Day 7 - Mankato

Quick post today since it is almost tomorrow. Here are some pictures taken on a Fall colors trip down towards Mankato in 2005.

Day 6 - A Trip South

Well, this whole pictures of living things thing is kinda bugging me. I mean come on these are not my most frequent targets with my camera. I will get back to those pictures of the Conservatory some time this month but not today.

Yesterday was the first day of kinda cold temperatures this Fall. While it was not too bad it was defiantly jacket weather. So to put us back in the warm weather mood we are going to take a trip about 1,600 miles South. These were pictures taken when I went down to Florida in September 2005.

My Mom had moved to Sarasota, Florida in May and had been staying at my Aunt and Uncle's condo. She had found an apartment and needed to get the rest of her stuff out of the storage unit and down to the new apartment. I was able to let the moving company into the storage unit and then a couple days later I flew down. The idea was I would have a couple days of vacation time and then could help get her settled into the apartment. Turned out I timed my trip just right though, the truck took a little longer to get to Florida then we thought it would and arrived the day after I left. This turned out to be ok, the movers did all of the lifting and got everything right where my Mom wanted it.

Not having to deal with moving anything gave us plenty of time to do a little site seeing. I had not been to Florida since I was about 9 years old and then we were at Disney World in Orlando. While I did not fall in love with Florida like I think my Mom would have liked (sorry Mom!) I did have a good time. I think my favorite thing about Florida though was the beaches, not because I enjoy swimming (I don't) but because it made for some really cool photos.

The first 3 photos were taken at Siesta Beach on Siesta Key.


The last 4 photos were taken on Bradenton Beach which is North of Sarasota.

While Florida is a nice place to visit I just don't think I could deal with the heat and the seasons never changing. I am sure I will go back again sometime soon, just not sure when.

Day 5 - Como Zoo

Keeping with yesterday's theme of pictures of living things, today I present some photos taken at Como Zoo in Saint Paul. Before going to take these pictures I had probably not been to Como Zoo since I was a very little kid going to watch Sparky the Sea Lion do amazing tricks. For anyone who does not know Como is kind of the lesser of the two zoos in the Twin Cities. The Minnesota Zoo (as I remember it at least) is much nicer, bigger and has more animals. The down side to the Minnesota Zoo though is the $12 admission and $5 parking fee. What can I say, I am cheap so I spent the afternoon walking around the Como Zoo and the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory. The Conservatory photos will have to wait for another day though (lets face it, November is a long month I still have a lot more posts if I am going to prove Dave wrong!).

Day 4 - People Pictures

Chances are you have heard me say that I am not a big fan of taking pictures of people. I am not sure why I have never really gotten into "people pictures". It might have something to do with not having a readily availbale victim.

The couple times that I have taken people pictures my sister has been my willing victim. Considering it is not my favorite tpye of photos to take, they can be kinda fun. These photos were taken when Amy (my sister) came back to Bloomington from California to go to Homecoming with her boyfriend Mike. I was pretty pleased with how these photos turned out.

Day 3 - The Start of an Obsession

Day 3 of NaBloPoMo. I think Dave may have been right, I am not sure I can post once a day for a month. I just do not have that much going on in my life that other people would want to read about, and since I have been instructed to include more words on the blog just adding pictures might not quiet the critics. Since nothing new is happening how about a story from the past that I talked about a year ago in my first entry.

I had never really had any interest in photography until I started High School and had to take an elective. One of the possible classes was Black & White Photography. It sounded a lot better then most of the other electives. I ended up really enjoying the class. We were first taught how to develop film and then taught how to print the photos. I did not have a camera of my own yet so I borrowed my Mom's 35mm camera which was already rather old and outdated. The teacher gave us all of the assignments at the beginning of the class and would give you more film when ever you needed some. I ended up finishing all of the assignments within a few weeks and then was just printing pictures for fun and helping other people in the darkroom. I really had a lot of fun helping out my classmates and now that I think back on it this may have been the first time that I ever really thought about becoming a teacher (as you know I did not, another story for later maybe). I really had a lot of fun with the class, unfortunately I never got to take the advanced photo class that was offered. A few years ago I looked back at the photos that I took and developed in this class. I quickly realized how bad they really were, at the time I thought they were good and I remember getting a pretty good grade in the class. I sure would like to think that the photos have gotten better since then! I still have all of those pictures in an album, I may have to take some time to scan them on a day off just to prove that practice does make better (I would not call my photos perfect by any stretch of the imagination).

Day 2 - Getting Started

Well it is day 2 of NaBloPoMo, I have accepted Dave's challenge to post something to the blog once everyday for a month. And while it has only been a couple hours since the first post in the challenge it is a new day and that means another post.

Today I have decided to go with a photo of Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis.

Dave, I will try to come up with a text heavy post sometime soon.

Day 1 - A Challenge

Well, Dave is at it again. He has now challenged me to participate in "NaBloPoMo" or National Blog Posting Month. The idea is that you make a blog entry everyday for the entire month of November. Dave does not seem to be to pleased with the frequency of my post's so I will show him. Starting today (Thursday, November 1, 2007) I will post something everyday this month to the blog. I am not saying I will write long diatribes each day but there will be something new here everyday! Since Dave does not think I will complete this task I will challenge him to participate and see at least who lasts longer! Good luck my friend.

p.s. Krystal and Bill feel free to participate too!