Windmill with starlight bullets

 

I&M heritage trail

 

Bell Rock

 

Brussels

 

Botony Pond

 

Lord Stanley's Cream Stout

Finally-
Bottling day, brewed in tribute of the outstanding play and final result of the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks.

More HDR

HDR

Go Blackhawks

beer notes and label

So-

Almost done with my beer "Shriner Bach". ~4% smooth bock beer, starts with a good head that quickly disappears with a little lacing on the glass. Easy drinking-low IBU's

MMMMmmmm

Hop-fest in a bottle

Northern Cardnal

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Zion National Park.....

Another 900+ pictures at Zion- That place really kicks butt!

More seen here:
http://dbaleckaitis.hostei.com/index/

900 pictures of Belgium

Here is a link to a very small subset of those pictures:
http://dbaleckaitis.hostei.com/belgium/

Another from Sedona

Devil's bridge

Sedona Arizona was a beautiful trip- We got to explore several hikes including Devil's Bridge which was just spectacular. Outside of the sheer expense of Sedona; $5.75 for a cheap beer, 49% tax on rental cars, expensive non-good tasting food, (Artist community) and rather rude local people it was a fun trip. It was funny how when we would meet some friendly people they all mentioned that they were either from Chicago or originally from Chicago. It was very apparent on the trails- most locals wouldn't even acknowledge your "Good Morning" while passing on the trails.

Sorry for so little activity.......

I have been slowly putting together a better site- lots more pictures, a true picture a day, ability to rate pictures, clean layout and an overall better experience. I am hopeful to have the site up soon-


Dan

early riser or bright-eyed and bushy tailed

How about a swim?

How fast can you swim?

Are you.... looking at me?

Taken in the Florida everglades

cute little upset Wren

Great Blue

Head Shot

Why Lightroom will win

Without a doubt if you take hundreds of pictures in a year or even thousands- the software for editing those pictures gets old or can't do what you want it to do. That is where lightroom steps in..... Its more intuitive and easier than Photoshop its only downside that I see are it's database management. Currently I use Imatch for my photodatabase software and I must say it is really good. After much debate I recently went through all my pictures- deleted o.o.f. images and just plain bad images. So I'm down to ~17,000 keepers in which I could sort them using location, people, things, etc. This is something Lightroom does not do well at all.

Back to Lightroom- This program gives you the flexibility to edit the same image over and over without destroying the image. The sliders and even the free presets out there can keep both hardcore photographers and point and shooters happy for years to come. Not to mention it is cheaper than Photoshop and allot of other so-called photo editing programs.

Once I Caught A Fish This Big...... Manistee, MI

....Then The next Day I caught This......

Camp Sagawau Near Lemont, IL. (Cross Country Skiing)

Talk about a blast! Went Cross Country Skiing at Camp Sagawau in Lemont this past weekend and had fun. Bellow is the gps map of the trails. Cost for rental (skis, boots, poles)=$12, Cost if you have your own equipment =$0. The trails are well groomed and you feel well secluded in the forest and the trail ends going though a prairie.

Camp Sagawau (Cross Country Skiing) at EveryTrail

Map created by EveryTrail:Share GPS tracks