sunrise over st. paul

not all black socks are the same

mtb ride on (maybe) the last nice day

i was able to convince b to go out on a bike ride with me. i told her i just wanted to get on my mountain bike and goof around. i took her to the reservoir woods trails in r-ville. there's not a lot of trail length there, but there's a ton of variety: open fields, pine forest, and stands of oaks.

we had fun. she's got some pretty good bike handling skills!

and, then, we goofed with some shadows

coffee + sunshine

= mmm

boo

i stepped out on the lawn tonight to snap some dark pics of our glowing pumpkins, which were pretty cool.

hiii... arrrrggg

what are you lookin at?

let there be light(ning)

a well cultured pumpkin!

then... i spotted the real star of the evening. ok, i know it's just a reflector of light and not a star, but the moon was the possible subject of the evening, and, thus, a star in my book!

if you weren't around, you might've thought it was a dark and stormy night

the clouds were moving quickly

muuuuch better

not enough grub before the workout, but this should do: cheese omlette, fried spuds, and some tabasco to warm up this gray day.

so... we're having this little art contest

at our house for the last few autumns, our youngest daughter has promoted a "spooktacular" art contest and asks each family member to submit an artistic entry that is either scary or simply fall-related. this year, i've picked digital art as my medium. i've messed with a couple of photos in gimp and am trying to decide what to submit...

monster shadow

daybreak's first victim: fire in the treetops

i'll print them both and see how they look, she says i have to submit my entry on paper.


Here's my entry from last year

cup check!

mikt thought everyone else in the office had cup envy. then stan brought in his new cup. mike was crushed.

big snow

st. paul is really taking it in the shorts weather-wise today.

capturing the neighbor's garden

the sun was streaming in the kitchen window this morning and i had a great view of the tops of some grasses in the neighbor's garden. it's a nice captured moment with the sun accentuating the texture of the grasses. without the light hitting the seed tufts, these grasses aren't usually visible.





here's a similar shot in different light. see? can't really see the grasses. the bummer is that you can't see the purple light of the sunrise that day either. oh well. it provided contrast for the moment i wanted to capture.

last haul from the garden

ah... so here's a snap of one of the last harvests from our garden. this year's crop was pretty good and we were so happy to have tomatoes for such a long stretch. if these guys ripen, they should be pretty good, but...

i don't think they'll make much of a meal :-)

really... 12 october?

this is going to be a long winter, isn't it?

continuing to goof around with gimp

ok, here's some fun i had playing around with gimp, the gnu image processer. pretty cool stuff, i open it up periodically and mess around with a few things. since i don't use it every day, i tend to have to re-learn things all over again each time i open it, but it comes back fairly quickly.

here's the original pic... some doofus eating ice cream.

woah, the doofus gets a litttle class with the photocopy effect
now, after adding cartoon effect and playing with colors through the "curves" i was able to get an extremely cool combined effect.

and here's oilify. he looks like a zombie.

the source of my inspiration

if you only knew how many "wows" i have said in the presence of these eyes. i wish i could be more intelligent or more creative when she looks at me but, sometimes, "wow" is all i've got.

our wildflower patch

t planted a wildflower patch in front of our house. it's been fun to watch it change over time.

i really have no idea what kind of flower this is, but isn't it great?
gasp.



the prettiest flower of them all


and something spicy.

the eyes have it

all of these eyes are related in some way, but not all of them are blue. some are multiples from the same person. all of them capture you.

fred

he may be getting old and developing a bit of a "milk mustache" but he's still got some puppy in him. we were playing with a racquetball in the back yard and he was pretty excited about it.

ok, black-eyed susans are just about as cool as...

daisies, except they bloom when the daisies are done.