What? No work on the holiday? Egads!

This is the first time during a holiday weekend I haven't had to work, which having a position at a newspaper.

And what a nice weekend it was! I went to a parade without the stress of chasing people to get names -- I did take my camera because it felt weird not taking it. What if something happened? I was ready (truth be told I even had a reporter's notebook and pens in my cargo shorts).

This is Lilly pre-parade being held by Cindy pre-parade. I shot this photo with my new 200 mm F2.8 lens that I love. I wanted the one with image stabilization, but it was $700 more, and I don't do that much low light stuff. It's nice for shooting portraits and sneaking up on the kids.

Well I shot General Canby Day Parade (here are some of the photos) out of habit, and got some decent photos. Nothing spectacular.

EDIT: Now you all see why I am a reporter at the Wilsonville Spokesman, and NOT a computer programmer. These photos are hosed on here. :) I tried to get tricky and mess with the code, thinking my experience 13 years ago in PASCAL class would help me. HA! Anyway, I have edited this entry to hopefully let you view the photos and have my explanation make some sense. Note to self: Leave computer stuff to Cindy, she has a bigger CPU.

I think the lady in red throwing candy is Paul Carlson's wife, he went to George Fox with Cindy and I and played in the band for chapel. Nice guy who now does investment banking. Normally I would submit this for the paper just because I love her expression -- and it's funny to put people with weird faces in the paper. :)

Buzz Weigand (spelling?) on his tractor. He is a farmer here in town who has been involved with the industrial park. He and I butted heads on occasion back when I was playing politician, but he pointed and waved at me at the parade, so I guess all is forgiven.

The industrial park is really growing and the connectivity from South Canby to Highway 99E is getting better with two other routes besides Ivy. This won't make sense to most of you, but needless to say, there are several new ways to get to our house that don't require driving all over a subdivision. Which is nice.

I have no idea who this lady (in the truck) is, and if I was working the parade, I would have run after the truck, then, while walking next to her, asked her name and how to spell it. I probably would have gotten it wrong, in which case on Monday I would have contacted the General Canby Day chairman, given them the number showing on the windshield and then called the owner of the truck and gotten the name. I hate covering parades -- mostly because of running with 25-pounds of camera gear just isn't fun.

I like the wheelie shot, if it was in focus.

Cindy and I questioned the decision to zoom up and down the parade route before the parade started pulling wheelies -- remember this parade is the one that hurt some folks when a horse got away. All it would have taken is one kid or family trying to cross the street before the parade started and it could have been bad. But nothing happened, so in my world, no harm, no foul. :)

Plus is was cool to try to get a shot. I was trying to shoot manual, so had I jacked up the shutter speed I think the motorcyle would have been in focus.

Pat