the anarchist @ home

EMC Information Calendar

0.012: total eclipse of the moon

Here's a composite I made of the Lunar eclipse on February 20, 2008 (EST).

All individual images taken with my Canon 40D, using 100-400L zoom with a 1.4x multiplier (effective zoom 864mm), ISO 200, f/8-f/10. Color adjusted in LightRoom, cropped and layered in PhotoShop CS3.

0.011: facebook on your blackberry

That's right, you can now get facebook on your web-enabled BlackBerry.

'Nuff said.

0.010: cape may christmas

My wife Paula and I spent the first week of December in Olde Victorian Cape May, NJ. We were down on the Jersey Shore participating in a "Victorian Christmas / Charles Dickens Extravaganza" program provided by Paula's employer Elderhostel and coordinated by the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts.

If you don't know, Elderhostel provides educational travel experiences for folks over 55. Paula & I got to go even though we didn't meet the age requirement because her employer makes most of their portfolio open to employees, and encourages them to take advantage of the program experience as often as possible. Pretty neat benny, even if we were the youngest in the group of 47 participants.

Anyway, we spent the week learning about the Victorian Era, Victorian architecture, the history of Cape May, and of course Charles Dickens and good ole' Scrooge. The program was really well put together, and we all had a great time learning from the instructors, volunteers and period characters that presented to us over the 4 1/2-day program.

Paula and I also found a lot of time to get about the town and see the sights, usually with my new camera in tow. In fact, I took over 700 shots of the houses all dolled up for Christmas, the lighthouse and surrounding wildlife, and the Cape May Show House. In the middle of the week, we got an unexpected (and rare) snow storm, which provided a particularly special opportunity for photos - the snow providing that natural icing over everything that adds that special something to Christmas photos.

I've collected some of the best captures of the week into a photo album (click on the picture below to see it)

These were all shot using my new 10-megapixel Canon 40D with a variety of lenses, and then cataloged and processed using Adobe Lightroom 1.3 and Photoshop CS3. The slide show itself is also created in Lightroom (using the customized Flash module), and I'm hosting it on my chezburke.com site. I'm moving most of my photos off of Google's Picasaweb, so if you'd like reprints of any of these, drop me a line and we can work out the arrangements.

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And in the inimitable words of Tiny Tim:

God bless us, every one!

0.009: abby & jeff's wedding photos

Well, I finally got all of my photos from Abby & Jeff's wedding loaded, cropped and color adjusted in Adobe Lightroom. Just click the photo to see the slide show (opens in another window).

Abby & Jeff's Wedding
 

The slide show uses SlideShowPro for Lightroom 1.1 Beta, so I apologize if you have any problems.

0.008: pix from my new canon eos 40d

I ordered a new Canon EOS40D from Amazon back at the end of August. At the time I was given a ship date of Sept. 24th but I was pleasantly surprised by an email from Amazon on the day after Labor Day that my camera body would be arriving that week. As many of you know, there were tons of things going on that week, but I've been able to make time since then to take over 1,000 pix with the new camera since then.

I love it.

Here's an album of some of my favorites that I'm using as wallpaper on my laptop.

Enjoy!

0.007: abby & jeff's jack & jill

(I know - the title isn't symmetrical - what can I say?)

Here's a collection of photos I took at Abby & Jeff's shower, using my new 40D. It was the first real photo shoot day, and I was the photographer and  the DJ for the day.

We set up everything outside at Wallace's Grove (on Silver Lake in Hollis, NH) because it was just so dang hot (in the high 90's at midday).

The afternoon started out great, with around 100 people arriving to socialize, listen to music, and drink. Unfortunately Matt's beer tap failed us, so we had to make do with cans of Bud Light until one of the guests ran over to a buddy's house for another tap.

Then the thunderclouds moved in, and it was pretty ominous. We hastened up the lobster dinner a bit, stuffed all the electronics inside the hall, and scarfed down the lobsters - all just before the skies opened up and the whole place was encompassed in a deluge.

Inside, while it poured, we had desert, the traditional Greek Metaxa toast, and then the guests of honor opened their booty, er...gifts. And man was it hot and HUMID inside - but that didn't stop this crowd from dancin'.

Thanks to all that showed up and for dealing with the rains. A good time was had by all, and I'm sure we'll have even MORE fun at the wedding in October. See you all there!

0.006: f1 racing

The guys took Jeff out for an afternoon of go-cart racing at F1 Boston on September 1st, followed by an incredible dinner at Legal Seafood's Test Kitchen. Here are some of the pictures I took there (using my old Canon EOS Digital Rebel 300D - 6 megapixel).

We did a grand-prix style challenge, with 3 10-lap qualifying races, followed by a 20 lap winner-take-all race. I was pretty pooped by the 40th lap of the day, and since I was dragging home the end of the pack (and getting the blue-with-yellow-stripe flag just about every time I passed the marshall), I pulled off and snapped the final few laps.

For the record, Chris took first place (leveraging all those police-academy driving skills).

And I was dead last.

0.005: farewell, unc

In the wee hours of the morning on Friday, August 31, 2007, the world lost one of its most special inhabitants.

Clare B. "Bud" Howard
December 22, 1924 -- August 31, 2007

Clare B. Howard was known to most of those that knew him as "Bud," but everyone in the family just called him "Unc." Not "Uncle Bud," because the specificity was unnecessary. He was just "Unc" - the one and only.

He will be missed by everyone who knew him, and the hole he left behind in this world will never, ever be filled. His impact was simply that significant.

I won't eulogize Unc here, though...that's already been done. Instead, this blog entry will serve as the collection of his memory:

• His obituary, and the guest book, on the Lowell Sun web site
• The photo album we created

If you'd like to add something, send it to me. And feel free to leave a comment below. Although Unc never had a PC, I'm sure he'll figure out how to read this. He was an engineer, after all...

And finally, his daughter (my wife) presented the following eulogy at his Mercy Meal, and I feel it simply must be shared with everyone who knew Unc.

0.004: Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.