I have reasons for this, however, I assure you. I haven't just gotten lazy. Okay, maybe I have. But not THAT lazy.

Let's start with the photography updates first, since that's what most of you come here for. I've been busy Busy BUSY with my photography. In particular, I picked up the latest Rebel in the Canon line, the Rebel T3i (thank you, Air Miles!). It's a great body at a solid price point, so if you don't have the 8600 Air Miles kickin' around, it's still a good price.

I also picked up...drum roll, please...the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 OS. This $1,600 monster is such a dream to shoot with. It's fast, crisp and is $1,200 cheaper than its Canon counterpart. The bokeh is like butter on this lens, and this particular style has been commonly labeled one of the "essential lenses" in any serious photographer's kit.

So, here's some galleries from the new body and lens (well, the MODS album is the 70-200 f/2.8; the other ones are on the 18-55 IS). You'll notice these are now hosted on Flickr and not locally. I'm still undecided which one I'm going to stick with, but I'm sure Flickr will give me some better publicity. I have some shots here from a MODS game my team played in (I was out with a sore ankle), a party I went to, and a swing dance workshop.

In other news, my work term at Ceridian finished in April, but I was hired on over the summer as a part-time contractor, working when I'm not in class. It's nice to have money again!

Finally, I have a number of projects on the go. First is a Minecraft server (yes, I caved and bought it. Yes, I'm addicted), which is play-by-donation. If you're interested, drop me a line. I'm also working on a character Generator for Call of Cthulhu with a few friends (check out the Github here). Finally, I'm working on a heartbeat monitor for Minecraft servers to keep in-line with my current addiction. That project will be closed source, but many of my other ones will be open from now on.

On a closing note, I bought the domain brianturchyn.net, which will be used as a professional portfolio. The blog will remain here, but my main content will be on the former site. This domain name I feel simply isn't professional, and it's time to develop that aspect of things.

While Tyler, our main host, was on vacation two weeks ago, I got the opportunity to sit in the host's chair and run the show with a guest. We talk about Munchkin, the Nintendo 3DS, the Steam digital distribution system, and console-to-PC ports which just don't turn out as well as we'd like. You can check out this specific episode here.

Check out the podcast at http://igamer.ca, or (better yet) grab the feed on iTunes. Hope you enjoy!

Thus, I have issued myself a one-month challenge:

The Challenge

Contribute to the web design world at least once per day for a whole month.

The Rules:

• I need to perform 30 contributions over 30 days, not necessarily 1 per day (I have a life, or at least I like to think that I do)
• Contributions can be:
  • writing articles on my blog
  • offering small tidbits of code that I believe would be of some use to others
  • provide meaningful comments on web design articles
  • tweeting about other well-written things that better the community
  • answer questions on sites such as StackOverflow, Quora, etc
  • review of a number of similar products

It Starts Today

My contribution today comes in the form of this blog post, and is a request from every web designer out there who reads this.

If you read the article and agree with what it says, take up your own 30-day challenge. Tweet this blog post, write about it in your blog and link me for a pingback, write me a comment, do whatever you can to get the word out. The evolution of the world's web design community begins with every single regular developer striving to offer something to the rest of the community. I hope this blog and the above article will inspire even one or two people to do the same as I am.

Regardless, here they are. I didn't take too many photos at the Black & White Swing Thing, but I think I got a few keepers that turned out nicely. This past Legion event was sailor-themed, so I have a few from that as well. Enjoy!

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In the mean time, I have some photos from my new years party that I went to with a couple friends. I had a great time, met some new people, and took a few decent shots. All the best in 2011!

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On the plus side, that now means that I had the time to go through some of my photos that I've taken since the last photo update, pick out a few of the decent ones, and prep them to go up on time today. I have some photos from the last blues class at UMSwing, our year-end potluck, and my friend's potluck that I attended last night (or was it today? I guess I left after midnight...).

I added the ability to vote on specific photos and a gallery as a whole now, so when you view an image that you like (I hope there's at least one or two!), you can give it a good rating . Of course, comments on the album are always welcome.

Without further ado and without further caffeine-induced ramblings, here's the photos!

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