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Originally uploaded by Olorinpc

I was playing around with night photography at the lake. Managed to come up with this great one.

30 second exposure with the aperture as wide open as possible. Liked how the moon really illuminated the clouds and it was long enough to capture a little of the cloud moment along with the reflections on the water.

Test post on blackberry, working with the updated version of the app and checking out the updates.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Easter weekend came in left in a rush.  My wife and I went down to Minneapolis, MN to visit family for the weekend.  Excluding coming down with a cold the weekend went great.

Over on Epic Plains I have a post about the signing with Brandon Sanderson I had the chance to attend.  Opportunities like that is one thing I do miss about living in a large metro area.  However, by the drive back up on Sunday, fighting traffic, drives more than 30min to where we needed to go while there… I remembered why I do live where I do.

The cold put a bit of a damper on the rest of the weekend, but was still able to visit with friends and family.  The only real big issue I had was with my CPAP machine, which a clogged nose doesn’t work well with a nasal mask.  Over on Hosehead Life I have a post about those issues.

All in all it was a good weekend though.  Somehow I also managed to acquire more books.  Now, this isn’t too surprising, but I ended up with a few more than I anticipated.  At the signing I brought one hardcover I already owned, then to support the bookstore I purchased one there.  So brining home one extra book wasn’t too bad for me.

However, my Dad bringing 1.5 bankers boxes full of paperbacks wasn’t something I had planned on.  (He is reorganizing his book collection and getting rid of ones he no longer wanted. ) Well quite a bit of the collection were either old books of mine, old Asimov books, or other books that I would be interested in.  Well 70′s scifi is a favorite fetish for me, and Asimov is where I developed my love of scifi (Robot novels anyone?), so I of course took the books.  That added about 85 books to my collection.  A brief look through them I found about a dozen that I will add to my paperbackswap.com set, the rest going in my permanent collection.

In the next week I hope to come up with a plan for what to do with them as they currently just added to the piles of books already sitting on the office floor.  I am still trying to figure out a way to get that bookshelf from MN up to Jamestown, but haven’t borrowed a truck yet.  I might also build another bookshelf while I am waiting for that.

Been a little off my track here on for a few different reasons. Life off the web got a little crazy has a lot to do with it, so haven’t really been able to get caught up on all of my side projects. (This site being one of them.) I have about 2-3 book reviews I need to get done and a stack of books I would like to get reading! Don’t even get me started on the extreme fail of the weekly photo project. Though I knew that was going to be one of the first things that went by the wayside if life got too busy.

I have recently started a new site that also probably has something to do with my being behind on things, Hosehead Life is my new site on Life with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Some might find it interesting, so feel free to stop by and let me know what you think. (Facebook followers have probably already seen the site as I have it update my main twitter feed, which then auto updates my Facebook status.)

Wow, somehow we are rolling into February 2010 already.  I am behind on my photo project, yet I kind of suspected that would happen.  I have been focusing on things over at Epic Plains and that is going pretty well actually.  I have been doing a lot of book reviews and am managing about twice as many as I have planned on.  Which there is some good and bad to that.

The bad part being I am also behind my schedule for editing and expanding my novel and the photo project.  Yet there are some good things with that too.  I just have a big stack of really good books I have wanted to get through.  As a result I have also gotten a few advance reader copies to read/review for authors.  That has been fun.  One of those down and a couple of more in the mail actually.  (One book, Riddle of Berlin the author is sending a signed hardcover for me to review and a signed paperback to host a giveaway.) I hadn’t planned on doing quite so many book reviews, but it has been fun to do more of them.  Also, I am trying to also review books that I am not the biggest fan of along with the ones I really like.  It has been an extra little challenge for myself.

Sorting and re-shelving my book collection was a bit of a time consuming project as well.  That and working on grant paperwork for the fire department.  All in all it has been a busy start to the year, yet fun.  Swing on over to my other site.  I have done plenty of reviews this month, so you might find a book you want to pick up!

Well I have been managing to keep busy, though haven’t been posting as much on this site. I have been focusing more on building up Epic Plains, though have been working on the 52 Photo Project. (Finally got my picture for the week posted, but might try to get some more tonight!)

Epic Plains is going rather well actually. I have been posting a number of book reviews along with other content. The readership has built up enough that I am actually splitting it off from my regular account. (You will notice this if you follow my facebook statuses.) I was having the feeds post a link to my Olorinpc Twitter account, but I have ended up starting an EP Facebook page and an EP Twitter account.

I am also going to work on the site theme a bit more over there. I have found a template that I think I will like better, once I heavily customize it of course. So that will take some work in the next week or so. Between that and getting a jump on my “To-Read” pile, been rather busy. I also sometime plan on cataloging my book collection into a database. (My collection has grown to the point I think it’s needed. I believe on rough count I have now passed the 500 book mark.) Also, sometime in the next month or so, need to run down and pick up that bookshelf from MN.

February is shaping up to be a busy month as well. My weekends are pretty much booked from the 19th on. JRFD Fishing Derby, State Fireschool + Humane Society Fundraiser, followed by Team State Darts. So should be a marathon 3 weekends in a row, but good stuff all.  I think there might be something else in there that I am forgetting – but no matter, should be plenty to keep me busy!

The light snow and fog added up to a pretty drive to work this morning.

Ok, so this information is all but impossible to find online.  After a lot of searching I was finally able to turn up the current flier for the State Dart Tournament in Jamestown, ND in March 2010.

http://www.valleyvideogames.com/images/2010%20ndsda%20doubles%20state%20dart%20tournament.pdf

http://www.valleyvideogames.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=41

I know a few friends will be happy to see those – so enjoy!  (Yes I plan on playing at least one event in state this year!)

I had another plan for a picture.  However at drill we ended up having a firecall, so snapped a couple of quick pictures on my phone while we were out on the call.  Grain Dryer fire.  I think we were on scene around three hours.

Fortunately it wasn’t as cold as it has been the past couple of weeks or it could have been really nasty.

I got the idea from FireMom over at Stop, Drop, and Blog.  She is participating in Project 365 again this year.  Project 365 has the goal of a photo every single day of the year.  A little bit less intensive version of that is a “52 Project.“  Or a photo every week of the year.

My goal of using my Nikon D60 DSLR Camera a bit more, plus actually publishing the photos I do take, is one of those goals that I can incorporate into this blog.  However, I decided that for my first post, I will actually use a picture that I took on my blackberry.

In the picture is my new bandsaw that my parents got me for Christmas.  I actually need to still mount it to the workbench, but it is set up and tested in the picture.  This will help a lot with projects offline.  (Such as finally redoing the trim in the entryway, model train work, etc.)

Now of course, this removes another excuse from actually doing the trim pieces.  The proof is in the pic so to speak.  So now I just need to run to the hardware store sometime and get those trim pieces…