heartless

originally uploaded by billaday.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Though this photo is kinda dark, I had a great, romantic day with the wife.

Is it obvious what this photo is?
Year 3, Day 66

here is the church, here is the steeple

originally uploaded by billaday.

300 more days to go. This is day 65. I must admit, I've bee so focused on teaching EDUC 515 that I haven't been super motivated to go out and take pictures. I'm still taking one every day, but it's not at the forefront of my mind. I could argue with myself, however, that still taking one picture every day shows that I am in fact thinking about taking pictures most all the time. And, after all, that is one of the main goals of the photo-a-day project.

Oh yeah, The Francis Band rocked out at XLT (that's where I took this picture).
Year 3, Day 65

broken heart

originally uploaded by billaday.

We had a Valentine's party in class. Lots of cookies, lots of red food.

Year 3, Day 64

francis a la iPod

originally uploaded by billaday.

I found a great web site for free Photoshop brushes. Brusheezy has some cool categories, like grunge brushes. So when I found myself spoofing the old iPod ads, I added a few layers of Abstract Brushes (by Krakograff), and found it to be more modern.

Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm just now getting my feet with with the "new" grunge Photoshopping.


Year 3, Day 63

eyeball

originally uploaded by billaday.

I got this nifty webcam for my 515 class. It's a killer USB microphone with a built-in, pop-out camera. The camera is twice the resolution of Apple's built-in iSight, so it makes podcasting videos looks great. The giant sphere is actually the mic, and the tiny rectangle is the camera. Pretty cool stuff.
Year 3, Day 62

large diaphragm

originally uploaded by billaday.

We're podcasting in the new APU class I'm teaching. I got to bring in and use my Shure KSM32. It's a large diaphragm condenser microphone, and it's overkill for podcasting. It sure sounds nice, though.
Year 3, Day 61

fresh as a lemon

originally uploaded by billaday.

I don't understand why you need special soap for dishes. I think you should be able to just use hand soap. It gets hands clean; why can't it get a dish clean?

Here's a heads up for Blogger users: Flickr's "Blog This" does NOT work. You have to manually copy the embed code, then figure out how to make it look like the other posts. It takes a while to figure out how, and it takes a while to actually do it. If you're stuck, leave a comment here, and I'll send some markup your way.

Year 3, Day 60

bookshelf

originally uploaded by billaday.

I like being married. Here's a small, yet important reason why.

I have way more pictures of people in my house than I've ever had before. I like having photos of friends, family, and the wife.
Year 3, Day 59

Ryan at dinner

originally uploaded by billaday.

A cute kid. Sorry though, Ryan, I think you look more like your dad.

Year 3, Day 58

my shoes

my shoes, originally uploaded by billaday.

I'm still learning my new 50mm f1.4 lens. I backed off the f-stop for this one, trying to show a bit more context in the photo. I'm sure most of my shots with this lens will stay at f1.4 (cuz it's awesome), but it doesn't need to.

Year 3, Day 57

folded valleys

folded valleys, originally uploaded by billaday.

I bought the wife a bunch of flowers. She's been working really hard in life, and deserves them. Getting these turned out well for me, too, because I got this great photo.

Year 3, Day 56

I made homemade

I made homemade, originally uploaded by billaday.

This photo goes out to Nicole, Francis' wife. She gave me her secret family recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce. Very cool. She just made me promise that I couldn't tell anyone else that she gave me the recipe. Don't worry, Nicole. It's our secret.

Year 3, Day 55

highs and low

highs and low, originally uploaded by billaday.

This is one of my favorites shots I've taken in 2009 so far. It looks really nice on black. It looks like a study in painting shades of gray.

Year 3, Day 54

rewind

rewind, originally uploaded by billaday.

Occasionally, I think that I don't need my iPod. Occasionally, I forget to bring my iPod into the car. Those are the times I realize just how much I enjoy/need my iPod.

Year 3, Day 53

Stout hearted

Stout hearted, originally uploaded by billaday.

On a trip to Portland two years ago, I discovered that stouts are amazing. As luck would have it, I also discovered my favorite beer ever: McMenamin's Terminator Stout. It's creamy, rich, and dark, with a smooth coffee finish. If you're ever around Portland, go visit. You can't find it anywhere else.

Dedicated to Kristin, who sent this to me.

Year 3, Day 52

wtr sptlght

wtr sptlght, originally uploaded by billaday.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage...

Year 3, Day 51

unShure

unShure, originally uploaded by billaday.

I bought the Shure KSM32 10 years ago, when I was recording 9 bands for my senior project. It's a killer vocal mic, great on acoustic guitar, nice on a guitar amp, and works really well for a drum overhead. Basically, it rocks. I plan on using it much more often with some upcoming podcasts.

This looks nice large on black.

Year 3, Day 50

Rules of podcast engagement

Rules of podcast engagement, originally uploaded by billaday.

After much thought, time, and research, I have decided that this book, Podcast Solutions, is everything one needs to know about how to podcast.

Dedicated to Pat the Sound Guy.

Year 3, Day 49

iLife

iLife, originally uploaded by billaday.

I love the new iLife '09. So far, I've really only spent time with iPhoto. Faces & places are amazing. Here's why.

Faces is a new choice in your library. You click on a few picture of people, a square shows up around their faces, and you type in a name... like on Facebook photos. This is FAR from automatic, but it helps organize picture by person, which is a fantastic tool. I've spent hours typing names in photo by photo, but it's been worth it. In a few software updates, this should be beyond impressive.

Places also rocks. I've been using HoudahGeo to geotag my photos before sending them to iPhoto and Flickr. And I still love and use HoudahGeo. But now, I can see my photos on a map in iPhoto. I used to have to go to Flickr to show people my maps... no longer. As with Faces, Places is still a little tricky to navigate; I expect it to also be amazing quite soon.

Year 3, Day 48

fenced in

fenced in, originally uploaded by billaday.

I like selective color. Only the fence is green here. On that note, I have been using the hue/saturation adjustment layer much more recently. It gives me control over 6 different color ranges. I've been just tweaking the saturation in this adjustment layer.

On a tangent, my new favorite Photoshop shortcut is Shift Plus, or Shift Minus (Shift +/-). When you've selected the move tool (v), push shift plus, and you cycle through layer properties. Very cool.

Year 3, Day 47