Spotlight On Flight

I shot this pelican this evening out at the Anna Maria City Pier. The sun was going down behind me, and I noticed that birds were flying though the light occasionally. I waited until I caught one in the right place at the right time, then laid on the shutter release. Pretty cool the way he's highlighted as he moves through the air.

Goodbye 2009!

Well, here we are on the first day of 2010. I haven't posted anything since Christmas Eve because I've been pretty busy. Perhaps I should have known better than to schedule a server upgrade over the holidays. We switched from a really old NT4 network to a shiny new Server 2008 domain. So we basically started over from scratch, because I never let the new domain see the old domain. So I've been at work every single day since then, and here it is New Year's Day, and I'm still here. Actually, I'm spending today trying to remove a virus from the bosses computer. What fun! But that seems to be going well, so maybe I can get out of here in a few hours and go find something interesting to do. I wanted to do a year-end wrap up post yesterday, but once I finally got home, I didn't want to even be near a computer. So maybe I'll do that now. 2009 was a good year. I didn't travel as much as 2008, but I still got to go to Atlanta once, Ohio once and DC twice. I saw a shuttle launch from six miles away, which is pretty close, even though it may not sound close. I ignored the blog a bit at the beginning of the year, but I made up for it later with 119 posts in a single week! Christmas was almost a bust, what with losing my hard drive less than a month before the season started, but I think I pulled it out OK with hundreds of repeats and a handful of new or remastered shares. My traffic during the month was a lot less than last year, but I suppose it was as much as could be expected. And any year in which I got a new camera can't be all bad! I even got a new L-series lens to go with the fancy camera, and I've started renting lenses for those extra special occasions. that's led to some great pictures that I've only dreamed of in the past. But all that camera bloat has led to some unexpected drawbacks. I went to a wedding earlier in the year and didn't take a single picture. In fact I didn't even carry my camera. It's just become too heavy, too awkward. You can't eat at a buffet with a millstone around your neck. So I'm thinking of maybe investing in another little pocket-size camera for those occasion where I"m just shooting for fun. We'll see how that goes, though. A couple hundred dollars for a play camera would make for a nice accessory to go on the big camera...

What does 2010 hold? Well, I'd love to go back and visit some of my recent haunts. San Francisco, New York City, Washington, DC and maybe even Vegas would be great to hit this year. And for some reason I've had a hankering to spend some time down in the American Southwest, maybe see the Grand Canyon (from closer than 30,000 feet) or Monument Valley. But we'll see. No one knows what the future holds. Here's to a great 2010! Oh, and don't forget to back up your hard drive!