I immediately thought of clocks when I saw the theme was “Twelve” for this week’s PhotoHunt.

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

This is a chiming clock tower at the gas station where I normally fill up my tank. Yeah, it always strikes me as odd as well. I can think of no reasonable explanation why a gas station would need a clock tower that chimes on the hour and half hour.

Until next time …

I’m a week late getting my PhotoHunt entry posted. I was still on vacation last week when the topic was posted and then promptly forgot all about it when I got home due to the holiday. I’ll try and get my entry up for this week’s subject in the next few days. Anyway, here is my entry for PhotoHunt 192: Fast.

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This is a photo at the finish line of the 2008 Ironman 70.3 California. The race is comprised of a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56 mile bike ride, then finished off with a half marathon (13.1 mile) run. After nearly 4 hours on the course, it came down to a virtual photo finish for the men. American Andy Potts (on the right) managed to beat Australian Craig Alexander by a mere 3 seconds! If you look closely, you’ll notice that Andy is completely airborne in this shot.

I was at the race that day because 1) I’m a bit of a triathlon buff and hope to enter a sprint distance race myself some day, and 2) I actually worked the event as a volunteer. Here are a couple of other photos I snapped that day as well.

Australian Michellie Jones on the run course. She finished 4th for the women.

Unknown athletes starting the bike course

Until next time …

I’m having a GREAT time on vacation. Sorry I’ve not been posting, but we’ve been having to much fun.

We made it over to Alameda today for a visit to Needle in a Haystack. Of course, you know it’s not a vacation without a bit of stash enhancement. ;) Here are the goodies I picked up today:

I’ll close out with a few random vacation shots. I’ll try and post more pics when I get home. You can click all images to biggify.

The Tejon Pass (black & white filter)

Hyde Street – we hike up & down this hill whenever we go anywhere

Hanging out at Pier 45 with Alcatraz in the background

The Fishermans Wharf Sign

Pier 39 Christmas Tree

Union Square Christmas Tree (iPhone photo)

Union Square Macy’s (iPhone photo)

Cable Car stop outside our condo

Until next time …

The theme for this week’s PhotoHunt is Undesirable. This one was a little difficult for me at first because I kept asking myself how one photographs undesirable. Then, it began to rain. Even though I know we need the rain each winter since I live in a desert climate, I always hate the start of the rainy season. This photo was taken on 8 Dec 2009 during our first major storm of the year.

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

I do have one other quick photo to share. I think I may have found a new favorite nail polish. This is Berry Sweet from the Nicole by OPI line. It didn’t photograph that well since I took this at night and had to use a flash. It’s a really nice sort of fuchsia red with a subtle glitter. I found it at Target, but the line is available at several different retailers such as Ulta, Meijer, Walgreens, etc.

Ok, that’s it for now. I need to finish packing and then hit the sack. I’m heading off to San Francisco for several days in the morning. My goal is to post some pictures while I’m gone. Time will tell if that actually happens. ;)

Until next time …

It’s Saturday, so that means it’s time for another PhotoHunt. This week’s theme is Curved.

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I took this photo last weekend when I was at Huntington Beach. As soon as I saw this arched window, I just had to take a photo of it. I used a soft focus filter to give it a more subtle effect since it was a very bright day.

It’s from of a faux lighthouse that is part of a pedestrian footbridge that goes over PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). The bridge connects the Hyatt Huntington Beach resort to the beach.

Until next time …

Contrary to popular belief, we actually do get a bit of Autumn here in southern California. ;) I snapped a few pics of the tree outside my home. By this time next week, I’m sure the last of the leaves will be gone. The first of these photos will satisfy PhotoHunt #177 which was the theme of Orange.

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

Here are a couple of others I took as well:

In stitching new, I’ve been working today on Fa-La-La from Little House Needleworks. It’s the first ornament in Diane’s ornament of the month series that will run until next November.

I’ve signed up for the automatic from Drema at Needlecraft Corner. Her kits include the chart, recommended fabric, and beads. Since they are stitched using the regular DMC line, the fibers aren’t included.

I also picked up a couple of pieces of new fabric from Lauren at Sassy’s Fabbys. If you aren’t familiar with her fabrics, you should definitely check they out. They’re wonderful!

The large tan piece is 36-count linen in her new color called Snickerdoodle. The smaller piece is 32-count Lugana in Witches Brew.

Until next time …

Since we are going to be heading into our chilly/rainy season soon, I decided to head down to the beach today. There was a bit of a Pacific storm off-shore, so the surf was supposed to be a bit larger than normal this weekend. I figured this would be a good opportunity to play around a bit with the camera I’m test-driving.

I took a TON of photos (over 300), several of which were pretty good, but most were just so-so. After sorting through all of them, there was only one that I would really say I loved. In fact, it brought a huge smile to my face the moment I saw it. I’m calling it “Joy”. I’m also going to use it to fulfill the archived PhotoHunt #72 which was Happy. I would highly recommend clicking on the image to see the larger version.

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

Here are a couple of other random photos from the beach today that I thought were pretty good.

Power

Solitude

When I got back home from the beach, I noticed that the moon was so lovely as it was rising. It just popped out so much against the bright blue afternoon sky. I switched and put the telephoto lens on the camera and snapped this shot off my balcony. I was pretty amazed by the detail it captured. Again, I would high recommend clicking on the image to see the larger version.

Rising Moon

Ok, I’m off now to stitch a bit for the rest of the evening. Until next time …

In my high school and college years, I was a bit of a photography buff. I took photos for my high school and college student newspapers, and even won an award at an amateur photography contest once.

Recently, I’ve been very inspired in seeing the photos Anne and Dani have been posting on her blogs as part of the PhotoHunt blog project. It’s given me the itch to start getting back into photography. I’ve not ever really left it as I’m constantly taking photos of my stitching and such, but I really want to try and start taking more artistic photos again.

So, in light of all this, I’m tossing my hat into the ol’ PhotoHunt ring as well. There are weekly themes for the photos that start each Saturday. All photos must be one’s original work, and not something found using a Google image search or something. The theme for this week is Technology.

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

I’ve actually used some of my older technology (a Samsung S1050 point & shoot digital) to capture this image of some new technology that I’m currently taking on a test drive. This is the newly released Olympus E-600 D-SLR. The lens mounted on the camera body is a 14-42mm and the second lens is a 40-150mm.

As some of you may remember, I had planned on doing a 365 photo project this year meaning that I would post a photo on my blog each and every day of 2009. As you may have deduced, I did about as well on that as I did on my no-stash diet. Who knows, perhaps with this new rekindling of my photo bug, perhaps I’ll accomplish it in 2010.

Given that the PhotoHunt project has been going on since 2006, there are 187 old themes archived that I’ve never done. My goal is to stay current with the weekly themes as they are released, and perhaps go back to try and catch up on all of the old archived themes as well. I’m making no promises on that second part though.

Until next time …

I saw this on Nicole’s blog and decided to play along. Here are the rules:

1. Pick the 4th folder on your computer
2. Pick the 4th Picture
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 others – Actually, I’m skipping this step. If you’d like to play along, free free to do so and just leave me a comment so I can check out your photo.

So, without further adieu, here is my photo.

This photo was taken during my recent trip to Hawai’i with my friends Terri and Tracy. We went to the Paradise Cove lu’au one evening. The dancers in the photo were doing a traditional hula during the Imu ceremony which involves taking the roasted pig out of the pit in preparation for the meal.

Also, I know it’s a few days early since Thanksgiving here in the U.S. isn’t until later this week, but I decided to go on and “redecorate” my blog for the holidays. I’ll be working all week, so I decided I might as well just go on and do it now.

I have a couple of stitching photos that I need to download from my camera to post as well, but I don’t feel up to doing that tonight. I’ll try and get them posted in the next couple of days.

Back to edit: I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I seem to have lost all of my navigation stuff from the left hand side of my blog. I’ll have to try and slowly get it all set back up again.

First of all, let me apologize for being so remiss in posting this week. It seems like it’s been a busy week for some reason, but it’s not really been any busier than normal I don’t think. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it just seems busier.

Perhaps it’s a psychological thing since I started my training plan this week for my first triathlon coming up in mid-October. There definitely seems to be more “pressure” of sorts from following a defined & detailed training plan vs. just going out and doing some sort of activity several times per week. I’m sure I’ll adjust just fine after a week or so, but it just feels a bit odd right now.

The photos from my race on Sunday were posted yesterday. They only got one pic of me and it was right as I was crossing the finish line. At least they got me during the one part of the race where I was actually running, even though it still looks like I’m walking for some reason!

In other MAJOR news, my toe is feeling much better! So much so, that for the first time in YEARS, I actually jogged just over a half mile (0.54 mile) without any walk breaks last night! I was slow as hell (15:09 pace), but I did it! So, I’m well on my way of meeting my goal of running the entire 2 mile run portion of my tri.

Yesterday’s training plan also called for an 18 minute swim, so I did that prior to the run. I swam laps in the pool at my complex which is 15 yards in length. I did repeats of 60 yards of swimming followed by a 1 minute rest. I managed to get in 360 total yards of swimming in 17:57. All in all, yesterday was a good training day!

Here’s my training plan for the rest of the week:

Today: Bike 25 minutes
Friday: Swim 18 minutes & Run 15 minutes
Saturday: Bike 45 minutes
Sunday: Run 30 minutes

I’m still going strong on my food challenge as well. Today is day 17 for me with no slips and/or cheats on my food plan. It’s really paying off, too! I was down another 1.6 pounds this week at my WW meeting which brings my total loss thus far to 5.8 pounds since I started the challenge. Go me!!

Until next time …