Pettebone Farm - V 2

Thanks to everyone who gave advise about my photos, on and off-line. I took it from a wider angle from the fence, lowered the ISO setting to get more color depth, and did some more post-processing. I had to wait a few days to get the weather right, but a few shoots later I came up with one that I thought was an improvement.



I'd like to get this picture right, so please...any comments or suggestions are welcome! I'll take them positive, negative, neutral, straight up, round about, rhyming or even in the style of Dr. Seuss.

More from this shoot here.

This picture is only worth about 20 words. Can you help?

So, I've been shooting with a new camera. A Canon Rebel XT. It's quite an upgrade from the Fuji S5000, which I loved. (I put about 15000 photos on the Fuji.)

I'm working on a shot of a local farm. I can't seem to capture the same sense of easy-going comfort that I get when I view it from the road. Below are my first two attempts.

I need feedback! Please give me any criticism you can about this photo. Anything, really. Tell me what you like and don't like about it's composition, the subjects, the lighting, the developing, etc. I thought it would be a good exercise for me to get a picture really right...and since it's close, I can go back often to re-shoot. You can see a color version of the picture here.

See my notes on the first two tries below.


I took this one at about 4:00pm in November. So, the shadows are long, and there isn't much contrast due to the sun. My wife suggested (and I agree) that I get it when the barn isn't so drab and one-colored.

More from this shoot can be found here.



This is the next day, about 1pm. More sunlight on everything makes for better shadows etc. But it loses some of the mystique it has in the first. Right?

More from this shoot can be found here. A slightly different angle, which I like, is here.

Any ideas anyone?

"What's Red Dolphin?"

So, lately, my blog title has been "The Red Dolphin." What is that?

I've never actually seen a red dolphin. I have seen a dolphin though, and I'm not just talking about on TV. No. I've seen a dolphin in the flesh (scales?) and my own naked eyeballs. Ok, so it was at Sea World. But I also saw some in the Bahamas, but it cost about $150 to swim around with them. Who has the kind of money after getting to the Bahamas?! Not me, man.

No, "The Red Dolphin" isn't a real swimming mammal. Here is the story. It's short, but cute.

We were in Target a few weeks back, buying a few things. We like to cruise their clearance stuff (look for the red tags) as they sometimes have some good deals on stuff we need. In particular, they had their dollar section stuff marked down to $.25. Nice. (I love when they have draw-string-bags there...any size.) So, we had about $12 worth of target-stuff in the cart.

At checkout, all the prices were coming up wrong. The total bill ended up being over $60! The girl apologized and was very nice, but told us we had to go talk to customer service. Next thing we know, lots of people are going over there. Turns out they had a computer problem and all the prices were wrong. It took them a few minutes, but they sorted our stuff out correctly. As I waited in the line though, I watched people leaving the store and thought to myself. "They all just overpaid on all that junk. "

In the car, we were talking about it, and I said.. "Man, everyone is getting ripped off in there." Jack promptly asked "Dad, what's Red Dolphin?" After asking him to explain what he meant, he said: "You said everyone was getting red dolphin there." Haha. So there you have it. The mystery of the red dolphin.

All joking and sea creatures aside...you have to watch these retailers. Wal-Mart is the worst!! Every time we shop there, something shows up with the wrong price (in the stores favor, or course.) I really think they do it on purpose. Once, we were buying 6 things. 5(!) of them came up several dollars over the price on the shelf. Our choice was to either buy them at the crappy price, or go back and double check. Please. So, we just left everything there and bought the one thing. I really...really hate shopping there. I try to write prices down when I can, and check them as they are beeped.

You gotta watch out, or you'll get Red Dolphin there too!

You only get one shot...

Authors Note: It's been a few months since I wrote this, and I feel I should clarify a few things. I don't hate sports. I like them. My son is in Basketball and he loves it. I even act as the assistant coach! (As if I was qualified.) I love what Sports do for kids, unity, work-ethics, etc. I love to see family members coming together for sporting events. We have huge parties at my house for the Olympics, etc. My own personal version of sports is Drum Corps. We watch the DCI (dci.org) scores and seasons like many people watch sporting leagues.

What irks me is the praise that society puts on the sporting figures. Someone is talented with a ball, and so we pay them tens of millions of dollars a year as well as let them tell us how to vote? Thank you, no. (And yes, it's US paying them. Hundreds of dollars for one ticket to some pro football games. Rediculous.)

So, I should have followed up my question: "what are they good for...absolutely nothing?" With: "Heck no...they're great!! (in moderation.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sports. Uungh. What are they good for?...Absolutely Nothing?

Sports in our country serve as a false idol that people pray to, curse and trust in for happiness and guidance.

At some point in a child's life though, sports are nothing more than throwing a ball around for some simple fun. A bit later in the child's life, they start to like the challenge and competition that sports offer. At SOME point, this healthy appeal turns into fanaticism, which leads to obsession, which leads to overpriced season tickets and sports "heroes" making salaries enough to end world hunger. What's a father supposed to do? Catch 22.

For now though, my man likes to toss the ball, and run around. And I'm ok with that. We have an unfinished basement with lots of headroom and cement floors. He's been using a shelf for a "basket" to practice basketball. Today, we decided to build a proper hoop. We used a bucket, marker, jigsaw, drill, boondoggle and a few grabber screws. 30 minutes later, he was shooting baskets that actually went through! The boondoggle net that he designed provides a satisfying "swish" sound. It's good for him, and we enjoyed making it together.

He joined a basketball team this week. Coach Mitch is awesome, and the kids really like it. May the fun-ness of sports stay fun for a long...long time.

The Ubuntu 6.10 grub menu.lst file and you...

Did you recently upgrade your Ubuntu install to 6.10 (Edgy)?

If yes: After you upgraded, was your dual-boot windows option mysteriously missing from the grub boot list?

If yes: Did you fix it?

If no: Do the following.

Log into your Ubuntu system and add (as root) the following to your /boot/grub/menu.list file, at the bottom, then reboot:

title  Microsoft Windows
root  (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Read more about this fix here.

This fixed mine. Phew.