Ahem....

Coming in late July....

Why, hello there!

Yes, yes, I realize it's been almost a month since I posted anything.

I managed to be at home for three weeks and not write a thing, and then when I had to go back to work, I've been working 10 hour days and just haven't had the energy to do much of anything when I get home.

So here I am, back again. It was incredible to see everyone this past weekend. We're really glad that we and so many others decided to make the trip.

Pictures from the weekend are up at Flickr (you can see them over there on the right), but I'm going to post a few of my favorite.

Time flies when you're having fun...

Just a quick retrospective of what we were doing three years ago this month:

The wedding, three years ago today...


And our three week honeymoon:

Big Bend area...


That's Mexico behind us in both pictures.

New Mexico...


Bandelier National Monument (north of Santa Fe)



Colorado...


Rocky Mountain National Park


Both of these pictures were taken on Trail Ridge Road...the top one was taken at about 12,000 feet above sea level, and yes, that's snow on the ground behind us. The second was taken somewhere significantly farther down the road, and about 20 degrees warmer.

Wyoming...
Grand Teton National Park



Yellowstone National Park



And finally, South Dakota...
Mount Rushmore


The Badlands


Happy Anniversary, Monica!

Proof that I have too much time on my hands...

Preliminary Halloween Pictures

Judy took these today. I'll follow up with some pictures from the party this past weekend and pictures of her trick or treating tonight.

Life's a beach...

Except for the part where you have to drive almost 3 hours there and 3 hours back with a screaming child that won't go to sleep. Other than that, it was a wonderful day!


You can see more of the pictures from our "relaxing" day at the beach here

A new toy...

I found a new online video tool last week through an ed tech blog that I read. Animoto is so easy to use...just upload your pictures, pick the music you want, and it does the rest! It will cut and add effects to your photos to match the music. You can do as many 30 second videos as you want for free, or you can pay $3 for a "full length" video, or pay $30 for an annual pass and create as many full length videos as you want!

Here's my first creation:

Tell everyone you know!

There are 15 days left to vote for photos for the newest issue of JPG Magazine. One of the categories is "family" and I submitted this photo for the magazine:


If it gets enough votes, it will appear in the magazine. You can vote for it here. Thanks for your support!

Too funny not to share

towel head
Originally uploaded by ScottRL.

Rachel and I went swimming after Monica has left for class today. On the way home, I gave Rachel a towel to hold onto since it was a bit chilly for her. She got really quiet as we got close to home, and at a stoplight, I turned around to see if she had fallen asleep, and was greeted with this sight. I laughed really hard for a minute, then decided that I had to take a picture.

Because I need to keep up with my sister...

You know, I've been crazy busy this month. I can't believe it's almost the end of May and I've only made three posts. I'm sure ya'll are getting bored seeing the same old thing every time you visit Laleblog...and my sister has four posts for the month, so I need to step it up.

Speaking of my sister, she's about to become very famous. She's signed up to be a part of Bill Waldman's 365 portraits. She'll do her photo shoot tomorrow (her birthday...Happy Birthday sis), and her picture should be up Tuesday morning.

I also realized recently that it's been quite a while since I took Rachel's picture. Or posted video. I don't have any new video to post (I've shot some, but haven't had the time to pull in down yet) and we went to take pictures of the little one yesterday so we'd have a recent picture for her birthday invitations.

Rachel is learning to walk, and while she started off none too happy about going place on two feet - in fact, she cried every time we tried to get her to do it - she's getting a lot better at it...and she doesn't cry so much anymore.

And now, a published photographer...

When it rains, it pours.

I keep wondering when it's all going to end.

Here I am, 35 years old, and have very rarely gotten accolades for anything I do. Yet within one week short week early in 2007, I get all kinds of recognition.

I had my second photo in a week make the top 500 on Flickr, this one from the big thunderstorm that rolled in Friday night:



And not only did this one make the top 500 for Saturday, it cracked the top 200, which I'm very excited about.

Then tonight, Monica and I come home from dinner and I find an email waiting for me from the Virginia Quarterly Review letting me know that a picture I took on our honeymoon of the US-Mexico border is going to be used in this article, which also happens to be the top article their home page as of today (maybe not by the time you read this).

In case you're lazy and don't want to check out the article, here's the picture:



Because I publish my photos under a creative commons license, they don't have to pay me anything, they simply have to attribute the photo to me, which is fine by me.

I'm just excited that people are finding my photos interesting!

Interestingness

It's all just coming up roses around here.

Except for that part about Rachel screaming herself to sleep every night, but I'll get to that on the 9th when I berate her for causing us so much trouble write her monthly newsletter.

Anyway, the creative Scott is striking it big. First the documentary, and now this.

One of my photos made the "explore" set on Flickr.

In case you're not familiar, the "explore" set is the top 500 photos uploaded on any given day. It can change, but just to have one of my photos in there is really cool.

This one is currently on page 43 of 50, so it's definitely not the most interesting picture from Sunday, but just being in the top 500 is an honor!

Spitting Image

So, in case you don't check out my latest photos from Flickr over there on the right side, you really need to see this.

Last night, Monica pointed out this old picture of her with her mother. As soon as I looked at it, I started laughing. I couldn't believe how much the little girl in that picture looked like the little girl in the next room.

The photo she pointed out to me was the one on the lower left.