This is my nephew on his go-kart.  It's fun to watch him tear around on it.  Since he's the smallest kid the kart goes fastest when he is driving.

I occasionally check in on the work of Seattle photographer, John Keatley.  Yesterday I came across a blog post about his iPhone portraits.  He has photographed over 100 people with his phone.  As I pass the half way point of this 365 project I realize what I would really like to have is a body of work with some cohesion to it rather than random shots throughout a year.  Maybe the place to start is 100 iPhone portraits.

I was cleaning my desk at work to make way for the laptop + external monitor = dual monitor setup while Tom, the shop foreman was asking about the fake camera shutter noise that cell phones make.  He was commenting that he had never heard my phone make the noise.  I explained that I have the sound turned off but that my phone does indeed make that noise.  I turned the sound on, pointed the camera phone at my desk and snapped this without really even paying attention.  Since I didn't take any other good pictures today I'm using this one as a reminder of the day I got dual monitors.

I have mentioned before my love for Waffle House even though there are none close to by.  Another restaurant we don't have but I like is Portillo's.  They're a little closer than Waffle House but still far enough away that I don't get to eat there often.  Today I had to go to West Chicago, IL for work so lunch was at Portillo's.  When your food is ready they call your number and a little rhyme to go with it.  Something like Twenty-Nine it's time to Dine, or Forty-Three, come see Me. Today I was One - One - Seven, You're of to Heaven.  

My trial of Photoshop CS6 has run out so I bought a subscription to Photoshop CC.  Since I was a legit owner of CS3 I get my first year at half price.  I don't think $9.99 a month is a bad price for Photoshop.  As I mentioned before it's a more attractive option to me than dropping $700 on the CD version like we had to do 'in the old days'.  This is my first work of art with CC.  I wanted to spend more time on the photography part but I was told his friends will be online at 7 and they expect him to be there.  I've included the "before" version below.

I put a little effort in to my photography tonight.  Hopefully this is the start of a good streak.  I also changed the template on my blog.  The previous template had some issues with comments.  Let me know if you like the new look.  I'm still undecided.

Madison and her friends have been making "space paintings".  Tonight she gave all of us a lesson in how to do it.

Tonight we went to the Mississippi Valley Blues Festival in Davenport, IA.  The festival had to be moved from it's usual location due to flooding of the Mississippi River.  There are two stages and we were moving back and forth between them but by 9:00 pm it was getting difficult to find a seat near the main stage.  We were standing near the white tent in the center of this photo when we noticed people on the top level of the parking garage.  We went up there to check it out and I shot this panorama with my cell phone.  From there, we were able to spot some empty seats and got them in time to watch Kenny Wayne Shepherd who was the final act.  On stage in this photo is WC Clark.

I took a motorcycle ride today and saw a couple sandhill cranes but only had my cell phone so I couldn't get a photo.  Before I took off again I snapped this shot so I would have something for today.

Tonight we went to the Clinton Lumberkings game.  They are the Class A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners.  I haven't seen a crowd like this in a long time.  They are averaging about 1500 people per game but I have been there many times when there is less than 1000.  Tonights attendance was 5281.

In the morning I ran a 10K race, (Firecracker Run in East Moline, IL).  My goal was to be under and hour which is about 9:39 per mile.  The second mile featured a looooong uphill climb and I thought I had lost my chance to finish in under an hour.  Fortunately what goes up must come down and I was able to make the time back up.  My official time was 59:34, I was a little slow stopping my watch which shows 59:39 

I feel like I'm in a real slump with my pictures this week but I've decided to be OK with it.  365 days is a long time so a week of bad photos is going to have to be OK.  I had to buy a new battery for my motorcycle and it came with some assembly required.  Here is the acid draining into the battery.

I eat a fair amount of pasta when I'm at home but never order it in a restaurant.  That means that when I'm on vacation I don't eat any pasta.  Back home, and it's chicken parmesan night.