A Little Late

I figured it was finally time to post a few of those fall pictures I promised oh....back in November.

It will also give me a chance to try out a new way of posting a photo here.

Back at the end of last October, Preston and I went to Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois. The colors were fantastic!

These are what resulted.









Seriously gorgeous colors.

If you want to see the rest of them follow this link.

A New Gallery!

Let's see a show of hands, who here has a Flickr site?

What about Picasa?

Or maybe Walmart or Walgreens?

I've tried them all. And I hate them all. (Well, with the exception of Walgreens since it's private and I only use it to have photos printed)

I also used to have a Yahoo photo site. But they closed that one down. (and I never really liked it much anyway)

My biggest complaint usually had something to do with uploading. It was a HUGE pain to upload to Yahoo and it is to Flickr too. I usually would try to start one of these sites and get too impatient. So my Flickr site sits mostly empty and unused. I also don't like the aesthetics on ANY of these free sites. If I'm going to display my photos for the world to see, I want them to look GOOD. (well...as good as possible)

Enter SmugMug.

Several photographers I know use this site and I had the chance to get a discount back when they closed Yahoo. But at the time I didn't feel the need for a pay site. It was pretty but I was still just getting into the photography thing. Over the last year or so I've posted more pictures on this blog and that format has been fine for me.

However, I've lately wanted to be able to post my images on some photography forums. Blogger doesn't want you to embed the images they're hosting for you on another site. I understand this...I'm not paying for image hosting so I'm happy to go along with their rules. (just wish their policy had been a little easier to find) This meant I was back to looking for an online photo gallery. Most people suggested Flickr (no thank you!) and a few suggested Photobucket (puke!), but I wanted something more.

I wandered back over to SmugMug, did some more looking around, and signed up for the free trial. Within one day of using the site I was in love! Uploading is a breeze, organization is nice, and best of all...my photos look great on this site! It's important to me that the people that come to view the photos have both a user friendly and an ATTRACTIVE interface. And did I mention my photos look great here?

With several levels of service, the price is reasonable for a beginner like me. And I can upgrade any time I want.

So, check it out and let me know what you think! I'll have a new photo post up soon.

http://ivorygirl.smugmug.com

I've been looking for these!

I went on a hunt for some of these photos from 2006 today. I thought I had posted them here but I certainly can't find them.

So here are a few of my shots from our trip to Oregon in 2006. As you'll see, they are from a lighthouse we visited.

This is not the lighthouse.



Not to be confusing or anything.

Anyway. Here is the inside of the lighthouse.



How would you like to see the inside of a Fresnel Lens?



And here is the side of that lens.



Guess what these are for? And check out how old they are!



Yup. They're for letting light into the lower levels of the lighthouse. Kinda nifty!



And now for the TRIVIA! Can anyone tell me what they're called? First person with the correct name for these cool little gadgets gets a pat on the back from me!

Thus concludes our mini tour of some lighthouse in Oregon that I can't remember the name of...carry on.

Happy Halloween!

Hmmmm? What's that? It's not Halloween?

You know...if I had my druthers, Halloween would be every day!

Since you asked so nicely, I'll tell you why. (don't think I can't hear you on this side of the computer)

It's because I get to capture pictures like this:



Ah Janice. Ever the rock star. These photos are from several years ago and we all went to a neighborhood block party. For the life of me I can't remember what I dressed as. Probably a pirate.


And now, meet Maxi Padwell.



Maxi has been to several events over the last couple of years, but I must say her inaugural Halloween was priceless.


And then we have the lovely Kristi dressed as Amy Lee.



Hey Kristi...I said I was going to be posting EMBARRASSING pictures. Not sexy ones. So knock it off.


Let's move on to the following year's Halloween. At least, I think it was the following year.







I know what you're thinking right about now. You're thinking, "Why in the world are they doing that weird 'sexy pose thing' in that hallway?". I'll tell you why.

I have absolustely no idea. Seriously! No clue. But look I did it too!




Ok, and on to the final year of Halloween pictures I found on my old hard drive.

After I stopped doing "Pirate" for every Halloween the only option really left open to me was "Gothish". Since I don't plan ahead and all.



Whew! Someone needs to blend a little better!

This was our first attempt at the Crow. He was pleased enough with it that he's used the costume for two more years.

This is the Preston that makes me die laughing. I LOVE this!




And where did he get the glasses you ask?



I think I probably just sacrificed my friendship with Steph for that last photo. I hope you all are happy.

Steph? Don't hate me. Larry? Feel free.




Now for some reason I do not have pictures of everyone that was there with us that night. I'm sad about that. I must get better at capturing ALL the costumey goodness.

For example, I missed Emo Chris. And I didn't get a picture of Janice except for this:



Janice, I'm sorry that I didn't get a better pic of you. But check out the goldmine in the background there. What I was originally focusing on.

That's right my friends. THAT is the Crow raising the roof.

Cleaning out the old hard drive

Many of you know that back in the day I used to write this blog on an old Compaq laptop. Most of you also know that the old Compaq, workhorse that it was, finally gave out on me after over seven years of service. A few of you know that I removed the hard drive, which was only about a year old at that point, so that I could get the info off and use it as backup storage.

However, we all know that many of my "projects" don't come to fruition in what would be considered a reasonable amount of time. I have far too many other "projects" getting in the way. I've had a new computer for over a year and after one failed attempt at hooking up the old hard drive it sat collecting dust.

Until yesterday.

I finally hooked that bad boy up and started to explore. Most of what I wanted was in the "My Documents" folder.

Me: click click

Hard Drive: "Access Denied"

Me: No really. click click

HD: "Folder is not accessible. Access is Denied"

Me: Ehem. Hard drive? This is my My Documents folder. Really. click click

HD: "You do not have permission to access this folder. Access Denied."

Me: PERMISSION!? It's MY folder! Who are you to give and take permission Hard Drive?? CLICK. CLICK.

HD: maniacal laughter "You suck and shall never open these files ever again. Access Denied."

Me: Oh I don't THINK so! googles how to fix this problem AH HA! Those files are mine again! Take that stupid hard drive!

HD: "Our apologies great Master. Here are the files you requested."

So, I was successful in retrieving the files after a little work. What I'll be sharing with YOU over the next couple of days are a few pictures I found. And in order to celebrate that IMMENSE level of geekyness I just spewed, here are some camera phone pics I took of all of us enjoying some lightsabers.





That's right. I said lightsabers.





Hey Co-Bin, thanks for letting us be HUGE nerds and play with your toys.





What. It's not like any of you are SURPRISED or anything.





Anywhoo. Moving along. I also found a few pictures from a trip my parents made out here to St. Louis. We visited Grant's Farm and the Botanical Gardens. (we did other stuff too but I guess I only took pictures of these two events)




And then someone captured a picture of me at the Gardens. I think it may have been Kristi.




So I had to get her back. Here she is headin' out west!



And because I'm the photographer, they all have to listen to me when I go "SHEEP!!".




Stay tuned! Up next are more embarrassing photos! There are several years worth of Halloween pictures that were found...so if you've partied with me on my favorite holiday you are not safe.

Steph...just stop reading now. Don't ever come back to this site again.

Seriously.