Cicada 1

Cicada 1, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

I was in the kitchen last night and looked at the door leading to our deck when i saw this Cicada. I went to grab my camera and set it up to do some Macro shots at night using the flash. I enabled the 180-300mm Macro function and placed the camera in "Manual" on Night Mode to get a few of the shots of the bug.
Here is the Wikipedia link to the bug: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada

Exposure: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Aperture: f/14
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 200

DSC05970

DSC05970, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Taken while walking around Union Station in St Louis. These benches are located all around the building and it is a shopping mall as well with many neat and unique stores and eating establishments. It also has a Metro Link stop that can be accessed from the outlying areas of the metro region.

Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/320)
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Undercover...

Undercover..., originally uploaded by RMStringer.

Taken at Union Station in St Louis. We ate at Landry's this day. They are a chain from Texas and I have eaten at several of them across the country. If you ever get a chance to eat at one, DO IT! The food is excellent and the atmosphere is wonderful. This setting is really neat being that it is all covered with the artificial "lake" to maker it look like it is on the waterfront. I took this using my 18-70mm kit lens.

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1250)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 28 mm
ISO Speed: 400

New MyShutterspace Photography Group

Sony Camera Users

This is the URL: http://www.myshutterspace.com/group/sonycamerausers

I created this group several nights ago. If you use the "MyShutterspace" Social Networking site, and you use a Sony camera, then this would be a group for you.

Here is my profile page" http://www.myshutterspace.com/profile/RMStringer


What is your opinion?
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Mack: World Geezer Day

 Thanks to Mac Hall for letting me post this.

World Geezer Day

 

With the close of World Youth Day in Australia, we aging Boomers naturally ask why we can't have a day of our own with a visit by the Pope.  After all, our parents said we were special, right? 

 

The young people are fond of singing "Benedetto!" (Clap! Clap!) over and over while waiting for the B of R to land at the airport.  For World Geezer Day it's more likely to sound like "Benedetto!  (Wheeze! Wheeze!).  Gotta keep that oxygen going, Gramps.

 

World Geezer Day will require clearly written rules, unlike World Youth Day.  The kids in Sydney were by all reports just as nice as can be, but Boomers tend to feel (and it's all about feelings, right?) that ordinary good behavior is so bourgeois and beneath them.  Here, then, are the rules for the proposed World Geezer Day:

 

John Lennon, the Dalai Lama, and Heather Mills are not saints.  The canonization of Jimmy Buffett, however, is up for discussion.  Even so, "Margaritaville" will not be sung at the Elevation.

 

Please note the signs for the hand-holding section and the non-hand-holding section at Mass, as well as the hand-waving-mouth-open-eyes-closed section and the respectfully-modest-it's-not-about-me section. If you don't know how to behave at divine services, young people will be available to help you grow up.

 

The Mass will be in Latin.  Deal with it.  Your ancestors understood it perfectly, as do your children and grandchildren.  It is only baby boomers, with all their college degrees and who are purportedly the most educated Americans ever, who wah-wah that they can't understand the simple Latin of the Mass. 

 

Teenagers will be provided to assist you with your oxygen tanks and to help you understand the difference between the Mass and Bob Dylan.

 

There will be no – repeat, NO – felt banners.  Further, there will be no liturgical dance, no guitars, no sitars, no bongos, no tambourines, no dangling speakers, no slide shows, no films, no turning on and off of lights.  The Mass is worship, not a hootenanny.

 

As a concession to politics…um…dietary needs, communion wafers are organic and fair trade, and made from wheat raised by barefoot First Nations farmers living in communes and singing songs about Chez Guano along an obscure tributary of the Verizon River in Lower Saxony (you paid attention in third-grade geography, didn't you?).

 

One of the featured workshops will be on praying the Rosary.  This will be taught by teens since obviously you people never paid attention to your mothers and fathers.

 

Sorry, no, the Holy Father will not autograph your tee-shirt.

 

Please understand that the Sacrament of Penance cannot be accomplished through text-messages ("4-giv me F 4 I have sind…").

 

Incense, yes; marijuana, no.

 

When all else fails, remember that this is not 1968.  Grief counselors under thirty will be available to help you find closure.

 

John Paul II began World Youth Day during his reign, and Benedict XVI has enthusiastically continued this happy custom.  Perhaps this is because neither Karol nor Joe had a youth.  Oh, technically they did, but they grew up under the Nazi tyranny, not exactly kegger time on the beach.  Modern kids gather in the open to celebrate the Faith; when young Karol and Joe were young they celebrated the Faith too, but usually in secret, and further celebrated finding something to eat occasionally, and celebrated being alive at the end of each regimented day and at the end of each terror-filled night.  Perhaps it is this genuine deprivation in their teens and twenties that made them so determined to joy in the youth of our time as a new generation celebrates life and worships in freedom.

 

-30-

 

Based on my experience with DirecTV I cannot recommend them. They are deceptive in their practices ("You see, sir, when you activated the receiver you automatically agreed to a term of service...") (no, I didn't), and their customer service is based on robot 'phone answering and then on humans who are so scripted that they often are of little or no help. Sometimes they just plain lie. The Texas Attorney General's office backed DirecTV down for me, but it should never come to that.

 

 

Recycling Of Waste

When we moved into out new area we had to get garbage service. The charge $16 month to pice all your yard wast and up to 10extra bag as well. The bill quarterly, so it is about 48$ every 3 months. Not to bad in my opinion,

Now on the Recycling issue. When we have lived in other areas around the country, we have dnoe the program. SO i figured i should check that service out here. The want $6 a month to pick up the Recycle Bin. Where they then take it and seperate it and sell it to reclamation centers for money. WE bought the stuff at a store, so it is OUR stuff. IF we choose to recycle, we should not have to pay for them to pick it up, We should get a credit for what we turn in. Why do we have to pay them to take it away, stuff that would have been thrown away anyway! What a Crock!@ We p[ay them to take refuse in a box thy provide so they can seperate and make money by selling it to some other facility. What a good game they have going!!

What do you think of this as i am sure that many of you who have to pay to "help the environment" in this manner? They should pay us a fee based on hoe much material er recycle that they pick up. I know some cities have the program that are free pickup of recycled materials, i would do that. Not Here! Wast Management (Wasted Management) as i have heard it called, charges us to make more money for them. Not a good idea.

SO, just put all the garbage into one bag and let them separate it out at their offices where they have to employ someone to do what we used to do and paid them for the privileged to do it. IT is just wrong!!

Now, off of my Soap Box...


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Strange Trafic Trails

Strange Trafic Trails, originally uploaded by RMStringer.

My wife was driving down he street and i aimed the camera at her car. Wild looking Light Trails from it when she came down the street and turned in our driveway. I was using my 70-300mm Lens for this shot.

Exposure: 13 sec (13)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 70 mm
ISO Speed: 100