In summary, before edit 1 there were nearly 6,000 frames.

With the initial cut, I deleted the frames that weren’t QUITE there. This included strobes that didn’t fire, focus points being wrong, or not seeing anything worthwhile at all.

That left me with over 4,000 frames.

You wondered why nothing was posted. Choosing from that selection isn’t easy. Tagging that many isn’t easy. And then, once you’ve done that, and you think you have your selections, you actually can start to WORK on them.

Historically, I’ve put these up chronologically. This year, we’ll try grouping them by subject.

Sunrise: As I’ve said earlier, it’s a miracle that these even were taken.

Sunset: What’s stranger, in most cases, I have frames from BOTH sunrise and sunset.

McGuires: Chronicled here, some of these you’ve already seen.

Fudpuckers: Fishing for Alligators. Need I say more?

Crabs: Mary still declares this to be one of her favorite activities. I think the idea of pulling a live crab from the ocean, and putting it in a bucket is her idea of heaven. The child IS weird.

Bird Feeding: The idea is to feed to Gulls so they come closer. THEN, you chase them down. One of these days they are going to get one, and then it’s going to get REAL interesting.

Beach: Yeah, we were at the beach. If it’s not in one of the above catagories, chances are, it’s here.

Everything else: Ok, there were some that didn’t fit. The experiment with the REALLY CHEAP and BAD underwater camera. William telling Papa exactly HOW he needed to make the ice cream. These went into the root folder.

There are a LOT of them. And I’m doing my best to prevent this from completely overloading both the site, AND the viewer. We found out pretty quick that looking at 400 images of the same thing can get pretty boring pretty quick. So, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time sorting through images, and trying to choose the best ones, that represent what was going on the best.

This, simply put, is much harder than actually taking the picture. Sometimes, the best laid plans, or even reasonable plans, simply don’t work out.

I’ve been trying to get a good panorama shot every day of the time we were down there. Most of them, while looking good on the screen at 1% of their actual size, just didn’t work.

This one, from the first full day in Destin, is probably the best one I’m going to get out of this trip. I’m thinking of printing it full size, without the cropping below, and then mounting it on gatorboard. Once that’s done, I’ll go in, and cut the excess out of the paper and backing. It should turn out well.

This is a thumbnail, BTW. Click on it to see the larger image. The Larger image is only 20% of the full size image. That one won’t even fit on a CD.

The good news out of this, is that I’m basically done with doing the looking for perfect Pano’s, and I’ve exported and cleaned the images our Cousin wanted of her and her newborn. So… that means that I’ll be able to finish the sort and classification of the remainder of our pictures and put them online.

I guess we’ll see how friendly bluehost really is when that happens. My previous hosting provider had oversold the server to the point of uselessness.

It was so much easier when I hosted my own stuff, instead of paying someone else to do it.

But this one needs more than one picture. I am going to try to keep it to one story, and put photos as needed.

When we go to Destin, it seems that one of the priorities is to get some good food. For me, that means getting something decent that doesn’t smell like the sea, while everyone else gets Seafood. Hey, you’re on the coast, take advantage of it.

Destin did not have a good culinary representation for us this week. One of the establishments (which will not be named to prevent Google from giving advertisements) appeared to have exactly one fryer, used for both fish sticks and chicken (Chicken tenders, Macaroni and Cheese, and Cheese Sandwitches seem to be the kids ONLY dietary requirements), as well as a distinct lack of any type of Oven. A temporary setback, I’m sure, but not reassuring when you order and are then informed on what you can’t have.

I can’t say that any of the food (besides William’s Chicken tenders of the sea) was bad. But neither will I say it was really good.

Except.

We were mislead into going to McGuires. Fourth hand information said they had an internal playground. This was only partially false. There is no dedicated playground at the Destin Facility, but the entire establishment is a playground of sorts. It’s a Irish pub, located just off the bridge into Destin. First impressions on walking in are of the VAST amounts of dollar bills hanging from the ceiling and walls. They brew their own beer here, and the brewmasters are quite eager to converse with the patrons. Fermentation vats occupy prime real estate in the bar. Moose heads (Does Ireland have that large of a population of Moose?) are all over the place. Irish bar decorations and fixtures are everywhere.

They have a set of carnival mirrors. They have a Lobster tank. These two ‘attractions’ held significant sway over the children.

Being a pub, and a pub that brews their own beer, obviously one must drink.

We went twice. The first time, under false pretenses of a playground, was for an early Lunch. We had one of the nicest servers, and the food was excellent. They have a sampler of the beer that is brewed. I can’t say I found one that I didn’t like. Some I liked more than others. The Imperial Stout (not advertised, due to it’s HIGH alcohol content) was great, with chocolate and raspberry blended into the mix. It’s not on the sampler. The brewmasters advised it, after a conversation on how they do things there. It’s very good, very heavy, and very alcoholic. I didn’t make it past the sample.

The kids didn’t stay seated for more than a few minutes. Mary was enthused by the lobsters, complete with rubber bands. As has been her pattern for the last 4 years, she locked onto that and wouldn’t let go. The only thing that would pull her away was the funny mirrors outside of the bathrooms (which are reversed.. Pay CLOSE attention to the sign on the door).

We returned Sunday night, for the full dinner, after having been denied Saturday night due to the Destin Seafood Festival. No one was able to park anywhere near the place due to the crowds. Our goals, besides a good meal, were to make our mark on Destin. I got the Meal. A good steak (not Flemings good, but close). The other two adults decided they’d just make due with large Irish Wakes (about 6 ounces of 151 and other rum and orange juice), and $.18 worth of bean soup. They made their choice, I made mine. I got a very good meal.

Anyways, ON to the MARKING!

Last year, and the year before, we wrote the kids names on the walls and playground of Fudpuckers.

This year, we forgot to bring the sharpies purchased specifically for the task. Plus, the playground was closed.

Remember all of the dollar bills? Every one of them has a name on it, and for your contribution, you become an honorary irishman (or so says the marketing material… I wouldn’t try to get a passport).

Mary Vic took this quite seriously. You see her custom donation. Her story (as transcribed by Jeffie) is on the back of the bill, unfortunately, not likely to be seen.

William responded in kind. He doesn’t have much of a clue as to what is going on, but if his sister is doing it, so is he!

That’s Yogurt about his mouth. That’s not sold in McGuires… far too healthy, but we’ve taken to carrying food for the kids… It’s often impossible to determine what either of them are going to eat.

Remember the mirrors? That’s where the dollars are going. Stapler (BIG, provided by the pub) in hand, kids towing us there. Yes, it’s outside of the Bathrooms. No, that is NOT the men’s room. Mary Vic took great delight in setting wandering strangers correct on the correct room for each gender.

William establishes his claim to this mirror. His vocabulary is beginning to improve, but his grammar isn’t quite there. It seems that every sentence MUST start with NO!

And the Final product:

It should be just high enough to prevent random ripping… We’ll see if it’s there next year. I assure you, WE’LL be going back.

I haven’t done much linking from here. I have no problem doing so for McGuires Irish pub.

Of course, when you consider how lovely the sunrises are when you are on the beach, it’s pretty easy to get up for them. More times than not, Jeff and I would get up, head down to the Gulf’s edge, and watch the sun come up. Kids still asleep, and just the sound of the waves while watching the colors change. I’d have the tripod setup and just click away while talking and watching the rise.

This picture was from the close to the end of the vacation as well. Earlier in the week, the water was like glass. Not so today. Also, the previous day, it had been COLD on the beach before the solar radiation started to come down. We decided that we could watch the rise almost as well from the Condo, and it was a heck of a lot more comfortable.

It gave a significantly different view to the pictures being near the top of the building. I loved the colors that came out of the cloud banks as the sun came up. It definitely gave a rich texture and complexion that just seemed un worldly. Given that we had been watching Jupiter (being VERY bright in the sky) during the evenings, I’ve taken to calling this picture:

Jovian Rising

Obviously, it’s not Jupiter coming over the horizon, but those hues and patterns certainly form an association.

Not this time.

We had a blast of a time, and there was a significant amount of wear placed on the shutter of my camera. 50+ Gig of photo’s. That’s a pretty significant hurting on the laptop’s hard drive. Not to mention it’s going to take a significant amount of time to sort through those pictures, tag them, and process.

So, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to upload one picture at a time. Some will have commentary, some stand alone without further comment from me. I’m going to try for one a day. They will undoubtably be out of order, as I’ll do things as I see them. Eventually, the server load is going to happen, as I’ll still end up loading the Gallery, but that will probably wait a bit.

So, without further ado…

This is from the end of the trip… You are used to seeing the pictures of the kids, but for the first picture, I’m putting up a new Profile picture for the wife. We were getting ready for family pictures. Jeff had a new camisole. So, while the kids were asleep, we tried to take a few shots to see how it was going to work. A few shots turned into pretty much a complete photo shoot, with Aperture in Tether mode, and lighting setup to balance out the shadows.

Things started to look better and better, so we kept going.

I think it went to Jeff’s head. She insisted on being called:

Superstar