davejenbarnes

Cape Charles Panorama, uploaded by davejenbarnes.

My first attempt at a panorama is up on our flickr site! I had photoshop do an automatic version and it didn’t … blend … so well from one pic to another, so I did this one by hand. I’m much happier with the results!

There are six pictures in this panorama. David was the photographer.
-Jen

UPDATE: I uploaded a viewable larger version on our gallery… and changed the link (the thumbnail above) to the gallery on our site where David can view it from work, as opposed to flickr which is blocked by Bess.

David and I went to an indoor fireworks store today. It was pretty big. Dave got to walk around with a basket and tell the people what he wanted and he was smiling the entire time. I did not know the difference between the types of explosives other than what David told me, so I didn’t pick much out. I will say, though, that at the New Years firecracker bash we had and my parents’ place, I got to hold a baby roman candle and I was really scared of it, but still had fun. This time, David informed me that I have graduated to the medium size with eight “fwhoomp”s…

We are meeting Mark and Becky Miller and Jacob (Adam) and Meredith Jeffers and my brother all at my parents’ land for a fireworks extravaganza. There will be two digital Rebels there as well as my EOS and maybe Jer’s Nikon (i think its a Nikon…??), so I will be sure to take my lenses and tripod to set up in attempt to capture some sparklies. This will be the most photographed Fourth of July get-together EVER. Hopefully a good (and not rainy) time will be had by all.

In other news, we have a young cardinal trying to get in through the window in the second bedroom. He’s (yes, it is a HE as he is becoming bright red) been obsessed with our window all day long and the cats are no longer phased by his (mouse-over the next word) meeble attempts at flying through the window. At least the tree is close enough to the window that he does not have enough distance to gain speed to cause any damage (to him or the glass).

Also, we noticed today that the construction at 620/Lake Creek has taken over all of the right-turn-before-the-light lanes. This is causing traffic to back up all the way past Parmer and even at the lights at the Parmer bridge over 620. David and I will be driving either North to Brushy Creek or South to Anderson Mill in order to get over to 183 which is no longer a real traffic problem due to the new extension which opened in April. This really stinks because 620 is the most direct way to church and to the Collins’ house in Steiner Ranch. I have been spending afternoons with Lisa Collins who is ten weeks pregnant with their first child and still has morning sickness… we watch movies on their new home theatre system… its nice when a close friend buys the Blockbuster Movie Pass and gets unlimited rentals for a month!! ;-)

I think I have all of the DC pictures up on the gallery now. There are 155 pictures for your perusal. Well, Dave rented Kill Bill, so I’m going to go have dinner in front of the TV. Have a great night, y’all!

PS, in case I don’t blog again until after this weekend, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my weblog on the 4th of July!

I am itching to get the post-processing started on our vacation pictures. We have over 775 pictures and I will most likely be editting about 700 of them or so and uploading them to the gallery over several days. The pictures, however, reside on David’s iBook and the cable for the Canon digi-cam also resides with the iBook so I remain impatiently pictureless.

To edit such a high volume of pictures, I will attempt to write a script for the GIMP so the process will be a one-click process. Since I am pictureless, I will look up how to write a script for the GIMP!

UPDATE: Yes, an update already… writing a script for/in GIMP is going to be quite educational. I will need to learn basic Perl and another programming language! Eek! Anyone wanting to do this for me is welcome to take a stab at it! Jer?? Mark?? Peter?? Shelley?? anyone??

Dad Knight, I thought you’d get a kick out of this: Apparently, during our trip to Virginia/Washington DC in a few weeks, we will be able to witness the middle of mating season for the cicadas. Not just any cicadas… cicadas that wait 17 years between mating seasons! I will take pictures if we see any!

Ok, so we’re really going to Cape Charles, Virginia, but I figured I’d find the biggest “close” thing on the east coast and since I’m a through-and-through Texan, you can’t get much bigger than Washington DC! (It’s kinda like when the Mt. Carmel thing happened and everybody labeled it “Waco” or the Jerrell tornado a few years back and that got labeled “Austin.” Yep, it’s the same sort of thing)… I would like to spend a day in Washington DC, though, since I’m an adult and will actually remember it.

There is a friend of mine who lives there with his wife now, but we’re not in touch anymore… that’s kinda sad since we were in the third grade together and then went to the same high school (which is kinda rare in a military community) and even kept in touch all through college, but somehow we lost touch when I moved to Chicago with David and he got engaged to his wife. Life happens and we all get caught up in the whirlwind and before you know it, years have gone by before you say hello again.

UPDATE: May 14, 2004 I have just received an email from said friend. Life does happen and he and his lovely wife are expecting their first child in late November! It is so good to hear from old friends.

Anyhow, I digress… If anybody has any ideas of what we could do in one day in the nation’s capital, by all means, leave a comment.