Several months ago, after we removed an old gazebo from our yard, I began noticing a sagging line. I was able to ignore it for a while. But, after completing some recent work in the yard, I just couldn’t ignore it any more. 😄
The breaking point was me being able to touch the wire with my head. Not knowing what kind of line this was, I went out to the pole to see what I could find out. This worked out well for me since I was able to trace the line back to this enclosure.
You may not be able to read that sticker, but the important part is that it says Southwestern Bell Telephone, so I immediately knew this was a telephone wire. Since we don’t even use a landline in the house, I began my search to figure out how I could get this line removed.
It didn’t take long to figure out that Southwestern Bell and ATT merged at some point and that I’d need to contact ATT to get the telephone line handled. But, what I wasn’t prepared for was how much of a pain in the ass this would be. I ended up calling ATT multiple times and getting passed through various departments, each time being told that they couldn’t help me because I wasn’t an ATT customer.
After a few failed attempts, over a couple of hours, I finally gave up and messaged ATT on Facebook. I kid you not, within TEN minutes, a customer service representative replied from ATT, giving me a link to instructions for getting the line fixed.
I’ll share the link here in case anyone finds their way to this post in a similar situation. 😄
After following the instructions on the link, a technician was able to come out the same day and remove the unused telephone lines from my house!
I got the chance to go to the Hotter N Hell criteriums a week or so ago to take some pictures. The action is much faster than I’m used to working with, so I threw out a ton of photos that I took. 🙂
Not too long ago, I took the kids up to the Wichita Mountains for a day trip. We got up close and personal with some bison and prairie dogs while there, and I got a few pictures of that.
Last month, everyone in my company descended upon Whistler, BC, Canada for our annual company meetup. A few days before that meetup, I stayed at a coworker's house on Bowen Island.
Here are a few pictures from that trip.
My family went to the Oklahoma City Zoo this past Saturday. While there, I got some time to get some photos. For all of these, I used my Sony a6000 with a 55-200mm Sony lens and the Olympus 1.7x teleconverter.
This past Sunday, I set out on an adventure to go see the total solar eclipse along with my kids and a friend, Scott Sutter. And while we had a successful trip, driving 24 hours over 2.5 days, we did hit a few speed bumps along the way.
Plans cancelled
You see, on August 10th, I finally chose Fairmont, NE as the city we’d watch from and booked a hotel about 2.5 hours away in McPherson, KS. McPherson and Salina were the closest cities I could find reasonably priced hotels. I remember seeing a Motel 6 in Fairmont going for $1,000+…
From, August 11th to August 18th (or so), I kept checking the weather, and it seemed to actually get better. So, I relaxed a bit and mentally prepared to take the kids on a road trip without my wife.Â
On August 19th though, Colt West pinged me to let me know the weather was going to be bad in Fairmont, NE on the day of the solar eclipse. Sure enough, when I looked at it, the weather predicted very cloudy conditions and high chances of severe thunderstorm.
Needless to say, our chances of seeing the solar eclipse at this point weren’t very great.
A bit of weather couldn’t stop us
But, since we were planning on heading out at 7 AM the next morning, I immediately started to look into other options.
Thanks to Colt West’s help, we figured that somewhere in the Tennessee valley would be the best option for seeing the total solar eclipse. But, remember how that Motel 6 was $1,000+ 9 days prior? How the hell was I going to find a hotel in or near Tennessee that would be reasonable?!
Thankfully, Colt also suggested Jonesboro, AR as a stopping point, where I was able to find a Best Western for ~$120.
This let us stick with the same plan to leave at 7 AM on August 20th. But, then we were left with one more issue.
Where the heck do we park and view?
After stopping in Jonesboro, AR, we still weren’t 100% sure where we were going to go. We had a good idea that we’d go to Carbondale, MO, but realistically, it all depended on the weather and whether we could find a good place to actually view the solar eclipse.
At some point, we decided that Hopkinsville would be a good spot for weather conditions, so I set upon finding us a place to view. After a short visit to the city’s website, I saw that all public viewing areas had been reserved. Where the heck were we supposed to go then? Surely, larger cities like Nashville, TN would also have similar issues, right?
It wasn’t until I visited Hopkinsville’s Facebook page that it clicked. There was a family with private property that was allowing people to park and view for just $20. One call later, and we had a spot reserved for us in Crofton, KY, about 12 miles north of Hopkinsville and a bit out of the way so we were able to miss much of the traffic!
Day of
Since we were still in Jonesboro, AR on the morning of August 21st, we had roughly a 4 hour drive to get to Crofton, KY, which meant we needed to leave by about 5 AM to allow plenty of time for traffic and stops.
Heading out at 5AM from Jonesboro, AR to see the eclipse this morning
24 Hours for one picture
After all was said and done, we ended up driving nearly 24 hours, 12 hours each way, to see an eclipse for 2.5 minutes, and it was totally worth it! Here’s the picture that I was able to get with my Sony a6000 with 55-210mm lens and a 1.7x teleconverter from Olympus.
While in Frankfurt last weekend, one of the places that I had the opportunity to go see was Palmengarten, which is a botanical garden. It was a 1.7 mile walk from my Airbnb, so I had some time to see other parts of the city along the way.
I got these photos on August 5th, 2017 at the Frankfurt Zoo, which was just around the corner from the Airbnb that I stayed. It was a great zoo and a a stop that I’d recommend for others checking out Frankfurt!
While walking around Frankfurt, I found a very interesting building named MyZeikl. Go ahead, Google it. It’s got some interesting architecture.
What struck me the most while there was this mashup of red, metal, and the glass in the ceiling. A close second was the view when looking down from the top floor.
