new jersey new jersey shore

The colors have come.

Probably a little sooner than I would have liked, but they are coming. With the rain we’ve had and then the cold temperatures we had over the one week (we had some frost warnings), things have sped up.

I went out Saturday to snap a few shots as the weather starts to make the turn. The looks of things so far makes me think we could have some good vibrant colors this year. Last year, the colors seemed duller than normal.

One of these weekends, I’m going to try and get out and find a couple of spots to take some foliage shots. Not sure where I want to go yet, but I have a few ideas. We’ll see what happens.

How are the colors near you? Changing yet?

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I found the one good thing about being unemployed.

Any travel plans you have, as long as there aren’t reservations and such, can be changed quickly.

See, I was supposed to leave for the Jersey shore today. When I went to bed last night, the weather didn’t look promising. When I woke up this morning, it was worse.

There wasn’t 100 percent chance of anything, but I don’t like odds when it’s beyond 60 percent.

I was set to go down today and come back Friday morning. During that time, I was going to chill on the beach a little, do some photos and meet up with a cousin to do some night photos in the Atlantic City area.

Alas, Mother Nature is, as usual, being a bitch and playing games with my plans. So, I’m going to roll the dice and see if I can outfox her. If not, I’ll get wet either way, so whatever.

Being I was going to stay at a house my aunt and uncle own, I called them to see if it would be OK if I just went down, say, Sunday and stayed through like Wednesday of next week. My aunt said there would be no problem with that and also noted that it’s no fun at the shore when it rains.

I can deal with one day of rain. Heck, if I could capture a lightning storm on camera, that would be wild. But it’s a high percentage chance of raining tonight, tomorrow and Thursday.

Ugh.

So I made the decision to say heck with it for now and go down Sunday. It’ll be October then. As of now, the weather looks good for those three days that I am looking at. Not to say that can’t change, but I’d rather take my chances with that. If the rain slips to the weekend and all, I’m still going to go Sunday. I’m not going to keep pushing it back. But with nothing scheduled for next week (I have plans this Friday, so I had to leave early down there to come back), I can kind of take my time coming back Wednesday and such.

The bonus is that the place I wanted to go to get chowder is in fall hours until it closes for the season Oct. 9. Those fall hours include Sunday, so I’ll be able to go there and get my dinner the night I arrive.

So this is my call to Mother Nature. Please help me out. I want to be able to stroll the beach and just enjoy being away for a couple of days. If I wanted to be couped up in a house watching TV as it rains, I can do that without spending the money to travel!

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I won’t be doing it in the next month or two, but I think I am going to merge this blog and my photo blog. It seems almost silly to have both as the photo blog really doesn’t get enough traffic.

Still, I’ve had that photo blog for a long time, so it’s hard to make the final decision to pull the plug.

I am going to be weighing the options in regard to it.

My initial thought is to bring the two blogs together here. Basically what I’d do is publish a photo daily (maybe just five days per week). The photos would be automatically scheduled to publish at about midnight each day. They’d stay up until about noonish, when I’d post the normal blog entry. That would give at least two posts per day.

Curious what people think about this change? Is it a good idea to merge the two?

I’m not fully convinced I am going to do it. As I said, I am connected to that photo blog. I just haven’t decided yet which way I want to go. If I do make the change, it will probably be a slow move and likely wouldn’t be until the change of the year.

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Speaking of photos, I’m looking forward to this trip to the shore. I don’t get to do photos of beach settings too often. I am hoping I’ll be able to get at least one sunset and maybe a sunrise. With the water, it always makes for fun.

If I get a clear night, too, I might venture out and see about trying to do some star chasing, too. We’ll see. Not sure what the moon schedule is for the next few days.

For those of you who have shot in the beach setting — anything I should look for? I want to find some cool images.

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The Phillies reached 100 wins for the season tonight. Awesome.

Now it’s time for the postseason. Two more games in the regular season (and they mean something to the Braves, so the Phils need to play it out… get some momentum) and then it’s time for the postseason.

I’m ready to watch this run. I just hope it’s long and ends with the team’s third World Series title!

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Reminder! Contest going on! I am holding a contests this week. It runs from Sept. 25- to 12:01 a.m. Oct. 2. You can see all the details on the contest post. Enter for your chance to win!

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