Blueberry Festival and Youth Talent Show 2008

Video of Hayley's dance for the Youth Talent Show.
She danced to Gwen Stefani's "Harajuku Girls".

Nice Miss, Brandon!

Lens Day: Movement

Looking Brighter

Yay. New hard drive (and OS, and updates, and software, and...and...and) installed, and life is back to normal. Of course, that means it's as crazy as usual -- plus or minus a few trials and tribulations.

If not for Flickr, I would have lost this photo along with the others. Thankfully, I had the sense to upload pretty much everything I wanted to keep before the hard drive crashed. Sometimes it pays to play it safe.

Going Buggy

Well, the hard drive is dead. It has only been a day, and I'm going buggy already. Probably won't be posting much for a while, unless I keep coming to use the library computers...which probably won't happen often. Can't upload photos or anything on their computers either. :^(

Speckled Feather and Fuzzy Weeds

Macroday: Fuzz
(Click to enlarge in order to see the "Fuzz". Hint: It's not the feather.)

This makes the fourth post in one day. I know...scary, isn't it?

Get Down with Nature

See It Sunday: Connection

The mushroom cap's connected to the mushroom stem....
(to the tune of the song that tells us the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone...)

Sometimes what you find at ground level is much more interesting. This is one of those situations in which looking down is much more inspiring than looking up. Of course, you could look up while being down. Either way, it works.

My Food Creation

While Hayley spent most of the day bagging groceries at EconoFoods (part of the 8-18 Media fundraising plans to help cover the costs for the two Convention teams), I headed out to Park Cemetery to take some photos around the ponds. When it got close to dinner time, and Hayley still wasn't home, I searched the refrigerator and cupboards for something simple to throw together for myself.

There wasn't much to choose from, since I haven't been able to do my normal large-scale grocery shopping for the month. What I decided to do was take a flour tortilla, brown it in oil, then set it aside on some paper towels to soak up the excess oil. In the meantime, I fried some chopped white onion in margarine, sliced up half of an avacado and sprinkled it with salt. After the tortilla cooled off, I spread some sour cream over it, then topped it off with a shredded taco-seasoned cheese mixture, the avacado slices and fried onion. Once that was all put together, I sliced it up and ate it like you would a pizza.

It was really good, but I think I'll make some changes if I make it again. For starters, I'll probably mash up the avacado and put that on the bottom. The sour cream was a bit too thick, so I'll just dab some on the top of the "pizza" next time. I'm guessing it'd be good with tomato on it as well, but 1) I don't have any, and 2) I'm not fond of them unless they're cooked in chili or something.

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to do this easy meal. So be creative! :^)

Hung Out to Dry

Shutterday: Pants

Hot Summer Night

Thursday Challenge: Hot

One of the few photos I have of a sunset over Lake Superior. I have a lot of sunrise shots, but we can't see the sun setting over Lake Superior from Marquette -- except maybe from Presque Isle, but that's a trek I'm not willing to make at night. This particular shot was taken from the Munising Campground during our mini weekend getaway.

Mini Vacation

After several changes of plans, Hayley and I had a mini vacation last weekend -- something we don't get very often.

My dad sent me an email last week, saying he and my stepmom were going to take a trip to the U.P. (they live in Northern Lower Michigan) and wanted to know our plans for the weekend. We happened to not have any plans, so he said they'd be spending Saturday with my brother and sis-in-law in Newberry. Then they'd park their trailer at a campground in Munising, pick us up Sunday morning, and we'd go hiking with them (my dad and stepmom) at Pictured Rocks on Sunday.

Well, my brother had to work on Saturday, so he (my brother) suggested we all meet at the Munising City Dock on Sunday and we'd take his boat out to Grand Island, where we'd have some lunch and go hiking. My dad emailed me with the change of plans, and I replied by saying I didn't care where we went as long as I'd be getting photos somewhere other than Marquette.

Then on Saturday, my dad phoned me from the Munising campground, saying my brother sold his boat (he'd been trying to sell it on eBay or something, and wouldn't you know someone buys it just when we were going to use it). So then my dad said it'd be a lot easier if Hayley and I stayed with him and my stepmom (in their trailer) at the campground that night because we were going to rent a pontoon to take to Grand Island. After finally finding someone to watch the dog and cats, I phoned my dad and said the plan was fine -- we'd spend the night with them and meet up with my brother and sister-in-law at the pontoon rental place for 9:00am on Sunday.

Other than Tim and Jan being a little late on Sunday morning, all other plans were still in order -- we'd take the pontoon to Grand Island, do some hiking, and have lunch out there before returning the pontoon by 2:00pm.

The ride out there was great, with very little wave action. Tim drove the pontoon, and showed us where we'd stop for lunch. Then he played tour guide, taking us around to various parts of the island with the pontoon. We stopped at one beach, just to take a look around. When we left there, Tim decided we might as well go all the way around the island. However, the waves started picking up. Not only was it getting choppier, but the waves were also coming from two different directions in some areas. At one point, I was taking a photo of the island just off the front of the pontoon, when a huge wave came up, flying over Hayley's head (she was sitting in front of me), and soaking both her and Jan.

We ended up skipping part of my brother's tour, cutting across bays and channels as much as possible. Dad, Sharol, and Jan all wanted to just forget landing at our original destination on Grand Island, and return the pontoon two hours early. So that's what we did. Then we went back to the campground, Tim and Jan left before we had lunch, then Dad and Sharol drove us back to Marquette -- several hours earlier than we had planned.

At least I got some photos! Right...?

Wind Damage and Possible Down Time

Hayley and I walked past this tree a few times today. Sometime between those walks, the wind snapped a huge branch. Some City workers had to come and clean up the mess.

On another note...
If you notice a lack of activity on any of my sites (Blogger, Aminus3, Flickr, etc), it probably means my computer died. For the last few days, it's been making a strange sound -- and I'm pretty sure it's my hard drive about to crash. Not cool at all. Anyone who knows me, knows that my computer is my lifeline. Even my photography would be useless to pursue without the use of the computer. So, if I suddenly disappear for any length of time from the internet, you'll know why. Not sure when/if I'll ever get back. (Scary thought!)