This past Sunday I joined the boys and girls FCA flag football teams for their weekly practice. I was taking pictures, they were working out. This marked the second outing with my new sports lens and I had been reading up on football photography tips that I wanted to try out after the first practice I attended.

At the end of the three hours that I was there I snapped off 342 photos. A lot more were keepers this time around thanks to two simple tips I picked up. First, I set the auto focus to the center point which meant the camera would only focus on things in the dead center of the frame. Before I was getting lots of background objects near the edge of the frame in focus leaving the action blurry and out of focus. Since I was trying to fill the whole frame with the action, only having a center focus point didn’t bother me. The other thing I did was bump up my ISO speed from 100 to 200. This allowed me to use a smaller aperture which resulted in a deeper depth of field. In English, this means more of the subject would be in focus which decreased my chances of getting something blurry.

Besides football there was also a cute chihuahua that was literally the size of my hand. It provided for a few good dog shots to break up the monotony of sports photos. In between water breaks I also took some leaf macros from a small, nearby tree.

The worst part of taking so many photos is processing them all. I quickly rushed through them in Picasa resorting to just cropping and sharpening before pushing them out on the web. I have no idea how others find the time to carefully tweak their images in Photoshop. Picasa is by far my favorite photo app because it is so simple to use and quick to get through a ton of photos. Google really needs to get Picasa onto the Mac because iPhoto is a pain to use.

You can see all of my photos from Sunday in Album 1 and Album 2.

A variety of leaves backed up in the C&O canal. Fall is here even though it still feels warm.

Taking more football pictures. Trying to employ all of the tips I read about over the past two weeks. I’ll post the photos on Facebook later.

Get Rich Slowly is holding a contest asking for people to submit their financial success stories. With this in mind, I began to reflect on where I am today in my experience with money.

I was raised to be financially responsible from a young age. When I was comfortable with the idea of an allowance somewhere near the first grade my Dad set up a personal Heimlich bank complete with my own custom printed checks. He wanted to instill the idea of writing out checks for things I wanted to buy as well as going over a monthly bank statement. I should clarify this wasn’t a real bank but rather an imaginary one between my parents, who would be the only people on the planet that would recognize my checks, and I. The habit has stuck with me as I now use the elaborate receipt filing system on my real bills that they taught me oh so long ago. It wasn’t until college when I realized how ahead of the game I was, personal finance wise.

Not only did I grow up ingrained with good money habits, but I was also genuinely interested in learning all that I could about finance issues. My friends in college certainly didn’t seem to think to much about their finances as my roommate used to throw away his bank statements without even opening the envelope and the people next door relied on unemployment benefits to help pay for their party habits. It was also a wake up call to see many people were paying for college by taking out student loans in their own names unlike my extremely fortunate situation of a full ride from Mom and Dad.

After college I was already ahead compared to my debt-laden classmates and I landed a good job with decent benefits. I knew I was in a special situation being 22 and debt free. I was anxious for my 6-month waiting period for my retirement benefits to kick in so I could contribute as much as I could into my 401(k). A couple of months ago I set up my 16% contribution with confidence that I was doing the right thing thanks to compounding interest and time being on my side. In August the company announced a Roth 401(k) option that would let my money grow tax free and because I had been reading up about these things previously, I immediately knew it was the perfect option for me to take advantage of.

In the end, my greatest personal finance success has to be the knowledge and wisdom I acquired early on to be able to capitalize on this once in a lifetime opportunity. Money can buy lots of things, but it certainly cannot buy more time.

Thank you Mom, Dad, J.D. at GetRichSlowly.org, and all of the personal finance sites out there sharing their wisdom.

Waiting for a train after the Refresh DC meetup. Had an awesome time catching up with friends.

The popular online web magazine, A List Apart, conducted a survey of web professionals in April 2007 via their website. This week they finally released the results in a massive, though well designed, 80+ page PDF.

Being the first major survey of the web industry, I, and many others I’m sure, was anxious to see how I stacked up. The survey focused on the core areas of classification (gender, ethnicity, location etc.), education, work and job titles, and money. There are too many findings to even begin listing here but the PDF does a great job at explaining their conclusions with many, many graphs. Speaking of data, A List Apart is giving away all of the anonymized raw data for people to dig through and reach their own conclusions.

I can’t wait to see the results from the next survey to compare the changes in the industry from this year.

Watch out web world, two big brands recently gave their sites a new look. Book hawking company Barnes & Noble added some web 2.0 niceties while Newsweek cleaned itself up under the hood and added a bit of polish to the front end.

Barnes & Noble

The old Barnes & Noble site was cramped and flat although not terribly hideous. A little design tweaking and a couple of new features later and what we are left with is a more presentable homepage with large, soft buttons and a larger but better organized navigation bar. The top 10 book list on the right side of the homepage sports an interesting cut-off styling that is pretty cool. The featured books have more information available up front making a more compelling reason to buy them as browsers scroll over them. They even added a tag cloud which is a neat web 2.0 gimmick that lasts about 5 minutes as very few actually navigate that way.

Why anyone buys books online at anywhere except Amazon.com is beyond me, but for those that like to venture off the beaten path, Barnes & Noble is a breath of fresh air.

Newsweek

The popular weekly news magazine pushed out it’s new look a couple of days ago and boy did it need it. The old site was table based with tables inside tables inside tables. The redesign introduced clean modern HTML code that is nicely formatted to boot. On the front end, content on the homepage is easier to navigate when skimming through headlines without feeling cluttered by a boxy table layout like before. Newsweek is using a lot more Flash and multimedia components. Those extra touches of sparkle come at a cost though as the site relies on 14 external JavaScript files which surely slow down the loading of the page.

The web wasn’t the only thing getting a face lift, the magazine saw a touch up as well. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham called the magazine redesign a refinement rather than a revolution featuring a cleaner visual presentation with more room for content. Meacham believes the magazine should be less like web content which is generally delivered in short bites with the print edition featuring lengthier columns with more in depth coverage. It will be interesting to see what happens in the print world over the next 18 months as more people become accustomed to getting their news online rather than in a weekly dead tree sent to their mailbox.

Redesigns for big sites is an even bigger challenge but Barnes and Noble and Newsweek did a fine job. Enhancing the user experience is crucial as the web becomes more crowded with competitors biting at the tooth to win away unhappy patrons. So now that they have made the leap to the modern era of websites, it’s time they get cracking on their next iteration which will surely be due sooner rather than later as the web moves on at its blistering pace.

Spotted this in a plant pot on my walk home from work. It was built by the Foggy Bottom Garden Club.

Canon announced two new super telephoto lenses for their EOS DSLR line today. The first is a 200mm f/2L prime (right photo) with image stabilization and an ultra sonic motor (USM) for focusing. USM lenses usually provided faster auto focusing that is quieter than their non USM counterparts. The second lens is a monster 800mm f/5.6L prime (left photo) which also features image stabilization and USM.

Both of these lenses are geared towards professional sports photographers, and out of reach for mere mortals like me, but it is still fun to think about what it must be like to shoot with one of these. On the other hand, I won’t be complaining about lugging that monster 800mm lens where ever I go. There are pros and cons to everything I guess.

Brian Liloia used to blog alongside me at DVGuru.com. When the site was near it’s final days he mentioned going to live at an ecovillage where the community practices low-impact, sustainable living. He graciously took a few minutes to answer some questions I had.

What is Dancing Rabbit?
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community located in northeastern Missouri, and it is currently composed of about 35 total members. We live in a small, off-the-grid village setting on 280 acres of land, with organic gardens and buildings made out of earthen and recycled materials. All of our power comes from renewable resources, and we catch rainwater off of our roofs for all our water needs. To put it simply, we’re a group of people devoted to the idea of living sustainably, with a minimal impact on the planet’s ecosystems.

What made you decide to become a part of Dancing Rabbit?
I originally visited Dancing Rabbit last summer, shortly after I graduated from college. During my three week visitor period, I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to come back as a full-time resident to continue to pursue my interests in living sustainably. Before I had visited Dancing Rabbit, I knew that I wanted to pursue a more self-sufficient, low-impact, and simple lifestyle, but I didn’t know how to go about it within the confines of mainstream culture. When I found out about Dancing Rabbit, I knew it was possible, and it was inspiring to see a group of people already doing what I envisioned as my goal.

Are you a permananet member? Do you live there year round? How long have you lived there?
As I write this, I am not necessarily a “permanent” member. There are no “permanent” members. Anyone can leave whenever they want, that is to say. However, I am currently a resident, and I’ve lived here for six months so far. I’ve recently put in a letter of intent for membership. A member is someone that knows that want to spend significant time here, and has the ability to build his/her own house, unlike a resident. I plan on staying on board for a while yet, maybe another year or so. We shall see.

What is an ecovillage?
An ecovillage is a community with the goal of living sustainably, with a minimal impact on the environment. This generally entails a radically different lifestyle from that of the mainstream culture. Living sustainably might be accomplished by using renewable energy, like solar and wind power, driving less (Dancing Rabbit owns two biodiesel-fueled vehicles for all of its 35 members), catching rainwater for cooking and drinking, eating locally and organically grown food, sharing resources, and generally consuming less.

Is there anything you miss about non-ecovillage living?
Not really, to be honest. I feel much more at ease with and confident about this lifestyle, and I love the culture that has taken shape here at Dancing Rabbit. It’s very open and honest and peaceful and healthy. There’s always work to be done, and good chunks of downtime, too, of course. Only once in a while do I miss things like going out to movies or moseying about New York City. (I’m originally from the suburbs around NYC.) All in all, life is good here.

What is a typical day like at dancing Rabbit?
This is an often-asked question, but still not an easy one to answer. Every day is pretty different from the next. But there are some things they all share in common. I generally wake up around 8:00 and eat breakfast. Then I usually check my email and do some writing. (I’m a freelance blogger.) After that, I might help someone out with some work they need to get done. (Right now, I’m “work exchanging” for a friend who is building his house.) At 12:00, I eat lunch with my vegan food co-op members. After that, I might continue doing work (if there’s any to be done), go for a bike ride, read a book, or do video work. (I also run a video blog here, called Dancing Rabbit TV). If I’m the cook for my food co-op that night, I might start cooking around 3:00-3:30. At 6:30, I eat dinner. Afterwards, I might play a board game with some folks, call my family or friends, read a book, watch a movie, or just hang out. Then I’ll hit the hay around 10:00-11:30, depending on how tired I am.

What do you mean by sustainable living and how is it important to the environment?
A sustainable lifestyle is one that is capable of continuing indefinitely. I, among many others, believe that the typical lifestyle lead by most Americans is highly unsustainable, and is not capable of continuing much further into the future. As a civilization, we are desperately dependent on cheap energy, particularly oil, which fuels every facet of modern living, everything from transportation to manufacturing to agriculture and everything in-between. We generally disregard how our actions have an incredibly damaging effect on the environment. Without realizing just how much damage we are causing to the planet, we will leave serious scars on the environment which may be felt by many future generations. I think it’s important that we recognize this and learn to live in harmony with the earth’s ecosystems, so life, both human and non-human, can continue on more peacefully, healthfully, and indefinitely.

What are some things people can do to be more sustainable without moving out to Dancing Rabbit?
There’s plenty that people can do to live more sustainably. The first thing to do is educate yourself and others about the environment, about our culture, and about sustainable living. As far as practical things go, you can start by consuming less and realizing that you can’t just “buy” sustainability. Try eating locally and organically grown foods, those raised without pesticides and other harmful chemicals, and those that haven’t traveled 2,000 miles to reach your dinner table. You can also try driving less. Consider walking or biking, or ridesharing and public transportation, if possible. See if you can reduce your commute by moving closer to your job. Use energy at home efficiently, and avoid buying power-hungry appliances. Use water conservatively. Recycle your trash and compost your food scraps. All of these small actions can help. The main thing is to realize just how much we consume to accomplish everyday tasks, and then try to limit what we can.

More info about the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage can be found at http://dancingrabbit.org/ and their behind the scenes video blog, Dancing Rabbit TV. Brian has also posted a semi photo essay on Facebook showing more day to day living at Dancing Rabbit.

This post is part of Blog Action Day