Saturday, September 29, 2007

Here Goes

Well, here I go on a bit of a adventure. I'm using Blogger as my "real" blog. That being my main blog, the one that holds the really important ideas.

I had recently, in the last month or so decided to get into blogging as a more serious venture instead of a "this is what I did today" kind of thing. Although there's nothing wrong with that, it serves a purpose. I've done it with three different blogs on AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!360.

My hope is that this blog will be worth reading and have some useful information. What I want to blog about, and share with you, things near and dear to my heart are; parenting, self-esteem, psychology, pop culture to name a few. If I come across any useful onformation or links, I'll make those available one way or another. Also things on the format may change from time to time as I figure out how to organize the look an feel of the layout.

Right now I don't know how I am going to do this. One day at a time, one post at a time. You build a wall one brick at a time, you take a journey one step at a time. So this is my first step. Come with me, I appreciate your company.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Parenting Resources

Parenting Resources Page


Are you a new parent? Or been at it for a while and are running out of motivation? I know, I’ve been there. As of the writing of this, my wife and I dropped off our oldest at college. We have two more years with our youngest, then she’s off to college.

Parenting is the biggest project you’ll ever do, because the legacy you create in your child will live longer than you. Getting it right is so important. With that in mind I’d like to point out to you two resources that will give you motivation and information on your parenting journey.

The first one is called “The Secret” by Martha Stevens, mother of five. Some of the things she talks about are; giving children what they need to know to navigate life and be successful, educate their heart with wisdom and not just their brain with knowledge, and giving them values they can live for.

Parenting is a lifelong endeavor, but the basic core part is only 18 years long. Ideally, by 22 they should be on their own. But if parenting isn’t done right, then it can take a lifetime to undo.

Now this resource is only $19.95. At least worth a look considering what’s at stake.

For more information; CLICK HERE

Here’s another parenting resource that may be of value to you. It’s called “The Parenting Toolbox”. This one is a different in that it covers all parenting situations; married, divorced, single, grandparent parenting, (insert your own situation here).

One aspect that I think is really valuable, is that this is a continuous resource, you join with other parents and learn from them. So you have advice and help at all stages of life. I know that it was always a challenge when our children would change likes/dislikes, or their routines would shift as they got older. Having some parental commrodery was always wonderful. It sure was better than feeling tired, alone and overwhelmed. As they say, People Make the Difference.

This resource is available for a one-time fee of $59.95.

To check this out; CLICK HERE

Monday, September 10, 2007

A new back to school

It’s been the “Back to School” season since mid-July. We’ve been doing this for about 13 – 14 years, actually, we still are. For us now, we are at the tail end of it. Now there’s a new component, we have a freshman college student. Our little girl will be going away for a significant amount of time.

In the past she had gone to summer camp, for a week. Then she went on a trip with her Aunt and Uncle and cousins, for about a week. This last summer she, her sister and her cousin went on a driving trip out to the East coast. That took three weeks and was a strange experience for my wife and I, the house was so quiet for so long even though we heard from them a couple times a week. It was so good to have them back safe and sound. They had a wonderful time and would do it again in heartbeat.

Now she will be going to college and staying away for a much longer time, visiting occasionally. It will take some getting used to as she becomes more and more independent. Slowly but surely we will adjust, and look forward to becoming “empty nesters” when our youngest goes off in two years. Wait, I’m not sure about that looking forward part.

Transitions are a challenge we all face. Time goes by, things change, routines, relationships, situations. As a parent that seemed to happen every 3 or 4 months as the girls grew up. They’d learn a new skill, grow, develop, change something. From infancy on most of the time I felt like I was playing a game of catch-up. I get used to one way of dealing with them and then they do something different, like a new food or whatever. The learning curve starts all over again. *sigh* When the girls were growing up, one of my favorite routines was when they were into the cheeseburger macaroni skillet meals. It was easy for me because I was the main cook in the house, but it was also a special time when we could be together and have fun. That lasted about 6 – 8 months, then they’re tastes changed.

Now that one is leaving and another will be leaving soon enough, we have some big adjustments to go through. I wanted to share this with you, if you find this, and put together some other resources for you to check out that might make the transition a little easier.

Some Links:

Letting go

Cleaver Words

Google at College

Hope you found this helpful, maybe just a little something to take the edge off of your anxiety or something. I’ll be back with some more stuff from time to time so stop by again and until then , take care. Thanks.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

My Early Photography




Most of my photographic career, if you will, was in the days of film. When I worked at the college paper and yearbook it was all black and white. I have liked B&W film because it dosn't show everything that color does. It seemed more artistic.

One of the things about black & white film, particularly Tri-X, is that it had a good exposure latitude. That is, in the proper exposure, it would use all the values from black to white, as in this photo. Note: unfortunately any example I use are taken from digital originals, this one included. I will have this photo and others in my Google Photos section. This one may look different as it will have another effect added to it, film grain, to more simulate the look of Tri-X.

During those days Tri-X was the film of choice by photojournalists. It had lots of exposure latitude. It could be pushe; underexposed and over developed and you could get a decent print out of it. It didn't get too grainy, the photogrphers worst enemy.

As time went on I understood more about things like reciprocity failure; when the relationship between the shutter speed and apeture don't deliver a good exposure. Usually in low light situations, if I remember correctly.

Generally the faster the film, or higher the ASA number, the grainier the picture. The lower ASA numbers were usually the chrome films, or slides. The lowest being 25, which was known for it's fine grain. Reciprocity failure was an issue if you tried to do longer exposeres in low light with the chrome films. Although it could happen withhigher ASA print films as well.

I've been thinking about how to develope this photography blog and I thought a few links to info on film cameras might be helpful. If I find any I will let you know and include them here somewhere on this page.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Start Here

Hi, this is my first blog here on Blogger with Google. I've never done anything with Google until now and found out there's a lot of cool stuff here. Anyways I hope to share some thoughts and ideas about things in my life and things that readers will find useful. I really want this to be more than me just blathering on about my day to day life.

I'll keep working on this blog site to keep it interesting. One of the things I'll be sharing with you is my photography. It's been a part of my life since I was a teenager. I have lots of relatively current photos at flickr.com under vhtman. That ID was from a time when I photographed homes for a real estate company and the images would get posted on their website. The company was called Video Home Tours.

During my college days I used to take photos for the school paper and yearbook. It was a fun, busy time.

In my recent past I used to be Limo Driver for about 10 years. Currently I'm working as a Driver Education teacher in Ohio. So I'll be talking a bit about driving ettiquete and such. This stuff I hope you do take to heart when you're out on the road. People seem to forget so much when their driving.

I'll also be sharing some things from life that I've learned from that maybe could be beneficial to those reading this blog; parenting, marriage, aging. Little life lessons stuff. Also I'll try and gather some useful information for as you read.

Anyways, I think that'll be all for now. I'll go work on making this a more interesting place.