The freeway is between my house and downtown San Mateo, so I rarely go into town in the morning unless I need gas or have a craving for a chai latte. A couple of months ago when I went to get gas I noticed that there were several men lingering on each of the corners by the gas station. I wondered what they were doing just standing there and then suddenly realized that they were hoping to be hired for the day. I didn’t think much of it and personally have nothing against it.

This morning I had a chai craving and on my way to satisfy it I saw a large electronic sign that read “STREET HIRING IS ILLEGAL”. It was not there before and is obviously San Mateo’s reaction to all the talk about illegal immigrants. I will also mention that I think I saw twice as many men on the corners, because of or in spite of this sign.

Now, I first have to say, that I do not know a lot about either side of this issue. But there must be a good solution out there somewhere. How did all of the current hype get started anyway? I’m not saying there isn’t a problem, but I think part of this issue is that politicians need something to talk about right before an election. So they bring up whatever hot topic hasn’t been in the news lately.

Anyways, I just thought it was odd and interesting to see the sign with twice as many people hanging out around it. I suppose that means it worked.

If you look closely you’ll see me, if you look even closer you’ll see Steve in the reflection in the camera.

My new 100mm macro lens, not the bead. Isn’t it just wonderful? Many, many exciting pictures to come…

I highly recommend that you view the original size, you can see a lot of things that you normally wouldn’t with the naked eye.

I’ve been busy with multiple things at work lately and was thinking about how much easier multi-tasking would be if I had virtual desktops. So I did a quick search for “windows virtual desktop” that lead me to this page - Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP - which has quite a few nice toys, in addition to the “Virtual Desktop Manager”. I’m already noticing the advantages of it and am so glad I installed it.

I also downloaded the “RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer” as well as the “Color Control Panel Applet.” I think these toys are going to make my life a lot easier

For some reason I am extremely amused by Joe’s head disappearing into an empty yogurt container. When he was younger I stuck one of those small yogurt containers on his nose, since then he’s been a little leery of them. This big one is different though, looks like he’s not afraid of it at all

He’s a maniac, maniac on the floor…

My poor dog, he puts up with so much from me and Steve. But he’s a really good sport. Surprisingly, he didn’t try to remove the socks right away. Crazy kid.

Steve gave me these flowers last week and I had a fun time taking some macro shots of them. This is my favorite out of the bunch. They are more like landscapes or abstract paintings than flower photos. I think it’s very challenging to take a picture of a flower and make it different and interesting.

If you like it too leave me a comment or mark it as a fav so that it will make into the Explore section on Flickr

Steve’s friend/coworker, Leigh, brought Sammy to our house a couple of times. And each time Joe just goes nuts for her! Normally he’s a little aggressive towards other dogs (at home mostly), but he is just completely smitten with Sammy.

He butts his nose into her, which I have never seen a dog do before. And he does a lot of play bowing, trying to egg her on - another thing he never does! When she actually begins to play he growls at her, but I think he is confused by her lack of tail-wagging (she only has a little nub).

Here’s the photo set on Flickr.

A couple weekends ago my friend Nicci and I went down to Monterey and took some awesome pictures at the aquarium. We got some great shots of starfish, jellies, and anemones. While we were there they fed the giant octopus, but there were way too many people and it was way too dark to get any shots.

Unfortunately it was a rainy day, so we were a little restricted in our picture taking. After the aquarium we walked around in search of subject matter and found a nice candy store. Then we ate some yummy seafood (funny how looking at sea life makes you want to eat sea food) and headed home.

Here’s a link to all the photos I took that day. And here are all of Nicci’s photos from that day.

Congratulations, Doug, on correctly guessing last month’s logo, Hewlett Packard. Make sure you take a stab at this month, it’s a little tougher than the last one!