BUSY DAY & A NASTY HAIL STORM!!

WE HAVE BUSY LITTLE BIRDS IN OUR FRONT YARD GARDENS (I may have posted this pic before but can't remember)

Turned out to be a busy  Monday as I filled in for a driver this morning & used the company's mini-van to move a fellow from one town to another for a short medical appointment.  This afternoon I was back in the mobility van & off to London with a young disabled fellow & his Mother on board. 

         

PARKED AT LONDON ONTARIO'S WELL KNOWN & RESPECTED UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL LAST WEEK

We were almost at our destination when the sky's opened up & we got hit with a short & savage rain storm with beating hail & nearly zero visibility.  Sounded like the hailstones were coming right through the windshield.  Fortunately the heavy deluge of ice & rain only lasted about 10 minutes but it was enough to spawn immediate flood warnings on the local radio station & it was amazing how much water was cascading down the streets.

HAIL ON THE GROUND BESIDE A HOUSE & SHREDDED LEAVES ON CAR OUT FRONT

Someone asked again what camera equipment I use & because I didn't get on it right away I have forgotten who it was so I'll include a link to a post I had done about that on September 19th of 2008 just in case that same person happens to be reading this tonight.  Just read the camera part & disregard all my other blusterings that day in long ago September.  The country was in full blown financial meltdown at the time & so was AL's attitude.......again:((  Click on..... NIKON CAMERAS

 

COUPLE OF NIKONS & A CANON.....NIKON D50 ON THE LEFT WITH THE D40 ON THE RIGHT & CANON BOTTOM RIGHT (Am hoping to trade that longer 55-200mm zoom lens in for a 70-300mm zoomer shortly) Photo was 'colored popped & sharpened' in Live Writer:))

Whenever I see we have a new follower I generally click on their profile to see who they are & if they happen to have a blog site.  That is how I have come across other folks interesting RV blogs & have sometimes included their links in my posts.  In the last little while I have generally liked to try & give new bloggers or new followers a bit of a jump start by including a point of interest from their post into my blog.  Latest follower Terry K's profile shows most of his categories as 'classified' so I am not too sure what that is all about.  My experience has been that most folks are very free, honest,  & open, with their RV lifestyle & blog sites, etc.  So, TK if you are a legitimate follower, I say welcome.  If not................??

WAITING PATIENTLY FOR A HUMMINGBIRD TO SLOW DOWN!!

My external hard drive seems to be acting up tonight again & is not letting me access my file photos.  I have a lot of photos stored on there.......or did!!

HAVING A LOOK AT ANOTHER JEEP.....2005

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter.  "What are you doing?" She asked.  "Hunting flies" He responded.  "Oh, killing any?" She asked.  "Yep, 3 males, 2 females," he replied. Intrigued, she asked "How can you tell?"  He responded "3 were on a beer can, 2 were on the phone."

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Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.

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"UNTIL ONE HAS LOVED AN ANIMAL, PART OF THEIR SOUL REMAINS UNAWAKENED"

OUR BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...... AL.

TO-DAY'S BLOG IS ABOUT CAMERAS

To-day's blog is about cameras, but first I'd like to comment on yesterday's blog. After tuning into all the financial doom & gloom on CNN yesterday morning I checked out our financial investments on the computer & of course we had taken a big hit overnight. I should have walked away from the computer right there & gone out & did some gardening or something but instead I heated up the keys & vented some anger & frustration. Debated later in the day whether I should go back & delete that blog but decided to let it ride. Life isn't always a bowl of cherries. Sometimes in my blog I express happy feelings, sometimes sad, sometimes I see the positive side & sometimes it just turns out to be one of those days that you can't win for losing. Yesterday was a flash of anger & frustration first thing in the morning. Guess that is what makes me a human being. Happy to say the day quickly improved & it was on to bigger & better things. We'll be just fine & are proceeding full steam ahead with our "heading west" plans. And, my apologies to Florida. Your a good State:) Thanks to Don, Pat, & Tom for your encouraging words yesterday. Ok, moving on...............................

Over these past few years I have taken many photos of our travels here & there, plus pictures from around our house & our area. Because of those photos I have received some favorable comments, not only on the blog but on other forums I belong to. People have asked how I do some of those nice photos & my answer to that is always the same. I am not a professional photographer & my photos are not on that higher quality level. I think of myself as simply an advanced amateur who is fortunate enough to have some reasonably good camera gear. I use a very simple photo program on the computer as well. The photo program is a free download & anyone can use it to make their pictures better.

First, the camera gear. I have 2 Nikon DSLR's & a smaller point & shoot Canon camera. My Nikon D40 carries a Nikkor 55-200mm f4-5.6 telephoto zoom lens & my Nikon D50 carries a Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 wide angle zoom lens. I am hoping to add one more lens to complete my set up which will be a Nikkor 70-300mm f4-5.6 telephoto zoom. Not the most expensive or highest quality camera models or lenses in the Nikon lineup, but they work fine for me. My smaller carry along camera is a Canon A720iS which also is a great little camera & right up there with it's 2 bigger Nikon step-brothers. Before the Canon I had a Fuji E535 which also was a super great camera but it was stolen by some lowlife in Stratford.

The photo program I use on the computer is Google's Picasa. It's a free download & is very easy to use. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be using it. You can sharpen your photos, add contrast, lighten them, straighten your horizons, crop the image, eliminate red eye, enhance the colors, add a soft focus look, switch color to black & white or sepia, invert colors, plus a bunch of other little photo tips & tricks. You can download Picasa 3 here...http://picasa.google.com/
Picasa also has a sister program called Picasa Web Albums which also is a free download. Once you have your photos organized, edited, captioned, & fixed up the way you want them it is only a few more clicks to upload them into the Picasa Web Album program. Once there, they are safe in case your hard drive ever crashes someday.

A few photo tips......
-if it's a cloudy day, minimize the sky or eliminate it totally & look for shots on the ground
-if it's a pretty sky with big fluffy clouds, include more sky in your pics
-avoid putting your subject in the center of the picture
-try to include something in the foreground
-best moods & colors are in the morning around sunrise & shortly thereafter
-cropping is one of the best tools in your photoshop
-don't worry about all those dials on your camera, just set it to automatic & away you go.
-watch out for harsh shadows on bright sunny days
-try not to put horizon lines exactly in the middle of the photo & if you have a tilted horizon you can easily fix that in your Picasa photo program by clicking on the, "straighten" button.

For those of us coming out of the old 35mm film age with all it's inherent problems, the digital age has made a good photographer out of everybody, so grab your camera & get out there.................OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

To-day's photos were taken with Kelly's Canon Powershot A430..... another nice little camera:)