Today’s photo is pretty simple. I took it last night (well, I think it might have been past midnight.) I took a couple pics around today today but nothing worth publishing. Oh why did I go all those years as a pedestrian in Cambridge without bringing a camera around with me?! Now I’m in the car constantly, and don’t get too many chances to just find something worth capturing and have the ability to stop and snap a pic. I need to make more opportunities.
Jan. 4 Daily Photo
So today’s photo is sort of cheating, as I took it on Christmas Eve during a trip to Buffalo. I have a couple I took tonight but I have been spending a lot of time trying to get a Flickr widget working on WordPress 2.9.
This is SO not my photo(s) of the day, but this morning I was playing with the aperture priority on my camera and think I am finally wrapping my mind around depth of field as it’s relating to the aperture setting. I really need to get a book or take a class or something to get better at this.
aperture set wicked small (f13) – looks terrible
aperture set to as open as possible (f1.8) – MUCH better
So, I’m learning more every day. This is fun.
Now, back to baking…
Today’s pic is from the same tank again. Trust me, it won’t be ALL fish. Here are my little zoas.
After reading a great article on the Huffington Post, I think I am nearly convinced to move most of my daily banking away from Bank Of America over to my old Wainwright Bank accounts. Supporting small, community banks is a small way to vote with your dollar against the lack of reform of the larger banks that have been the cause of so many problems in our economy.
I know if the past I have praised Bank Of America for the Keep The Change program, as well as just sheer convenience to be able to move money to / from the account to other peoples’ BoA accounts. I can simply move money from my Wainwright accounts to my eTrade online savings account, the back over to Bank Of America if necessary. That kind of transfer could take a few days, but it’s free and it solves my problem.
I need to think about it some more, but there are a lot of reasons in the ‘Move My Money’ column. I also just really like Wainwright Bank – great customer service and very community oriented.
There is a website mentioned in the Huffington Post article, and I’ve embedded the video from ‘Move Your Money’ here:
Gwen is sick with a cold right now, so I made tea today. I also wanted to try Earl Grey for the first time, and we had a tin of it (unknown origin) in the cupboard among the 10,000 other random teas in there. I liked it, though it tasted a bit too lavender-y. I love my fruity teas, but wanted something with caffeine. I’ll keep searching. G opted for the Republic Of Tea Chai stuff.
Terrible lighting, I know. I’m leaning! Kit lens is not my friend.
I am starting out 2010 with a new project for myself. For every day of 2010, I will take, edit, and publish out a new photo. As it is already January 2, I am already behind, but the photo below was at least taken yesterday. I was inspired to start this project from a link off of Lifehacker, one of my favorite websites. Linked here is a list of tips for a photo-per-day project. (meta: I am considering breaking this out in to a new WordPress blog, as I could use the practice, but for now here is where I will post).
Daily Photo (Jan. 1) – WillowCat
There are multiple purposes of this project. It will help with my blogging skills, it will help me learn more about photo editing tools (I just downloaded and installed Gimp today and have been using Aperture and will maybe switch to Lightroom), and obviously, it will help with my photo taking skills. I love my Canon 30d, but will also be using my Panisonic Lumix, as well as my Droid cameras so that I get experience taking pictures with various devices. Also, it’s just fun. A good way to start out the new year.
I am trying to not let this project fall by the wayside (read: my Daily Obama Update blog…). Wish me luck. Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!
As it’s been made quite obvious, there are quite a few fish hanging out around Chez Me, thus the abundance of fish photos. I shoot what I see, and I see these guys every day. Today’s photo is of the fire shrimp that resides in the 8gal saltwater nano tank. I love this guy. He is currently nameless, so if anyone has any suggestions, please pipe up. He mostly hangs out in the back of the tank, behind some rocks, but comes out when I put food in the tank, mostly frozen baby brine shrimp (yes, I see the irony).
So, without further ado:
Daily Pic – Fire Shrimp
* Meta: I did install the Flickr Manager for WordPress (see page on the sidebar title ‘The One Where He Plays With The PHP Code for all my bloggy techy adds/removes/changes), but it doesn’t seem to want to insert images into posts properly. I will play with it some more tomorrow, but in the meantime, I am just exporting a photo from Aperture to my Desktop, then uploading directly onto the blog.
Alton Brown’s ‘Good Eats’ has been around for a while, and sometimes I find an episode on YouTube that could really help the beginner / seasoned home cook. This particular is a quick intro to knife skills and has some very basic info about knives, and shows quickly how to prep some veggies.
Part 1:
Part 2:
It’s very simple, actually. I have no idea why I didn’t figure this out years ago. To make great home fries, simply boil the potatoes whole for fifteen minutes then cool them down in the fridge before chopping up and frying. Otherwise you over-fry them to get them cooked all the way through or you under-cook them and they taste like, well, uncooked potato with a horrible texture. This step ensures a good outcome.
My home fries today were great. I did the above boiling (boiled water, then put in potatoes for 15min, then refrigerated for about a half hour), the chopped them up evenly, then put into my cast iron skillet that I’d made bacon in earlier today (complete with the grease). Added some diced onion, pepper, a pinch of salt, then some Sriracha hot sauce. They came out perfect.
(FYI I used standard russet potatoes, regular fresh ground pepper, Morton’s table salt, and just a normal white onion…)
For more information on Sriracha Sauce, check out this article in the NY Times from earlier this year. The stuff goes great with a lot of foods. Hot, tasty stuff.
