Beginning of classes

Well, just like that the Delaware County Fair is in the books again. We'll have the carcass show tonight for the few animals which were purchased and slaughtered and that will be the official end for one more year. There's a lot of pictures from the fair showing up on the website, so check them out. Not only are there great photographers entering in the show (including my wife, who won 3rd place!), but it seems there were a lot of good pictures shot by fairgoers and submitted to the site throughout the week.

As we sort through all of Amanda's pictures, mine have been posted to the Picasa album. Suprisingly, Picasa has not been cooperating well with her Google-brother Blogger, so I'll include the link to the album so you can go there straightaway. In the end, only 25 pictures made my cut onto the site, but as I fill up that site I'm trying to weed out some of my less good shots, including a cut yesterday on some pictures which lacked clarity or subject focus and were just on there for sentimental reasons.

I also began a new photo website which I like less, but they tricked me into joining with a contest for the best geocached photos. I'm a sucker for contests like this so hopefully I'll win something, and if not I've at least put in a little ad online for the Delaware County Fair. Yahoo's Flickr is just a little bit too glitchy and gimmicky for me to use it much yet.

Class is started here on campus and so now i have to adjust to a new schedule once again. I have yet to remember that I TA a class in the morning, so luckily it's for my forgiving mother-in-law because I haven't showed up to it on time yet. Coffee gets me through the long days of adjustment and by November my pigs should start coming off trial. Looking through the fog of chaos to the future of lab work and predictable schedules. Well, here's to hoping anyways...

Pictures!

Brace yourself, it's high volume picture season. This summer I've added about 8 GB of pics to my computer, but during this week alone, another 8-10 GB are added to my computer for the Delaware County Fair. With the addition of Amanda on the photography staff at the county fair, I'm thinking it's about time she got a Picasa album of her own to showcase her good shots. She has some really good pictures, especially from the sheep show last night and we both also have winnings this year again in the open photography show!

I'm toying around with some watermark ideas as well. Some pictures are getting put this year on the county fair website, so I don't want something obnoxious, but I do want something which draws more people to my Picasa album and hopefully eventually some photography gigs someday. I'm still in the growing stages and so looking for practice rather than contracts with expectations - this freelancing for Del. Co. Fair has been perfect. I'd appreciate commentary on two things: 1) watermark locations - I don't want to be obnoxious, 2) keeping the ScotchPine Photos name is a go?

Speaking of pictures, I'll share the MSU photos through this link for the jazzy uniforms to be used in the Michigan game this year (which we'll be at!). There's a lot of debate going on about the MSU uniforms and I agree with most people's intelligent commentary. I realize the traditions of school colors, and also the history lesson in the bronze inclusion - but to paraphrase a LinkedIn comment, "Why bronze, isn't that third?".

Fall again

Well, it's definitely beginning to look a lot like fall again. The summer plants are dying out and the leaves are becoming more brittle. Tomorrow's high is once again predicted to be down in the low 60s and I love this stuff! I love the cool breeze in the morning, and I love being able to throw on some long sleeves and just wear them all day long without worrying about spiked heats. Fall colors are on the way and that means we needed to clear out our garden to make room for some mums.

I've included a picture today of the pumpkin plant we started at the beginning of the year. It's a perfect example of the shortage of bees and other pollinators, because this plant flowered all summer and went without any fruit. Not because it was sterile, but because I literally never saw anything crawl or fly by until it was already into late August. Luckily, our plants out at the parental unit were more successful. Jacob had a vastly successful planting of sweet corn after the first set was flooded out and our pumpkins are turning a good, solid Halloween orange.

County fair is coming up this coming weekend and I can't wait. Lambs and steers look good and it's a great time to have a fair. Look for me as press staff once again, pit passes and inside track for the horse races!!!