Sherman in the Spring!

Lately I've been reading a lot on strobist.com in an effort to learn how to utilize my speedlites to their full ability. So I took my trusty sidekick Sherman for a walk, armed with my camera, a flash, and a light stand. This was the first time going manual on my flashes, previously I had been using ETTL for my lighting needs. ETTL is all fine and dandy if you want to set up and shoot rather quickly, however there are many disadvantages to using the system once you learn how to manipulate the light the way you want it. Shooting manual offers the ability to have the same amount of light for every shot. Anyways, here are some of my favorites from today.

How could I forget?

I don't know how, but I forgot to add some pictures that I took of some birds playing in the WWII memorial fountain. Like everyone on the Mall, they were enjoying the Spring weather.

Warshing Machine D.C.

Ok, it’s time for a break! I decided that 1938 miles wasn’t enough so I figured I would add another 788 miles to that and go view some Cherry Blossoms. (That’s 2,726 miles by the way!) In case you’ve lived in a bubble your entire life, I’m talking about Washington D.C.’s Cherry Blossom Festival. It is a giant festival put on in D.C. celebrating the arrival of spring, or at least that’s what I was celebrating. My brother moved out there last year and I had been meaning to visit him and see his new stomping grounds.



I shipped out Friday afternoon hoping for the best and expecting the worst in terms of weather. I was actually debating canceling my trip since the weather reports were calling for rain all weekend. Thanks to Wendy’s in Washington, PA, I was picking off unwanted pickles instead of taking 79 S. This added an addition $5.25 to my tab and 45 minutes to the trip. But, who’s counting, right? Upon my arrival, my brother and I went out for dinner at a local seafood place called Bonefish. I had a wonderful salmon sandwich and a taste of a few of their microbrews, all of which were excellent. We got home and I was so tired from my drive that I immediately hit the hay.



Saturday I woke up to a pleasant surprise, the sun was out and it was a beautiful day! After I took an online Accounting quiz and ate breakfast, Nick and I loaded up our pups and headed out for a long walk. At first we parked across the Potomac River in Virginia in the hopes of walking across one of the bridges into D.C. so we wouldn’t have to pay for parking. Unfortunately we gave up our efforts one bridge too soon and headed back towards the car. The park itself is located right next to the end of the main runway at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), which offers an awesome view of planes as they take-off and land. So we sat there and watched a few take-off, it’s a pretty impressive experience, and it’s free!



We eventually found a spot on the other side of the river and walked towards the Tidal Basin along the wharf. Some of the food looked delicious, but we had already eaten so we decided to pass it up. I think I’m going to have to try some next time I’m down there.






Once we got to the Tidal Basin two things amazed me; the amount of people there and how impressive the flowering was. It was crazy! There were probably as many people there as there were flowers blooming. We had decided to bring our dogs, and I was amazed at how well Sherman was behaving with the number of people around. He remained calm even when we had people coming up to us and talking about our dogs. I was so proud of him!






After the Tidal Basin we walked to the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and back to the Washington Monument. Then we went to look at the White House and the Capitol building. Needless to say I was done for the day! I’m a big man, and my delicate feet couldn’t handle it. Next time, I’m buying new shoes before I go, that should help out a lot.




Before I left on Sunday we went to explore around in the Great Falls National Park. This is where the Potomac drops a total 76-foot drop in elevation over a distance of less than a mile. A lot of kayakers come here to test the rapids, you can even see some in my pictures. Unfortunately the rocks were pretty treacherous with the fresh rain so I didn’t venture around too much in fear of falling and breaking my camera. But it is an impressive place to visit while you’re in Washington. I will probably go back there the next time I go.





With that I got in my car and headed home as the weekend drew to an end. I get a week break from traveling and then I’m off to Gatlinburg, TN for a weekend getaway. Keep an eye out in the next couple weeks!

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” - Tim Cahill

It is hard to put a number on the amount of fun you have when surrounded by good company. Especially when you are blessed with having the type of friends like I do. Therefore in an effort to put a quantitative number on this trip I give you this, 1,938. That’s the number of miles that I have traveled in the past 2 weeks visiting both Atlanta and Chicago. Traveling between the two cities resulted in over 30 hours of driving time. In fact, I have spent so much time sitting in a car lately that I’m pretty sure I induced traumatic shock to my butt resulting in permanent numbness of the bottom end. You’d think that I wouldn’t want to spend another minute in the car, but if you asked me to do it again I’d start packing in an instant. I must say, I have the best friends one could possibly ask for and I cherish the times we spend together. But now back to business, I’ve got pictures to show you! So here we go!

Atlanta, GA

Recently, my good friend Ronny graduated from the BMW Step Program in Cleveland (congrats again Ronny!) and got hired by Global Imports in Atlanta, GA. According to Ronny, it is the largest BMW dealership in the Southeast region. I don’t know whether or not it is true, but Ronny is a good guy and I doubt he’d misremember a fact like that (It really is a word!). All I can say is that it easily dwarfs any dealership I have seen in Cincinnati or Columbus.

I left Columbus, OH Thursday morning bound for Atlanta, GA. After an uneventful trip down I arrived in Atlanta right around traffic-thirty and got a good dose of stop and go traffic. Later on I began to realize that there is always traffic in Atlanta, it doesn’t matter what the time is. Fortunately, Ronny was able to utilize his Ninja stalking ability and leave work at the precise moment to enter the highway right next to me, literally. This was a good thing because I was able to follow him through his secret route that avoided all of that nonsense. Thursday night was uneventful, as I didn’t have much energy to do anything other than sit on the couch.

Friday I woke up and headed to Stone Mountain. It is basically a giant rock that sits just outside downtown Atlanta. I only had a short amount of time to explore since I was supposed to meet up with Ronny for lunch. Instead of driving around and looking for a good picture of the entire mountain, I decided to pay to take the gondola up to the top. Once I was up there I was able to snap some pictures. Really, they don’t do the view from up top any justice.

After Stone Mountain I went up to Global Imports and met up with Ronny and Bobby, another G20 enthusiast, for Ronny’s lunch break. After lunch we got a tour of his work, which was awesome. I took some pictures, but tried to limit them since I was getting some funny looks walking around there. I was asked a couple of times if I was shooting pictures for someone. Anyways, I got to see the new 135’s and a few M cars. We waited around to see if we could get to test drive the 135, but there ended up being a 2 hr. wait to take it out. I was tired from walking all over the top of Stone Mountain so Friday night was also low-key.

Saturday we woke up early to meet up with another G20.net member (they have quite the “crew” down there!) for breakfast at Waffle House. Speaking of Waffle House, I’m convinced that Atlanta has the most amount of Waffle House’s per square mile out of any city in the world! They are quite literally on every street corner down there! After breakfast Ronny and Gerard (yet another G20.net member) and I went to a shooting range to fire some pistols since I had never fired one before. We shot a 9mm Glock, a 1911 (I think that was it), and a dinky 22 cal. revolver. When we were shooting that, a group of guys came in with a Smith and Wesson 500, which is basically a hand cannon. It was hilarious to see us shooting the dinky revolver next to guys shooting a gun that’s muzzle flash is easily 1 cubic foot. Then we went out to a diner for lunch and ran back to BMW to grab some tools to swap Ronny’s rear suspension out. Later on in the evening we ate at a bar located right next to the local airport. It was a pretty late evening which ended up being a bad idea since we had agreed to go fishing on the Chattahoochee River before I left on Sunday.

On Sunday, we met back up with Brian to do some fishing at the river just down the street from his house. Ronny and I had purchased some $15 fishing kit from Walmart the night before. The decision to do this reminded me how nice a good rod and reel combo really is. I ended up fighting tangles more than the fish. Because of this, I didn’t catch anything but a cold (not really). After giving up on fishing I put my camera together and snapped some pictures. Shortly after we packed up and I headed back home to Cincinnati leaving me with the hopes for warmer weather coming soon.

I want to take this time say thank you to Gerard and Gellian for graciously allowing me to sleep in their guest bedroom for free the entire weekend. To all of the g20.net members that I was able to meet, it was a pleasure! You guys have a very cool group of friends going on down there! Maybe I’ll look into buying a home down there someday! Probably not though, I couldn’t deal with all that traffic, haha.

Chicago, IL

What can I say, when you are surrounded by good friends you are destined to have a good time! Eleven of my good friends from high school got together to celebrate some birthdays. I left Columbus bound for Cincinnati after my classes on Friday afternoon to drop off Sherman and meet up with some friends to carpool up to Chicago. Our hotel was celebrating their Grand Opening so we spent a lot of time just walking around there and hanging out, since there weren’t too many people in the hotel and everything was literally brand new.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, after waiting for a few friends to arrive that lived locally, we set out to walk the streets of Chicago. Our friend Amir was able to get off from a double shift at work so he needed to find a free place to park. I volunteered to ride with him and catch up with the group later. We ended up getting a spot south of Soldier Field, quite a ways away from our friends. We tried catching up to them at the Bean, but they were tired of waiting and decided to continue on. Because of this, we didn’t get to spend too much time taking pictures but I forced Amir to stop once so I could at least get a few shots from the walk. 

We finally met up with our group of friends at the base of the John Hancock after walking from 23^rd St. on the South Side, needless to say I was ready for a rest.  This was good because we had planned to go up to the bar on the 96^th floor. This was actually cheaper and higher than the observation deck. I had a Goose Island and some girly drink on the menu. I then proceeded to snap some pictures of the Chicago skyline from up top. 

It was an amazing view up at the top, in fact I was told it is better than the Sears Tower. couldn't get too close to the edge because my vertigo started going like crazy. That's easily the highest I have ever been in a building. It is especially crazy because you can literally go right up to the glass if you wanted to, but I couldn't cut it. After we paid our tabs we headed towards the finest restaurant in Chicago, McDonalds.

Our trip to McDonalds took us by Gold Coast Lamborghini so I was able to see the all mighty Veyron in person. As I stood there staring at it I couldn't help but think how lucky someone must be to own such a magnificent piece of machinery. The grills, the brakes, the interior, the engine, everything has been looked at with the utmost scrutiny. It is a truly beautiful piece of machinery. This is a definite must stop for any car enthusiast as the Veyron is the pinnacle of automotive excellence. The price to own one is reported as $1,000,000 but that won't get you anywhere near owning one. I was unable to speak with an associate, but I have heard of some crazy price tags for Veyrons. Because of the extreme price the car is roped off behind a velvet rope to keep the public from putting their fingerprints on it. 

Since I live for adventure, I decided to get the best shot possible of the engine I would have to hold my camera perilously over the car. I couldn't help but think about how much money it would take to repair the car if someone would happen to drop a heavy camera on it. After I snapped the picture I quickly returned to the safe zone behind the velvet rope.

I opted to skip the McDonald's goodness and take in as much as possible with the cars in their showroom, including another trip over to the Veyron. 

Unfortunately as I met up with my friends at McDonalds I had found out that Amir, the accident-prone guy that he is, managed to severely sprain his ankle and was sitting at the table with his foot propped up on a chair and a bag of ice over it. We decided to return to the hotel and rest up before the Xavier/UCLA game later on that night. From then on out I decided not to bring my camera. It instead, rested safely back in the hotel room for the remainder of the evening.
Sunday was rather uneventful, we met up at my friend's condo to get organized for the trip home. The weather turned dreary so nobody really felt like sight seeing. Instead we headed out in the early afternoon to return home.

Sorry for the abrupt ending to the post, I have sat here typing this entire story with few breaks and I am pretty much through with typing. Keep an eye out for yet another trip, this time to Washington D.C. to snap some pictures of during the end of the Cherry Blossom season. Lets hope for good weather!