life as a dog…

I can’t believe how exhausted I am. I get home from work and I’m ready to crash right then and there. Thank God this is a long weekend – maybe I can catch up a little bit on relaxation.

I was hoping to get out to the lake sometime this summer, but as things are going right now, that might not be possible. I’m not happy about that, as I could use the rest, and I know L could use the rest. It’s not an area she’s used to, I know (midwest flat farmlands)…but I think she’d like it at the lake. Just sitting out on a deck watching life go by in a much slower environment than here in DC. I’m going to try to get there, but at this point, I just don’t know if it’s going to be possible.

The lake is a nice place to go for a short time. It’s out in Amish country – great to go shop at their little roadside food stores. There is nothing else around it – the closest city is Fremont, but that’s a crossroads. You have to go to Angola to find any chains, and that city only has a population of 7,000. Then you have to go at least an hour for a bigger city – Ft. Wayne (223,000) is 60 miles, Toledo (313,000) is 90 miles, and Detroit (4+ million) is 152 miles. Yep…in the middle of nowhere. You drive a mile away from the lake and all you see are soybean and corn fields. The slow life.

The odd thing is, while I have a hard time waking up in the morning here, I always wake up early there – usually 6 or 7 am with no alarm clock. And even though it’s so early, I feel refreshed.

I’m exhausted.

I posted a couple new photo sets. Some pictures taken around Reston on Saturday, and another whippet play date on Sunday.

Just walked back into the house from the New York City trip. It was pretty much run of the mill work. A LOT of run of the mill work, but still the same. Never was able to break out the camera (6am-8pm work days will do that to you).

Had one interesting thing happen. I’m standing about ten feet from the door outside the hotel after eating lunch. There is a big group of kids getting off a tour bus and entering the hotel. On the street are a couple black cars (not a big deal in New York (or Washington, for that matter)). Then this women is pointing her camera toward the door. I’m thinking, “why are you taking a picture of your husband in front of the hotel’s side door? Then another person is aiming. The door opens and a tall man walks out. I only see the back of his head – a shock of white hair. A second later he turns around and it’s….Bill Clinton. Maybe 5 secret service agents with him. He waves to everyone and hops in the back seat of his car…a mighty Ford Escape hybrid. Then they drove off.

(Oh, and we saw Biff from Letterman on our way out of town…he was exiting the stage door from the Ed Sullivan Theater.)

On another note…I may have some news of a different sort coming soon…

I’m off to New York on Monday. I am not sure how much free time I’ll have, but maybe I’ll get to actually take some time to go shooting there. Unfortunately, we are not staying in the city, but across the river in Jersey. That’s the biggest hurdle to shooting in the city. If I were on my own, I could stick around. But since there will be other people, I’m sure they won’t want to sit around while I go take pictures. If I don’t have the time to shoot, I’ll try and start working on the all the pictures that I want to post.

I have *finally* finished re-digitizing all my old pictures. I was unable to save the photos from Gatlinburg and a set from Vegas, unfortunately. Now it’s time to start going through them and do the “finishing” (or as some like to say, photoshopping). I don’t usually do much – mostly adjusting the levels. I know I will have to do quite a bit of dust cleanup, unfortunately.

All will be posted on my new domain (well, not new, but never mentioned on here). I think I’ll keep the bulk stuff here. In other words, only my favorites will be on the new domain.

I will soon be posting a couple groups on the current photo pages that I haven’t gotten around to working on – two groups from Vegas and maybe some from Arlington National Cemetery and the new Air Force Memorial (I was able to get down there this weekend). Probably in the next couple days.