Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!!!! Sorry no pics, currently away from my camera. I hope everyone has a safe holiday.

The Lights Before Christmas

Long time no post! It's been a busy time of the year, but I am two purchases away from being done shopping and tommorow is the last day of finals week, so some slower times lie ahead. As a point of clarification, while I am excited that tommorow is the last day of finals, I have no finals to take, only a bookstore to manage...I'm not sure which is better.

Just after Thanksgiving I had a little outing with the family, some of my viewers were there, and below are some pictures I took that night. A large group of us went to the Toledo Zoo to see the annual Lights Before Christmas display. I've always enjoyed going and seeing the lights, and this year I took the camera along. I'll grade the pictures as a C to C-, but I'll post some anyway. Maybe next year I'll have some better understanding of night photography.

A pretty blue tree! I wonder how long it took them to put the lights on this tree and whose idea it was to use only blue lights. Who know, maybe blue lights are cheaper then other lights or maybe they use less power. It dosn't matter really, the tree looked great, and this is one of the better pictures I took.


I'll call the above picture seeing the forest for the trees. I'll say it had potential, maybe if I had used a tripod. I didn't want to lug one around though so it is what it is.

This is my favorite tree at the zoo. It's a giant tree with thousands of lights on it. It's usually one of my first and last stops every time I go. I like how the sky turned out in this picture.....lots of blue again.

This isn't the greatest picture, but I liked how the tree kind of came out as glowing. It was taken early in the outing, and probably would have turned out a lot better 30 minutes later. But oh well, we had to get over to the big tree.

I thought this tree looked like a monster of some type, fairly fitting for a zoo I suppose. Not much to say on this one, but I welcome any and all comments on all of the above picture. I left some out that I will call "accidents that came out well." I'll post those in a seperate post another day.

I also should mention that we are in the middle of an ice store warning (the weatherman just called it a "messy winter storm") so maybe I'll be posting pictures of ice tommorow. My bet is that campus will be closed tommorow....and if I am feeling up to it I may treck out early on a little photo shoot. Who am I kidding.....early afternoon maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Just wanted to make a quick post to wish everyone a great Thanksgiving. I can't post without including a picture so I snapped one of the mums next to my chair, they're Thanksgiving colors so it worked well.

The Grissom Air Museum

This is an old photo-journey, but I felt I should make a post before all my viewers give up and stop checking for new posts. These photos were taken at the Grissom Air Museum near Grissom Airforce Base near Kokomo, IN. The conditons for photography were very less then ideal with all the clouds and the pictures came out making the day appear a little overcast. I recall it being a lovely early fall day though and I ended up taking over 200 photos. I think I got addicted to hearing the shutter. Luckily I don't have to develop pictures to see them anymore.....that would just get expensive. On to some photos.

First up is a B-17G Flying Fortress. I'm sure you've seen pictures of these before and know a little history of them. Click the link if you haven't.

By the way, there was an observation tower on site, I'm really not that tall. Here are some from the ground to prove it.

It's really hard to get the entire plane in the frame with what I have, but I think they came out semi-decent.

From the giant above we'll jump to something newer. This is a F-14B Tomcat. It was interesting being so close to these planes and know what they are capable of. Well, at least having an idea of what they are capable of (the signs helped).

Here is a YS-11A, it's a Japanese airliner and was parked just outside of the museum. I noticied that all the emergency exits were written in foreign languages, and thought that was kind of interesting.

You may be wondering what my editor does while I am taking all these pictures. Usually she is off somewhere pretending to be bored, but I know that's really not the case. Here is a photo of her from the day of this photo-journey. If you look closely you can see how much she must practice the bored looks, she's such a great actor.

For fearing of boring you the visitor, i'll stop here while I may still be ahead. Lookin out the window I see we are in the middle of the first snowfall and I have a few pictures planned that I'd like to take around the Warsaw area. With Thanksgiving and thus the holidays in view it may be tough to get out and take all the pictures I want, but I'll do my best. Additionally I have a few things I plan on experimenting with indoors. In case this is my last post before Thanksgiving, have a safe and merry Thanksgiving.

For Rent: 10 Gallon Apartment

This is a lovely tank located just on the outskirts of Warsaw, IN. With easy access to all the essentials and entertainment Warsaw has to offer, this is the ideal place for anyone looking to relocate to the area. The unit is fully furnished, although the photos do not show this due to a recent cleaning of the carpet.

Pack all the roommates in that you can to help save on rent. Utilities are included, as well as one meal a day. A cleaning service stops by, although irregularly, approximately once a month. All renters must follow the following stipulations:

1. ALL parties must be approved by the landlord and must include an invitation for the landlord and a limited number of guests.


2. NO smoking


3. NO pets allowed of any kind.

If interested please respond to this post. Rent is negotiable.

Introducing The Beyer Farm Trail

Throughout the Warsaw area is a collection of trails that form the Lake City Greenway. While much of this trail system is yet to be built, three sections are currently open. One is located as part of the Chinworth Bridge and another is located near the Village of Winona Lake. The third section is called the Beyer Farm Trail and is located fairly near to the apartment so Jonelle and I visited it today for the first time. I'm pleased with some of the photos from the outing, but expect more from this location in the future.

The Beyer Farm Trail is a boardwalk that crosses over wetlands formed as part of a large lake called Pike Lake. One end is the Kosciusko Community Hospital and the other end is a park and firemans training area. Here is a picture I took from the lookout located in the middle of the boardwalk.

We continued on and came across a small creek that is connected to the lake. I thought the reflections looked compelling, but after reviewing the photos when we got back I thought it came out looking like ice. Just my opinion.

At the far end of the boardwalk I found a nice yellow tree overlooking the lake. I'm happy with how some of these turned out, but I plan on returning with the tripod to take some more. I'm thinking that this area may produce some good photos over the winter after a nice snow.

I feel compelled to note that after taking the above picture I decided to change lenses. En route to my assistant I nearly ended up taking a dip in the lake. Only minor damage to a lens hood resulted so I can't complain. I wanted to get more of the tree, but just out of frame to the right is a fairly ugly cement embankment and chain link fence. Here is one last photo that I'm also fond of.

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post, things can get busy around here. I'll do my best to post a little more often in the future.

One last thing, I'm trying an experiment here by putting my photos featured in the post on a google map. Click here and let me know what you think afterwards.

The Village of Winona Fall Fest

About 15 minutes from the apartment is a town/lake called Winona Lake. On the shores of this lake, near Grace College, is a little shopping area called The Village of Winona. Three weekends ago was the annual Fall Festival, so Jonelle and I went and had a gander. It was a nice afternoon, and we spent a few hours strolling amongst the shops and what-not. Most of the shops are of the art gallery type, with a decent mixture of painters, photographers, and even a wooden kitchen utensil maker. The foods not bad either. For the Fall Fest they had amongst other things, a British car-show along the canal. Here's a nice blue MG.

While strolling and checking out some of the cars Jonelle and I met an interesting couple. It seems they traveled all the way from, well we never found out for sure, but we can imagine it was fairly far away. We had a hard time understanding everything they said, but for the most part, it seems they enjoyed the cars more then we did. I'll include a picture and it may make more sense.

Here's one of my favorite pictures from the event. It seems the couple was pretty good at reading signs. Here they are checking out a duck crossing sign.

Overall it was a pretty good day. From there, we all parted ways. Jonelle and I went about our day, while the other couple swam off into the sunset. Maybe someday our paths will cross again. Here is one last picture, taken just before we parted ways.

Tippecanoe State Park

My lovely editor and I spent Sweetest Day taking in Tippecanoe State Park in Winamac, IN (West-Central, Indiana). It's a quaint little park, and this time of the year we seemed to have it all to ourselves, unless you count the turtles and geese we saw. We started by climbing a 90 foot fire-tower to get the layout of the park. As you can tell from the picture below, this didn't work as planned as all we saw were trees.....many many trees. Odd being a forest. We did see a fire, there was no panic so we can assume it was controlled.

Next we decided to take in some waterfowl in the waterfowl preserve. While this seems logical, there seemed to be more preserve then waterfowl. Unless of course, you count the many turtles we saw. We'll blame that on the season. Despite this, we took some pictures I am particularly proud of. My editor says they look like Bob Ross paintings, with "happy little trees" and "a few friends to go along." Bob Ross quotes will brighten anybodys day.

Here's a picture of the many turtles we saw. I'd say we saw about 10 while we were hiking.

Looking forward, expect a few more posts over the next few days. Topics in the near future include an interesting couple we met at a car show, a tutorial on how to take 200 pictures in less than an hour, and possibly even a behind the scenes tour of the home-office of this blog.

The Chinworth Bridge

It's been awhile since the last post, but things have been busy. A week in Chicago learning the correct way to manage a bookstore, a friend's wedding, and the passing of my grandma have made for some busy weeks. I've also finally moved into the new apartment. So as to not keep my fans from waiting to long for a new post I've gone to my photo archives and pulled out my first Warsaw photo shoot.

Before I do, I'd like to introduce my new editor, Jonelle Brinkman. She also acts as my photo assistant....often from a distance pretending to be bored. I'll include a picture of us.

Today's Warsaw attraction is the Old Chinworth Bridge. I don't know many details regarding this bridge unfortunatly. I found it by opening the complimentary attraction binder on day one of my 25-day hotel stay when I first moved here. My editor claims it is the oldest all steel single span bridge in the entire state of Indiana. It was constructed in Bellefountaine, OH. How they transported it all that way so long ago is beyond me, I imagine it involved many horses. Other facts regarding the bridge: It's red, there is water under it, and it's now part of a walking trail. Enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think.

Blueberry Fest- Plymouth, IN

Every Labor Day Plymouth, IN hosts an annual Blueberry Fesival. Plymouth, IN is about 40 minutes from Warsaw so on a whim, Jonelle and I decided to visit. It's basically a large county fair with the typical vendors, funnel cakes, games, and rides. On Sunday night, which is when we went, there is a fireworks show and a hot air balloon glow. If you haven't been to a hot air balloon glow, it's quite the show. While the balloons never leave their tether, they do inflate and when their burners are lit, the balloons have a glow to them. I've posted some pictures so you know can see for yourself, if you click on them they magically get bigger.

Overall the fair was a good time with plenty to see and do. Unfortunately, due to poor planning on my behalf, we failed to bring a blanket into the fireworks show. After an hour of watching the balloons we were tired of standing and left before the fireworks were lit. I can only imagine they made for a good show.

Would we go back? My vote is yes, with some better planning.

An Introduction

I've recently moved to Warsaw, IN and have decided to create this blog to update my friends and family of various things I've been up too. I've recently, thanks to a graduation present from my Mom and Dad, gotten back into photography and have been taking quite a few pictures as of late. Because of this I'll be posting some of my photography on here as well. The two seem to go hand-in-hand as I use exploring the Warsaw area as an excuse to take some pictures. I hope everyone enjoys and I appreciate any and all feedback.