Doug’s Neighborhood

Looks like there was finally a cold spell long enough in Houston to get all the leaves to change color. The latest firmware for the 5800 definitely improved the camera...of course so does manual user settings.

I had meant to post more while I was traveling, but didn't have enough time or the processing power to do the photos justice.  So here are the highlights from my 2 week trip in China, from Guangzhou to Shanghai to Changchun.  See all the photos here China.

This is a pretty boring video of my Taxi ride through Guangzhou, but it gives you a sense of what the place is like.

The city where my Mom's family came from and the birthplace of Cantonese (it
used to be called Canton). Anyway, spent a night there, but really didn't
get to see the city at all. Here's some views from my hotel room. The
hotel was on the campus of Guangzhou university.

Stopped in Tokyo for my last leg to Shanghai. Stopped in the news stand to
pick up some Green tea flavored Kit Kat and a water. Yum Yum!

Just landed in Minneapolis. First leg down, 2 more to go.

I moved down here to get away from that stuff.

The day after we got back from Big Bend, Dave and I went over to Doug's for a Turkey day celebration.  We had all the fixin's, stuffing, cranberry sauce in a can, waldorf salad, mashed potatoes, and of the course the turkey...Yum, yum.  Deb slaved away in the kitchen for us, so I brought her bag o' mini Toblerone as thanks.  Had fun hanging with the cats and finishing the build of Doug's beast.  Had a few issues, but now the bugs are worked out.

So again Doug, Jim, and I went on our annual trip to Big Bend, but this year we added a new addition, Dave.  We definitely slowed down the picture taking this year and concentrated on making better images. In 5 days, I only ended up taking 1600 images.  That's a crazy low number for me.  Here's some highlights below.  All the images can be seen here Big Bend 2009.

On a grueling hike to Cat Tail Falls...we found many hot photos.  Unfortunately, there were no photos of Waterfalls.  It was merely wet rocks.

 
Here's a picture of the BB crew...in some hot lighting