Month: August 2010

Crap, Go Ahead and Pass that Back

Hey, does everyone remember my latest accomplishment on the photography front?  You know, the one where I am no longer bogged down by gopher duties.  Why don’t we let that accomplish settle in for a little bit… tick tick tick.  Oh hell, let’s relish it for a few more moments.. tick tick tick.  No that is a wonderful feeling and looking forward to basking in that glow for 5 long, long SECONDS.  My lovely wife was unable to let me have  a small and infrequent moment all to myself and felt compelled to let the air out of my ego with comments on my previous umbrella post.  Truth is, I was late getting to that post and in the meantime we had submitted a number of entries in the Knox County Fair Photography Contest.  Since our last entries in the fair, she also pulled a miracle shot out of her a.. I mean leveraged all her photography “skilz” to produce a pretty impressive picture.  As a result, we were once again head to head in competition with me holding on to bragging rights based on my strong showing (yea, I’m living it up as much as I can) at the Peoria County Fair.  We eventually made our way out to the fair to see how our efforts compared to the local offerings.  Any guesses on what the results were?

Well, the good news is the photo that won an Honorary Mention at the Peoria County Fair took a first place!  Of course, I also have to openly admit that Linda’s new photo also took a first place in her category.  Now for the kicker.  Her shot not only took a first place, it took Best in Show (as in top photo from all the entries) meaning technically she slightly out did me.  In case you are making your own quality judgments, keep in mind that on the right side of her sunflower picture at about the horizon is an approaching bee perfectly stilled with a Macro lens on full aperture.  Did she compose that shot and purposely plan to have that particular effect when she took the snap?  Was it planned with great scrutiny as to required timing and composition elements?  All elements, of course, with the outstanding photograph on the right.  Rather than drag this discussion out any longer than it already has between us, I’ll just man up and simply congratulate her on this achievement.  Oh, you might also like to know how the rest of our entries did.

In somewhat of a pleasant shocker, we made quite a ribbon haul.  I took a first with the awesome Tree picture and two thirds with my Twin Eagle picture and the B/W Raven.  Linda took a first with the Sunflower and Bridge (middle) shots along with seconds for her Waterfall image, the Watered Leaves and the B/W Rapids shot in the upper right.  The pink ribbon keeps staring back at me for the overall Best in Show.  Linda has been continually jabbing me with that accomplishment, which I could probably get over if she was not doing the poking with the end of her umbrella.  So, my triumph was short lived, but I have a bunch of new shots taken last Saturday along the Illinois River.  Shots that were planned, composed, required zoom  “skilz” and ISO wrestling… not that I am pointing that out for any reason.

Now to go find where the next Photo Contest is going to be at – and take note, this is probably the first time in a looooong time I finished my monthly quota so early.

Bemmer Bummer

Okay, so what are the first things that come to mind when you hear the name BMW?  Maybe one of those words is “Fast”.  How about “Expensive Import”?  Maybe some derogatory words like “Elitist” or “Smug”.  By any chance does the word “Quality” come to mind?  As it turns out, my wife (who apparently likes to add untrue comments to some of my posts) owns a 1 series (135) black convertible BMW.  I can definitely attest to the fact they have some pep.  The twin turbos on this particular vehicle give it some nice snap at the low and high end helped by the relatively light weight of the vehicle.  There is a pool on when she will get her first ticket in it – too many of her memories coming back growing up on the dirt track circuit.  For those familiar to the local tracks, legend Bolander used to drive their race car at the Peoria Speedway when they came down from the Quad Cities.  As far as “Expensive Import” goes, we have already proved that with a $650 windshield replacement thanks to a well (more like poorly) timed rock thrown from a truck.  “Elitist”  and” Smug”, hmmm, not sure I really want to touch that being that she is my wife and all.  She grew a Chrysler girl thanks to her Father and Brother both being service managers at local Chrysler dealers.  I had to actually force her to drive on the BMW lot and she’d probably be just as happy with another Jeep Wrangler (if they hadn’t messed with it and put a yuppie second set of doors on it ruining the whole Jeep lifestyle).  She also tends to make fun of Pooorshay owners, but then again, don’t we all?

That leaves us with one other word, that being “Quality”.  If this came to mind with the name BMW, I’d like to challenge this a bit.  If you recall, we ended up having a number of issues with our previous Durango.  (We actually had similar issues with our Jeep Cherokee).  Eventually we traded this headache in for an import on the belief that they could produce a better vehicle.  I don’t think I need to go into the whole Toyota accelerator issue, but knock on wood, our SUV has had zero problems since we bought it beyond that recall notice which I doubt we really needed.  Having stepped up to German engineering with the 135, we figured our quality issues were behind us.  One thing to note is this vehicle is Linda’s fun car and therefore gets very little use unless the weather is perfect (living in IL, this means it sits a lot especially in the winter and late fall months).  A month or so ago, Linda got in to drive it and noticed the Check Engine Light was glowing.  Somewhat stunned, she called the dealer and they told her it probably was not a big issue and just bring it in when should could.  Not wanting to wait too long, we dropped it off a few days later.  What was the prognosis for her little baby?  We were informed that it was a loose gas cap which was causing a loss of pressure in the system.  Ugh, our fault, slightly embarrassed we drove back and got the vehicle.  Sure enough, the car ran fine for a few days but then that evil engine light came on again.  Now I know we had learned our lesson, so it was doubtful (at least in our opinion) that it was the cap again.  Off to the dealer AGAIN to have it looked at.  The prognosis this time?  There was a bad fuel pump which is located somewhere in the fuel tank.  We had been vindicated, but it still left us a little concerned since we invested a lot of money with the return of not having to worry about breakdowns.  After a two days, (overnighted parts), we picked up the vehicle and assumed the situation was finally resolved.  Honestly, I doubt if that was the case it would have been worth taking the time to write about it.  A few days later I decided to drive the 135 in order to alleviate some hassles with parking in a local parking garage in order to attend an SAP class.  Sure enough, the check engine light stayed on after doing the self diagnostics.  I think my words at the time could be understood by a number of different languages including German.  For the third time, our quality machine was puking up an engine light.  After some profuse apologizing by their service representative, we drove the vehicle back in.  As before, they did provide a loaner vehicle which turned out to be a 328.  I don’t want to offend anyone that might have these particular vehicles, but I recommend not driving a 135 unless you plan to trade off that wuss of an engine.  I think it only has a 2.3L or so engine in it and with being accustomed to a  low end turbo (135 has a twin turbo in it), this car felt like it had to wind up to go anywhere.  You would think they would give us a better vehicle in hopes of us wanting to trade up.  All it ended up doing is making sure I tell as many people as I can to avoid that particular car.  The assumption is they would call sometime during that day to let us know what the problem was.  By 4:00pm Linda decided to give them a call.  Turns out they were unable to locate the problem and the vehicle was “currently on the service floor in pieces”  How is that for a comforting statement?  The next day came and again no word until we called later in the afternoon.  Still nothing to report on the cause and therefore not available for us to pick up.  Sigh, my confidence in German engineering had sunk to new lows.  The next day we call and find out the car was losing fuel pressure (which prompted the initial gas cap resolution the first time).  Apparently they thought it was resolved and had put it all back together again and took it for a test drive.  Lucky for us, the engine light came on again during their test drive.  Once again, the vehicle was taken all apart, but this time they called back to Germany for some help.  It had now been at least  5 days with a weekend and our patience was wearing thin.  That along with the uber annoyance of them continually asking us how the loaner car was working out.  All that could be said was that it was running better than OUR car was at the moment – but the hamster under the hood was really getting tired.  Eventually they determined it was a flaky DMTL pump which is apparently responsible for checking the fuel pressure and signals the dashboard if there is something wrong.  So there was nothing wrong with the fuel pressure, but the sensor was randomly failing.  Once replaced, the car was put back together, but the home office in Germany would not allow them to return it to us until they performed three complete cold to hot test drives.  One they did that day, and the other two had to be performed the next day.  So, exactly one week later Linda’s baby was nestled back in the garage.

I’ve decided to write this particular event off as a fluke.  They were very accommodating and apologetic as they went about resolving the issue (better than any American dealer experience we have had for sure).   The car is also under a full bumper to bumper warranty for four years so in essence beyond time and inconvenience it did not cost a penny.  This is where the “Expensive” word comes into play.  Can you imagine how much this bill would have been out of warranty? – CHA CHING.  It is still the funnest vehicle we have ever owned/driven.  Oh, and BMW also sends us a gift every year for owning the first series of one of their vehicles –  including a book on the history of our vehicle with our actual VIN number in it and this year a pretty sweet ink pen.  So for now, no harm done, but if that light goes on again, we’ll be having some “pressure” words for sure.

Time for a New Umbrella B*tch

əm-ˈbre-lə ˈbich:  The individual responsible for holding a weather protection device over another more skilled photographer while he or she composes the perfect shot while out on a shoot in non-favorable conditions.  This also includes all packing and hauling in/out of equipment.  Sometimes referred to as a flunkie, lackey or assistant.

I should probably give some background to this.  There are times when Linda and I are out in the wild taking some snaps with the trusty Nikons.  Unfortunately, there are times when the weather doesn’t exactly cooperate as planned and we find ourselves in need of shelter.  Of course, we always claim this makes for better lighting and mood in our products, but generally that is just a convenient excuse to justify why two grown people are standing out in pouring rain taking pictures of god knows what.  We were actually out in Maine recently (Acadia to be specific) when this exact situation came up.  It was raining off and on most of the time there so we broke down and headed out with all our equipment in tow.  We found a pretty cool rock beach and decided to see what we could capture.  Sure enough, it started raining meaning one of us has to stand over and protect the camera, tripod, photographer etc. with a large umbrella.   This allows the other person to compose the shots and capture the interesting landscapes while remaining relatively dry.  Like the Bass to Guitar, the Half-back to the Full-back and all other Blues-Rock Bands to the Stones, the less skilled has to give way to the more talented.  With Linda the somewhat better photographer (wait for it) the umbrella role has traditionally fallen to you know who …yep.. ME.  So there I stood on a rocky Maine beach in the pouring down rain while my lovely wife took her own sweet damn time taking what is sure to be  fantastic pictures.   After at least 3 hours she decided every inch of the beach had been sufficiently captured at least twice and it was time to go.  At this point in time, she put the cap on the glass and informed her Umbrella B*tch it was time to pack up.  This I dutifully performed with optimistic hopes of one day having my own flunky… I mean assistant.

Well  now, let’s just jump forward to say… I don’t know… hmmm.. okay, a month ago.  Setting the stage, imagine that Linda and I have entered pictures in the local county fair photography competition.  We have been doing this for a number of years now and really more of just a fun thing to do in order to get free passes to the fair.  I say that mainly to because we have NEVER ever ever ever actually earned a ribbon at any of these events, but pretty cool to see your work on display for everyone to admire.  Already resigned to another shut out, we walked into the display building to check out all the other efforts.  It is really a learning activity as well since you can experience the creativity of others and find interesting perspectives on angles, lighting, coloring etc. you may not have considered in your own works.  After a few minutes we looked over to the winner’s wall and were both shocked.  Turns out one of MY photos was on the wall with a ribbon attached to it.  Did I mention it was “MY” photo… as in a picture “I” took.  A quick scan of the rest of the wall confirmed that this was the only winning picture from our submitted set.  Now I am not one to gloat (who am I kidding, I love to gloat), but it appears there is a changing of the guard so to speak.  Or maybe more accurately, a passing of the torch where in the torch is actually the handle of the UMBRELLA.  I think this might actually turn out to be one great year especially with all the rain we have been having lately and what is sure to become my favorite weekend activity.   Hey, honey, it looks like it’s going to storm, what do you say we go get some lightning pictures?  This is going to be fun (at least until fair time comes around again, but that is a long long long way off).

I should probably make a quick, but funny admission.  The picture that actually won (embedded in the umbrella graphic above) was actually a last minute decision.  We had it hanging on the wall for a year or two and had actually planned to submit another photo instead.  I can’t remember if I ended up not liking the other picture or we miscounted on our tags, but we ended up taking it off the wall and entering it.  Oh well, a win is a win in my book (even if it is only an Honorable Mention which Linda keeps reminding me).

She Hit the Jackpot!

UPDATE: 8/16 7:28pm – Well, if there is one thing to be said about this idiot, he is persistent.  He called again around 7:00am explaining that plans had changed and he needed to come pick up the check sooner (than the originally planned pickup time in the afternoon).  She informed him that she was busy and he would have to wait until the original time (don’t ask, I can’t explain).  Soon after she saw a suspicious SUV in the neighborhood who drove by and stopped up the road. She called the police and they check him out (just a lost general contractor who probably had to go change his shorts).  Well, from 3:00 until 5:00 nobody showed up (which would have been quite funny seeing as how her son’s were waiting), but the guy called and asked for Mizz {First Name} when her son picked up the phone.  He promptly told him that there was nobody that lived there with that name and he had the wrong number – click, scammer hung up.  A quick *69 revealed a number that ..wait for it.. wait for it… was from Jamaica!  This seems odd since the caller originally said he was in Belvidere IL.  So apparently the dude was too stupid to even go with Skype and calling card minutes to cover his tracks.

UPDATE: 8/15 5:30pm – Mother-In-Law recently got ANOTHER call but get this, things have changed.  Apparently they can no longer wait until tomorrow to meet and need the money immediately.  Still pretty bold of them to continue to harass knowing everyone is on to their little scam.  The police and the phone company are now both fully informed and hopefully on the offensive.

… now back to your regularly scheduled blog

I have good news everyone!  My mother-in-law is apparently one of the luckiest people out there.  As of this Monday she will have increased her bank account by $50K.  The amazing part is she does not have to do anything to receive this incredible gift.  You are probably thinking to yourself, “this is incredible, how does someone fall into such a wonderful opportunity?” or maybe ” Hey, our government is spending us into the ground, maybe this is another benefit of the great CHANGE and NEW HOPE”  Well, to the later I simply say NOPE (as I will in November) and to the former I can safely say you too can be part of this joyous event.  However, there is just one tiny (itsy, weenie, microscopic crumb) of a detail I accidentally left out.  Well, accidentally may be a small untruth, but let’s put everything in perspective, we are talking about 50 THOUSAND dollars.  Umm… sorry about this, but that is a slight untruth as well…. make that 49,850 dollars but who is splitting hairs here, we are talking about getting free money for doing really very little work at all and in fact you even have the option of having THEM do the work for you.

Oh, you are still a little skeptical are you?  How about some details.  First off, this is not some hole in the wall lottery outfit, this is the Donald Trump Foundation from Las Vegas.  That’s right, VEGAS BABY, the bright spot in the desert that has more money than they know what to do with.  They could have picked anybody they wanted to, even people living outside of the U.S. but instead they picked my mother-in-law because.. umm… well not sure why, but let’s gloss over that for now.  Turns out some representative of the foundation has been calling her over and over badgering her to answer some basic questions before they can release the 50 THOUSAND DOLLARS to her.  Some of the difficulty has been trying to understand the caller’s thick foreign accent, but that is to be expected because a large corporate foundation like the Donald Trump Foundation would be drawing the best employee candidates from all over the world.  Oh, remember that tiny insignificant glitch I mentioned above?  Unfortunately, in order to actually release the money, she will need to pay the taxes on it.  After all, we are in America and according to Joe Biden, “It’s our patriotic duty to pay taxes. (note to Joe, let’s compare our charitable donations and see which party is working harder for the disadvantaged).  The good news is the tax rate appears to be only 0.5%, probably because she is retired.  So for a mere $250 dollars she makes $49,850.  Rather than have to do all that extra work of finding a check, locating a pen, getting finger cramps from signing the name etc. you can simply give them your bank account numbers and a few other small details like SS# and maybe a few odd facts like first dog’s name, birth date and by the way, do you happen to live alone?  The caller is also so dedicated to getting you this  money he will continue to call over and over if you have any reluctance to providing the information because after all it is 50 THOUSAND dollars (with a few bucks taken out of the profits for those required taxes).

Turns out that my mother-in-law was not enthused about providing the details they requested, but somehow they managed to get her address and informed her that they would come to her home this Monday to provide her the huge prize in person and get this “Wanted to know if she wanted the media to be informed so they could be there to capture this fantastic moment”  In either case, just be sure to have the tax money ready or they would not be able to release the deck (what?) I mean chect (huh?) I mean jeck, (oh, the tax CHECK)…those darn accents trip me up every time.  As a quick side note, she did mention that she would be waiting for them with her two sons who happen to be deputy sheriffs.  No problem, they will be bringing an FBI representative with them just so everyone knows that this is an official event.

Too good to be true?  Well, common sense says she’s caught up in the all too common scam efforts likely originating out of Nigeria, Jamaica, Middle East or possibly even out of the States (my bet is Nigeria).  This one seems pretty bold with the added component of making an appointment to show up at her house.  I can’t imagine how easy it would be for the elderly to fall into this trap with all the constant harassment and promised opportunities for fixed income households.  The good news is both her sons are deputies for the Sheriffs department and would be a very nice welcoming committee for these criminals.  I say “would” because I truly doubt they will actually risk even getting near her house, not to imply by any means that criminals positively tip the intelligence scales.

Some things are just to good to be true.  If something happens Monday, I’ll let you know.  For those of you with elderly family, friends, acquaintances, you might want to just give them a heads up about this situation.  If it wasn’t lucrative for them, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Hollow Words and Gutless Actions

Look into the eyes of another political victim.

I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog that we have a true treasure near our house.  That treasure is the The Wildlife Prairie Park which is located in Edwards, IL.  Linda and I have been to many parks and zoos around the country and when it comes to the smaller budget outfits WPP stands heads and shoulders above the others.  Their environment is well maintained, their animals are placed in natural habitats and when it comes to wolves in particular, there is not a more lively and accessible pack.  They have plenty of area filled with trees and prairie and tend to stay visible most of the time, always providing great opportunities to snap a few pictures for your pleasure or portfolio.

It is actually very enjoyable to sit and watch the pack interaction from an overlook built off the side of their habitat.  Give it enough time and you will be able to distinguish the alpha from the subordinates and although it is difficult at first to tell all the wolves apart, you can actually start ordering them by their rank in the pack by who bothers who, who has first dibs at the food and which ones are willing to intrude on another’s kill.  Eventually Linda will drag me away from their area to go check out the other occupants of the park, but I always try and stop by before I leave to say goodbye.  Up to now, that has been acknowledgment of a temporary parting with an expectation that I’ll be back soon to check on their progress and take some pictures for the walls.

But now things have changed thanks to our wonderful Illinois politics which has managed to not only become a disgrace compared to the rest of the states but put us on the brink of financial ruin.  I will not go into the history of illegal activity by our past governors and you have probably seen stories on the recent one that was impeached and now awaiting a jury decision on ethics violations.  Instead, I would like to highlight the recent actions of the individual who took over for the impeached governor with promises to right the titanic.  Before the impeached governor decided to make a public mockery of himself on wiretaps, he cut funding to a large number of parks which included our very own Wildlife Prairie Park as well as Jubilee Park that I do most of my training runs in.  It was downstate so what the hell did he care and besides his wife thought all the roads to the hick cities were ugly and wanted wildflowers planted to keep her eyes from having to look at the filth (note to politicians and their spouses, I never forget).  However, when our temporary governor was sworn in, he promised to restore the funding gaining the trust and appreciation for all of downstate hicks.  Finally, a governor with more in the skull than a hair mop.  As of this week , this promise has become as hollow as the rest of the governors’ statements.

Continue reading Hollow Words and Gutless Actions

I’m Feeling a Little Smug Today!

I can’t believe it is August already.  Things have been a little hectic around here lately with July being consumed with the Bix7 race and probably more disrupting is I accepted a new job opportunity within my company.  So now I have the stress of getting up to speed on my new job while spending every available minute organizing and documenting for a hand off of my previous duties.  But with all that going on, I did find some time to look into something that has been circling around the noggin for awhile.  Let’s start with a quick experiment.  Take a look at this picture from the previous post on bobcats at Wildlife Prairie Park.

Okay, now take a gander at this image:

So, what were the main differences that you noticed?  If you said the first one was larger then you are both correct and possess a passion for the obvious.  If you also noticed the crop was slightly different then again correct and your analysis skills are starting to rev up.  Lastly, if you noticed the second one has a slightly different black tone and the vibrancy was reduced slightly then you have started developing your keen photography eye… oh, and correct again.  However, none of these things were part of the experiment.  The answer is actually much more “smug” than that and can be found after the jump.

Continue reading I’m Feeling a Little Smug Today!