I’ve been wanting to do a new feature on this blog for a couple of weeks now related to my photography. At first I thought I would join a photography challenge club and post my photo for the challenge each week. The first week went by and I didn’t take a photo of anything related to the theme. I decided that instead of trying to do that I would just post three of my favorite photos that I had taken each week. I take a ton of photos each week and thought that would force me to choose only the very best.

The first photo from above is of an adult Cicada. According to Wikipedia they emerge from the ground every 17 years. They are really thick around the house and every morning when I wake up it sounds like sirens outside because they are so loud. They don’t irritate me like they do some people.

The second photo is of a lily from my sister’s flower garden. I cut the flower and brought it home. Had it in front of a white jacket (one no one wears anymore) with two lamps to the side. One of these days I’m going to have a light tent so I can take better photos of flowers.

The third photo is of an abandoned kitten my sister found on the side of the road. She brought him home and he’s been here for a week or so. I don’t know if they have named him yet or not. He’s so cute, can fit in the palm of your hand!

The fourth photo above is another Iris from my sister’s flower garden. Photo taken in front of a piece of copy paper, two incandescent lights beside the flower. Color corrected and enhanced with The GIMP. I had to erase a lot of the background out of the photo because I couldn’t get the yellowing removed. Regular light bulbs suck for photography.

For the fifth photo I walked across the road and got some roses off my cousin’s rose bush. Hopefully he didn’t mind. I took the photo in front of a white jacket with two lamps on the side. I removed all the color except that of the petals of the rose.

The sixth photo I had picked a flower like this and didn’t realize there was another bloom on the stem until I had brought it into the house. I put the unopened bloom in some water and it opened while I was out of the office that night. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of it.

I hope you enjoyed my photos that I chose to post on the blog. I am a couple of weeks behind which is why I posted 6 photos instead of just 3. I plan on doing 3 per week. Like I said I think that will help limit me and help me to show off only the very best. If you’d like to see more of the photos that I have taken please visit my Flickr photostream. The latest. My sets.

Last week while I was house sitting for my sister I had a crazy dream about living in the 24th century as well as living aboard the starship Voyager. I develop a very interesting weapon. Watch the video to find out exactly what that weapon was!

The Voyager Dream (MP4) (16 MB)

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A while back I got to wanting some chicken fried rice. Of course the only options were to drive an hour away to the nearest Chinese place, drive to the store and buy some frozen or go to the store and get the stuff to make my own. I didn’t exactly know how to make my own so I found some recipes online to go by. I’ve made it several times and it’s now a family favorite.

It’s a really easy dish to make, pretty in-expensive as well. That is if you have some key ingredients on hand such as rice, oil (preferably olive but vegetable works, too), frozen vegetables and soy sauce. If you’re vegan or vegetarian feel free to omit the offensive meat products and you’ll enjoy it, too.

Chicken Fried Rice (MP4) (168 MB)

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This past Sunday I got another opportunity to record a performance by December Harvest. It was an all day concert at the River Front Park (I’m not sure if that’s suppose to be one word or two. River front that is, riverfront?) in Harriman, TN. There were many bands performing, can’t remember all of them. It was a really great day. I had a lot of fun. The show rocked so much the police showed up!

I hope you’ll enjoy this video. Took a lot of time to put together. I could have edited it down a little bit more but I really wanted to include most of the performance in this video. I couldn’t get the entire performance because I had to change memory cards during a couple of the songs.

The beginning of the video is a time lapse video I took on the way to the park. Thought it worked out really well. The video at the end (as the band fades out) is a short video clip I took driving back home through the city of Harriman, TN. I also added to the beginning of the video some of the photos I took of December Harvest with 13th Eyelet.

December Harvest at River Front Park (MP4) (195 MB)

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Last night I had a dream that I was a human guinea pig for some kind of heart medication. I failed to mention something in this video. In the dream I could remember feeling a burning sensation when I would take the experimental drug.

I am house sitting for my sister this week and I used her iMac to record this video. I recorded into iMove, exported, brought the video down to my house and edited in Sony Vegas. Hopefully the colors don’t look too terrible. I may have added a bit too much saturation but I figured whatever since I already published it.

Human Guinea Pig (MP4) (18.4 MB)

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Army helicopters and Air Force jets are constantly flying over the house. Ever since I can remember every time I hear one coming over I jump to my feet, rush to the window to look for it in the sky. I don’t know why. I guess they are fascinating. This video is of a large helicopter flying over with some of the best audio in the background.

Army Choppy Flyover (MP4) (2.62 MB)

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I got the opportunity last night to hangout with December Harvest, a local band. They performed at Coffeez in Jefferson City, TN. Also performing last night were Under A Black Flag We Sail, A Fate Painted Black and 13th Eyelet. It was a great night and I think December Harvest done a great job. Check out the video below in the flash player or download the full resolution version. View the photos I took at the event. Click over to their MySpace page and show them your support.

December Harvest at Coffeez (MP4) (71.3 MB)

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Today I started doing some major cleaning on TechButter. I decided that I would go through the site and delete some old posts that I didn’t feel were in line with the mission of the site. If they didn’t have a lot of substance or if they only contained a brief paragraph and a link they got deleted. I want to use TechButter as part of my portfolio to show potential employers what I’m capable of doing. One thing that I realized today is that I truly need to get to work on doing more tutorials. I’ve got one that I’ve had private since March! Before I post it I want to record a video tutorial to go along with it. I’ve also got plenty of other ideas for video tutorials, too. I’m working through a huge to-do list for the site and I think it will be a lot better once I’m finished. There were 53 pages of posts but now there are only 8! It’s easier to get to the good articles now. Less is always more! Anyways, let’s get on with the main point of writing this entry.

I would have had a video journal entry up had I not had problems with technology this weekend. Friday afternoon I sat down and recorded for 12 minutes which is all I can record for on one 1GB memory stick at the highest resolution. I decided I wasn’t done so I put my old memory stick in (mistake). I got finished and went to pull the video off of the second memory card (since it was still in the camera) and there was a format error. The only way to make the camera work again was to format the card. I tried to recover the files and all I got was a video file that only contained garbled audio. I’ve always had problems with that memory card. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t. That’s why I bought a new one and I guess it looks as though I’m going to have to get yet another one to replace that one. At least they’re cheap. I do wish that my camera could take something larger than 1GB since they do make 4GB memory sticks! Annoying. Oh well. On with the story.

Saturday I was house sitting for my sister and I decided that I would re-record the video journal entry. I sat down and started recording. I talked and talked for a good 15-20 minutes (I changed it to a lower resolution, if you’re wondering). I thought it was one of the best recordings I had ever made. Guess what. I wasn’t actually recording. I sat in front of the camera for approximately 20 minutes talking to myself. Embarrassing. During the recording I said that if something went wrong with it I would just write a blog entry, so that’s what I’m doing now. I’ve got to go do some things around the house. I’m going to try to come back later and write a couple more entries pertaining to the topics I talked about in the video.

I wanted to record a video podcast earlier today but didn’t have a whole lot of energy. I’ve been wanting to try out the trampoline ever since we got it in 2006. I finally decided to hop up on it today and give it a try. I figured if Divine could do it, so could I.

I did record another video podcast this evening like I was going to. BUT, when I went to pull the video off of the camera I got a “format error.” I have been having trouble with that memory stick ever since I got it. I bought a new one a couple of weeks ago so I should probably throw the one that is giving me trouble away. I did try and recover the data. All I got was a garbled audio file. Oh well. I guess I’ll just consider that a practice run.

Jump, Jump, Jump (MP4) (50.6 MB)

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Recorded this video a few weeks ago. It’s a 90 minute time lapse video of the sunrise compressed into a 1 minute 46 second video (with titles and closing credits of course).

The photo is even older. Taken in July 2007. It’s of my dresser with the morning sun rays coming in. I would have posted the video with another window picture but seeing as the previous video had a window picture, I opted for this one.

Music in this video is "Cuckoo (passive-aggressive mix)" by hisboyelroy.

Morning Passes By (MP4) (7.29 MB)

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