Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Prepare to say goodbye to the couch potato

We have 122 days until we board the big metal bird and head south east!
At day 120 Mary and I are going to start the P90X program. I already know I wont follow all parts of it …as in I wont follow the diet. I will work on a modified diet and be willing to do that. Our goal is to lose several lbs before we get on the plane to our paradise.

How successful will we be? I am guessing I will lose my goal of at least 25 lbs but not as successful as could be if followed the program to the letter.

So I have my tennis shoes ready, sorting out all of my old t-shirts and shorts and getting ready to get my sweat on….wish me luck!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

My wandering mind

Yup, the title says it all. I have only been back from a short island trip just over 6 weeks and I have a very bad case of “I don’t give a flip”. I need an escape and I need it fast. Problem being I have about 4 and a half months till we jet out of the American heartland and back to our island paradise. I have a lineage of songs running thru my head that are all about the same thing, escape, escape, escape! From the Beatles to Jimmy Buffett to Kenny Chesney. They make me smile and at the same time frustrated that I cant be where I want to be. Wow that is an incredibly spoiled comment!!

I have the bug to use my new camera and lenses to get out in the tropics and shoot pix so that I can sustain myself thru envisioning myself immersed in new dreamt adventures that are captured in snapshots of time via camera and lens.

I know I shouldn’t whine but …..My mind is not here and hasn’t been for some time. I am on island emotionally and simply going thru the motions here. Yes, I do my job but have no gusto left. I constantly think of how can I get back down island? How much time can I spend there this time? What can I shoot while there and am I going to get the sparse or heavy clouds?

As you can see my mind is in the clouds and my focus is already on our return to the island.

Yes, I checked airline ticket prices today. That is an every Tuesday and Wednesday effort even when I have tickets in hand already…Come on Delta or US Air….time for a sale. American is about the price I am used to but is an all day trip leaving at 6AM arriving 8PM and visiting a city in the Midwest like Chicago or Dallas and either Miami or San Juan before ending at SXM.

Monday, June 7, 2010

A weekend of digital upgrade…

This weekend I pulled the trigger on a new Digital SLR to replace the Canon xTi that I have been shooting with (which was borrowed from one of my sons) I stepped to the plate and with a 2 balls 1 strike count, I drove a sharp line drive into the gap plating all base runners in front of me with a stand up triple. Baseball aside, I purchased a shiny new Canon 50D with two new lenses, a 28 – 135mm base lens and a 75 – 300mm zoom for those hard to get shots. All are equip with a lens stabilizer which is a big plus in my book.

I took the camera for a bit of a test spin to our local arboretum to put it thru its paces…the camera way out performed me…guess it will be time to brush up on some skills. I was very impressed with the smoothness of operation and ease in which changing controls occur. Much easier to adjust than the Rebel I used before. Everything seemed pretty intuitive.

I think I am ready to take another trip to the tropics…like I wasn’t before I got the camera. I cant wait to see what new shots I can come up with because it sure has jumpstarted me to get back out and shoot some more!!