Scattered Thoughts . . .

After cutting Christmas trees for the family, we headed to our annual Christmas lunch. This year, Sheila and I chose to go to 'The Whip' in 'The Green Mountain Inn' for lunch. We knew this would be a lunch everyone would enjoy! (And, everyone did!  More about that in another blog entry though.) While we were waiting for the waitstaff to get our table ready for our group, Lukey and I were wandering around the halls of 'The Green Mountain Inn' looking at all the historic photos on the walls. Lukey loves trains and there are a lot of photos of trains and streetcars from more than a hundred years ago. I was pointing out old buildings in old photos and telling Lukey which building it is while pointing out the windows. Some of these old buildings were related to trains... and this definitely interested Lukey. There is an old photo of the same building where Lukey and Kenzie currently live... I pointed to the old building... no other buildings surrounding it... h

Here is a short video of our morning of cutting Christmas trees. The wind chill temperature was below zero... it was snowy... and the tree farm was rather busy and full of happy people filled with Christmas spirit!  Our ride on the wagon back to the cars with the trees was a very bumpy one! Video stabilization sort of converted the severely jerky video to more of a jello-like video but I suppose that is a bit better than the original bumpy video.   I also shot a lot of good photos which I will share a little bit later. I still need to sort through all the photos. In the meantime, here is a short video. Despite the frigid temperatures, we all had a great time!

When I shot a bunch of photos the other day of some of our Christmas decorations and ornaments, I purposely did not include one...  This particular ornament was sitting too low because its string was too long. Because it was hanging too low, the bottom of the ornament was not visible because it was behind some tree branches... all that was visible in that photo was the top of the ornament so you really couldn't see what the ornament represents. This is an "Air Force" ornament, not a "United States" ornament so I refused to do anything with that original photo but delete it. This "Air Force" ornament is one that Sheila picked up at The Christmas Loft while we visited there recently with the grandkids. It is a nice shiny metal ornament of the Air Force Seal.  For me, the Air Force is family. I have a lot of Christmas memories with my Air Force family. Sheila now is indirectly part of Air Force family as well... hence the Air Force ornament

I was playing around with my new Sony a6000 camera this evening and the obvious things to practice shooting were all the Christmas ornaments throughout the house.  The difficulty with these shots in particular is that this is a very low light situation which normally would demand the use of a tripod and long shutter speeds. I decided the push the camera to its limits and use faster shutter speeds, a regular "kit" lens, and no tripod.  Adding a flash to these photos would have ruined the mood of the scene so adding a flash wasn't an option either. This means that if I didn't want to use a tripod, I needed to move into very high ISO sensitivities... which normally would mean very grainy, noisy and oftentimes blurry photos. As you can see in the photos, below, this new camera held up well!   I understand that most people probably have no clue what it means to boast of a camera using high sensitivities so let me explain just a little bit to add some perspective. Alm

The beauty of getting almost all of our Christmas chores out of the way early (by Thanksgiving weekend) means we have far more time to enjoy the Christmas season. And, we are definitely  enjoying a prolonged Christmas! Gifts, one by one, little by little, appear under the tree each day... most of these gifts are for Christmas morning but some of them are to be unwrapped in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas morning... 

A new, smaller APS-C sized Sony camera (left) to complement my full-frame Sony kit. I've been waiting for a specific Sony camera to drop in price into my "acceptable" price range for two years now. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, this camera dropped in price and fell within my target price range. After holding this camera in my shopping cart for a day or two, finger twitching and hovering over the "buy now" button, I finally ordered it for myself.   I purchased this camera as a means to complement my current full-frame Sony camera. Mostly, I wanted to get my hands on this camera to use for wildlife and sports. Purchasing this camera would allow me to sell off all my far older gear with far smaller sensors... noisy, rather crappy sensors, at that... gear which has been consistently frustrating me and driving me crazy for many, many years. This particular Sony camera uses the same lens mount as my current Sony workhorse camera and I already have a decent

Our schedule is pretty full between Thanksgiving weekend and the end of January this holiday season. We had planned to head to Church Street in Burlington yesterday for our annual Christmas celebration in Burlington but I wasn't feeling my best in the morning so we cancelled... then I fell asleep for a few hours... I took some extra medications... showered... and I was feeling a bit better so we decided to head up that way much later than we usually do. We got there in time for a very late mid-afternoon lunch at Vermont Pub & Brewery. Lunch was delicious... the beer was delicious (geez... how I wish all micro-brews were as good as their's)... so Sheila and I had a nice time.  Vermont Pub & Brewery is quite behind schedule with their Christmas decorating. They were decorating while we were there which gave us something to watch and laugh about occasionally! Maybe they'll have finished decorating this tree this afternoon. As darkness fell upon Burlington, w

I already shared a video with many clips of this entertaining show in a previous blog entry but now I have some still photos to share.  Kelly Prescott and Doc Walker performed a short concert for us after the train pulled into the station. Once the train came to a stop, one of the boxcars opened into a stage. This Canadian Pacific Holiday Train travels from the east coast to the west coast doing shows at stops along the way. They raise money and collect non-perishable foods for the food shelf program which I feel is a very worthy cause. I'm really happy with the quality of these photos because the conditions were tough for shooting... it was very dark... it was cold... it was crowded and people were constantly bumping into each other... and, this is the first time I've tried shooting "concert photography" but I managed to pull it all together and get some great images!  And, I managed to get some great video too... you can view the video on  this blog entry.