My Little News Anchor....

There is a new news anchor at WNOR News Desk....Her name is Ellie. I was at the school for Jake's field trip and captured her in action. Isn't she so stunning?

Merry Christmas

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The End of an Era, or Maybe Just a Season!

The Setting:

Saturday morning football, Dillon Park....A goal line stance in the last seconds of the fourth quarter.....(NFL Films music playing)

Safety Nicolas Bolt (#10) charges the line and attacks the runner before he reaches the goal line. Unfortunately, so do about ten other kids on the field....Safety Nicolas Bolt goes in and........breaks his left arm!!!(ouch!!!) He plays the next play because he is as tough as Bob Sanders! Then the game is over and we speed to the ER for xrays..... He broke both bones in his forearm. The season is over for the young sixth grade safety....

Welcome to My Midlife Crisis!!!!

I use the excuse that gasoline prices are too high to drive the family truckster to work everyday. It works pretty good, but honestly this thing is just so much fun to drive! I have had my eye on one of these for a couple of years now. I really do get 27 MPGs out of this thing, and it is exceptionally fast.

Isn't she lovely? I have yet to name her....I am thinking Monique. All those years of French class in high school have finally paid off. I guess I should come up with a nice German name for her, but I like Monique....

Everybody has been telling me that I am going through a midlife crisis, but that is ok. I love driving this thing!

Indianapolis Colts Training Camp 2008

We just returned from our "mini" vacation that included a couple of practices at that Indianapolis Colts Training Camp. We were able to attend a night practice and a morning practice. It was a good time. I captured some decent images, I will post more in the near future. Nicolas was able to get seven autographs on his Super Bowl ball so he was happy with the trip.

The crowds were much smaller this year. We arrived on Aug. 8th for the evening practice and watched the Aug. 9th morning practice. There were very few people at the morning practice. I think that is the way we will do from now on. We will go after Family Day.....

The night practice was good. It was good to watch them do the two minute drill. Here is a photo that I took of Marvin Harrison making a touchdown catch. It is a little soft due to my manual focus...

A Stunning Gift!

I received an absolutely stunning gift in the mail a couple of weeks ago. I am sorry for the late update, but I have been going through my midlife crisis (more on that later). I received the Colts watch from Theresa Menke in the mail last week. Theresa is the wife of Frank, my pal from Cincinnati in what is now the old days. Theresa is also an avid reader of the blog. Two wonderful people that I miss. I even miss Theresa (I can't believe that I put that is writing). When are you going to start the Menke Madness blog?

OK, now here are my suspicions. I figure that one of the Bengals players stole the watch from one of the Colts players or coaches. After all, the Bengals team is full of felons! It then hit the street at a minimal value and Theresa was shrewd enough to pick up the watch from the trunk of someone's car in the parking lot of Paul Brown Stadium. It probably came straight from the locker room to the trunk of the car. I have not yet figured out which locker it came from. That will take several months to track down.

I have several more things to post. I plan on posting about my midlife crisis soon and about our trip last weekend to the Indianapolis Colts Training Camp....

Thanks for the nice watch Theresa, it was a very nice gift! We will try to get some tickets off of StubHub for the December game this year.....

Indianapolis Colts Training Camp Update....Again

Breaking News!!!! I just heard on the radio that Marvin Harrison will be at training camp and practicing! Tony Dungy said he is all ready to go and that the carwash incident is over and behind him. I can't wait to see him practice....

They will arrest us all soon!

I received this article from a coworker. Since we are the network infrastructure admins, this pertains to us. You really do have all kinds of people in this business. While we still don't know the whole story, I can't believe they arrested him. Only in San Fransisco I guess....

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3368107/121280916/127124/0/


I guess I should classify this post under geekdom, since I rarely go there in this blog....At least to extremes.

By the way, we are selling our van. Hurry and buy it before it goes!!! It is perfect for you and you would look great in it! You can see it here:

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/car/764618770.html

Colts Training Camp Update!!!

I heard on the radio this morning that Peyton Manning, Bob Sanders, Dwight Freeney, and Marvin Harrison are not even going to be at the Terre Haute portion of training camp this year. The players are supposed to report Thursday to camp. While this news is unfortunate, I guess it will cut down on the autograph seekers and bandwagon fans. The crowds should be drastically reduced once this word gets all out.

It won't stop us, we will still be there. We also got the stadium tour tickets for the 16th of August. I need to check to see if I can take my camera in there. I will post some pictures if I get any...

My Quest for the Ultimate Black and White Photograph.

Since trying out my new darkroom equipment, I have realized how much work I have to do to get a really good black and white photograph. I have decided to forgo printing images for a little while to really pursue getting the photo correct on the negative. I have found several people on Flickr that have been helpful. I have also found Fred Parker's site to be helpful when it comes to determining exposure. I have read books on the Zone System. I have borrowed some "old time" gear from a coworker friend, which includes a light meter and an old TLR camera. It is incredible how much I have learned in the last couple months, yet it is daunting to see how far I have to go.... Just to think it all started with the purchase of some old manual lenses for my Nikon D40 (Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens). I guess there is no doubting that I am a true geek!

I guess you don't realize how difficult some things are until you try them yourself. I have to admit, I never thought the kids would be into this like they are. I get asked almost every night when I get home from work; "Can we make some prints today?!??!!??" I guess I will have to hurry up and learn to get the photo right so they can get back in the darkroom! They really like to see the image come up in the developer. They have asked me to take more photos of them so they can develop their own photo with them on it. They now stop turning away when I point the camera at them! This has been a very fun project to do with the kids and I am glad that we have all had a chance to experience it! When we get a little better at print making, we will scan one and upload it for you to see...

We Made it to the Fest!

We made it to the Colts Fan Fest. It was a good time. Well, except for the part about the cheerleaders flirting with me constantly. That did get a little old. Again, they must have recognized me from this blog that is getting so huge! I walk out of the house without my wife for one second.....Ok back to reality. They had Matt Giordano and Tyjuan Hagler there to sign autographs. Matt G is a great guy. He was very friendly and talked with the boys as he signed their stuff. It is good to see pro players like him. I can't wait to see his special teams coverage this year.

It was just me, Joey, Sammy, and Nicolas that went. Jake is too big of a Chiefs fan to go....He probably would have wanted to wear his Tom Brady jersey if he did go....So it all worked out for the best.

It was a fun night out with me and the boys partying down. Although, we had to hold back some on the soda drinking so Joey would make it the whole time without having to go potty (he is frightened by big "potties") . We made it without any incidents. We were also able to make it out before the big storm hit.

This is a picture of the main stage area at the Indianapolis Colts Fan Fest, Anderson 2008....I kept asking those people to move out of the way so I could get a better picture, but they would not listen. I think I need a press pass....

Colts Fan Fest

There is a Colts Fan Fest in Anderson, Friday (June 6th). You can read all about it here. I may have to see if we can take the kids up there and hang out for a bit. They never list what players are going to be there for the autograph sessions, but it is still always fun. It always helps us to fire up for a new season of Indianapolis Colts Football.....

Another Stockphoto Update....

It has been a good month at iStockPhoto for me. I have sold quite a few photographs. The subscription service started on Memorial Day, but it has not affected me at all up to today. I have yet to sell a picture via subscription. I really need to get some more photos uploaded, as I have not done any since the last update. Time to stop making excuses and get to work!

I have not sold any on Dreamstime or Fotolia this month. Although, Fotolia is starting to look more interesting to me because they are also going to offer a subscription service. If you are looking for some microstock photo agencies I would sign up with these three. I plan on putting a spreadsheet together soon to show the downloads from each site....It is on the list of my things to do.

I recently have been shooting and developing some black and white film. I have really caught the photography bug. I also bought used darkroom equipment from an older gentlemen on the North side of Indy. I hope to make a few prints this weekend of some pictures I took of the kids. I have a whole kit of stuff. Too much stuff to mention. The enlarger is a Omega Bessler 22. If any one knows anything about these, drop me a line. I am very excited to try it out this weekend. I may try to scan a few of the negatives I developed and post a few here....I might even upload some to a stock site....

Another Memorial Day Weekend to Remember!

We had our annual trek to Cincinnati this weekend. We went to Eden Park, the Cincinnati Zoo, the new Ikea store, among other places. Then we went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton on the way home. It was a great weekend. I love going to Cincinnati. I miss living there. As a matter of fact, I found a seven bedroom house in Avondale that we could buy with cash. Take a look, it is here....I could most likely get my old job back at Children's Hospital. Living at that house, I could even ride my bike to work.....But then it hit me, I would have to become a Bengals fan and there is no way I could do that! Go Colts! Although, it would be nice being around the old pals....I'll ponder that a bit.

Here we are at our annual picture taking spot, the Eden Park overlook (you can't see me, I am hanging off the cliff). Ahhhhh the romance that comes to mind when I think about this. Dawn used to pick me up at work and we used to go to this park and eat lunch. That was before kids when we both worked and I was skinnier. There is always a wedding party here at this time of year to get pictures taken in this beautiful park. As a matter of fact, we were walking past the wedding party and one of the bridesmaids yelled to me "Go Colts!". She must have recognized me from this blog as it is getting huge! I am sure it had nothing to do with me wearing a Colts shirt!

I'll post some more pictures of this weekends trip soon. The Air Force Museum was really good. It was so fitting to be there on Memorial Day.

By Request....Here is Maddie!

Maddie is enjoying Ellie's games as you can tell in this picture. She is growing up so fast! She is also very cute!

Indianapolis Gets the Super Bowl!

The day that they announced Indianapolis getting the Super Bowl, we happened to get to hear Tony Dungy speak at the Sheriff's Forum here in beautiful Hamilton County, Indiana. The forum was really good, it made me glad to be a resident of this county. I really like the way Sheriff Carter is reaching out to the young people to make the right choices in life. There was an example of an inmate serving 28 years for killing people while driving under the influence of alcohol. It was very moving.

The icing on the cake of the forum was to hear Tony Dungy speak. I think Nicolas had the best time of his life. Here is a picture of him getting Tony's autograph after the forum. Tony had just told him what a nice shirt he had on (Colts Champs shirt). It is amazing how nice this guy is...He stayed and talked to people after the forum when he could have just talked his half hour and scooted out. He actually came back early from Atlanta to do this talk. He had to hear the results of the Super Bowl vote on the plane.

We are more than fired up for the Colts this year! We can't wait for training camp!

Determination!

I hate the way this picture turned out technically, but I love the shot! Try to ignore the chromatic abberation around his pants.....Just look at his face! I don't think Jakey can try any harder to hit this ball! Baseball and softball are going good so far this season. I will post many more pictures here of the kids playing this year. At the next game I will not shoot with the lens wide open. Hopefully I will limit the ca in the future.

It's Official, The Colts are Back in Terre Haute....

It is official, the Indianapolis Colts Training Camp for 2008 is at Rose-Hulman in Terre Haute, IN. You can read the entire story here.

Maddie Rolled Over Today!

No this is not our first child, it is our sixth! I just never had a blog when the others were this little! I didn't take a picture. It just doesn't do it justice. I refuse to post video on the blog!

Stock Photo Update....

For the stock photo followers, here is an update on the three sites I use....


My best performer by far is iStockphoto. This site has the most traffic and buyers. They are getting ready to implement a subscription system in addition to there normal business model. I am anxious to see how this will increase or decrease sales. I have not been on there long enough to see the peaks and valleys of sales, but I will report on that when I know more. It was a little bit of trouble to get accepted to Istockphoto, but it was worth it. One thing I really like about this site is that they give you very specific reasons for a rejection. You can usually fix the problem and then resubmit your photo. Now I need to find some time to shoot more of the concepts that I have thought up! I also need to find some willing models, since the family is not really up to it.

My second best performer is Dreamstime. This site started off with a bang, but has now slowed down. I have the second most sales here. It will be interesting to see their reaction to the subscription service of iStock. I have had a real difficult time lately getting images approved here. These are the same images that are selling on other sites. I am not sure about their approval process yet, and I have been on this one the longest. I still have an occasion sale on here, but I have yet to get another image approved. I need to study this more and see if I can figure out the trick. I will now become more liberal with my image uploading to see what gets approved and what does not.

The last performer is Fotolia. This is a great site to get started on to learn the whole process. One thing I love about this site is it has a very quick review system. They usually tell you within a day or two if your image is approved or not. I don't have a lot of good photos on this site and that may be some of the reason for the performance.

I will try and update a post every so often detailing my stock activities. I may sign up with a few more sites to add to this list.....

Indianapolis Colts Training Camp 2008

I have heard rumors that the Indianapolis Colts Training camp is staying in Terre Haute for 2008. I also hear that Rose-Hulman is remodeling much of the training camp quarters to keep the camp there for a little while. The last story I could find about it is here. Since I have been contacted by a few different people about training camp, I will be posting a lot more about this year.

My next post will include items about the facility, with maps and the locations of the activities at trainging camp. I will then go into the autograph stuff and mark up a map to show the best locations. I also plan to post many more pictures from our visit. Be sure to say hi if you see us there. We are not hard to find, we will be the family with six kids!

Please remember to click one of my ads if this is helpful to you. I have a lot of kids to feed!

I think she might grow up to be a supermodel......

In what little free time I have had lately, I have been study my photography books. I came across a book by John Kobal called The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers. I love these pictures of the old movie stars. I like the way they did the lighting and I am going to try to reconstruct that for some portraits of the family (when I get some more free time). I was looking at a picture of Clark Gable that would be a great setup for Joey. I will post that when I get that one figured out.

I continued to look through the book and one thing just made me gasp when I saw it! It was a picture of Marlene Dietrich. This was a portrait that was made for the 1930 movie Morroco. Here is the picture:
It is such a strking picture. The depth of field is very shallow, only her face is in focus while all else is blurred. I am looking at aquiring some old manual focus lenses so I can try to recreate some of these pictures. ( any of you people out there wanting to get rid of some old nikon 50mm manual focus lenses at a good price, drop me an email) I hope to find some models around the house here to practice on.

Anyway, that is not what made me gasp. What made me gasp was the fact that my niece Kaitlin looks exactly like Marlene Dietrich! I kid you not, look at this picture:
She had no idea I was taking this picture. It was a complete candid shot, so she was not posing in any way. She was working with Ellie at the art desk in my sunroom. I was sitting at the dining room table. I saw the way the light was coming in through the blinds and thought it look cool, so i grabbed my camera and shot this picture. The bad thing is, Kaitlin hates me taking her picture. I may never get another one like this. Hopefully she will let me take some Marlene Dietrich's recreates of her some day.

Kaitlin, I think you may have a future as a supermodel or movie star. When you go on and are earning 20 million per gig, remember your favorite uncle.....Not much, a couple million will do!

More Brotherly Love!

Joe did not want to be outdone by Sammy, so he wanted me to post this picture of him with his baby sister.

Brotherly Love!

Sammy has finally accepted little Madelyn as one of the family. It took him a little while to come around, but he loves her now! Here he is showing his love for his tiny baby sister!

Congratulations Kelsey and the Lady Raiders!

Congratulations Kelsey! We are proud of your hard work and dedication. You helped your team win the regionals! I will show the kids the pictures tomorrow. They will think you are a celebrity! I'll email you the rest of the pictures soon! Good luck next week at the semi-state tournament.

More Pictures...

As requested, here are some more pictures. I created a Flickr page to host the pictures. Click here to see more pictures of Madelyn and her brothers and sister....

It's A Girl!!!!!!

I can't believe it, it is a girl!!!!! Madelyn Kay was born at 4:30pm Wednesday, January 22nd, 2008. She weighed 8.45 lbs and measured 22 inches long. Here is a picture of Dawn holding her soon after she was born.

The Baby is Coming!!!!!

Well, so far everything is going well with the pregnancy. We are going in to have the baby. The hospital is supposed to have in room internet access, so I will bring the laptop and have a picture posted as soon as possible. If all goes well, I hope to have a picture up by tomorrow evening.

The kids are excited, I am a nervous wreck! Even though this is number six, I am still very nervous! Dawn is doing well, if she is nervous, she does not show it. Hopefully we will have some good news to post soon!

Wii?

We are a new Wii household. This thing is awesome! I guess that is why it is so hard to find. I ended up getting two. I was lucky enough to have good timing and a wonderful wife that is good at working the phones.

Wally World put a Wii in their ad last week. We knew that most of these stores were open twenty-four hours, so we wondered when they would put them out on the shelves. Dawn found out that they were going to put them out at 12:01 am on Sunday. I wouldn't dare think of making the 9 month along pregnant lady stand in line for hours to wait, so I took it like a man and went to wally world to fight the teenagers for a shot to buy a Wii.

I left during halftime of the Jacksonville-Pittsburgh game (that is how much fun this Wii is...). Luckily when I got there, there was not much of a crowd. I ended up being in line next to someone that used to work a Cincinnati Children's Hospital the same time I did during the 90's. We did not know each other, but we knew other people that we were able to discuss for a couple of hours while we waited. It was really kind of fun to discuss the old days.

I ended up being number seven in line and they had nineteen Wii's in stock. I paid cash ( the kids even chipped in some money) and walked out without getting mugged. We have been enjoying the Wii since. You guys should see Jakey play this thing, it is hilarious!

I also scored a Wii through Sears.com. I used a free service called NowInStock.net. It is a great site that tracks where the Wii is in stock online. If you are looking for a Wii, I would highly recommend Justin's site. Although Sears had taken a long time to ship it, it is worth the wait.

Contrary to what many of you are thinking, I am not going to scalp my second Wii on Ebay. I am offering it to someone I work with at cost. If that falls through, I may sell it to the highest bidder!

I will post some more pictures of the kids playing the Wii soon.