OK, I'll try an explain my thinking... 1.look at your environment and decide what you want to shoot. Since it just finished raining thought take some macro of water on various plants, used the ef-s 60 due to it lightweight for hand held close-ups. Next I look at lighting, low clouds but not too dark so I didn't need to use a flash, I can use settings to manipulate lighting. 2.Determine camera settings to archive the look you want. Take a few test shots at various white balance, shutter speeds, aperture, iso settings to get an idea how the end result will be. Used manual so I could adjust as light situations changed. Also change focus points depending on composition. 3.Take some photos Lighting is everything, watch how the shadows effect the look your after. Direction of light source, your position and so on. Doing this type of photography your able to take multiple shots at various angles to get the looks your after. The thing that I watch the most after camera settings is background objects and color. Find the subject, figure out your aperture/shutter speed, compose your shot, select focus point, check background. I don't want something behind the subject to draw your eye away from the focal point, aperture comes into play here. The bigger the f stop (smaller number) the more the bokeh( background out of focus) you achieve. I took 100 photos to get the 9 that were most appealing, out of those there are 4 that are my faves. f5.6, 1/50s, 800iso f5.6, 1/50s, 800iso Used ef 17-40 f4, settings f8, 1/100s, 800iso

Note that the lens spec is 6.0 to 60 mm; f/2.8 to f/4.3. The zoom range is 10X as indicated by the 6 to 60 mm range. An important figure is the lens opening: f/2.8 to f/4.3. These are great numbers. This means at the widest angle (6.0mm) the f-stop is 2.8 and racked all the way out to maximun zoom, the f-stop is 4.8. Many zoom lenses would fall to smaller openings such as f/5.8 at maximum zoom. However, check out the wide angle. You may find it not wide enough for other uses such as group shots in confined spaces, or including eveything in a wide shot. Canon in designing this lens apparently favored the long side of the zoom range. A tripod will be needed for zooms greater than 2X although a very steady hand in good lighting can get shots up to 4X zoom. Beyond that, it is very difficult to prevent blurring without a stablization aid. You mentioned taking shots of birds approximately 45 ft away. Getting a sharp focus will be the challange. I suspect that you intend to shoot from indoors through glass. It would be best if you could shoot from a blind without any glass in front of the camera. However, if this is not practical for you, there are some things you can do to minimize the extra pane of glass in front of the camera. If you house is like others with installed storm windows, raise the lower storm and acreen to remove this impediment, and shot through only one pane of glass. That piece of glass msut be flat and free of defects. If you have thermal pane windows with a double pane of glass, the internal reflections will degrade the image. Seek another location. There may be times when you will be tempted to turn on the flash. It won't work behind a pane of glass. The reflection off the glass will wash out the exposure and will not illuminate the scene very well.

"And Elmer, we don't need to hear anything from you about your belief that only students who can't make it into other med schools go to osteopathic schools." I'll share not beliefs but three real world cases. Reach your own conclusions. Anecdotes. Starting pieces of background - most medical schools turn away more than 90% of applicants. They have mountains of apps to go through and most applicants submit applications to dozens of schools. One of several first screens to narrow the field of applications received is quantitative - MCAT (the national entrance exam) scores and qualitatively assessed undergrad GPAs. Both to assess academic aptitude and accomplishments. California statistically has twice as many medical students as available seats in in-state schools, meaning, half of "California" medical students go to med school out of state. So they apply to lots and lots of schools, there's not a state school as in many states where in-state acceptance rates are high. Applicant #1 was a K-12 classmate of one of my kids but they went to different colleges. #1 was a decent student, above average grades but not by a lot. His MCAT score was mediocre. He applied to a few dozen allopathic medical schools his senior year of college (that's not a high number) and got no interviews. To strengthen his application, he got a job as a lab assistant in a biomedical research lab at a medical school. And he studied hard to improve his MCAT score. He wound up working two years in the lab position, went through two more application cycles with no interview offers, and wound up after the next cycle getting accepted to a DO school in the Midwest. #2 is the kid of my next door neighbor. Similar story, above average but undistinguished undergrad GPA and so-so MCAT scores. Applied to medical schools, got blanked. Decided to take a one year pre-medical school Post-Bacc program. These are one year college programs designed to strengthen the undergrad academic record, show dedication to the goal of admission, and improve MCAT scores. They completed the program, had a slight MCAT improvement, went through the admission cycle, got no interview offers. The next cycle, applied to DO schools and had multiple acceptances. Applicant #3 was a classmate of another of my kids. Similar story, unimpressive GPA and MCAT scores, as #1. Went through two application cycles with no interview offers. Applied the third cycle to DO schools and had several acceptances. My familiarity with the details of the process is that one of my kids. of an age between #1 and #3, also went through the process. A smart and personable kid who worked hard at a competitive college, had an outstanding GPA, diverse activities, and a good MCAT score. Got 5 acceptances and so had a choice of where to go. When I pick a physician, not only are informed recommendations important (as from other doctors) but so too credentials of education and training. Are there indications that the individual, from his or her past track record, seems to be an 80th percentile type or a 20th percentile type? Does that always describe a great doc or a poor one? No, of course not. Great docs come from mediocre schools and terrible ones from top schools. But as a starting point, past accomplishments and academic achievement can be informative. In selecting a doc as with sorting through medical school applicants, choices of residents by training program directors, choices of applicants for fellowships by program directors. All these processes are competitive and whether the particular doc was successful in past competitive situations are, for me, data points to consider. I want to choose docs who, rather than being mediocre, have excelled and achieved relatively more than their peers. It's a two tier system. Allopathic (MD) schools take the generally brighter and more accomplished applicants (in general) and the second tier, osteopathic schools, take those who have done less well.

Load shedding/demand management is not a new idea. It's certainly an appropriate strategy when user demand for electricity exceeds transmission capability--irrespective of the cost of electricity or what state you happen to live in. Whether it's appropriate for a particular user to volunteer to participate in a load shedding program requires them to weigh a number of factors including their lifestyle and health needs and the performance of their particular home. Bumping a temperature setpoint up or down in a well-insulated home, for example, will have different implications than a poorly insulated one. Shedding the hot water heating load will have different implications for a large family or a single person and for a system which has a large versus a small tank. As for me, I'd rather have the set-point of my air conditioner raised a couple of degrees than the alternatives if the alternatives are a loss of a power grid or rolling blackouts. But, that's a personal choice.