One Dad's Life

Wordless Wednesday - Fall Harvest

This past weekend, we took a little trip out to Eckert's Orchards in Millstadt, IL.  Although I take a LOT of pictures, they are most often pictures of opportunity.  This trip, however, I had a number of images in my mind that I wanted to create, all the way down to composition and color.

Fortunately, the weather (and sky!) cooperated with my imagination, and conditions were just about perfect!  Included here are three of my successful shots - at least they met my expectations and hopes. Of course, looking closely at them now I can think of things I'd do differently, but to the extent of my ability this past weekend, I like them!

All shots taken with Nikon D60, f3.5-5.6 18-55mm kit lens.  Click on each picture for a larger version!

 

 

Friday Photos - The Climatron, in Total

One of the primary reasons I started this blog, was to provide a place to post some of my pictures.   If you come here often, you know that just about my favorite place in all of St. Louis to take pictures is at The Missouri Botanical Garden.  There is literally an endless supply of inspiring scenes!

If my search on the website is accurate, I've frequently mentioned a structure on the grounds called "The Climatron."  I've even posted a number of pictures that show glimpses of the cool exo-skeleton of the dome.  However, it seems I've never given someone who is not a St. Louis native a shot of what the building looks like in total. (ed. note: Oops, actually found one here!)

So here it is!  (click on photo for larger view) This shot was taken just a couple of weeks ago, near sunset, when the garden was already technically closed.  I lingered a bit, which drove my daughter CRAZY, as she thought we would surely be locked in overnight.

This view is taken from what used to be the main entrance to the garden.  In the foreground, there are three Water Lily ponds (and they are blooming!).  The domed structure is The Climatron.  Inside, is a miniature rain forest display.  It's incredibly cool.  As a child, it amazed me that they had AN ACTUAL BANANA TREE inside, with ACTUAL BANANAS!!!!

Have a great weekend!

Congratulations, Rebecca!

If you read "One Dad's Life" regularly, you know that we are pretty much an artsy fartsy family.  Other than a somewhat unnatural obsession with Nintendo, Dr. Pepper, and the lawn, most of what we do has some artistic component.

Whether a child gets their interests and talents through genes or environment, our kids are probably doomed to follow in our footsteps. So it shouldn't be too surprising that our oldest daughter, Rebecca, also loves to perform.  To date, this has largely manifested itself through dancing, performing in musicals and playing the violin.  

However, this past week, an opportunity presented itself for Rebecca to audition for a singing job, doing vocals for a new series of Sunday School CDs from Concordia Publishing House (CPH) in St. Louis.  If she was selected, it's possible she could sing for recordings over the next couple of years, for material that could be published for the next decade! 

To be honest, I didn't even know she'd be interested in doing this, as she has always been excited about musicals and acting, but has not really talked much about doing any other type of performances.  However, as soon as she got out of school on Monday, the first thing she asked about was whether we had been able to set up an audition time for her at the recording studio.  Obviously, she was excited!

As it turns out, we had been able to arrange a time that fit into her normally busy schedule, but she had to quickly learn the material for an audition that same evening! So she sat on the floor of her bedroom with a laptop computer playing the tracks and reading the music off the screen.  It was her job to sound as much like the previous recordings as possible.  The spot had opened up because the previous batch of kids doing the recordings were now too old and didn't sound like kids anymore!  Rebecca worked to sound like the recording, as much as possible.

Shortly after I got home from work, it was time to head to the audition so off we went.

We got to the studio and after an explanation of what was being looked for, she went into the vocal booth for her audition.  They were looking for kids that could sing basically by sighte and blend with other singers - not the usual type of singing for musicals, but distinctly choral in nature.  This is actually something Rebecca is very good at, and I thought that she did pretty good for just getting the material that day.  More importantly, they seemed to like what she did at the studio, but it still had to be sent to CPH for the ultimate decision.

As we left the audition, Rebecca told me how much fun she had. She was so excited, and really enjoyed singing in the studio. Who knew?  I really hoped she'd get a chance to try this again.

The first indication we got that she had a decent chance was when the studio contacted us the next day, inquiring about her availability during the next week. That was encouraging, but still, at this point, nothing was certain.

Then, Wednesday afternoon, the word came.  They wanted Rebecca!  Awesome! It's impossible at this point to know how much she will ultimately end up doing for this publisher, but judging from how long the last group of kids lasted, there is a chance it could last a while, if she does well.  The important thing is that she has a chance.  In fact, she will already be recording vocals for the first piece to be published, along with three other kids, this coming Monday!  She is really looking forward to doing the recording, and is so happy to be lucky enough to be chosen for this project.

So, congratulations, Rebecca! I'm very proud of you! I know you'll do a great job.

Break a leg!

Wordless Wednesday - Looking for the Sun

These plants are in the Climatron at The Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.  I like how they look like a flower with a completely different flower blooming out of the middle!  On either Friday, or next Wednesday, I'll post a new photo of the building itself!

Taken with a Nikon D60, 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6, natural lighting.

Now what?

It seems that since May, I've just been completely swamped with projects and events outside of the normal work stuff (which I don't talk about here).  These activities are in addition to the "normal" half-dozen rehearsals a week, playing in church, 4 dance lessons, 1 vocal lesson, and all the other normal family activities I can't think of just now.

Here's my rundown, in summary form!  Starting in May, we've had visitors here pretty much full time from India and China.  There was a brief 2-week period at the end of August where there actually wasn't anyone extra here!  So my family spends a lot of the weekend showing these visitors the sights in glorious St. Louis.  Oh, and when I say "glorious", that is actually NOT sarcasm.  I love this city.   This fall we have been less able to do that, due to some of our other activities, but believe it or not - WE STILL HAVE OUT OF TOWN VISITORS! 

From June until the end of July, I took, and edited, hundreds of pictures for our new church directory. It was finally released this past Friday.  Out of the hundreds of pictures I took and submitted, a dozen or so made it into the directory.  The company putting the directory together didn't allow too many of our own pages in the directory.  The pictures I took make up the majority of the church provided photos.  On the positive side, the printing looks GREAT, keeping the color and resolution of my original files.  I'm very happy with how my pictures look.  I even got the cover shot (shown below).

 

As soon as that project was wrapped up, I scurried MYSELF off to China.  Here's a picture I took my first evening there.  This (and some of the remaining pictures) have previously appeared on "One Dad's Life."  So, all you old-timers, cut some slack for the new visitors, OK? Thanks!

And another from the mountains near Xi'an my first weekend!

Then, the very day AFTER, I returned from China, I started orchestra rehearsals on the 260+ page score of "Annie."  Production on the show, of course, had been going on through-out the summer, starting in June, but this was the busiest time for me.  The show finally played the last two weeks in September.  By my way of measuring it, the show was incredible...and so much fun. We had the BEST cast and crew, ever, this time around.

Then, this past weekend, we had the 2nd Annual "St. Louis Interactive Festival."  It was incredible!  As a bonus, my wife, Dianne, helped out all weekend with it so I didn't even have to be away from her for one of my "day's off!"  She got to know some of my blogger friends a lot better.  They are a great group of people.  We also went out to dinner with a group of them on Friday night at Hodack's, which was a lot of fun, too!  I was the speaker/host/moderator of a session on "Photography for the Hobbyist" along with Mike Wilkerson, which was fun.  There were tons of questions, which totally knocked me off my agenda, but it was really good in that we were able to help some people with problems they had been having.  We are currently working on plans for at least one "lunch and learn" session on basic photography.  Stay tuned!

So, now that all of this stuff is "over",  I can finally come back to my home a few nights a week without going right to bed!  So, as I sit in my home, relaxing a bit, there is one question that is asserting itself loud and clear:

"NOW WHAT?"

Learn To Take Better Pictures and MUCH More!

On this Saturday, October 17th, members and special guests of the St. Louis Bloggers Guild will be holding the 2009 edition of the St. Louis Interactive Festival.  This is going to be a fantastic event, and is an incredible bargain for YOU, the social media practitioner! 

We have a full day of events planned, starting at 9:00 AM and going until 4:00 PM.  Breakfast, Lunch, and beverages are included in your ticket price.  What's the price for all of this, you ask?  Well, lucky you, it's FREE!!!  Unbelievable, right?   There is only one catch, you MUST register so we can have an accurate count on food and other supplies.

This year, the event will be held at Shock City Music, at 2200 Gravois, right next to Hodacks in the old Polar Wave Ice and Fuel building.  There are two parallel tracks in this event, one intended for "beginners" and one containing more "advanced" topics.  Topics will range from "I have a Blog, Now What?" to building a site from scratch to a number of business related topics.  For more information on the wide range of topics and the panelists, please visit the St. Louis Bloggers Guild Website and check out the posts this week.  There is truly something for everyone!  No matter if you have a hosted site ("One Dad's Life" is a basic Typepad blog), are self-hosted (or want to be), or you are in charge of the social media for your company, we have topics of interest for you.

I will be conducting a session titled "Photography for the Hobbyist" along with Mike Wilkerson.  We're going to help you learn to take better pictures, no matter what kind of camera equipment you have (it really doesn't make too much difference!), and how to get more professional looking results for cheap ... or even free! You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to get fantastic pictures.

So if you want to get more out of your point and shoot camera, or you are just moving to the SLR world, we have help for you!  We'll also be glad to talk to each of you after the session and answer as many questions as I can.

So drop what you are doing right now, and visit the St. Louis Blogger's Guild website right now to register!  It's FREE, but you MUST register. It will be a great day. I'll see you on Saturday!

Wordless Wednesday - More From My Favorite Place to Take Photos

Today's Wordless Wednesday post is another shot from this weekend's visit to the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  I am literally dying for a macro lens!  Click on the photo for a slightly larger version.

 

Nikon D60, 18-55mm, f3.5-5.6.  Natural lighting.

Don't You Have Enough Pictures of This Already?

During our normally packed weekend this week, we were lucky enough to get to spend some time with a couple of visitors from India.  They have been here since the beginning of September, on a project for my normal job, but my family has been so busy with "Annie", that we haven't had to many opportunities to visit on the weekends, yet.

So, this Sunday we all took a trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which is the favorite St. Louis attraction in my family.  Naturally, I brought along my camera!

The weather was fantastic, and with the lower angle of the sun in the late afternoon, now that fall is here, I was able to get lighting that isn't available in the summer.

I'm sure I'll be sharing a number of pictures from this trip to the garden over the next week or so, both here and on Flickr, but I wanted to get the first one out, at least.

This is a shot of the Linnean House, just past the garden entrance.  I've always loved this building, and take a lot of pictures that include it's distinct stained glass windows.  Interestingly, this shot doesn't include them!

According to the website of the garden, this building is the oldest continuously operating greenhouse conservatory in the United States!  The building was built by Henry Shaw in 1882, and is named after Carl Linnaeus, considered the father of plant classification.

This was taken with the trusty Nikon D60, and was actually exposed for the sky.  I then used a plug-in for GIMP, the Advanced Tone-Mapping plugin, to bring the shadow detail out.  Fortunately, the Nikon sensor is very good at maintaining the low light information and this image is the result!  Click on the picture for a larger view.

Dr. Pepper, Can I Have A Second Chance?

When I was a child, I was fascinated with all of the prizes, special offers, and giveaways that the cereal companies offered.  I ended up getting a number of cereal themed frisbees, drawstring bags and similar items.

One giveaway stands out in my mind, and if you have ever read one of my bios from a musical program, you know what it is - A Winnebago Camper!

Yep, there was a point, I'm not even certain what age I was, that I was convinced that if I just sent in my required number of boxtops and an entry form, that I was certain to win the Winnebago!  Boy, the things I could DO with that camper!  It didn't even matter that I couldn't drive, I would let my parents drive it, of course.

I was shocked when I didn't win.

Fast forward to today.  I need a new car. Seriously.  My car is functional, but it is at that point (at around 200,000 miles) where every day there is a new noise and it feels "not quite right" in a whole new way.  There are few things that I really want, other than peace on earth and a really good margarita (with chips and salsa), but I actually know what new car I want.  In fact, it's an obsession.

I want a 2010 Camaro in the worst way.

Many Sundays, I pull into the dealer (so the sales guys won't hassle me) and admire the cars.  I've wanted a Camaro since I was a teen.  Of course, I wanted (and still do) a '68 Camaro - Z28 if possible - but that is completely out of reach.  The new Camaro seems just about perfect to me, and even the base model could be considered a performance car!

Well, recently, it seemed like the stars aligned for me.  My favorite drink, Dr. Pepper, launched a campaign to give away 23 Camaros!  Certainly, one of those cars had my name on it!

Every bottle, and every box of Dr. Pepper had an entry code that you typed into their website to tell if you have won. 

With an eager anticipation that I haven't experienced since Mario Kart Wii came out, I entered in my first set of numbers with shaky hands, KNOWING that I would have a positive outcome.

I didn't.

That was OK, though, there was still time.  As summer progressed I entered more and more numbers, all failing to provide me with my dream car.  I was still confident, though.  Time was on my side.

I consumed a larger and larger amount of Dr. Pepper, entering all those codes in the website.

I began to make plans of what I'd do when I won. The version of the car they were giving away had an automatic transmission.  That seemed wrong to me.  I wondered if the deal would let me get a car with a manual transmission instead?  If not, I'd still accept the car, of course, but sell it immediately and get the manual version.  Sure, on paper I'd take a bit of a loss, but it would be worth it.

OH, OH, OH!  As long as I was selling, I could trade up to the 420 H.P. SS version! SWEET!!!!  There is no way my budget for a car (which approaches zero, as we are already paying for a new used car for Dianne) could support an SS by any stretch of my imagination, but if I had a brand new LT to trade...IT WAS POSSIBLE!  I planned to get an all black SS, then changed to a blue one with white stripes. Man was this going to be awesome!

Life is good!

The problem is, I wasn't winning.  Something must be wrong with the boxes of Dr. Pepper I had purchased.  Something just wasn't right.  Time was also running out.  I was getting agitated.  The stores were running out of the boxes, too.  The contest was being replaced by some dumb football contest.

I started digging behind the stacks of Dr. Pepper in the store, successfully finding more Camaro promotion boxes on several occasions.  Then, my daughter and I hit the mother-load.  The Walgreens by our house had about 12 cases of the stuff!  We loaded up the cart with eight of them less than a week before the deadline.  Why I didn't get all 12, I'll never know, but other people bought them.  Two days before the deadline, I found another load of cases and bought another 4 or 6 (can't remember).  I now had a stack of full Dr. Pepper cases filling a shelf in our basement.

I opened all the boxes, carefully removing the cans and entering the codes.  Each one came up short.

I couldn't believe it.  I'm sure by this point YOU can't believe it, either.  You were positive there was a happy ending.  So far, there is not.  I read the rules to find out how they were going to handle any Camaros that were not being given away.  Basically, it is up to their discretion.  I'm hoping they randomly draw from the entries on hand.  If so, I have a great chance!

Wish me luck!

In the meantime, McDonald's has launched another round of the Monopoly game.  I'm going to be a millionaire!

Wordless Wednesday - Rainbow

Lately, it seems all I have time to develop are photo posts!  This is a rainbow that was out in front of our church after a brief storm on September 26th.  We had just started setting up for the evening's "Annie" performance.   It was an incredible, full, end-to-end double rainbow.  Even with an 18mm lens, I couldn't get the whole thing!

If you click on the second picture, you'll get a slightly larger version.  Enjoy!