There is no rest for the weary these days.  I can see the edge of October and it is approaching fast.  The good news is I am down to one more post after this one and I think that is doable … at the moment.   I ended up losing yesterday because I forgot to process all the pictures for this post.  Soooo last night was spent getting that done and uploading them to our Smugmug account (Eddiesoft) so I could post tonight.

Today’s entry is from our trip up to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in early October.  Linda and the boys were competing in the Petit Prix, also known as the Teacup Dog Agility Association National’s.  Although I have really nothing to do with this since I neither train the dogs or run them in the ring, that doesn’t stop me from taking credit for how well they competed in the event.  Both Kerby and Rizzi came home with a pile of ribbons and Rizzi even made the Semi-Finals consisting of the top 84 dogs in the whole event.  Of course, there is a reason I get to take some credit…. I have to take off work and help Linda haul everything to and from the car and these toy dogs travel heavier than Paris Hilton.  The good news is Linda drove most of the way providing ample time to snap some shots along the way.  With that, let’s get to the pictures eh ? (in my best Wisconsin accent)

Keeping with the Halloween theme from the previous posts, I’ll start with these.  My eyes lit up when I saw this pumpkin.  Just imagine the cool pumpkin carving I could do with one of these babies.  It might take a chainsaw instead of a Dremel, but I’m definitely up for the challenge.

Hit the jump for the rest of the pictures from the trip

This might be another idea for the decorations on the cheap series (link here).  It will be difficult to find one of these at your local Dollar Store, but maybe you can befriend your cable man and get one of his empty wire spools.  Roll out on the lawn, slap some orange and black paint on it and you’re ready for the little boys and ghouls.

Apparently this person has a friend in the business … or someone might want to find out why his wife keeps calling in the cable repairman.

This was pretty clever.  I can’t tell from this shot what the legs were made out of.  At first I thought it was drainage pipe, but there isn’t any ridges on them.  The body was simply made from a wrapped hay bail and white spray paint.  I wonder if I can adapt something like this for our party?

This one took some time to create.  The paint work is really nice, but the effect is a little strange.  At first look it appears the witch is actually the one boiling in the pot.   Wow, I just looked at the image again.  I swear there is a picture of guy in his underwear back by the shed.. or possibly C-3PO.  Wait, wait.. I think there is an R2D2 there as well!

Now for the outright creepiest decoration we came upon.  No clue on this one other than a possible Subway $5 dollar 15 foot long commercial.  Anyone have any ideas as to what type of contraption this creature is riding?

We actually saw this while driving through Milwaukee.    As far as marketing goes, we could see this tent/awning/balloon from over a mile away.  It wasn’t until we were much closer did we realize what it was.

Turns out it was one of the temporary Halloween stores.  Rather than setting up in an unused store like they do in Peoria, this outfit apparently brings their own store in a box.    Or it may just be a cover for the Be Sexy product.

That’s all for the Halloween themed pictures, but there are plenty more to share.  Take for example this specimen.  Now I have seen Herbie the Love Bug and the lady bug themed Volkswagons, but never one done up in a dolphin theme.    Bravo indeed.

Okay, now time for a confession.  Things do not always go as planned even with the best preparation, high end equipment and years of  fast capture practice. This happens to be one of those times.

Ugh, that didn’t turn out good at all.  This is when I have turn to my left and give my best sad face.  If I am lucky, Linda will see my disappointment and give me a rare mulligan… and by mulligan I mean do a quick double back for a second chance.  Oh, and it also helps if you repeatedly saying “Can we go back, can we go back, can we go back, can we go back..”  until she relents and hits the turn signal.  Given a second chance, this one turned out a lot better.

Now with all that, why in the hell would someone want this in their yard?  That happens to be a great segue  into the animal world.  The next picture is somewhat frustrating.  I believe this to be the second time I have taken a Phoadtography picture of an Osprey.  Why is this so frustrating?  This bird is on my wish list which means I am constantly searching for it out on my wildlife shoots.  When I have the tripod out and the best glass available it can never be found.  Put me on a road going 65 miles and hour and sure enough it will just be there sitting on the side of the road taunting me.

WARNING WARNING WARNING  – Linda look away immediately and skip past the next two shots.

In full disclosure, these next two shots were not technically Phoadtography shots in the true sense of the genre.  However, I was standing on the road when I took this shot so stay with me here.  We stopped at the Chain ‘O Lakes state park in Spring Grove IL.  This is a nice park we like to stop at to take pictures when heading anywhere North.  You may remember the Sandhill Cranes I captured there (link here).  At one of the pull off areas Linda went to water the boys while I checked out a small pond for some ducks.  I walked over to the water, navigated up and around the bank for awhile without success.  In this time a few cars did happen to drive by on the road.  Eventually, I gave up and turned back to see this staring at me.

It appears something was trying to sneak up on me.  Thank god Linda didn’t come with me or I would be seeing how quick I could call for an ambulance.   This would be strange enough if the following shot was not staring at me from about two yards further down the road.

Needless to say, this would have put Linda in therapy for at least a year if it didn’t put her in a full catatonic state.  To be honest, it was a little sad.  It would have been cool to have pictures of these two for my wildlife collection – I have yet to get a good snake picture and yet there was two right there behind me.  I really hope I was not the reason those snakes were out on the road and thus the cause of their early demise.

Okay, Linda, you can come back into the room again.  To provide some comfort, here a some cute horses to help calm you down.

of course, by cute, I mean a horse apparently humping a fence.  I believe this was in front of a house which makes it even odder.  Guessing this helps out in giving people directions to their home.. Take a right then a left and then go down to the sexually frustrated horse.

I better wrap this one up or I will not have much for part two of this series.  This is one of those shots I wish I had The Beast (link here) on the camera.  That 7 pound weight is just too much to handle for Phoadtography shots and the length of that thing makes it difficult to swing back and forth between the car windows trying to get the shot, but it definitely would have had the needed pull.  As a result, I just didn’t have the reach to capture the full experience, but the landing of ducks is pretty cool.

Now only one more tick needed for this month.  Excellent news though, thanks to some recent activities there are plenty of blog topics for next month and maybe even enough for all of December.

GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! – they just completed an amazing come from behind victory in game 6 of the World Series.