Virginia Beach Sunrise

Let’s face it: traveling is expensive, and vacationing is equally expensive. With the economy just inching back into some state of stability (only to become shaky a few weeks later), one may think that it’s hard to do accomplish anything in the few scant days that qualify as a break from work. Vacationing on a limited budget and within a limited area hardly seems like a vacation at all.

Yet, it seems that I’ve traveled more this year than in previous years. Because we’ve had to be creative in how to stretch our dollars, we took a long, hard look at what was in our back yards, and actually discovered a vacation lurking in our back yards, vacationing in our home state. It’s one thing to travel far away from house and home to discover the new and exciting, it’s simply a revelation to discover it right underneath your own nose.

And we don’t seem to be done yet. There’s still a wealth of sites to see here in our back yard that is the state of Virginia. We’re definitely going to plan on it.

See more of my vacation pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbasallote/

Space Shuttle Enterprise

Since school has completed, I actually have time to do more things now, like being an utter shutterbug. This weekend, we headed to the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center to take a few photos. My favorite subjects at the Center were the Boeing 707 prototype (I used to work on the airframe), the SR-71, the Space Shuttle Enterprise and the Close Encounters of the Third Kind Mother Ship model. I’ll have to admit, the pictures have a lot of noise in them because of the lighting conditions, so it’s a good idea to get there during daylight hours for the best light. However, the dim lighting did make for some great-looking shots around both the SR-71 and the Enterprise. You can find links to my pictures here.

Hello all!

Once again, in school, and once again, it continues to kick my can. Luckily this may be my home stretch, I’ll be graduating in December if all goes well.

Took some time out to take more pictures. You can see them at Flickr.

See you in a few!

Here’s a quick preview of my Planespotting excursion. More on Flickr! Oh, and if you look closely, you’ll see the co-pilot in the window.

More pictures on Flickr.