rob’s place

Sometimes there is a reward for getting up early in Puerto Rico.

Sunrise over El Yunque

Moonset in the Morning

More photos to come from our visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekend…

last night’s sunset, originally uploaded by orangejack.

Sometimes we just have some nice sunsets in Orlando.

Sorry it’s taken so long, but I finally got about a fourth of the shots I took online. Below is a sampling, however you can go ahead and skip to the set or the slide show.

Stopping in Downtown Anchorage, originally uploaded by orangejack.

I’m getting some of our Alaska photos up on Flickr. So far they are mostly from various times we went to downtown Anchorage.

I have a lot of animal pics to get up here soon too so stay tuned.

Did you see it tonight? Clouds came right at the peak. This was my best (though not great) shot.

Happy Birthday to a group/community I started 2 years ago today: Central Florida Flickrs.

I started it 2 years ago today because I saw a need for people on Flickr who lived in the same area to share their work. There was already a group called “Orlando, Florida”. It is for photos of Orlando. I created “Central Florida Flickrs” for people of Central Florida.

If you are a photo taker and live in Central Florida, please, you’re invited to be a part of our group.

Here’s why I’m so pleased with this group:

I’m impressed that we have over 400 members and 18,000 photos in the pool. But you know what’s really cool? At least 150 conversations on the boards!

They call this a group on Flickr, but I have experience with this sort of thing. This group has turned into a community and I think that’s really cool. I’ve tried to stay ‘hands off’ with the rules as much as possible and have only had to create 2 rules in response to abusers.

We’ve got people trying to help each other find jobs, get together for photo shoots, advice, and playing games.

This rocks!

Smile! It’s our Birthday!

Nothing much to say today so I thought I’d post a funky photo I took a week or so ago. It was at Downtown Disney over one of the cash registers. I just zoomed in and snapped.

It’s my current desktop wallpaper.

People obsess about the weather. I’m not sure why, but I do too. I’ve always thought it would be fun to be a meteorologist. But to be one in Orlando isn’t that difficult with consistent weather and only three seasons (hot, hotter, and a bit cooler).

So it’s nice to get out and visit a place that has fall. We’ve been fortunate to see some beautiful colors lately. I took a small set of fall leaves in Centreville, VA on Thanksgiving morning. It was nice to have a new item on the other end of my camera lens.

BTW, the photo included in this post looks so much better large.

Went to a Starbucks that moved into a bank.

Played with the nieces.

Patricia wore a Hannah Montana wig.

One last stop on the cruise after Marseille. The cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. Patricia and I like this city a lot. We’ve been there before (photo set) and it was the first city I traveled across the ocean to. Previously I’d been to a city or two in Canada and Mexico, but never outside of North America.

It’s a great city. We stayed one night off of Las Ramblas and we showed the family around a bit. We had some incredible Spanish food at 4 Gats and Patricia and I went back to our favorite cafe in Barcelona: Forns del Pi. One of the interesting things we found this time that we didn’t know before is on the 4 Gats restaurant corner outside is a statue of the Baby Jesus being held by his father, Joseph. It’s rare to see the Baby Jesus being held by anyone other than his mother, Mary.

Less than 24 hours in Barcelona and we were back on a plane, heading back to Orlando and reality.

I don’t have a lot of photos of Barcelona, but you can view the set or the slideshow.

Pisa was our last stop in Italy. Seems this cruise was centered around just about everything in Italy with a few stops in a few other places. Our first stop after leaving Italy was Marseille, France. I had no idea what to expect. I knew it would be a pretty place, but didn’t have many expectations. It turned out to be a very nice day.

We took a bus to the harbor area and were dropped off by a fish market. They sold just about anything and everything that came out of the water! I was walking by checking it all out and saw a patron pick up an octopus off the ground and hand it to the vendor. Apparently the octopus had attempted a daring escape. When he was put back into his bowl to be sold, I got this little video of him.

YouTube - octopus spitter

Most of the rest of the day was a quiet walk in perfect weather up some streets to an old palace. In the middle atop the hill was a huge water fountain. On either side were large buildings that are now museums. It was very beautiful up there and the view was incredible.

Afterwards we wandered back down the hill to the boat. Not a lot that we did there, but that was good. It was peaceful, calm, and all together a good day.

I have a sampling of our photos from our day in Marseille. You can view the set or slideshow.