I just released it’s been a month since I posted to my blog. Lame. I’ve had so much going on (not all of it good) that I just haven’t found the energy. Plus I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. Still, that excuse is worthless and weak.

I’ve got a lot a could write about. Let’s see if I can find some time to do so. I have another post in the queue which I’m working on.

Just in terms of gear, I bought the Nikon d300 (which I posted about and promised a review, which I failed to deliver). I also bought a new lens, the new Nikon 24-70, and a new photo printer, the Epson 4880 (and, yes, now I’m mowing lawns to pay for all this gear). Remind me to tell you the amazing story of how I bought the printer on line.

I’ve also been organizing my pictures and key wording everything. Yesterday I spent about four hours key-wording all my pictures for 2007. Painful. I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom for this. I would have used Aperture but Apple hasn’t released support for the new raw files for the d300. Lame (and frustrating). Lightroom is a decent program but has some annoying things about it. For one, key-wording is at best awkward. At least it’s better than Adobe Bridge (CS3) whose key-wording features are about as fun to use as getting waterboarded. I’m hoping to post more on this a bit later.

I also built a new Windows Home server and devised a new backup strategy for backing up my Macs. Basically its Mac -> Windows Xp via Retrospect -> Windows home server via WHS connector. I still don’t have an offsite backup strategy. I was trying to use Mozy, but I have 12000+ pictures (and a bunch of video too) and I never have got it fully backed up in months of trying. I might need to do something more manual where I leave a big hard drive at work or something. That would be better than nothing but is definitely prone to failure (because I’m lazy and forgetful).

I also ordered, but haven’t received, a Kindle. I’m very excited about this since I read so much. It’ll be so cool just to download a new book instead of ordering it and adding it to my gargantuan pile of books. I’ll try to post about this when I get it from an avid readers point of view (I average about a book a week).

We finally sold the SL500. So we’re down to a more semi-normal three cars (from a high of five). Bunny’s BMW 535xi sport wagon. My Nissan Titan. And of course the Z06.

But definitely the theme for me has been Photography. I’m trying to take my skills to the next level. Throwing in the printer adds a lot more complexity, but recent events in my life have really made me wonder why all my pictures (some of them are actually pretty good) are all on my computer where, mostly, *nobody* sees them. The Photography thing is very very challenging. The thing I struggle the most with now is the post processing. I want my pictures to pop. A picture of a dog in the grass? I want that grass to be so green you want to slather it with ranch dressing, throw on a couple croutons, and chow down. But I still don’t get all the color stuff and my changes to my pictures still seem somewhat random to me. If someone has any suggestions here, please let me know.

Anyway, I’m going to try to post more about this stuff.

Happy Holidays everyone!