As promised, I’ve spent my time off putting together a portfolio site for my photography. I’m very happy with the way everything came out, all the little tweaks in wordpress I had to do to get things working the way they should, etc.
I haven’t hunted down all of the EXIF data for all the photos yet, so there’s still some gaps as far as what is what. But with that aside, I’m glad I can stop using CM has a place to display images and I can focus more on writing, where this sill give me an outlet for my creative behind the lens.
You can check it out at MisplacedFocus.com, and of course, you can become a fan via Facebook’s Networked Blogs by Clicking here.
Thank you all for your continued support in everything that I do, it really means a great deal to me.
As always I welcome any criticisms on my work, a shot, the site, or anything else.
So just for kicks, I decided to submit my photo “Down the Tracks” to the Bing.com (picture on the left) facebook contest to see what will be featured on Bing.com (yes, the background of the search area).
Well, to my surprise, I got an email from Microsoft today saying that my picture is one of the finalists! I’m all kinds of excited to be able to get a photo from Mount Clemens shown to worldwide audience.
To show my appreciation for helping me out and being such great supporters I’ll be giving away a couple s 8 x 10 prints of this shot (which I usually sell for $25). Just leave a comment at the bottom of this post (either at http://www.cruzweb.net/2009/12/15/i-need-your-help-down-the-tracks-is-a-finalist-for-bing-com or on the Facebook note) and I’ll draw a couple random names (yes, they will be random) and if you win I’ll send you an email or Facebook message asking for your information.
Lately, I’ve taken up a strong interest in photography as of late. In doing so I’ve decided to upgrade from my little Samsung NV15 P&S to a Nikon D5000 DSLR so I can get more serious about what I’m doing. I had some great encouragement with my Old Main at Wayne State picture with the University featuring it on their site and twitter feed, and my Down the Tracks shot was a Daily Deviant on DeviantArt last month.
I’ve been quite humbled by the encouragement that people have given me, and it has pushed me to keep pushing myself. I have a lot to learn, but am having a blast doing it.
With that in mind, I’ve found myself in more of a “take pictures” kind of creative mood instead of a “write stuff down” creative mood. So, I realized that before too long I’d end up turning this into a photoblog, which I don’t want to do. So I’m going to launch one sometime in the coming weeks at the start of the new year. The site is currently being developed and it will be a more complete actual place to showcase pictures and allow for comments instead of this place, which really is better for writing than pictures. I’ll have a fully integrated store to order prints, better than the one I’m currently using, and will look great.
More info later. And thanks for your support everyone
We started off the new millennium with lots of hopes. The whole “Year 2000″ thing sounded so exciting and futuristic, and we were all expecting great things to come. Instead, this decade has been an awful start that hopefully won’t set the stage for the next 90. While some areas had wild amounts of success and made our lives better (like all these fancy new cell phones), just about every part of our lives has suffered some kind of step backwards in the 2000s.
Here’s why I can’t wait for the month to end and will be welcoming 2010 with open arms.
The Music of the 00’s
It all started off with this and has just gone downhill.
Linkin Park: Pure awful on a disc
In 2000 the #1 album was “The Beatles: 1″, and by 2005 it was a 50 Cent album. That’s how fast things went downhill. The rest is history. Year after year we are treated to another piece of repetitive trash, a new Britney comeback album, or something else that just makes you dumber every time you hear it. It’s gotten so bad that we now consider a song who’se only lyrics are “Tonight’s gunna be a good night” to be perfectly acceptable. Excuse me while I go barf.
It’s ridiculous how much 90’s music I listen to now just because today’s “artists” have driven me in another direction so rapidly.
The music industry as a whole became something we all hated. Nothing like hearing record labels cry poor from piracy only to find out now that they use unauthorized recordings in compilations all the time.
With the rise of On Demand video, an overall lack of new movies I have no interest in seeing *cough* and the fact that nobody I know works there any more, I have little interest in going to Hollywood Video any more. With the desolate wasteland that the area is, it’s only a matter of time before that whole corner of Cass & Grosbeck on the west side of Mount Clemens becomes a complete greyfield anyways.
But I digress, I found myself there recently. Apparently, they’ve pulled out all the stops to cater to their customers (since nothing else really works) and have decided to have a wall section dedicated to movies to watch while you’re high. No doubt a large percentage of movie renters here come stumbling in grabbing random comedies and popcorn, sour patch kids, etc.
The word “High” got half cut off, but you can still make it out.
Livin the High Life at Hollywood Video
Livin the High Life at Hollywood Video
So props to Hollywood Video, even if it is the direct result of stoned customers not being able to find the movies they’re looking for and the staff being completely sick of helping them. Good stuff.
Because it deserves it’s own post. I would have put this up yesterday but I was exhausted and needed to get to sleep. View them all over in the Photos section.
People boarding the busses to the capital from the hotel:
A Wheelchair-bound patroit
The Press. Didn’t catch what station he was with. Fox? MSNBC?
If you’re viewing this through RSS or Facebook, there is a video. Go to http://www.cruzweb.net/2009/10/03/jim-demint-speaking-at-the-defending-the-american-dream-conference/ to view the video.
