I've finally gotten around to updating the RSS feeds with a much better engine.  IMHO, the default syndication component of Joomla is horrible.  It never seems to be formatted correctly and just plain looks bad.  I've replaced it with DS-Syndicate which provides what I originally wanted for my feeds.

 

What does this mean if you're a subscriber?  Well, you'll have to subscribe to the new feeds because the URL has changed.  You can subscribe here as well as under the Syndicate section on the left column.  The old feeds should still work, but you can no longer access them from the site.  I'll probably disable them eventually.  Let me know if there are any problems.

 

 

Emily decided to try her luck on the wakeboard this trip and she did great!  I think she got up on only her 3rd try which is much better than me when I first tried it out.  There are some great shots of her in the album so check it out.

 

View Emily's wakeboarding album. 

 

 

 

Being that I was the photographer we only ended up with a few photos of me doing the water sports.  I was taking pictures with a Nikon D70s and an old manual 300mm lens.  Since the lens was completely manual I had to set the exposure, aperture and of course focus manually.  The most difficult thing to set was the focus.  So given all of that, my Dad was the only one qualified to operate the camera other than me and he only tried it once.  A few of the photos turned out well and here they are for your viewing pleasure.

 View My Wakeboarding album.

 

If you bring your laptop or other device to Central Park, you just might notice that there's free Internet access available in certain sections of the park.  Beginning on August 24th, 2006 the park officially became Wi-Fi enabled.  Right now there are only a few locations that have Wi-Fi access, six locations to be exact - The Dairy, Summer Stage, Sheep Meadow, The Delacorte Theater, The Dana Discovery Center and The Arsenal. 

 

This is really a very small number considering the size of Central Park.  And I'm not sure what the range or speed is in these areas.  The Sheep Meadow for example is a huge grass field, I'd be very impressed if you get Wi-Fi access over the whole field.  There's only one way to find out though, so grab your laptop and head to the park to see how well it works.  I for one will probably check out the area around the Dana Discovery Center since that's pretty close to my apartment.  More locations will be coming in the future so hopefully it won't be too long before most of the park is wired, err I mean wireless.

 

Here are maps of the Wi-Fi areas:

 

The Dairy

Summer Stage

Sheep Meadow

The Delacorte Theater 

The Dana Discovery Center

The Arsenal (link is to the Zoo, but the Arsenal is right next to the zoo)

 

  digg this

 

Oh no! Ernesto has finally reached New York! It's the end of the world, run for the hills, take shelter!

 

OK, so maybe not really.  But if you'd been listening to the news for the past, what is it now, probably almost two weeks, then you'd think that Ernesto was some kind of super storm that was going to destroy us all.  I mean the amount of news coverage that this tiny, little, huricane-for-a-minute storm has received is unbelievable.  Never underestimate the power of the news media to turn a non-event into a major news story.  

 

As far as Ernesto in New York goes, all it's done is cancel a few matches of the US Open and turn Labor Day weekend into a rainy mess.  Oh, and it gives Andre Agassi an extra day of rest before his next match.  Anyone catch his match on Thursday night?  Wow what a match!  OK, now I'm just wandering all over.  I just had to rant a little after not being able to escape Ernesto coverage anywhere.

 

 

I just got back from a great vacation to Lake Powell with my family and I took a boatload of photos.  It's going to take a while to get them all posted so I thought I'd just post a few at a time until I'm done.  The first ones are of Brady on the wakeboard.  I brought my trusty 300 mm manual-focus lens with me on the trip and it turned out to be an excellent lens for capturing photos of everyone water skiing and wakeboarding. 

View Brady's action photos.