A Pair of Planes

As I had a little time after lunch, I decided to go out behind our office.  If there are planes doing touch and goes at Ann Arbor Airport, I can sometimes see them as they pass overhead.

This is a Cessna 172 from the Ann Arbor Airport. 

Obviously this 737 was not from Ann Arbor Airport, but I was still able to get a picture of it.

Some Autumn Leaves

There were still some leaves on the trees in front of the office.  I think they looked kind of cool.

 I kind of liked the colors in this.

 I really liked this one.

And some of the cherries on the cherry maple.

Oddities at Work

We get some odd look parts at work.   Many of them are electropolished for use in their application.  This makes them pretty shiny.

When you look at them at odd angles, you get some pretty cool effects.  Like this piece.

The Right Honorable Paul J. Martin Passes by Under Cover of Darkness

Even though I wasn't having much luck catching the Aurora, I decided to stick around because there would be a ship passing by.  I've only done night shots of moving ships a couple of times.  I figured with my new camera, I could bump the film speed up enough to catch it.

 Well it sort of worked, I don't think the shutter speed was fast enough.  I didn't want to try to bump the film speed up much more though.

 I kind of liked this one.  I have a feeling I might have had better luck shooting from Sarnia though.  I may have to try that next time.

 She is about to pass the casino.

 She passes the casino.

This was probably my favorite one of the bunch.  I would love to try this again but I think I may have to go down to Cleveland where there is better lighting over the water.

The Blue Water Bridge at Night

Next I headed up to the Blue Water Bridge.  Like I said, I was hoping that I might see some over the Lake.  Well they didn't materialize but I had a chance for some night shots of the bridge.

 For as cool as it looks in the daylight, it looks even cooler lit up.

 Especially when you see the reflections from the lights on the water.

 I decided to pull back a little bit to get some of the lights from the side.

And one more shot of her.

The Sten Baltic Docked

I saw that there was the potential for the Aurora Borealis tonight, so I decided to head up to Port Huron because I figured I might have a chance of seeing them over Lake Huron.  I've wanted to do night shots for a while up there, especially some of the ships.  So if I didn't see the Aurora Borealis, I figured it would be a wash.

 First up was one of the ships that was docked over on the Sarnia side.  In this case the Sten Baltic which is a Norwegian Flagged Tanker.  She is owned by Rederiet Stenersen and was built in 2005.

 I think she may be new to the lakes.

And the only real difference between these pictures is the exposure settings.  I think I like the middle one the best.

A Year of the Chessie Cat

One year ago today, Chessie entered my life.  I didn't think I was going to get a new cat so quickly after Zappa died but it was tough not hearing the sounds of a cat around.

She has different quirks than Zappa but she is still a pretty cool cat.  So I guess I can call this her birthday.