Pretty Pictures

I’ve been spending some (not enough) time playing with my new camera, a DSLR Canon EOS 20D. It’s an impressive piece of semi-professional machinery, and it will take me a long time to master its ins and outs. I’ve bought some photography books to try to teach myself more about it. But mostly I’ve just had fun snapping stuff around the office, on a trip to London, and in my garden. Hope to publish many more “purty pitchers” here in the coming months, as I’ll be traveling quite a bit.

Update

It's been a while since I've written, but that's because I've been dashing about the planet quite a bit. I've also been outside barbequing and taking pictures instead of blogging. Going to Spain four times in the next few months as well, so it don't expect novels from me. :-) But I promise to come back with some great pictures.
FYI, I've redirected www.rosebrook.org to this blog. I built a site last year for my family, but they had very little interest in contributing and I don't have the time to maintain it. Perhaps we'll do a family blog one of these days and I'll redirect it to that domain, but for now it's with me.
Off to Barcelona for a speaking engagement at a trade conference. Adeu!

Irish Pub in Dubai, U.A.E.

Not a very sharp photo, but the only one I snapped on my 1 1/2-day business trip to the United Arab Emirates. Arab men in traditional garb smoking and drinking beer in an Irish Pub in my hotel. It was my first trip ever to the Middle East, and Dubai is for foreigners like a Middle East with training wheels. In other words, very multicultural, everything bilingual in English and Arabic, very friendly people fluent in English, and a host of western hotel, restaurant and retail chains. It was clean, and almost everything is new due to the booming tax-free zone they've created there. The weather felt insanely hot to me, and I'm told it wasn't even that bad. Unbelievable shopping. Wish I'd had more time to speak to the people there, but was pretty much just a quick mid-week meeting with a potential customer. I had a very favorable impression of the place and look forward to returning on business or leisure some day!

Purmerend, my "village"

Was trawling through Webshots, a photography website and program for screensavers and wallpapers, and came across a guy who had done some beautiful shots of my town, Purmerend. So here they are.
http://community.webshots.com/album/45971867xSfkkG
They show off some of the things I love most about this town: it's historical architecture, tranquil surroundings, abundant wildlife. I really made the right decision when moving here almost eight years ago. Thanks to the photographer from New Jersey for his beautiful shots!