Evan Valentine, Stay-at-Home Dad

I am the biggest idiot on the planet. I took my dogs for a walk.. a regular walk, which is 1.5 or 2 miles. I saw things I may never see again. I trudged through waist-high snow in the middle of the street. I saw piles of snow six feet high or more next to people's freshly-shoveled driveways. I took my camera, of course. Who wouldn't want to take an opportunity to document the area's biggest snowfall on record?

Many streets had not been touched by plows. We were walking along places where tires had crushed the snow, slipping and sliding all the way. Everyone was out taking pictures or shoveling their driveways.

I got back to the house and grabbed the measuring tape. While trying to take a few snapshots of the measuring tape sticking out of the snow, my spirits were crushed. I had the camera on manual focus for the entire walk, and my pictures are most likely completely worthless. I had some good stuff at my fingertips, and I threw it all away by having manual focus turned on. What an ass.

By the way, my measurement was only 23" which is certainly not any kind of record. It's only one more inch than we had December 19-20th.

It appears we will get 2-3x the amount of average snowfall this winter. We had a couple of small snowfalls, then 22" on December 19, 4" this past saturday, 3" last night, and we are supposed to get a large amount this upcoming weekend. Snow is nice for the first two times every winter, then the next two times it's "meh," but by now it just sucks (though I will have to admit that the 22" of snow was pretty cool). The stuff that fell last night is wet and sticky, so it piles up on even the smallest of twigs/pine needles. It looks really nice and picturesque everywhere you look.

February 03, 2010

After I walked the dogs this morning, I went back out with my 24mm lens and my new flash (it was still dark). I currently have two flashes. I have an old Minolta flash on loan from my uncle, and I have a new flash that I got for Christmas from my brother. The new flash is an E-TTL flash which communicates with the camera and automatically adjusts the exposure and flash power depending on the shot. I am still trying to figure out a way to put the flash on some sort of "manual" mode and make it flash with full power every time. The old flash that I have is not able to communicate at all with my camera, and it makes the brightest flash every time. That way I can just adjust the aperture setting to get the proper exposure. You can never have too much light!

But this morning I just took out the E-TTL (auto) flash and snapped a few shots as quickly as I could. I still haven't quite figured out how to use a direct flash, either. When I'm indoors I can point the flash at the ceiling which eliminates all shadows. But if I point my new flash at the ceiling, it doesn't realize that I'm doing that, and doesn't adjust the flash amount accordingly. Everything is too smart these days, and I wish I could just override all of that nonsense.

Friday night, we went to eat at Chili's with Martha, Eric, and Brad. Our son started to be a little bit of a pain at the end, but everything turned out all right. When we got back, we all watched some bad youtube videos. I have been needing to replace our kitchen faucet for 2 years, but Eric helped me along by snapping off the faucet handle when he tried to get a glass of water.

Saturday morning, I went to the Grahams' house to take pictures of their children for a Christmas card. It was a lot of fun and I think I got a few good group shots. His kids were quite entertained by our baby, which made the job a lot easier. Stephen is a good prop.

Then I had to go drop Jaime and Stephen off at the house and pick Scott up at the airport. That went without a hitch, and it was so fast that I didn't even get charged for parking in the hourly parking lot at Dulles.

Today, Scott and I went and ran errands at four different locations (one was Total Wine and More, so that doesn't count), and we have all just been watching football all day. Within the past hour, I am getting caught up on laundry, and I cleaned out underneath the sink and started to take the faucet assembly apart. Good, busy weekend. Tomorrow, Scott and I plan to go to the Air and Space museum near Dulles, and maybe do a few abstract paintings. Good visit, good visit.

One of my favorite orchestral pieces is Handel's Water Music Suites. I have an LP copy of it which is unbeatable. Several other performances I have downloaded are just not up to snuff. I have been looking for a few more things to play in the baby's room, so I finally ripped the LP version with the USB record player that S&S got me. Sounds pretty good, eh?

Handel - Water Music Suite in Dmaj - Hornpipe

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It sounds like I have a cicada in my basement. Strange things happen in this basement.

Stephen is 16 weeks old today. Today also marks the seventh day of poop watch. Breastfed babies don't poop very often, which is nice, but gets worrisome after a week. There is an impending explosion that will require 5-8 wipes. I am putting blankets under him wherever he lays today.

I currently am borrowing my Grandfather's old Minolta flash. It was made to be "automatic" with certain cameras back in the day, but my camera can not communicate with this flash. It's been interesting. I'm just shooting in manual mode at 1/125th of a second. Getting some really cool stuff indoors. Lots of colors.. will post soon.

I was going to write a little piece about my strange attraction to the Progressive Insurance Girl, but apparently I am not the only one who feels that way.

(I am wondering the legality of posting videos/music on here, especially since I have ads on this site)