Full - Moon

Full
It was a full moon last night... and I guess I should have known that it was coming based on how my day was yesterday (by the way I love you baby). Anyway... this post is going to be about one of my 5 passions - Photography. Last night I came home from work to a full moon. Since we live in the country.. (well lets say a very small town (pop. 200ish) we don't have a lot of nightime light pollution, so I seized the opportunity to try to capture a good image of the moon. For those that don't know, I use a Pentax K10d Digital Camera and for this particular occasion I used my Sigma 100-300 f/4. Due to the shear size of this beast (that's what she said) I don't pull it out very often (that's what he said). But every time I do use it I am reminded of what this $1200 piece of glass can do.


Moon
I shot this at f/8.0 at 1/180th - ISO 100 - 300mm. This is about a 60% crop of the full image. I need to shoot more... I enjoy taking pictures, but I need a consistent project or challenge. I was telling Nicole last night that I wish I could take a photography class so that I would have assignments to shoot. One idea that I am throwing around in the back of my mind is to form some sort of photography group in northern Colorado, that could meet once a month (or more). and we would have a monthly photo "assignment". We could all get together at the next meeting, review images and discuss the art of photography. Ahh.. but when would I have time for that.

Productivity - Creativity

Productivity
Why is it that productivity is so hard to come by sometimes? It's that intertia to get going that is soo hard to come by actually. I like being productive... it makes me happy, but sometimes it is so hard to come by. Once I get going, I am very productive.. .but getting going is usually more than half the battle. Does anyone have any suggestions for a sometimes inertial-deficited individual?

Creativity
I am very fortunate that I get paid to be creative. My job requires me to use my brain and I wouldn't have it any other way, but sometimes I wish I was digging ditches. I am sitting right now looking out my wonderful 2nd story vista watching the ValleyCrest crew do some landscaping work around my building. I can't help but wonder what it would be like sometimes to have their job, sometimes I think it might be nice.. you know, blowing leaves around all day, or riding one of those cool riding mowers... But as a non-spanish speaker, I better stick to my day job.

HOPE - NOPE

Branding
It was summed up perfectly today on The Strategy room on Fox. Obama has a brand. And a damn good one. The Republican Party is lacking a brand, and I think that is what frustrates me the most about the republican party. Sarah Palin is the closest thing to a brand that the republican party has but they are still missing the mark.

Hope
Interestingly, Obama chose Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. This is an interesting move by the President Elect, who ran on a platform of change and a message of bipartisanship. It looks like maybe Bill Clinton is actually the puppet master for this regime anyways as former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta is helping lead transition efforts.

Nope
I don't buy it. But I am optimistic. At this point we all need to be. With the current Economic Crisis (whose foundations were laid by former President Bill Clinton), what this nation needs most is productivity and history has shown that the biggest antithesis to productivity is socialism. Bear in mind that Karl Marx himself poised that socialism represents the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.

At the end of the day the difference between liberals and conservatives is that Liberals believe that the government is here to solve their problems and conservatives believe they are responsible for their problems. Isn't it ironic that usually the poor are more liberal and the rich are more conservative.

"Wealth is a product of mans capacity to think" - Ayn Rand