I picked up a new tripod the other day, a Velbon Ultra Maxi-SF. It’s so much of an improvement over my old Velbon tripod. First of all, it is much smaller when in it’s in its compact state. And when it is fully extended, it is tall enough that I don’t have to stoop down to use it. Also, its legs are independent, and you can remove most of the center post so that it can go as low as about six inches above the ground. The head on it is of the ball-type, and is super easy to use. Finally, the tripod is very light, maybe half the weight of my older tripod.

Today I took my camera to Bull Creek to try out the tripod, and it worked great. The photos didn’t turn out too hot, but that’s a different story…

A new Michael’s (craft store) opened recently in Round Rock, near our house. There were some 50%-off coupons in the mail, so we decided to go and get some Halloween decorations. Thank goodness we didn’t have anything else planned the rest of the day because the place was packed! The line extended from the registers to about 2/3 of the way to the back of the store. And this is a *big* Michael’s. I timed our wait in the checkout line, and when we finally paid for our items, we had stood in line for an hour and ten minutes. Luckily we bought a couple coloring books for Bay, and we could read those with him. Koa was pretty good too. At lease we saved about $25.

This morning I stayed home with Koa, who had a fever. I had a chance to watch some morning tv, and turned on Cold Pizza to catch some Dodgers highlights. I didn’t see any highlights, but I did notice that almost all of the male hosts had tons of make-up on, and their hair looked so un-natural, with frosty blond highlights where grey should have been. It was so weird looking! I understand that they should wear make-up to look a little nicer, but it just was way over-the-top. It was almost like plastic surgery “lite”. (By the way, Koa is doing ok, and the Dodgers won yesterday)

I got a toy shopping cart at Target! -Bay

I think the 2.5″ screen on the back of the Maxxum 7D is awesome. It even changes orientation when you take a portrait shot. If/when I get this camera, I am going to carry it wherever I go!

This is an example of how the Dodgers have been doing lately.

[Tommy Lasorda at the 2001 All-Star Game>

There’s a brand of trailer hitch that I just don’t understand. It’s called “Hidden Hitch”, and it is black and fits under the bumper of the car. The funny thing is that they put a big white logo that says “HIDDEN HITCH” on it, which makes the hitch not very hidden at all. What a dilemma for the marketing department.

Finally Bay is making good progress potty-training. The other night he took off his pullups and put on his underwear. He said he doesn’t need pullups anymore. So now he is wearing underwear all the time at home! It’s amazing that it seemed to happen all of a sudden. Actually, his school has been working hard at it, and now it has finally taken. This is great because we will save tons of money by not having to buy any more pullups!

I was reading a messageboard and the topic was what speed to burn cd backups at. Here is my favorite post:

“I’d recommend burning 2 or 3 copies of a DVD at 1X speed and storing them in different places in case of a meteor strike.”