Just My Two Cents

Sidney Yates Building

jeffself — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:21:37 +0000

Here’s an image of the Sidney Yates building I made from my trip to Washington, DC over Thanksgiving. As I mentioned in my post of the Washington monument, I also took this from my wife’s minivan while we were driving by. This building was built in 1879. That blows my mind.

Washington Monument

jeffself — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:03:15 +0000

While on my trip to DC over Thanksgiving, I took this shot of the Washington Monument while sitting in the middle row of my wife’s minivan while we drove by. A little bit of post-processing, and here you go:

U.S. Capitol

jeffself — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:12:30 +0000

Here’s an image I made of the U.S. Capitol while visiting D.C. over Thanksgiving. I think that day was colder than any day this winter. We did the tourist thing and took the tour of the Capitol and Library of Congress.

Yellow Cab

jeffself — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:39:32 +0000

Since receiving the Creative Efex Collection by Nik Software for Christmas, I’ve been going through photos I previously shot. I came across this photo I made while visiting Universal Studios in Florida over Thanksgiving 2009. I was sitting on a bench across from an old yellow cab. With the help of Color Efex Pro and HDR Efex Pro, I made this. Enjoy.

Photos from Captiva Island, FL

jeffself — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:12:11 +0000

This post is a little late. I was in Captiva, FL back in December but since I’m trying to get back into blogging, I thought I’d add some photos I shot in December. Captiva Island is a beautiful place on the west coast of Florida. Its an island just west of Fort Myers just above Sanibel Island. Captiva Island is known for its beautiful beaches and terrific sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. It’s home to some great wildlife as well. While vacationing at South Seas Resort, I made sure I took plenty of photographs. You can find my complete set on my Flickr site. Here are some of my favorites:

Photography in 2012

jeffself — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:59:08 +0000

2012 is the year I get serious about photography. I got a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens for my birthday and finished up my buying spree by getting a Manfrotto 468MG Ball Head and Gitzo GT3541XLS Carbon Fiber tripod. I love to shoot old things, like barns, houses and automobiles. However, I live in a city that transitioned from a rural community years ago. Fortunately, we still have some old barns standing. I’ve spent the last couple Saturday mornings shooting a couple.

Here’s a shot of an old bar or some kind of storage facility. I’m not up on my farm lingo. It sits right next door to Oscar Smith High School.

Here’s a shot of an old barn about a mile from my house. I’ve been eyeing this barn for about a year. My son used to call this the ‘Twister Barn’ because he thought it was damaged by a tornado.

And here is my favorite shot of the same barn:

My goal this year is to shoot something every weekend. I’ve got several other places in mind. It’s just a matter of getting the time to do it.

College Football Realignment

jeffself — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:52:27 +0000

College Football is in turmoil. Texas A&M has fled the Big 12 and joined the Southeastern Conference. So the Big 12 is now down to nine teams. And Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech are expected to leave as well. Are we witnessing the beginning of the super-conferences? Will the Big 10 expand again? Will they go after the remnants of the Big 12 or will they invade the Big East or ACC? Will the Big East and ACC join forces to produce their own super-conference? And where in the heck does Notre Dame fit in all this realignment mess? Will this be the end of major college football as we know it?

The consensus says we will wind up with 4 super-conferences consisting of 16 teams each. I don’t like that. Too many schools will be left out of this. What happens to a school like Boise State? College football is eating itself. This is capitalism at its worst. Unfortunately, the NCAA has little control over the conferences. In an ideal world, the NCAA would be in charge, and they would decide what conference a school belongs to. What we need is a football czar. Television rights need to be split. Conferences and schools should not be getting their own television packages.

In my own fantasy world, I would be the czar of college football. I would create the following system for major college football. I would have 4 major conferences. Each conference would have 2 divisions with 9 teams in each division. You would play all 8 opponents in your division. You win your division if you have the best record in your division and play the other division winner in your conference for the conference championship. Each of the four conference champions would play in a national semi-final game. The games would be played at the higher seeded schools. A national championship game would be played two weeks later. The money from the national championship game would be split amongst all 72 schools. A playoff! What a concept!

Here is my breakdown of conferences and divisions:

North Conference

Division 1	Division 2
UConn	Ohio St
Pittsburgh	Michigan
Rutgers	Michigan St
Syracuse	Indiana
Penn St	Purdue
Boston College	Northwestern
Cincinnati	Illinois
Nebraska	Wisconsin
Notre Dame	Minnesota

East Conference

Division 3	Division 4
Virginia Tech	South Carolina
Clemson	South Florida
North Carolina	Florida St
North Carolina St	East Carolina
Miami	Florida
Virginia	Kentucky
Maryland	Georgia
Georgia Tech	Central Florida
West Virginia	Louisville

South Conference

Division 5	Division 6
Alabama	TCU
Auburn	Texas
Ole Miss	Texas Tech
Mississippi St	Texas A&M
LSU	Baylor
Tulane	Oklahoma
Arkansas	Oklahoma St
Southern Miss	Missouri
Houston	Tennessee

West Conference

Division 7	Division 8
Iowa	Washington
Arizona St	Washington St
Iowa St	Oregon
Kansas	Oregon St
Kansas St	Boise St
Arizona	Stanford
Colorado	California
Utah	UCLA
BYU	USC

I’m allowed to dream, right?

Early thoughts on Google Plus

jeffself — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:11:30 +0000

I was able to get set up on Google+ last week. You can find me here.

I’m still trying to get a feel for it. I love the idea of Circles. I’m all about categories. I’ve never used the lists in Facebook and find it to be about 90% noise now.

I doubt if Google+ will ever achieve the popularity of Facebook, but it might hurt Twitter some. It can do everything that Twitter does and isn’t limited to 140 characters. It might be a little too “geeky” for the Facebook crowd however.

I’m still on the fence with Picassa. Just what I need. Another photo sharing site. I’m already putting my pictures on Facebook and Flickr. Now I’m supposed to upload to Picassa, too? I think I might just get a SmugMug account and be done with it.

I haven’t yet joined any huddles or hung out with anyone. I guess I’m just a little too busy.

Lightning strike over Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

jeffself — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:50:56 +0000

Lightning strike over Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, a photo by Jeff Self on Flickr.

We were supposed to have fireworks but this storm cancelled them. No problem though. Storm provided plenty of it’s own.

Carova, NC

jeffself — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 20:34:45 +0000

Took the family to Carova, NC yesterday for a day on the beach. It’s a bit of a pain to get there since I have to drive 65 miles south to the Outer Banks then make a left and drive 30 miles north to Carova. But it’s a great place to go. The road ends in Corolla and from there its 4 wheel drives only. We had no one within a quarter mile of us. Only had to look out for passing vehicles since the beach is actually considered a road down there. The weather was perfect. It was about 85 degrees, a few clouds here and there, and low humidity. Beach was a challenge when leaving since the sand was so soft, and we couldn’t find a good set of tracks to follow. I should have probably let some air out of my tires but didn’t. Anyway, here are some pictures: