Ryan's "Workshop"

My workshop is incomplete. It lacks WD-40.



/rl

Mike's "Work Shop"

I don't really have "Work Shop", per say.  I have a man cave full of guitars, and camera stuff.
Lauritzen Gardens had 10 cent admission today for the 10/10/10 holiday and to celebrate ten years of being open.  This workshop belongs to a few men who have build an outdoor model railroad.  The actual "workshop" is off to my left.

I have to admit I have a pile of tools in the garage, but its not as clean and pretty as Cory's.

Cory's Workshop

Here's my new workshop in my new garage. There's more room in this one than the last.

Next week: "Swiss Cheese"

"Workshop" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Distant"

... will not be seen this week.

I wanted to stop and get a picture of a sign outside of Omaha that said "This way to Zion" with an arrow pointed down a side road, but it was on a busy road with no shoulder.

I give up.

/rl

Ryan's "Distant"

... is in the not-too-distant future. Tomorrow night.

I promise.

/rl

Mike's "Distant"

There are a lot of things on the "Distant" side of this lake that I have taken a picture of up close.  The water tower, the pigeons on the Comfort Inn, and Hardee's signs.
I shot a picture of the cranes at United Rental, and somewhere in there, maybe off to the right of the frame are some fishing docks.  Distant reminded me of term "relative" which I placed on my contest for a few weeks from now.  Bazinga!

Cory's Distant

At about 30 miles away, Santa Fe is somewhat distant from me. And yet, if I look hard enough I can still see it if I look in the right places. In this case, I noticed that they were doing a controlled burn in the hills behind the city. No, those aren't low-lying clouds in the center of the picture - that's the smoke from the burn.

Next week: "Workshop"

"Distant" is not distant. It is due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Wild"

There are some abandoned grain silos along I-80 that someone decided to spruce up with some "wild" designs.
It is my understanding that the banners will stay up for 3-4 months.  A news story about this can been seen here.

Cory's Wild

Lis, Maddy, and I took a trip down to the floor of Bayo Canyon today to look for some wild animals to take pictures of. We found a really wild squeak toy while we were there, but in the end I settled on this lizard as the wildest creature of all.

Ryan's "Wild"

I spent much of my weekend photographing a friend's wedding. In the process I captured a photograph of a future "Wild Child" in training:


The little girl on the right danced frantically and continuously throughout the entire reception. Here she is being instructed in the art of head banging to AC/DC's "Back in Black."

/rl

Next week: "Distant"

"Wild" due on Sunday.

/rl

Mike's "Half and Half"

I'm guessing about half of these canoes are in the water.  In fact I know they are because I put that picture on my other contest.
Despite the deary weather the Papio NRD WorldO!Water event took place at Lake Wehrspann.  They only got about half as many people as they expected.  Yep all of that is a stretch to make the topic.  I only have one half here.  Darn it.

Ryan's "Half and Half"

Half Good, half Plenty:



All uninspired. Another weekend without time for photography.

/rl

Cory's Half and Half

This is a pluot, some weird genetically engineered half apricot, half plum. I don't know how they do it, but it is tasty.

Next week: "Wild"

"Half and Half" due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Seated"

I've been seated in front of the computer doing ....



... physics and ethics. No time to take good "Seated" photos.

Where's Craig?

/rl

Cory's Seated

Sometimes, after Maddy goes to bed, I like to seat myself on her giraffemobile and go out exploring the jungle.

Ryan's "Seated"

... has not been shot yet. Hopefully tomorrow....

I did get one in for Mike's contest, though!

/rl

Mike's "Seated"

Please remain seated for the entire performance!

Next week: "Half and Half"

"Seated" due tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Bridge"

Sorry, I'm late, there was family stuff to do, and little cell reception let alone internet where I was at.
This is the bridge on the road next to the historic Neligh Mills.  Nebraska lost a few bridges to flooding this year as did Iowa.

Ryan's "Bridge"

This is an old abandoned bridge near Memphis, NE.



/rl

Cory's Bridge

This is the Diamond Drive bridge, which crosses the Los Alamos Canyon. I get to drive across it every week day to get from my home, on the left side, to the lab, on the right side. I get to go the opposite way later on in the day too. Sadly, I don't know if there is a Diamond Dave bridge anywhere.

"Bridge" due tomorrow

"Seated" for next week.

/rl

Craig's Through the Window

Better late than never.

Glass block windows are cool. They're like bricks you can see through.

Ryan's "Through the Window"

I occasionally peer through the windows of cars while walking down the sidewalk. Today I looked into one from New Mexico and found...



...MADDY!

/rl

Cory's Through the Window

A quick look through the window at what's going on inside my house in the evening. The answer: nothing much.

But it looks like I need to wash the windows...

Mike's "Through the Window"

I did not get to spend much time at Schram park last week, and its not far from where I live so I went back and took this picture "Through the Window".
I did not even get inside the main building there by the hatchery last week, and was a little surprised that it was open on a Sunday, but I suppose most spend their time at the Aquarium up the road.

Tomorrow: "Through the Window"

Tomorrow + 7: "Bridge"

/rl

Ryan's "Hilly"

Omaha isn't particularly hilly or particularly flat.




/rl

Craig's Hilly

The photos I took for Hilly looked great in my viewfinder, and like crap on the screen. So I go back a couple of weeks.

Illinois isn't hilly, Scotland is. This is Oban, as seen from the ferry terminal. The thingy up on the hill is called McCaig's Tower. It's not much of a tower and isn't complete. But it does make for a stunning overlook.

Mike's "Hilly"

I tried to beat the heat this AM and went down to Schram state park and did some shooting.  Its one of those places that remind me not all of Nebraska is flat.  In fact, its pretty much the part that I-80 follows leaving visitors a biased view of our scenery.

This is a stairway leading up the hill where part of the fish hatchery is.  I wish I could have played longer but heat and my allergies chased me home.

Cory's Hilly

The area that I live in is very hilly (or mountainy), so I decided not to take the easy way out and just take a picture of the horizon from my back yard. Instead I took a picture of the ground from my back yard. It turns out a lot of ants live in the desert, and it is easy to find both little and GIANT ant hills in the area. This is just an example of a small one from the hilly area.

Next week: "Through the Window"

"Hilly" due tomorrow!

/rl

Ryan's "Concrete"

Unoccupied concrete rarely stays pristine long...



/rl

Mike's "Concrete"

Concrete all around us, so how could this be a hard topic?  Well its kinda ugly in general.  I went to look for art too, and found some in Memorial Park.  Actually the pieces I was was looking for have been removed from Memorial Park and moved across the street.  Hmm...  I love abstract art, but these just looked like sewage pipe or large extracted teeth.
This is when I decided to look for the "most" concrete I could find!

Craig's Concrete

The second definition of concrete in the dictionary is "not abstract". So, to give a concrete example of what concrete is not, I present this abstract art from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.

Cory's Concrete

One afternoon last week, Maddy went running around on the concrete after it had rained. This was the evidence she left behind. Alas, a minute later it had evaporated into the dry air.

Next week: "Hilly"

Post your "Concrete" by tomorrow.

/rl

Mike's "Tasteless"

This is going to be a stretch, because I'm woefully unprepared this week.  I took out a few minutes on Friday at lunch to shoot a little private park behind one of the businesses where I work.

It has a pond and waterfall that stretches across most of the property.  Water is usually tasteless.  Sometimes your well might bring up iron or other minerals that change this fact, but its usually pretty bland.

Water is also required on a weekend like this when you decide to do a poker run when its 91 degrees. 

Ryan's "Tasteless"

Need I say more?

/rl

Cory's Tasteless

New Mexico people seem to be very devoted to putting up little roadside shrines, presumably to drivers that have been killed on stretches of roads. Some of them are more tasteful than others, and this one is actually one of the prettier ones. For example, I don't see any spray paint involved in its construction.

The actual tasteless part of this picture is that I am posting it here.

Next week: "Concrete"

"Tasteless" due in about 5 hours.

/rl

Ryan's "Domestic" (with apologies to Craig)

In the USA, Schlitz beer is dirt cheap (domestic) swill. In Copenhagen, it's a probably regulated as toxic waste.

This was taken at the at a friend's house in Nebraska. The crabs were quite good. I did not sample the "beer."

/rl

You know, I could have sworn they took Schlitz off the market after all those hillbillies went blind....

Mike's "Domestic"

Not unlike beer, cars come as domestic or import.
This car was definitely made in the USA.

Cory's Domestic

It is rather common for people to have fruit trees in their yards here in Los Alamos, and right now it is apricot season. We dried a bunch of them, and then Lis decided to be domestic and try making some chocolate-dipped ones. Here they are waiting to cool and be sampled.

Next week: "Tasteless"

"Domestic" due tomorrow!

/rl

Craig's Domestic

In the USA, Mikkeller beer is a pricey import. In Copenhagen, it's a pricey domestic.

This was taken at the Mikkeller Bar in Copenhagen. The beer (and cheese) were quite good.

Craig's Corruption

Turns out I can upload on my trip, yay.

This is taken from the Modern Art museum in Stockholm -- they had this wall of Soviet propaganda art. Those revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia had an idea of what they wanted to do, but somewhere along the way it got corrupted into the mess that became the USSR.

And people call Obama a Marxist now. Of course, they also call him Hitler, so, you know...

Mike's "Corrupt"

I took a page out of Ryan's playbook for this one.  I went looking for cemeteries.   Sarpy County has many ghost towns.  I've written a couple of blog posts on how progress has corrupted rural living, Americana, American Gothic.

Portal, NE was a town at the turn of the century that became overgrown by Pappillion & LaVista, NE.  It stood where the intersection of 108th and Giles is now.  There is a subdivision and a road named after it, but all that remains of the town is a cemetery half way between Giles and Harrison.  It was a railroad town.  The tracks connect with another ghost town, Chalco, NE, which has a few standing buildings left.  According to the plaque this cemetery was established in 1879.  I am guessing this is the oldest stone.  There were some that were more corrupted.

Ryan's "Corrupt"

Who you callin' corrupt?




/rl

Cory's Corrupt

Nature has been somewhat corrupted by the addition of the highway.

"Corrupt" due tomorrow!

"Domestic" for next week.

I can see the bottom of the Bucket-O-Topics. Any suggestions?

/rl

Michael's "Walk / Don't Walk"

There is a lot of walking in music.  In this pose the player looks like he is going to try a Chuck Berry "Duck Walk", but I think the stage is too small.  Becomes a choice of "Duck Walk / Don't Duck Walk".
Scales are "walked" in guitar leads, and by the bassist.  Sometimes you walk to the beat of the drum.  I've taken many stretches to make this photo fit the theme!  I took a lot of pictures for a CD release party I helped set up for Sandra's son and friends.  In the process of doing so, I remembered why I quit playing in groups.  It is a lot of work.  The pay-off is sweet while it last, but that isn't always in money.  You could say I had to "walk" away from it.

Ryan's "Walk / Don't Walk"

Walk? Don't Walk? Doesn't matter. Turning traffic is not allowed to run you over.



/rl

Cory's Walk/Don't Walk

Walk? Don't walk? Let Walky-Guy show you the way!

Next week: "Corrupt"

"Walk / Don't Walk" due tomorrow!

/rl

Ryan's "Fourth of July"

We climbed onto a 4th floor balcony at Quentin's place to view the Rosenblatt show. It was 95% obscured in smoke, so I tried the fishy lens for a different view:



/rl

Mike's "Fourth of July"

Last year we went to the display at Stoneybrook and I took hundreds of shots from a tripod, bracketing several different exposure settings (manually) and got some neat shots.  This is not one of them. 
This was shock and awe year for Sarpy County, and I did not have to leave my back porch to see my neighbors blow thousands of dollars into the air.  It was an insane display of self indulgence that lasted until 1:30 AM when the last pipe bomb woke me up.

I did take pictures.  I did not use a tripod.  I purposely moved the camera.  I was a rebel caught up in the moment.  The smell of magnesium and sulfur still haunts me.

Cory's Fourth of July

This was a very meteorologicaly weird Fourth of July. We ran up to Omaha for the weekend, where they were experiencing heat and 300% humidity. Coupled with no wind and lots of smoke from people blowing stuff up all over the city, that created a weird fog that sat over us all night on the Fourth. This is a view from my parents' front yard, looking at a tree being back lit by a house across the street. Yup, we couldn't even see all the way across the street.

Next week: "Walk / Don't Walk"

"Fourth of July" due on the Eleventh of July.

/rl

Mike's "Best of Q2"

Sorry, I'm late.  I had this ready to go on the weekend, and forgot to publish it!
I took the "long way" to the farm on Memorial weekend, and tried to find older buildings and farms.  I was trying to find little slices of Americana.  There is frighteningly less and less out there.

Craig's Best of Q2

Giant art spider attacks National Gallery!

Sorry for the late. And for the missing last week.

Preemptive note, I'll definitely be missing July 22-Aug 11, as I won't have a computer.

Cory's Best Of Q2

Back in April we took a trip to Bandelier National Park and spent the day wandering around old cliff dwellings. Some of them are open for exploration, including this kiva at the top of Alcove House. This particular one was fun to get to - we had to climb a series of tall, steep ladders up the cliff face to get to the top. Amazingly, we all made it back down in one piece.

Also, I just checked the archives and noted that this week closes up two years of us taking pictures - the first post was on July 12 2008. Coincidentally, this here is also the 500th post. Woo milestones!

Ryan's "Best of Q2"

This is among my favorites, mostly because it was a good weekend.

Jenny and Amy behind some climbing gear:



/rl

"Best of Q2" due tomorrow**

Next week: "Fourth of July"

** Cory got turned around driving home from work on Thursday. He ended up in Omaha instead of Los Alamos. He has "requested" an extension until Wednesday, so I won't put up the poll until then.

/rl