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We did our yearly PAWS fund raising in front of Walmart this year. Its a no kill animal shelter. In 2 hours dawn and I were able to swindle 208.60 cents out of the little old ladies.

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10ft wave pool

Stars, Spaceships, and Planets...

Last night I chased the ISS and I ended up getting some of the best pictures I have taken of the ISS. You have about 4 minutes to shoot it as it goes across the sky at roughly 17,000mph. I used the 7D along with a 2x converter on my Bigma 500mm lens on a monopod. Here is last nights picture:




Venus has been very bright in the western evening sky just after the sun goes down. Actually the planets line up in the western sky. Shot with a 40d and a Tokina 11-16 wide angle on a tripod. Here is a picture and then one with labels:



And I also caught Venus and the Big Dipper in one shot...all of these shots were done with just my camera, no scope. Again 40d with the Tokina 11-16 on a tripod.

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Batting cage is up and works perfectly. Now hopefully the rain holds off!!

Next Years Quest....

I'm going to be a certified Warrior next year.....I'm going to do the Warrior Dash... I missed this years event. Anyone want to become a certified warrior with me? Let me know!

www.warriordash.com

Looks Fun!

Backyard Batting Cage...bring on the kids...

After watching the last tournament, I decided to do something about Macey's batting skills. I want her to do better with the bat. So, I'm taking it upon myself to build my own batting cage. Since she is a pitcher as well, it will have a dual purpose. She can pitch in it and also bat in it.

Now after some research I quickly determined that the money to buy one of these was quite steep. So I thought I could build one, if I could get the net. Turns out the net is the most expensive item and they range from 199, the cheapest price I found all the way up to 600 bucks for a net 12x12x55. Thats alot of money...wow!I thought about trying to get a fishing net or a custom net but again, the prices were outrageous.
So I did find one for 199, nothing else even came close. Its a little bigger than I needed but a little over hang isn't all bad. Plus I like that I can change the ends. It comes in three pieces.



I'm also going rig the garage so I can set this up in the garage for those rainy days. Obviously I won't be able to use the full 55 feet but three cars across will get me 30 feet at least.

Now this is basically the structure I'm going for:


I've ordered most of the parts. All I need to do is go to Menards and get the posts. 28, 3/4 inch tubing in 10 ft sections. Put this all together, drape the netting over the top and we should be looking at a pretty big eye sore in the back yard. :-)
I also picked up a pitching machine with 12 dozen balls and it looks something like this. Now this machine will pitch baseballs and softballs up to 60mph.


Now I know I have baseball playing boys behind us, and also next door to us. You think they will notice this thing sitting in my yard?

I'll post some pictures once it is all done and setup....

Oh yeah, I also got a home plate, an L fence to set the pitching machine behind, and a pitching target to hang in the tunnel to go above the plate so you have your strike zone you are pitching into.

Quite a project.....should be fun to play with!

It's been a long month...

What am I up to...or have I been up to...

I shot some graduation pictures for my Nephew Cody...


Then he came over for a shoot for his mom...pictures turned out pretty well....I thought...



The rest are on my site...

My newest project... a backyard batting/pitching cage...

OH YEAH!!!

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More on this in the next post...