“Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.”
As 
helloheather has mentioned, we became the godparents of Charlotte Elizabeth on Sunday. (Four photos from the blessed event are towards the bottom of the page).
Charlotte was her usual wonderfully calm and content self. She concerned herself with trying to eat the hymnals (not enough Lutheran fiber?) during the service and was content with being the star attraction at the brunch afterwards.
The weather was near perfect with just the right amount of clouds and sun mixed together. It was a very good day.
Sony + Konica/Minolta to bear fruit?
Sony's purchase of Konica/Minolta's photography division at the beginning of this year is set to bear fruit this summer.
Since the shift to digital, the photography industry has been in a bit of turmoil. A lot of good, traditional, photography companies have been lost to very tight markets and rapid development cycles. Thankfully, the megapixel race seems to be at an end, and companies can concentrate on better feature sets, better value, and (hopefully) better design.
KM's departure from the photography market (both film and digital) was a bit of a shocker, but it's absorption into the Sony family has been seen as a positive move. The market needs more competition, not less. Sony's goal has been to produce a Digital SLR capable of competing with the likes of Canon, Nikon, Pentax/Samsung, and Olympus/Panasonic/Leica. Rather than re-inventing the wheel (something Sony seems to enjoy doing on a fairly regular basis), KM gave them 1) a existing standard mount for millions of lenses 2) an anti-shake sensor design unique in the market and 3) access to lots of Konica Minolta customers.
So, this summer there should be at least one, probably two new DSLR's on the market. They'll have a Sony name, but have a KM mount. It will be interesting to see if they offer a camera for both the advanced amateur market (competing with the Nikon D50, Canon 350D, and Pentax *istDL) as well as the semi-professional or possibly high-end professional market. The line of Sony DLSR's will be known as "alpha"
WBEZ dot org (Chicago Public Radio)
The public radio station in Chicago, WBEZ, recently started accepting submissions of photos to be featured on their homepage. Each accepted photo is given front-page space all day (I believe for a full 24H) on whatever day it's chosen.
Tomorrow, Thursday (April 19th) one of my photos will be the featured photo. 
So, be sure to stop by and check it out:
Corwith still life
I did have my camera with me on Monday, but didn't have the kind of time I thought I would for photography.
Even so, here's a still-life I'm rather happy with.
South Side
My trip to the far south-west side of Chicago yesterday was an interesting one.
For those of you interested in maps, here's a google-map link to the entrance of the facility: http://lnk.nu/maps.google.com/8z8. This is a BNSF rail yard inside which my company has a couple tracks and a large repair building.
It was about 67.5 miles one-way from home to this location, and, while at first I was told I had to be there at 7:00am, I later negotiated that to between 8 and 9am. I left the house at 5:45am and arrive almost right at 8am. The drive was uneventful for the most part; usual Chicagoland traffic (i.e. someone's going to try and kill you at some point). My route was 31 to 62 to 59 to I-90 to I-290 to I-294 to I-55 to the Pulaski exit. I-55 was the biggest traffic problem, but I was well into the commuting bubble by then.
I spent the morning session at the company training car (2 flatbed cars set up for training field workers on brake systems, hitches, container securement, and articulated connectors) and then spent time doing misc. things.
My latest project at work is to produce a safety video (to be distributed on DVD) using company employees on company equipment. It's a pretty big project and has allowed me to start learning a whole new skill set. As I'm much more of a still-photographer type of person, I've not paid much attention to video and video editing technology; this project will certainly be changing that. My role in this will be to edit and assemble the video segments, offer instructions to those filming on ways to create better video, and eventually create the full-fledged DVD set for distribution to our many repair facility locations. I'm going to be using video, stills, and probably additional audio segments for this project and will have to produce a web-suitable version as well. Lots of fun but lots of work.
So far the best software package I've seen for our needs has been Sony Vegas+DVD (though I still need to evaluate Adobe Premiere Elements). It seems to be insanely powerful and complex. The only downside is that the trial version doesn't let you see the DVD-creation portion of the software and thus I have no way of evaluating the quality of this part of the product. Boo to Sony for not at least seeing that part.
Anyway, I ended up not being able to leave the rail yard until 6:20, but that was something of a blessing. I was able to make it from the yard to Algonquin in an hour. An amazing feat, to be certain and traffic was fantastic. Sadly, that corner of 31 and 62 did me in and it took another 30 minutes to finish the remaining 10 miles.
An interesting and sometimes stressful day, but a break from the office was excellent, and learning more about how the guys in the field work is very valuable.
Cherry Blossom Festival – Washington DC
Photos from our visit to the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC are now online:
idiots strike again
http://www.nps.gov/cave/pphtml/newsdetail22725.html
Carlsbad Caverns National Park Superintendent John Benjamin announced today that evening bat flight programs at the park will be camera-free. “The park has allowed photos to be taken at the bat flight program provided flashes are not used,” said Benjamin, “and yet flash photos are still being taken. As a ‘technologically challenged’ person, I can’t figure out how to turn off the flash on my own camera. The only way to prevent flash photography entirely is to eliminate cameras altogether.”
Thank you idiots, for ruining yet another event for the rest of us. And by "rest of us" I, of course, mean the people smart enough to push the "lightning bolt" button on our cameras...the symbol that's been used on cameras with built-in flash units since they were invented.
wanderlust
Perhaps it's simple "spring fever" but I have this very strong urge to get out and travel. In particular to load up the cameras and hop in the car and just drive somewhere. Around Lake Michigan, or out to the Badlands of South Dakota, or down to Texas, or somewhere. It could also be, in part, a reaction to not being able to walk very much during lunch these past couple of weeks, I'm not sure.
This past weekend was good. twench came over and helped me paint the kitchen while whippetgirl and helloheather scrapbooked and sat with Lauren.
The painting went well and we got done in a few hours (with the required stop for lunch and wait for the next coat) and then the five of us went to BW3's for dinner (mmmmm...wings) and Cold Stone for dessert.
Sunday I headed down to my grandmothers to install a wireless network. All told it went rather well and I even cleaned my uncle's computer of some persistent spyware. Of course, a few hours after getting back home I get a call that the wifi connection is b0rked. While on the phone, apparently the wifi magic pixies stopped by because it mysteriously started working again. I sure hope this isn't a trend.
And today during the lunch hour I was able to get out and walk in this wonderful weather. I chose a northerly route and headed up Orleans to Chicago Ave and then back on Franklin to Wells. Snapped a few photos and had lunch at "Brett's Kitchen" (a sandwich/burger place under the El tracks on Franklin).
Escape to DC
This weekend helloheather and I headed to Washington DC for torapines' wedding.
I was able to leave work earlier than I had originally thought and so I wanted to try and go standby on the 3:45 pm flight to IAD instead of the 6:00 flight. Despite United customer service representatives continually telling me (on the phone) there was no way in heck I was getting on an earlier flight by way of standby, I was easily able to do so. By chance I happened to land about 5 minutes behind Aaron, Serena, and Charlotte who had spent the whole day flying from Madison after experiencing delay after delay. 
Saturday was warm and sunny with helloheather leaving me to do the bridesmaid thing at 11 am. The wedding went quite well, despite some of the usual last-minute panic of getting stuff done. The wedding and reception took place at the soon-to-be-official Mr. and Mrs. Pines' home which was a good choice for the small crowd. The weather was fantastic, the food (all from different local restaurants) delicious, and (hopefully) the photography fruitful. We spent time with friends we don't get to see very often and much in the ways of parenthood and babies was discussed.
As it turns out it was also our friend Aaron's 30th birthday on Saturday (April 1st), so a slice of wedding cake served as birthday cake (with candle, of course).
Sunday, as some left for earlier flights, a bunch of us headed into downtown DC for the viewing of the cherry blossoms. Madness of people (expected) and beauty (unexpected). I didn't realize how many cherry trees there actually are around The Mall and monuments, along the Potomac, and pretty much everywhere Another fantastic weather day and lots of pictures. I'm really glad we were able to go and extra glad to have Mr. and Mrs. Pines act as drivers/guides along with Eric and Paul providing commentary and companionship.
Our flight back to Chicago was scheduled for 8:00 pm Eastern, but due to weather there we were expecting delays. We didn't board the plane until 8:30 but then, after pushing back from the gate, we were told there was a ground stoppage at ORD and that we wouldn't take off for at least an hour and twenty minutes. It turns out it was a bit longer than that. We ended up sitting on the runway for 3 hours at Dulles. No food was available (thank goodness helloheather and I were able to eat a small meal in the airport) and they did serve some water. Finally, in order to avoid the more violent parts of the storm, we took a longer route to Chicago. Actual touchdown was at 11:59 pm Central and we arrived home at 1:30 am. It was a very long and rather stressful bit of traveling.
helloheather started looking through the photos last night and found a couple highlights. Hopefully we'll be able to get an album uploaded this week.