Miscellaneous Photos
My goal for this part of the site is to include interesting photos that
don't really fit well into the Travel Journal and aren't specific to
family activities. I hope to make some time to work on this section soon.
I am not a professional photographer but I tend to drag my trusty Canon
EOS 20-D digital camera along with me wherever I go (my 10-D that was
damaged when it fell off a roller coaster at Disneyland is also repaired
now but these days I mostly just use the 20). The great thing about the
camera is that it takes really nice 8.3MegaPixel shots. However, each of
these tend to be a little over 3MB in size when saved as a highest quality
JPG file.
Before I post photos here I usually reduce them in both size and
quality (I also tend to crop them) so that they will download quickly as
people browse the site regardless of their connection speed. It also used
to be the case that I has space limitations imposed on me by my hosting
company but now (as of December 6th 2006) that I have moved the web site
to a new home that is no longer an issue.
Given that I do now have more space
to work with, look for some additional photos here soon. By the way, in case
you were wondering, the photo above is of my daughter's pet toad
"Blaze". He's a Vietnamese fire bellied toad. How he ended up
living with us is a long story!
Photo albums on flickr
As well as the photographs that I post here, a long time ago I had
created a photo album on Yahoo! That album has now been migrated (due to Yahoo! closing down their "Photos" site) over to flickr.
Among the photographs you will find in my flickr collection are the
ones that I took at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. The
photos in the album get quite substantially shrunk when they are viewed
but you can still get an idea of what the museum has on offer. If you are
at all interested in aircraft (mostly military in this case) then I highly
recommend a visit to the museum. If you want to read more about the Pima
Air and Space Museum you can visit their
web page.
The entrance to the Pima Air and Space Museum
Some of my favourite landscapes
Among the things I enjoy photographing are interesting landscapes. Below are
thumbnails of a few that I particularly like or that have special significance
to me. Click on any of the images
to go to a page with larger versions of the photos on it. Unfortunately I am not
able to post the full high resolution version of the images as each one is over
3mb in size.
Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version
A day at the Johnson Space Center - Houston (March 23rd 206)
After many years of wanting to make the trip I finally
was able to make the time to visit
the Johnson Space Center in Houston. We took one of the tours that included
a visit to one of the two former Mission Control rooms that were used during
the Apollo program.
One of the consoles in the former Apollo 13 Mission Control room
It is fascinating to think that the total computing power
in the room was about the same as that found in a modern day cell phone (at least
that is what the tour guide told us). Note also the plastic tubes on the left
side of the console. There was no e-mail in those days so if you wanted to send
a message to someone else anywhere in the building you sent a note on paper
in a tube to them through a system of pipes like those used today in many
banks and other businesses! We have come a long way since then but I bet the didn't have
the spam problem then that we have now! If you
are at all interested in the space program's of both the US and Russia, this tour
is a must. There is another tour that takes you into the current mission control
room but we did not have the time to do that tour as well. We also got to go inside
many of the other buildings, including the one that contains the training areas for
the Space Shuttle and for Space Station Freedom. You will find some more of the
pictures that I took in my Yahoo! photo album.
Astros come to town, April 1st 2005
The Round Rock Express are the AAA
affiliate of the Houston Astros. On Friday, as
Spring Training neared its end the Astros visited Round Rock to play an exhibition
game against the Express in front of a sell out crowd. This is the first year of
AAA baseball at Round Rock. The past few years the Express were the AA affiliate of
the Astros.
Craig Biggio swings away at a Wandy Rodriguez pitch during the early innings
Hailstones, March 31st 2005
This pile of hail formed all by itself (as it fell off the roof) during a brief but
fairly severe thunderstorm that passed over here last week. The hail lasted something
like five minutes but it looked almost as if it had snowed afterwards!
Thankfully none of the cars which
were in the driveway at the time were damaged.
A pile of marble sized hail
A quiet day at home, November 29th, 2004
Toby tries not to overdo it while I work from home
