Simple Pleasures

* One of my simplest pleasures - watching the Reds play - hasn't been all that much fun this week. They just got swept by the Dodgers in the first three games of a ten-game homestand, and the games weren't even good ones. The pitching staff, which has been overhauled so much lately, wasn't good in any phase of the game, and the offense, supposedly this team's strong point, just sucked. Inexplicably, manager Jerry Narron last night decided to rest Brandon Phillips, the one player who actually has been getting some hits lately. At any rate, I'm hoping the Reds just ran into a hot team and will right the ship shortly and aren't beginning a slide out of contention. It's been a lot of fun to pull for a team that's actually playing for something this long into the season for a change.

* Of course, if they are falling out of it, it isn't going to bother me for all that long. My absolute favorite time of year, the high school football season, begins exactly three weeks from today when my Troy Trojans play host to Dublin Coffman (the full schedule can be found in the right-hand column). From there it'll be a full-on descent into football madness for me. High school football is where it starts for me, but I love college and NFL as well. This season will include a trip to Cleveland Browns stadium for the first-ever Division I college game held there (my BGSU Falcons vs. the Wisconsin Badgers) as well as a trip to Cincinnati's Paul Brown Stadium for my first-ever NFL game (the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Michael Vick and the Atlanta Falcons).

* Brandi and I are planning on a nice, quiet weekend at home. With not much going on, I decided I'm going teach her how to play chess. It has been so long since I've played that a refresher was in order, so I checked Chess For Dummies out from the library. That wasn't a bad idea in any case, because all I really know about chess anyway is the very basics (i.e. how the board is set up and how the pieces move) and I'm interested in learning more about theory and strategy. Now, I love to read, but when it comes to non-fiction, I'm just like my friend Patrick - I can't get through it. This chess book has been different so far. I started looking through it last night, and even though I'm not terribly far into it, I've learned a lot already and I'm fascinated. So I'll probably be learning just as much this weekend as Brandi, who has never played chess at all and will be starting from scratch. I'm ready to break out my chess set (marble, and one of my prized possessions) and get to work.



* Speaking of Patrick and games, check out his new venture: Squid Games Studios. Patrick and I played games together a lot in our younger days - mainly video games, sure, but other types too. Solarquest is the board game that comes immediately to mind, and we also went through quite a period with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game (when it was published by West End Games as opposed to whatever company has taken it over and broken it in the meantime). I think the idea of Patrick designing new games is an awesome one. As a player, I'm sure he'll design games that are fun, and as an intellectual, I'm sure he'll design games that are challenging.

* For my own endeavors...I also requested from the library a book on Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop CS2 One-on-One. I've mentioned before that I have a basic knowledge of Photoshop, and just that basic knowledge lets me create some pretty cool stuff (click here for some examples) and have a lot of fun doing it. I know it can do a lot more, though, and I want to learn how. I want to do it mostly because I think it's fun, but I certainly wouldn't mind if I was able to perhaps go somewhere with it professionally. The Wood County library had to get the book from another library, but I hope it comes in today so I can start digging into it over the weekend.

* Once I tackle Photoshop a little bit, I think the next related hobby I'll dive into is digital photography. I'm fascinated by really good artistic photography, and it makes me want to take pictures like that myself. I do okay taking snapshots with my regular 5MP camera, which has a bunch of preset modes I play around with, but I would love to be able to adjust the settings myself and actually know what I was doing in order to achieve particular effects or whatever. If ever again I find myself with some discretionary income, a more powerful and sophisticated camera is pretty high on the wishlist.

Newport Aquarium

A few weeks ago, Brandi and I visited the Newport Aquarium in Newport, Kentucky (just across the bridge from Cincinnati). It was a pretty cool place to visit, and I got some neat photos like the one above. You can view the rest of them here.

Got a Photograph, Picture Of

I've had photographs and photography on the brain lately.

Earlier this week I found myself going through a bunch of digital photographs, for a couple of reasons. For one, I was looking to print some taken at a couple of recent events for an album that Brandi and I started a while ago. Those were pretty easy to find. I was also searching for some amusing shots to add to my MySpace page. That search was a little more extensive because I wasn't looking for anything in particular. It took more time than it probably should have, but I was really getting a kick out of going through all those photos, seeing plenty that I had totally forgotten about.

As I searched, though, and got a clearer idea of what kind of pictures I was looking for, I started remembering specific photographs that I wanted. Unfortunately, most of them aren't in digital form, they're actual hard-copy snapshots which, in addition, are located at my parents' house about 120 miles away. Of course, even if I had been there, there's no guarantee I would have been able to easily find the shots I was looking for. My parents have, I think, two dresser drawers stuffed full of photographs with no organization whatsoever. There are no albums or anything like that. Hell, there aren't even stacks--they're just tossed in there every which way.

This led me to a thought. I seem to remember my mom saying something recently about those drawers full of photographs, and the possibility of applying some sort of organization to them. I'm sure that's pretty low on the priority list, though, so I was thinking about offering to bring all those photographs home with me sometime and organizing them myself. I'd like to categorize them somehow, separate the duplicates (and oh, there are duplicates), put the good ones into albums, and, if feasible, convert at least some of them into digital files. How many I have converted will depend on cost, as doing it myself would be prohibitively time consuming due to the slowness of my scanner. I'm thinking the project could be my gift to my parents upon my upcoming wedding. It wouldn't be ready by then, but I could work on it and have it finished this summer. Having them digitized, of course, would have the added benefit of letting me have a copy of them as well. As could anyone else who wanted them, of course.

For some reason, I've found myself growing more and more fascinated with photographs and photography lately. I'm not sure when or why that happened, other than the advent of digital photography. All I know is that when we went to meet with our wedding photographer for the first time, we were at his house for about four hours and I was really interested in looking at his photos and hearing him talk about them. It's kind of funny, actually, because my oldest brother is a photographer and I never really thought much about it. Now I think it's something I could really get into. I'd really like to take a class or two and learn more about it sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Just Having Fun

Showing off my new camera...here's a shot of the evening sky on April 2, taken from my apartment window.


My first indulgence related to the upcoming Star Wars film. They're good, too! Unfortunately, the store was all out of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker action figures. I'll get my hands on them eventually, though.

Suited Up

As I mentioned last week, I bought a couple of suits. I picked them up on Wednesday of this week, and as promised, here are the photographs to prove it.


Black w/ pinstripes


"Olive blue"


Hey, it could happen!

Sunset Spectrum

I just wanted to share this photo I just took of the evening sky as seen from my apartment in Bowling Green. I wish this shot could do the colors justice--it is absolutely beautiful out there right now.