Much Bettr

I'm pretty sure I'm never going to get that $1000 profession-grade digital SLR camera with the equally expensive lens, and I'm quite confident that a professional photographer job offer isn't going to come my way anytime soon [though if I had that fancy digital SLR...], but I can now say that when it comes to photography, I'm a pro.

That's right, I finally upgraded my Flickr account from the free level to the pro level. The free account allowed you to upload pretty much as many photos as want (there is a monthly space limit, though I never came close to hitting it), but it would only show your most recent 200 shots. And it limited you to just three photo sets.

Now, for $25 a year I truly have unlimited posting, with every photo viewable at all times. And unlimited photo sets to boot.

Another nice thing about Flickr is that it's a lot easier to upload photos on it than it is on TypePad. Now I just put a photo on Flickr and link my blog post to that photo. Flickr even provides the code that lets you display pictures on your blog and automatically send readers to Flickr when they click on the photo. From there they can see larger versions of the image.

It's all very geeky and yet very cool at the same time. The main thing is that it will make it easier for me to manage my photos. And since you can password protect whatever you want, and order reprints right from the Flickr photo page, I might even dump Ofoto and just post the family photos onto Flickr, too. Now I've just got to get around to getting all my non-Flickr photographs uploaded.

And speaking of photographs, it's the start of a new month and that means a new profile photo (and a new header, too). That's right, I finally changed my pic from Angry Mark to Thirsty Mark. Our long national nightmare is over.

The new photo is from my second 'thon, the 2000 Philadelphia Marathon. It was late November and it was quite cold. I carried a disposable camera with me during the "race" (I certainly wasn't racing)  and I would stop and take photos of the scenery (the Philly 'thon is a very scenic course -  many neighborhoods and no highways) or I would have someone take a photo of me.

This particular photo was taken on my way back from Manayunk, 'round about Mile 22, and at that point I was pretty sure I was toast. I stopped at the local Harriet House Runners "water" station. Except that's not water, or powerade. The beverage I'm enjoying is beer. Sweet, sweet beer. Perhaps the best tasting beer I had ever had (though they insisted it was just Miller Lite). The beer stop is a tradition of the Hash House Harriers, a "club for drinkers with a running problem." Big signs stating "this is beer, not water!" all over the place. I ended up picking up the pace not long after that stop and finished a couple minutes better than my first 'thon. I credit the beer.

I even ran up the "Rocky Steps" after I finished ("ran" might not be the right word for it, but I made it up them). And the soup they served after the race was perhaps the best tasting soup I had ever had.

If you think that running shirt looks tight on me, be glad I didn't post a full-length shot from that day. There's running tights and there's tight running tights. And then there's tight tight running tights. Those are the ones I was wearing. And glasses! I ran 26.2 miles wearing my big dorky glasses! Even though I had contacts by then, I was too afraid to run with them in. I thought they might fall out. Thank God I've gotten over that fear.

One of these days I should post the rest of my photos from that day (minus the full-length shots, of course). Hmm, if only I had a pro account on some online photo-sharing site.

Comments

[howard]

I don't know why, but every time I've visited your flickr page, I never noticed you weren't pro already. I guess I always just assumed you were.

But on a slightly different note, thanks for switching from "angry Mark" Every time I saw that, I half-expected you to launch into the sort of diatribes that begin with, "In my day..."

[Donna]

The angry Mark was a scary, scary sight. Not as scary as the full body picture, though. Your discretion is appreciated.

[MoMMY]

Love the new look. And I'm with you on the camera thing. That's the lens I was drooling over recently. I'm trying to come to terms with not really having a good enough reason to "find" the money for that level of camera. It's just not in the cards.

[Janie]

Seriously, you are my very favorite dork. Seriously....