One of the maintenance people for the office building I work in is using a leaf blower to clean out the gutters. He is standing on a roof top leaning out. His safety mechanism is a length of rope looped over a railing that he has wrapped around his wrist. The fall would be about 20 feet to a marble covered courtyard.
On the weekend, both days I had a nap, which is unusual for me, and I slept perfectly fine both nights.
Today is the first day I have felt almost normal, but the cough is still lingering. The cough is really, really annoying.
Course, now that I am feeling better I want to get on with life. Wednesday I have Ulti, and it is a double header. Too early to tell if I can play, but if I do play, I will only stay for one game.
Bummer. I checked the movie board out and we reluctantly chose another movie to go see. I’d heard the Hangover was getting good reviews so we bought our tickets. It was a pretty funny movie actually. The three of us had lots of laughs, and I know that it was the kind of movie that is best seen in a big audience.
As we were leaving I glances at my watch and noticed that the late showing of Transformers was starting in 20 minutes. Hmm.
I made the suggestion that we stay and see it. Surprisingly everyone was into the idea. Yikes. The movie previews ended around 11 and the show itself was 2 hours 20 minutes. If you like action movies, and you liked the first Transformers movie, then you will like Transformers 2. Lots of fight scenes, lots of action, lots of robots, lots of excellent special effects, and lots of attractive scantily clad women.
I finally crawled into bed at around 1:40 am.
For that matter, why not design their cups to all use the same size lid? That would make the most sense to me.
When will we get around to building that dog a padded white room, and locking him in it during the day? Every time something gets wrecked I blame ourselves.
I then stopped at the mall looking for a metal rack to make a shelf in our freezer. When I got back to the car some kind samaritan had left a sticky note on the window saying the insurance had run out. Off to get that renewed, then pick up some contact lenses for Sue.
Back home I fixed up a toy of Beet’s, then some lunch. This afternoon, once Beet is up from her nap, I think we will head out to look at some outside drying racks for laundry (no clothesline at the new house).
Tonight we have some friends coming for dinner. A busy day, but quite enjoyable.
Some tips for shooting images of fireworks.
When all of this is done, you are ready to watch the show. When using the cable release you can still watch the show and snap shots while doing that. If your camera is setup as I mentioned, there isn’t anything it needs to do other than open the aperture. It doesn’t need to focus, or adjust any settings.
Play around while taking pictures. Vary the exposure length. Re-compose the scene every once in a while, zoom in, zoom out, rotate the camera 90 degrees. If you watch carefully you can see the rockets firing up into the air. When you see this you can start your exposure before the burst and get some lovely light trails. Try to predict what is going to happen.
Take your luck to the shoot, but most importantly enjoy yourself since this is supposed to be fun. When it is all over, expect to throw away a lot of shots. Try cropping them to make them more dramatic.
Here are my shots from last night.
Right off the bat this new line had some chemistry. We flowed the disk up the field making crisp precise passes. I struck for the endzone all alone, and almost got snubbed by the handler. He was looking to throw it elsewhere, and it wasn’t until his girlfriend yelled that he tossed it to me.
The sun was pretty low making vision difficult, but we perservered and the team made some excellent defensive moves. There were several hand blocks by our team throughout the game.
I was amazed at how I felt the entire game. I had wheels. I could break free of anyone last night. As such I was able to cut to the endzone and catch for many points. Also, since I had wheels, we did a semi zone so I was in line to mark one of the handlers. Each time we pulled I had to boot it down the field to try and cut off the throws.
One offensive play that stands out for me was when I was striking for the end zone, and my check had a better position than I to catch a high floater. I knew I was beat so I stayed back a bit. He actually didn’t catch it, but swatted it. The disk didn’t drop as he planned, but instead wobbled and floated a bit. Seeing my chance I raced at it, dove, and got lucky grabbing the disk shortly before it hit the grass. Did I mention we were in the end zone? I dove and made the point. Sweet.
Another stellar play we did was when we had the disk right on the end zone line. Mike called for the moses play with me set to receive the throw. Everyone stacks up in the end zone clogging everything up. When the disk is in play, suddenly everyone peels for a sideline, each person a different direction than the person in front. The last person back then has a clear run at the disk. Just like moses splitting the red sea. It worked for the second time this season.
Anyway, everyone I played with was appreciative of the energy and drive I had. For me it was a perfect night. It wasn’t too hot, it wasn’t windy, I felt like running, and I was having a great game. Can’t wait for the next one.
They had a small medieval village set up there, and this guy was just getting his armour on. Looked like a complicated process.
We got there early enough to get a good parking spot, and to get a great place to spread out in the shade.
This watershed model is a great way for kids to learn about how our polluting actions can affect our surroundings. The demonstrators show how oil, herbicides, and fertilizers can make their way into out oceans. The kids have fun too by using the bottles to make it rain.
Here is my pirate daughter practicing her scowl. Very convincing!
Here is a happy pirate.
Then the big gun show was on.
The military people got ready, and so did we. We knew from last year that it was going to be loud.
I set the camera to some good fast settings and let rapid fire do its thing.
In this shot you can see the flame erupting from the barrel, and by the next one it had turned to smoke.
This sequence is the last shot of the day, and for some reason (maybe on purpose), the gun blew a perfect smoke ring.
There were 4 stations scattered about the park and we had to visit each one to get a card. First person back got a price, last person back got a prize, best hand, worst hand got prizes, and there were a few others too.
I had a great ride and felt like we really pushed ourselves. We rode some pretty technical trails that I hadn’t ridden in a very long time. It was a blast.
At the first station I got a 6 of spades. After bombing down SouthRidge we got to the second station where I got an A of hearts. Not a bad start. We then hit Green Ribbon in its entirety which brought back lots of memories. After Green Ribbon we found the third station where I got another 6. Looking good I though.
We took crossover, climbed a short ways, then found the fourth station where I got a 5. Meh, that didn’t help at all.
We hit up a great little chute, then dropped in to the back side of the TTA. Back up the hill we got back to the parking lot. We were out riding for a little under two hours and we didn’t really stop all that much. I was surprised at how well my legs and lungs held up. I haven’t been mountain biking much at all lately, and I was on my big bike. Add on that I have been fighting a cold for the past few days and I was expecting a pretty bleak picture.
I felt great skill wise on the bike too. My balance was good, jumping, manualing, braking, and cornering were good. It was a perfect day for a ride.
My final card was another A. Sweet, A’s and 6’s. My hand was recorded and I was looking pretty good for a long time until someone else showed up with 3 5’s. 🙁 Then, the last person to the parking lot (who won a prize for being last), pulled out an A high flush! 2 prizes for that guy.
SIMBS finished off the event with a burger BBQ that was free. I paid $5 to enter the race and at two yummy sirloin burgers. Got my money’s worth I would say.