I’ve been running a blog for most of the past several years.  In its previous incarnation, I think I published somewhere over 1200 articles.  Some were good.  Some were bad.  Over that time, I built up a fairly predictable little collection of readers.  Mostly close friends and family.  Very much so the definition of a vanity site.

After a while, I fell out of love with blogging.  My heart just wasn’t in it anymore.  I experienced guilt for not posting.  (Those of you know know me well know that that really isn’t all that surprising.  I feel guilty over most things.  It’s part of who I am.)  In any case, I hated feeling like I had to post something.  I hated feeling guilty for not posting anything.

So one day I decided to let my site lie fallow.  And that lasted for maybe six months or more.  I just didn’t post.  I didn’t do anything on the site.   I just kind of walked away.  I even debated cancelling the package and giving up the collection of domains that I’ve acquired.

Of course, then I got the new camera, and I used it as an excuse to start writing again.  And here we are.

I think I’ve got somewhere around 30 posts or so under my belt.  A mere trifiling, but they’re there.  About once a day I’d log onto Statcounter and see if I was getting any traffic.  Where before I’d see maybe 30 unique visitors a day, I dropped down to maybe 6 to 7.  At least one of those was me making sure that everything looked right.

Then today I finally read a few documents, put two and two together on 1&1’s website, and figured out how to enable cross-posting to things like facebook and twitter.  I’d never been all that active on either site.   Mostly people from High School or College would find me and ask for a friend request and that’d be that.  I just got on these services because “that’s what everyone else was doing.”  And yes, if jumping off a bridge was considered the slick and cool and modern thing to do, I’d probably be flapping my arms after the lot of you.

In any case, I enabled my site to notify these other sites that I’ve posted something.

As you can see from the graph, it generated a bit of interest.  Apparently people are curious.  Or bored.   Probably a bit of both and neither.

So…hi there.  Welcome to my site.  Please take off your shoes before you get onto the carpet.  Punch and pie are in the kitchen.  Don’t wake the baby.

From Digital Photography School’s Weekly Assignment:

This is a very boring post. I’m just testing to see that the new version of PHP works and that all my stuff is still enabled.

So this morning I thought to myself “Crap, I forgot to post last night.”

I had even taken more pictures and everything.   How disappointing.  So I decided to pop up a quick post with one of the pictures taken and move on from there.

Out of curiousity, I decided to look at how many pictures I had actually taken since I got my camera…what?  Two months ago?  Something like that.

On my hard drive, I have just under 1800 pictures taken.

Given the number I toss after taking them off the camera, that puts me somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 pictures taken.  (My camera is stamping images with sequence numbers in the low 1300’s at this point, but that’s only because I didn’t figure out how to keep the image sequencing between offloads until a few weeks into the effort).

I’m having fun with this.

A few years back, the arrival of a package at my doorstep or in my campus mailbox would have meant that I just got my latest shipment of books.  Or maybe some graphic novels.  Or more than likely, a DVD complilation that I had to have and could not live without.  Unless of course it was electronics.

There’s a moment of excitement that exists in between the discovery of the package and the revelation of its contents.  For some people it’s the uncertainty that drives the excitement.  The package represents potential.  The potential of a dream realized, a wish fulfilled, yet which wish?  Which dream?   And how could it possibly fit in such a small envelope?

For me the moment is a little different.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, I know exactly what’s in the package.   I was the one who tracked down the item, weighed and measured its worth against the amount of money in  my wallet, against the other things that I want.  I found it worthy.  I placed the order.  I tracked its movement from warehouse to doorstep.  And finally here it is.  Still a wish.  Still a dream.  But one whose dimensions have been measured with exacting precision.

In this particular case, my shopping habits deviated from their norm.  This was no DVD or book or electronic gizmo.  This was a Tamrac MX5383 M.A.S. Flash Accessory Pocket.  A little cloth pocket that attached to my existing camera bag to hold the flash I had bought along with my camera.

Still, I was nearly giddy with excitement as  I took it out of the box.   I don’t know if i’m turning this camera into my new hobby or if I was just that sick of trying to find a place in my luggage to hold the flash such that I didn’t forget where it was later, but I was genuinely excited to have this little tiny accessory.  It’s literally just a glorified pocket.  But still….giddy.

I guess we all have to grow up sometime or another.

Micah’s been a bit of a blur of movement today.

Unless I had her sitting in a chair shoving food in her face, most of the pictures ended up looking like this one.

Actually it’s gotten me thinking about The Next Lens.  Up until now, I’d been thinking that my next savings goal would be for a lens similar to the one my brother in law primarily uses.  For the maximum amount of flexibility, he uses a Nikon 18-200 mm lens.  Its enhanced range of pictures gives you the ability to get both the close up and wide angle shots, all in one lens.  The downside is that it costs as much as my camera just by its lonesome.

I was reading an article today at Digital Photography School talking about comparing Prime Lenses to Zoom Lenses.  In talking about the Prime Lenses, you get better quality lenses for a much smaller amount of money.  On the other hand, you lose your ability to zoom.  The lens is fixed at a given focal length, requiring the photographer to move toward or away from the subject to get the shot.  On the other other hand, they’re actually a faster lens.  Plus…they’re cheaper.  But there’s more to carry.

I dunno.  I’m just thinking out loud here.

Last night I slept on the floor.

And it was the second night in a row.

And no, it wasn’t becuase I put my foot in my mouth in an extremely grandious and AM-infuriating way.

My daughter’s sleep has been troubled these last few days.  And we’ve been troubled because of it.  My daughter is currently in her DLG phase (Daddy’s Little Girl), so nothing and no one seems to settle her completely as I do, much to the regret of my back.

The wierdest part came last night, when she wouldn’t sleep in the crib, pitched a royal fit when I tried to put her in bed with us, and finally only settled down when she was allowed to snuggle with me under my blanket on the floor of her room.

Where she slept until 8:30 AM this morning.

We’ve got an odd kid.

From Digital Photography Schools weekly assignment:

Techinally this shot doesn’t have any jumping in it.  I “borrowed” our firends’ son for this picture precisely due to the problem illustrated in this picture:  my daughter doesn’t really know how to jump.  She throws her hands in the air and yells “Jump!  jump!”  but doesn’t clear the ground.

The funny part is that I actually did get several good shots of our friends’ son mid-air.  But I like this one better.  He’s poised to jump and she’s…she’s trying.

[Warning!  This post contains content that some people might find icky.  If you've got a weak stomach, don't read.  Seriously]

Still reading?  Good.

I was absolutely going to post yesterday.  I snapped a few pictures, I had a few thoughts composed.   All I wanted to do was to watch an episode of my show and then take care of everything around 9-9:30 last night.

Sometimes we don’t get to do the things that we want to do.

Around 8:30 or so, while I was watching TV.  I heard an odd coughing coming over the monitor, followed by crying.

Coughing isn’t all that unusual.  And I’ve heard worse crying coming from my daughter.   I don’t know if it was the combination of the two, or the pitch and substance of the crying, but I suddenly found myself running from the tv room up the stairs to to my child.

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