Category Personal Message

What a wild last year it has been.  From planning a destination wedding, to getting married, to the honeymoon, and the reception, then Vegas.  It was an extremely busy year, and possibly the best one I’ve ever had.  I can’t believe the photo project is over already, but here we are.

My original goal of this photo project was to basically force myself to get out, shoot pictures, and learn more about my camera.  I feel like I was pretty successful in that regard.  I definitely learned a lot, but I also have so much more to learn.  I had a great time taking all the pictures, and while I love most of them, there are certainly those I wish I could re-do.  However, just because my project is “done” doesn’t mean I’m going to stop shooting.  I still plan on taking a lot of pictures, and hopefully posting some to this blog.  Looking forward to 2012, I also hope to write some more computer-related articles again.  I hardly wrote any last year because I was pretty busy with the weekly photo project and everything else that was going on, so hopefully I can get some of those thrown back in the mix as well.

Keep an eye out towards the end of the month, some friends and I are goin on a Bald Eagle trip, so I’ll hopefully have some cool shots from that I will post.

What will 2012 hold?

Here are all of my Photo Project 52 photos, in one gallery.  Hope you enjoy them!

Well, this is certainly disappointing.  Back in 2007 I remember the Springfield Air Rendezvous (a local Air Show) got cancelled.  I couldn’t recall the reasoning for this, but I thought it was just a one-time deal.  Much to my disbelief, it was permanent.  Springfield Air Rendezvous is dead.  I have many fond memories of the air show as a child, and I was hoping to head out once again as an adult and enjoy the show, as well as take some hopefully neat photos, but it was not meant to be.

From what I have gathered, apparently when the National Guard 183rd Fighter Wing was moved out of Springfield to Fort Wayne, Indiana, they took the base’s ability to service fighter jets along with them.  Being unable to host fighter jets at the base meant that Air Rendezvous would be with out a jet show.  The jets that performed, and specifically the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, were always a huge draw to the show, and the board that ran Springfield Air Rendezvous felt that with out a military jet show, Air Rendezvous would not be able to turn a profit.  Note that they didn’t even attempt it.  They could have at  least tried it, but there were supposedly other factors in making the decision as well.  It does seem though losing the jet show was the biggest and most harming factor.

It seems that Springfield lost a lot more than the 183rd’s fifteen F-16 jets when they moved out of town.

I’m a bit saddened to learn of all of this, even if I am four years late.  Maybe some day Springfield can grow up in to a real city and have real attractions, but until then, like the Valco Cruise for Charity, The Bloomington Gold, and other events, The Air Rendezvous show will be missed by countless citizens across Central Illinois.

I have still taken a photo for this week and will take one for next week… but I am getting married in Florida this weekend (or if you’re reading this, I am married now actually), and will be on a cruise out of the country the rest of next week with out internet access.  Because of this, my photo postings will be delayed until after we return from our honeymoon.  Once I am back I will post the photos I took for week 14 and week 15!   They should be some good ones!

Well well well, what do we have here?  Oh yeah, it’s HD in my house, finally!  A couple weeks ago I wrote about New Wave’s failure to bring me the HD service I requested not once, but twice.  I was pretty frustrated with them and let loose.  I didn’t try to contact them to fix the problem, honestly because I was so fed up with them.

On Tuesday this week I was contacted through my site by a high-up guy over at New Wave’s marketing department (Evidently he stumbled upon my post via search engine.  I guess the Search Engine Optimization plugin is good for something!).  He seemed genuinely concerned about my situation and getting it corrected from his email, so I replied back.  With in a half hour he called me and we discussed my situation on the phone.  He was very very nice about the whole thing, as was I.  He told me they would have someone out that very evening when I got home to get my HD installed, and on top of that they were going to waive the installation fees and credit my account for a nice chunk of HD service.  I was pretty happy to hear this but still couldn’t quite believe it.  But sure enough, at 6:30 on the dot, the New Wave tech pulled up in my drive way.  He installed an HD-DVR box and had me all up and running in probably 10-15 minutes.  I finally had my HD!  And let me tell you, it is gorgeous!  It’ll be even nicer when my HDMI cable comes in  (New Wave only had component cables.  I would’ve liked to have seen HDMI since it’s been around for a while and a pretty accepted standard, but no big deal).  I found a 10 foot HDMI cable online for less then $4 shipped to my door.  A lot better then the $48 Walmart wanted, but that’s a rant for another day.  The HD-DVR works great!  I finally got to put it to the test last night when I recorded Bones in HD while grilling out.  Then we came in and sat down for dinner and watched it.  It was a fantastic picture.  So crystal clear you can see individual hairs on their head.

I just felt like I should make a post updating my situation.  New Wave righted my wrong, and their Marketing guy assured me that if I ever have any more issues, to let him know and he will get it taken care of.  It is reassuring to know that someone out there at New Wave does care about their company.  I just hope that my situation has brought any problems existing with my local offices (or maybe wider spread) in to light and New Wave can work on ensuring that my lack of care doesn’t happen to others.

Thank you New Wave for fixing my situation.

This weekend my girlfriend and I had the pleasure of seeing The Phantom of the Opera at Fox Theater in St. Louis.  It was an amazing performance.  This was the 2nd time I have seen it, and the first time for her.  I got us seats as front and center as possible, and really they were fantastic seats (row M of the Orchestra area).  When the organ music first hits your chest and the chandelier comes back to life, it is just an overwhelming feeling.  The entire performance was wonderful.  I can’t say I have a single complaint about it, other then the fact that it ended.

Before heading over to the Fox, we went by a local Italian restaurant called Vito’s Sicilian Pizza and Restaurant per recommendation of my sister and her fiance.  I have to give this place my highest recommendations.  I had originally made reservations for 5:30, but due to unforeseen events (I forgot the tickets at home when we were already on the road… can’t believe I did that), we were running very late.  I called and pushed the reservations back to 6.  We still didn’t get there until 6:15, but they still had our table reserved, so on a very busy night (any time a show is at the Fox, they are busy because they are only a few blocks from the Fox), we had zero wait time and were able to get right in and sit down.  Service was excellent and their food was delicious.  I had the Spinach and Ricotta Manicotti with Meat Sauce, while Heather had Bacon Wrapped Scallops with grilled Asparagus.  Both dishes were great.

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So I finally caved and signed up for a Facebook account.  I like to think my account was the one that put Facebook over top of MySpace, but I doubt it.

Why did I finally get one?

Was it because of certain people hounding me about it?

Nah… as much as he wishes 😉

It started off because I wanted to look at other people’s picture, which you can’t do unless you have a profile AND are their “friend”.  So off I went.

Now that I have actually used it, I am ashamed to say I actually like it.  Not only is it a very nicely developed web app, but it is actually somewhat useful.  I have already stayed in better contact with my sister who lives far far away now (miss yah), and got me in touch with friends I hadn’t spoken with for a long time.

Unfortunately it has also allowed people to find me who I rather not have contact with, but for them, there’s the ignore button.

The ability to easily share photos with friends, set up events, and just generally stay in touch is surprisingly useful.

So here, I finally admit it.  Facebook isn’t all bad, and it is somewhat handy.  So, if you haven’t tried it yet, get on the bandwagon finally and get yourself an account.

Happy Halloween everyone!

I can’t believe it’s going to be November already.  WHERE DID OCTOBER GO?!

Anyway, have fun and be safe out there.  The girlfriend and I plan on feeding the little monsters roaming the neighborhood for a while, then heading out for a delicious D’Arcy’s Pint Horse Shoe.

I leave you with Bob’s RC Pumpkin

Not much to say here besides wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

I had a good one!  What better way to end 2007 then helping your friend get his truck out of the ditch?  Haha!  I will hopefully get a couple pics from my other friend who took some while we were standing out there freezing.

Check back soon.