Weblog

In the time since my last post, which I realize was quite some time ago, I have been busy looking for a place to live. My primary requirement was that it had to be low maintenance, since I'm on the road most of the time. I also wanted to be a little closer to the airport than Loveland, which is nearly an hour away. I started by looking at townhouses, since that would require basically zero upkeep. I didn't really want to share too many walls or floors with other people, so I stayed away from condos for the most part. At my mom's suggestion, I started to look into patio homes as well. These are a bit more scarce than townhouses and condos, but my real estate agent worked very diligently to round them up.

I did find some townhouses I really liked, but ultimately I decided that a patio home would be better in the long run. I can see myself living in a patio home longer than a townhouse, even after I am no longer travelling, and single family homes appreciate faster than attached homes. Shortly after I sorted this out, my agent came across the perfect place. It's just the right size at 1500 sq. ft., with two bedrooms, a two car garage, full basement, vaulted ceilings, and beautiful trim work. It is truly unique. After some back and forth on the price, the sellers and I finally came to an agreement, and I am now in the final throes of purchasing my first home. Barring any last minute road blocks, closing will be on the 7th, and I am greatly looking forward to it.

The photos from my recent trip to Crater Lake and the Redwood parks have now been posted. I am incredibly pleased with how the pictures from Crater Lake turned out; the water is indeed stunningly blue, and it contrasts beautifully with the thick layer of white snow that touches everything else. The redwood pictures are a bit more difficult to judge, as the lighting makes exposing an entire frame properly almost impossible. Because of this, I usually bracketed my shots. I may eventually end up creating a few HDR images from the multiple exposures, but since I usually post my shots with no processing other than a quick color balance and export to JPG, I have gone ahead and posted only the primary exposures.

Now that my new site is done and I have a good tool for data edting, I have gone back and started to title and tag my older pictures as well. I have in fact finished a good number of photos, though I still have quite a few to go through, mostly from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and my New York City road trip of last year. I am hoping to have them finished in the coming weeks as well.

As you can probably tell, the new web site is up. It took a little bit longer than expected, primarily due to the reasons mentioned in my previous post, but it's now done. There are still a few very minor tweaks left for me to do, but it is very usable in the meantime. As in the previous version of the site, I have a weblog, and also all of my pictures. Rather than having the pictures in albums, however, I've moved them over to a tag/category system like the weblog posts have been for some time. By default, all blog posts and photos are retrieved, and you then have the ability to filter the results by choosing one or more tags. You can also search for text, though many of my pictures still don't have proper titles, as I haven't gotten around to it yet.

In addition to the blog and photos, my movie list has made a return, and I have added my music collection as well. I have also added a list of wines that I have tasted since taking Wines, Vines and You in college, which gives my own take on the wines.

I'd also like to note that although I've finally posted my pictures from Las Vegas and California up through two weeks ago, I haven't quite finished the photos from Crater Lake and Redwood. I'm hoping to finish them by this coming weekend.