March 30, 2010

I know everyone has met my Duke. And I'm pretty sure that I have posted a picture of one of my cats, Pooper. Yes, that's his name. But I'm not sure that I've posted a picture of my middle child, Bubba. This is Bubba, basking in the bay window, enjoying the sunshine of the day. Not a care in the world.

Today, Jon and I both went to the doctor. It was nice, because they could get us both in at the same time, and we actually saw the doctor at the same time, in the same room. Jon has had a bad earache for the last 4 days, and I have had a bad sinus infection and sore throat for the last 4 days. Today, I started to lose my voice. While I'm sure that would make some people happy, it's not fun. We both got a Z-pack and were told to drink plenty of fluids. So, I guess I still have to go to work tomorrow. I'm not incapacitated...

March 29, 2010

For all my city-limit friends, this is not a rare sight. Living out in the county, outside the city limits, surrounded by farms has it's perks. Like copious amounts of wildlife and allergens. My eyes have seen (not to mention my car has almost hit) deer, coyotes, raccoons, turkey, squirrels, and the occasional fox. Who needs a gun and a tree stand?

March 28, 2010

Did you know that on March 28, 1986 over 6000 radio stations simultaneously played the song "We Are the World"?

In non-We Are the World-news:

My picture of the day is actually a video. This is the coolest toy ever! It vaccums itself to the wall and then follows a light that is shined onto the wall.

March 27, 2010

Lt. Jon Kimm Battle of the Badges 2010

Every year there is a charity bowling event held at Chippewa Bowling Alley to raise money for the MDA and the Logan Center. The event is put on by Clay Firefighters, Elkhart Brass and the Michiana Fraternal Order of Leatherheads Society. We bought raffle tickets to win a wheelbarrow of booze, bar signs and t-shirts. We also bought tickets for a 42" LCD TV. We didn't win either.

March 26, 2010

Duke went to the vet today for his annual visit. He got his rabies shot (only needs it every 3 years), Lepto Vacc, Bordetella shot, poo test, heartworm test and his new St. Joe county license. He has an ear infection and got some meds for that too. All in all, $255.35. Not counting the hole he chewed into the leather seat in my car. And I want a new puppy? What am I thinking?

March 25, 2010

Duke was none too interested in watching New Moon with me tonight. I didn't care for the movie, and I think I'm done with the series. I read all the books. The first one was great, but they progressively got worse. (I had to force myselft to finish the fourth and last book. I was already invested, so I had to. And it was a daunting task, 7-hundred-and-some pages.) The movies are kind of following that concept. The acting is horrible, the production value was mediocre, and they don't follow the details of the book too well. Just my humble opinion.

March 24, 2010

Tonight, Lauren was the lead in a play at her school, Mary Frank Elementary. She played the princess in "The Princeless Princess." She did great! Of course, I had to bring some flowers for the lead actress!

March 23, 2010

Tonight we went to Mom and Dad's to celebrate Chris's birthday. Mom made lasagna, and Laura brought some kick ass cheesecake and lemon bars that her mom made. Lauren, Morgan and I played outside for a while. Jay, Jen and Ethan were in attendance as well. Good times.

March 22, 2010

Photography lesson today. Depth of Field or DOF, in the most basic definition, is the part of a picture that is in the sharpest focus. Having a large DOF is like having most, if not all, of a picture in focus. Front to back. Having a shallow or short DOF means that an object is in focus and the foreground and/or background is out of focus. Having a subject, such as a person, up close and in focus and having the background out of focus creates what is called bokeh. (Bokeh is a Japanese term meaning "blur".) As demonstrated in the following picture (taken in March 2008, with my DSLR):


I set out on a quest to explore my options of having a short depth of field with my point-and-shoot Canon camera. This is not a hard task with a DSLR. Just use a wide open aperature, and you can achieve a short depth of field. With a PAS, you don't have manual control. But you can use a Macro setting, which uses a fairly wide aperature. The following picture was taken today with my Canon PAS using the Macro setting and no flash:

Notice the first bottle in focus, but the others blurred? Success.

There is also a technique called custom bokeh that manipulates the shapes of out-of-focus lights in the background. Pretty darn cool looking. I'll save that for a future post.

March 21, 2010

Happy Birthday Chris! 36 means that you are past the half-way point, and officially pushing 40.

Don't you think that camouflage Easter eggs are just cruel?

March 20, 2010

:-(

March 19, 2010

This is what I got to see when I drove to work this morning, a little before 8 am.

March 18, 2010

Today was beautiful! It got up to 66° this afternoon. This evening, Dad and I went to New Buffalo to take sunset pictures on the beach. We got there a little early and had to kill some time, so we went to the Lighthouse Place in Michigan City. I picked up one of those half-circle pizza cutters like you see used in a restaurant. Can't wait to try it out. At the beach, we set up shop at the top of the dune walk. The sky was great, so cooperative, lots of whispy, thin clouds. The best thing ever for taking sunset shots. Otherwise, the sky gets to be pretty boring. I love how the dune walkway is overgrown and covered in sand. It looks so weathered. I love how this particular picture turned out. The lighting is great, the color is great. When I look at it, I feel like I'm there. I will edit more shots this weekend, and surely post them on my Facebook profile.

March 17, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today was another beautiful day, the temperature got above 60° again. Tonight didn't seem too rough at work, but my feet hurt. I had to come home and watch American Idol to see who got voted off, while I washed some work clothes. I'm glad I made it home from work alive. Since today is one of the biggest drinking days of the year. We could hear the band from the tent party happening at Toscana Park all the way over at work.

March 16, 2010

I am working on honing my Black and White photography skills this week. In order to do so, I have to try and look at the world with monochrome vision. The things to look for are contrast, shadows, texture and patterns. All the things that make a great picture other than vibrant color.

March 15, 2010

What is that I see? Buds on the trees? Technically, it's not even spring yet. This poses one problem for me. I think it might confuse my lilies. Last year, my lilies didn't come up at all. No stems, no flowers. Nothing. I couldn't see that they had been damaged or that an animal had dug up all my bulbs. So I assumed that it was a freak weather thing. So this year, I imagine that the warmer it gets, they might try to emerge, and then if we get a cold snap, they'll die again before I even see them. Only time will tell.

March 14, 2010

Today we had a great Sunday brunch at Granite City. In attendance: Mom, Dad, Laura, Chris, Jen, Jay, Ethan, Greg, Julie, Chloe, Jon and me. Our waitress was a former team member named Gina, and she was great. She didn't charge anyone for the kids. Ethan would have been free anyway, but Chloe's meal would have been a kid's charge. But she didn't charge for their drinks either. So a shout out to Granite City and Gina! Great job! My mom got a mimosa and it came with her own bottle of champagne. How cool is that?

March 13, 2010

Today was a rainy day. Not too much to report on today. I made a late breakfast for Jon and me. I made scrambled eggs, ground sausage and hash browns. Then rolled them all up with some cheese in a french loaf and baked it in the oven. While I was making breakfast, my mom and I kept texting back and forth about how she was watching some dude getting tasered by cops in the Meijer parking lot. I told her to take a couple pictures and she did. I get to see them tomorrow. After Jon and I took a late afternoon nap, we drove to the south side of town. We picked up some wicked gourmet popcorn from Pop Style. If you haven't tried it, you must very soon. They have over 60 flavors and they will let you try every one before you buy it if you want. Pictured from left to right, bacon cheeseburger pizza (Jon's concoction), a fruit mixture, and caramel apple. We came home and decided to watch movies. We tried to watch 3:10 to Yuma, with Christain Bale and Russell Crowe. It was kind of boring, so we stopped. So then we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was pretty funny. And of course, there is full frontal male nudity. Always a plus.

March 12, 2010

Wii!!

Jon and I went to Jake and Jen's tonight for pizza, beer and Wii! We picked up some Little Ceasar's on the way there. Home of the $5-already-made-pizza. We brought some beer over and I made a homemade Black and Tan. Pretty darn good. We played Beatles RockBand on the Wii and then Phase 10 after Sammy went to bed. She's getting so big. She had quite a few meaningful conversations on Jen's phone. It was a fun time, we must do it more often.

March 11, 2010

We got this letter in the mail today. Upon initial perusal of the envelope, I thought it was our Census form. Nope, just a letter informing us that we will be getting a Census form. I wonder how much money was spent sending these letters out.

FYI, the word 'perusal' is not in Blogger.com's spell check dictionary. It is a word. I just looked it up in my Webster's. I keep a dictionary at the computer desk, and I use it often. Anyone else? Whenever I blog or write emails or comment on news stories online, I read and re-read what I've written several times before hitting the 'send' button. Maybe it's the OCD in me, or the Type-A personality. But everything must make sense and be spelled correctly. However, on that note, I love to use words that other people have misspelled as regular words. For instance, I tend to use the word 'confussed' instead of 'confused' because of one of Jay's posts. (Don't get mad at me Jay.)

March 10, 2010

Ever heard of a BSOD? Blue Screen Of Death? This is a rare Black Screen Of Death found at work today. No change in initials needed.

March 9, 2010

Rain is better than snow.

March 8, 2010

Oh, spring is almost here!

It got up to 60° today!! This one little purple leaf maple in our yard has 3 lonely dried out leaves hanging on for dear life. I can't wait for the buds to start sprouting. Then I know spring is really on it's way. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, I know there will be a late snow. There always is. But a girl can dream, right?

Tonight I went out to dinner with my parents to Beef O'Brady's. They paid, which was a nice surprise. Afterwards, I went to their house to help my dad run some cable through the ceiling and into their office in the basement. They are getting comcast internet tomorrow.

I am currently trying to talk Jon into letting us get another dog. I fell in love with a puppy at Petsmart last night. PetsConnect was having their adoption days event there and they had the cutest beagle/jack russell mix puppy. So cute. All white, except spotted ears and a black patch on his eye. His name is Apache. Today deserves two pictures. The puppy picture was taken yesterday, but is so adorable, I had to put it up today.

March 7, 2010

My husband is so smart. I told him that I was having difficulties coming up with interesting things to take pictures of and he suggested that I come up with a weekly theme. This week, I'm going to try to focus on the emergence of spring! This bird decided it was time for his after winter bath. And what better place than the melted snow that has collected on the hot tub cover.

Any suggestions for future themes?

March 6, 2010

It's so warm out today! The snow is starting to melt. Melt into wet slush. Duke and I went out to play today and I think he is confused by it. He was laying down and rolling back and forth just like he does in his pool in the summertime. He's so excited that he's starting to find all his toys again that were burried all winter long.

March 5, 2010

Tonight was not so bad at work. I actually got done with my zone at 9:45. I think the reason is that I didn't have to give TSC or Electronics a lunch. What a difference an extra hour makes. The gang is always so happy when it's time to leave. The boys get on their phones, but Mel busts a move. Smiles all around!

March 4, 2010

It's here! Actually it arrived yesterday, but after I already left for work. Isn't she cute? Smaller than a deck of cards. I'll need to name her. Any suggestions?

March 3, 2010

So today is my first real day back at work. I was back on Monday, but only sat and wrote reviews all day. Then I was off on Tuesday. So, this is what I found on my desk when I came in on Wednesday. Now, mind you, the black tray (what I call my mailbox) has ample room in it for about a ream's worth more of papers. Yet, all the things put in my mailbox seem to have creeped out onto my desk to either A) escape or B) fight amongst themselves over who is more important and in need of my attention first. I mean, really? Is that someone's way of telling me, "Hey, you have a lot of things to take care of. Just look at your mailbox, it's full! Better get to it!"

March 2, 2010

After my vacation and my one day of work yesterday, I am off again today. Jon and I went over to Chris and Laura's to hang for a bit. Laura and Lauren were playing Super Mario Bros. for Wii while Morgan watched and ate her peanut butter sandwich. (Aren't Lauren's new glasses super cute?)

I am getting my new camera tomorrow. So excited. More to come on that tomorrow...

March 1, 2010

Today was my first day back at work after vacation. And I got to kind of ease back into it. I was scheduled to sit at a computer all day and write reviews. I wrote my review and 7 of my team members. And my bestie, Julie was writing hers too. After I was done, I got to run a register for the last half hour of my shift. Always fun. Above is Mary D. doing her time on the register. See the smile on her face? See how much we love it! Which leads me to pose an unanswerable question... Why is Mary D. always Mary D? She's the only Mary. And I'm the only Kelly, but I'm always Kelly K. Now there are a couple Nicks. A few more Julies. And a whole lot of Carries. (All spelled differently.) But just one me. Odd.