So I finally got a new lens to go in my camera bag. I order this lens from B&H at the end of last week. It was suppose to be delivered on Saturday, but for what ever reason UPS just kept my package in Roanoke for the entire weekend even though it was there on Friday night. Monday, after waiting impatiently, I went home hoping to find the package or at least one of those yellow slips telling me that they had tried and giving me a number to call to try to pick it up. To my avail, there was nothing. I went back into the computer and checked the shipping information, it was still listed in the system as “Out for Delivery�?, which it had been listed as since 7:00am on Monday. So I sat there with my fingers crossed waiting… and waiting… then what is that which I hear? It is the UPS man driving up with my package…

So after much waiting, I got the package open and started playing with it around the house. It is a very nice and rather large lens. Sitting on the couch, I could take a picture of the entire wall across the room from me, note that this is a relatively large wall compared to how close it was to me… So I wiped up my drool and sat down for some dinner with Cindy. After dinner we decided that it would be nice to go out and take some pictures with the new lens, the major problem was that the light was already fading fast because sunset had come upon us…

We decided to go to this back road near where Cindy’s lives and try to get some pictures.. There is this really nice little man-made water fall. So we went and took some shots. Unfortunately, because the light had left that area already, the pictures did not capture the water falling as well as I had hoped… I really should have thought about it better and used a tripod instead of hand holding the camera. The pictures did help show off the lens very well, but I am going to wait until I have taken some better pictures to post some of them.

So look for new pictures with this lens to be appearing on the site in the near future. In the mean time I will have to get back to pretending to work while I day dream about being outside taking pictures…

-Matt

This weekend was full of happy and sorrowful events. On Friday, the family started by going to Arlington Cemetery to lay my grandmother to rest along with my grandfather. (I hope to have pictures posted soon for those that were not able to be there). After the ceremony, the old farts headed home while the young ones decided to head over to the National Zoo and visit the animals. (Chris and Chris did not want to take their kids back on a long drive home after spending just a little bit of time in Washington DC). After getting there and getting into some more comfortable clothes, we decided to stop for some grub at the Zoo, never again. That was some of the worst food that we have had and it was very over priced, even for a hockey puck. While at the zoo we were able to see the Elephants, Pandas, Cheetah, Apes, and many more small mammals. (I still have not had time to go through all the pictures to see if I got any good ones).

Saturday the family gathered at my parent’s house to celebrate my sister’s 30th birthday. This was also the first chance that my dad had to play with his new Grill, wow that is a big grill. We all had lots of fun helping my sister enter the realm of old farts, but at least she was still able to laugh about it. It did not take her too long to realize that her theme was 30. Maybe it was the 30 “birthday�? cards (I put birthday in quotes because not all the cards were actually birthday cards, some were get well cards and anything else that could be found), or maybe it was the 30 glue sticks, or 30 pads of paper, or cocking in 30 minutes or less. I will admit that I did not stick with the theme because I had already got her birthday present before the theme was announced. As always dinner was concluded by everyone sitting around the table talking, joking, and just having a good time while picking at the remaining food.

On Sunday, Cindy and I went out to lunch with Christine and her family before getting on the road. We took or leave and headed to Annapolis to visit with Cindy’s grandmother. Much to our surprise, Cindy’s parents were also there. We all went out for some food and light conversation. The evening concluded with some wedding discussion and planning before Cindy and I got back on the road headed back down to southwestern Virginia.

It was a long weekend, but everyone had a good time. Look for pictures in the next couple of days (I am hoping to get caught up with pictures from the past two weekends)

Update: Pictures are here.

-Matt

After a lot of work on the part of my Mother, a honeymoon destination has been set. Cindy and I will be flying off to Italy to enjoy the first week of our marriage. The plans are to spend three days in Sorrento and three days in Rome before returning home. This has been the top choice on our honeymoon destination list for a while now. We look forward to taking a lot of great pictures…

-Matt

This weekend was another traveling weekend for Cindy and I. We visited my friend Olya and her Fiancée up in Long Island, New York. Because there was so much to do and such a long drive, we decided to take Friday off and leave early on Thursday to make a look weekend of it. We got out a little later than planned from Blacksburg, but we got up to my parents on Thursday night without any problems.

One interesting thing that I did was get Cindy’s laptop so that it could dial out through my Cell phone. The method described here was used to setup my Verizon Cell phone so that it would only use standard minutes to access the internet. This also means that night and weeks is free access. It is fun and interesting, but the response time can be a little bit slow (the time from when you request a web page to when it starts downloading). We did use this method to look up traffic cameras along the road while we were driving up and also to Google some possible Honeymoon locations and read about them. It is a good way to pass the time…

So we got to my parents on Thursday night, had dinner and then turned in after some general conversation. Friday we got up early, well not really early, and had breakfast before heading on our way. We got up to Olya’s place just about lunch time, so the three of us went out for some grub (Morgen had to work). Afterwards we went to a local park along the water on the north side of Long Island. It was a great day to get out and enjoy nature (of course we have some good pictures that are soon to follow)… That night Olya made us a great dinner and the four of us just sat around talking for a long time.

Saturday saw Morgen and Olya having to work, so Cindy and I decided to go into New York City on our own. One of the big things that we had been looking forward to was visiting B&H Photo. So we went driving around the stores area looking for parking with out much luck, finally we parked in a parking garage. They had a flat pricing for the day since there was an event at Madison Square Garden. So we parked and went walking around the corner to B&H only to find out that they were closed on Saturdays! Since we had already paid parking, it would have been silly to get the car, so we left it there and took the subway uptown.

The first stop was the International Center for Photography. The artist that they had on display was Larry Clark, who I had never heard of before. So we went walking around, and frankly we were not impressed by his pictures. It seemed that he wanted to be edgy and controversial by showing pictures of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; but the pictures just were not creative and did not really convey a message. I could just as easy print out my pictures and call it art.

Next we took the subway up to the Guggenheim Museum on Central Park. The exhibits here were a lot better done and interesting. Unfortunately we got there close to closing time, so we only got to spend an hour looking around, but it was still well worth it. We have some pictures that we took from the first floor, soon to be posted, showing the interesting architecture of the museum.

After the Guggenheim, we walked across Central Park, it was a great day weather wise. We got some great pictures of each other on the walk around. When we reached the far side, it started getting a little chilly (it was almost 7:00). So we headed to the nearest subway station to get back to our car and get out of the City. Overall it was a great day in the city, but there was so much more that we would have loved to see, but that will have to wait for another visit.

Saturday night was spent socializing and having fun with Olya and Morgen. It was a good evening of fun conversation and games. As Sunday rolled around, we had a nice wake up call at 10:00 as their landlord started working on the kitchen right above their place, with several power tools going. We did not mind since it was time to get up and moving anyways. We packed, had some food and said our good byes and headed out for the long trip home, well almost.

We had one more stop before leaving town, we needed to stop at B&H, which was open on Sunday. We ended up spending over an hour in the store, it is any techie geeks dream store, just packed wall to wall with photography, video, audio, and computer stuff. When you want something, you ask one of the sales associates who enters it in the computer and a few minutes later a box comes rolling out on a conveyor belt to the associates feet. He scans the order to verify that it is the correct thing, prints a receipt for you and then send the item on up to the front counter. It was all done very well, and any photo enthusiast should stop into the store if they are ever that way, it is well worth the trip.

So after a long weekend, we drove all the way back down to Blacksburg, VA. It was a lot of driving for such a short time in NY, but it was still a great weekend. We also hope not to go so long without visiting our friends Olya and Morgen (well we will see them atleast at our wedding then their wedding in October…) As always, pictures are still being worked on, I hope to get them posted sometime soon…

-Matt