Photo Class

Once we got a DSLR camera, it rapidly became clear that while it's possible to treat such a camera as just a fancy point-and-shoot, that really wouldn't be making the most of its potential. Fortunately, we found that Durham Tech offers a series of digital photography classes. Initially we signed up for the “Beyond the Basics” class but after the first session it became very clear that the basics were beyond us rather than vice versa — so we switched to the “Basics of Digital Photography” class and continued with it.

The class just completed this past Monday. I've learned a lot from it, both in terms of how to use the various bells and whistles on this camera, as well as how to take better pictures in general. (The pictures in our Easter post are an early product of that education.) Each week we've had photo assignments to get hands-on experience with various features and techniques — aperture settings to control depth of field, shutter speeds to blur or freeze motion, the effect of wide angle versus telephoto, and so forth. Basic, perhaps, but surprisingly helpful. For example:



Shutter speed: 1/640s versus 1/20s


In addition to weekly classroom sessions and homework assignments, the class included a weekend afternoon photo outing to the Duke Gardens. We were given three hours and about a dozen photo assignments to complete, along the lines of “Take pictures of the same subject at the same distance, but vary from maximum wide-angle to maximum telephoto on your lens” and “Take a picture that has only two colors.” While working to complete these assignments, I came up with a few photos that I'm somewhat proud of:




Even though the class focused primarily on DSLRs and all their various manual settings, it'll definitely help me in taking better pictures with our everyday point-and-shoot camera as well. I'm thinking about taking the “Beyond the Basics” class this fall, time permitting, since (as is often the case) by learning this much, I've become very aware of how much more there still is to learn!

A Happy Easter!

We had a great Easter weekend with my  parents and sister and brother in law, who came up to stay with us.

We spent the weekend visiting, eating, playing games, taking a walk through Duke gardens and just enjoying each other’s company. The only rotten part of the weekend was Saturday morning when we woke up to find Hannah and Bizzy’s car had been broken into – in front of our house! ! They busted the drivers side window and took their GPS and iPod and a pocket knife. Unfortunately no one saw anything and we couldn’t find any shops that would fix the window over the weekend before they had to drive home on Sunday. We gave Pasha a stern talking to regarding to her role as watch dog – next time she promises to be more alert.  Of course we just hope there isn’t a next time!

Thanks family, for coming up to see us and for spending Easter together!

Diaper Cakes and Cake Truffles

I've had fun lately putting together a diaper cake for a friends baby shower. This is the second one I've done and I think its a fun gift and makes for a pretty cool decoration or centerpiece. This one consisted of a bottle of champagne, 200 diapers, 6 pacifiers, numerous washcloths, socks, and miscellaneous other toys and baby supplies from her registry. It comes out looking like this:

Vase of washcloth rosebuds: 

 

Here is the previous one I made:

If anyone likes the look and wants a unique gift for a mom-to-be, let me know. :)

I've also had some fun making these cake truffles I found on this site, Bakerella. Mine look nowhere as good, but they were very yummy.  These were for Valentines day, Red velvet cake truffles.

And these for St. Patrick's Day, Mint Oreo Truffles

 

Still exercising!

We're still continuing to train for Heather's triathlon, and looking at other ones to possibly do together later this year. (The problem with that is, by May it's already almost summer, and the idea of doing a triathlon in the summer heat is somewhat demotivating... but we're looking nonetheless!) I'm pleased and impressed (and surprised) that we're managing to stick with this so well - sure, we've missed a day here and there, but we're averaging 5-6 days a week overall, which I think is darn impressive!

We've hit a few exercise milestones over the last couple of weeks that are worth documenting. Firstly, a week ago we did our first "combination" triathlon training - we rode our bikes 5 miles to the park, swam for 15 minutes, then rode 5 miles back. It was a lot of fun, until less than a mile from home on the way back, I steered my bike into the gutter, hit the curb, and wiped out. I picked up a nice big scrape on my elbow (I'll spare you the pictures!) but otherwise escaped injury. Ever since we got the bikes, I've been waiting for the inevitable first crash, so I'm actually kind of glad to have it over with - and glad it was me instead of Heather!

Secondly, this past weekend we drove over to north Raleigh to try out the actual bike route that Heather's triathlon will follow - 9 miles through a hilly (and rather ritzy) neighborhood. We found that the hills in our neighborhood are nothing compared to the big ones on that route, and that we definitely have some more training to do. On the last big hill we both had to drop to the absolute lowest gear on our bikes just to make it up. But we did finish, and we've still got more than two months of training to go, so it's a good feeling.

Thirdly, swimming. Heather was a swimmer in school, and so it's coming back to her quite naturally as we train in the pool. Me, although I got my swimming merit badge as a boy scout, I've never been much of a swimmer, and my swimming technique has always been more of a way to stay afloat and not sink than a way to move through the water quickly. But with some good tips and suggestions from Heather, I've been rediscovering (or perhaps even learning) how to swim the freestyle, and am now at the point where I can actually swim several laps at a time freestyle without inhaling too much water. It's a good feeling. Today at the pool I covered a total of 1000 yards for what I think may be the first time ever for me - of course, I stopped between laps quite a bit, so it probably doesn't "count", but it's a start!

Krispy Kreme Challenge

So this update is a little late but 2 weeks ago we participated in the the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge at NC State. Apparently this started several years back with students and has now turned into a big, fairly well-known event. Four thousand registered in 2010!


With our new goals of training for my triathalon we thought this might be a sweet (hehe) addition to our weekly running schedule. You can register as a challenger or a causal competitor. The challengers have to run the 2+ miles to Krispy Kreme, eat a dozen doughnuts, run back and not puke, all in an hour. Since that sounds like madness to us we signed up for the casual category..get to Krispy Kreme, eat what you want, and get back to the finish line in however long it takes you.

Moving so fast the camera cant keep up!

We managed to jog most of the way there, picked up our dozen doughnuts, ate a couple, gawked at all of the people smashing doughnuts in order eat them quicker and walked ourselves back to the finish line. All in 1 hour 17 mins. :)

It was a fun and interesting experience and I'm glad we tried it!

Birthdays and Snow

So for Glenn's birthday last weekend I tried to make a cake. He had requested chocolate and decadent so I found a baileys chocolate cake recipe I thought would fit the bill.. Oh what a disaster. Pretty much every single way it could go wrong, it went wrong, including not tasting good. I blame the recipe. ENTIRELY. Look at this work of art. I should have just stopped at the first inkling of disaster but I kept going..



Sooo the second attempt went A LOT better. Chocolate Reeses cake. Yummy.

Glenn's parents and family friend came up on Saturday and fortunately helped us eat it. They also brought us our wedding anniversary 3rd anniversary gift. It was a long time coming but worth the wait! Beautiful handmade mahogany china cabinet. Gene is quite the woodworker!



This past weekend we headed out to Asheville for one of Glenn's brother's 40th birthday party. Unfortunately we were snowed in and weren't able to see the sites but we made the most of it and had a good time playing board games and playing in the several inches of snow.















Once we got back home and discovered we had as much snow as Asheville, Pasha had a grand time running around and checking things out. You can see a video of her here. The snow has been pretty but im glad its melted off the streets today and life can go back to normal.

Happy Birthday Glenn!

Just a few of the reasons why I love you...

you've been a cat and computer lover since the beginning


you know how to succeed



you are willing to dance through this life with me :)


you smile and you laugh with me


you drink rum punch....with 2 fists


you can proudly wear glasses


you create scale models



and you look great standing in an Irish pasture

What more could I ask for?


Happy Birthday darling! I hope this year is a good one. :)