BlakeAtwood.com

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I’d forgotten about this embedded slideshow feature! Click each large picture to read the captions!

Here are 62 photos for your viewing pleasure (out of the possible 1000 or more that we took).

Frog in Bogeys Water

Due to the nearly biblical amount of rain we experienced last month, our backyard, aside from being as verdant as ever, also started to suffer a plague of frogs. Tiny ones were everyone, and some big bubbas would hop around from time to time. I started to wonder how often Bogey (see previous post) had feasted on a frog leg dinner. Apparently, he just likes Frog Stew.

I keep throwing the water out, letting the frog hop away, and he just keeps returning.

Bogey in the Murano

Sort of a funny photo. There’s a lot of work that goes into just getting our dogs into the car so we can take them for a walk. The funniest thing (in my opinion) is that Bogey leans his head over the back seat and slobbers all over the upholstery. We wised up to his ways and began placing a towel over the seat before he gets there. And he refuses to jump into the car, so I have to grab all 100+ pounds of him and shove him in. It’s a great workout for your back.

I was recently given the opportunity to have a free photo canvas made and shipped to my door from Canvas on Demand. The shipping was speedy and the canvas looks nice. There are more options than just the standard canvas that we received, some that colorize black and white photos, some that enhance your photos with artistically done brush strokes, and also the ability to choose better frames. As we were just trying out their service, we opted for the “Standard Gallery Wrap,’ which wraps your image around the frame. We also chose the 16″ x 20″ size.

Our hardest decision was choosing which picture to use. My wife is a photo nut (I just bought her a digital frame for our anniversary), so we had many to choose from. She wanted black and white; I wanted full-color. We settled on this picture (and this is the actual  frame; the photo quality is a little poor as it was taken with my cellphone). The pic is from our engagement photos, and I really liked the colors in it. Unfortunately, I did not know that the picture would be cropped. The original had us in the left half of the frame with nice fall foliage in the right half, a visual composition that I liked better than what we received, but the portrait on the canvas is still nice. I can’t complain too much since we received this for free. One suggestion would be a preview option of what the final canvas will look like. These canvases (canvii?) make a great birthday present or anniversary gift, so I’d recommend them, although you may want to go a little “higher-end” on the scale of what they offer to get the full effect.

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I thought I’d written about this before, but our 1 year old half-lab, half great pyreness ‘puppy’ got into a bit of a mess a few weeks ago. Also, I found flickrSLiDR today, an easy way to embed Flickr slideshows into your website, as seen below. The story that goes along with the show is as follows:

The wife and I were inside, when a shattering noise from the backyard awoke us from our midday reverie. "There goes the chiminea," I said. As I was pulling my shoes on, the wife was outside yelling "GET THE CAMERA! GET THE CAMERA!" So I got the camera. (I’m trained well). Maybe if I had forecasting software, I could have seen this coming. Although, given the guy’s girth, it was a certain inevitability, although the way it happened was fairly unique. The poor pooch had laid down next to the chiminea, gotten his collar stuck to the stand, and, when he got up, took everything with him. The aftermath is seen below:

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

Addictive much? Possibly, depending on your level of acceptable and anonymous voyeurism. Sounds worse than it is. Flickrvision presents realtime Flickr photos as they’re geotagged to Google maps. If that didn’t make sense, just see Flickrvision in action. Weddings, car crashes, feet, family photos, hangover cures, pets…you name it, you’ll most likely see it. When will we get to the point where there’s a site like Flickrvision, but for video, where you can zoom in on any city and see someone’s live broadcast? It’s coming. You know it is. How long watching Flickrvision until you recognize someone?

I’m more and more impressed with what people can mashup. Thank goodness for open APIs and an increasingly colloborative online community.

I almost forgot to mention Twittervision.  It’s just as enthralling. Although you’ll most likely just get updates on a person’s daily humdrum activities, sometimes words of wisdom, ancient koans, and thoughtful haiku are waiting to be read.

Today is a momentous day. It’s Bogey’s birthday. He’s all of one year old. In just one year’s time, he’s gone from the first photo to the second photo and he mostly does what he’s doing in the third photo all day. If you didn’t already know, he’s half lab and half Great Pyrnees, thus the largeness. We think he’s around 60-70 pounds, but he’s way past due for a weighing. In one picture he looks angry - he’s not. He crinkles his nose when he’s excited or wants attention, although to the uninitiated and combined with his loud, deep bark, it could be more than a little disconcerting. On the other hand, he’s just a big goofball.

In related news, he’s been eating a small tree we thought we had reinforced with not just one, but two fences. We bought larger, sturdier posts, and, so far, so good. In better news, at least for Bogey’s sake, he’s going to get a puppy cake this weekend. Seems the wife has the same strange affliction that her mother suffers from - spoiling animals. Not that I’m against it. I think the puppy cake is edible by humans as well. Not that I would want to try it.

Sponsored by first communion gifts. A site with many ideas for communion gifts should the need suddenly arise.

Also, I highly recommend ScribeFire, a Firefox plugin that allows easy posting to almost any (and multiple) blog(s). This is the first post I’ve written for my site using ScribeFire.

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Our church held its 5th annual golf tournament yesterday. My team shot a collective 4 under using the Best Ball format. (Every person hits a shot, but only the best shot is used next). Not terrible, not great. We won third place in the second flight, good enough for a free round of golf.

On the other hand, the picture to the right is of one mad momma bird who was hovering next to a pond where, I heard, she’s protecting a newborn. So I can’t blame her, but she was pecking at every person that tried to get near the water. The lady with the golf club is 91 years old too! And still playing. Golf is one of the few games where you can get away with that.

I guess I’ll have to include a picture of myself. This one’s funny because it looks like I’m taking a full swing with my putter. It’s actually a post-swing swing of frustration. I had many a good putt that just didn’t quite make it, settling down only a few inches from the hole. Oh well, that’s the way life and golf often are…

The picture almost looks like I could use a Diet Trial, what with some of that flab hanging out in the front - but I think that’s just my shirt. I hope that’s just my shirt.

"In computer graphics and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI) is a set of techniques that allow a far greater dynamic range of exposures (i.e. a large difference between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to the deepest shadows." (Wikipedia)

According to my friend Donnie, the photographer takes three pictures of the same scene: one is underexposed, one is correctly exposed, and the last is overexposed. Using Photoshop or another digital image editor, the photographer combines the three pictures into something entirely new. It’s a process I’d like to learn in the near future.

HDR photography produces some pretty cool images that are real, but not quite. It’s impressive what some photographers can do. Many good examples can be found on Flickr, as this style is increasing in popularity on the web. See Austin area HDR images, the HDR Flickr group, and this guy, an HDR photographer in Austin.

[And in random news, did you know that you can buy Mailboxes online? I sure didn't.]