Dinner At Murray's

On Wednesday Melissa and I went to eat at Murray’s in Lexington.  It was delicious. 

Melissa had the sole.

I had the filet with a wine and wild mushroom reduction sauce.

The food was great!  Well, I don’t know if the food was really that great or not.  It could have been that I was with my dining partner.

 

Guacamole For Lunch

Today for lunch I made my super secret recipe guacamole!   mmmmm  good!

I keep changing and experimenting to improve the recipe. Today I added some 3 cloves of garlic.   Boy, the garlic is sticking with me this afternoon, but it certainly improved the recipe!

Radial Blur In Photoshop

I was playing around with the radial blur filter in Photoshop cs2 and here is the result.

My Prize Arrived

My prize arrived!  Yea!  I have been wanting one of these things but didn’t know exactly which one to get.  I am glad Mike Colon already picked it out.  Obviously he researched these things because this one is perfect!  This is the new home for my compact cards!   I asked Mike to autograph it.  It says “Jim, You Rule! MC”. 

And the winner is.... ME!

I already mentioned that I am attending a course in February that is being taught my Mike Colon.  Well, I have been looking at his web site and reading his blog.  A few days ago he posted about being excited because his photos were going to be on the cover of 3 magazines.  He offered a prize to the 1st person who could guess 2 of the 3 magazines.  Well I was poking around his web site and I saw where we referenced 3 magazines.  So I emailed him using those 3 magazines as my guess.  And low and behold I got an email from him that I won.   He blogged about me winning too!  Here is what I won:

Mayhem in Bethlehem

Last Sunday (yes a week ago), Melissa and I went to Northside Christian Church to see Mayhem in Bethlehem..  It was a play/musical that the K-5 choir put on.  Our good friend Rhonda Currier is the director.   Melissa and I had a wonderful time.  Rhonda did an outstanding job directing the kids. They were fantastic.   Of course I took my camera along and took some pictures.  Here are a few.

Maskrafters - Miracle On 34th Street

Melissa and I went to see the Maskrafters put on the play, “Miracle On 34th Street”.   We had a great time and as always, the Maskrafters rock.   Melissa and I are becoming big fans of Randy Hall.  He has been in the last 3 Maskrafter productions that we have seen and he just rocks each time.  Randy provides the comic relief and he is exceedingly funny!   His mannerisms and facial expressions are great.  Randy is in the last picture and on the left in the 2nd picture.   Pat Conroy was Kris Kringle and he was great as well.  Since this wasn’t a musical I was hesitant to take bunches of pictures because I didn’t want to disturb the people around me.  In the musical productions there are plenty of applauses and the music is loud so I can take more pictures that way.  But I was satisfied with the pictures I did take.

Here are some pictures I took tonight of the play.

What's Up?

Ok ok —– I haven’t been consistent with my Blog this week.  I think with all my traveling I got out of the habit.  I tend to think in the evenings just before bed that I forgot to blog that day.   So here are some thing that happened this week:

• Received an awesome Christmas card from Karen LaBach this week.  Karen was my instructor from a photography class I took in the spring over at Cardome.  Her card was hand made and she had this old time photo of her and her husband on it.  It rocks!  See the photo of it below.  Ignore the blemish on her husbands face as I accidentally spilled some water on it.

• Melissa and I are going to see Miracle on 34th Street tonight that is being put on by The Maskrafters .
• I signed up for another photography course.  This one is going to be in February in Los Angles and will be taught by Mike Colon.  I will be attending with a bunch of photography friends as well.  Here is an example of his work he did for Grace Ormonde for her 2006 magazine.

• I took a bunch of pictures on Tuesday at an IBM Spirit function at the Southern Nights exhibit at the Kentucky Horse Park.  The function wasn’t the best photo op to take pictures of, but I had a blast using some of the techniques I learned from Gino’s Bootcamp I attended last month. Yikes!  I just realized I never blogged about it. Guess it got lost in all the activities I was in. It was awesome.  I will blog about it in the future.  Here are some pictures from Tuesday:

• I am also making a DVD of the pictures I took in October for the IBM Spirit Fall Fest and IBM is going to be showing that next Saturday at another IBM Spirit function.
• Donny Osmond is producing a book of photographs from his 2005 tour.  He is soliciting photographs that people took.  Well, Melissa and I went to see him in Columbus on May 12th.  Here are the the pictures I took.  I am going to submit some.  Wish me luck! 

 

 

Clay Aiken Concert

A few weeks ago, November 26th to be exact, Melissa and I went to Cincinnati to eat and see Clay Akien in concert. We didn’t get back till late and I didn’t have an opportunity to post then and I am just getting around to posting now.

Anyway, the first thing we did was eat before the show.  We ate at The York Street Cafe in Newport Kentucky — just across the river from Cincinnati.   This place was absolutely AWESOME and I keep begging for Melissa to go back.  

We started out with a bottle of Pino Grigio wine that was heavenly. 

Next the salad with home made dressing was the best I have had in a long time!

My steak was to die for!  I loved it and I cannot wait to go back and order it again.  I do not think I have had a better steak in my whole life!!!!

Melissa loved her halibut.  It was very good, but my steak was better.  I think Melissa will get the fish again.

We were stuffed — but we could not resist the deserts.  They were to die for, but we agreed that next time we will just get one dessert.  Too much food and we regretted eating that much later in the evening.  But it was good at the time!

After supper we went to the concert hall.  It had an awesome chandelier.

We had 1st row balcony and the seats were great!   We could see everything perfectly.

Here is me and my honey getting ready for the show.

The opening act was William Joseph.  That dude rocked on the piano. 

Click HERE to see a quicktime movie of him playing.

And finally here is a movie of Clay performing. Click on the image below to see the quicktime movie.

An awesome evening!

Showit Web

My slide shows are created using a program called Showit Web.  It is da bomb diggity.  I love that program because it is insanely easy to use.  Well, I posted my pleasure using their program (as well as dozens of other photographers) and they used my quote on their web site.  Go check it out Showit Web Showcase .

They asked permission to point to one of my shows so I sent them a list of all of my shows and told them to pick one.  Well, they picked my favorite show, Melissa Fall.  This probably isn’t my best technical work — but the model rocks!

Jazzercise Christmas Parade 2005

I have been out of town for the last week.  That explains the lack of entries on the blog.   But I am back and don’t have any travel plans till next year.  So expect regular updates.

Today was the annual Georgetown Kentucky Christmas parade.  Even thought it was raining before and sprinkling during the parade, everyone had a great time.  I put together a slide show of the images.  Click on the image below to see the show.