Jim Barraud

I’ve been pretty lax in posts around here lately due to wrapping up end of year projects at work, the holidays, and an end of the year vacation. But now the new year is upon us and it’s time to get the train a movin’ again.

Christmas vacation was a blast for several reasons. The first being it was vacation time for me and family. I pretty much disconnected myself from the outside (internet) world. I got several house projects done that the wife and I have been talking about doing over the past year. And it was pretty much a “Nintendo” christmas since Santa left a Wii for the family under the tree. And the wife and I bestowed the kids each with their own Nintendo DS for Christmas (now Daddy has someone to play with :)

But the biggest surprise for me was the gift from the wife. She blessed me with a new Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Which was a surprise indeed. Apparently it was between that and new sneakers. She choose wisely. The new XTi will serve as the replacement for my current Gen1 Digital Rebel. But it’s also sparking and a renewed interest in sharpening my photography skills. So if I had to make a personal resolution for the new year, that would be it. Sharpening my photography skills. That in addition to the standard resolutions of save money, loose weight, backup my data, etc.

So be prepared for more photographic goodness in the coming year.

The wife and I took one of our regular Bucks County day trips this past holiday weekend and visited the Mercer Museum. Choice quote of the museum visit was “So, this is basically a museum of really old stuff”. To which the wife replied “Yes dear, this is a museum of really old stuff”.

What I meant to say was, “So, this is a museum of pre-industrial tools and artifacts collected by Henry Chapmen Mercer.” Really. It’s what I meant to say.

View the Flickr Set

I witnessed this awesome meteorological phenomena coming out of the mall after picking up my Macbook Pro from getting repaired.

Update: I thought the above picture would make a cool desktop picture that would span both of my monitors. So I created it. It’s obviously customized to my working environment, but I figured I’d post it up anyone else who may want to use it.

Left: Clouds-left 1680x1050.jpg
Right: Clouds-right 1440x900.jpg

Just got a new Canon Powershot SD1000 as my take everywhere camera. I love my Digital Rebel, but it can turn into a real hassle taking it certain places. As someone who likes to have camera with me at all times, I wanted something that was small enough to fit in my pocket (literally) and take decent quality to photos. I have to say I’ve been fairly impressed with not only quality of the photos, but the plethora of features this little camera packs.