Neighborhood Red Tailed Hawk

Here's a picture of the Red Tailed Hawk that's been flying around my neighborhood for the past year or so. I've seen it a few times with what looked like a rabbit in it's claws. And it's probably the cause for the pigeon wing that Charlie brought to the door in the middle of winter.

I took this picture after i saw him near the pond. When i walked out the sliding glass door he flew up to the tree branch. I got pretty close before he flew away, so he must be used to people.

Cat Flys in His Sleep

I went upstairs the other day and this is how i found my cat Charlie. He was in his usual 9am - 1pm sleeping spot, my bed. It looked like he was dreaming about flying.

He has various sleeping spots around the house. You will find him sleeping on or under certain beds and at different corners of the couch depending on what time of day it is. At night i let him out and he just runs around and hides.

Here's some of the other posts i've written about him

• Charle Bath - This is when i gave him a bath to get rid of fleas. He didn't really like it.
• Easter Bunny - He caught this baby rabbit on three different nights. He never killed it and it eventually got away for good.
• Baby Bird - This was a baby robin that couldn't fly. I don't think he killed this either.
• Wild Cat - Him drinking out of the toilet.
• Flying Cat - He was more energetic when he was little.
• Mouse - Another helpless animal that he caught but didn't kill. Charlie just delicately picked it up by it's feet and brought it to the door.
• Charlie and his Wing - Some random pigeon wing he showed up with in the middle of winter. There's about a 0.04% chance that he had anything do do with killing the bird. Probably from a Red Tailed Hawk that i've seen several times in my neighborhood.
• Squirrels -1 - Charlie acting like he's tough.

Comerica Park - View From Seats in Stadium

Here's a view of Comerica Park from the right field upper deck seats. Last month i went with Karrie and her work to a game. It was great, we all met at her work and then took a bus down to Detroit.

Sitting in the upper bowl was actually perfect because that day it was over 90 degrees and really sunny. The seats we had were under the awning and we were shaded from the sun.

Like some of the other pictures i've taken at Comerica Park, this is a panorama photo that i made by combining several pictures together.

(click to enlarge)

It was great not having to worry about parking or traffic. The bus parked right along I-75 and it was just a short walk to the field. Also we all brought along food and drinks and we had a great time on the ride to and from the game.


Here's some of the other times we went to see a Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park:

• Earlier in the year when we sat in centerfield and almost caught Miguel Cabrera's homerun.
• Last year at the ALCS playoff game. This is when i tried to buy tickets online from Ticketmaster and then Karrie was able to get them the day of the game really cheap.
• This was also last year when it rained for 3 hours then the game was canceled.

300th Blog Post

Well after 3 years and 2 months i have reached my 300th blog post. The first one was on 6-17-2009. I didn't realize that it had been that long until i just now checked the date.

The whole blog thing sort of started as a way to show friends and family pictures of places i had gone and things i had made. All of the early posts were of pictures from working out of town in places like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. Also i wrote about things like my garden and TV shows that i liked to watch.

Actually not much has changed, i still post pictures of places i go, and still write about stuff around the house. The past year has been a lot about photography. Taking cool pictures at night and making homemade lens filters for my camera. Also mixed in was a lot of How To sort of stuff. The blog was sort of an excuse to try different things. Although in just the past few months i have started getting into something called SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. The short explanation for that is, getting more people to see your website. The way you do that is to get your pages to appear higher up on Google when people type in particular keywords.

After 4 months of reading, writing, experimenting and trying out all sorts of cool new things it's really made a difference. In 2009 i averaged about 230 page views per month. For most of 2010
and 2011 i averaged around 1,000 page views per month. Last month i averaged around 800 views per day and had 36,000 views just in the month of July. The total number of page views just passed 100,000 this month.

I've really enjoyed seeing how people come to my blog, what words they type in, and how different backlinking strategies work. For example here's one of the lists and graphs on Google Analytics which shows the most popular searched for words people typed to get to my blog.

And as a bit of motivation and far off dreams and hopes i added Google Adsense. I know it can be annoying but hopefully you have AdBlocker Plus installed on your computer and never noticed the ads. But by adding them to my pages i just recently made $100.

I've had small goals along the way, i was happy when i averaged $1 per day for the month of July. Hopefully that too continues to increase. It would be neat to get a $100 check in the mail from Google every couple of months.


Back in October of 2011 i wrote my 200th post which i posted while in Italy. I didn't really have time to write about everything i wanted, but i quickly listed my favorite blog posts. So here's my current favorite things i've done or seen and put up on my blog.

• 2,600 Miles on a Honda - My motorcycle trip from Arizona to Michigan. It was the best adventure i've ever been on.

• Italy - Going with Karrie to Italy for 10 days was amazing. The more i think back and look at the pictures, the more amazing it seems.

• CHDK - This is when i really started to get into photography stuff. I began trying different things and having fun taking better pictures. And that's how i learned about creating time lapse videos which i think is really cool.

• Writing about my bamboo and trying to grow lotus plants in my backyard. This has been an on-going project that i've enjoyed.

• Everyone seems to like the pictures from the Redford Memorial Day Parade.

• Universal Studios, Orlando Florida - This is the trip that Karrie and i took just recently. We had a great time there.

• Fixing my Snapper Riding Lawn Mower and another Riding Mower in the garage. Taking pictures for the blog actually helped me to organize my thoughts. In order to explain to people how i fixed the mowers i really had to understand everything i was doing.

• Las Vegas - Yet another trip that Karrie and i went on. It didn't hurt that i won $1,000 when i was there either.

• 3 Weeks in West Virginia - This was one of the trips i took out of town for work. At the time it wasn't really fun, but looking back it's cool seeing everything i came across.

• TV Antenna and Fractals - This was just one project that i really enjoyed making and learning about.

Honorable Mention - Best Lunch Ever - I still don't know why more places don't sell Bacon Double Cheesburger Wraps. They are excellent.
Like i said earlier, the blog was a great excuse for me to take lots of pictures. Recently i think i've gotten a lot better. But here are some of my favorites. I'm sure there's some that i missed but it's impossible to go through all of them .







Here's three of my favorite videos. This first one is a compilation of several videos that shot when i was first experimenting with time lapse. I used Adobe After Effects to put it all together and make the sense of movement with the camera.

http://youtu.be/SejDCon7Nl8

Here's another time lapse video that i made while Karrie and i were waiting for our plane to arrive at the Phoenix Airport. This one turned out exactly how i imagined it. The pictures were taken at night and i wanted to get a slight blur to the lights of the cars as they were moving.

http://youtu.be/NPjqRwPS5_0

This is another video i created using CHDK while staying at the cabin in Gatlinburg Tennessee. You can see the stars as they rotate around in the sky.

http://youtu.be/cfljryopi5k

If you're interested, here's my Youtube page with all the video's i've ever uploaded. There's about 100 videos in total.

In the future i plan on continuing to post the same type of things as i have been. I don't have Facebook or Twitter, which is fine with me. That means i don't have to read stuff like "If you like being happy then forward this on to 400 of your friends." Instead of an immediate kind of interaction as with Facebook, the blog is more of a planned out story format, which i like.