Anyone want to buy a house in Spartanburg, SC?

Before Amy and I got married (tomorrow will be 2 years), I had my house and she had her house. 

I had said that if I ever got married again, I would need a house with a "Man Cave" (aka basement).  So we decided that before we got married, we would buy "our house" together.   We found the perfect house and bought it.  We actually had our wedding ceremony in the backyard of our new home!

The problem was we now had (3) houses and (3) mortgage payments!

Fortunately, Amy had no problem selling her house.  Unfortunately I didn't have any luck selling mine and then the economy went all to Hell!  So, I decided to take it off the market and rent it out.  That worked out great, but last month the tenants decided not to renew the lease and moved out last week.

The good news is that the economy is a little better now, so hopefully it will sell quickly.

While our tenants did a fine job keeping the inside of the house in good shape, they obviously were not much into yard work and the yard was in rough shape!

So, today Amy and I spent most of the day weeding, trimming, edging, clipping, chopping, digging, and mowing.  After a hard days work, the yard now looks 100 times better.  I told my realator, I would take some photos after we finished the yard work to include with the listing.  The sun was way too bright, but they will have to do for now.  I'll go back on a more overcast day to get some better shots.

 

Playing with Panorama

While on our hike yesterday, Waterfall Rich (http://www.ncwaterfalls.com/) and I arrived at a spot on Rumbling Bald Mountain which in my opinion offers up the best view of Lake Lure anywhere.  Even better than the famous and much much more popular view from Chimney Rock!

However, even with a super wide angle lens, there is no way to capture the entire 180+ degree view in one shot.  So I thought it would be a good oppurtunity to play around with Panorama.  Here are the results.

You should be able to click on each image to enlarge.

Rumbling Bald

I had a great hike today up Rumbling Bald Mountain near Lake Lure, NC.

Today's photo is the view of Lake Lure from Rumbling Bald Mountain.

Baby Austin

This evening, Amy and I went to visit our friends Jeff and Lori for dinner and to see the new addition to their family!

About a year ago, we were on a camping trip with Jeff and Lori and we were discussing how we are all in our 30s and are perfectly happy to be "Childless by Choice".  A few months later Jeff and Lori got a big surprise when they found out that birth control pills are not 100% effective!

At 12:03am Easter Morning, baby Austin entered the world and Jeff and Lori left the "Childless by Choice" World. 

Todays photo is a quick shot of Baby Austin with the proud new parents!

Lori, Austin, Jeff

Azalea Bud about to burst

Most of the Azaleas in our neighborhood are nearing full bloom.  However, at our house the blooms seem a few days behind.  Not sure if it is a different type of Azalea or due to the fact that our Azaleas are mostly shaded. 

For today's photo, I took a Macro shot of an Azalea Bud getting ready to bloom!  Again, you can see all the Pollen on the bud.  Hopefully the rain that is getting ready to hit us will wash away much of the Pollen!

My Easter Weekend Surprise!

My Easter Weekend Surprise

Thursday April 1st thru Monday, April 5th, 2010

Photos are posted here:
http://community.webshots.com/album/577274365jxhWIp

The first surprise of the weekend was when my Aunt Barbara (aka Aunt Babs), showed up with my parents on Thursday afternoon. As posted earlier, I knew my parents were coming into town for Easter Weekend, but I had no idea Aunt Babs would be coming down with them. All the way down from Connecticut!

But that was just the beginning.

I should have guessed something else was up, by my wife Amy's strange choice of bedroom assignments for our guests. However, I have learned not to question the woman of the house when it comes to guest sleeping arrangements!

I also posted earlier about how we took a trip up to Asheville, NC on Friday to check out the NC Arboretum.

NC Arboretum Blog Post:
http://scjack.blogspot.com/2010/04/north-carolina-arboretum.html


Saturday - Let the Craziness begin!



The morning started out with a nice breakfast. After which, the girls went on a shopping excursion, while my Dad and I made a trip to the Beer store!

Amy's parents, Sister, Brother-in-law, and nieces would be joining us for dinner, but I did question when the girls returned from shopping with 10 pounds of Shrimp for the Low Country Boil, I was planning on fixing for dinner. I only need 5 pounds at the most. They came up with an excuse that they thought the 2 pound bags were 1 pound bags.

As I was checking to make sure the Turkey Fryer (big pot which I use for low country boil) was working properly, My brother and his family walk in the door yelling "Surprise"! Well, now the sleeping arrangements made a little more sense.

I knew my sister and her family were on a cruise, so they certainly wouldn't be coming. But "Surprise" again as they all showed up a little while later!

Turns out they actually were on a cruise, but the boat docked in Florida early that morning and they went a few hours out of the way to surprise me for my 40th Birthday celebration surprise party!

After Amy's family showed up we really did have a house full, and the 10 pounds of Shrimp made a lot more sense!

Low Country Boil

After a fabulous dinner, the older nieces and nephews hid Easter Eggs around the front yard for the younger children to find.

Grace grabbing some Easter Eggs

Then a massive game of tag erupted with almost everyone getting involved. Large quantities of adult beverages were consumed that evening and a great time was had by all!

Jack chasing Grace

Here I am playing tag with the kids  (Photo by my nephew Conner)

By Sunday morning most of the gang had headed on home. But, my parents, Aunt Babs, my brother Bill and his family stayed till Monday Morning. We had a good time taking the Liam and Marielle to Cleveland Park in downtown Spartanburg on Sunday and enjoying their antics throughout the evening.

My mom pushing Liam on the Swing

Except for showing up to work a little later than usual on Monday, things were back to normal!  It was a great surprise for the 40th Birthday.
Thanks to Amy and the rest of my family for making it happen!

Additional photos can be seen on my webshots gallery:
http://community.webshots.com/album/577274365jxhWIp

Black and White

Black and White!
This is the theme for one of the monthly photo contests for one of the Yahoo photo groups I belong to.

For today's lunch time photo project, I decided to play around with that theme.

This is the original photo.  A white child (my niece Marielle) and a black child playing together.  It kinda fits the Black and White theme.

However, I think the real idea behind the "Black and White" theme is to use a black and white photo.  I really don't see much purpose in shooting in "Black and White".  It is so easy to convert a color photo into Black and White, but much more difficult to go from "Black and White" to color.

So I decided to do a little Photoshop work and quickly converted it to Black and White.  Now the photo fits the theme in two entirely different ways.

If you look at the original color photo, you can see a man walking in the background and some shadows from some other playground equipment.  I thought these were a little distracting, so I used a few more Photoshop tools to get rid of them.

Well, it definitely fits the theme, but I still have another (3) weeks to come up with something better!

On another note, the black child in this photo was facinated with my camera and kept asking me to take his picture.  He even asked if he could take a few shots with it, which I allowed him to do under very close supervision.  I thought one of the shots I took of him on the swing came out really good.