Upde Designs

Happy Thursday.  I grabbed a sandwich yesterday and headed out with my camera for my lunch hour.  There were high puffy clouds in the dark blue sky so it was a great time to find something to shoot.

I was looking for some wildlife or a barn that I haven’t shot before.  The problem is that for last few years I have made images of almost all the interesting barns around the Maquoketa area.  I was coming back into town feeling like a wasted trip when I glanced over at the Maquoketa airport and saw a large plane sitting on the tarmac.  I need to check this out I said to myself.

This is a Mitsubishi MU-2 Solitaire (MU-2B-40) twin-engine turbo prop owned and operated by Chartair out of Maquoketa, Iowa.  I talked with the attendant at the airport who said that I could photograph the airplane.  When the pilot started the right engine he ran the throttle up to full speed for a long time.  The noise was deafening and I wondered what would happen to us (standing there) if one of those blades broke off.  🙂  Then he did the same thing to the left engine.  In the image above he is just starting the left engine and the right engine is running so fast that I could only see the faintest outline of the prop.

It didn’t take long once he was airborne to get out of sight.  The attendant told me that it would be just a few minutes and he would land in Cedar Rapids and pick up his passengers and then it was a couple of hours flight to Boston Massachusetts.  I asked him why he ran the engines up so high for such a long period of time.  His comment was that he had to build up the oil heat and pressure because if he didn’t it would cool too quickly at the higher altitude and create a problem for the engine and ultimately for the airplane.  😦

So you never know what you’re likely to find when you have a camera in hand and need a picture for your daily 365 project.  Thanks for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your Thursday and be careful.

I’ll show some more images from Mark’s big day.  After we finally got out of the parking lot we met Angie, Ben, Joshua, and Gabby at Montage in downtown Cedar Falls.  Mark has worked there all through college and has learned a lot about people, sales, and has developed an excellent work ethic.

When we went in the restaurant the owner happened to be standing at the reception desk and we asked him for Mark’s table.   He asked us if we were Mark’s parents and when we said we were he got this serious look on his face and said, “Mark is the best bar manager I have ever had, period.  He will do well in life, he is an excellent employee.   🙂

Mark and Taylor were already at the restaurant.  The advantage of knowing where to park.  They were at Montage about 10 minutes after we all left the auditorium.  Montage is a very upscale (translation = expensive) restaurant that is on Main Street in downtown Cedar Falls.  Their wine glasses have a small logo marking the half way point on the glass.  The rule is that you “will not” go above that line (i.e. you get a half glass of wine.)  $10 for a half glass.  Mark says, it is all about the experience not the price.  🙂

It was a great experience and a wonderful day to celebrate Mark’s accomplishments.  I have a few more images from the day that I will show at some point.  Now that warmer weather is here and the days are getting longer hopefully I can find some interesting things to capture images of.

Thank you for stopping by the blog.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Great day Saturday.  Not a lot of commentary on my part needed for this post.  Just some neat images to remember Mark’s special day.

Proud moment for any parent, when their child receives their diploma.  Both of our children worked hard for their education and we are extremely proud of them both.

Mark and Angie share a moment after the graduation.  My only negative feedback of the day was that they scheduled the two graduations too close together.  By the time people left the auditorium the parents and graduates for the second ceremony.

Mark and Taylor after the graduation.  The parking lot and the streets around the University were  in complete gridlock.  We sat for 35 minutes in a line that didn’t move.  Finally some of the maintenance people from the college came to the parking lot and got things moving.

I’ll have more of Mark’s celebration later.  Enjoy your Monday and thank you for supporting the blog.  Be careful.

Happy Saturday.  It is in deed a happy day.  In a few minutes we will be on our way to Cedar Falls, Iowa to watch Mark graduate from UNI.  Proud moment for all of us.

Today I thought I would finish up the Green Island shoot.  Not that I saved my best for last because I didn’t.  Most of what I have here are butt shots and “it don’t fit in any category” type shots.

Above is a butt shot and a profile in one.  These turtles were out sunning themselves.  In fact there were quite a lot of turtles at Green Island on Sunday.  We had to drive around one on the roadway.  The pretty much were everywhere.

I think this is just a common sparrow.  So combine an unattractive, common bird with a butt shot and you have the making for a winner.  If anyone would like to buy this image completely framed I would be honored.  🙂

Sometimes Nature can be sad.  This red-tailed hawk has an injured wing (or at least it appeared to be his wing.)  We watched him for quite a while struggle in the brush trying to get away from us.  He more climbed and clawed his way onto this tree than fly.

We never approached him just sat in our car and watched.  There was a big canal between us and him.  I felt like I should have reported it to someone but wasn’t sure who that would be.

I took this shot because I have never seen a couple of geese with just one gosling.  I don’t know if that is all they had or if they lost the rest to predators.  I don’t really want to know.  We saw another couple (a few posts ago) with a really large brood and then in the next pond over we saw this image.

That’s it for the Green Island shoot.  If you like wildlife shots then I’m sorry it is over.  If you don’t then you’re happy it’s over.  I will more than likely have hundreds of images from today.  Hope they come out okay.

Enjoy your day.  Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.

Happy Friday.  I thought I would show you a few more of my images from last Sunday’s trip to Green Island.  This little guy is the male version of the Yellow-rumped warbler.  I do not believe they are indigenous to this area and are migrating North but there were a lot of them at Green Island on Sunday.

These were the only goslings we saw.  Lots of adult geese but none of them had little ones following them.  This brood seems a bit early to me as I have not seen any young ones at the duck pond either and I was there yesterday.

Speaking of young.  I am very proud of our Son Mark.  He graduates from the University of Norther Iowa tomorrow.  A very proud moment for us and any parent for that matter.  He has faced some difficult challenges and handled them like a man and fought through some adversity never losing sight of his goals or values.  Great job Mark.

Another image of a Great Egret.  This one was deep in the tall weeds when we first saw him.  We set very still for a long time as he was walking through the brush and into open water.  I showed an image of him earlier in the week walking stealthily.  This is a few moments after that shot and he has just nailed a small fish or minnow.  You can click on the image to make it larger.

I guess I never thought about how they get their catch down their throat.  He contorted his head a few times (I guess to stun the minnow or crush it) and then threw it up in the air and caught it so that it was in-line with his throat.  Pretty neat the way they do that.  I had never seen that before.

Well that’s it for today.  Can’t wait for tomorrow and Mark’s big day.  Enjoy your Friday (there are only 52 of them a year you know) and as always thank you for stopping by.  Be careful.

Last night I attended one of my very favorite Rotary functions.  Each year the Maquoketa Rotary hosts the graduating seniors scholarship dinner.  The top 20 students are invited along with their parents to honor their achievements.  I am always impressed with the quality of individuals who are selected.  It says volumes about the Maquoketa School System, the teachers, and Dr. Kim Huckstead.

Rotarians introduce the students and talk about a list of their accomplishments.  The students fill out a short bio of themselves as well.  The thing that always impresses me is how much credit each student gives to their parents involvement and support in their life.

There was one family there who had 4 previous children all whom attended previous scholarship dinners.  It is a clear fact just how much difference parents make in the lives of their children.  If you have any doubt about the future generation be less troubled.  There are a lot of great young people who still have strong values and a desire to make a difference.  I saw 20 of them last night.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Happy Hump Day.   On our way back from Green Island Sunday, we called the kids to see if they would like some treats from Dairy Queen (as an excuse to drop by) and they agreed.  So when we pulled into Dairy Queen there was a big sign posted, “closed for remodeling” and just the shell of the building was there.  Now I’m not the brightest light bulb in hallway of life but it occurs to me if you’re going to do a remodel on a Dairy Queen, why wouldn’t you do it off-season?

Anyway isn’t this a nice looking family taking a Sunday afternoon stroll?

Josh is pretty good on this little bike.  It is foot powered (no peddles just feet) and he can get up a pretty good speed.  Then he will lift his legs and balance on two wheels.  I know I was a lot older than 2.5 years when I could do that.   He looked pretty cool in his shades and with his helmet on.

All kids are naturally attracted to “Momma Jeanne.”  She has such a warm, caring persona about her and children sense that very quickly.  I am very lucky.  🙂

That’s it for today.  One of these days I’m going to have more time to pontificate but today as usual I’m pinched for time.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your middle of the week work day (for some of us anyway) and be careful.

I know that butt shots are not a good thing but in this case it helped me identify (again I think) the little bird I showed you yesterday.  I believe the bird is a Yellow-rumped Warbler (female.)  I also have several shots of the male Warbler.

The other image I wanted to show you today is the Great  Egret.   There were a lot of them at Green Island.  They were difficult to capture however.  Just when I would get to the limits of my lens they would fly away.  This guy I took many minutes to slowly move forward.  I would wait until he was doing something or looking the other way and then move up a few feet and then sit for a little while.

That’s all I have time for today.  Lots more to show you as the week unfolds.  I did stop at the duck pond yesterday after work.  It was glassy smooth and full to the brim.  Lots of nesting geese there and other migratory birds flying about.  It does my heart good to see it back in its full glory again.

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and be careful.

Happy Monday.  It’s here and we might as well enjoy it.  🙂  Yesterday Jeanne and I spent the afternoon at Green Island.  The weather was very nice and lots of white puffy clouds in the sky so it was a great day to watch wildlife and capture some images of them.

Jeanne suggested that I make a check list for my camera and shooting situations after yesterday.  On many DSLRs you can set up custom shooting banks and menus so that most of the changes for a particular type of shoot are already programmed into the camera.  I’m reasonably careful about checking my ISO, aperture settings, and exposure compensation values (which can all be put in a custom menu item) but the one thing I forgot to do was to check the switch on the 500 mm lens to enable image stabilization.

If you remember last week I took some images of the morning moon with the 500 mm lens and I used it on my tripod.  I turned the image stabilization function off because it was on a tripod and I forgot to turn it back on.  So yesterday when the shutter speed dropped below 1/1000 of a second I had some soft images.  Disappointing because there were some otherwise nice images that would have been sharp had the stabilization been turned on.  Sigh!

I had the ISO set to 400 and my f-stop to 8 so with the lighting conditions most of the time the shutter was in the 1/1250 sec range.  The first image is of a rather messy male and female Shoveler Duck (I think.)  I looked for similar ducks in my trusty field guide but I’m not a bird expert.  I just like capturing their image.

The image above is the fearless and very common red wing black bird.  This is the best image I have ever captured of one.  Because they are mainly black it is hard to capture the detail of the bird.  The light was right and I was close enough to him that I got a pretty good shot.

I think this is a female purple finch but to be totally honest, I don’t have a clue.  I’m not a bird enthusiast.  I like to take their images, and watch them but that’s it.  🙂  I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what this bird is and I’m still not sure.  Help Andreas!  Whoops, late again.  That’s it for today.  Lots to show you as the week progresses.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your day and please be careful.

Happy Friday.  There really isn’t any story behind this image.  I know my friend Betty loves to look at images of Canadian Geese so this image is for her.  🙂

I received a nice email from a friend from the past.  I found Diana (Jones) on FB last week and sent her a friend request.  I’m starting to connect with my lifelong friends from my old home town and it is really fun reading about them and trying to fill in the gaps.

Diana and I were friends all through high school.  We never dated,  but were buddies.  We were King and Queen at home-coming our senior year and in the year book we were voted seniors most likely to succeed.  I’m not sure how you define success.  If it means acquiring vast sums of money than nope I haven’t done that by any stretch of the imagination.  I’ve always worked to be the best that I can be and contribute whenever I can.  So I’m not sure what level of success I have achieved, but I’m not done yet either. 🙂

Anyway it was sure great to catch up with Diana and my friend Melinda.  I want to know what they’ve been doing the last 40 years so it’s going to take some time.  I was never much of a fan of FB.  I only got on it originally to stay connected to my kids.  Kids tend to communicate more on FB then they do in person at a certain stage.  Over the years I’ve added friends as we all do and now it is great fun to finally being able to see what my Ridgeway family has been doing with their lives.

Been a busy week at work.  I’m working on a new training program that I’ll be rolling out in a couple of weeks.  Also I have been trying to keep up to speed on this monster they call “the affordable health care act.”  Talk about an oxymoron.  There is nothing affordable about the damn thing.  When the leadership of the Democratic party  (who by the way are the ones who wrote and passed this thing) say it is a train wreck, that pretty much sums it up.  And as bad as it is now….  Wait for 2014.

I’ve been attending seminars and training on the plan since January.  Wow what a mess.

Anyway, I’m done pontificating for now.  Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your Friday and be careful.