Woman breaks ankle in front of work and Tucson Fire responds

I was alerted to a little accident scene outside of work this morning.

A woman fell on a sidewalk out near the street and broke her ankle.  Or at least sprained it.

I've posted a couple of photos below that I was able to shoot from inside of our lobby.  You can see in the top photo that she was wearing a pair of stilettos with some high heels.  Those kind of shoes are dangerous if you're not graceful.  And, I'm guessing since she bit it... she isn't graceful.  She might want to consider switching to flats.

The paramedics came to save her.  I would suspect that she was more damaged by lying on the 100+ degree pavement for 20 minutes than she was by her ankle issue.

I live for this kind of thing.

Woman down.... woman down... shoe off...ankle broken...

Tucson Fire paramedics save the day!

Monsoon storm in Tucson August 5, 2012

Yesterday's monsoon storms were unexpected (there was only a 30% chance in the forecast), produced a TON of lightning and thunder, and a pretty heavy downpour.  The storms knocked out power for more than 12,000 Tucson Electric Power customers.  Fortunately, we weren't one of them.

I took some photos and I think they came out kind of cool looking.

You be the judge.



This flipped over chair was the extent of the storm damage at my apartment.
Poor thing.

Monsoon storm clouds from July 15

I was a little slow to upload these.  Oops.

We had a very stormy July in Tucson.  Much more active than usual.  July is normally the less active monsoon storm month compared to August.

But, we did get some fun storms.  By fun, I mean lots of wind, rain, lightning and thunder.

That sounds like fun, right?

Oooo... look at the stormy clouds!

Oooo... look, more stormy clouds!

Lucky walking

A photo of Lucky walking away from me in the apartment.

He doesn't appreciate the Kenparazzi.

Come back little Lucky... come back!

Switching to 16:9 photos from 4:3

If you've read my blog before, you know I take lots of photos.  I'd describe myself as an amateur photographer.  However, a number of photos I take do end up on the TV show so maybe that makes me better than amateur.  The jury is still out.

I have two still photo cameras: a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ35 DSLR and a Sony DSC-T99 digital pocket camera.  Both shoot 4:3 as well as 16:9 photos.  If you don't know the difference, basically the 4:3 is nearly square and the type of photos that have been around for decades.  They make 4x6 and 8x10 prints (and a variety of other related sizes).  16:9 is the rectangle ratio used on HD TV's and in movies.  Think of it like this:  4:3 is what your standard definition television is, and 16:9 is what your HD television is.  One is more square-ish, the other a rectangle.

Both cameras also shoot HD video at 16:9.  I also have two pocket video cameras (a Kodak Playsport and a Sony Bloggie Duo).

I've decided this week its time to start shooting photos in 16:9.  I think it'll be beneficial for a couple of reasons.  I don't print photos I take, I put them on the internet.  So having the photos in standard photo sizes isn't really important.  The other is that I want to create video regularly for YouTube and if the photo size matches the video size for HD I can use them without wasting editing time in the videos.

I've been developing a content strategy for the videos and being able to use still photos will be an important part in their creation.  And, we're moving into an HD world.

I wanted to share all of that so if you notice that the photos look a little different on this blog its because I made the switch.  And, if I didn't tell you I'd worry that you wouldn't be sleeping well.

Here are two photos that show the difference: (Note: if you click on the photos, you'll really be able to see the difference between the two... because they'll show full screen).

4:3

16:9