Celebrated my birthday with the kids and grandkids on July 1st, Sunday. We went down to Maxwell Street to a sushi place. Had a wonderful time. They brought an elaborately carved fruit creation instead of a birthday cake. When Amy asked Kyle if he wanted some fruit, his response was "I like cake". This boy obviously knows what's what for birthdays. I got a nice carry-on suitcase from Jill and a really nifty digital photo frame from the kids.
It was raining all morning so we could get out in the yard. Thought if we drove North maybe we'd get away from the rain. We were right. As we got there we discovered that the Strawberrry Festival was going on so you couldn't drive through town. We found a close parking space and headed in. Really busy with all kinds of outdoor booths, food, beer, bands. They had lots of live music and it was pretty good.
Grabbed a hamburger then went to a chocolate fondue booth and got a strawberry, marshmallow, rice crispy treat, pound cake thing on a stick dipped in dark chocolate. We looked at some old cars, went in some shops, listened to a band, got some coffee and headed back.
Stopped in Elmhurst and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. We had never been there before. Food was good but MILD was too spicy for us :-)
Elmhurst is shwoing turtles around town this year; I just grabbed a few
Had lunch at the Soundings Restaurant there yesterday with Amy and Lori and the grandkids. Basic admission was free so the aquarium itself was badly overcrowded and we had to park over at Soldier Field. The restaurant wasn't crowded though so we had a nice lunch. Kyle and Lindsey had a real nice time. The views from there are great.
Had a great Father's Day. We went to Millennium Park so the kids could run around in the Crown fountain. It was a pretty hot day but not unbearable by the fountain. There was a nice shade tree for Scarlett.
Went across the street for lunch/brunch at a relatively new place we hadn't hear of before called The Gage. We thought the food was pretty good. It's sort of an Irish Pub kind of place. I got a nice pair of shorts and shirt from the kids. Jerry and Carol were there and Steve, Dollie and Chris too.
After we got home Jill and I went out to Oak Brook and I got a few shots of the old cars.
Every 17 years we get an “invasion” of cicadas around Chicago. They came by the millions and millions last month and are still here.
I took a few pictures and put them on Flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arthill/sets/72157600264887716/
A reporter from Yahoo emailed me asking to use some of my cicada pictures. She then interviewed me by phone. I thought she was going to run a web article but to my surprise they are running this slideshow with my voice as the narrator. Many of the pictures are mine - some are from others. You can watch the names up in the top left of this video. The voice over is all me.
Check it out
What an incredible day that was! Hard to grapple with the idea that it has been five years since that happened. Jill and I were scheduled to fly to New Orleans at the end of that week. Of course all flights were cancelled.
Seeing the second plane hit the second tower was an undescribeable moment. I called both of my kids and told them to get out of downtown Chicago. Lori worked only a few blocks from the Sears Tower in a 60 story bank building. Amy worked in the shadow of Lake Point Tower, the worlds tallest apartment building at 70 stories.
Jill and I first went to Ground Zero 6 months after that. It was a sobering experience to put it mildly.
We all met down at Millennium Park for Father's Day and had lunch at the Park Grill. It was a great day and the weather cooperated. It didn't start to rain until we were leaving.
I have been shooting digital for about 8 years mostly with Nikon non-DSLR cameras. I currently own an 8800, previous cameras included the 8700, 5700 and 990. I’ve been pretty happy with the Nikon products or I wouldn’t have stayed with them. I had been thinking about getting a DSLR for a while and finally pulled the trigger in early March. I bought the Canon Rebel XT with the so-called kit lens. I’ve taken about 5000 pictures with it.
Several people I know are trying to decide whether to go DSLR or continue with so called consumer cameras. I decided to write up my impressions of the Nikon 8800 and the Canon Rebel XT to help people with that analysis.
There is no right answer. Both cameras have pros and cons and a lot depends on what kind of shooting you do. The major differences are:
There are lots of other minor differences. I’m impressed with the Canon battery life. I think I like the Nikon controls and menu system better but that may just be because I’m so familiar with it. I like zooming by turning the lens ring instead of pushing a button. Nikon has some pretty cool things like Best Shot Selector built-in; I’m going to miss that. It is very nice to have all of the information about your shots available in the viewfinder of the Nikon; I miss that on the Canon.
So that’s it. The pictures from both outdoors at lower ISO speeds are outstanding. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the Canon takes better pictures; I would probably say that with the Canon you can take great pictures in a wider variety of situations (e.g. indoors without flash). So, it just depends on what you want to shoot and how much money you have to spend. The Nikon is a great camera and very convenient – lots of built-in goodies. You can generally do more with any DSLR such as the Canon but you will spend more money and you’ll have more stuff to lug around.
I thought I would do a few blog entries about techniques I use to manipulate some of my pictures. I love to convert certain photos into “painting” like images. Mostly I do this by following the techniques outlined at http://www.windycityart.com/misc/portofino.htm
 Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo Casino |  Monte Carlo |
 Monte Carlo Casino |  Monte Carlo Casino |  Monte Carlo view from in front of our hotel |
 Monte Carlo Casino |  Monte Carlo Senate |  Monte Carlo Royal Palace |
 Monte Carlo Royal Palace |  Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo-our hotel is in the center |
 Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo |
 Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo |  Monte Carlo our hotel |
