The Lens

You may remember last year I bought the Sigma 70-200 2.8 APO DG HSM. It has proved to be every bit as good as the Canon. I have found it to be a superb lens for sports. The 2.8 aperture works great for hockey and other indoor sports. Well soccer season is apon us and I picked up the Sigma converter it's a 2x EX DG. Here is the picture of it all assembled. It's freakin huge. The 20D body looks dwarfed. I am glad I have a mono pod. I will let you know how it performs and post some samples. 

The New Wheels

As I had mentioned I had my trusty Giant Sedona bike stolen from my garage. Locked and all they cut the lock and gone gone gone it is. So..... I bought a new one this time I got a Gary Fisher hybrid. It is a very nice ride and time will tell how durable 

Ridin and Shooting

Jackie and I where out for a bike ride to the airport and on the way back we where both takin a few shots here and there. She had grown quite fond of her Minolta Dimage Z3. It is a pretty good camera to bad they stopped making them. 

Windy Landings

I was out at the airport for a bike ride and this came in low and slow. The pilot was landing into a gusty 40 km head wind that was trying to blow him all over. 

Kris and I got out for a quick burn around McArthur Park. We discovered that it is about 4 km from door to door doing one lap. Kris averaged about 18 km per hour. I took this shot from my perch atop my bike. i must say its kinda hard to get a shot while riding using my trusty little Kodak 7440. 

You Just Never Know

Jackie and I where out for a bike ride the other day and we passed the skate park. Well I had to try and get a shot with her little Minolta Dimage Z3. While it's no 20D I managed to capture this shot. Not to shabby for a point and shoot. This kid could really fly. It's allways easier to get the shot when the subject is doing this. If you want to see this full size just click on it. 

Cruisin

This here is a short video of my bride on her new ride 

Strange light Strange Night

We had some strange weather the last few days. This night the light turned erie and the clouds where very groovy as you can see. 

Purple

This a another shot by Kris. She seems to have the eye for it. 

This Be Kris Be

My youngest was fooling around the other day and this a shot she framed 

It's Monday

Monday morning came faster that you can imagine. The week-end has slipped away and back to work we go. No complaints though I love my job. We where able to get the yard in shape and clean out the carport. Tossed in a bike ride with Jackie with coffee & Cowboys. Oh ya had my bike stolen two weeks ago. Right out of the carport locked and all. They rode in on a bike, cut my lock and rode away. i was kinda bummed out but live and learn. I have purchased a new bike and it gets locked in the back yard. I found a very nice Gary Fisher model that seems to fit well time will tell. On another note my friend Cathlene Gilmor passed away and i am involved in her service tomorrow. She will be missed. I look forward to holidays this year I am taking Justin my grandson to Vancouver island for a visit to the ocean and his grandparents. I find I'm getting kinda tired latley looking forward to a rest.

Practice Practice Practice

Here is another look at the dynamic duo.

The Teacher and the Student

Sister Denise comes to visit us here at the Mission every week to play the organ and visit the ladies here at the Mission. During her spare time she has taken on the task of teaching Karl the guitar. We hope to enjoy the fruit of thier labour in due time. On the lighter side you will notice the color coordination with the sweater and the guitar. 

The first broken bone

This is the hand of my youngest daughter Kristine. She broke her index finger at the joint while playing basketball. Doctor says tape and 4 weeks of rest will heal it. I'm glad it was not too serious. She was a real trooper and weathered the pain well.

This picture was taken later during the same walk. I have touched up the contrast and the saturation for effect. 

The Wall

It has stood the test of time. A walk in the downtown area brought me to this old brick wall. A nice old wall. I thought of the story behind the the building and wondered who had laboured to build it. Each brick nestled into place by hand. Simple things to amuse an old man. 

As you know I have been trying out various Linux distros and here is one of the most popular distros out there. It is called Suse Linux. it uses the KDE desktop. The learning curve has been a bit trying as there is a new language to learn. And while all the basic tasks are no brainers. Surfing email and chat are easy to learn, with programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, there is no difference. Messenger is replaced with multi protocol programs like Kopete and Gaim which where easy to learn and in my opinion better than MSN as there are no advertising. Photo editing and other tasks require learning new software choices like Gimp instead of Photoshop. While I have not mastered Photoshop I have become comfortable with it and Gimp has proven to be challenging. I am finding that I am using Linux more and more all the time and hope to make a complete switch soon. I will still need Windows to run Photoshop for working with my brother Derek. I do a little sports photography for him and we are setup with Windows. So for now at least I will continue to run a dual boot system.

Hey JJ this one's for you!

Another busy day here at the Mission. I grabbed a shot of four of the guys I work with. Carl, Larry, JJ, and Mark stopped for a minute to let me capture a snapshot. Bless you boys!

The Linux bug has got me bad

Just another snapshot of a new Linux desktop. This is Mandriva 2006 useing the KDE desktop GUI and slightly tweaked. Next II will upload a Fluxbox desktop.

The Mission Men

As you all know I work at the New Life Mission here in Kamloops. This morning as I was getting some shots of the renovations we are doing here I snapped a picture of two of my co- workers. Carl (in yellow shirt) runs the dayroom 4 days a week as the support/chaplain worker and Mark is our Kitchen Manager. They both have the un enviable task of learning to live with me so please pray for them.