A new life; same as the old life?

Not sure this is working so well with firefox, but seems to be fine with Internet Explorer. If you cannot view it, search on youtube for Rodney Atkins - Cleaning This Gun.

The brakes on my truck have been squealing for the past several weeks, and I have been meaning to get around to fixing them. However, I remember how tricky they were on my MGB; so I was kinda procrastinating. I enlisted the help of a friend and we were off; and it was actually very simple. I wanted to get the discs(rotors) reground as well, but they turned out to be too far gone for that, so I bought new ones, at a mere $40 a piece, a snip I thought. I got two sets of middle range pads, and two front discs for $160 all in. Plus, the pads are lifetime, so if they EVER wear down whilst I own the truck, they will replace them. 2.5 hours later, including the trip to the store to buy the parts, no more squeaking, yay!

This it the tourist slogan for Illinois , a play on the name of the main shopping street in Chicago. IE there are more miles worth seeing in Illinois than just the Magnificent Mile; or at least that's how I interpret it. So this weekend, we decided to see if it was true. As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot more photography wise, and one of those guys I have been working with runs his own business doing "Photo Safaris". Well on Sunday Gary was running an aerial safari from Rockford "International" Airport. Gary actually runs some really cool safaris, both locally and around the world. Click here or on the logo for more info. I could have gone myself for the two hour flight in a Cessna, over Rockford, Galena and the Mississippi river, but we decided it was a good way to start to prove/disprove the Illinois tourist board, and take the whole family; with a view of seeing what we came across on the journey worth doing. We left home around 10:30 on Satu...

As you no doubt saw below, Addison went of to school this month. That's about as much excitement as we have had, although we did finish the plans for the kitchen upgrade (more on that in a separate post) We just got back from the UK, and I have been working to upload all the photos we took there and since we returned..here they are. Browse at your leisure, but here are a couple of my recent favourites. Random pictures of the kids from September 2010 A weekend trip to Center Parcs A day out at Longleat Safari Park Fall festival at the local nature center A day out with some colleagues down in Chicago Fright Fest 2010 - Six Flags Great America

Addison's first day of ( pre ) school was on Tuesday, about a month late due to our travels, but we pay by the month, and only for those that she attends, so it was all good. It's strange, it wasn't as poignant as I thought it would be. In my head, I had this whole image of tearful mother, tearful child wistfully looking back at mum as she went into school; returning hours later to regale us in great detail, with tales of the exciting new things she did whilst there. I don't know what it was or wasn't. - It is only pre- school, so it is more playing than actual learning - She wore similar clothes to those which she wears on a daily basis - The whole morning was rushed as we ended up being late - We both went into the classroom with her, and settled her in - When I left it was pretty much, "see ya!" - Lorraine stayed for about 40 minutes and actually ended up participating All in all, I guess I feel cheated. It bodes well for later schooling that she was ab...

Photo 365 projects are becoming very popular with amateur photographers trying to hone their craft. As some of you may know, I have been working on my skills for the last year or so, including joining a camera club, taking a few on-line lessons in the technical skills and even been on a few photo safari’s under instruction by a local guy. So I decided to try it. Basically you have to take a picture every day and post it to your photo 365 blog. Obviously, the intent is to look for different subjects, use different techniques, and force yourself to look for original and unusual ideas. I am not sure how much time I will have for this, or even if I am inventive enough, so I guess we will see, but I fully intend to see it through, even if some days are a little late. My first four efforts are below. Please, please, please let me know what you think, as I would love the feedback of what you thought went well or did not. For my part I will try really hard not just take pictures of my kids ev...