Day 63 - Pinewood Racer - 12 Feb 2011

Glad I did not wait until the end of the race to take this picture because there were no smiles then. He finished the day as the fastest car in his den to not make it to the Super Derby. Still he had the excitement of doing very well in all but one of the heats and the satisfaction that comes from doing most of the work on the car himself.

First Shuttle

Seeing a shuttle this close really gives you an appreciation of how massive they are. I've always wanted to see one take off, but this will just have to do.

Let's be sure history never forgets the name Enterprise. As long as we can visit one at the Udvar-Hazy Center, maybe we won't.

Two Feet Below

You often hear about jobs with glass ceilings, but the fine folks who work at the Udvar-Hazy center (aka the Other Air and Space Museum - the one by the airport) work in an office with glass floors. You can walk right below the office dwellers as they scurry to and fro or whatever it is people do in offices these days.

Edge of Blue

You've seen mention here of PhotoChallenge.org - a site that runs various photo challenges to help inspire us all to take more pictures. This year they are doing a challenge to shoot a specified theme every day of the year. Now I don't know who is crazy enough to take a good picture everyday for an entire year, but I managed to at least take one this day in which the theme was "Half".

Hold Out Your Hand

This was one of those spur of the moment shots. While sitting at my desk, for some reason I can no longer recall, I held my hand up and liked how the light from the window was hitting it. My camera was handy (intended) so I picked it up and took this shot. Just a bit of post processing, and there you go.

When You Thought It Was Safe

Ah, chrome. Before it was a web browser, it was a fun shiny part of many a car. Now you need to go to a museum to see it. At least I did. The Smithsonian American History Museum. This picture was taken before Ben Stiller showed up and everything came to life, btw.

Motionless One

Inside the Smithsonian Museum of American History is an odd statue of George Washington done up like an ancient Greek dude, or perhaps a less ancient frat boy going to a toga party. This statue was done by some Italian artist, and when it arrived in DC, lets just say it was not what was expected. The leaders of the day must have looked on this mostly naked man art not unlike the mom from A Christmas Story looked at the ladies leg lamp. Anyway, this is his hand, and I think he is posed like this because he was in fact, #1. Either that, or he is indicated on what denomination of money he is featured.

Final Exit

On the other side of this door is New York City - East Broadway at the Manhattan Bridge - right in the chaotic heart of a Chinatown morning. People are hurrying in all directions as vendors unload truckfuls of mysterious produce and other unknown wonders while cars and trains pass by noisily on the bridge. This side of the door holds quiet and calm, but that all changes as you pass through, and there is no going back.

Jazz Club

I must have walked pass the door to this jazz club in Greenwich Village three times before I finally decided to take a chance and go in. As much as I like jazz and new experiences, it felt a bit weird to go into a place like this by myself. I am so glad that I did. B.D. Lenz Group played the exact kind of funky cool tunes that I needed to get out of my own head for a while and lose myself to the night.

Dark Alley

At my peak, I was a fairly average bowler. My peak however, was somewhere between 15 and 20 years ago. Since then, I had been bowling exactly twice. That is, until this fateful night in New York City during which I learned two things:
1) The rules of bowling etiquette are either not the same in New York or they are just ignored
2) Bowling is not the kind of activity that once you learn how to do it, you always remember, even after not doing it for a long time (can't think of a good analogy).



Thanks to Phill Price for letting me know about AudioBoo.

You Don't Know JAX

While flying home from a fun family vacation at Disney World, we were not far from Orlando when we smelled it. It wasn't a burning smell so much as it was a sulfurous, match-just-struck kind of smell. It was the exact kind of smell that you don't want to smell on an airplane. The staff tried to isolate the source of this mysterious smell, but when their efforts proved to be in vain, the pilot decided to put the plane down in Jacksonville.

We had a few hours at JAX to wait for a new plane. While the kids entertained themselves walking upstream on the moving sidewalk, playing with their new friends (there are always plenty of kids on a flight from Orlando), and watching Dr. Horrible, I decided to take a mini-photowalk in the airport. This cart did it's best to make me feel welcome.

Celebrate!

Day 365



So here we are at the last day of this photo-a-day odyssey. Frankly I surprised myself by sticking to it and taking a picture every day of the year. Some were better than others, but 365 of them were good enough for me to call keepers and feature them here on this blog.

Was it all worth it? For me, it definitely was. Not only do I think that I improved my photography skills, but I generally had a whole lot of fun doing it. If you had half as much fun looking at these pictures as I did taking them, then I had twice as much fun taking them as you did looking at them.

My sincere thanks to those of you that have followed along and especially to those that have left some comments along the way, either here or on Flickr. It would still be worth it to me even if no one ever saw any of these pictures, but the fact that some people have taken a look now and then makes it so much better.

Now that we've reached the end, what comes next? To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. I'm not going to try to shoot a picture everyday in 2009, I can tell you that now. Even so Roth365.com will continue. I plan to keep shooting regularly however, and will continue to share my work here as well as on Flickr. I may also go through my ever growing archive of unprocessed pictures and see what gems might be hidden there. So, keep checking back, and we'll see what happens.

At this moment though, I'm putting a big red DONE stamp on this photo-a-day odyssey.

Just Me

Day 362



When you are looking at pictures of people, it is easy to tell which one is the photographer, because he is the one who is not in the picture. Usually. I sort of addressed this problem by handing down my own camera to my wife, who tends to think I'm fairly easy on the eyes. That did not help me get into Roth365 very often however. So on this day, when I saw this handsome kid looking back at me, I just had to take his picture.

3d6

Day 361



For Christmas, I received a game called Shut the Box. This game consists of a box with a row of tiles, 1 though 9, and a set of dice. You roll the dice and push down some combination of the tiles that matches the value of what you rolled. I had this great idea to take a picture with the tiles spelling out the day. Unfortunately, I had this great idea on Day 360, which is one day too late, since the tiles are in order, and there is no zero. So instead, I borrowed one die from my son's new backgammon board, and took this shot.

Hail to the Chef

Day 360



Hey, look - it's a bunch of Lego mini-figs. I decided to feature them this day since I had spent much of Christmas and Boxing Day playing with helping my kids build their new Lego sets. And because they are just so cool.

Ready

Day 359



Ah, the sweet torture of those last moments before you can go downstairs on Christmas morning to see what the big man has brought for you. My poor children get these last moments prolonged so that I can capture the anticipation, as well as the growing annoyance.

Twas

Day 358



Whoever it was that decided it would be a good thing to leave Ol' Santa some cookies and milk on Christmas Eve deserves a medal. I'm quite sure that at some point after I took this pictures, this delicious snack was consumed and enjoyed very much, thank you.

1701-E

Day 357



Ten years ago, the Mrs. and I took all the change we had collected a large Snapple bottle, and converted it into cash money via Coinstar. We decided that this qualified as "found" money, and thus decided to spend it frivolously. I used my half to purchase this Hallmark Keepsake ornament of the Starship Enterprise 1701-E.

The Mrs. mocked my choice, and said that this was even a waste of found money. She must not have realized at the time how this ornament would continue to bring pleasure year after year. I'd say this was money well spent.

So what did she wisely spend her half of the money on? Neither of us even remembers.

Singing Tigers

Day 352



Does it make me a bad dad that I often mistake my son for one of several other Tiger Cubs many times at each Cub Scout meeting? I blame it on the hats, which combined with their relative shortness makes them all look overly similar to someone with my vantage point. I'm pretty sure, however, that this one is mine.

My Girl

Day 351



My daughter sure has learned how to mug for the camera this year. We attended the Christmas program at her pre-school (in which she was an angel, a reindeer, and just a kid), and every time she saw me hold up the camera, she would turn her head just-so and give me a very cute little fake smile.