Just a quick note to announce the launch of Andrew Stott Photography. It's got all you need in a good photo portfolio site: photos, photos, and more photos. Plus a bio, contact information, and a newsletter — just in case anyone is interested...

Swing by and check it out, and let me know what you think!

Have a great holiday weekend, everyone!

Tonight I uploaded my 1000th photo to Flickr...

It shows a fan holding a W banner over the Wrigley Field upper deck, and was taken just after the Cubs defeated the Padres on May 12, 2009.

The time has finally come — I'm selling my trusty Nikon D200 and 17-55mm f/2.8 AF-S DX lens in order to upgrade...

I still love this combo, and it has served me well over the past few years. I'm only upgrading because the Nikon D700 exists, and it's what I'm currently looking for in a camera. To say it plainly, if it wasn't for the D700, I would honestly hold on to the D200 for at least another couple years.

If you're just looking for price info, you can jump to the end of this post. If you'd like some background on the equipment, and the "why" behind my upgrade, please read on...

Just a quick note to let you know that the new Stottsan Digital Media site has launched!

The primary focus was to provide some support resources for our existing clients, and to that end we have created FAQ and Knowledge Base sections. This should let us better communicate tips/tricks with our clients. We also wanted to highlight our existing service offerings, including Shared Hosting and Web Development. On that note, the Shared Hosting plans have gotten a bit of an upgrade, both in terms of disk space and software versions: yay!

So if you're in the market for either web hosting or development, come by and check us out! While you're visiting, sign up for our newsletter, too, so we can stay in touch... We promise we won't sell your email address for too much cash. :)

Happy New Year to everyone!

Part of my plan for this year (not really a resolution) is to move more content up into the "cloud..." Photos, backups, documents, etc... To that end, I have migrated a bunch of my photo galleries from photo.stottsan.net to Flickr.

All the recent galleries are there, including Puerto Rico 2008, Memphis 2008, Cubs Game 8/28/2008, New York 2008, Jeff's 30th Birthday Party, and Fashion Party 2008. A lot of older ones are up, too, including Europe 2004, Hawaii 2005, London/Paris 2006, and South Beach 2006... Wow, I do love to travel! And if you're looking for Dubious Moniker or other Tyranny Belle shows, those are all in the concerts collection.

As part of this migration, I've also tweaked the code at photo.stottsan.net a bit. Now when viewing galleries that have a corresponding home @ Flickr, you'll see the new link at the top of the page. Nothing fancy -- it's just there to help get the word out. I'll keep moving some of the older galleries up as I get the time, but I figured this was a good point to make the announcement.

So update your bookmarks, comment/share at will over on Flickr, but most importantly enjoy the new digs!

After I posted my photos of the Obama Election Night Rally, I got an email from The World Today, a magazine based out of the UK. They wanted to publish my "Barack Obama" image in their December 2008 issue, so of course I was happy to oblige!

no predictions or resolutions here, just a simple happy new year to everyone.

there is one small bit of news to share, though: the photography from here on out will be thanks to a brand spankin' new nikon D200! (if you know of anyone that's looking for a D100, drop me a werd, heh...) only fitting that the first shot posted is of a poster from one of my favorite local bands, the reputation. enjoy this and the other new photos that will be appearing shortly. take care!

wow. these last few weeks have been crazy-whirlwind ones, that's for sure. but it starts and ends well, and the in-between was all good, too, so that's all that matters...

it's hard to believe that is has been almost 3 weeks since jeff and lisa got married (out in sheridan, wyoming of course) -- congrats congrats congrats! the ceremony/reception/after-party, not to mention the whole weekend, was just awesome. honestly, things went off without any hitches, and how often does that happen to weddings at home?!?!?! so the congrats is for the act itself as well as for making it so special.

as many of you know, a couple weeks back i made a pretty substantial change: i moved from united airlines to fishnet security, where i'll be helping to start and build the chicago region as a security engineer. while i'm certainly sad to leave some wonderful people (and projects and technologies) at united, this opportunity is one that i simply could not pass up.

i hadn't posted about the move mainly since i was still getting settled in, and was learning more and more about my role as it was defined. but now that these things are progressing nicely, what i can say is that i'll be providing infosec solutions for fishnet's clients -- specifically in the areas of pre/post sales engineering, consulting, and support. i'll post updates when (and if) i can.

if you're saying "yay, but what does this mean for me?" i can tell you a couple things -- you can't email me at united anymore and you can't call my old cell phone. :) obviously many of you know how to get in touch with me, so this isn't an issue, but if you don't feel free to drop me a note and i can get you my new info. or find me on linkedin, especially if you're an industry contact. and naturally if you're looking for some information security solutions get in touch with me at fishnet...

thanks to everyone that has made these past few years special. i truly have learned a great deal during my time at united, and i only hope the feeling was, in the slightest way, mutual. take care.

fyi, i'm moving photo.stottsan.net to a new server tonight. i disabled logins on the current/old installation so i could copy the database and all static content (currently 497MB of photos). once you see logins enabled again, you'll be on the new server. shouldn't be any issues, but please let me know if you see anything strange...

and to those that have been asking, the redesign/recode of photo.stottsan.net will be happening in the upcoming months. about time to add the new functionality that's been lingering around in development for quite some time, and i know it has been long overdue for a facelift.

update: this site has moved over as well. please let me know if you see any issues, thanks!

FYI, the stottsan digital media site is undergoing a redesign. figured it was about time to revamp and allow for some photo showcasing, etc... should be ready shortly, but for now enjoy a splash page that gives a preview of the future design. yay!

ok, i really have been meaning to post... thanks to tim and joe, who pointed out that i haven't posted in about a month, i am now... :) recently a lot has been happening, but while i've had a ton of content just ripe for the site, i didn't have the time to type it out! so here goes, and thanks for stickin' around!

i'm very depressed. no one, in an entire week, has commented on super pigeon. i have logs. i know you're looking at it! does this rare moment, captured for all eternity, not make you fall down laughing like it did me?!?! this poor little guy sacrafices day in and day out, making sure the city is safe. the least you could do is send him some love. that's all anyone is asking of you.

as many (all 2 of you) know, i just got back from a 4-day bahamas cruise... (unfortunately for me, i'm sitting here in 38 degree chicago instead of on a sunny 88 degree beach, but hey...) so anyway, are you interested in my cruise? well, don't stress, cause i gotz just the thing for you: starting monday, i'll be posting installments of my cruise travelogue. complete with a play-by-play of the highlights, this will be part of a new posting category, appropriately entitled travelogue. until then. though, you'll just have to wait.

tim released the new in progress yesterday. head on over and watch some xhtml/css wizardry. :)

just added a new media section to the site. it includes music, dvd, and book links and reviews. if you're interested in the details, i'm using the MTAmazon plugin to pull the item information from amazon based on the ASIN or ISBN. check it out!

i took the opportunity to grab some pics tonight @ navy pier, since it's absolutely perfect outside... (watch, $5 it'll snow wed.) anyway, they're posted in photography, enjoy!

just up'd a few pics that have been sitting around, including a couple of the salvation army thrift store on grand. before the urban list gets out of control, i'll have to build some multiple-page doohickey. enjoy.

welcome to v3 of andrew.stottsan.net, the latest incarnation of my personal site. it came out a little later than expected but you know how that goes sometimes... v1 and v2 are still available (of course) but these won't get any more of my attention from here on out.

v3 will feature such wholesome goodness as photos, various posts, rants, raves, and a healthy collection of links.

enjoy it while it's here, and of course let me know if there's anything you'd like to see... peace out.