Painted Bricks Or Natural Color

I made a visit through St Paul's East Side Neighborhood and drove past this building that caught my eye. The building has been refurbished in someway, but I'm curious if the red brick is painted or is that the natural color of it? Despite the sign that reads 'The Strip Club' I can assure you, this is a restaurant that a friend of mine has suggested to eat at. I will stop in there soon, but today's stop was only for a quick photo and to find the exact location.

Wingspan Of Local Birds

When I measured, my wingspan was almost as wide as the Osprey.

St Croix River Flooding

Almost without fail, as the snow melts away and flows downstream, the St Croix River spills over it's banks. It's only a couple of feet above flood stage as you can see by the large growing trees in standing water.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Naples, Florida -Final Post! | Chicago, Illinois | Duluth, Minnesota | Two Harbors, Minnesota |

Interesting Links Of the Day:

Spring Is Trying To Grow

This has been a very tough spring to take in this year in 2008. I awoke to a little bit of snow here in the Twin Cities on the last weekend in April. Northern Minnesota had nearly a foot of snow in some parts. I can foresee a very late blooming spring, but some of nature is growing green. I found a patch of moss growing on tree roots on the northern side. Moss, as you should know, typically grows on the north side of trees because....why? Anyone? If you said, sunlight doesn't shine on the north side of objects, you would be correct. That is one way to help find your direction if you are ever lost in a forest.

Two Years Of Twin Cities Daily Photo

I'm a day late, but the Twin Cities Daily Photo has been active for two full years now. What started as a way to learn about my new digital camera has completed it's second year. Honestly my starting date had slipped my mind and I don't really have any special montage of my photos, but the photo I've chosen for this occasion is still one of my favorite photos I've taken so far. I am standing in Mounds Park in East St Paul overlooking downtown St Paul. There was a storm rolling in to the right of the frame at the time of the photo. This was also my first attempt at nighttime photography.

Portable Clusters And Pride In My Work

We rolled out a new product at my work on Tuesday, Earth Day 2008, it was purely coincidence. What you you're looking at is a portable cluster that is made in the Twin Cities. What is a cluster? Essentially it is a super computer that is used for doing massive calculations in a short time frame. For example, we sent a cluster to another customer of ours last week. The program that they run, on their old system took a day and a half to run through all the calculations. We received feedback on their new cluster that we built for them shorted that time frame down to 30 minutes!

Myself and a fellow co-worker did a good portion of the assembly and software setup. The engineering team did the research and development, while my server builders built the nodes. This was a time consuming project with huge results and it's something I wanted to share with you all today.

What's unique about our portable clusters, aside from it being portable, is it runs on only one 120 Volt, 20 AMP circuit. This is the same power plug that your home computer is plugged into the wall outlet. This is a huge deal when you need a product like this , you bring it to a new work site and all you have is standard power. Typically a cluster needs a lot of power to run. I've seen 30 AMP plugs, 230 Volt plus, or separate power for each node. The power savings we have engineered into this product to keep it running on one standard outlet is how this post all ties into Earth Day 2008 in the Twin Cities

  

Not Sure Which Is Worse

This sign I found along the walking trail, we have vandals spray painting, a good sized dent, a missing bolt, one very sun aged sign, plus we have the apparent "danger trains" warning it is giving us. It's a sign with a lot of character.

My Daily Photo Favorites: Terrell, Texas | Seattle, Washington | Springfield, Illinois [****HUMOR ALERT****]

Interesting Links Of the Day:
Macro Photography - It's the little things that count
Looking Around You Pays Off
Make Money With Your Camera

Taking A Rest

The humorous thing about this photo was, during my walk on Sunday with my wife and kids, we were sitting on a bench along the walking path taking a quick break from walking. The distant sounds of a locomotive was approaching, interrupting the peace and quietness of our nature walk. The roar of the engine sped past our view and right there from the very park bench I was sitting on gave me this great reflective view of the passing train. How often do you not have to move from your location to get a bonus photo for your blog? How cool is that?

Toady's Interesting Links
How To Shoot Light Trails

Close Up On The High Sky Way

Minnesota Wild vs Colorado Avalanche Update Series: Colorado win series 4-2

Look, Up In The Sky, It's A Skyway

A skyway? Way up there? Kind of odd, don't you think?