December is almost here!

Sorry! I'm being bad about blogging...I know it. I'll try and get back into it soon. We've had a great four-day weekend! I don't know the last time I had so many days off. I have enjoyed seeing family and friends, watching a ton of college and pro football and basketball (despite losing to the Rockets last night....badly), exercising, reading (Baldacci's The Whole Truth), talking photography and digicams with my best friend Sonia (I hope you get the Z1015 too!) and preparing for Christmas. Fun stuff.

And nothing like a little pressure. The bags of gifts have been sitting in our office, right by my desk since JUNE!!! My sisters are so industrious, they get together during the summer in FL and do their Christmas shopping (most of it) and then they even wrap 'em up. We happened to be visiting last June so Mai sent the gifts back with us. Can you imagine? June. Sigh. I am still working on figuring out some gifts for several family members. LOL

Prepping Dessert

Tonight we are baking our first pecan pie together. It's fun! And it smells delicious; I can't wait to try it tomorrow. I'm sure there are many ovens heating up this week as we all prepare for the big feast tomorrow. I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with family and friends time, good eats, fun football and great weather (whether that be snow, ice, hot, humid....whatever!). And a nice nap. At least that's my plan. :)

Welcome back, Sterling Silver Dancers!

Remember the Seguin ladies who were invited to dance at the Spurs games last season? Well, they are back by popular demand. :) It was nice to see them perform at the game so early in the season. I understand they will appear once a month. You ladies looked great and most importantly, you looked like you had fun! Cheers to you for getting out there. We loved seeing you and cheering for you. Go Spurs!

Moon over Seguin

Last week we were driving home and I saw a gorgeous moon hovering over Seguin -- so low to the horizon that it looked absolutely enormous. I couldn't believe I didn't have my digicam (I didn't think I'd need it going to the gym, lol.) so we raced home so I could pick it up and Mark went searching with me for a good shot. We found a spot and I set up the tripod to practice on the new digicam and liked some of the shots but I still need to learn more about all the settings. This one wasn't so bad so I thought I'd share it. I didn't touch it up besides cropping some of the dark sky out of it. It was chilly that night!

Still Blooming

The weather has been gorgeous lately but the allergens are still bothering lots of people. Plus I think there is some bug going around b/c several people I know are sort of down with a slight fever, stomach aches, general aches, sore throat, etc. I slept most of yesterday since I just felt wiped out. Today I'm much better but Mark's kind of sickly. Poor thing.

So, despite the cold nights, we still have a few blooms hanging around including the mystery purple flower on the vine. I can't remember what the name of it is. We bought it hoping it would climb along our fence in order to block out the neighbor's big ol' trash bin. It's still trying to spread itself out so maybe by next year. We also have a few yellow blooms left on the Esperanza as well.



I'm enjoying the camera a great deal and am learning how to use it better with more manual controls. I updated the firmware (1.03) and it fixed the processing problem so that is no longer an issue. If anything, it really revved up the processing, uploading, and general operation of the camera. I am glad b/c I had decided if the firmware didn't fix that problem, the camera would probably need to go back. I took the cam to the Spurs game last Friday against the Rockets (yay, we actually won!) and then I also practiced some moon shots (still need some more practice). I'll try and post some this week.

Sky Watch Friday

One more of the tower. I just loved the way this one turned out.

Check out this week's sky watchers for some great shots. And have a wonderful weekened everyone. We're off to see the Spurs and Rockets. :-\

Workers from afar

Here they are from afar.

Water Tower Workers

On my way home from work, I drove here and there to practice using my camera some more when I spotted some activity on the water tower they've been fixing up for a while now. It's looking better but still have a little more work to go. I can't imagine working as high up as these gentlemen. Not too long ago, I saw on the news and in the paper that one of the tower workers had gotten injured when he fell while doing some of this work. Dangerous stuff but they sure make our towers look great!

Guadalupe Valley Regional Hospital

Here are a couple of night shots of some of the construction at our local hospital. It's nice to see construction still healthy in little Seguin. Good sign for the economy I think. Plus our hospital really needs to grow and improve. Many people go to San Antonio for some medical needs since there are a lot more options in the bigger city.

I also posted about the imaging department this past July.

Fall Colors

I was checking out the camera after snapping shots of the squirrels when I noticed the cool colors on the display when I passed by the paint cans we have on the deck. I took several shots and I really liked the coppery colors with the blue in them.

Shot with the new digicam

They are still everywhere, which makes them quite an easy subject. Here's a shot from the new camera. Still playing around with it but I think it's going to be a keeper. I am going to download the new firmware update and that should help reduce the one thing that is odd about the camera: the "long" processing time every 3rd or 4th shot. It has not been a problem for me and hopefully it won't become a problem. I better get on the ball snapping shots to test the camera, right?

Sports note: the Spurs FINALLY won tonight. It took double overtime, but we finally got a W in the win column. :)

My Vote Counted!

We went and voted! I hope you did also. I love living in a small town like Seguin. I've lived and voted in big cities and now I fully appreciate a voting site three blocks from home where I can park right out front and have seven or eight voting officials waiting to help me. It rocks!

At our voting site, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, you can vote electronically or on traditional paper ballots if you wish. Both are offered and the officials really have always been very nice and helpful. Now, I shall go join Mark, who is flipping between the Spurs/Mavs game and voting results.

Merry Christmas to me

Surprise, surprise! Christmas came early for me this year. Thank you honey for my new digicam. It is so cool and I can't wait to see how I handle it this week. All my cameras have been Kodaks and they've been really good to me. I'm not ready for a fancy SLR and with the z1015, there are already plenty of things I see I'll have to learn. It allows more manual control than my z612. And did you see that? I've now got 4 more megapixels and the zoom increased by 3. Of course, what I need to do is go out and try it out to make sure I can take advantage of it all. And we have a Spurs game next week so I can try out the zoom at that time. Oh, the video image is awesome. I was amazed by the crispness.