Oh, birthday cake.

Cake from my 33rd birthday.

Some people just can’t let go. Ron Paul is not the Republican candidate for president. He is not the Libertarian candidate for president. For that matter, he is not the Constitution Party candidate for president. He is not a candidate for Congress. He is done. Out of the picture. Retiring from elected political life.

Will his die hard supporters please stop trying to kick other candidates to the curb. Many of the complaints about other candidates, such as Gary Johnson, resolve around the idea that he is not a Ron Paul clone. Seriously, not even Ron Paul passes the Ron Paul litmus test(Ron Paul voted for the use of military force in Afghanistan; so much for a non interventionist foreign policy). If Gary Johnson did pass the RPLT, he be called out for ripping off Dr. Paul. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

This liberty idea is supposed to be a movement. A movement such as ours, should not revolve around one person. It should revolve around the idea of preserving what liberties we have left and pursuing the restoration what liberties we have seemingly lost. We will not make progress if we demand our representatives in this movement meet impossible standards. We will also not gain allies if we push away others with differing ideas. We need people to run for officer at all levels. If a candidate is 75-85% of the ideal, then support him or her. We will never get our Liberty utopia, but maybe some day we can get something close to it if we embrace more candidates who are almost all the way with us.

A side note, would the liberty movement please stop attacking candidates who “get it” but haven’t memorized every intellectual book on the face of the Earth. Some people understand the ways things work without having to use thousand dollar words to explain them. I’d like to see things get done, instead of just debated.

I’m already testing out Zen right now @ zen.mountainfort.com .

decisions x2.

Last weekend I shot a friends metal band. Mistress of My Enemy, as they performed for the first time in about a year. Just for fun I put some of the photos to music

The photos from that shoot can be found here:

I also photographed some of the other bands that night. This was all at Amped Performance Center’s new locations.

Now that weather is getting warmer, the fruit trees are starting to bloom. And of course, my apricot tree went stupid and bloomed too early. All it has to do is wait about 4 weeks and we’d get apricots each year. But noooooo. So I took some obligatory macro photos of it and the bees that love it.

And some video.

Of course a failed at outputting the right size before uploading to youtube. Won’t make that mistake again.

Some other photos from the past year:

manifestation

I purchased the Pentax K5 a few months ago. Such a great camera. This is a camera that becomes an extension of my own eyes. Most of my frustrations that I had with the *ist DL were gone. The auto-focus is crisp, and the dynamic resolution is outstanding. The only thing I wish it had was manual video controls.  I’m crossing my fingers that a firmware update will bring forth those features.

What made it strange is that my freaking batteries starting draining fast. Not cheapo batteries, but AA Sanyo Eneloops. Freshly charged ones at that. Now I have heard of battery drain before at haunted sites, but never at a peaceful burial ground. Go figure.

Then on July 31st  Mother Nature struck back with some rumblings of her own.

All in all, July 2010 made for a great visual feast.  Lets see what August has to offer.

Curtain Call