Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
DSM
We took a kid-free trip to Des Moines for the weekend, saw some bands, had some good food, and visited some of the old places where we used to go. On Friday night, we went down Court Ave. and enjoyed some really good live music. Saturday morning we went to Gray's Lake for breakfast after stopping at Dahl's for doughnuts. Dahl's bakery makes some really good doughnuts and we used to stop there for breakfast sometimes.
And guess what else I found at Dahl's? EGG NOG. I do like me some eggnog, so I had that for breakfast, too. I don't care if that makes you want to puke, it was great and I liked it.
We walked around downtown for a bit Saturday morning and I took pictures of whatever as we walked along...
There's the old courthouse (below). I used to work in that tan building behind it and to the right. One day some crazy dude started spray painting expletives on a truck in front of the courthouse, so the cops tried to stop him. At work, we heard all the commotion and looked outside. He took off running and then pulled out a gun and turned on the cops. They shot and killed him in the street. The gun turned out to be a fake. Very sad and very bizarre. Anyway, that's a fun bit of trivia there.
A shot of the Des Moines River...
The High Crest band playing downtown.
I was hoping to get my reflection in his shades in this one, but you can't quite see me.
As I was taking pictures of them, a hippie came up to me and stood there watching. The dude was a few years younger than me, had a full beard, a tie dye shirt, shorts, birkenstocks, and a bandana with a native American design on it. He seemed very chill and reeked of herb. "What do you take pictures of?" he asked me. "Everything that catches my interest," I told him. That was a satisfactory answer and he nodded in solemn approval. Looking up at the sky, he said, "There were some really interesting clouds earlier. The contrast between the buildings and the sky was really cool." "Yeah, I took several pictures of the clouds behind the tall buildings earlier," I said. Again, solemn approval.
We saw a friend of ours from Cedar Rapids selling granola at the farmer's market and stopped to talk for a bit. I took senior pictures of her son a couple years ago and it was cool to catch up.
At the Court Ave. Brewery for lunch...
A lot of memories going back to Des Moines. I don't miss living there at all, but it was cool to go back and see all the old places we used to go to and goof off and revisit for a while. And yeah, there is way more to do at night in Des Moines than in CR!
And guess what else I found at Dahl's? EGG NOG. I do like me some eggnog, so I had that for breakfast, too. I don't care if that makes you want to puke, it was great and I liked it.
We walked around downtown for a bit Saturday morning and I took pictures of whatever as we walked along...
There's the old courthouse (below). I used to work in that tan building behind it and to the right. One day some crazy dude started spray painting expletives on a truck in front of the courthouse, so the cops tried to stop him. At work, we heard all the commotion and looked outside. He took off running and then pulled out a gun and turned on the cops. They shot and killed him in the street. The gun turned out to be a fake. Very sad and very bizarre. Anyway, that's a fun bit of trivia there.
A shot of the Des Moines River...
The High Crest band playing downtown.
I was hoping to get my reflection in his shades in this one, but you can't quite see me.
As I was taking pictures of them, a hippie came up to me and stood there watching. The dude was a few years younger than me, had a full beard, a tie dye shirt, shorts, birkenstocks, and a bandana with a native American design on it. He seemed very chill and reeked of herb. "What do you take pictures of?" he asked me. "Everything that catches my interest," I told him. That was a satisfactory answer and he nodded in solemn approval. Looking up at the sky, he said, "There were some really interesting clouds earlier. The contrast between the buildings and the sky was really cool." "Yeah, I took several pictures of the clouds behind the tall buildings earlier," I said. Again, solemn approval.
We saw a friend of ours from Cedar Rapids selling granola at the farmer's market and stopped to talk for a bit. I took senior pictures of her son a couple years ago and it was cool to catch up.
At the Court Ave. Brewery for lunch...
A lot of memories going back to Des Moines. I don't miss living there at all, but it was cool to go back and see all the old places we used to go to and goof off and revisit for a while. And yeah, there is way more to do at night in Des Moines than in CR!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Quiet Flyers
On Tuesday night after hanging out for a while at the Cedar Valley Park, the kids climbed into the back of the truck and we drove down Cole Street just off of Otis Road and as we rounded a corner, we saw a line of cars parked along the side of the road and a large rc plane swooped down buzzed across the open grassy field to our right.
We parked in the grass and walked over to the field to watch. The CR Quiet Flyers Club (electric rc planes only) had gathered there and they were lined up in lawn chairs at the edge of the field and flying their planes. It was very cool to watch! One of the larger planes had gotten stuck in the power lines, but luckily that guy had a whole fleet of planes, so he didn't skip a beat, but kept right on flying them.
I had my camera along with me, so I took a lot of pictures. It is ridiculously difficult taking pictures of rc planes. When you are facing into the setting sun, then away from the sun, then up at the sky, and all the while trying to focus on a small object that is moving very quickly and getting closer and then farther away... that will keep you on your toes. I've never adjusted so many settings on my camera so fast! It took a bit of trial and error to get some decent shots.
I used manual focus in some shots and autofocus in others. It's hard to say which method is better. I did discover that if I used a slow shutter speed (which would seem counter intuitive), and panned the camera at the same speed as the plane, I could get a crisp shot of the plane, but cause the background to have a horizontal blur, which makes the plane stand out better in the pictures. This effect is really only noticeable when the plane is up close. Luckily, a few of the guys intentionally flew their planes right in front of me several times so that I could get a decent shot. And the plane that you see in the last three pictures... that one got too close and about took us out! He had trouble getting it to respond to the controller and had to crash it intentionally before it hit anything.
We parked in the grass and walked over to the field to watch. The CR Quiet Flyers Club (electric rc planes only) had gathered there and they were lined up in lawn chairs at the edge of the field and flying their planes. It was very cool to watch! One of the larger planes had gotten stuck in the power lines, but luckily that guy had a whole fleet of planes, so he didn't skip a beat, but kept right on flying them.
I had my camera along with me, so I took a lot of pictures. It is ridiculously difficult taking pictures of rc planes. When you are facing into the setting sun, then away from the sun, then up at the sky, and all the while trying to focus on a small object that is moving very quickly and getting closer and then farther away... that will keep you on your toes. I've never adjusted so many settings on my camera so fast! It took a bit of trial and error to get some decent shots.
I used manual focus in some shots and autofocus in others. It's hard to say which method is better. I did discover that if I used a slow shutter speed (which would seem counter intuitive), and panned the camera at the same speed as the plane, I could get a crisp shot of the plane, but cause the background to have a horizontal blur, which makes the plane stand out better in the pictures. This effect is really only noticeable when the plane is up close. Luckily, a few of the guys intentionally flew their planes right in front of me several times so that I could get a decent shot. And the plane that you see in the last three pictures... that one got too close and about took us out! He had trouble getting it to respond to the controller and had to crash it intentionally before it hit anything.
This was the first plane I saw (oops):
And this one the other guys jokingly referred to as "the leaf blower" because it was so loud, but it was impressive to watch. It had some serious power and flew very fast, but also used up its battery quickly, too. I hardly got any pictures of it because it was too quick, so focusing the camera on it was extremely difficult.
This little plane flew the ENTIRE time we were out there. I'm not sure how long we were there, but it was a while. This plane outlasted all the others.
The leaf blower again...
This was my favorite plane out of all of 'em. It had LED lights all along the wings and fuselage and it was really trippy to watch.
Alliant Energy showed up amazingly fast to take the plane down out of the power lines. They hung around a bit to watch the planes fly and took pictures with their cell phones.
I was trying to take a picture of Emily and somehow got a picture of the plane. Er, wait, maybe it was the other way around...
This might be the best shot I got of this plane...
This plane had a lot of lights!
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Cedar Valley Park
Last night we picked up pizza from Little Caesar's and then went over to Cedar Valley Park. We ate pizza then played on the playground (all four of us) and I took a few pictures. The girls also got to ride in the back of the truck and they had a blast.
You can't really see it in these pictures, but there were swarms of dragonflies everywhere! I have never seen so many of them. None of them landed anywhere nearby where I could get a good picture, though.
You can't really see it in these pictures, but there were swarms of dragonflies everywhere! I have never seen so many of them. None of them landed anywhere nearby where I could get a good picture, though.
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