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.

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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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.

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I love fireworks! I hate waiting for them, but I love the show itself! This is a sequence I animated from the show that I saw last night.

If you’re viewing it on a devices that won’t show the animation, it’s probably really boring looking!

This is another U.S. holiday that I’m sure more people forget what it’s for. It’s not the 4th of July, it’s Independence Day, it’s for celebrating our freedom!

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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…

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What do you think?

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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…

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…

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Turns out it was just winding me up! Look at all the snow we got yesterday, it’s just a few inches but yesterday it was all washed away…

Isn’t the “first day of spring” in just a few weeks?!?

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It seems about every two months that Wendy’s resets their on-line coupons (this batch is good until Feb. 20, 2011). It’s a $1 off combos, $1.99 kid meals and a few 2-for-1 deals (singles, chicken and twisted Frostys). There appears to be no printing limit, I just printed a stack and stuck them in the car. I go 2+ times a week so this is a no brainer for me. I’ll have $14-$20 extra in my pocket by the time March rolls around.

And the address hould be easy to remember it’s http://MichiganWendys.com/

Yes, the coupons specifically say they’re only good for Michigan.

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Poor customer service has always been a annoyance to me. Be nice and be courteous and try to deliver it with a smile. Especially in this economy, how can you afford not to be nice and courteous?

That said, the folks at the Wash Haus (in Dearborn, Michigan) have always been extra-nice and ultra-courteous. They have a laundromat, drop off laundry, dry cleaning and they do alterations. I’ve got a washer & dryer at home so I only use them for dry cleaning and repairs/alterations. And when I say repairs, I mean some stuff that I wasn’t even sure if they could fix.

Today, I dropped some items off today to be dry cleaned and an odd shoe repair (my Five-Fingered Vibram shoe has a tear in it) and he took my number so he could call me to let me know if they could fix it (he’s called me before about repairs).

I think it’s just the way the owner talks to me, he’s just polite (maybe even respectful) and it doesn’t matter if I’m in shorts or a suit (and I think the owner has been there every time I’ve been in). And it’s not like I’m their best customer, I probably haven’t been there much more than a half-dozen times in the last year, he actually remembered that it’s been about six months since he’s seen me.

Bottom line, if you’re in the area you should give them a try! They’re at 5280 Schaefer Road on the south side (between Ford Road and Michigan Ave.) in Dearborn; before this year, the place was under different management so if you didn’t like them before, there’s new folks in charge. Check out the photo since there’s a competitor a block over; plus I thought the blue sky came out awesome for just stopping in the road and using my phone for a quick snap. I couldn’t find a web page but they do have a Facebook fan page (which has a year old price sheet).

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When I purchased my home I thought I’d stay in it around four or five years, give or take a year, next month will make eleven years! I’d never owned a home before, but interest rates were good, I had a condo that I liked and when the rent on my Southgate apartment jumped way up, it sealed this was the deal for me.

The rates on the 5-year Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM) seemed pretty decent; I knew rates were down but I like to cover my bets, and any year after five years the mortgage could go up 2% a year. Silly me, I was worried that if the economy got better I’d have a higher mortgage rate; but I never thought I’d live here more than seven years (when it would have the opportunity to have jumped up 2% two times).

Well it’s that time of year again and my mortgage adjusted, it went down 1/8th of a percent. I’m now paying 3.125%, this is much less than my original 6.875%. While I understand the value of my home has probably dropped, at least I’m not paying a higher mortgage at the same time, the lower value means less property taxes.

Year Rate
1998 6.875%
1999 6.875%
2000 6.875%
2001 5.25% (paid $750 to lower rate*)
2002 4.25% (paid $750 to lower rate*)
2003 4.25%
2004 4.25%
2005 4.25%
2006 4.25%
2007 4.25%
2008 4.875% (first yearly adjust)
2009 3.25% (yearly adjust)
2010 3.125% (yearly adjust)

I was paying the higher rate in the beginning when I owed a lot more money, so the higher interest rate did affect me more, but at the time it was a low interest rate. I think the rates were around 7% at the time and I paid a few hundred dollars ($300-ish) to lower it 3/8ths of a percent, which was supposed to take three-and-a-half years to make that few hundred dollar fee back, but since I paid the $750 to lower the rate I lost out on that (I think it was three years to the day) but only the $30-$50 I hadn’t recovered; I still think that was a good decision, who could have predicted a crisis of 9/11 proportions would occur?

I’m living on the East side of Dearborn (Michigan, United States) and they’ve finally removed the old deserted Montgomery Wards building and finishing a new office building which might help (a tiny bit) in revitalizing this side of town…

I made pretty good money decisions on this for my first time. The one big mistake I made was at the time of purchase I did have the ability to put 20% down (I had put down 15%) and I wish I had done the 20%; yes I know that’s a lot to put down these days, but my mother always taught me to be a good saver and I knew I’d want to buy someday. Here’s why: The PMI insurance, this is the insurance that you pay for to guarantee that you won’t default (but only for the first 20%), was harder to drop than they made me believe: you had to pay for an inspection and if the value of the house had dropped it wouldn’t be 20% and it wouldn’t get waived so I was a little nervous and a little annoyed. But it was $35 a month that I was putting towards nothing (for me, at least) that could have been towards my house and I didn’t like seeing it on my statement. It was about $35 for every 5%, so if I’d put down 0%, it’d have been $140 a month (that’s $1440 each year!). But if something had happened at the time and I needed the money, that would have been gone from my reserves (but I’m still kicking myself for it).

So other than my PMI rant, the whole home owning process has gone really really well. I’m still happy with the home. It’s been very centrally located to the three different jobs (Allen Park, Redford, Hamtramck) I’ve had since I lived here.

*Surprisingly, when I paid the $750 for the ARM to adjust adjust the rate, it actually restarted the 5-years over! So when I ended up changing to the 4.25% rate, it held for the next 5 years.

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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…

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I was at the Belle Isle Nature Center the other day and got a picture of this interesting looking fish called a Longnose Gar (sometimes called Garpike, Needlenose Gar or just Gar Fish (or Lepisosteus osseus). See the wikipedia or the Animal Diversity Web entries for more information.

I got pretty lucky with this video, it was my first try and it’s as if we rehearsed the scene. I tried more than a few more times and I just couldn’t get the camera lined up (or the fish to perform properly)

If you’ve got a fast computer be sure to watch the Gar Fish in HD and be sure to click the full screen option at 720p.

See, doesn’t it looks like we planned it that way?

FYI, I shot this on my iPhone 4!

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Wow! They’re already lined up at Best Buy in Dearborn. They store doesn’t open until 5 AM!!!

Here’s a link to the HQ video.

That’s insane, I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like later on…

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So I was in southwest Michigan the other day and managed to catch the sunset. I snapped a few photos with my Digital Rebel XT. Actually I snapped a bunch of photos, but I picked these three to share…

These were all taken in a little roadside park in St. Joseph, Michigan.

I really like this one, but I wish the bushes had a bit more detail.

I’ll have to play around with these and see if I can get a little more detail out of the trees and bushes.

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Great day outside on Hines Drive today. Lots of great colors as fall approaches. Here’s a panorama I took with my iPhone (and stitched it on my iPhone with AutoStitch on the phone too!).

I think it took eight or nine images to build the whole thing and it came out to 4000×506 pixels. This program works quick: I took the photos with the camera app, ran the AutoStich program, clicked the photos, it built a tiny thumbnail, I clicked the stitch button and few minutes later I’ve got the panorama on the screen!

Click to enlarge panoramic image, if it doesn’t load correctly, here’s a 1024 wide image.

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The City of Dearborn was supposed to have fireworks earlier this summer but it got rained out (I think that’s why it was delayed) and tonight was the make up day.

Wow! It was amazing, it was a constant barrage of fireworks for about 25 minutes. Very cool.

It was an impressive show. I won’t miss another one at Dearborn’s Ford Field if I have a choice about it.

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I’ve never even heard of the Michigan Central Station before today. I happened to see a photo of it in the (overly-dramatic titled) The Remains of Detroit photo essay on Time.com (which got mention on one of The Economist blogs) yesterday.

Opened in 1913, the terminal was designed by the architects Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stern, the same firm that designed New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. “It’s staggering,” says Hemmerle, “that such a phenomenal piece of architecture could stand empty for twenty years.”
- From Time.com

I did a little more looking and found this six minute video.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard mention of such a huge train station in Detroit; at the time it was built it was the tallest train station in the world. I can’t even picture it, so I might have to take a ride this week to see where it is.

I guess the city was looking to demolish earlier this year and I never heard a peep (someone is suing Detroit since it’s a historical landmark). And they filmed some scenes for the Transformers movie here a few years ago, never heard anything about that either.

The video mentioned 75 trains in and out a day. I felt like those were mostly passenger trains, but maybe I was wrong. I’ve mentioned many times before that I love the train but now the Detroit station has six passenger trains a day (see page 2), three going west and the same going east from a small building near the Fisher building. These are the same trains that hit the Dearborn station a mile from my house which makes it very convenient when I want to head towards Chicago.

Photo courtesy of WikiPedia.

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Why doesn’t anyone have a bike rack any more? It’s a pain in the ass when I need to park it somewhere. I’m being healthy and ecological and have to climb in the bushes to find a place to lock it up. The only thing around with one is the library. Although I guess since I’m at McDonald’s, healthy isn’t the first thought in my head.

I’ve got these stupid songs from Glee (that link goes to a free HD download of the pilot), running through my head. The two songs in particular are You’re the one that I want from Grease and Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. Kind of a cute show, most of the adult characters are pretty lame though (the women especially). I just noticed they’ve got the cast doing Don’t Stop Believin’ at iTunes.

I think I need to go see Night at the Museum II and/or Terminator Salvation some time this weekend.

It’s another awesomely sunny day out too!

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