Not my favourite photo contest...

So our mission this week is to take a self portrait. That's truly easier said than done and after a couple of hours of trying to do something fun and unique, I've got nothing. I post processed these to death and I'm not sure any of them will be entered in the contest. Blah!

A few random pics

Well, it was nice outside last week. Now there's snow all over again and more forecast for the next couple of days. Boo! Here are a few pics I took last week though that I haven't had time to put up :)

In search of circles...

I went to the biology building in search of circles for the photo contest today. I must say, I got a bit side tracked and I took pictures of everything but circles! I was using my Lensbaby today- which I love immensely because of the funky pictures you can take right out of the camera (Dustin hates it though...). Here are a few of my favourites today, including a couple that I *could* have used for the circles contest :)

Birds!

I decided to take my camera out on a walk with Dustin and the pups tonight. It was dreary and chilly, but there were still a few birds out. These were taken with a 200mm lens.

Note to self: Don't shoot in ISO 800 in bright sunlight...

So this weekend I was trying to get some good shots of the pets for the photo contest and a local pet calender that I can enter photos for. I was experimenting with Sv (sensitivity mode) on my camera in the evening and I forgot to change it back to my normal P mode (it's like a combo Av and Sv mode; very useful). In the morning, there were these wonderful birds hanging out in our mountain ash tree in the front yard. They were beautiful, so I grabbed the camera and started snapping. I got some good shots too! But then, after the birds had gone, I checked them out. Oh the noise! It's horrible- ISO 800 is usually pretty good in low light pictures, but the noise in photos taken in bright sunlight is, well, not so good. I'm so sad :( I also took a few of the kitties that are pretty good and I may just need to run them through a better noise removal program to make them work well. Anyway, let me know what you think of the kitty and dog pictures, I want to start amassing a collection so I can chose a good one of each pet to enter into the photo calender contest.

Crazy puppies are at it again!

So we have yet another dog illness to deal with! Last week Kira had diarrhea- the explosive-can't-hold-it-for-more-than-two-hours kind. Dustin had to go home at lunch to take her out (and he had to clean her crate and her twice because the poor little girl just had to go) and I had to go home on the bus early to rescue her. We fasted her for a day, then I made a bunch of rice and boiled some chicken, so she's been eating that all weekend. She finally could hold it, but it's still liquidy. However, she hasn't gone poop in more than 24 hours now and she's thrown up twice since last night. Needless to say, we're off to the vet tomorrow. She doing really well considering and hopefully it's as simple as deworming her again (she was an outside dog then a shelter dog, so I'm sure she was full of worms....). She has had a chronic vomitting problem though so I'm hoping that has nothing to do with anything. Helix also vomitted this morning at about 5am- a big chunk of fleece. Serves him right for eating fleece! Silly puppy :P Life with dogs- it's always exciting... Here are a few random pics of the furkids.

Look what I did to my new MacBook!

So I think this turned out pretty cool :) It's a vinyl skin printed and cut for MacBook (but you can get a variety of sizes and patterns) that protects the top from scratches and the area around the touchpad from getting dirty. It cost me $40 (with shipping) from www.garskin.com.