It is Sunday Night and I’m Editing Photos with LR5

It’s Sunday evening and I’m relaxing in the afterglow of a solid eight mile run earlier in the day. Yes, people, the runner’s high is real and it is fabulous. I’d thought I’d work on editing photos taken weeks ago that had promise but needed something more to boost the images.

Welcome To The World HRH Prince X of Cambridge

Tired but very happy Duke and Duchess of Cambridge introduce their newborn son to the waiting world.

 

UPDATE:  The royal baby shall be called HRH Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge.

Home Brew Update

I spent the better part of Saturday cleansing, sanitzing and dry heat sterilizing in preparation to bottling a sweet Bavarian wheat beer that has quietly fermented over the past two weeks. Now that it is bottled, it will age for three weeks before serving. Only then will I know if all my efforts to create this beer was successful.  Of course, I’ve appealed to all the brewing gods for a drinkable batch of beer.

It is one thing to enjoy craft beer and another to create craft beer.  Surprisingly, I found Donald Rumsfeld accurately summed up the daunting task of home brewing with his famous quote:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

I’m certain Donald did not have home brewing on his mind when he coined this quote. Still, I’ve yet to find a more suitable quote that captures my experience with home brewing.

Craft beer brewing is part art, science and a touch of alchemy.  There are many factors that need attention while creating beer and there are at least a thousand ways you can screw up a batch of beer;  from poor quality wort ingredients, dormant yeast to gaps in cleaning and sanitizing.  Basically, I’m crossing my fingers that everything worked as it should.  I did taste the beer when measuring the final specific gravity before bottling. The beer tasted smooth with a hint of sweetness. I’m hoping that is a good sign.

Another nugget of knowledge:  The amount of careful work and time required to create home brewed craft beer has made me carefully reconsider whom I will share this gift of hops.  Always remember to drink responsibly and to share beer responsibly.  Essentially, if you annoy me – no beer for you!

Batch #1: Bavarian Weizen

Fermentation started: 7/7/2013

Starting Gravity: 1.050

Final Gravity: 1.012

Bottle Date: 7/20/2013

Open Date: 8/10/2013

ABV: 4.9%

Malts: Alexander Liquid Malt extract, Wheat dry malt extract

Hops: Tettnang hops (bittering), Saaz (flavor)

Servomyces yeast nutrient

Yeast: White Labs ‘Hefeweizen’ yeast

Belgium King Abdicates

Today marked Beligum’s King Albert II abdication and swearing in of Albert’s eldest son, Phillippe, as the new king of Belgium. The new king is the 7th King of Belgium and takes on a largely ceremonial role. His wife, Mathilde was given the title Queen of Belgium.

Photo credit: The Belgian Monarchy

This was a modest affair in contrast to the days long activities surrounding the abdication of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in favor of her son, Willem-Alexander on April 30th 2013.

In the meantime, the wait is still on for the arrival of Wills and Kate’s baby.

Detroit is Bankrupt

Detroit files the largest muninciple bankruptcy case in the history of the United States. Double ouch! Governor Rick Snyder explains the reasoning behind filing for bankruptcy and what it will mean for the future of Michigan.

Once upon a time, the city was hailed as a model for progressive social ideals and unionism now it has officially become the model of urban decline. I am hopeful this status will act as a wake up call for civic leadership to step up and break the chains of failure from the past. It is clear what doesn’t work for the city of Detroit, now is the time to begin to put into place evidence-based practices that do work for the citizens and businesses in the city.

What do you think would be a best practice solution for Detroit?

 

The Snark Factor Tonight

Listen live to the Snark Factor every Wednesday night at 8pm EST on FTR Radio where I will be joining Fingers Malloy, Irish Duke to bring news bites at the top of the hour followed by sparkling chats with invited guests. If you are a fan of my blog, you’ll know that I have an eclectic taste in news of the day.

On tap tonight:

 

Dick move by Rolling Stone magazine.

 

 

 

Bong Girl? Abby Huntsman to join MSNBC ‘The Circle’.  Oh, you didn’t know? Well, that’s not surprising, as no one watches the show. Just FYI.

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Spent a few hours at Longwood Garden on this blistering hot day to learn the principles of daytime long exposure.  I set up shop at the waterfalls adjacent to the Chimes Tower. The above photo was created using a B&W ND10 circular filter. It took time to figure out the f-stops and exposure times that worked in capturing the type of photo I was after.  Believe me, the photo still needs more post processing work but it gives a basic idea of the type of photos you can capture with daytime long exposures. The EXIF data is as follows:

Camera Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Exposure 91
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 12 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire

The next photo was taken without an ND Filter with the following EXIF data.  I am continually impressed with the quality of photos taken with the 40mm f/2.8 and would recommend this lens to new photographers as a replacement for the kit lens.

Camera Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Exposure 0.5
Aperture f/16.0
Focal Length 40 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash On, Did not fire

I still have a substantial learning curve with daytime long exposures and look forward to many more chances to explore long exposure photography.   If you are interested in learning more about this fascinating type of photography, check out this video from Scott Kelby where he shares ideas on how to shoot daytime long exposure photography.

 

 

 

 

She & Him- I Could’ve Been Your Girl

A tough couple of days on the political and cultural front – we all need a moment to pause,reflect and listen to a fun and catchy song – She & Him- I Could’ve Been Your Girl

George Zimmerman Found Not Guilty

Honestly, I didn’t think the jury would have decided so soon or gone with a not guilty verdict. However, we are a nation of laws and that is to be respected.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Now is the time to step up and reject the hate that has been allowed to build with the help of news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC over the past 17 months.  Using anger to publicly advocate murder,  Associated Press Reporter Christina Silva tweeted at 10:09pm: @cristymsilva: “So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking.”  

Not cool, Christina.  See what you helped create:

I don’t wanna just kill Zimmerman.. I wanna kill the judge, the jury, Zimmerman’s lawyer, the doctor who didn’t revive Trayvon, — SheGot’TheCLAP’ (@2wo_Up) July 14, 2013

Alright, how about a rather different approach – forsake mass murder and direct  this energy into creating something positive in your community. Do something good in the next few days – check up on an elderly neighbor, volunteer at a food bank, buy a random person a cup of coffee.  Whatever.  Remember the life of Trayvon Martin with an act of kindness, not an act of violence.

Royal Baby Watch

Check out the up-to-the-minute rumors, speculation and most likely announcement of the upcoming Baby Cambridge arrival on Twitter hashtag #RoyalBaby. I’m leaning towards a girl for Wills and Kate Cambridge.

What do you think? Or are you wondering who the heck are Wills and Kate?