Fun at Detroit Lakes

Finally.

I am excited due to the fact that I finally took a decent night shot. I have been wanting to get one of these since my 35mm film SLR days.

I was privileged to go camping for a day or so at Detroit Lakes. I have to say the stars are just awesome with so little light pollution. I with the naked eye could see the Milky Way. Totally awesome. Made me miss growing up in the country.

I pulled out my camera, cable release and tripod. I spent about an hour shooting and got a couple good shots. (It takes a good formula to get shots at night and lots of patience) The shot you see here is an 8 min exposure at about f11. I am still working on perfecting this for how I shoot but am happy with the outcome.

Photography

So I am in recent ownership of a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) Camera, after many years of wanting one. A Nikon D3100 camera body with a couple lenses. (I own too older Nikkor lens from my 35mm Nikon N65 SLR days) My lens are at the moment are:

• AF Nikkor 35-70mm 1:2.2-4.5


• AF Nikkor 28-80mm 1:3.3-5.6G


• AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G (with VR)

I have really been enjoying this camera and forgot how much I have missed shooting a decent SLR. I have thrown some of my shots up on Facebook and Google+ and the links are later in the post.

My current project is figuring out how to shoot stars with the right combo of aperture and exposure time. It is a really tricky thing (specially in town where light pollution is rampant) and I am close but still not quite where I have a decent shot. The best tool for shooting stars at night I have found is Google Sky app. Gives you a great idea of where constellations are or specific stars (north star for example)

I have gotten lucky this summer and seen quite a few great sunsets. It has been a rainy summer here in the Pacific NW and that has led to lots of sunsets with interesting cloud structures.

Here are links to my Facebook album of a few shots I have taken so far. Been re-learning some of the principles again and having a great time. I have always looked at the things around me in ways of how would that make a good picture. There is something about freezing something in time that has always drawn me in. Hope you enjoy these and feel free to give me any feedback you want.

Facebook Photography Album
Google+ Photography Album

Go Caleb!

My nephew Caleb is in San Antonio for Spring Break but he is not getting much of a break. He is competing in the Paralympics Swimming Can-Am Championships. He placed 4th in both events he was in yesterday and knocked off a bunch of time on his personal best for both events. You can read more about him on his blog as well. He has more events today and tomorrow and is very relaxed and doing well. He has a good cheering team as well. Grandma, Grandpa, Audrey and the girls flew down to San Antonio on Tuesday of this week to cheer him and give him support.

Gaming Update

Well it has been a while since I last posted so I will do a gaming update. I have not had a ton of time in recent weeks to do much gaming due to work and family stuff. Audrey is in school and has been utilizing the office for studying. I do not honestly mind her taking over that space and using it to it's full advantage so she can get some quiet to get her papers and studying done.

I do tend to game on the weekends and recently have played some TF2, Bioshock (Trying to finish this for Bioshock 2), Borderlands (Walkthrough 2 and I may pick up an add-on here soon), and just started Mass Effect. (Quite good and in the same vein of KOTOR, though a bit more FPS).

If anyone is interested in doing Borderlands add me in game or on steam and we will get to it. I heard one of the add-on's has a safe so you can store guns in it which is awesome. I have a few I would like to keep so I can swap out sets etc.

Anyway I am still gaming just doing a bit less during the week.

The future of Radio

So here in PDX we have had a an upheaval in good Radio DJ's. The main Rock station KUFO Friday, Oct 23rd fired all morning and afternoon staff as well as a ton of other DJ's. Honestly in this listeners view it was the largest mistake they could have done. The Rick Emerson Show (mornings) and Cort and Fatboy (Afternoons) were staple listening for the ride to and from work.

I just saw the new site and dj line up and man they look lame. Good job KUFO and Alpha Broadcasting to go an ruin a good think. If it is not broken don't fix it. These guys don't look like they can tie there shoes between the lot of them. Take a gander at the KUFO.com page and you will see what I mean.

If you like good radio do your self a favor and let KUFO programming managers know what you think.

Again a huge hand to KUFO and Alpha for screwing up a perfectly great radio station.

{UPDATE:}
A great article on the situation Here.

Sorry KUFO your new DJ line up after I got a listen this morning seriously suck. Good job at keeping your talent "Local" by hiring ID10T's from out of town.

Vikings/Twins

Ok the last couple days have been awesome for Minnesota Sports. This last monday the Vikings (With #4 at the helm) smoked Green Bay in a Titan battle that will go down in the ages of sports. Farve was in top form and it is so great to see the Vikings doing well for once early on in a season.

That was then overshadowed by the Twins and Americas Pastime game of the year. Game 163 of regular season to see who goes to the playoffs and who goes back to Detroit. Yes the Twins came back to win it to grab the Division Championship out of the Tigers Claws. It was an amazing game and went to 12 innings.

I have not been this happy for Minnesota Sports since '87 and '91. I would love to see the Twins take down the Yankee's as they are a team to truly hate.

Go Twins! We believe in you!

Inglorious Bastards

I saw the new Quentin Tarantino movie last night and my initial thoughts are "Man, Tarantino likes to hear himself talk about movies" It is a lot of referencing 20's, 30's and 40's movies and Tarantino seems to like to hammer it home with this script on how much he knows about movies in general and wants you to know it. It is kinda annoying in some respects as I wish he would tell a story not show off.

The new Tarantino movie is set in a fictitious WWII timeline where the Third Reich is really into propaganda movies and all the high ranking members decide it is a good idea to all go to a single screening in France of the newest Propaganda movie about a Sniper who killed a lot of allied soldiers in Italy. Being that they are all in one place the Inglorious Bastards, a group of OSS agents behind enemy lines causing the Nazi's trouble in France, are tasked with blowing the Cinema the viewing is in up. There are a few more plot twists then that but that is the gist.

The idea is good and over all the acting is good as well. Tarantino brings his very violent scenes if Nazi killing to the screen with gory detail like his other films. I like Brad Pitt but could not for the life of me get over his very badly acted accent of a man from Tennessee. That just brought me out of the movie each time he talked. I cannot believe he thinks that was good acting in any way and my take is that is how Tarantino wanted him to act.

The best part about this movie is the Villain. He is played by Christoph Waltz. He is super Creepy and very well acted. Tarantino also did his chaptered flash back style of movie which honestly was well done for this story but is getting old with his stuff. To me he feels like he has lost his range of innovative ways to tell his story.

A side note of something else that bothered me was the fonts he used though out the movie. The title sequence he had over three different fonts to give the credits. The all seemed to clash with each other even if they were planned that they should do that they should have picked a few better ones to clash.

In conclusion I would give this a 6 out of 10 rating. You could wait to see this on DVD if you wanted and not miss much. It is no Kill Bill and definitely no Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction but worth watching if you like Tarantino films.