I took every picture in this set using the my 18-55mm lens.   Since I only used one lens we were able to save time and get a ton of great pictures.  The previews below are the ones I have been allowed to share as some of the better ones  are being used for the Windsor XMas cards (which are top secret)!  Enjoy!

A little Photoshop to take out a pair of white socks

A little HDR fun

I can't believe I was able to get the balloon in focus

Never take a child's balloon away

The distraction!

I was tempted to crop this one more but the whole scene was peaceful

One wrong turn leaving Hampton Park turned into an awesome opportunity!

That is it!  Thanks again to the Windsor’s for taking a risk on an amateur.  These guys are a picture perfect family so if you liked what you saw I can only take so much credit!  I can’t wait to see the XMas cards

Dusty’s Last Hoorah!

March started out with a bang with Dusty’s Bachelor Party in Orlando Florida.  While I can’t post much about the experience…  I can say it was a blast!

Dusty's BP

ZJ

ZJ continues to grow at an unbelievable pace.   If you haven’t seen it yet check out Video Clip’s of our Growing Son!  ZJ is currently 15 lbs.

Growing Strong

Fire Scare

While Lauren Cattaneo and Lissa (who always seems to bring the heat) were in town we came home to a 2 alarm fire in our townhouse complex!  Scary day.  Jess Zaks and Lauren came to Maddy and Molly’s rescue and put them in Jess’s car while the fire was extinguished.

Fire Damage

Forced Vacation

I apparently accumulated too much vacation over the last 6 months and was forced to take an unscheduled break from the daily grind.  I happened to play the break during St. Patricks day and Chris Odom saved the day by coming to Charleston to party it up!  It was great to catch up and slam a few car bombs with a good friend.  The day after St. Patricks day we were pretty hung over so we decided to do something fun and sober so we checked out the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum.

This picture cracks me up!

March Madness

Maryland’s defeat was brutal and my bracket is shot.  Enough said

Work Projects

1.  I am still working on Dunn & Bradstreet Reverse Transition Application Inventory & Compliance.  I have learned some interesting processes on managing application inventory, licensing and compliance.

2.  I am starting up my role as PM in charge of managing all items network related in a mainframe migration for Zurich.  We are moving a Mainframe from a Zurich Data Center in LA to a CSC Data Center (CDC) in Chicago.  Hopefully I can find an excuse to travel to either as I would love to see the Piaggi’s in LA or the (soon to be) Walkers in Chicago.

Personal Projects

Small projects moving along.

1.  My projects for Paula vW. Dail, PhD are almost complete

writingladllc.com

MemoriesofyouBook.com

2.  We just updated melissabarrickphotography.com to ProPhoto 3

3.  I need to build Casey Spears http://prestonlandscaping.com/.  Thank you Casey for your patience.

4.  I finally finished creating Erin Shaklee’s DVD of her wedding.  It includes a short video that is fun to watch

5.  I need to make Jimmy and Christa’s wedding video.  Now that I am done Erin’s I can get to it.

Fun Month coming up…

April 9th - Lance Visits Charleston to meet ZJ  We also timed his trip right so he could catch…

Spiritual Rez plays Sunday April 11th @ Chai’s Lounge & Tapa’s.  It is definitely the best place in Charleston to watch them play and grab a drink.  If you have no plans definitely come.

April 23rd – Mom & Pop’s fly down from Maryland for ZJ’s Baptism

April 25th – ZJ gets Baptized

April 27th – ZJ’s Half Birthday!  6 Months Old

April 28th – Taylor visits Charleston!

*

That’s it for now.  I hope everyone has a good April Fools planned

Update:
Davin sent pics!

(click image to see screenshot)

Update: I Won the League!

First lets talk about going to an Optometrist to get your glasses. Yes, you have to go to an Optometrist every once in a while. Prescriptions change and you need to check on the health of your eyes (especially if you wear contacts). Now that I have covered that lets talk about why you should limit your trips to the Optometrist to checkups and prescriptions only. Lets take a look at my last bill to the Optometrist.

Around $400 bucks. Sounds about right. $300 after insurance (I pay for vision insurance with my company). Lets look at the charges.

Eye Exam – $125. Insurance covers $95. Cool.
Eye Glasses Frame – $120
Basic No Coatings Lenses – $75
- Anti Reflective Coating would have cost an additional $75

Contact Lens Fit – I have to vent here. When I was done the exam the Optometrist offered to let me try on a pair of contacts. I thought this was a courtesy. The second I put them in… WHAM, “By the way that will be $80″. $25 bucks a pop for each contact lens and $80 bucks for him standing next to me while I did it! Don’t you think he should have mentioned these charges when he told me to try them on? WTF!

Ok, I am getting off topic. Now that I have reviewed my last experience with the Optometrist lets review my experience today purchasing eye glasses online.

First thing I did was google “Buy Eye Glasses Online”. Eventually I found my way to a good article on 43 Folders called Adventures in $40 eyeglasses. I recommend reading this later as Matthew Haughey has some good information on the monopoly Optometrist and vendors like LensCrafters® have on us. Eventually after reading this article as well as a couple others I found out that you need A copy of your prescription, pupil distance, and Frame size.

• A copy of your prescription can be obtained by calling your last Optometrist and asking them to fax it over (or go there and get a copy). I called mine and he was happy to do it. He seemed to know what I was up to and started throwing me offers. I declined and said I might be back to see him after shopping around.
• Pupil distance can be found on your prescription but it is kind of hard to read. You can ask your last Optometrist or figure it out yourself .
• Frame Size can be found by looking at a previous pair of glasses that fit. I had the biggest confusion figuring out what each measurement was. This image answered all questions I had on what was what. It turns out your glasses actually have the dimensions written on the inside of the frame (they were written on the left side of mine)

Once you have these numbers you are good to go. I just purchased a pair for $49.95 from GlassesUSA.com. I decided to get the Thin Light Polycarbonate Lenses (+$35.00) with Anti-Reflective coating (+$14.95) –I highly recommend the Anti-Reflective coating as it makes photographs of you better because of less lens glare. Grand total, $99.90 for a pair of glasses that would normally run around $300.

If you are looking for a better deal on contacts I recommend 1800contacts.com. I have been using them for over 6 years now and have no complaints. Keep in mind they do require you to provide an proof of prescription within the year before shipping.

In short. Visit the Optometrist to get your eyes checked out, then buy your glasses and contacts online. You can save hundreds of dollars. If you are worried about choosing a pair you don’t like go to a store and check out the brands and try them on. Then write the brand/type down, go home, google the brand/type and find the same pair for hundreds cheaper.

I hope some of you 4 eyed nerds found this article useful! Write a comment if you did!

Here is a screenshot of my Parent’s house in Shipley’s Choice.

It was great to be back last week to see everyone. Last night I uploaded pictures from last week to my Flickr account. Thanksgiving in Annapolis is classic. I hope everyone back home has a great Christmas holiday!

Subscriber Memo: You were probably confused to receive an email from admin. I recently updated WordPress and forgot to change my name and email address. This has been fixed.

Katie and Clifton have started a blog to share Finley with family and friends.

http://finleyanne.blogspot.com/.

I hope to get Katie on TokBox soon so I can see Finley soon!

Love your new family . Hope to see you soon.

http://www.tokbox.com

TokBox is both a web application and a stand alone application (like AIM, MSN Messanger, Google Talk and Yahoo Chat). The stand alone application is great because you can leave it on enabling you to receive calls when you are at your computer and not visiting the tokbox webpage. Here is a screenshot of it in action.

TokBox enables you to easily leave video messages, start a video call and group video call with up to 6 people! This application is going to grow like wildfire. It is free and you can get it right now.

1. Register a user
2. At the bottom of your screen click the downloads button
3. Click the “Get it Now” button under “TokBox AIR Desktop Client” (works on both PC and Mac)

After the Desktop Client installs you are good to go. You have to signin to the webpage to manage things like uploading your picture and searching for friends. You can add me by signing in and typing Zane Perry in the search window found at the upper right of the page. My name will pop up and you just click the “Add Friend” button. Friend requests require approval so you are protected from strangers you don’t know.

Some notes I think users should know about,

1. To set up your camera and mic click settings, click on the camera that works, click next, click the audio that is visually receiving your voice (say “test” and you will see movement in the audio levels if you have a mic hooked up), click next and click done.
2. While chatting with someone there seems to be a bug when pasting a link (it sends html code and you can’t even copy and paste). I have sent them a message in there forum to notify them of this bug.
3. Adding more then one person to your video chat is as easy as dragging the name from your “Buddy List” to the video chat window.
4. If you use AIM, MSN Messanger, Yahoo or Google Talk your in luck. TokBox has built in integration. You can sign into all 4 with the client. You can even start video chats with users who do not have tokbox but I have not had a chance to test this function yet.
5. I would edit your mail settings. Your inbox gets full once you start playing with this. You can edit email settings by signing into the web page and clicking the account link.

I hope you found this information beneficial and hope to start video chatting with many of you soon! Keep in touch!

Great time! Second time Whitewater Rafting. First time on level 5 Rapids.

Boat One (from camera’s perspective)
Left = Mehdi, Hannon, McKenny, Guide
Right = Zane, Ben, Joe, Voluse

Boat Two (from camera’s perspective)
Left = Sam, Seward & Couple
Right = Ben ,Sean, Andy, Joel

Andy found Class VI for the Rafting – and camped at the Mountain State Campground.

Photo’s from the trip.