withinfocus

Chocolate-Covered Strawberries

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600

This past weekend I helped out my mom's Peterbrooke Chocolatier store since it was Valentine's Day weekend and that happens to be one of their busiest times of the year. Myself and a few others dipped over 8000 strawberries for sale mostly on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Saturday was the busiest and we pretty much never stopped dipping all day.

Even though there was a lot of work to do I had fun with it all and now consider myself a strawberry-dipping expert. The only part that sucked was when a strawberry head would break off from the leaves (which you hold) and the berry would drop into the chocolate. You needed fast fingers to keep it from sinking. There were plenty of screw-ups like those to eat after the store closed each night!

Morning Moss

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600

I'm always a fan of moss growing on stuff. The almost-noon sun was painting the forest floor with a nice angle of light.

Gold Head Sunset

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Here's some grasses near the lake in Gold Head Branch State Park around sunset.

Morning Scrub

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0600

Small scrub like this is a very common sight in Florida's forests. Besides making for nice photos sometimes, you can use them to get a fire going or even as some extra padding if you're sleeping directly on the ground.

Jaguar Stare

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600

The jaguars made for good photos so I thought I would post some more. I think one of them was staring at a spectator. The jaguar stayed locked like this for several minutes, carefully watching whatever interested it.

Birds

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Some birds from the zoo. I have no idea what species they are.

Colobus Monkeys

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

There's a large enclosure of Colobus monkeys in the African section of the Jacksonville Zoo which I always enjoy. These guys (or girls actually) are always very relaxed and amuse me with the stuff they do; they seem very human in how they handle each other and the ways they perform tasks like eating and walking around.

Flamingos

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Flamingos at the zoo, especially pink from some good shrimp I guess.

Jaguar Roar

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500

My little brother Shane and I went to the zoo yesterday. We went pretty late in the afternoon and the "rangers" told us the animals would all be going into their nighttime spots soon but I've seen more animals then than any other time I've been there. The jaguars were especially active and I got a ton of photos of them playing around. Here's one yawning (slightly out of order since the best shot is obviously the yawn itself).

Downtown Disney

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Was digging through some photos and forgot that I didn't post more of what I had from our Disney trip. Downtown Disney had a lot to do as far as food and shows but everything was pretty pricey and since it was our first day there we decided to skip most of what was there.