We made another trip to Iowa City so Logan could have his kidney's scanned.  It turns out both of his kidney's are working fine, even the one that is full of stones.  That sounds like good news but really wasn't.  Today's test was supposed to show what was causing him to create the stones so we could come up with a course of action to fix the problem.  As it turned out we still don't know and he will undergo another test sometime this week.

There's nothing special about this sign but someday they'll be gone and some one will ask, "remember those wooden signs with the routered out stencil kit letters that used to be at Rockwood Park?"  I'll pull up this photo and say, "Yeah, I remember them"

This is a Target Brownie Six-16 that belonged to my great aunt and uncle.  Now it's on my shelf as a decoration.

Nicole got the windows tinted on her hot rod today.

I spent some time in the bird blind today and during a lull in the action shot some self portraits.

In the past when I have photographed birds around my feeder I set up a dead stick nearby as a perch.  Today I decided to add some life and use a branch with some leaves on it for a more realistic look.

My daughter has completed driver's ed and now just has to wait until her sixteenth birthday to get her license.  If we go somewhere as a family I usually sit in the back and let her Mom be the co-pilot.  Tonight we were heading to my brother-in-laws 40th birthday party and I sat in the back and snapped pics out the window.   

The kids both ditched us for their own friends so we tried a new place for supper.  Tappa's Steak House in Davenport, Iowa.  It's the kind of place we wouldn't have found if some one hadn't recommended it.  

I'm still trying to figure out this Oggl app.  I can change the edit but can't seem to figure out how to export to my camera roll after I change the edit.  Frustrating at the moment.  Luckily this is crappy picture so it doesn't really matter.

I practically had to beg her to pose for me because; "I'm not even wearing make-up".  But after seeing the final result she said, "I think it's my favorite picture you've ever taken of me."

Hipstamatic has a new app out called Oggl.  It seems to be there attempt at a social network to compete with Instagram.  One cool feature is that you can apply the lens/film combos AFTER you take the picture.  At the moment there are only a few free combos but it says the ability to import film and lens from Hipstamatic Classic is "coming soon".  

So I downloaded it early in the morning and the only thing I could find to photograph was Logan sleeping.  I didn't expect this to be my photo of the day but I kind of took the rest of the day off (as far as photography goes.)

Later in the morning I ran 8 miles.  I haven't run that far since May 28, 2011.  Ten days short of two years ago.  I'm happy to be going longer distances again but my head is swimming with numbers.  My average pace today was 11:30 per mile.  I was happy with that until I looked up the 2011 run.  I did that at 10:15 pace on the exact same route.  Why such a difference?  Is it because I'm two years older?  Is it because my post knee surgery mechanics are slower, causing me to expend more energy to go the same speed?  Is it because I didn't run at all during January and February this year?  By May of 2011 I had been running non-stop for a year.  This last year has been off and on because of back and shin injuries. Maybe I was just pushing harder back then even on easy runs.  I don't know but I hate the thought of not getting back to where I was.  If all of this has been difficult to follow, imagine being inside my head.  It's even worse. :)

She was in trouble and mad at everyone so she climbed out of her bedroom window and sat on the porch roof.  The joys of having a teenage daughter.

My previous 365 project ran from May 1, 2011 through April 30, 2012.  When it ended I was ready for a break from daily photos but wanted some sort of project to focus on.  So, on May 15, 2012 I decided to spend one year photographing birds and then put together a portfolio of 10 images.  That ended yesterday and I didn't even realize it until tonight.  Now, I need to go through my years worth of bird images and pick out ten.  Here is one from tonight.

Happy Mother's Day

My wife and I participated in a Promise Walk for Preeclampsia today in Davenport, IA.

From Wikipedia:  

Preeclampsia is a medical condition characterized by high blood pressure and significant amounts of protein in the urine of a pregnant woman. If left untreated, it can develop into eclampsia, the life-threatening occurrence of seizures during pregnancy.

It was a group walk and our group got split by a train so here we are all waiting around for the train to pass.

I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up I didn't feel like being creative so I laid in bed and took a  photo of the ceiling fan.  To make up for the bad photo, I'll write a little.

I mentioned before that I have eighteen different 365 photo blogs in my blog reader.  Of those eighteen only four are by men.  One of them hasn't posted since early April and the other just posted that he's is suspending his blog.  So now there are only two.  I don't think of photography as being male or female.  It seems you see equal number of men and women carrying cameras around.  So why is 365 photo blogging dominated by women?

Since I linked my comments to Google+ I'm not getting any notification of new comments.  I need to figure that out.

When I got home from work I noticed a different looking bird on the finch sock.  It was Pine Siskin.  I decided to set up the blind and see if I could get a shot of another new bird this spring.  Not only did I get the siskin but a male rose-breasted grosbeak showed up too.  I had almost given up on the grosbeaks because I hadn't seen them since Saturday.  I thought they had left.

I missed MeMonday because I wanted Monday's photo to be about Logan.  I didn't' have a lot of time for a photo tonight so here is a quick and freaky MeTuesday.

We made a trip to the University of Iowa clinic today.  To make a long story short.  Logan has kidney stones (only 12 years old).  He is going to have some additional tests at the end of the month to determine a course of action.  You can tell by the look on his face that he's not to thrilled about any of it.

No male grosbeaks today but I did get another new species.  This is a white-crowned sparrow.

This is a new bird for me.  It's a female Rose-Breasted Grosbeak.  The males are black and white with a red spot on their chest.  I saw the male but wasn't able to get any shots.

Just some ordinary house finches but I liked having two birds in the frame.

I put up a finch sock a couple weeks ago and have had lots of gold finches.

Another gold finch.

and a black capped chickadee.  I also saw a male and female cardinal but they didn't land where I could photograph them.

One of my wife's uncles passed away and we spent the evening at his visitation.  I think it's neat when the family puts something personal in the casket.  In this case Charlie was a Cubs fan and he had a laminated schedule where he had been marking each day on the calendar with a "W" or an "L".  In my mind that marked up schedule of the beginning of another losing season for the Cubs is the image of the day but I would never snap a photo of a person in their casket so instead I am posting a shot of the place where we ate supper.  It is in a neighboring town where I went to high school. When I was a kid,  PJ's was the place to be after a football or basketball game. 

First off, it's a been awhile since I listed another 365 blog that I follow.  Today, I'm picking CarolinaGirl's blog called Through Mom's Lens.  Check it out, I think you'll like it.  

In my image I played around with a retouching technique called frequency separation.

I was having a conversation with my kids where I mentioned the Sony Walkman.  They, of course, had never heard of a walkman. This was the perfect chance for me to break out "when I was a kid".

It made we wish I had a picture of all my cassette tapes in there slotted case but who would think to take a photo of something so common back in 1988.  I got to thinking about what is common today but might not be in 25 years.  Is it books?  We have two IKEA bookshelves side by side.  Each has five shelves and they are all as full as the two I have pictured but all of this information could fit on a kindle that is smaller than most of the books and have room for more.