By the Numbers

January 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Cause I’m having so much fun with all my year-end cataloging and documenting for posterity! Here’s what my blog page looked like at the beginning of January. I really don’t do much with it because I so rarely go directly to blogs. I use the super-duper Google Readers, so I just assume everybody else must too. With all 7,762 page views, I like to think I’m spreading some pink happiness around the world.

Literally around the world, as I have some regular blog readers in Europe and get lots of random search engine hits from South America and Asia.

I use Stat Counter to occasionally monitor traffic and why people are coming to visit my blog. I’ve got a pretty regular group of loyal readers. I can see that most of my blogs on Lightroom and various things you can make your photos super-cool are ofter discovered via Google.

As of January 1, I had published over 300 blog posts in 2007 since I started blogging away on Monday July 23rd. After my 40 day devotion, I had many on faith, lots of the married life, tons of travel blogs and the always-most-popular Zoe posts.

On to photography, according to Lightroom and my nifty sequential numbering system on my super swell Nikon D80, I can tell you I took 7,025 photos in 2007 since I received my prized camera and Lightroom has about 6,400 of them tracked. You can see my first photos ever with the camera, were of course Zoe and her favorite toy.

Now, my other camera, that I sneak into concerts and carry with me 24/7 has also had a great year, taking over 3,000 photos this year (hundreds at our wedding and on our honeymoon). We bought the camera in June of 2006, right before we went on our scouting trip to Puerto Vallarta. You can see some of the first photos here, of the total 4,000 photos from this camera that are cataloged in Lightroom.

Just to brag some more on how awesome my Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS watch is, I can tell you that I ran more than 640 miles in 2007. I didn’t do much running last January after the marathon and before the wedding, but I’m sure I logged a few more miles. I managed to do a short run in Puerto Vallarta the morning of the wedding, but my Garmin was stolen on our flight to Cabo. So I lost some running data there.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: All these numbers make me so excited.
Filed Under: blogging, photography

2007 REVIEW

December 31, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Holy Cow! I’m totally blown away when I stop to think back of all the wonderful things that have happened this year. Of course, the biggest thing was our wedding in February in Puerto Vallarta with all our friends and family.

We continued the party in Mexico with our Honeymoon in Cabo.

Probably the other single biggest thing that happened this years was discovering the world of real photography. As much as I loved photos with my other camera, I realized there was just so much more I could do with a SLR. I took a few classes and spent a bunch of money and I know I can’t be without my digital baby. I’ve had so much fun photographing my married life, Zoe, nature and the crazy construction (or destruction) of the world around me.

I found a new passion in my life in July as I joined the addictive world of blogging July 23rd, just after your long weekend trip to Colorado. Plus it was a perfect place for me to put all my new photos. Stephanie and Ginger came out to Texas for a visit, we hung out with the kidz in Galveston and toured downtown Houston.

I spent quite a bit of time this year recording a little bit of my history, about the stories I remember growing up and the places where I spent my early years. I’ve enjoyed all these flashbacks and I think they are an alternative way to keep a family journal or make a big album.

I’ve done quite a bit of travel for work, taking some fun photos from the airplane on my way to investigate car crashes around the country. I also spent 1 evening a week this fall volunteering to tutor GED students. Making a difference even closer to home, we were able to help out some very special boys with their Christmas.
Due to H’s job, we made lots of concerts and games. I had the chance to read many books this year and we’ve even made an effort to watch more good movies. Plus I’ve posted a few movie clips- mostly Zoe on the blog from my other camera.

We spent our Thanksgiving in Alabama, exploring the deep south and all it’s history. Christmas- all 4 parts were just awesome, including spending 40 days before celebrating the birth of Christ to reflect upon his life. Not to mention the new lenses and the Wii.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: A special thanks to my blog-world friends who leave lots of loving- Christy, Amanda, Katie, Rhonda, Liza and Courtney!
Filed Under: blogging, Married Life

LOVELY LENSES

December 28, 2007 By Leave a Comment

OH OH OH! Such a good Christmas for photography! I had succumbed to the dreaded lens lust with my Amazon wish list, so I had a wide array of lenses on there for every occasion. I was lucky enough to receive 2 awesome lenses for my pure photographic indulgences. My wonderful mother in law gave me this beautiful Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 Macro EX DC SLD ELD so I can take some real Macro Zoe shots, instead of just cropping.

Yes- all those letters really are necessary. First, I can focus on fun stuff at 7″ and also use it as a normal 18-50mm lens with a fast aperture. ELD & SLD mean special low-dispersion glass- which sounds great, whatever that optically means. EX is their top build quality and I think that DC denotes that it has a digital crop factor for compressed (not full frame) sensors. All that to say, it’s a really swell lens! Expect some fun macro shots soon :)

My other treasured gift from Christmas, Part 4 was a super-fast prime lens for everyday and low-light shooting. This sweet piece of equipment is a Nikon 35mm f/2.0 AF lens. I had owned the Nikon 50mm f/1.8, which is an awesome, fast, cheap prime lens, but I’d just found out that it was too much zoom in small places (my house and all the wine bars). I’d asked for this lens to replace that one and give me some wider-angle shots.

OH- I’m in lens heaven. Now I just need more time to go out and shot. Or I need a really awesome vacation to take all my fun gear out on.

And not to forget my other favorite gift of Christmas- a new Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW messenger bag to carry my beloved camera gear. I really needed something that would work well on our trip, but still allowed me easy, quick access to grab my camera every 4 minutes without taking the bag on and off. It’s so fun so far, I just need to go out and use my camera on some fun photography field trips and maybe another Photomarathon.
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I’m all ready to take some more awesome photos!
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Filed Under: photography