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We actually got most of our Christmas decorating finished during Thanksgiving week. But I've been so busy since then I haven't had much chance to enjoy it.

Now things will (hopefully) be settling down just a bit so I can really get into the spirit of the holidays . . . here in our tropical winter wonderland. With two kids now in the house (three if you count me) it should be extra enjoyable this year.

And on a side note, the Picnik service now integrated into Flickr is fantastic. I forgot to crop this shot originally, but it was easy to just edit the image from 'within' Flickr. I'd heard of Picnik before but never really bothered to tinker with it. I'll continue to stick with Picasa for my basic photo editing/organizing needs. But I can definitely see the allure for some people.

I've been uber-busy of late so I haven't had much time for posting. But I finally got around to uploading some new photos to my Flickr.

The girls are growing so fast these days. Jessica is already 5 months old and Laney just turned 3. It's going to be a fun Christmas having a couple little ones around the house who can really appreciate it (if nothing else, Jessica at least appreciates all the lights and decorations.) I'm planning on taking loads of time off this year so it should be a great month.

I know a few out of town friends and family have been asking about them so I posted them to my Flickr.

One of my coworkers also took several cute photos from the trick-or-treating party our office held for employee children. You can find the photos of Jessica and Laney in my Flickr favorites.

I'll obviously post more whenever I get the time/energy. But for now, here's a few pics that we've taken thus far since Jessica's arrival.

Jessica Photos

Digital photography is a double-edged sword. While I love the fact that I can take a million pictures with a digital camera and not care because I don't have to print the bad ones, I hate the fact that it's SO easy that I can quickly generate a backlog of 1,000+ photos in no time at all. After a certain point you just try to avoid thinking about it entirely because you'd rather not deal with it. Last night I finally got around to sorting through photos we've had since early February.

What's worse is that there's no excuse for letting the photos sit around going unprinted (or not uploading them to my Flickr account.) Google's Picasa software is an absolute dream when it comes to organizing pictures and doing basic photo editing. Yet for some reason I still avoid sitting down with it to go through all our pics. And with Jessica about to arrive, we'll soon be going on another photo-shooting spree. So I guess I better try to get back in the swing of things.

This is the same reason why I got a DVD camcorder instead of a camcorder that outputs to other media. The longer record times and potentially higher quality offered by some of the other media types would be great. But then I'd have to actually take the time to sit down and process/edit the video. I'm bad enough with still images. I can't imagine how bad I'd be with video. I might have video of Jessica's first months processed by the time she was ready for college.

After a lot of fanfare and a little delay it appears the AppleTV is finally making its way out the door. The AppleTV is just the latest in a long series of devices seeking to vie for the long-coveted role of the ultimate 'convergence' device - a machine that combines the capabilities of a computer with a customized interface designed to be used in the living room environment. With broadband access and wireless networks rapidly becoming the norm this long-awaited dream is finally seeing the first stages of fruition.

If you're already heavily-leveraged into the Itunes world, the AppleTV would seem a logical extension. It's basically an Ipod for all your Itunes content on your TV. However there are plenty of other devices that have long-since offered this type of functionality as well. The D-Link MediaLounge (and a myriad of other devices like it) has been available for years and offers much of the same functionality. The Xbox360 similarly ties into Windows Media Center PCs and can also download or stream videos and movies (plus play games to boot.) Even my humble Nintendo Wii has offered an unexpected amount of HTPC-like functionality thanks to its web access to media sites like Finetune and Orb which are designed for the Wii browser.

But all of these solutions still fall short in some form or fashion to a full-fledged HTPC. I've been tinkering with HTPC software on some of my systems for several years now. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the most popular software (Windows Media Center) but I have tried various other free and paid options out there - for Windows: Snapstream, SageTV, and Meedio; for Linux - MythTV and LinuxMCE. However, my favorite alternative I've used thus far is actually a Windows-based freeware solution called GBPVR. It fit my needs nicely as it runs on Windows 2000 (the only spare non-Linux OS I have available) and works seamlessly with my Hauppauge TV tuner cards and remote.

I've been happily running GBPVR for almost two years now, however I've never really had a proper HTPC case for the main system I use in the living room. I've always just kept the ugly spare case hidden behind our armoire. However, I finally broke down and bought a new case for the system a couple weeks ago. You can see some of the pictures of the new system and all the fun I had during the upgrade on my Flickr. The good news is that I can now finally take my HTPC out from the shadows and into the light as the new case blends in perfectly with the rest of our home theater equipment.

The nicest thing about an HTPC is that it's imminently configurable and (unless you're going to do heavy gaming or encoding on it) it doesn't have to have the most expensive hardware. My GBPVR system runs on a modest AMD Sempron 3100 with 1GB of RAM and an old ATI Radeon 7200 (I only need S-video out as I don't have HDTV yet.) I only have an old 20GB hard drive in the case as I record and store most of my content on my main system in my basement that stays on 24/7. I could transfer the files wirelessly, but I have ethernet already wired so that's even better in terms of speed/stability.

I realize most people just don't like to tinker at this level though. For them, turnkey solutions like the AppleTV and similar devices make the most sense. I'm very curious to see what the next generation of the Xbox will be like. The current Xbox already offers a lot of HTPC functionality if you have a Windows Media Center PC. Throw in some Media Center-like DVR capabilities out of the box (there's some mods for this already) and it could be a fantastic all-around entertainment device.

They've actually been up for a week, but I'm just now getting around to mentioning it. I had a backlog of photos going back to October that I finally got around to uploading.

I'm trying to get more of my extended family onto Flickr and a few have jumped onboard. There's a lot of nice photo hosting solutions out there, but Flickr is far and away my favorite due to its ease of use and all the community features. I pay the extra $20 a year for the unlimited hosting service, but they recently even upgraded the hosting limits for the free service. Good stuff if you've never tried it.

While I love the no-pressure worries of digital photography, I think it's safe to say I'll never become TOO immersed into the photography world. I just don't have the time or patience to master the finer touches.

Still, my geeky side loves to tinker with blinky objects that require batteries. So I finally took the time to setup a tripod to see if I could pull off a decent nighttime shot by manually adjusting some of the settings. At 10:00 at night (and at a nice balmy 28 degrees) I ran through a whole host of exposure and f-stop settings trying to find that perfect combination of brightness, definition and minimal noise.

Maybe this is just an area where you really reach the limits of the point-and-shoot camera with their smaller lenses and imaging systems. Just as likely, maybe it's just my minimal understanding of the world of f-stops and shutter controls. Either way, it seems I couldn't find that perfect sweet spot, at least for what I was hoping for anyway. Still, just mounting the camera on a tripod made for a much nicer image than some of my best handheld efforts in the past.

For family shots and other day-to-day photos our Canon S2 has served us well and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The movie mode alone is worth the price of admission, especially when you have kids.

I had a bit of a scare here in the last couple days. I was in the process of transferring all our digital photos from one hard drive to another when I realized that most of our 2005 photo files (i.e., the photos from Laney's first year) had been corrupted.

It wasn't a Windows issue, just a hardware issue. I had been offloading photos from our camera onto an 80GB external drive. But the external drive also doesn't run off my UPS battery backup. So everytime the power flickers (which is more often than I'd like) it flips on and off while the rest of the computer keeps humming along just fine. Apparently, it had had happened enough to reach a point where certain files had been corrupted.

I prepared myself for my assured execution from Holly. I had to inform her that we had lost the original copies of many of Laney's more precious photos. Oh if ONLY I had backed them up!

But wait! Could it be!? Don't I remember? . . . . . Yes! I HAD backed them up! Earlier this summer I had taken the time to sit down one evening and backup ALL our photos onto DVD-Rs. *happy dance for being spared the guillotine*

I can't help but think of those Walgreens commercials telling the story of the fictional town of 'Perfect' when trying to describe Rosemary Beach.

If you can get past the stuffiness of the community's highbrow persona and the carefully-structured nature of the community's grand design then it really is an exquisite experience. It's no wonder Hollywood chose nearby Seaside (a similar community) to serve as the backdrop for The Truman Show. It epitomizes what a lot of people would idealize about a village by the sea.

This was our third trip to the area. Our first visit was back in 2002 when Holly and I stayed at Fishstix, one of the lavish, full-size houses in Rosemary Beach. Ordinarily, we'd never look for such a massive place for just the two of us. But it was a gift for helping out with the owner's website so who am I to turn down a $400+/night place! The Buffett song 'Gypsies in the Palace' nicely summarizes how I felt on that trip.

On our second trip last year, out entire family joined us for a stay at the neighboring Seacrest community. We were even able to bring Tucker this time. We got a really nice big house with an excellent view (which is rare in the 30A area) and had a great time. Adam still talks fondly about his tower room.

But on this trip Holly and I wanted the chance for something a little more romantic. We had seen the carriage houses in Rosemary Beach and thought they'd be perfect for our needs. And they definitely lived up to our high expectations. If I were a young couple looking for a 'local' or 'affordable' honeymoon destination I'd definitely give the carriage houses some serious consideration. It gives you a great chance to enjoy the luxurious surroundings of Rosemary Beach without the over-the-top costs. We'll definitely be visiting the area again sometime soon.

The non-concert Florence photos have been on Flickr for close to a week now. If you haven't seen them already check it out.

We got to relax Saturday afternoon before Adam's concert. The girls went shopping in downtown Florence. I watched football. The concert was great. Then Sunday we walked over to UNA to see the campus and the lions. We then went over to that idyllic little park in Tuscumbia (I always compare it to that 'perfect' town in Big Fish) where we had a picnic. It was a great weekend.

The Shoals did well opening for Gretchen Wilson. They played a mix of their own tunes as well as covers (which you pretty much have to when you're trying to get a crowd that doesn't know you or your original material very well.)

PHOTOS ON FLICKR

Ironically, I think the song that went over best with the crowd was their own song (and my personal favorite) Down South. I noticed a lot of people in the crowd seemed to be grooving along to that one. Like I said in my previous post, it's got a strong chorus. I uploaded a video clip of this to YouTube. You can see it by clicking the play below (you can also click on thru to YouTube for a slightly-larger version.)

I wish I could say my photography and videography were as good as their performance. Unfortunately I had a few things going against me.

1) The lighting made good shots tough even for a good photographer - at night and with constantly changing spotlight colors and brightness. My Canon S2Is is about as good as point-and-shoots get. But in this case, an experienced photographer with a nice SLR was needed.

2) I was having to zoom out toward the extreme edge of my 12x zoom much of the time.

3) I had to shoot a lot of these holding the camera over my head just to get a remotely decent angle and try to minimize heads in the shot (which didn't always work.) No tripod + long zoom + bad angle = bumpy ride.

Enough caveats about my pics and video though. Good job guys.

And I'll try to have some non-concert photos up from the rest of our weekend in the next couple days.

I've got most of them online anyway. I still haven't offloaded the last 1.5 days worth, but should have those ready shortly.

Photos on Flickr

It was a great trip. We got to visit with a lot of family members as well as see much of the area's natural beauty in a fairly short amount of time. Hopefully we'll have more time in the future to get back up there and spend even more time at places like Flathead Lake, Glacier and Yellowstone.

Laney and I went to visit Adam this weekend while Holly was enjoying a well-deserved trip to the beach to celebrate the end of the school year.

Other than the muggy heat we had a great time. The whole Shoals area (Florence, Tuscumbia, Sheffield, Muscle Shoals) is such a pretty place to visit. Florence and Tuscumbia in particular have such nice thriving little downtown areas, historic homes and some amazing parks.

Adam, the photos on Flickr are also available in the original size (via the 'All Sizes' button) if you wanted to save and print any of these.

Photos on Flickr

I finally got around to paying for a full-fledged Flickr account (for all the stuff it does for $25 it's quite the bargain.) I'm going to try to begin uploading a lot of our photos to my account there. The interface is way nicer than anything I could ever do and it'll also allow you to save a full-resolution copy of the original image.

Just click the photo and it'll take you to my Flickr page. From there you can view all the photos individually (using the 'browse' and 'more' arrows to scroll and choose) or as a slideshow (which you can control the speed of.) You can also order prints and have them mailed to you or pick them up at your local Target. Or just save a full-sized version to print out on your own printer or whever you like. It's a really cool site.

I've been pretty impressed with what I've seen from Flickr thus far so I thought I'd give it a whirl. One of the nicest things about it (assuming I opt for the dirt-cheap paid version) will be the ability to share full-resolution photos so that you guys won't have to wait for me to print a photo before you can get a copy. You can instead pull the original straight off Flickr and print it on your own printer (or at Walgreens, etc.) Granted, I'll have to be much more vigilant about actually uploading photos . . . but that's another story. :)



So for my first photo how about a picture of Laney on her first birthday. Yeah, yeah. I know it was 3 months ago. But it seemed appropriate.

This time last year Laney entered the world and changed our lives. We've loved every minute of it and look forward to the days and years to come.

Laney's been walking in short bursts halfway crossing a room for awhile now. But in the last few weeks, she's really up'd her game. She's all over the place these days (although much moreso here on her home turf.)

Here's a videoclip from a couple weeks ago of the future track star in action (it's a WMV file a little over 500k so it should be relatively dial-up friendly.)

She's off and running now baby!