I admit it, I watch American Idol.

The last couple years I would watch it when the opportunity presented itself.  I was secretly rooting for Carrie Underwood to win last year.  It’s a fun show.

But this year I have a real reason to watch, and his name is Taylor Hicks.

He’s a little bit country and a little bit blues.  He’s got gray hair.  He dances around like Ray Charles on crack.  He’s just a little crazy.  He is the complete and total antithesis of Clay Aiken.

Here is a selection of Q&As from his American Idol profile:

Q: Do you have any formal singing training?
A: No.

Q: What other talents do you have?
A: This is it.

Q: If you don’t make it on AMERICAN IDOL, what will you do?
A: Broke performer.

Q: What are your personal goals in life?
A: To be happy as possible.

Q: What has been your proudest moment in life so far?
A: This might be it.

Dude Rocks.

Mike and Michelle got engaged this past Wednesday!  Have you ever seen two people look happier?

It’s the holiday I love to hate!  In honor of this oh-so-special Tuesday in February, here’s an anti-valentine’s day card.

This article from the Guardian Unlimited gives the clear, simple and logical argument for why I believe Intelligent Design should not be taught as part of a science curriculum.

This gorgeous photo by PÃ¥l Hermansen is one of the World Press Photos of the Year for 2005.  I just think it’s stunningly beatiful.

Paycheck’s in the mail.

Hard-earned money for a job

half-assedly done.

I went up to Hunter Mountain with Mike, Michelle, Joe, Gladys and Sarah this weekend, and (suprise!) I took pictures.  Check ‘em out here.

When this bird flew onto my fire escape I instinctively grabbed my camera.  It’s not easy to get good pictures of birds and other critters from the animal kingdom, so even though my feathered friend wasn’t an exciting shade of blue, red or yellow, with the little fellow practically asking for a close-up, I felt compelled to oblige.

In the past, with my film camera, this would have meant taking one or two shots.  But on this day, with my digital camera in hand, I took over fifty.  What was stopping me?  The bird was happily preening, and while in the past I would be racking up a bill of nearly $30 of development costs, with digital I could shoot away with nary a concern.

So after about two months with my digital camera, here are the things I’ve come to love, and a few things I’m not so pleased with.

The Good:

1. I love being able to shoot unlimited numbers of photos without worrying about development costs.
2. I love being able to instantly preview my photos to check exposure.
3. I love being able to adjust ISO settings, which lets me take low-light pictures without a tri-pod.  I’m able to take pictures now that I never would have been able to take with film.
4. I love having photos in the digital format so I can edit them and put them online without scanning!

The Bad:

1. The 1.6x lens conversion means I don’t get my super-wide angle shots anymore, which sucks.  And I don’t feel that the increased telephoto distance even closely makes up for it.
2. When I adjust in-camera settings for a certain shot they are saved and I always forget to set them back.  So I end up shooting at ISO 1600 or with my flash exposure turned all the way down by accident.  It’s very frustrating!
3. Not so much a bad thing, but because digital photos are so high resolution, a slight camera shake or miss-focus that I never would have noticed in film nearly ruins a digital photo.  I’m learning that I have to pay much more attention to my shutter speed as a result. 

Here are a few pictures that my friend Scott sent me from his trip to China, where he went to get married!

This is also the first test of some new software I’ve installed for this website.  First is Gallery2 for creating online photo albums, and then WPG2 and Gallery2 Image Chooser for TinyMCE which integrate the Gallery2 software into my Wordpress software.  Super sweet!

(Clearly, the whole integration deal still needs some style bugs worked out, but it’s still super-sweet).