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Three Corners– Up!

Posted on October 31, 2008

This months theme cho­sen by Jenty was Look Up!  I loved this theme because I’m con­stantly look­ing up.  I love the archi­tec­ture here in Man­ches­ter and that draws my eye up.  I tried to get all artsy fartsy on this theme but in the end I was drawn to these three photos.

Did any­one join us this month?  Go over and see what Jenty and Corey came up with this month.  Also wanted to men­tion that the sky is almost always gray here which is why my pho­tos look like they are blown out/over exposed.  What lit­tle bit of blue sky there is when I take the photo just does not appear on my pho­tos.  If I could fix that I would!  Sadly I live in the UK’s ver­sion of Sea­tle– gray and rainy but with crappy cof­fee (I got the cof­fee bit from Sub­ur­ban Mum)

Tomor­row I’ll talk about  how Squidge ended up on the cover of the Man­ches­ter Ikea cat­a­logue.

Tantrumz, Antz in your Pantz & Ikea Rockz!!

Posted on October 30, 2008

Yes­ter­day Squidge had a grade A choice cut prime qual­ity tantrum!  In the carpark/parking lot out­side of Toys­Rus.  It was soo much fun– I can’t even begin to describe how much fun it was.  I had gone to Next to see if I could find some cheapy black shoes.  I wanted to take our xmas card photo and she doesn’t own any black shoes.  A waste of a trip.  It was look­ing really gray and decided I would take pho­tos some other day.  Squidge needed to pee so off to Toys-R-Us.  It’s some kind of cos­mic joke that the only places with pub­lic toi­lets are TRU or Bor­ders.  I was on the wrong end for Bor­ders so off to TRU we went.  We spent some time there look­ing around and play­ing.  All the while I was telling her she couldn’t have any­thing.  She was OK with this.  In the end I thought she was being really good so I’d buy her a lit­tle bal­loon.  Noth­ing major just a lit­tle bal­loon.  As we waited to pay she started to act up.  I told her a cou­ple of times to get up off the floor.  She didn’t.  I told her one more time to get up or we would leave with­out the bal­loon.  You know where this is head­ing right.  So I took the bal­loon off her, hauled her up over my shoul­der and out we went.  The entire time she was scream­ing NO MOMMY! PWEASE!!! NO MOMMY! NO MOMMY! MOMMY PWEASE!!!  We spent about 10 min­utes with me try­ing to get her in the car.  She would stiffen up like a 2x4 when­ever I tried putting her in the carseat.  I would press down and she just would.not.bend.  OHMAIGAWD!!!  So I finally get my scream­ing, seething, foam­ing at the mouth mak­ing her­self sick kid in the car.  I explained to her why she didn’t get the bal­loon and that I was very sad.  Then I turned up the radio as loud as it would go to drown out her screams.  Oh yes a fun filled after­noon.   When I pulled up to the house I was glad to see that the police were NOT at my house.  I was cer­tain some con­cerned shop­per was going to called them on me.

This morn­ing we headed out to a indoor soft­play place/thingie/warehouse/hanger.  It was very nice, the place was very clean the set up was good.  We sat down at a table and watched them have a good time.  Squidge is in a really cute stage right now.  She just loves to hug and give me lots of kisses.  It’s cute and exhaust­ing at the same time.  She’s always climb­ing and jump­ing on/over me.  The other night she must have had a night­mare and she called out to me.  She wouldn’t set­tle back down so I took her into bed with me.  I woke up in the morn­ing with her cradling my head and giv­ing me kisses.  AAAAAAWW!!  It made me almost not want to kill her for wak­ing me up at 6:30!!

I want to thank my Aunt Lil­iana for the adorable coat she sent Squidge.  I’ve been try­ing to get a photo of it on but haven’t had a chance the weather has been hor­ri­ble and when I finally think I’ll be able to get out­side Squidge falls asleep!!  Hope­fully I’ll get a photo of it this weekend.

A big huge CONGRATULATIONS  to my friend Byr­ney.  She’s hav­ing a baby– woot!!  I’m vot­ing for 14th of May, my birth­day.  I think it would be funny as Squidge shares her birth­day w/ Richard, Byrney’s husband.

*FOR SALE* Nikon 55-200mm f/4.-5.6 AFS DX VR Lens *FOR SALE*

Posted on October 28, 2008

It’s a fan­tas­tic lit­tle lens.  I love it but rarely use it. I bought it in August so it really is brand new.  I just find that I tend to use my 50mm almost exclu­sively and just don’t need this lens.  I chose this lens over the 70-300mm because this one had much bet­ter reviews.  When I have used it I have been very happy with the results.  If you look on my flickr stream the pho­tos from the Pump­kin Olympics were taken with this lens.

A high-quality com­pact 3.6x DX zoom designed specif­i­cally to work with Nikon’s D80 and D40/ D40x cam­eras. The 55-200mm lens is an afford­able entry-level lens which fea­tures Nikon’s cut­ting edge Vibra­tion Reduc­tion sta­bil­i­sa­tion sys­tem and exclu­sive Silent Wave Motor for fast, quiet and pre­cise auto focusing.

Con­sid­ered to be the pio­neer of inno­v­a­tive cam­era tech­nol­ogy, Nikon is con­stantly seek­ing ways to make it pos­si­ble for pho­tog­ra­phers with any level of expe­ri­ence to get strik­ing results. With optics designed for the Nikon DX For­mat dig­i­tal SLR cam­eras, this high-performance com­pact lens deliv­ers a pic­ture angle equiv­a­lent to that of a 35mm for­mat, 82.5-300mm zoom lens, which enables users to get close to unap­proach­able subjects.

Nikon’s Vibra­tion Reduc­tion func­tion com­pen­sates for cam­era shake to pro­duce sharper, clearer pic­tures in unsteady or poorly-lit conditions.

reviews

Ken Rock­well says The Nikon 55-200mm VR is excel­lent and very inex­pen­sive. It’s the lens bar­gain of 2007.

Ama­zon UK reviews gave it 4 stars.

I’m also sell­ing my Nikon D40.  It’s less than a year old, I got it for xmas last year.  It comes with the kit lens, all of the software/manuals, a mem­ory card, an addi­tional D40 book and a cam­era bag.

Any­one inter­ested please email me lindy[dot]simon[at]gmail[dot]com

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