Many of you know I’ve dabbled in photography for a number of years. I’ve done portrait sittings for local Real Estate groups, parties for the Yacht Club, MLS photography via Obeo, and taken thousands of photos camping, outdoors and at Rollag.

I’ve started to collect a number of good photos that I’d like to put a price on, either for a digital copy, or by print or framed print.

I know I can manage the online digital downloads etc, however I’m a bit at a loss of where to start looking for framers or printers for the photos. Some photos are panoramas and could be broken up into 3 photos to occupy an empty wall (that is my current plan for a recent pan I’ve taken) Some would do just fine as 8×11, of which I can handle in-house. One photo actually ended up on a billboard last year.

The other question I’m coming up with over and over, – What do I charge? I know I’d need to cover the cost of materials, however I undervalue my creative talent and time big time. Granted the photos of rare sites and those that require more setup or post work would be more. I’m really at a loss of what to tack on tho..

Any suggestions welcome!

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the switch to the DROID coming at the end of March, however Friday morning I woke up to an ailing Crackberry. Having the TAC insurance plan, and pointing out my New every Two plan was due for renewal in two weeks, I asked about just pushing that date to Friday, vs. getting another new Curve on VZW’s dime. The agreed to this after a little back and forth, and by dinnertime on Friday, I had myself a shiny new Motorola DROID.

Since I had spent some time with in at the store, I was familiar with the basic operations and capacity of the device, however the more I’ve been using it this weekend, the more I am blown away by the abilities of it. While I can’t pass judgement on the battery yet, as it needs a few cycles to get fully up to capacity, It’s been holding it’s own so far, unless I have Meebo open for IM. – UPDATE: 3/10/10 – Battery is getting me thru a day, and I’m not carrying along my USB charging cable anymore. With ‘average’ use, it’s quite adequate when you’re in a metro area and not constantly looking for towers.

The interface is pretty slick and easy to use. While I did have to google the basic methods to get apps to the main screen, and other random functions, but overall, it’s been a pretty easy learning curve!

What has impressed me most, is the accuracy of the touch pad. While I’m really enthused to have a full QWERTY on the device, I haven’t used it as much as I thought I would. I’ve been able to easily add my IM, social media, weather and other basic apps to get me back up and running. I’ve also found Gmote, would enables you to control your music library on your computer via the DROID. Also, I’ve located a pretty decent VNC program, all available from the Android Market (short of Gmote). Short of being able to completely setup my VPN connection to my Untangle Firewall, the DROID pretty much removes the need for me to drag a laptop places with me and tether up to the Internet.

There are a few items missing from it that I’m hoping are resolved quickly are: No easy copy/paste in the interface I found if you longtap the content in question, you can copy it, moreso, you can longtap just about anything, anywhere for a host of options. No ability to add signatures on outgoing emails. Seeing as I use this for businesses, It’s critical that this feature be implemented soon. Maybe in 2.1.

Otherwise, the speed, usability, stability and overall performance of the DROID is pretty impressive. I opted for a slightly overbearing case on the phone, because I admit I’m a bit hard on stuff, and wanted to give myself the best chances to now destroy it. The one phone call I’ve made with it, I found to be exceptionally clear and crisp. The speaker actually had decent quality sound, not tinny or choppy like I’ve experienced with other phones.

Overall, I’m going to give the phone a 9 out of 10 review, only discounting it for the copy/paste and email signatures, two a pretty basic features on all other platforms of phones.

It’s no real secret that I’m kind of a technology whore. I’m quick to take in any old, yet still useful computer gear (with the exception of the TekTronix terminal). Mainly, I’ve gotten gear from businesses or family/friends that are offloading it, because they don’t need it, and/or don’t want to take the time to refurbish and resell it.

I am now getting a stockpile of computers again (mostly server grade, dual CPU, SCSI, RAID etc) and will be cleaning them up and selling them locally. My goal is to take the proceeds and donate them to a non-profit organization.

If you have any hardware that you are looking to get rid of, that would be of any cash value, I’d be happy to clean it up, and send it on it’s way! The other alternative, is they sit in your basement, and annoy your spouse that you have ‘too many computers’

OK – So, if you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably had at least 1, if not 1,000 invites from your friends to play FarmVille, no need to be ashamed. I was sucked into the game last summer, and found myself spending more time than I should have been spending, plowing, planting, milking etc.. It wasn’t so bad, because you could plunk away at it while you watched TV or ate lunch at your desk.

Recently, You’ve had to become fans to get a bigger farm, and play some of the other Zynga games in order to get upgraded farm stuff. Sorry, I’m not playing Mafia Wars for a reason, I DON’T WANT TO.

I gave FishVille a try, because I like fish tanks. After about a week of feeding my fish, I tired of it, and currently have sold all my fish, and assume I have a very green tank.
Also, with all the recent upgrades, added stuff etc, it’s taking longer and longer to load, and now that I’ve upgraded to the largest possible field, and you cannot doing any farming function in mass *plow all* *milk all* etc, it’s becoming far too much of a time eater than it should.

I’ve started ignoring most of the requests and gifts I get, because, honestly, while it was fun in the beginning, The appeal is gone. It’s more of a task now than a fun thing to do on FaceBook. Also, with spring on the way, and warm weather activities, the last thing I want to do, is be tied to my computer on a nice day collecting chicken eggs.

What is your take on FarmVille, and the other Zynga games?

Following thru with my intent this year to get out camping in some fashion at least once a month from May until October, I booked the first trip of the year up at Interstate Park in in St. Croix Falls, WI. This park has been a favorite of mine for many years, due to it’s close proximity to me (only about an hour away), it’s in Wisconsin, which means the beer is flowing, and it has a ample amount of caches and hiking trails to enjoy. Step over to the MN side, and you have numerous other pothole trails to venture, and if you’re up for some more river-based scenery, take the boat tour.

In addition to the hiking, caches and riverboat, you can rent a canoe or kayak and either float down to one of two stops a few miles down the St. Croix.

The campsite itself offers as I mentioned trails, caches and a great deal of nature to see along the way. Personally, I’m a big fan of the bluffs overlooking the river, and could spend a day out there shooting photos of whatever I can find. There are three camping areas, the North camp, primarily the family camp with a newer shower house and a big open area for recreation. Typically on smaller trips I’ve camped here, and had a few choice spots return to each year. Being close to the 4th of July weekend, most of the spots were full, and I did not want to nestle myself (and fellow campers) near the camp-host or a family with little kids, because we can get a little rowdy at times. Also, you will occasionally hear a jake-brake from a Semi coming down a nearby road, however, that’s few and far between. Overall you feel pretty secluded.

The group sites were already full as well, but from past experiences, the two sites are great, however sometimes have a few skeeters. Not having been to the south camp, I thought it was time, and made a reservation there.

I’ve been trying to hook up with Bill and his wife Kim for a few years, but our schedules never jived until now, so we finally have a trip on the calendar, and hopefully can find another couple to round out the 6-person limit to the site.

Here’s hoping for good weather, a little hiking and caching, and beer of course!

If you’re looking for some good camping close to the Twin Cities metro, look Interstate up on ReserveAmerica. It’s a easy to navigate site being utilized by the vast majority of state and fed parks these days, and is seldom to find a park you can call up to reserve a site, short of the ‘first come first serve’ drive-up sites offered by some parks.

Interstate State Park
851 State Rd. 35 P. O. BOX 703
St. Croix Falls WI 54024

First off, I need to say a big ‘hats off’ to all of the volunteers that helped with this entire process, from providing or moving food, filling bags, getting down in the trenches to shore up dikes, or doing whatever you could to help out, Thank You. Also, thank you to the men and women of any and all branches of service that contributed to this massive effort to work to save Fargo Moorhead from the flooding.

I had made a decision to go up and give a hand as soon as I could possibly get out of work on Friday, and ended up cleaning my desk off Thursday, able to take all of Friday off. I ended up leaving my home in Cottage Grove about 10pm after realizing I would get no sleep sitting at home waiting to leave in the morning. I took off with a full tank of gas, a few cans of red-bull and some other goodies to keep me awake for the trip.

I kept in touch with a few locals up there en route (going against the MN law of texting and driving, and it wouldn’t be the first traffic violation in efforts to help out I break this weekend) My initial plan was to meet up with Myrtle at Steamer Hill and crash at the trailer for the night before getting up and heading to Sandbag Central to fill bags. Upon arriving to the Hill at 1:30am, we realized getting in would most likely result in one of us getting stuck. – Now, usually I have a carefully thought out plan on where I’m staying, when I arrive etc, In this case, it was ‘drive till I get somewhere with a bed’

We decide the Hill is no place to stay and venture in to Hawley as I needed gas, and we had a last resort to call, Stan. I left him a voice mail (as he said he would open his door for us when we spoke earlier, even if it was 3am) – As we were about to venture into a Perkins to stay awake as no other hotel had a room, Stan came thru with a return phone call and a place to rest our heads.

We graciously accepted, and I left him a loaf of my Amish Friendship Bread in the morning (I knew I brought it for some better reason than to eat) – We left at 7:30 in my truck, bound for Fargo/Moorhead to see where we could help, and meet up with our other sandbagger Hill-people, Crystal, Rachel, and find our other friends coming up from the cities, Vicki and Justin.

Myrtle and I ended up at the Fargo Dome sandbagging after calling in to the Flood-Line. We arrived and signed our waiver (which I expect will result in some mailing since our address was requested) Walking into the arena, I had never seen anything like it before, it was as close to an organized fuster-cluck as you can imagine. Shovels flailing, bags being filled, pallets, dumpsters and front-end loaders being filled, it was amazing to see all the people working for a collective effort.

We jumped right in and started to fill bags, chatting with those around us, all working for a common goal, to save Fargo/Moorhead.

I could not believe the food that poured in, the support and the positive nature of everyone around. There was a decent amount of coordination and some notion of order, but at one point before the dinner hour, we all reached a critical mass of sandbags everywhere. Everyone finished up their piles of sand (mind you, it took 30 minutes for a crew of about 50 people to polish off three dump-truck loads of dirt, we were MOVING) – I also estimated that you can fill a sandbag every 10 seconds from start to finish if you were working at a moderate pave. We were there from 9-5, with a little lunch break, do the math. – We ended up moving that amount of bags later in the day to get them out of the Dome, and then again Saturday to help shore-up dikes.

Vicki and Justin made it in about lunch time after dealing with road closures and other flood-related traffic issues. After a lunch of Pizza, or Brats, or Sammiches and cookies, chips, water, juice or coffee, we headed back to the grind and filled more bags after they cleared the floor, and got re-organized. The afternoon went much more streamlined to the point where we were done filling bags at 4pm, and on to starting to remove them from the Dome. After humping bags into massive front-end loaders for a good amount of time, the four of us retired over to BW3′s across the street and met up with another fellow ‘Bagger Myrtle knew and had some beer and wings. A group of Servicemen sat down next to us and Vicki bought them a round to which they thanked us. We were the ones thanking them for their support.

Being later in the day, we tracked down Rachel and Crystal who had been bagging all day over in Moorhead and collected them from a hard day. After finding one of the few bottle shops open, we all piled into Rachel’s house (safe from the waters) and made our way thru the shower hoping to feel a bit more refreshed. I will admit that some Advil and a few beers did help the sore muscles, and we retired at a decent hour.

Waking up Saturday, we checked out the news and radio and heard of a local street in need of help. After Crystal made us a fantastic breakfast, we saddled up and tossed our thermals back on for a day of bagging and shoring-up dikes in residential areas.

Since I was the only one with a 4WD vehicle, we all piled into the Explorer (mind you, 6 people, 5 seats.. yah.. someone was riding cargo) – At this point, we didn’t think the minor infraction would be an issue considering we were going 10 mph, and we were headed to sandbag.

We found a block near the Family Service Center and Clay County Jail that was in need of help and jumped in line with the other 50 some people in the yard tossing bags and helping save a few homes. Again, I was amazed at the people, the support, the FOOD (Papa John’s rolled by with 12 pizzas) The homeowners were so thankful, and when we shored up their house, they joined us to help at the next home.

The house above, was the last house we helped with, and they had multiple pumps running, and really would have been in trouble without some help. You can see the dike is about 8′ tall, with water up to about 2′ from the top of it. Typically, these residents cannot see the Red River from their homes. After moving another 2500 or so estimated sandbags, there was a lull in the action while more sandbags were waiting to be dropped off, and our crew was tuckered out, and seeing fresh bodies coming down the street to help, we bowed out, back to dry warm clothes and a hard floor to un-crunch my back on.

We coined the festivitives ‘Flood Party ’09′ with some brews, pizza, movies and good friends. Waking up Sunday to seeing the river leveling off and things mostly under control, those of us from the cities packed our bags and started the trip back home. There were a handful of homes lost in the flooding as of this point, and water in some school basements from a few levy’s that began to fail (that were later shored up)

This was a tremendous experience for me to be a part of, and felt really good to be helping, contributing and making a difference. I realized at one point over the weekend that I had done more sandbagging than photo taking, which for me, meant I was really there to help out vs. be a gawker, and normally I’m that guy with the camera.

You can bet I’ll be back up again if the need is there, and will bring friends again. – Vicki and Justin said next time I plan a ‘weekend adventure’ to make it less strenuous, so I guess I owe them a weekend of camping and beer when the weather gets nice!

Were you affected by the F/M flooding, or from a surrounding area affected by the water? Did you help out too? Please comment and leave your story!

After a recent trip to the iMax Theater at the Science Museum and seeing the Grand Canyon film currently showing (which I suggest you go see) coupled with walking thru the current Water exhibit they have, it was made quite clear how our environment has changed over the last century in regards to the decrease of natural resources, mainly water.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not the most Eco-Friendly person out there, however I am trying to get better at it. One fact that hit me, was the amount of energy it takes to process, bottle, distribute and then recycle a single plastic bottle full of our wonderful water, equates to 1/4 of that bottle being filled with oil. Oil was the resource being monitored for using in this case vs. other resources, but to think, I need 1/4 quart of Mobil 1, to drink my 20oz. Desani water, kind of made me sick.

Looking also at iJustine’s contributions to Charity Water, makes me realize how lucky I am to have tap water that I can drink, compared to millions of others in the world. Sure I may still run it all thru a Brita filter for that extra bit of purity, but our source of water is nothing compared to other areas in the world.

Without getting too far off on a tangent, I am going to attempt to become more aware of what I use, and how I use those things affects the environment. I’ve started to become more aware of cutting down the amount of waste I use, and so far, by eating more fresh foods, or organic when possible, I’ve cut down the amount of packaging I use at home. In the past, our trash and recycle would both be full each week, and now with just myself, I can go about a month most times before I need to wheel the trash down the driveway. Recycle can go two to three weeks now.

I still have a flat of bottled water in the garage, however, I will be re-using my stash of bottles for myself, and saving some new bottles for guests of course that don’t like tap water) I’ve stopped buying bottles at work, and instead will be using my Nalgene camping water bottle to reduce the waste there.

As far as other ways to reduce the resources we use all the time, what can we do? We can switch to CFL bulbs in our homes, and I know this isn’t always practical, I’ve replaced many in my home for light fixtures where the bulbs are not exposed. Also, as many of you know, I keep my house at a cooler temperature than most, typically about 62 or 64 during the day, and 66 or 68 when I’m home at night. I will bump it up for company, but I’m more than happy to put on a fleece and snuggle with the pup than have a 72 degree house and waste all that energy in a big home I only am in a small amount of. (I also don’t like the huge gas bills)

While I’m on the subject of power and gas, I’ve heard many times that if you keep your house at 60 or 58 when you aren’t home, and then ramp it up to 68 or 70 when you are home, it actually costs MORE than keeping the high and low temps closer together, as the furnace doesn’t have to work hard to heat from 62-68, but really has to crank to get up from 58, especially in the cold Minnesota winters. I’ve actually seen a drop in my power bill in using this method this past season.

There are tons of things we can do, from using low flow shower headers, efficient toilets, recycled this and that, along with just being mindful of what we are consuming and disposing of. While I’m not advocating every go out and completely switch (because much like diets, we all revert back to our old ways in time) I suggest we take a look our our current lifestyle, and figure out how we can all cut back our use of water, other resources, or gas etc. It might be spending the 10$ on the trendy mug from Starbucks vs. the paper cup every morning, or it may be walking to the grocery store 3 blocks away instead of driving, and using your own bags, or buying the store bag like many stores offer now.

If you have any ideas, or suggestions of how we can reduce, and be more mindful, feel free to comment. All it takes is one person to make a difference, and start a change.

 

I’ve had this thought kicking around in my head for a number of years, and when I first thought about it, WordPress, formalized blogging weren’t really around, nor was the concept of sending photos from your cellphone to a website.  The land before Facebook I guess you could say.

DriversBeware.com is a simple notion.  If you run across (or get run over) by a crappy driver, post it here.  Send a pic if you can, well, check out the site for details.

I mainly wanted to create awareness our there for a large amount of insanely asinine drivers that cut you off, forget where the blinker is, and lose track of the skinny pedal on the floorboard, and maybe let the Authorities pick up on this and get their quota by nailing the little laws everyone forgets about, and let the rest of us maintain our cruising speed of 8-10mph over the posted limit.

So, check it out, tell your friends, and the more traffic that’s generated, the more we’ll all be aware of ‘that person’ – Some of us can multitask on in the car, and by that I mean drive, eat a taco and fiddle with the radio.  To those of us that can’t manage to check your rear view mirror without swerving, expect your information to show up sometime sooner or later.