Talk to me!

I have a guestbook in my photo galleries, and a guestbook in each of my biking and hiking journals, but I haven't had one for my blog. I could turn on the comments feature, but then comments would be scattered through the entire blog. That makes a certain amount of sense since you probably want to comment on the blog entry as opposed to on the entire blog. The problem I see with that is that I'd have to wander through all of the blog entries to find all of the comments. That doesn't really work for me.

I've decided to try something. I've added an entry in my blog sidebar titled Talk to me, I'm listening. Click that, and you'll be taken to a guestbook for my blog.

So please - talk to me! I'd love to hear your comments, and yes, I am listening.

Iris fascination

I've been having a love affair with these flowers for as long as I can remember. So many different varieties, so much beauty...

Trapped?

Road construction can be good, right?

The road that forms the primary egress from my house is under construction. I can't argue with the need for a big fix there, but yes, this construction period could prove to be somewhat annoying. I came home tonight to find that the usual 4-lane with additional turning lanes chunk of road has been lined with barrels and changed into a winding 2-lane road. That was to be expected. After all, a road can't be torn up and replaced without disrupting traffic, can it?

The surprise for me was that left turns are prohibited. Yikes. I drove at least two miles (to get back home again) after I passed the turn I needed to take in order to get home. And I can't turn left out of here either. Ah, but (hopefully) I can cut through the college campus next door when I need to turn left from home.

I have a copy of the construction schedule, and while there will be work going on throughout the summer, it looks like "rip up and replace the road" portion of the work will be completed in June. So I guess the month ahead will be one of thinking about where I really want to go before I drive.

Duck rising

I was standing outside of my office (building) early this afternoon.

I thought I heard a rustling sound. What was that? I turned and looked, nothing... I was sure I heard something though, so I looked again. Still nothing. As I stared at a bed of shrubs and flowers, I saw a quick movement, almost an explosion.

A duck had been hiding among the bushes, and she suddenly lifted her head and flew. Amazing!

Remnants of flowers

Dogs watching...

Have you ever wondered what the animals in a zoo think as they watch the people watching them? These dogs were barking, jumping, watching me watching them.

I almost never use the digital zoom on my camera, but these dogs seemed like the perfect shot for a bit of play. I was wandering with my G9, and I thought I'd try... You're absolutely right - a digital zoom doesn't create a good quality photo for printing, but sometimes... Once in a great while it can be worth a quick capture. These dogs definitely made me smile.

Purple!

Evening magic

Fragile beauty

Hey - who ordered that camera?

Oh, you're right, it was me.

I was supposed to be buying a tripod. I looked and I looked. I was inching closer to a decision. But then my fingers strayed away from the tripods, wandering into the camera section. Oops!

My tripod wander was on the B&H site last Sunday, and somehow my fingers waltzed across my keyboard and added a camera to the cart.

Hmm… a Canon G9 popped up at my doorstep on Tuesday. (Well, not my doorstep, my office!) Don't get me wrong - I'm still having a very serious love affair with my 40D, but there are times when I want a small camera with me, just in case. And somehow I've grown attached to the ability to impose some control on the camera settings.

It's a truly sweet camera. We're still getting used to each other, the camera and I.

Photos are jumping into a gallery, samples below.

That tripod decision? It's still to come...