Sunday, October 11, 2009

Cold mornings


Well, today the weather was great for what I wanted to do. I have been watching this place on the river. Once the weather was just right I was gonna go take the perfect picture. Today the weather was perfect for it. But needed to have brought the rest of my gear.

I gotta up a little later than I had planned. Being I've tried this shot for years I had the "it ain't never gonna happen" blues. ANd the fire place felt SOOOOO good. Besides did I really want to drive 30 mile north just and try to take a picture? In the truck the round trip would cost me $10.00, and I am sure the picture will not get that kind of income. But as the last second was upon me I took off and headed out.

Once in the truck I thought, need the tripod. It is in the Honda, the locked Honda. Need the good lens, in the same Honda, Locked. So i thought screw it and took off.

Have you ever tried a 2 second exposure, hand held? Even with the IS turned on. If it would not have been 20 degrees, and if I wasn't shivering...it may have been Ok.

But the angle I wanted just wasn't there. With the light the way it was I'd wanted to close up the aperture to like 11.0 and then crank the shutter down to like 1.5 seconds and hope for a slow exposure I could come up with something. NOT.

But as I was writing off my east facing shot I noticed a descent west shot. It turned out better than the shot I drove there for. So if your going out to take pictures, take ALL of your gear with you. Don't be a knot head like me!

Thursday, October 1, 2009



So there I was, just finishing up the wedding shoot. I get a text.

"Just shot a nice 4 or 6 point"

Great! I thought. My sons first buck. I was happy I was done with the shoot. I went in the church, grabbed my camera gear, packed up the laptop.

Ding-dong.. "He's Down"

Off I went. I was in Reed City and headed to Barryton as fast as my POS Honda would go. It wasn't long and I got another text. It was the picture above. By the time I got there they had the deer closer to the house. I walked down to them and saw a young kid setting on the ground. Looked like he was about to pass out. Seams he has the same stomach his Dad has. HAHA. He loves to hunt, but hates the "cleaning". He was hunting with a friend of mine, Brian. It looked like He had called everyone from Barryton to do what they call "Party with the Buck". And Boy could that buck party!

It was great, Brians friends grabbed the deer, skinned it, quartered it and before it was in the car we had some fresh venison on the grille. Maybe a beer or two also! We sat around a camp fire and I listened to Will tell me how it all happened. No buck fever he claims. Yah right! But it sounds like he took the deer at about 230 yards and took a perfect shot. Deer went only about 2 yards and was done!

So now, he gets to set in the blind and watch Dad hunt! His only tag now is for 4 points or more on one side. In the area we hunt....that's not often. I am working on pictures I took. It was dark, camera had a hard time focusing (it had just took 600+ wedding pictures, it was tired). I'll work on them and see if I can make something out of them. Hate to think that a cell phone picture is all we have! But it is better than nothing at all.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009



This picture sums up alot of my feelings.

Why on Gods green earth would ANYONE serving a public office REFUSE to place his hand over his heart when saying the pledge.

I still find it hard to believe this idiot runs one of the greatest countrys in the world.

Maybe check this link out. http://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/outrageous-barack-obama-not-interested-in-victory-in-war-on-terror/

Sad. The jerk doesn't care about victory? Maybe he needs to loosen the towel rapped around his head. Your an American, start acting like one.

Sunday, September 20, 2009


Well, racing is over for the year. Had above normal nice weather for the Big Rapids race. A little chilly in the mornings. But, compared to last years rain and cold.....I loved it. This picture is one of the racers, I think Terry Kerr, doing a little Pre-race fishing. Didn't see him catch anything. But I thought it looked like a picture that had to be taken. The race turned out great. Only had 2 guys came out of their boats. No injuries, and we all stayed dry in the rescue boats. Had the SLT's there and they put on a great show...like they always do. Gotta go check out my site for pictures of them. I don't see them very often so the day was pretty much all pictures of them. I also had two of the SLT drivers drive the rescue boat around Saturday. So I kinda picked on them as my subjects. Hope I got some good pictures of them. It'd be cool to have one of them. They are fast and the things turn on a dime. Would be a great fun toy to have. Don't know about racing one of them, can't see me going neck and neck at those speeds! Ok off I go for the day. See you soon. Live Strong.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

So the question of the day is......would that have been a racist remark?

As you know Kanye West was an ass at the MTV awards. Got on stage and stole the Mike from Taylor Swift and ran his mouth. Not like something stupid never happens at a MTV awards show. People around the country were outraged. At least Beyonce gave up some time to let her thank the folks she needed to thank.

So later our dear leader says....

"I thought that was really inappropriate," Obama says. "What are you butting in (for)? ... The young lady seems like a perfectly nice person. She's getting her award. What's he doing up there?"

A questioner chimes in, "Why would he do it?"

"He's a jackass," Obama replies, which is met with laughter from several people.

The president seems to quickly realize he may have gone too far, and jovially appeals to those assembled that the remark be kept private. "Come on guys," he says. "Cut the president some slack. I've got a lot of other stuff on my plate."


I laughed! Then I realized that was the very first time I had agreed with ANYTHING he has ever said. Wierd. So I am on the way to work and get to thinking. If any other president had said that what would happen? Would the race card get thrown onto the table? I gotta think it would have. Kanye is a jackass, I don't care if he is white, black, purple or any other color. It just seams to be "ok" that a black president called a black singer a jaskass. Had Clinton said that....what would really have had happen afterwords?

Good job Obama. Bout time you thought along the line of the citizens of the country. So now run with it and do something right for once, or should I say again?

Have a great day.

LiveStrong



Friday, September 11, 2009


Well, it's 9-11. Sad day in the country. The news is blasted with the terrible scenes of the attack on NYC. Can't imagine being in the towers and jumping to your death. As a country we lost 343 fire fighters in the attack. And still guys are fighting for their lives from the poor air quality during the rescue. Sad thing is that NYC had told those people that the air quality was safe. More government bull shit. But, still we hear nothing of the suicides that are happening due to the attacks. What a shame.

So a few years ago I sat down and did some looking and figuring. I found out how many people that were reported dead. Then thought if we only did one funeral each day, starting on the day of the attacks it would look like this:


TRADE CENTERS Last Funeral Date
Total Deaths 2752 03-25-2009 (Civilians/workers)
Fire fighter deaths 343 08-20-2002
Police officer deaths 75 11-25-2001
Flight 11(struck north tower) 92 12-12-2001
Flight 75 (struck south tower ) 65 11-15-2001

PENTAGON
Total deaths 125 01-14-2002 (Civilians/workers)


AIR FLIGHTS
Flight 77 (pentagon) 64 11-14-2001
Flight 93 ("Let's Roll"-PA) 44 10-25-2001
All deaths combined 3020 12-18-2009


So just think, look at that last number. All deaths combined. We would still have a few months of funerals to attend. 3020 deaths! And the jack ass running this country wants to attach a new name to 9-11 to make it a more happy day! WTF? I would challenge him to go to any fire house in NYC and see what the guys there think. Sure Obama no problem, let all forget everyone that was murdered that day and hell while we are at it maybe we should get Hallmark to come up with some pretty flowered cards to sell!!!!!


By the way, if you send me one of those cards expect to get it back!
please note the picture posted is NOT mine, I take no credit for it. I copied off the internet.

Monday, September 7, 2009



What a weekend. Dad, Craig, William and I took off Saturday for the thumb. I had searched the web and found a water fowl guide in near Port Hope. I had called Ray a few times and we had picked Sunday as the time. We got there Saturday night and met them at his house. He took us to a buddies house and we called a nice addition to a pole barn our home for the night. The next morning at 4:30 we got up and headed to Hot Shot Outfitters to meet up with the gang and go hunting. Hauling two trailers full of decoys and blinds we arrived to a nice fresh cut hay field. After a short time we were ready to go. But as geese will be they were lazy and hung out on Lake Huron longer than we'd like. But when they came they came. The weather was perfect, even had some fog roll in to add to the pictures. When we finally called it a day we had a total of 30 geese taken for the group. It was a blast. I did more videoing than shooting. William had a great time. I'll bet he'll be packed and ready next time i bring up the idea of going again.

Of course there are pictures on the web site.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

2000 miles down, 1650 to go


Seams that anywhere you go in Michigan is an orange barrel. No fun to stop here, of all places, to take a 10 mile picture. I figured out my over all miles and found that I only needed to ride 2.2 miles to hit the 2000 mile mark. So i took a nice easy ride on lunch and got it done. I wasn't thinking an orange barrel would be posing with my Trek.
Last night we took our Fire Department pysicals. I failed the EKG part and was told to not ride the bike until I saw my family doctor. Well, you need to know my family doctor! He has about the IQ of an empty water bottle. I'll not tell you the whole story. It'll give me something to blog about friday night! So anyhow I get to go pay him to be an hour late. He'll walk in and say whats up? I'll give him the low down. He'll say go give the nice lady at the desk $20.00 and I'll reschedule you for an EKG. I am just hoping he checks my blood pressure before all of this! It is normaly high any time I go see him anyways!
So anyhow I am zipping, oops i meant, taking it easy down the trail. I caught myself singing a Miley Cyrus tune. Go ahead laugh but with two girls in the house you find yourself listening to stuff you normaly wouldn't. Besides she ain't actually to bad. But the song "The Climb" was going through my noodle. Go google it. Ok I am off for now. See you tomorrow. LiveStrong

Sunday, August 30, 2009


Sunday ended up being a lot nicer weather. So I jumped on the Trek and headed out for a quick ride. Had to put on the cold weather sleeves for the first 5 miles, after that I was out of the head wind and could sail a little faster so I took them off.

I find the more I ride the Trail the more I like riding the roads. I could not tell you how many times today I ran into people walking their dogs on a 20 foot leash. That in itself isn't a big deal, what would be nice is if they'd just look back once in awhile. I tested 3 ladies today, they were walking shoulder to shoulder and had the whole southbound trail blocked. I followed them for 3/4 of a mile before the first one looked back. The only reason she looked back was because someone was headed northbound and she stepped off the trail to let them past. She lost her balance and stumbled, with that she looked back and saw me.

So enough bitching, today I only had the cell phone to take pictures. I skipped a few pictures and on mile 20 I was near this old rail road trestle, So I stopped quick and took this picture. I walked under it and my feet were almost numb before I got to the other side and back. OK, off I go to do something productive, like a nap! LiveStrong

Friday, August 28, 2009



So who would hold a cool training and take pictures with a cell phone? Yah, i know. STUPID. So I got the pictures sucked off my cell phone and onto the laptop. Maybe tomorrow I will pitch them into LightRoom and see if I can remove some of the "cell phone" look and get them better looking. But I will say watching electricity pass through grass and kite string good enough to light up two light bulbs is pretty darn awesome.

So today's picture is of Mount Rainer, took in September of 2002. Had a blast, wish I could go back. It was a great trip. More of those pictures are on the web site.

The weather is really nice.......for October. I have a BAD itch to go into the woods and look for some deer. So hopefully in the near future I'll have a buck or two to show off. Don't hold your breath, I don't see many "wall hangers".

OK, I gotta get to bed. Tomorrow I get up early and work at passing out food at the Angel food ministries. Then some famous country singer will be there, he sings "I don't have to me till Monday". Hope you know who that is! Any how, he'll be there doing some PR, and he is off in a fire truck to Meijers for more PR. So you'd think that would be all? HA we then have the annual fire department get together. So off to the sack I go. Tomorrow I'll take the good camera, maybe I'll get a good picture of......What's his face!

LiveStrong

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Rockford Fire Softball


Had the chance to go hang out with the folks from Rockford Fire last Saturday. They had a softball game. They asked me to play, ha ha. I took the camera instead. I felt if I would have played ball one of two things woulda happened. One, I would have shown them up, only to never be invited back. Two, died on the field. I figured number two was more likely, so I chickened out and used the camera as my excuse. Besides did I really want all of those sweaty Rockford ball players jumping on my chest?

I shot quite a few pictures, all posted on my web site, but the one I was shooting for is right here, where ever here is! I am thinking to the left and up? It is Dennis, he is a pro ball player from the hood. Ok, so he's not. But he'll be famous now I am sure! Seeing he is in my blog and on my site. No Dennis, this doesn't make me your newest fan. It just means that your the poor soul that hit the ball at the right time. And if you get hooked up with a good pro-ball team remember you owe me a beer. But if you sign with a good team you won't live in Michigan. The only good team we have is the Wings. And your skinny little ass would get pounded in hockey!

Ok so now I must go. The flames have died down from the grill. So the hockey pucks, oops i mean burgers must be done. I must log off now, finish dinner and head off the house of red trucks. I have things that need to be done. Chow for now. You can't wait for tomorrow log, we are going to roast hot dogs using a transformer. not the toy you rejected, one of those things up on the power pole. This should be a blast! LiveStrong

Monday, August 24, 2009

It's over.


What a week that was. Not going to get into all of the details, but it was a very crappie week. I am so glad it is over and everything turned out good. It could have been a very shitty week.

Right now I am setting a cheap hotel about 1 mile north of the Mackinac Bridge. We had a birthday party for Tristan, the 4th party already. Dam I feel old. Had a great time, stayed and visited for a couple of hours and then we headed to Mackinac. Looks like as of right now we will be headed to the Island tomorrow. Kinda hard for the kids to make up their minds. We did "summit" Castle Rock today. Went out to eat and then found a place to take some moon pictures and bridge pictures. So here I am waiting for a very slow internet hook up to load some pictures, then head to bed. Tomorrow looks like it will be a 500 picture day. Love it. Other than the 4 hour ride home! Got the new LANCE book, HA, I have something to read!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Can't be done?

And if today someone tells you it can't be done.........watch this! An awesome video my brother sent me. This dude rocks! Oh ya, don't try this at home!

http://video.telegraph.co.uk/services/player/bcpid1137883380?bctid=21337502001

Monday, August 17, 2009

My legs were saying.......


Ever have one of those days on the bike? A day you wish you and Lance were together cuz you felt like a machine, that stupid little bunny that kept going and going? I have to, but it wasn't today. I was ready to go home when I was only a couple of miles into the ride. But I had to get some miles on. My goal for the year is to just ride an average of 10 miles a day. Should be a piece of cake, and for a while it was. But today it was like going to get a tooth pulled. I had one of those days that when I was only half way up Fisk Knob I tried to kick down a gear and I was in the sissy gear already. My legs were smoked before I got to the summit. I guess my back was jealous and it felt like a big cramp before I had hit the 8 mile mark. I need a new bike! I had already passed one of the 10 mile marks and I just took a picture from the bars, while moving. When I hit my second 10 mile mark it was in a very fitting place. So I stopped and took a quick picture, seeing my battery eating cell phone was blinking Low battery (tell me, mine was too) I took a quick shot and shut it off. Didn't take much time setting it up, didn't care about equal lighting, or the rule of 3rd's, I took the shot and threw my cramped apendage over the seat and rode off into the bug filled trail. Oh what fun it is to ride on a two wheeled Trek. Ok, gotta go for now. LiveStrong

Saturday, August 15, 2009


Well, today I took the old beater camera and headed out for a bike ride. This shot was taken at the mile 20 mark. Wish I could take my good camera. Weird not having control over the shutter speed, the focus or the aperture. I rode from Big Rapids to Reed City and back. Got all the way to RC and just about crashed into a 1960's Camero. Seams they were having a car show and it was on rails to trails! I rode around for a little, some sweet cars showed up. I then rode east and saw a sign for the Crossroads 5k. I was not happy. Wished I would have had my Nike's with me. Reed City is a smaller town, and I was thinking there would not be a lot of runners. Maybe I could finish in the top 20, if only 20 showed up! But since I had no running shoes I road south to the truck. This 10 mile stop was a very boring place, well unless you like pictures of pioson ivy! So I sat the camera down and snapped this shot. I'll work on getting better! This camera has been all over the country. Dropped on Mount Si, kicked down a steep rock cover hill called Mount Rainer. It has survived Geo-Caching the the 100+degree heat of San Antonio Texas. So I was shocked it actuly worked. It is hard to get use to. Going from a camera that will take a picture within one second of being turned on, also taking 6-8 pictures a second. This Kodak CX4230 takes like 30 seconds to turn on and will take about 2 pictures a minute. I LOVE my DSLR. Ok, it's time to take the family out to eat. See ya tomorrow. LIVESTRONG. Oh Ya Congrats to Lance for winning the Leadville race.

Friday, August 14, 2009

More than U see.


Funny, today is payday and all I have on my mind is going to the cabin deer hunting. About 3 more months. I remember how in the beginning it was going hunting, setting in a blind and being so bored, and so cold. Back then it was ALL about the deer. Go back eat, sleep and get up at an ungodly hour to repeat it. All i wanted was to whack a deer and show it off proudly. Then as a few years had past I noticed something weird. I was just as, if not more, excited when someone else got a deer. I can't tell you how many times the report of a rifle would sound and I'd shut up the windows, shut off the heat and be pumped to go help "hold a leg" or just go BS with whom ever had been blessed with a deer. Suddenly I noticed I really didn't care as much to even get out into the woods. Oh hell ya, I live to hunt, but I found the only thing getting into a deer blind did was separate me from what, deep down, hunting has always been about, being with my family. Sure it's great to be in the blind, ears alert to a single snap of a branch, so keyed in you wish you could lick your nose to get the set of a deer. But deep down, after years of hunting you realize it's not the deer that pull you to the woods.

In the many years I have hunted I am shocked at how many times when I see a deer I grab the Canon and not the Browning. In the picture here you can see a deer, you can right? Behind that deer you can clearly see a deer blind. That deer blind has one story to tell, that of my Uncle Bill. He built that blind at his house in Alpena, my Dad brought it down in 6 pieces and we put it up. What a chore it was. That darn roof.....Uncle Bill had so many shingles on it weighted about 800lbs. OK maybe 200 but it was too heavy to carry. So we removed most of the shingles so we could move it. We spent a day putting it up. Making sure it was level (within a 1/4 inch), making sure it would have the windows pointed in the direction. Much more important than building a house. Way more. We build it in one day and we took pictures (I'll post them later). Then deer camp came around. What a year, all the normal guys, Uncle Bill, Dad, my brother Craig, my son William, and most important the camp cook and deer guild Aunt Kathy. We did things like we normally did, woke complained about getting up so early, someone had snored, yada, yada, yada. And off we all headed to our deer blinds. If it hadn't been for my son I would have not went out that morning.

The only report we got from a gun was Uncle Bill. I jumped and grabbed the radio, hoping to hear the update of a deer down. I never heard it him on the radio, and I regret that. I remember thinking I couldn't believe that Uncle Bill missed! My son and I spent the day looking for deer, he's still in the "hunting mode". Saw a few but nothing worth dragging out of the woods. But most of all we were together.

Dark came along and we headed the cabin. Only to find a deer hanging. And for this year a nice buck. Looked like one we had been watching on the deer cam! A trophy for sure. Uncle Bill was happy, and so were we. Maybe my son was a little disappointed to not have gotten one, but he didn't show it. He was happy for Uncle Bill, maybe he understood more than I thought.

Deer camp got closed up days later and we all headed back to normal life. But later in the year we received a call that Uncle Bill lost his fight with cancer. So now we have lost a great person and deer camp will never be the same. Maybe this year Uncle Bill will send us the biggest deer ever, we're talking Boone and Crockett deer. Sure I'll be proud to shoot one, if William doesn't beat me to the gun, We'll look up to the heavens and thank God (and Uncle Bill) for the deer. But it could never be the same as years past.

So when you look again at the picture you'll see a few things.
A deer blind, easy.
Then you'll see the deer.
But did you see the bird?
See, some things in life you have to look at more than once to see whats important. It's not the deer blind, it's not the deer, it's whats not there any more.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009


Thinking about setting up the camera tonight and trying to get some flyin' stars. Not to good at sky shots. This picture is one of my better moon shots. Seeing I was setting on a huge cruise ship with a drink in my hand may have had something to do with it. I'll take another free cruise any day to take this picture again.
So I'll be out tonight, messin with exposures, F/stops and things like that. Maybe open the shutter and lock it up for 10 minutes and see what happens. If it goes well we'll do it for 30 minutes and see what shakes out.
Who knows maybe I'll even ride the bike tonight! Humidity is down greatly! See you tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009


Another lovely day without power. Received an email and it says we MIGHT have power back late Wednesday the 13th. Hard to believe the world hasn't ended. I mean how many kids are there with a Wii, PS3 or a Xbox that doesn't work! HA my son is home removing about 1/2 of the trees we lost that I cut up last night. I bet he never thought the day would come that he could go 2 days with out guitar hero and still be breathing! Actually I never thought I'd see it either! I have yet to even see a power company truck in the "hood". It has actually been a good thing. All of the neighbors are out helping each other out. Gives a chance to meet them all and help out.

As for the picture of the day, it is from a trip to Grand Turk. Wish I was there again, still. You get the idea. See you tomorrow.

Monday, August 10, 2009

The storm

Wow! 10-15 minutes of heavy rain and high winds cause havoc in the township. We received one page, everyone respond to the station. From there the Chief received a couple of phone calls from dispatch and the fun began! We had about 15 scenes we needed to go check. Wires down on propane tanks, wires on houses, wires on road, trees....well, we had trees everywhere. It was pretty tough to reroute people because everywhere you sent them the road was closed due to downed trees or power lines. It is reported that 45,000 folks have no power. By the number of power lines down in my neighborhood I am gonna be lucky to have power Wednesday. Just remember as the storm work clears that the power line that had been dead for hours/days may be re-energized as power line work is going on. If you smell smoke, and your wife isn't cooking, call 911, the lines to your house may be loose, or you may have had a surge and something isn't happy with it. Oh ya, get the hell out and stay out.

Sunday, August 9, 2009


The family headed to a great small church on Saturday. A friend from the Fire Department was getting married. All of us went and we had a blast. I don't shoot weddings. To much on the line, but it sure is easy to be a back seat photo-g and be thinking.....why is she not here? But, the church was awesome! Other than the brightly lit white wall, most of my shots were on the hot side. Lightroom work coming my way. The wedding was very well done and he didn't run for the doors. This girl must be something else! Glad to see she met a guy like Moose, he's a hell of a good guy.

As for bike riding.......well, I slept in. I did get up at about 5a.m. to get ready but luckily is was raining hard. So i went back to bed. I got up at noon (oops) and it had quit, but we had to get ready to go to the wedding. I am hoping for a Sunday ride. Calls for high humidity, yuck.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Grass Lake Nationals


What a week of racing! Most of the countries best racers were there! Folks from as far as Florida, New Jersey, California and Washington. We had a blast. We did have many crashes, most were nothing more than a driver getting blasted out of a boat. A few were serious, good news is that none resulted in a seriuos injury.

As for Bloggin........this is my first. I have ALOT to learn. Be patient with me! Thanks