July 25, 2007 - 8:40 p.m.

Shutter Bugs:

Just a few insect pictures for your viewing pleasure:

July 24, 2007 - 3:34 p.m.

Whoa, whodathunkit?

I'm feeling pretty damned psyched at the moment. I just got a notice from Photographer's Forum Magazine that one of my entries is a finalist in their photography contest. That means I made it in the top 5% of, and I quote, "thousands of entries from amateur photographers in the United States and Canada, as well as 19 countries worldwide"!

My work in the top five percent! That means, even if it doesn't go any further, my picture will be published in their Best of Photography Annual 2007. My stuff... published.... in a real book. I have to admit, despite some of the very nice feedback I've gotten from y'all, I've felt like I'm just some schlep taking pictures, not like a serious photographer. I look at other people's work and feel that it's so much better than mine, but this.... this means that a professional photo editor (Nell Campbell to be precise) looked at my pictures, compared them to other peoples, and said "Hey, this is pretty good". If She did that, others might too. Hell, someone might even decide it's worth paying me for one.

Now, if only I knew what picture was in the finals. It's one of these 'cause these are what I entered:

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd think it was the cardinal picture 'cause I think that's the best of the lot, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Winners of the contest will be notified by August 6th, but I won't be holding my breath for that. Of course, I wasn't expecting to be a finalist either, so I'm certainly not saying it can't happen....

.... Hell, this is just a huge shot in the arm for me and you can believe there are going to be more photos being sent out in the near future.

July 23, 2007 - 4:58 p.m.

Bee Aggressive:

July 22, 2007 - 8:06 p.m.

Just pictures, no drama:

Just a few reptilian pictures from my trip to the Leonard J Buck Gardens. This first one is what I believe to be a Northern Water Snake... And no, I didn't make that identification just because it was in the water:

These next ones are of a rather uncooperative Snapping Turtle. I swear I heard it laughing every time it moved just as I was about to take a shot:

Some fun facts about Snapping Turtles (learned in my time as a camp counselor, not from personal experimentation);

1) If you chop off their heads, their bodies will crawl the length of four football fields before expiring.

2) The severed head will die with it's jaws spread wide open and it's tongue sticking out. Touching the tongue will result in the jaws snapping shut with tremendous force. Scavengers beware!

3) If you cut the heart out of a snapping turtle, it will continue to beat for an hour.

July 22, 2007 - 11:59 a.m.

I'm rubber, you're glue:

This is in response to the venomous, bile filled comment left by my brother in law yesterday.

First of all, this is my blog where I write about things that go on in my life and how I feel about them. I do this in part to keep from bottling up anger and resentment until I completely overreact and explode over a fairly innocuous statement. Frankly, I didn't think you read my blog and what I wrote, as opposed to your comment, was in no way intended as a personal attack. You'll notice that the words "unreliable" and "incompetent" never once appeared in my entry, nor did I editorialize. All I did was state the facts and then offer my opinion that next time it would be easier to seek outside help. I suppose I should thank you for illustrating my point so graphically.

We all have our problems. I have never once claimed to be perfect and I'm sorry that the fact that I didn't like the music in the CD you gave me upset you so much. I went a re-read what I wrote about it and I don't think it was in any way "insulting, mean spirited and hurtful". All I did say was that I didn't like the CD. Get over it.

That's pretty much all I have to say. If what you read here offends you so much, delete the bookmark. Luckily, you can't force me to delete posts from my personal blog.

July 21, 2007 - 7:13 p.m.

Annnnd it's fixed!

I done fixed my computer by my own self and everythin'. After blogging this morning, I considered the fact that the 'H' drive showed as working fine on my hardware profile and decided to work on the assumption there was a software setting that was causing the problem. Long story short, that was exactly what was wrong, I found the setting that caused the glitch and fixed it. My 'H' drive is now humming along happily with the rest of my computer and I'm a much happier camper..... Until the next thing goes wrong.

July 21, 2007 - 9:54 a.m.

One thing fixed and another broken:

Well, the god news is that the new hard drive is installed and working just fine. The bad news is that in installing the new hard drive, my brother in law changed something so I can't access my 'H' drive. I tried poking at it myself, but couldn't get it to work. So, now he's going to stop by and try to figure out what went wrong. The weird thing is that the 'H' drive is there. I can see it in the hardware profile and, according to my computer, the drive itself is working fine, but I can't access the files or run any of the programs stored on it. Grrrrr. Also, the 'H' drive is where I have all my pictures and artwork stored, so that's particularly vexing..... I'll tell you one thing, the next time I need to have work done on my computer, I'm taking it to the Geek Squad or something. The hassles of having it done for free aren't worth the money I saved. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but he told me it could be done in an evening. Instead, I lose my computer for nearly a week and it's not working right when I finally get it back.

On the good side, the new hard drive works great. Everything is loading faster, so I'm happy about that. Now I just need to be able to access the other half of my stuff.

NOTE: Permission for the use of my images is granted for personal websites and blogs but is to include a link back to this site and proper credit given to me. Link to be used; A Thousand Words: http://sinsear777.diaryland.com/)

NOTE: Permissions for commercial use, and the creation of prints, must be purchased! For more information you can contact me here.