Thanksgiving centerpiece - Medina, NY

Finster says "Happy Thanksgiving" - LeRoy, NY

Bush against brick - LeRoy, NY

For a little change of pace I took Finster for a walk the other night down Main Street LeRoy. The brick wall here was illuminated by a street light, which is why it's a reddish/yellow.

Santa prepares for the big day - Present Tense - Batavia, NY

Pre-Santa Claus - Present Tense Books - Batavia, NY

My dad came in to be Santa Claus today at Present Tense in Batavia, NY. This is my dad having a blast getting ready for his time with the kids.

Free domestic long distant calls with a land line phone using Google Voice.

Here's the rare non-photo post to all you techies out there. I finally got around to programming my landline cordless phone to make free, long distant calls. Here's the low down. I use Frontier for my local only service, and I signed up to have them be my long distance provider. I chose the plan that is free monthly but like $.17 a minute if I do make a long distance call. The trick to free long distance calls is using Google Voice.

When I signed up for Google Voice I made sure to get a number that is a local call from my house so that I can call it without incurring long distance fees. One trick that I found out is that you can actually make outgoing calls with your Google Voice account by calling your own number and then navigating the voice mail prompts. So, I programmed my landline phone with enough pauses to navigate the voice mail prompts properly to get me to a point where I can actually dial the real number that I want to call. Here is the program that I used on my phone:
<Google Voice number>PPPP*PPP2
Broken down the <Google Voice number> is your own Google Voice phone number, each P is a pause (most phones allow you to program a time lag). These pauses give the voice mail system to rattle on about the various options. is the pin number that you have to set up with Google Voice to access your voice mail via a phone; then two more pauses, and then 2 is the "make a call" option.


After all that executes the "operator" says "please dial your number followed by the # key". This is your prompt to enter the phone number you want to call (use your area code too) and then hit the # key to send the call on its way. I stored this program into one of my memory slots so I don't actually have to remember anything. My phone only had enough storage for this program, but if yours has more you can program it to actually call someone by entering their phone number into the memory. Pretty easy huh!

Frosting is good

The moon - Happy 2nd Birthday

Wet leaves - Bunnell Park - LeRoy, NY

Puppy Finster - Pittsford, NY

Erica and I were going through some old Finster pictures when we came across this beauty. This was back when I took Finster to work with me; this picture was taken during his lunch break walk. Finster was only a few months old here.

Frosty Morning - LeRoy, NY

Startrails with North Star - LeRoy, NY

Tonight I tried something I've been meaning to do for a while. It was a nice clear night (no moon, or clouds), so I gave it a shot. This is 4 pictures with about a 15 minute exposure each stacked to make one shot. The problem with doing this in the cold is that my batteries were only good for about one shot each. If you look at the star trails you'll notice gaps in them, this is the time that it took me to run back to the house to get a new battery and reload it.

Ontario Pathways - Canandaigua, NY

Fall Cattail - LeRoy, NY

Finster's Birthday Rope

Golden Maple - LeRoy, NY

Erica's leaf - Ontario Pathway - Canandaigua, NY

Haunted Door - Canandaigua, NY

I shot this across the parking lot for the Ontaria Pathways trail in Canandaigua. Here is the Street View of this exact door.