EPKPhoto's Tidbits

It has been quite hot and very humid here in Hampton Roads the past week or so. We have daily heat advisories for heat indices of 110° F. It's not really unusual for our summers to have periods like this, but it reminds me how crazy I am to go to Rochester for the winter and come back down to Virginia for the summer. It certainly doesn't help that my apartment's air conditioning is not in the best condition (the thermostat is reading 80-85° in here). At least all my wrap-up work as I go through my last week at NASA is keeping me from thinking about the heat too much. Get out of the heat, and take a look at two recent additions to my site: more Princeton photos and "Kerby's Tech Notes."

Those of you who wanted to see some things I am doing at NASA Langley Research Center are in for a treat. I just posted 466 photos of an event we held on June 27th. Here is the description I included on the gallery page: "Langley Research Center's Moonbuggy Palooza: Inspired by the annual competition organized by the Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA's Langley Research Center held its own moonbuggy event on June 27, 2007. The Center shipped in two buggies from Marshall so over 30 teams could race around a grassy course as a rowdy croud cheered them on…" Be sure to check out the photos and let me know what you think.

I always find it interesting when someone reveals that a certain organization is running Windows, Linux, or whatever on their web server. That kind of information is quite easy to find out just by looking at the headers a server sends back to your web browser. Well, I recently ran across a survey of the various announced candidates for the 2008 US presidential election. It details the operating system and web server used to power those candidates' official websites. Go take a look at the report for an interesting perspective on the elections.

Let me start off by saying I just posted the photos from my cousin's high school graduation this past weekend. The photos include the after events where we took some group photos and ate some tasty steamed crabs. In other news…I have been working at NASA's Langley Research Center for the past few weeks. My job involves both photography and web programming, so it has been a very good fit for my interests so far. It has been very interesting seeing NASA from the inside and learning the ins and outs of this deceptively large government organization. Stay tuned, and I may post some more details of my experiences soon…though I have to be careful of United States export laws and other government concerns.

As I mentioned in my last couple posts, I was in Princeton, West Virginia this past weekend. I had the opportunity to photograph my great aunt and uncle's house and property as well as the house once inhabited by my grandfather, great grandmother, and great-great aunt. I just uploaded them all to four galleries of photos from West Virginia. The photos turned out quite well, and I am looking forward to making some hard copies to send off to the family. Also, take note that I snapped a couple photos of my new car (the blue Pontiac Vibe you'll see in the first gallery). Enjoy the photos, and let me know how you like them.

I'm finally back home in Virginia, and I just posted a gallery of miscellaneous photos from RIT during this past spring quarter. The photos include people sliding in the mud after a rainy spring day, playing Kan-Jam outside Baker, getting food from The Commons, experimenting with a cheap airplane from Sol's, and discovering the illuminating properties of lava lamps. I am really looking forward to editing the photos I took in West Virginia. Some turned out quite well, so there's something to look forward to!

RIT's spring quarter ended this past week…a time that brings feelings of both happiness for classes ending, and sadness for friends separating. I certainly felt that combination of emotions. Yesterday, I left RIT with my father to travel to West Virginia. Here I am currently staying in the beautiful home of my great aunt and uncle while we work on some renovations of the Princeton, WV house of my grandfather, who passed away a few weeks ago. My mother traveled to meet us earlier today and drove up my new (used) car for me to see for the first time. Read the rest of this entry »

Just when you thought you might be done viewing the latest of Eric Kerby's photos, I upload more! I have uploaded two more galleries of photos…the last two that relate to my Ornithology class. The first set of photos was shot on the morning of April 28th at the RIT Bird Observatory. RITBO is a bird banding station on RIT's campus. The other set of photos contains three days worth of images from the class's trip to Pt. Pelee National Park in Canada on the northern shore of Lake Erie. We had a great time watching migratory birds refuel in the critical habitat provided by the Pt. Pelee land. Be sure to browse through all the photos. I'm actually quite pleased with the way many turned out.

In other news…I sprained my ankle playing ultimate Frisbee this weekend. If a chipped tooth doesn't count, that's my first real sports injury! It's healing up quite well, so there's no need to worry.

Since my last post, I have uploaded two more photo galleries to epkphoto.com. Both are related to the Ornithology class I took this quarter at RIT. The first one is of the Bird of Prey Days at Braddock Bay Park. The other set is from our trip to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Sapsucker Woods in Ithaca. Enjoy the bird photos! Now I need to finish editing all the ones from our trip to Pt. Pelee National Park in Canada.

I just posted a large number of photos to the website. I have had a backlog of editing and posting to do, so I decided to catch up this weekend. So far, I have posted the photos from CIAS Honors' DC trip, Baker Hall's mini golf and Wendy's excursion, and the Honors Program's spring picnic. Now I have some family photos as well as photos related to the ornithology class I am taking left to edit. Enjoy the influx of photos, and remind your friends to take a look, too!