Photos from the first half of June

I haven’t posted many photos recently, so I figured I had better get in gear, empty my camera onto the computer, and see what I had.

I haven’t taken as many pictures as I would have liked. I have this habit of forgetting to take my camera with me when I walk sometimes. However, I did find a few beautiful (or interesting) pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Please click photos to see full-size versions.

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The first two are from June 7th, when I decided to walk around the west end of town for a bit.

On Chestnut St.

Flower box

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The next photo was taken during my walk to Central Market last Friday (June 11th).

Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Penn Square, Lancaster

Information on the Soldiers and Sailors monument can be found here.

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There is a lot of construction going on in Lancaster right now, and on that same walk, I came across this door. It made me grin… you can see the construction workers coming down the stairs to thrash me for being a brat!

Eh... there's probably nothing of value in there anyway.

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Finally, here is a picture of my view from the back porch today. After a couple of hazy days, today has been beautiful, with low humidity, a nice breeze, and temperatures in the mid 70s. I took this photo, and then I did about two hours of yard work.

A beautiful blue sky!

Photos from my walk: Franklin & Marshall edition

On Tuesday afternoon, I took a short walk that gave me an opportunity to take several photos. My route led me near the southwest side of Franklin & Marshall College. As you can see in the photos, it was a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the low eighties.

(Click photos for full-size images)

The first three are pictures from the rose garden at Buchanan Park, adjacent to the college.

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The next three are photos of two slate-like rock formations that sit closer to the college itself, along Race Road.

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This is a photo of State Street, from the corner of State and W Clay.

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Finally, here are two photos from what I believe is a crabapple tree on Buchanan Ave.

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I hope that you enjoyed these photos as much as I do. It’s nice to finally be able to take some good photographs. I’m a total novice with the camera, but I’m improving!

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By the way, this post looks AWFUL in Google Reader… if you’re using a reader to view this, please click the post to see it in a readable format!

/shakes head

Six photos from Saturday

Last Tuesday, I ventured out for a stroll into Lancaster city. It was a dual-purpose walk: I needed to pick up a few things at the Central Market, and I also wanted to see some of the city’s beauty again.

I just moved back to Lancaster after being away for a couple of years. It’s a city with a lot of history, charm, and culture. In addition to Central Market, which is the oldest running farmer’s market in the U.S., there is a growing art district, a college-town atmosphere, a variety of musical attractions, many shoppes, cafes, and boutiques, a local minor league baseball team (Lancaster Barnstormers), museums, and so on.

While there are parts of the city that don’t do much for the eyes, there are several sections that are lovely to walk through. I walked to market again last Saturday, remembering to take my camera, and was able to get some good photos while I was out. Here are some highlights. Click the photos to see them in their glory!

Walnut @ Pine

I found a house on Walnut St. with these beautiful flowers on the windows.

Beautiful flower arrangement

A photo of the front of Thaddeus Stevens school on Charlotte Ave.

Thaddeus Stevens school

Here is one of my favorite homes in Lancaster City.

One of the houses that makes walking in Lancaster so rewarding

Eventually, I made it back home with my purchases from the market, and set about making lunch…

I wonder who gave me this mug...

…and my lunch accidentally turned out looking very classy, so I figured that I might as well take a picture of it, too!

A delicious lunch

Vietnamese egg rolls, fresh cucumbers with ranch and cheddar, and coffee. And it was delicious.

It was a beautiful spring day, and I’m happy to have gotten some time in with my camera. I’m looking forward to getting some more pics from around Lancaster and posting them at some point.

General Update

I promised on Saturday that I’d have an update on me in a previous post, and here it is.

Without going into too much detail, I’ve been burned out at my job for a while. Previous posts have alluded to that. I worked in retail as a store manager, and the past several months have been difficult. High stress, high volume, and low payroll allocations made for a rough summer, fall, and holiday season, and it didn’t really let up as the new year started rolling by. I found it more and more difficult to complete everything I needed to, and I took a lot of my stress home with me. It found its way into my relationships with friends and family, my experiences with others in WoW, and so on. I couldn’t sleep properly, I ground my teeth most nights, and I was generally very unhappy.

So at the end of February I decided that it was time to take a break. I’ve been preparing financially for this possibility for several months, so I did not quit my job with prospects of a) living on the street or b) mooching off someone else.

Most of all, I need this to be a time of rest and renewal. Of course, the first five days of “vacation,” as some friends have put it, have been a complete waste of time. At least they appear to be, on the surface. I’m so burned out that I have spent my days tired, and have gotten little accomplished. That’s ok, I just have to accept that it’s taking a few days to get re-oriented.

Once I do, I’d like to spend some time renewing my relationships with things I love. The first would be with the guitar. Although I wrote an extensive list of things I’d like to do this year previously, I have done none of them, because I just haven’t been able to enjoy them.

One thing I have done that isn’t a total waste of time has been to begin walking again, now that the horrible weather has gone away for a while. It’s virtually springtime, and that is a very good thing! As the weather continues to improve, I hope to have some nice photos to post as well.

That’s where I am today. I have time; I hope to rest, rebuild my body and spirit, spend some time with friends and family, and do some things that I enjoy. Hopefully that will mean that there is more content here as well!

Photos from my walk (10/18/09)

So after four days of cold rain, I was finally able to get out and walk. I don’t normally mind walking in the cold, or the rain, for that matter. Lately, however, the weather has been miserable, with highs in the low 40s, so I’ve stayed inside. However, it finally let up this morning, so I was able to get out and enjoy the fresh air and snap some photos.

Yes, I took a picture of my foot, and the sidewalk, as I was walking...

It's was good to see the sun again, and the colors that it brought out.

The road (often) taken

The colors of fall

proof that I was there...

I usually listen to music when I walk, but today I decided to just enjoy the quiet of the neighborhood. It’s warm enough outside to walk, but cool enough that most people are inside, so I didn’t have to deal with dogs or lawnmower noise. It was peaceful, which makes for a pleasant time to be alone and think. Hopefully we’ll have several more nice days this fall – they definitely help keep me sane.

Where have all the ferals gone?

It’s been a couple of days since I posted anything, and I have to admit that I’ve felt uninspired. I’m tired and I haven’t done a lot worth mentioning. I’ve worked a lot – Sunday ends up being my only day off this week – and Thursday I was up early for an inventory and late for a 10-man Trial of the Crusader run. We’re having cold, rainy weather for a few days here, so Thursday’s planned walk was a no-go. It seemed like a good day to veg out and play some WoW..

After I got home from work at noon Thursday, I played WoW for about four hours, and then totally failed at taking a nap. So I got out of bed and worked on researching my options for buying a new Mac. It occurred to me that, while I wait (for what seems like could be forever) for Apple to announce their expected fall refresh, I should look into refurbished iMacs and Macbook Pros. It looks like you can save some nice money on certified Apple refurbs, and dropping $1600 on a $2000 computer with a Core 2 Duo processor might be easier to swallow for the time being. In the meantime, I’m sitting still for the time being (meaning that I am not buying a new Mac this week!). I really want quad-cores! The Mac Pro towers have them, and there are rumors that the new Mac Pros will have six-core processors in Q1 2010, so it makes sense (to me!) that the iMacs could slide right in behind the Mac Pros with quad-cores. That’s just my view, anyway.

By 8pm I was back playing WoW, since the Daily Heroic was Trial of the Champion and my guild mates needed a tank (and I need the Triumphs). We finished that up in 15 minutes after the jousting, so I logged off Anacrusa, did some laundry, and spent some time before TotCr working on my 72 pally, Abenadari. I’ll probably never raid with her, but she’s my alchemist, so I’m trying to get her leveled up (elixir-master) in order to be able to make Flasks of Endless Rage for Anacrusa. I mainly go dps in raids, since that’s my main spec, except for 10-man Onyxia, where I off-tank whelps in my cat spec (bear form, of course) in Phase 2… but I do have a bear spec for heroics. I don’t think I have the mindset to be a raid tank, but I’m quite comfortable running people through heroics or off-tanking in Naxx.

Anyway, the point of all that was that I blow through the Endless Rage, and it’s expensive.

It’s funny, but four months ago our guild was really suffering for healers and swollen with dps. We had major problems having enough capable healers to run two 10-man Ulduar teams each week. Now, we have plenty of everything, but I seem to still have no problem getting into raids and stuff. Heroics are easy, because I tank 90% of the time. However, even though the general perception is that dps toons are a dime a dozen, I almost never get rejected for raids, both pugs and in-guild. Perhaps it’s the buff – I swear, it has been three or four months since I ran up against another kitty in 25-man TotCr, both VoAs, Onyxia, OS, or any other raids I’ve been a part of… for as much as I hear about how overpopulated the game is with druids, I don’t see kitties around much.

The best part is that I am usually at or near the top for damage, even with geared and skilled mages, warlocks, and/or hunters in the group. There is a rogue in our guild who absolutely destroys everyone else in dps, which is how it should be, but I haven’t raided with her in a while. However, druid is a hybrid class, and so I wasn’t expecting to be top damage like I was Wednesday night against Korolon in 10-man VoA. And it wasn’t a bad group either – we literally blew through the place and then one-shotted Onyxia.

By the way, I’m certainly not complaining about kicking ass! I do play my spec well, and I enjoy the versatility that comes with being feral. I’m simply pointing out two things: a) I’m happy to be holding my own with the pure dps classes, and b) I don’t know where all the ferals went – are they all trees and boomchickens now?

Trial of the Crusader was fine. We one-shotted everything in normal mode, and regrouped for our weekly attempt at heroic mode. It went like it usually does: we got completely spanked and called it a night after three failed attempts, which was fine with me because I had been up for 19 hours by that point. It has been slow looting for me the past couple of weeks in there, but the 15 Triumphs will definitely help get me to my goal of 115 by Halloween, when I pick up my two Tier 9 pieces (for the 4-piece set bonus) and the Dextrous Brightstone Ring, which I plan to buy and equip simultaneously. I’m definitely looking forward to the set bonus and the nice Agility increase!

That’s enough of my ramblings for tonight. It’s funny, I hope that nobody is finding my blog with hopes that I can help them play better, because this blog gives no insight into how to play, gear, spec, etc. However, much of my info has come from the resources listed in the World of Warcraft section to the right, so feel free to pay these fine people a visit and check out what they have to say about tanking, shredding, and (in some cases) healing – I highly recommend them!

Early Autumn (photos from my walk)

I just got back from a walk through some of the nearby neighborhoods here in East York. I decided to bring my camera, because it seemed like a prime day to take some early-fall pictures. Here are just a few of the highlights:

This was the most symmetrical tree that I shot today... at the top, at least.

I had varying luck, as far as the sun goes. For this shot and the next, I was shooting across the sun’s light, which leaves the top of the photos somewhat empty and grey.

I tried to get orange, red and yellow leaves, but there weren't many nice, yellow-tipped trees to photograph. Maybe next time!

This next shot shows the sky a little better!

Trees, early fall, East York

This next pic is a fun one! The background is clean, and I managed to center it perfectly – no cropping! (I’m not normally this good at centering subjects like this…)

Keeping the lamp post company

Finally, here is a priceless picture!

Happy Halloween? or an animated discussion, frozen for all time?

Yeah, I cropped that one… I just got my first digital camera this year, and I haven’t used it enough. When I have, though, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Hopefully I will use it more, partially motivated by this new blogging experiment, and my skills will improve. I hope you enjoyed the photos; I plan to do this again in the next couple of weeks when autumn is more ripe!