So, the new job sent me out to the Central Valley region of California all last week. Coincidentally, this was to the same plant that Marcie’s been going to for the past month and a half. We decide to take full advantage of this and stretched the trip out over the weekend so that we could visit Yosemite. The traffic in the park was a serious mess as you’d expect for a summer weekend, but we took a few nice hikes and I got a few good shots in. Here’s a sampling:

Half Dome, Ansel Adams style…

Vernal Falls

See the whole Yosemite set at Flickr. I’m having a few issues with my own gallery at the moment, so it’s not there yet.

It’s been raining most of the weekend here in the lovely Chicago ‘burbs. Payback for the perfect weather we had here last weekend, I suppose. Yesterday was a Board of Directors meeting for Y&G, so between the meeting and driving down and back from Champaign, I pretty much shot the entire day. Today’s just an around-the-house kind of day - I popped out to get an overdue haircut, and I’ve been doing a little bit of laundry. Every week, I bring home a suitcase of dirty laundry, wash it, and re-load most of the same stuff, since I wear uniform shirts at the plant - this lets me avoid wearing a lab coat over my usual workday polo+dockers.

I’ve been playing around with macro photography the past few weeks since one of the best macro subjects (flowers) is at its peak right now around here. It’s a different sort of challenge from shoointg landscapes like I usually do. I got some extension tubes to facilitate getting up-close shots without springing for a $6-800 macro lens (which I’m sure the chief financial officer [aka Marcie] appreciates), but now I’ve got worry about ridiculously shallow depth-of field. I think I may need a new split-prism focusing screen for the camera, but that purchase will require CFO approval. As usual, once I get around to post-processing them, I’ll have some up on the website. I got a decent number of keepers from the St. Louis and Chicago Botanical Gardens, as well as Marcie’s own gardens here.

I’m a little bummed…I was hoping I’d get to head over to Germany for about a week for work, but my schedule got changed, and so I get to spend another couple of exciting weeks in Allentown. Woo hoo.
These weeks will probably be a little more dull, since my usual “partners in crime” out in Lehigh will be in Germany. On the plus side, it means my liver will probably get a few days of reprieve and I’ll get a little extra sleep each night.

For another random swing in conversation, I loaded some more new music into my iPod - had O.A.R. recommened to me by Kelly, one of my colleagues on the project out in Lehigh. They’ve been playing “Love and Memories” a lot in Chicago lately, but the rest of the CD’s worth a listen. It’s an interesting mix…kind of collision between a ska band, your standard pop band (matchbox twenty?), Dave Matthews Band, and maybe a little more. Just to contribute to the entropy of the iPod, I also loaded some mid-90s Oasis, some 80s (Huey Lewis and the News), some comedy from Mitch Hedberg, and a random selection of Elvis Costello.

Finally got off my butt and uploaded my Hawaii pictures. Check them out over at my photo gallery section.

Here’s a couple of my favorites:

Kauai’s North Shore


Palm Trees at Poipu Beach


Windblown Palms and Clouds


Sunset on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island


Sunset and Cute Blonde

Let me know what you think!

Well, if you haven’t been in the loop, Marcie and I are in Hawaii right now…as we speak, I’m sitting about 50 feet from waves breaking on the south shore of Kauai. Such a rough life, huh?

We’ve been having a great time so far. We hiked a little of the Na Pali coast (made famous in the helicopter scenes in Jurassic Park), checked out a lot of beaches, went snorkeling, took a few other cool hikes, and just enjoying not being at work. (sorry, Krafties!)

We’ve been giving the camera quite a workout - in a week, we’ve shot over 900 pictures, and there’s some definite keepers in there. The 18-200 VR lens is a rock-star - I can hand-hold shots nowhere near possible otherwise, especially since I don’t have the steadiest of hands at times (ie, after a long uphill hike). As you’d probably expect from any sub-$1000 lens, it’s not tack-sharp wide-open, but I’m a fan of the “f/8 and be there” school of shooting, so the lens is great there.

I’ve also been playing with some macro photography of flowers and the like, so once I’ve processed some shots, they’ll go up online.

So sorry it’s been so long. I know, I’ve been a slacker around here, but really, I’ve got some good excuses…

First, the kitchen has been coming along nicely. My parents came up right after Christmas, and in a 3-day spurt, my dad and I basically got everything hung up on the walls. Marcie’s happy because now we’ve got enough storage space for all of our kitchen stuff finally. I’m just happy to have that monkey off of my back.

And, of course, work’s been kind of nuts. Last week was my first full week in the office since November (actually, before the last blog entry, even). Six consecutive days in the office…I almost didn’t know what I was going to do with myself, actually.

The holidays were a good time. Spent Christmas Day with Marcie’s family, and then my parents came up for a few days between Christmas and New Years’ Eve. 2006 was rung in at Brian and Becky’s place, and then followed our traditional day of slack on the 1st. Every year on January 1st, we celebrate sloth. We watch movies all day, eat unhealthy food, etc.

And, I got a new toy lately - in preparation for our vacation, I went out and spent my bonus check on a new camera - the Nikon D70s. Then, in front of the body, the Zoom-Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6G VR IF ED. In a nutshell, a great camera. I went downtown over the weekend to try it out - got some very nice pictures out of it which are over in the Gallery.

The much-anticipated pictures from Australia are now online in my photo gallery. I’ve got about 100 of the best shots we took from the trip (yes, Marcie took a couple of the shots, even!) up for your perusal. Here’s my favorite:

Sunset over Apollo Bay, VIC, 4 December 2004

Well, now that the site’s up and running again, I was able to upload my Alaska pictures. Here’s a sample - you can see the whole album over at my photo gallery:

Let’s just say it’s an impressive sight to see in person. I’ll add in some entries about vacation and slip them into the appropriate days in the archive. Want to buy a print from me? Send an e-mail to ben(at)ben-johnson.org and we’ll work something out.

Marcie’s new kitten, Sophie…

If you want to see more, visit the photo gallery. Isn’t she sweet?

I’ve uploaded a selection of pictures from the trip that Marcie and I took to Albuquerque, NM and other sites in New Mexico. Some of them came out pretty nice…here’s a sample (click it to see full-size):

Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Ok, I’ve got some new pictures up on the site at my gallery site. Actually, my dad took the vast majority of these…he’s pretty sharp with a camera himself.