Photo 365 Project - Rainy Commute

Diffley Road made an appearance in the Photo 365 project on a sunny day, here's a rainy day comparison shot.

Photo 365 Project - Sigg Explosion

Sigg metal water bottles come with a warning that says not to freeze them. Someone who shall remain nameless (not me) ignored the warning, and this is the result.

Photo 365 Project - Cat Nap

This is the cat I almost lost. Although, that might not be the right term; she wasn't lost, I just didn't know where she was. She probably didn't care. My wife disagrees with the cat on that point. I was grilling a burger, my wife was out shopping- instantly you see I had no plausible deniability. The cat, being a sly beast in spite of her cow-ish running style while on a hardwood floor, used her invisibility cloak to scamper onto the deck while I was distracted by my quarter pounder with cheese work in progress.

Hours later, I notice the furry little beggar hasn't stopped by to demand the attention normally lavished on a queen of her stature. Thus began the search. It was dark outside, and she wasn't to be found anywhere inside. After much flash-light shining and kissy-noise making (does that ever work?) I noticed a dark apparition sprinting up the stairs to the deck where I stood pondering the darkness and how much trouble I was in for not noticing the cat's departure sooner (sooner as in, seconds after she left the deck). The apprarition drew closer, moving very cat like and now clearly fur covered, but appeared to be gray. I thought for a moment the wrong wandering cat had returned home and my wife was not going to accept this as a substitute.

Alas, it was a trick of the light (I mentioned it was dark out?) and the returning cat turned out to be the one who had covertly egressed earlier. I welcomed her back in the house, announced to the wife that I had found her (some liberty with the facts, perhaps).

And the cat laid down for a nap.

Truth in posting statement: All the above is true. The events however took place on the day after I took this picture, which was the day before I wrote this post. Isn't space-time a grand construct?

Photo 365 Project - Fallout 3

I was given Fallout 3 as a gift at Christmas last year and haven't been gaming much all year long. I'm digging back in now and finding it to be excellent. Its a bit like reading a novel, except there is a lot more work involved in extracting the story. This is a huge game, I've read reviews that rate it at about 300 hours (not sure if that is straight through or including some number of the side-quests available (optional activities, story lines, and subplots that don't directly advance you towards the end of the game but still provide experience, rewards, and entertainment).

I'm playing on an XBox 360. The controller shown has an optional keyboard attached, great for messaging but doesn't get used in this game- it just looks cool with the back light turned on so I thought I'd include it in the photo.

Photo 365 Project - Missed Day (7/17)

It finally happened. I forgot to take a picture. Now the question becomes; does the Photo 365 project continue until 365 photos or taken, or just ends when day 365 is hit regardless of the number of days missed?

I'm thinking the later. An occasional missed picture doesn't significantly degrade the idea of visually capturing daily life.

Photo 365 Project - Little Ceasars

One of the ideas I had for carrying out this "Photo a day" concept was to snap of picture of things that jumped out at me. This photo is an example of that. Lately I've been driving by this Little Caesar's on my way to work. The little dude on the side of the building jumped out at me, so I took a picture as a backup in case I didn't get anything else during the day.

Photo 365 Project - Cat Sabotages Robot

This is the dock where the robot vacuum goes to recharge after it gets done vacuuming the house. The rolled up pad in front of the dock, clearly blocking the way, is property of the cat (its a scratching pad for exercising her claws- and taking out agresssion). Apparently she decided to try a different form of aggression-relief by sabotaging the robot's attempts to return to its dock.

The robot was found not far away, resting with a dead battery. Its programming tells it to continue to vacuum and reattempt docking from a different angle until all energy is consumed.

Photo 365 Project - Summer Wild Grass

Another backup picture. The view is clear in the summer here, outside a coffee shop where I stop in the morning. Just some wild grass plantings to break up the field of green. In about 5 months, this parking lot will be buried in snow and snowbanks will cover the little median where the grass blows in the breeze today. Maybe I'll grab a comparison photo then.

Photo 365 Project - Painting Water Tower

Painting a water tower is a big job. The sandblasting and paint application process in this modern age of eco-protection includes draping the tower in fabric sheets to prevent the sandblasting residue (and new paint too) from drifting over the neighborhood.

It also makes the tower look a bit like something Pink Floyd would have used on an album cover.

Photo 365 Project - Church Key

Another last minute jump out of bed and take a picture photo. This one is the best prize so far in the Old Chicago World Beer Tour. Prizes are given at various numbers of beers on the way to 110 (a complete tour). This was the prize at completing 40 beers (over the course of months, not in a single day!).

Photo 365 Project - Bunny

Just a little bunny foo-foo, hoping along to see-you (more likely 'evade you'). He's small and blending into the background quite well.

Photo 365 Project - New Belgium

The New Belgium Tour de Fat was in town today. More in honor of the use of the phrase "Beligum!" in lieu of expletive in DNA books, I give you a New Belgium Beer sign hanging in our local "B-Dubs" (slang for Buffalo Wild Wings).

Photo 365 Project - 48 Minutes

A near miss. I was falling asleep and realized I hadn't taken a photo. Having already resorted to posting a picture of my Kindle when a similar thing happened a couple weeks ago, I decided this was as good as any. Consider it a placeholder for a missed shot...by 48 minutes.

Photo 365 Project - Ditch Flowers

The little yellow weeds are in bloom. Another backup photo taken while on the way to work "Just in case" I didn't get anything better later in the day.

Photo 365 Project - Still Pond

An hour or so before this picture was taken a young buck and doe were tearing through our neighborhood. The buck launched himself into the air to clear a small berm of dirt and fence leading into the abandoned golf course (Carriage Hills, soon to be Stone Haven) I mentioned in a previous post. It seems the construction is stirring up the animals. Of course all I could think as I watched the buck and doe skitter across the road was "there is no way I can get my camera out to catch this", and I was right. The picture I did get was of a dark cluster of trees and shrubs that the doe, much more dainty in her approach to the golf course, had just disappeared into.

So, awesome photo op blown, I settled for a still pond photo. As I was taking this it occurred to me that one thing these "photo a day" pictures will give me are examples of how a picture could be improved. This one needs a bit of work, but it does capture the honest truth of what a pond looks like on a hot hazy day as the sun goes down behind some clouds. No crystal clear water, the pond plant life is teaming this time of year. No serene background that goes on for miles, this pond is nestled in a suburb of 60,000 people. No white sandy beach, that is real brown sand and clay, with some broken branches from the last storm laying in the foreground.

Still, a nice pond.

Photo 365 Project - Best Buy Sign

This is a picture that just didn't turn out. The Best Buy store in our town is a pretty new one. The exterior design includes a rakish point in deep blue shooting up into the sky adding some color and flair to an otherwise squarish "big box" brown brick building. The yellow Best Buy tag logo, set at an angle is positioned jauntily on the field of blue.

Sounds great, but the picture was snapped as I was trotting into the store, too close to take it all in and with the sunset glinting off my phone it was hard to see what I got. Maybe a re-do is in order.

Photo 365 Project - Sweat Test

I remember when I had to ride my bike up hill, both ways, to school in the snow. We had it rough then... Probably heard that one before. This wasn't up hill both ways, it wasn't in the snow either. It was on a bike. And it was 80% humidity. And it was a sweat test. It was also a last minute "oh, crap, I haven't taken a picture yet today and by the time I get back from this bike ride it will be dark!"

Photo 365 Project - Witch Wisdom

I know, the fourth of July and no patriotic picture. I was walking through a parking lot and took this picture as a back up, just in case I didn't get anything else. Obviously it was a good idea, since the backup picture made it. I left the place where this was taken and forgot to get the 'other' picture I was planning. Maybe that one will get taken on another day. For now, some advice regarding witches.

Photo 365 Project - Canterbury Paddock

It was a hot and hazy day, that shows a bit in this picture (the streaks of sunlight are streaming through the humidity). This is the paddock at Canterbury Downs, celebrating their 25th anniversary with free admission. Horse racing is a seasonal thing here, with the season going from sometime in May to sometime in August.

Photo 365 Project - Fireworks Stand

When I was a kid fireworks were illegal. At the time I thought they were illegal everywhere in Minnesota, but I was a kid, what did I know? Today there are a few varieties that are legal in the town I live in, but only for a short time; so tents like this pop up shortly before the fourth of July. The fireworks they sell are silly things, mostly smoke and not much spark or bang, and certainly no flying (that's a big no-no, presumably because of the concern over launching something onto a neighbors roof and starting it on fire).

Photo 365 Project - Cable Hackers

It may not look like much, but this truck and the worker inside are connecting up my office to a fiber optic Internet connection. More bandwidth please!

Photo 365 Project - Eagan Farmer's Market

The first day of the weekly farmer's market has arrived! Every Wednesday through the summer vendors set up tents and tables to form a Farmer's Market for a few hours.

Photo 365 Project - Buffalo Wild Wings

A nice place to hang out. Buffalo Wild Wings is in an area called The Promenade, a collection of shops that includes a few that have made it into the Photo 365 Project (Panera and Panda Express most recently).

Photo 365 Project - US Flag

A quick stop for gas on a sunny day with a little wind and the flag caught my eye. Independence day is coming up soon here in the states, so flag- consider yourself posted.

Photo 365 Project - MN Canoe

This was dinner. It is called a Minnesota Canoe; a flank steak wrapped around mushrooms, onions and swiss.

Photo 365 Project - Carriage Hills

It doesn't look like a six year court battle, but it is (or was). The lawyers have all gone home, now the bulldozers take over. This chunk of land was a golf course called Carriage Hills and will soon be transformed into a housing development called Stone Haven. I may catch more pictures here as things develop.

Photo 365 Project - Stormy Panera

Shortly after the latest storm blew through we stopped by a food place near Panera. I noticed the outside seating at Panera had gotten caught up in the wind, and am getting a little better at catching these moments with my camera. When we left the area a little while later the tables and chairs had been cleaned up.

Photo 365 Project - Lawn Mowing

About 1/3 of an acre to go...

Photo 365 Project - Panda Express

A new restaurant in town.

Photo 365 Project - Robo Stash

The Robotics team got kicked out of their storage room. Who knew building robots could generate such a mound of...treasure?

Photo 365 Project - Impaired Pedestrian

I've never seen a vision impaired pedestrian in this area, and I suspect they haven't seen me either (groan).

Alternate caption: Nary a bar in sight, not sure what this is about.

Photo 365 Project - Leaning Lamp

Another desparation photo. The day was slipping away with no photo logged. My iPhone doesn't deal well with photos having a dark foreground/light background (not good for most cameras, the iPhone doubly so). Regardless this leaning lamp caught my eye as I walked up to a bookstore.

Photo 365 Project - Pizza Oven

A coworker decided to build a dry-fit pizza oven. Dry-fit means it isn't permanent, just a proof-of-concept that will be used for about a year then replaced with a more durable design. In the meantime, pizza, pastries, breads and perhaps roasts will get their turn inside the wood fired oven.

Photo 365 Project - Road Stripping

The long running joke here (and probably everywhere else with similar climate) is "We have two seasons, winter and road construction".

I snapped this after grabbing coffee on the way to work. I'm amazed at how quickly these machines can strip an asphalt road. The ground up bits are taken to a local company called Bituminous Roadways where the asphalt is recycled into new asphalt.

Photo 365 Project - Something Wicked This Way Came

It's tornado season in the Midwest, but usually they don't all come at once. Before today, the most tornadoes confirmed in Minnesota in a single day was 26, that was in 1992. Normally, there are less than that in an entire year. On this day, that record is expected to be broken as dozens of tornadoes sprouted from a line of storms that raced from southwest Minnesota and off to the northeast and into Wisconsin.

It was getting late in the day and the sun had been hidden behind clouds since about 4 in the afternoon. It was storm building weather with a cool morning, lots of heat building during the day (what we call 'adding energy' to the atmosphere). If the sun gets down soon enough this stuff will dissipate, but these are the longest days of the year in this part of the country with over 15 hours of sunlight. There were storm warnings with dire predictions of hail and wicked weather so I ran some quick errands then tucked my car in the garage and waited for the drama. After much wind and gloominess, the light outside turned a very green (seriously, when the sunlight turns green nothing good comes from it) an hour later it shifted to an odd yellow color. I grabbed the camera and went out hoping to capture the odd color. Epic fail, the camera seems to have 'corrected' the color.

This storm continued to the northwest through the Twin Cities and ended up killing three people. An older couple fled their farmhouse and hunkered down in a ditch, only to get hit by some debris; the elderly gentleman was wounded and his wife was killed. In northwestern Minnesota a 58 year old man (on his birthday none-the-less) checked in at the convenience store where his daughter was working; he also worked there but was off that evening. A tornado whipped into town and the man covered his daughter as they ducked into the corner and the tornado hit the store. He was killed but his daughter survived. Also in north western Minnesota a woman was killed, details are sketchy as places hardest hit are cleaning up.

Photo 365 Project - Planted Field

This field has been left fallow for the last couple years. This year some cars showed up and people stood around looking very serious for a while. Later the field was plowed. Then more cars showed up. Then plants started to grow.

They've done a very good job creating these little plots of various plants. The current theory is the field workers leased the field and plan to sell the produce at a farmer's market later in the year.

Photo 365 Project - Kindle

This is what happens when you forget to take a picture of the day. I was lying in bed reading a book, dozing off, when it occurred to me I had no photo! I berrated myself for a while, considered taking a picture of the ceiling of my bedroom, then decided the kindle in front of me was a better candidate. I spend a fair amount of time looking at this kindle, might as well memorialize it in a photo.

Photo 365 Project - Gas Pump

A little pic for our friends overseas. A truely american gas pump. Note the color television at the top (it starts a little newscast, weather report, and advertisement when the pump is activated), the digital display and pay-at-the-pump card slot (these particular pumps are open 24 hours, the gas station/convenience store closes, but people can still drive up and buy gas).

Not very photo worthy? Consider the oddity of it. Gas stations claim they make very little money on gas, the real profit is in the store. The gas is a "loss leader" that gets people to the store. Yet the gas stations provide these monoliths and make it very easy to bypass the store.

Photo 365 Project - Mushroom Lawn

Along with many days of rain comes mushrooms. These little guys pop up fast and in quantity. Fresh ones appear daily as the rain continues, and often in clumps like this.

Photo 365 Project - Bike Wash

It's been raining for several days here. When a break appeared and some errands needed to be done, I took my bike for a wash, I mean ride. Minutes after I got home (and snapped this picture for the Photo 365 project) the light rain turned into a down pour.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto Face

Wanna get your camera licked? Stick it in the face of a black lab. They'll eat (or at least tongue swipe) anything. Note: Dog slime is not a cleaning fluid, quite the opposite.

Photo 365 Project - Half Tree

Walking the dog in my neighboorhood I'm always struck by this sight. It's like the roadway has projected itself up and sliced off half of the tree. Everywhere else in the neighborhood the trees flow over the roadway, so odd tree-consider yourself photographed!

Photo 365 Project - Wednesday Comics

I didn't become aware of the concept of "Wednesday Comics" until last year, so I suspect it is worth a couple words worth of description.

On Wednesday's, new comics are put up for sale at comic book retailers across the country. As a matter of fact, last year a limited series called 'Wednesday Comics' was produced, the title acknowledging this weekly phenomena. At about the same time, my wife and I started taking Wednesday nights as a time to go out on 'date night'. The two became linked for a while and we made a regular run to the local comic book store.

We're not huge comic book collectors, but the people and atmosphere appeal to our casual taste. Wednesday trips to the comics store have since become a less regular stop for us, but this week we went and I thought I'd take a snapshot of the day.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto's Window Shopping

I planned better than the previous day for this picture. The idea was to take Ditto to the pet store with me to do some shopping for cat litter and food. While there I'd get a picture of the dog picking out cat food or litter. I had a nagging thought "how exactly am I going to frame a photo with a dog in the picture, while holding said dog's leash AND a camera, AND somehow capture the fact that this dog is in a store?"

Details be damned, just taking the dog shopping for cat supplies had enough going for it to make this plan worth executing.

The attempts at pictures with the dog sniffing at the cat litter, "making her selection" didn't turn out very well. The cat food was on too high of a shelf for the dog to really get involved (yes, there was other cat food on a low shelf, but there has to be some integrity in these photos and this one was already slipping into 'staged' territory).

Finally, the birds caught my eye. To be honest, and in the interest of full disclosure, Ditto didn't really care about the birds. She's not much of a shopper either, she was actually eying the exit as this photo was snapped.

Photo 365 Project - Sunset Clouds

The light of another day almost slipped away without getting captured on camera. This required a quick run out to the deck and a snapshot with a Nikon 3000s, something capable of dealing with the low light better than the iPhone that has taken most of the Photo 365 project pictures you see on this blog. That also introduced an unexpected delay in posting.

With the iPhone I can e-mail the photos to wherever I need them then post the pictures here. With the Nikon I have to find the sync cable, connect the camera to a computer, and upload the pictures. The sync cable was an issue in this case; I had tucked it away in a non-standard place, resulting in the aforementioned 'delay' as I hunted for it.

Problem solved, cable found, picture posted.

Photo 365 Project - Grand Old Day

Each year on the first Sunday in June, A long section of Grand Avenue in St. Paul is blocked off, vendors set up food, drink, and random merchandise carts, and a few thousand people wander up and down the road. After a cold winter, this is serious entertainment.

Photo 365 Project - Calypso Drink

The sunlight was fading and I realized I hadn't taken a picture for the day yet. So this is what a lack of prior planning will get you. This drink caught my eye in the cooler at the gas station when I stopped for some cash (yes, I went to a gas station and didn't buy gas; I got a crazy looking drink and some money instead).

Photo 365 Project - BuzzTime Trivia

A trip to Buffalo Wild Wings yielded today's picture of the day. Again, not exactly expert photography, just a snapshot to show something that I saw or did that day.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto in the Yard

Ah, summer. And lawn mowing. Ditto seems to approve of the cut grass, it seems to make it easier for her to pick up tennis balls. She's an 85 pound 3 year old black lab, mixed with an unknown donor.

Ditto came to us from an animal rescue organization. She and her siblings, along with her mom, had been dumped in a ditch; we were told they were found when the puppies were about four days old. How do they know how old she was you ask? I did too. It seems puppies senses develop at a pretty consistent rate, and based on their development the vet hazard a guess at a number less than a week old. Puppies are born without a sense of smell, sight, or hearing (they do have a sense of touch and taste, smell and vision coming in at about 2 weeks for many breeds). Since she was 'rescued' before those other senses developed, we like to think she avoided detecting the oddness associated with such a rough entry into the world.

Regardless, we thought we could do better than a ditch, and gave her a home. Now she lives the sissified suburban life, with a (nicely mowed) lawn to play in and family to amuse her.

Photo 365 Project - Diffley Road

After the previous day's near failure to grab a picture and then resorting to a picture of grout work, I figured I'd take an "emergency backup picture" early in the day. The rest of the day came and went and the backup picture has been pressed into service. This was taken on my commute to work. Rather than the usual highway views found on a city commute, this section is rolling hills and a nice view with everything green. I've biked up and down these hills, not nearly as serene as cruising through in a car while sipping a mocha.

Photo 365 Project - Grout Repair

I almost went the whole day without taking a picture. I had spent the day at work and the evening at home scraping grout for a 'quick' repair job at the house. Not very photogenic stuff, but that's life. Some days the pictures are pretty plain when doing the routine things that keep a household going.