloud if you wish; the problem with this is it’s an all or nothing option when you want to restore.

All photos that you take with your iPhone or iPad get automatically backed up to the iCloud. These then show up on your computer in the iPhoto Photo Stream. If you import from a camera to iPhoto, it automatically puts those photos in the Photo Stream and you can see them on all the devices you’ve synced with the iCloud (including your AppleTV). It only keeps the last 1,000 photos and doesn’t keep any videos, but it’s a partial backup. So this is an automatic download that I get have in the cloud too.

Backing up is especially important if your main computer is a portable device. You can earlier drop or have stolen your laptop or tablet, you need those files backed up!

I’ve got this huge painting of the Fisher Building. It’s got to be six feet high and it fits perfect in my condo. I get lots of compliments all the time on it. The first few years I had it, I hadn’t even realized it was the Fisher building.

It’s up very high on the wall (the bottom is at least eight feet up?) so I couldn’t get a straight on shot. But this didn’t come out too bad for my iPhone with the flash in a very dim room!

I’m mentioning this today, because I made a panorama of the Fisher building while downtown.

I was a little too close, I’ll do one on a nicer day later and try to stand back a little farther for the whole effect.

Does anyone know if there is a restaurant or viewing platform up top?!?

Two things for today: a photo thing and a numbers thing.

Today is 11/1/11 or if you live over seas it’s 1/11/11. I like fun number things, in 10 days we’ll have another date number thing.

And in a few days my car milage will be 123456! So hopefully I don’t miss it. (I should verify that)

Yes, it is the little things that I enjoy in life!

The photo thing is a 26 Things project / collection. Slightly different than usual, it’s really 13 things but two photographs of the same topic. For example, one of the topics is “patters” so you could do two different patterns, you could do two opposite patterns, you could do two different perspectives of the same pattern (or just take a dozen different pattern pictures and post your two favorite ones). I like this twist, I’ve started a few times and never finished, but I think I will with this one. And I’ll probably post throughout the month as I get each pair completed (I think?). Plus, it’s less items to remember! Then you post your completed set on-line somewhere (flickr, blog, etc) and link to it from the project site.

I was out biking this weekend (again) and was playing with a new camera (not mine) and as I was biking along I saw a dear up ahead.

I got some stills and some video. But I was still standing there on the bike so I’m not the steadiest I could be. At the end I was at 14x which also contributes to the extra shakiness and I didn’t have glasses on so I couldn’t really see how focused it was.

Direct HD link on YouTube

This is not a soundtrack I added later, it just happened to be what was playing on my bike stereo when I saw the deer, I thought it worked out well…

The last one turned around and went back (after already crossing the road), I’m not sure why he got spooked when the others didn’t. I went over to the side of the road and sat down for a bit, but never saw any appear on either side of the road again.

(This was on Hines Drive between Inkster Rd. and Middlebelt Rd.)

So if it’s nice outside, this is where I’ll go to eat lunch. It’s this tiny little park with four benches that (as you can see) needs a little trimming and some cement work. It’s the next block over from where I work, so it’s a nice short walk to get there. But there’s always a bench available and it’s usually pretty quiet.

The flag isn’t easy to catch, I’ve got a little too much sky in this image but the flag came out the best, so it’s the one I chose to use. This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project for yesterday.

It’s a small park, I’d say one-fourth of a “standard” city block. How big is that? It depends on the neighborhood, where I grew up blocks were about one-sixth of a mile long, in other places in the Detroit area, I’d say big blocks are about one-fourth of a mile long.

And yes that’s got to be the one of the most boring blog post titles I’ve ever done…

So I have a confession: I LOVE The Big Blue Bridge! It’s the bridge that crosses Telegraph and I-94, I’m not sure why I like it, it’s kind of a bright blue and other than that, I just like it. If you’re in the car with me when I’m crossing it, if I didn’t say anything I think you’d notice something was up.

This is the side view (and it’s not perfect), I don’t think I’ve ever been thrilled with any of my crossing the bridge photos, it’s hard to see the depth (there’s no where to stand, so focus and such isn’t really an option). This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project today.

Speaking of things on the road, this guy is driving down the street with writing on the back of his truck and it took me a few minutes to get a view (and then a few more to get a photo).

This guy has some anger issues, I’m not really sure who he’s yelling at? The government? The Governor? The public? Of course, I had to go look up the definition because I’ve never heard the phrase before. Notice the parts written on both sides of the license plates too. And then the profanity, I can’t believe he hasn’t got a ticket for that yet.

I like these “glass totems” but whoever put them here did not position them for optimum sunlight and there isn’t any lighting for at night. They’re part of a Dearborn Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition enrichment that they’ve done for a few years with the Midwest Sculpture Initiative.

While I wouldn’t pay $8,000 for these, I get to see them for free and when I’m bored of it in a year, it’ll be gone, possibly replaced with something else.

This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project today.

I was out roller blading again down by the Detroit River and I got this shot totally by accident at least the reflection part was by accident, I was aiming at the rest. Next time I’ll do some more like it on purpose, but this one was a happy accident.

I was standing on my tippy-toes to get this photo of the fountain over the stairs (by the Underground Railroad memorial) and I got the reflection off of the marble and I really like the way it came out. This is for my 31 photos in 31 days project today.

This is the Detroit Princess Riverboat they run all sorts of trips on the river (starting at $20) and private party rentals. This was taken outside Cobo Hall.

THe is the old Parke Davis & Co. building. It’s now a hotel and this is an area they have with benches outside. It’s about to start raining (yes, I got a little wet) so no one is out there right now…

I like this open or closed sign they have at the library. It’s lit like it is now (like on open book!) if it’s open. When it’s closed it (kinda) looks like a closed book. But you can see it way out in the parking lot before you walk all the way up to the door.

Sorry about the care and reflection, but it’s a window! If you click the photo for the larger version it’s easier to see the unused bits of neon (or neon-like lights), I wish I had a photo of it “closed” to show. Maybe I’ll get one and use it for a different day since this is for my 31 photos in 31 days project.

I always love Chicago, I’ve had incredible luck with the weather when you consider the number of times I’ve been there and it’s almost always a different experience than the last time I was there. That’s not to say I don’t do some of the same things: I bike or rollerblade, I get ribs at SRO and I hit the Apple Store; after all, I am a creature of habit (habits?). And with all the people there, you can’t help but spend some time people watching…

This little girl was sitting right on the edge of the pier(?) looking into Lake Michigan. There were a few other kids with her and they were all pretty peaceful down there by the water, there is a beach not far away and I think they’d been there for a while (some were wet and I’m pretty sure they hadn’t jumped off the edge there). This photo was taken almost right behind the Adler Planetarium.

It was a nice day but it was hot out, these people were out relaxing during their lunch. This is downtown Chicago at State Street and Wacker Drive and the river is just out of sight to the left. I’d been relaxing in the shade by the water and didn’t even realize how the big steps were benches and grass until I’d gone up those stairs.

There were people running, walking, biking and blading everywhere (mostly along Lake Michigan). It was really hot when this runner was out and it was still early in the day but there were still lots of people out. You can see the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier in the background.

Yeah, I know I title this “People in Chicago” but there are some tiny people in the distance in it. In the distance you can see Chicago in the distance. From the left we’ve got Navy Pier, the Hancock Building, Sears Tower (now Willis Tower) and to my right (not in the photo) across the road is the LIncoln Park Zoo (to give you a frame of reference as I try to do with my photos).

This is my 31 photos in 31 days photo for today.

This is a building downtown on East Grand Blvd. and Beaubien St. I see it occasionally when I’m dodging I-94 traffic and take the sidestreets. We were on a bicycle pub crawl the other day and Jennifer was eyeing the colorful building from a distance so we pedaled over there to get a few pictures (and yes, I said “bicycle pub crawl”).

We’re standing on the corner of East Grand Blvd. and Brush St. looking East for this photo. The Fisher Building is a few blocks behind me and on the left.

It kinda looks like they just poured paint over the side of the building but it doesn’t really look caked on so I think it was more than that.

I tried playing with the focus for some interesting shots and while this one came out okay, I was really hoping for a sequence but didn’t get it.

The topic for this week’s PhotoHunt is “Painted” so it seemed like a good time to post these…

I went down to Rivard Plaza after work and went rollerblading. Actually, first I sat down and changed my wheels, they were really worn down, it felt like new blades afterwards. It was a little quiet down there, there were people but not too busy. They were setting up for a festival but I don’t know which one.

The Detroit Riverwalk is a nicely developed area from Belle Isle to Cobo Hall; north of Milken State Park (free admission) which is right next to Rivard Plaza it’s not all along the water, it gets a little jaggy where there are some marinas and the coast guard and things, but from the state park to Cobo it’s a straight line along the water. If you’re semi-familar with the area Rivard Plaza is where the Diamond Jack boat docks, the carousel and the bike rental is all right there a few blocks north of the Renaissance Center.

Click the panorama, it gets pretty big (1200×250 pixels); I took this down by Cobo Hall (I think?). This is my 31 photos in 31 days photo for today. It’s a little bit of a cheat since it’s a stitched together panorama so it’s really more than one photo (but it’s at least one!). It’s from my iPhone but it’s made by Microsoft. Yes, I said Microsoft! It’s called PhotoSynth and it’s very cool, it works with some kind of plug-in so you can navigate around but I haven’t played with that yet.

Watch the Detroit River Walk on YouTube.

Just goofing around with my iPhone and the video editing. I shot all these clips on the iPhone and edited them with iMovie on the iPhone (clips, Ken Burns effect, titles and credits) and it’s pretty easy to do.

I love the camera on the iPhone, while it’s not the best digital camera I’ve owned, it’s always with me and it’s lots better than others that I’ve owned*. I’ve taken well over 400 photos in the last two months (actually it’s got an okay flash, a digital zoom, tap to focus, HDR (High Dynamic Range) and a huge screen. And don’t forget that it’s also a HD 720p video camera, for a while it was the best video camera I ever owned (and the only one with a light). Factor in that you can upload (Flickr, YouTube, FaceBook) and e-mail photos / videos instantly, it’s pretty amazing. That’s not even factoring in optional photo and video editing apps.

I actually chose the HDR photo because of the additional detail from the water droplets. While I like the color of the flowers I actually like the color a tiny bit more in the non-HDR version. HDR on the iPhone (almost) instantly takes several photos at different settings to brighten the dark spots and darken the bright spots, giving you a wider range (they do take longer to save).

So these are some flowers out in front of the school where I work. I thought they were looking pretty good for no one really maintaing them in the summer (it’s a student project) with the whacky weather we’ve been having (melting or flooding) so they became the focus of today’s 31 photos in 31 days photo.

Above you can see two photos zoomed in on the same area, notice the additional detail of the water droplets on the right had side of the image when you compare the two (image on the right is the HDR version).

So it’s a great camera and I’m always taking pictures with it, even when I have other cameras with me.

* My iPhone is a hundred times better than the first digital camera that I owned, a $600 Casio QV-10 in 1996 (world’s first digital camera that includes a TFT display), which was 640×480 (iPhone 4 has 2592×1936 pixels) and had a proprietary graphics format that you had to convert to JPEG. This camera had no flash, no real zoom and ate AA batteries like they were candy. A feature it did have was that it had a video out; I remember taking pictures at a wedding and hooking it up to a huge projector that happened to be at the reception for some other kind of slideshow, I was the hit of the party (and the photographer said he was going to go get one for his next wedding).

So I ordered a MacBook Air 11 inch, that’s a whole different post, but I got the sleeve that I ordered from eBay and it only took eight(?) days to get here (they’ve got more, but no promises for how long this link lasts). I’m sure it’s non-authorized but it was only $7.13 shipped(!) and I needed something cheap until I found something I really like, but here’s the thing, I really like this one! And I can turn it inside out and it’s all red (they offer the same one with no logo for 56 cents less).

Hopefully this will be my most boring post of the how 31 photo challenge. Why I didn’t think to take any photos when I stopped at the junkyard, I have no idea; there was all sorts of cool stuff: things getting smashed, piled high, old cars, people getting the parts they needed. I needed a plastic up thingy for the door handle, it cost me a dollar!

This is from Day 2 of 31 photos in 31 days.

So I’m going to try this, one photo a day for every day. It’s not to late to start! Well, it is too late, but you can still post your photos!

31 Photos in 31 Days has begun for August 2011, so don’t forget to take 1 photo today, post it up on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blog or anywhere else you share your photos, and then post your link by clicking the ‘Click here to enter’ (on their page).

I was trying to come up with a theme, but I couldn’t come up with something. So I’ll do a photo each day and talk about it and theirfore I’ll be getting some blog posts done at the same time!!

This my newest pair of Vibram Five-Fingers Shoes

So I got a new pair of Vibram Five Fingered Shoes, I got the ones like my first pair of Vibram Shoes called “Sprint”. I was googling all over trying to find a good price but I know there are a bunch of fakes out there. What I ended up getting was a pair from someone on eBay who had the wrong size. They look brand new, the soles felt a little thicker than my current pair (but my old pair is definitely broken in) but when looking up information on fake Vibram’s everything seems to pass. The color is off a little, just check out my big toe! But otherwise everything seems to be okay.

Except, my tan line at the top of my foot doesn’t line up at all. I’ve got a similar casual pair that is like the Sprint (but without the strap and it’s not made out of the same waterproof material) and the tan line doesn’t stand out like this. Anyone out there have a few different pairs of Vibram Sprints that don’t line up the same?

So until they really break in, I’m really not sure if I’ll purchase them again like this.

I was cooking dinner and I knew the storm was coming but I thought I’d have time to finish grilling. I didn’t, it started raining and it was like buckets being dumped down. I got SO drenched in the few seconds that I opened the sliding door. The kitchen floor and nearby counter was a mess with all the water that came in the little bit of time I that it was open. There was hail all over the deck, a lot of it larger than the diameter of a quarter(?) I should have gotten some photos of it, but I was drenched and was trying to take care of dinner and the grill and the mess…

Afterwards the clouds just kept billowing around like something out of a sci-fi movie. I shot video but it just didn’t come out well, so I animated these stills; sorry they’re so jumpy but I didn’t know I’d be animating them.

Then the lightning and thunder came over and over. I shot about 200 pictures (just holding the camera on repeat and changing some settings here and there) and only a few came out.

I should have gone and got my other camera (and a tripod), I’ve got more settings on that one. But the rain kept coming and going so I wasn’t sure it I could really use it properly. Maybe next time.

And the local fireworks got canceled…

So a few months ago I mentioned a great view of the coast near Montezuma. I even showed the little path that led the way to it. Well now the little path looks like this:

It was just a tiny path that looked like this smaller image, but now it’s clearly a driveway.

I heard the land sold for $500,000! If this has anything to do with my earlier post, someone owes me a finder’s fee or a commission!!!

My point is, if you haven’t gone up to see this view yet, hike on up there before it’s a house and you can’t get out there to see the views.

I thought the ice looked amazing flowing down the Detroit River in the sunshine yesterday. So I snapped a few photos and videos with my iMazing iPhone and here you go..

Just a couple of clips showing the ice floating down the river. If you don’t find it interesting, I promise it gets more boring the longer it plays…

Watch it on YouTube in HD.
 

I actually edited and did the voice over (second part) on the video with iMovie on the iPhone 4 (and uploaded it too!).

That’s all, sadly, I don’t count on it being this sunny today…

Of all the days I’ve ever been in Costa Rica I don’t think I’ve gotten up for a sunrise (and it’s probably over 80+ days over 10+ trips) . Beautiful! I might even try it again since it was a little cloudy today. But here’s a photo and a video clip…

Both of these were taken on my iPhone, I’ll try to upload higher quality ones at some point later.

You can watch this sunrise in 720p HD.

Good night, I’m going back to bed!

Have a great Valentine’s Day everyone. You might not be with someone, but there’s still someone out there looking for you.

A couple in love on their honeymoon…*

At least I’m hoping there’s still someone out there looking for me…

* I have no idea if they’re on a honeymoon, but it’s what I choose to imagine for today!

So the my blog host was acting up a few days ago, but it made me look around a little bit. Tried (again) to speed things up and make the pages load a little faster; I tried some stuff a month ago, but it might have slowed it down (but then I’ve been posting a lot more photos, so who knows?). I think it’s faster, but who knows.

Sunset from Montezuma Beach

So I removed some of the things from the sidebar, I never got the feeling a few of the things were being used. I changed the banner (it’s a snippet from the above photo) and shifted it way up, I don’t know why I never thought of moving it up before. It’s another sunset picture, but it fit well (with the title and search box), so it’s not a drastic change.

Okay, so maybe it’s not a super big secret, but it’s a really nice view; two views actually. When walking back down the hill from the upper waterfalls you walk right past it (see the end for specific details on finding it).

Looking south-west down the coast.

Before turning right to get the above view, you could have continued straight and to the left a little (through the brush) and you can see north-east up the coast. From the spot you’re at, you won’t even see Montezuma, you’ll be looking right over it.

Click for full screen or go watch the video on YouTube in HD.

So as you come down the big hill, either from the upper waterfalls or from the Mariposario Butterfly Gardens, after you pass the private bridge to the really big house (you can’t miss it), keep your eyes to the right shoulder and about 50 yards (or 50 meters) past the bridge you’ll see the grass on the incline is a little worn (see picture) climb up there and head left.

When you get near the end on the right you’ll see south-west down the coast, towards Cabuya and Cabo Blanco; if you veer towards the left you’ll see north-east. It’s a really nice view in either direction! The north-east view is a little hidden, but just take a minute and you’ll find it.

There used to be fencing there so watch out for barbed wire. And keep in mind, it’s not a public park, so tread carefully…

UPDATE! This isn’t such a secret now and it looks like someone is going to start building (April 2011).

Trees is (are?) the challenge for today’s Photo Friday. I actually took more than a few photos of trees than usual so here’s a few of them.

This was a tree at the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve.

Up the beach from Montezuma, north-east about an hour(?).
I thought the dead(?) tree looked interesting extended above the forest.

From above Montezuma Falls, looking down at the pool at the base of the falls.

Just some photos for your viewing pleasure, click for a larger view (although the larger tall ones aren’t that much bigger) with a little more descriptive text. Trying to figure how to best post photos for viewing…

Before I went down to Costa Rica last month I knew they eclipse was going to happen and I knew the Moon was going to be full. But I forgot all about the fact that the do some horse rides down the beach in the moonlight; I knew that from the last trip and forgot all about it. While I don’t really like horses (they’re big, scary and I don’t know how to turn them off or reboot them), down the beach during the full moon sounds pretty cool.

This was the full moon lighting up the beach,
it’s really hard to show how bright it really was.

It’s completely night out, but it was just so bright.

This one came out a little brighter but it’s a little washed out.

They might have come out better if I’d had a tripod. I think it was brighter the next night (less clouds?) but my pocket camera just doesn’t appropriately show how it really looked. I don’t recall even thinking it was really bright this night, I was actually just scoping out the sky to see if the eclipse would be viewable.

And now I see someone is doing Full Moon Moon-Rise Yoga on Montezuma Beach, how cool would that be?!?

So I picked up a disposable waterproof Kodak camera before my trip to Costa Rica. I’ve been tempted to get a waterproof camera but couldn’t justify the cost.

The weird part was getting it developed. It’s been years since I got film developed. I can’t even remember the last time. When I stood at the counter at Walgreens it was weird, I knew I wanted it on CD but did I want prints? It seemed so foreign to want prints of the photos I hadn’t even seen yet…

But in the end I ordered a set of the prints. And they weren’t as interesting as I’d hoped. It’s hard to stell that the shots I took from the water are six feet deep, they could be ankle deep. And the waves that are crashing down at me, you can barely tell.

The resolution was pretty disappointing at 1545 × 1024 they weren’t very detailed, even for 800 ASA (IMHO). I’m not saying the pictures are bad, they just weren’t any better (visually) than many that I took from shore…

Here’s a few for your viewing pleasure :)

Me at the upper falls (actually the upper-upper-falls about 15-20 feet high).

Sunset from way up the coast from Montezuma.

This a cRaZy one of me jumping in the water.
I’m at the lower falls, it’s probably only about 20 feet (15?).
It looks like I’m hurtling to my doom.

I think the above shot of me jumping is from the same spot as this video of me jumping off the rock. So the camera was $10 (for 27 shots) and I think it was $12 for developing (developing, negatives, and one set of photos) so $22 for an experiment; I’ve certainly spent more for something I’ve never used again. I’m not saying the camera was disappointing in itself, although the pictures were only 1545 × 1024 pixels (but that just might be the Walgreens scanner), I just hoped taking the pictures from different angles in the water would look much more interesting. I’d try it again, but I think I’ll try again with this Snap Sights Waterproof Underwater Reusable Camera with Flash, especially if I was to go snorkeling.

So they were talking about the last roll of Kodachrome being developed last week. But what is Kodachrome? Kodachrome is non-negative film; that is the colors are correct, as in: slides and film.

I shot a lot of slides on a trip to Alaska a (long) while back, I never really got into slides though. I keep meaning to send to send my slides in to get them scanned, I think I have some great ones, but I digress…

On 14 July 2010 it was announced that the last produced roll of Kodachrome was developed by Dwayne’s for photographer Steve McCurry on assignment for National Geographic. I remember hearing about this a few months ago, this is that the last roll manufactured was developed (there were still earlier manufactured rolls that weren’t developed).

On 30 December 2010, Dwaynes Photo in Parsons, Kansas, officially ended their Kodachrome processing, effectively ending Kodachromes 75-year long career. The last roll developed was from the owners of the photo business.

Keep in mind, Kodak stopped making the film in June of 2009, but I think they still made the developing chemicals for a while longer. And while they were still developing in December of 2010, the last rolls made had a November 2010 expiration date.

Some of the info (and the photo) is from the Kodachrome entry in Wikipedia.

Just kind of beast crawling around making a lot of noise on the roof. At first I thought it was someone (I say “he” in the video) up there fixing a leak or something (it’d just been raining). But a little while later I spotted this. The video is a little slow in the middle but it does pick around 53 seconds.

And it’s watchable in 1080p HD, so be sure to watch it full screen! Can anyone tell me what it is?

The next morning I was eating breakfast on the balcony and this guy was up in a tree nearby. It’s something different, doesn’t appear to have the spiky things on it’s back.

The image is a little dark, but you can see better if you click to enlarge it. FYI, I don’t eat breakfast without some kind of camera nearby, you never know what might be nearby. Usually we have the lizards and monkeys, but I’ve not seen any monkeys by the hotel yet.

Totally worth going outside for! The eclipse was very cool looking. I’d had a long day so I’d taken a nap and set the alarm to make sure the sky cleared up enough, it did, so I got my gear together and went outside for a while.

It looked much much redder than these shots show (since these show virtually no red). It was actually more of a dark orange with red tinting.

Not that these shots show anything very clearly. Considering that the Moon was now “10,000 to 100,000 times fainter than it was just a couple of hours ago”* it wasn’t a big shock.

And while I saw a few shooting stars, nothing like the meteor show I though that was supposed to be have seen once the Moon was dimmed…

In hindsight, I wouldn’t have brought the camera (or tried to shoot video), so I could have paid more attention. But then I’d have wished I had brought it, right? Actually, the tripod on the SLR probably would have been the best choice. I had it on the video camera but the video just came out too grainy ; plus, the darn Earth andMoon kept moving so I had to readjust.

So “What do you think of holiday wish lists – tacky or useful? Do you make one for anyone? For whom if so? What is on your wish list this year?” is this week’s Friday Question.

I’ve always been hard to buy for, so I like the Amazon wish lists. It gives people some idea of what I want. They don’t have to buy off of it, but don’t act you have no idea what to get me when I’ve got a list of items from $10-$1000 :)

This is my wish list: a few books, Blu-Rays, a bike rack, a camera lens and a few other things. Feel free to shop for me *.

There is always concerts and such too, but it’s hard to surprise me with those kinds of things since you need to make sure I’m available (or didn’t already buy tickets). Plus, I’d rather be surprised.

On the other hand, do not tell me what to buy for you or some other family member. You can suggest something, but if I say yes, please don’t tell someone else the same item. Point me to a wish list if you like, but it’s my option. Although I do like it when children tell me what they’d like, especially if they don’t tell anyone else…

* The wish lists also have the option for someone you don’t know to buy you an item and have it shipped to you even if the sender doesn’t know your mailing address. Although, I’ve never received anything that way before.

Here’s an orange flower for this week’s PhotoHunt. There’s a bit of green in the photo too, I’ve really been liking the way green has been showing up in my photos.

Anyone know what kind of flower this is? I think I took this by the garden plots behind U of M Dearborn…

You can participate in PhotoHunts too.

A turtle swimming around in a aquarium at the Belle Isle Nature Center. I’m not even sure what kind of turtle it is, it was just a “regular turtle” until I really liked the photo. I’ve really been liking green in my nature photos lately.

And of course you can click for a larger version.

I really do like the way this photo came out, he(?) was kind of fussy and wouldn’t hold still for very long, but I did get a few shots of him, this is just the best one. I’ll have to put together a few of them to share with you…/garysaid