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Category: my Pics/Photos

  • december pics, cool photo progs

    ok, so, the december pics are up…

    most of them are from the two weeks of resets… overnight work in abq/etc., santa fe, gallup, and farmington, me as the boss with between two and four temps as my crew on any given night… see, i had to take my cam to take pics of the bays when we finished them, so, i used it as an opportunity to take pics of work, something i never had pics of before… of course, this is not what i normally do for a living, but, meh…
    before i move on, let me point out that somehow, there are some mistakes in the chronology of pics… specifically, it has the pics taken at the bernalillo store dated dec22, when they are actually the night of the 15th/morning of the 16th… no idea how the heck that happened… that is the only error i noticed…
    anyway, a bunch of pics of me, jim, nicole, natalie, and robert doing triple resets in nine stores… that makes up most of this month’s collection (though, that includes some nice scenic stuff during the drives between gallup, farmington, and back home)… on that note, the last page of pics has a folder called “for work” and it is all the post-reset pics… i wanted to save them for future reference, they are not at all interesting, which is why they are at the end of the collection…

    however…
    the folder at the beginning of the collection is quite interesting, which brings me to the next stuff i wanted to cover, that being the two cool programs i have been using this month…

    on the first page of pics is a folder called “autostitch”… the last couple weeks i have been playing with this amazing new app called (as you may have guessed) AutoStitch…
    From the official website:

    Autostitch is the world’s first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).

    see the new image at the top of my webpages? that’s a panoramic view from my balcony of the mountains, created by AutoStitch… in the folder, i have quite a few test shots – sunrises, sunsets, many of my apt… so, be sure to look through those and, if it’s your thing, download the program and have as much fun as i’ve been having…
    i’m sure i’ll be posting many pics made with this app in the coming months… (um, and just to be clear, the pics i’ve made so far with it are nothing special, just trying it out… but, you’ll see the potential from the pics i posted…)
    and, btw, BIG THANKS to SuperDaveNM for posting about this program over on flickr!

    ok, also, now that i have been using Irfanview all month, i must say i highly recommend it… the quickest thing i can say about it is that so many pics i took this month, like every month, were absolutely hopeless… too dark, too blurry, too washed out, etc…. and, with this prog, i saved MANY of them… not to say that other programs can’t do this (feel free to let me know of better ones!), but, this is the first i have used and am loving it to death… it made a DRAMATIC impact on this month’s pics… the first two pics in the collection show a great example of a pic i would have, without any doubt, deleted, but thanks to irfanview it was made into a keeper… gamma correction, contrast, color saturation, many great settings to do some great photo manipulation… and it is even a very nice media viewer in general, i even downloaded a movie and watched it the other day and it ran much smoother than even winamp… it’s a “thousand and one uses” kinda’ program, for sure…

    ok, i think that’s about it… first i said i started using JAlbum and wanted to go back an “JAlbumize” all my past pics… well, now i want to go back and “Irfanviewize” many from the past and even see which ones could be “pano’d” by autostitch…

    until that far off day, you’ll have to settle for clicking here to see all the december pics…

  • november pics posted (and site fixed!)

    ok, i finally posted the rest of the photographic miscellany from november…
    this month, i have finally begun something i have thought about doing for awhile… pretty much every month i post pics of hot air balloons i see from my balcony, but, this month i now have the pic with the name of that balloon, the home city, and pilot… there is no website i can find that is a visual guide to balloons and that’s a shame because they are all unique vessels with their own story, etc., so, i intend to start posting the name and other info about every balloon i get a pic of… i would love for enthusiasts who know something i don’t to post what they know… thanks to this album maker, every pic has a comments form, so, anyone who wants can post info… there are many balloons that are not in the book i am using for reference, so, every month there will be unknown balloons, if you know who it is, just leave a comment on the pic and let me know… i also know some balloons have a website, so, i also want to start adding links with the pics…
    this could be fun and, if this collection grows large enough, i will make a dedicated section for it…

    i know, scott… i’m a sick man 😛

    ok, that aside, there are less than 40 of the “various” pics this month, mostly from a night at paulette’s…
    click here to view the november pics

    (and, if you didn’t see them previously, november also had a hundred or so pics, most of them amazing, from my flight to L.A. and 62 pics from the church thanksgiving hootenanny…)
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    in other news, come to find out my site has been seriously screwed up in internet explorer this whole time and no one told me about it until a couple days ago… my sidebar was loading on the right where it’s supposed to, but all the way at the bottom of the rest of the content… this has now been fixed, thanks to Doug… if i had asked him first, i would not have had to spend half the day pulling my hair out, beating my head on the table, etc…. thanks a bunch, dude!

  • thanksgiving pics up

    so, this is the second year the church has had the “Broken Home Thanksgiving”… this year it was at the Lockmans’ and it was quite an event, the drive-in totals are 59 pics, 3 vids, somewhere between 80 and 100 people, 1 football game, deep fryer fu, electric carving knife fu, and i think the final count was 9 dead turkeys…
    people are already asking for these, so, they’re up, and the rest of my november pics will be up in the next few days…

    i once again used the BluPlusPlus album skin, i have found a winner and am sticking with it… comments can be left on any pic, videos will play right there in your browser, the slideshow mode is pretty darned good, and i used an autumn theme on this album, just to see what it would look like to try something different…

    so, enjoy the pics from The Second Annual Calvary Chapel Rio Rancho Broken Home Thanksgiving…

    all right, roll it…

    (…and we do it all again for christmas!)

  • best pics evar?

    ok, so, i really do honestly believe that the pics i just posted are the best it has ever been my privilege to take… words like ‘breathtaking’ , ‘stunning’, and ‘moving’ come to mind… so many of them will surely be desktop wallpapers for a long time to come (good thing i run dual screens, i can double up on them) and they are already my screensaver photos… and, it was probably the hardest whittling operation i have ever had to do… i took about 100 and could only shave them down to 70… i probably should have just posted them all…

    the content is sunrise on the flight from abq to los angeles… i bounced back and forth between a couple of white balance settings, so, the colors are not always exactly true, but, perhaps that’s where the art of photography comes into play 🙂 to borrow chris dunn’s comment, i was practically directing the scenery to pose, saying “come on! work it!”… it was the most beautiful flight i’ve taken yet and photos can only convey the slightest fraction of the majestic artwork god created that morning… he created it, i can only humbly try to capture some parts of it to share with those who couldn’t be there to see it themselves…

    annnnyway, i might also add that there are pics from the event for which we went to L.A., those do not fall under any of the descriptions above 😛 but, i didn’t put the two sets in separate folders, so, if you watch them all in slideshow mode, your “ooooohs” and “aaaaaahs” will come to a screeching halt when suddenly pictures of bleary-eyed merchandising reps appear… but, ah well…

    i used the “BluPlusPlus” album again and YAY! i figured out how to set up the “viewer remarks” feature!! (bow before my leet php and mysql skillz!) so, you can now add a comment to every single pic you view… sweet…
    anyway, using this album again also mean that means there is a nice layout, a nice slideshow mode, and the vids will actually play for your viewing pleasure… i set the pic slideshow times to 10 seconds and the vids for 45 seconds, it seems to work ok, feel free to leave a comment on how well it worked for your connection speed…

    now, i need to re-do all the collections from the past so they all have these features… but, rest assured, all future pic postings will have all this cool stuff and, sooner or later, i will even set up the slideshow audio commentary…

    anyway, so, on with the show, click here to view the latest photos!

  • october pics now online

    what a thoroughly and hopelessly depressing, painful, miserable day… with more to come in the next couple months…
    but, i’m not here to talk about that…

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    so, with no further ado, the huge amount of pics i took this month are now all online… i had already posted about 150 pics from balloon fiesta and now i have uploaded the 259 pics/vids i kept from all i took for the whole TMEW conference thing (i took over 500) and 141 just regular pics i took this month…
    that’s a grand total of 550 pics! that has got to be a new record…

    the regular pics include my first time bowling, the conference in belen, a few of the lockmans/ferreris home fellowship, the church “fall festival”, as well as a few pics during balloon fiesta that i never posted in that collection, and, of course, just random things that came up throughout the month…

    anyway, i will let the albums tell the stories…

    speaking of – REALLY HUGE news… i tried a new album skin called “BluPlusPlus” and it has WORKING VIDEOS!! no more right clicking, save asing and such, just view them right there… very nice…
    it has a pretty darned decent slideshow feature, too… i set the pics to stop for 5 seconds, but, only 30 seconds for the vids, and i probably should have made it 45… hard to get it just right… the vids are 20 seconds, and they take 10-15 seconds to load on my 1.5mb dsl line, and your mileage may vary, especially if you are on dial-up… you can always hit the slideshow pause button…
    this skin also has the option to add an audio commentary and for people to leave comments on each pic, but, i haven’t set either of those up yet, will try all that out on future albums…
    since i am sure i am going to take a ton this month, as well, it won’t be long until i get my chance…

    so, click here to proceed to the photos and scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see the ones that start with “2005-10″… or follow the direct links below…

    Albuquerque International Ballon Fiesta 2005

    2005 Most Excellent Way Conference

    Miscellaneous October Photos

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    “well, it’s been ten years and [countless] tears, look at the mess i’m in …… i’m lonely and i’m tired, and i can’t take any more pain”
         -Mike Ness/Social Distortion

  • ok, the rest of the balloon fiesta pics are up

    i finally got a free night, haven’t had one in a couple of weeks, and i spent it sorting pics, making albums, and uploading them…

    sigh… just look at all i do for you…

    anyway, so, the morning of october 8th, chelsey, billy and tara, and angela, their friend from minnesota came over before the sun came up, luke and asbel were supposed to meet us here, but ran late, so, we had to leave without them… billy and tara have seen a fiesta or two from afar, but never from the field, and angela has never seen it at all…
    we were already running very late, ended up making two stops before we even got really and truly underway, and then there was the disastrous “shortcut” fernando recommended… it is still unproven if it was his fault 😛

    little bits of the story are told in the albums themselves…
    i have given up on getting luke’s pics, so, you will see mine and the pics billy took with andy’s camera… as far as that cam goes (it’s a canon, mine’s a nikon), man, does it get some vibrant colors! however, sometimes they look very oversaturated and downright artificial… oh, and the digital zoom is absolutely hideous and billy used it ALOT… it isn’t his fault, he didn’t know…
    oh, and angela brought a video cam, the non-digital kind that takes, uh, tapes, i believe they are called (how 20th century!) and she really needs to send me a copy! (i know you’re reading this!)

    i didn’t post a whole ton of pics this time, probably less than a hundred, but, there are some cool ones… and, once again the reminder, streaming on this host is not a simple matter, so, when you see a video (i think there is only one in this set, but it’s worth it), right-click, save it, view it on your computer… and remember that you will see thumbnails and, when you click on them, you still only see sized-down versions of each pic, so, if you want the full effect, click on the pics when you see them…

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    sooo, anyway, now that the aibf pics are up, that leaves 50 or so pics from the conference in belen, a good 500 or so from the TMEW conference (yes, i said five hundred), and a couple dozen or more various pics i have taken this month still to be sorted, “albumized”, and uploaded and i haven’t any free time until MAYBE the weekend, but, i doubt it…
    we’ll see…

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    anyway, another great balloon fiesta with some great people, can’t wait until next year!

    without any further ado, click here to view the final set of pics from the 2005 International Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (</keyword seeding>)

  • what a ballon pic

    i love this one so much, i just had to make a post…
    it was just posted yesterday by phrog8v8r to the AIBF flickr pool…

    *right click, save as, set as wallpaper* 🙂

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    and, btw, not to take away from that pic, but while i am pointing out pics, this is one of the coolest special shapes i have ever seen… and be sure to read the comments under it…

    and this one is like Skies of Arcadia come to life…

  • a few more ‘loon pics

    just to save any more confusion:
    THIS IS THE MAIN LINK TO ALL MY AIBF PICS

    there, you will see a folder with the pics andy and i took on saturday the 1st and the folder with a few quick pics i got on sunday the 2nd and monday the 3rd… there is one vid, this album creator calls it a directory, right click and save as to view it, it is a pan of the mass ascension from the back door of my church, nothing special…
    i also added a few from this new collection to my flickr photostream and from there added a couple each to the three groups i am in…

    because of my schedule, i will probably not have any new pics until this saturday… and i hope we don’t get rained out…

    anyway, speaking of flickr, i was thoroughly surprised to get an invite to a new flickr group called “New Mexico Photos by New Mexico Photographers“, which has an emphasis on scenery and we all know i take a lot of those 😛
    anyway, of the currently four other members, i am very humbled, beginning to wonder why i even bother to pick up a camera, those folks have some breath-taking photography… click on the members list at the group and browse some of their collections…
    (maybe i should have taken that photography class the DOL offered to pay for…)

  • AIBF2k5, day one

    The pics are finally up!

    not as good as the pics i made last year, but, meh…

    i used the Experience skin again and it is annoying no end that it labels videos as directories… i even added comments to the vids, so the comments would appear under the icon, but, it didn’t do that… so, you will have to keep that in mind… i do recommend the vids, there are some good ones this time… also, remember, my host is weird about streaming, wants me to put them under a subdomain and such, so, you will have to right click, save as and view them on your computer…

    also, this time i have sort of a guest photog… as mentioned in the last post, Andy Shreck went with me and took a bunch of pics himself, so, there is a folder of my selections from the pics he took… he has the entire collection in his possession, but alas, no site of his own, no flickr account, nothin’…
    for the record, as i was sorting through all the pics (from a collection of over 500, i whittled down to 177 pics and vids) i was more and more certain that he took better pics than i did 🙁
    anyway, i also added a few that i took to my flickr photostream and added a couple each to the three flickr groups i am in…

    while i was playing around in flickr, i went ahead and grabbed the flash “flickr badge”, which is fairly cool… see it over on the sidebar right above the albuquerque section… i may or may not keep it…

    anyway, i am hoping for no wind on saturday so i can get much better pics…

    oh, and not only are all the photos in albums, i added comments to many of them, rather than write up a whole blog post, pointing out certain pics… you will see a truncated version below the thumbnails and the whole comment when you view the screen size version…
    i took a few today hanging out behind the church and will have a whole new batch saturday, so, i will force myself to learn how to add albums to the one already there and will post when they are up…

  • september pics now online

    well, since i am about to have quite possibly hundreds of balloon pics, i figured i’d better knock out the september pics early (on time)…
    i used jalbum again, but, this time i used the Experience skin… it lacks a few things, but, i keep having java errors with ExhibitPlus, the one i really love (i used it last month and for all the 2002 collections)…
    leave me some feedback on this album skin, there are so many to choose from, but, i only like a few and would like to keep trying different ones…
    this one is ok… has a nice overall layout… exhibitplus has many cool features (like a slideshow), but, i keep having errors when i try to use it, and it runs very slow…
    keep in mind that you will see the albums and the thumbnails, click on the thumbnails for a screensize of the pic, then, click on the screensize for the original… i even added comments to a few of them this time…
    i notice this skin labels vids as folders for some reason, btw…

    this month includes some balloon pics (some things never change), a few from the chaos at the gas station across from the santa ana casino, helping jeff and justin move into their new place, the geeky fun had with justin’s new computer, a couple of the weather balloon, a few of my new van, and a few of a night hanging out in paulette’s kitchen…
    and of special note to some are Nathan Sampson’s 4th Birthday Party and The Church Barbeque – you know who you are…

    annnyway, with no further ado, you may now proceed to the September 2005 photos…

    and coming soon will be all the AIBF 2005 pics and i expect to spend a lot of time there, not just viewing from my apt this time…
    last year, i was one of several bloggers who covered it, you can re-live the posts back on the old website by browsing through my posts from september 2004, where i also posted plenty of links to great stuff about the AIBF in general and october 2004 where my actual coverage is posted, of course, none of my pics are there anymore… still, some decent writing, if i do say so myself 😛

    also soon btw, i have pics from andy shrek, one of the brave souls from my church who went to help out in lousiana… he snapped a few while there and i will have those up eventually and hopefully a guest post by him…