I hadn't noticed, but the SSL certificates for DrQue.net expired back in June.  So, I regenerated those.  Also decided to update the server software.  Installed Apache 2.2.2 and OpenSSL 0.9.8b.
   County Road J just outside Shopiere, Wisconsin.

   Nate at coffee.

   I set out on a bike ride originally just up the street.  But when I reached my destination (the skating rink, I wanted to see what time they opened), I didn't want to turn around.  Both water bottles were full and I thought I'd take the long road home.  I ended up in Tiffany, about 6 miles away.  There is a wonderful old railroad bridge right along Smith Road in Tiffany, so I thought I go shoot that.  After the bridge, I discovered what looked like a rather overgrown trail.  So, I jumped on it to see where it went.  It looks liked a four-wheel drive vehicle had been on this trail in the past—and if it could do it, so could I.  It proved to be quick the haul, but I made it through and ended up on County Road J, which is where I thought I would end up anyway.  In all, I did 19 miles.
   The old railroad bridge crossing Turtle Creek by Smith Road in Tiffany, Wisconsin.

   Tazz has purchased a studio lighting kit and wanted to play with it.  He initially wanted to try some out doors shots in a canopied area.  The idea was to experiment with getting elimination on a subject while exposing properly the natural background.  We decided to try this shoot at Big Hill's Park.  They don't have outlets available to the public, so we would have to bring our own power source.  My truck is equipped with a 1,000 watt power inverter, which I thought would do the trick.
   I bought the power inverter after having experienced no power for 5 days in Kansas City after an ice storm.  However, I didn't have it wired to actually produce 1,000 watts—only about 300.  In order to pull the amperage for the full 1K, I had picked up some 4 gage wire.  I didn't install it since it required drilling a hole through the firewall of the truck.  For this lighting project, I would need the power, and I didn't have the time to dill the firewall.  So, I decided just to connect the wire and set the inverter outside the truck during the shoot.  A quick stop at the auto place for some battery terminals, I had everything ready.  To test it out, I got out my 1,000 watt halogen work lights (2x 500 watt lights) and powered them up.  The engine dropped in RPM a bit as the governor compensated for the load on the alternator and the lights were up.  The amp meter on the inverter was a little under 100, but the lights were full on.
   We packed up and headed to Big Hill's.  Our initial location wasn't doable, since we didn't have the extension cord to reach.  We picked an other location and set everything up.  But as soon as we turned on the strobes, the inverter turned off on overload.  We tried a couple things, and even though the draw was only around 30 continuous amps per strobe, the inverter tripped on overload.  My guess is that the capacitors for the strobes drew too heavily when they recharged—more then 8.3 continuous amps.  The inverter is suppose to be able to take surges up to 2,000 watts for a short duration (16.7 amps), but it seems this just wasn't enough.  The other possibility is the 4 gage wire simply wasn't large enough.  To my dislike, I found while installing that the positive cable was not copper (probably aluminum).  It's possible that voltage drop across the cable was too much.
   After this short failed experiment, we traveled to Tazz's in-law's house to shoot in their living room.  They have 20 foot ceilings in the front room, which we needed in order to extend the strobe tripods.  Together, Tazz and I tried several experiments with his lighting rig.  Since our cameras did not know the power the strobes would have, all our metering would have to be done manually.  Tazz preferred a shooting with a large aperture and fast shutter speeds, while I preferred to close up the aperture and leave the shutter open longer.  Since there was some ambient light, I played with shooting shutter speeds of around 1/10 second (open fairly long) and a tight aperture (around f/13).  This allowed me to capture things such as the light from a near by table lamp.  The trick was finding the correct white balance.  The shots would have elements of flash light (typically very cool) and incandescent light (typically very warm).  I found it was best to compensate for the flash color temperature, and keep the warmth of the incandescent light.
   Pictured is Tazz.

   I did a 13 mile bike ride today to Big Hill's Park in Beloit.  I played with the 75-300mm for a bit, shooting a woodpecker.  Like the name implies, Big Hill's is a large hill.  There is a paved road the goes to the bottom level on which I decided to open up a little.  Last I checked, I was holding 32 MPH.  Unfortunately, the road at the bottom curves, so I had to slow down quickly.  Again I'm glad for the disc breaks as I don't know if standard breaks would have been happy absorbing that much kinetic energy.  The front caliper was quite hot when I reached the bottom.  Knowing I hit this as fast as I was means I was traveling more then twice the posted speed limit.
   Pictured is a wood pecker.

   I had not thought it would be necessary to stay more then one day for this work trip, but I had planned for it anyway.  However, the day was cut short due to operating conditions.  So, I was back on the road by 2:00pm (Michigan time).  This would get me into Chicago traffic around 2:30pm (Chicago time).  That's probably before rush begins, but still in the middle of the day where traffic is very heavy. 
   Prior to leaving, I checked on-line for some staking rinks in the area and found one that had a Tuesday session.  It was in Kalamazoo, about 45 minutes from where I was working.  The session wouldn't start for an other 4 and a half hours, but I thought maybe I'd look around the city for awhile.  I was going to try and find a park or something to do some shooting, but I found a ton of traffic and a tangle of road.  Instead, I found a coffee shop close to University and spent the remainder of my wait sipping tea and tooling around the net.
   I arrived at the skating rink just as they opened.  The rink had some kind of linoleum floor, which to my delight, was not slippery.  It was just a little smaller then my rink in Watertown and didn't have air-conditioning.  None the less, they did have a good number of skaters for a Tuesday night.  I skated the entire 2 hour session and finished completely drenched with sweat.  But, it was a good run and it was now 8:30pm. 
   One of the reasons I decided to go to Kalamazoo was because after the skating session, I would be right next to I-94.  This would take us exactly where we needed to be, so the trip really wasn't out of the way.  On the drive back, I started falling asleep (lesson: don't skate hard for 2 hours before you need to drive 4 more).  I pulled over at a rest area and despite the start of a rather heavy thunderstorm, slept like a baby for about an hour.  I hit Chicago around 11:00pm and I'm very glad I decided to wait.  Traffic was still very heavy, but it was the construction that will really making things congested.  Luckily, despite bumper to bumper conditions at times, traffic never dropped below 45 MPH.
   Pictured is a candle in a globe at Shogun restaurant.

   Began my trip to Michigan for work.  The location I was going is about a four and a half hour drive.  I left around 2:30am, which gets me to Elgin. IL around 3:15.  The Elgin toll is pretty much the location where Chicago traffic begins.  The interstate becomes three lanes and for the next 100 miles (sometime after Gary, Indiana) is urban traffic.  This portion of the drive I prefer to do in the early morning hours.  Even then, traffic is heavy, but it's moving steady.
   Pictured is civil twilight (just before sunrise) over South Ave.