Miscellaneous
I haven’t found anything worthy of a post in recent months, so I thought I’d just post a little summary of events, so everyone knows that I’m still here. 
Obviously the big news around the water cooler is the economy, associated credit crunch and bailouts. Like everyone else, my portfolio has gone down the toilet - I think I’m down about 100K this year, but I’m not panicking. I’m a firm believer in investing for the long term and the market will return to previous levels, even if it takes a while. Hopefully all the stock I am buying whilst prices are at record lows will give me a few hundred percent return in the long run. I’m more worried about the credit crunch, and not being able to get good financing to refinance our house in a couple of years. Well, there’s time yet.
I’ve been spending a lot of time writing my novel. I’m about 45% through and have already built up a big sheaf of notes for items to edit on the 2nd draft. I need to pull my finger out and get on with it, since I have the possibility of a couple of agents for whom my work should be perfect for.
Whilst my ship building takes a back seat for the present, I’ve been learning photography. It’s a scary thing when you take that camera off of full automatic. I’ve taken a few classes and been on a couple of photoshoots and my technique and results are already greatly improved. You can see my latest results. I have a whole bunch of projects and books I’d like to undertake with my camera, but one thing at a time. Currently I am using a Nikon D40 with a stock 18-55 lens. I recently bought a decently solid tripod so I can try shots with slower shutter speeds, e.g. star trails or blurring waterfalls. The next major purchase will be a 2nd lens with some zoom capability, probably a 24-200.
