[Kylan's Blog] Airplanes Running on Empty

This is an amazing article: "Airlines are running out of gas. Literally," by Tekla Perry. Apparently, airlines are trying to minimize the amount of fuel on board in order to lighten their load. Outrageous! This practice will become increasingly annoying to air travelers if it continues, and could be very dangerous, as well.

[Kylan's Blog] Wedding Day

I know this is nearly two weeks late, but Kristen and I were married on June 14th in a beautiful ceremony.  We are now getting adjusted to married life and are loving every minute of it.  Check back soon for pictures and more details!

[Kylan's Blog] Photo Albums

Using our new camera, I've been taking quite a few pictures lately. You can check out the good ones via DupyPics. The recent albums are also listed below.

Pre-Wedding
Jeff's Baseball Game
Jim's Birthday
St. Louis
Wedding
(Pictures to come, be patient)
Honeymoon
Ana Maria Island
Key West
Sanibel Island
The Everglades

[Kylan's Blog] Summer EP Release

Jon Foreman's Summer EP was released today, which was unexpected. I haven't had a chance to listen to the tracks yet, but I'll post a review sometime in the near future. Buy your copy of the tunes here. Also be sure to check out JonForeman.com.

[Kylan's Blog] New Camera

In anticipation for all of the photo opportunities that a wedding and a honeymoon are bound to present, Kristen and I purchased a new camera. It's a Sony DSC-H50, featuring 9.1 megapixels and 15x optical zoom. It was hard to decide between the Sony and a comparable Canon model, especially since I enjoyed my old Canon so much, but the Sony had a few features that made it seem like a better camera.

In particular, I really liked the sports modes available on the DSC-H50. The shutter speed is excellent, and the minimum time between pictures is a lot smaller than any DSLR-like camera that Canon has on the market. There is a "shoot continuously" option that allows you to take consecutive pictures only 1/3 second apart from each other.

Another cool feature is the SmileShutter capability. In this mode, the user presses and releases the shutter button, but the camera only takes a picture once it detects that the subject in the frame is smiling. This could be really nice when photographing camera-shy children. So far, it seems to work really well.

We bought this camera at Circuit City, and we were extremely pleased with the customer service we received. Earlier in the day, we tried going to a shop called "Camera Corner" because we thought that the staff there would be more knowledgeable about cameras. Instead, they turned out to be snobs and were completely rude to us. When asked to compare two different models, the attendant simply shrugged her shoulders. "Apple and oranges," she said. She refused to give us any help on how to pick out a camera. We would have been more than happy to give her our money if only she had been nicer. There's another company to add to my Customer Service Blacklist.

[Kylan's Blog] Wedding Prep

So, a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. With the wedding only a week away, we have a lot of plans to finalize. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on.

The drive from Pullman, WA to Normal, IL was pretty uneventful. Except for the fact that we broke down in South Dakota. Sound familiar? It should, because that's what happened two years ago, the last time that Kristen and I made this drive. In fact, we broke down only about seventy miles away from our previous spot. Since Kristen had an important fitting for her wedding dress the next day, her grandpa drove six hours to trade cars with us so we could get back on the road. That was so nice of him!

After arriving in Normal, Kristen went to her dress fitting and then we drove down to Quincy to visit her other grandparents (the wedding is going to be at their house). We spent two days in Quincy talking to the caterer, the party supply store, the hair dresser, etc. We got a lot done during this time, which helped alleviate a lot of the pressure associated with the wedding plans.

Since getting back to Normal, Kristen and I have continued to work on some of the finer details. I bought some groomsman gifts, Kristen designed the ceremony program, etc. We have an action item list that separates our tasks by day. So far it's worked out really well. All we have to do today is make signs for the road and the mail box to direct the wedding guests to the right house. (Since today is relatively free, I have time to write this blog post.)

Our wedding is only a week away! I'm starting to get very excited.