Western Arab

Mom found a very strange butterfly as she called it and I went and saw it. What I saw looked like a moth, it had a very fat thick body and fat legs. It was orange and had an eye shaped pattern on its wing, which dad took a a piece of grass and expanded the other wing to reveal a second “eye” on the wings. After some investigating, it seems to be a silk moth. Very beautiful looking creature out in the world. Here are a few shots.

Thick body Orange Silk Moth

Orange Silk Moth I SEE You

Orange Silk Moth

It is great to be back in Florida. I had a great time in California and it is now one of my favorite states.

Here are some wallpapers of some photos I took while in California and Nevada. 1920×1080

San Diego Beach

San Diego Beach Variation

Nevada Crescent

Los Angeles Night

I had a fun long weekend traveling from Fort Lauderdale west to Naples and North to Tampa and on to Port Richey, then east to Orlando and south back down to West Palm Beach.

It all started with Bakugan.

Bakugan Tournament

Nearly 300 miles away was a Bakugan Tournament at Gulf View Square Mall, and that was our excuse to take the trip knowing that the tournament would be at most an hour event, but the kids would love it. My nephews that is. =)

Kids were excited and had a great time. They got t-shirts, wrist bands and got to be official bakugan battle brawlers with a card with their picture certifying it! COOL!

Following the bakugan tournament, we headed to Olive Garden for breakfast/lunch. We did wake up at 6am just to be in time for the bakugan tournament so we were pretty hungry. After we found a place called stop and play which was just an arcade and after that headed to Orlando.

We arrived in Orlando and found a Radisson Hotel to stay in. It wasn’t as good as we had expected, but not bad overall but next time staying in a Holiday Inn would probably be the better choice. And from the hotel it was out to Old Town where there is an amusement park. We bought tickets for the kids to play on the rides and were convinced that any adult can ride with any kid on the ride. After smashing and bumping the cars on the race track around which they threaten to kick you out if you do so, we learned that they want kids of certain height to go on rides alone and won’t let an adult go with them unless they pay for the ride again. Alright so we broke their policy of no refunds and got our refund and then just bought individual tickets for the rides. Silly of them, we ended up spending much less.

But the amusement park gave me good opportunities to take shots with slower shutter speeds to achieve cool effects.

Old Town

Do not bump, Do not push

Double Ferris Wheel

I also found a waterfall finally … well kinda.

Waterfall at the Radisson

The next morning we headed to the waffle house, when you are in Orlando, there is some rule that you have to have breakfast at the waffle house. Had pecan and chocolate waffles, eggs, hash browns and orange juice.

Waffle House

Pecan Waffle

And finally from the waffle house, we started the trip to Nasa Kennedy Space Center. If you want to feel very little, this is where you go and see how gigantic things are and the great things that man can build.

Shuttle Dock

Space Stuff

Work Area Viewing

Two shots I took at the beach last Saturday. Both were shot in RAW and post processed to give them the colors they have. I have cropped them to 1920×1080 to be used as wallpapers.

Like A Bonsai

The Beach

I found another wetlands that is very close to my house as well. The first one I went to was the Wakodahatchee Wetlands and this new one is a single main road further and is much bigger. This was the Green Cay Wetlands. The Green Cay Wetlands has a board walk with 2 paths. One path is one mile long while the other is half a mile. I walked the one mile and then did the half mile as well, the half mile actually loops back through part of the one mile path. I like this wetlands more, because of it’s size.

So here are some shots I took today in 1920×1080 size to be used for wallpapers.

A little Stroll

A little too much to drink

Close-up of a bird

Last Drop

Look at my Teeth

Look at my Teeth 2

City Place

Decided to go to city place last night, walk around and take some pictures and so I did. There was a band playing music and a lot of people which made it great. The parking garage was packed and when I was going in I saw the line of cars trying to get out. I figured it would be better when I was leaving but it wasn’t. Still I had fun walking around taking my pictures. I got some good shots which I will include in this post. Of course I had a smoothie from the smoothie king with my request of not including the protein in the drink, I had pineapple surf or pineapple plus. I forgot the name.

The most interesting incident of the night was perhaps me being clawed. That’s right I got clawed. While I was walking a group of 4 girls was walking towards me. They were split in twos and one of the girls in the closer two glanced over at me, rushed back to one of the girls in the second two and told her something, turned her back to me pointing me out to her friend and then dashed at me and grabbed my arm. She then asks me if I can take their picture. I am holding my big camera strapped around my neck and I respond in a wtf tone with “with my camera???”. At which I get that cute extended “nooooooooo” and I am offered one of their point and shoot cameras with no view finder, rather a large LCD. I bring up the camera to my face before realizing I don’t have a choice but to use the LCD to take the shot. I took a single shot of them, and I will never know if it really came out good or not. I got thanked by one girl and then I believe the one that grabbed me said “thank you very much” smiling at me, eating me up with her eyes.

I said it was no problem and walked off. It was then that I realized she had actually dug her nails into me when she grabbed me. Like she was afraid of me getting away, which I can understand how would want me to slip away from their fingers . With that in mind, while her behavior was inappropriate, it was also harmless. She didn’t intentionally claw me, that was all out of her hands … erm well at least out of her control.

Here are a few shots.

nicely lit fountain with ugly wet floor signs around

nice arch

nice building to live in

electric guitar

Well just been tired the past few days. Waking up early to eat before sunrise and going back to bed. Feeling lazy and tired. But I go outside and keep myself busy taking pictures of whatever I find. Here are some of the good ones the past 2 days. I am glad I bought the camera, I am enjoying my time with it.

Wasp Landing

Sneaky Squirrel

Red and white plane

The moon

Well a few weeks ago I found a gecko hanging out on a pine tree in my backyard. I accidentally spotted him as he either fell from a higher branch or jumped down, but he looked like he was falling. This was the first time in four years in Florida that I have seen a gecko in my backyard. I have seen large iguanas in Florida before but not in my yard, but I don’t think I have seen any geckos anywhere in Florida before this.

So today I spotted two of them on the tree in the backyard. At first I didn’t bother them, but then I went in and got my camera. I wasn’t able to find them where I saw them sit last and I moved the tree branches around trying to find them or get some movement from them, but nothing. I almost gave up when I spotted the tail of one of them. And this is when I made my discovery.

The two geckos were mating and I probably disturbed the action they were having. What I do know is that I snapped up pictures of what I can, but not having a zoom lens on hand, I couldn’t get closer than I had. I now know there is more national geographic stuff going on in my backyard than I had thought. And this is the month of Ramadan, the geckos were not fasting!

Gecko a few weeks ago

Gecko Action Today

So I am trying to learn how to use my new canon rebel xs. I have been reading up on aperture or f-stops, shutter speed and iso and have been taking various shots messing around with these settings. It is a lot to take in at the same time that I keep discovering additional settings. The best shots of course are the ones I keep the mode in auto but that will change. I’d like to get some motion shots which would require me using the manual settings such as night shots of cars driving by. I’d like to also get a zoom lens to get some distance shots of birds, planes, insects, landscape, and anything else.

So here is one good shot I got so far. It is a pink flower among others in my yard. It is a pretty small flower but looks bigger in the photo. I cropped the image to 1920×1080 so it can be used as a wallpaper on my screen. Right click save image as to download the full size picture at 1920×1080. Edit: Added another shot of a lizard I took, also cropped to 1920×1080. Love this camera!

pink flower by western arab

Lizard by western arab