Hi, Joe. Please to meetcha! And what state are you from? Are you married, do you have kids? What kind of camera do you usually use? Do you have formal education in photography?
JoanMN

Looks like you're an Astro's Fan! Picture taken in New Mexico?

Kt

Hey Joe, what do you know!

I'm Eric, on the right, nice to meet you.

{{!gwi}}

Eric

I live on the beautiful central coast of California....here I am in Morro Bay with Morro Rock, an ancient volcano plug, in the background.
I love this little fishing village....great scenery and great food.

AAhhaa a face with the names---Glad to meet ya...Joe-Eric-Carol...

Here's me...Live in NE OH...but a Oregonian by heart!
My daughter took this pic...dont take many pics of self...

Here's a scanned photo of all DH and mine kids 14 years ago...Married 30 years...

Juanita

HUBBY AND I .Just celebrated 50th !

Hi Joe, Eric, Juanita, Clare, Carol! This is a good idea, here's me "bigack" aka Susan. I don't post a whole lot of pics, cause most of mine are dogs and flowers, but I sure enjoy this site!

Not really an Astros fan, the back has "Ryan" and "34". Nolan Ryan was my favorite pitcher to watch back in the day.

That is Sandia peak I am on.

Joanmn, I am married, two kids. Posted many pics of there here.
Here he is the list of cameras I I touched:
Oly E500
Oly E1
Cannon XT
Nikon D50
Many point and shoots

I took photography in high school, nothing spectacular. The photog teacher was also my wresting coach, he often sent me to the gym t work instead of working on photography.

It is nice to see a face with the names!

Zjoe

Joe, you're younger and cuter than I'd thought. (You can tell your wife I said that  I'm old enough so it doesn't count.) :-)

Here I am a couple of months ago with my oldest daughter. She turns 34 tomorrow. She was born on Labor Day, too.

Susan

Thanks Susan, I'll be 30 in a couple more years. I have a gray hair and it has been making me freak out.

Morro Bay is beautiful, I lived in Monterey, CA for awhile. I remember passing through there.

Zjoe

bigack,

Bring on the dogs and flowers!!!!!!!!!!!

Susan, I see you and your daughter were together when you got hit by the ugle truck. Lol, Sorry if I've gone to far.

Eric

Eric- Dang...
Dont worry Susan, I got your back. By the looks of his picture he'll never say that to your face, he is not tall enough to do it! ;>)

Joe, LOL! 5'4" on a good day!

That's what I don't like about typing. Saying one thing meaning another.

Beauuuuuuutiful!

Eric

I'm not 100% sure what I'm laughing at, but I'm always ready for a joke. Thanks, guys!

Susan

... and by good day he means this...
{{!gwi}}

By the look of his photo, Eric does make rather odd wardrobe choices...

But honestly, I wouldn't have picked those shoes as his. :-)

Well Susan, all I can say is your daughter is beautiful and its easy to see where she gets it from.

As for me, I'm holding my son's dog.

Alisanda, under some attack, was the name I had in mind. Must have been Susan's pretty picture cross connecting in my mind.

Zitro joe has been kind enough to share his much deeper knowledge of photography with me on other forums, so, I've run across him before, but, its good to get a good look at him on this one.

Susan, Somehow this has turned into a flame war. I apologize to you, daughter and fellow posters. Happy Birthday to the daughter.

You all are beautiful people.

Eric

Here are the kids, Elijah and Abigail.

Susan, what a nice picture! You know Eric's just joking around, like the rest of us do.

However, your daughter is lovely, and if she isn't married, I'd like her number! OK! That's being a little forward, but she is a beauty(takes after her Mom).

Nice kids, Joe. It still looks like you are bending that tree in your photo.

Kt

I've been working out...

Thanks, RC and KT. Yes, I knew Eric was kidding. How did I know? Well, I know my daughter is beautiful, so how could he possibly be serious? :-)

No problem, Eric. I was kidding, too.

RC, that's a great picture, and you two sure look alike. Is that a Jack Russell terrier?

Joe, your kids are adorable! So cute.

Susan

I think you all look wonderful, as do your kids!
JoanMN

you guys crack me up, and on top of that you're all a buncha nice looking peeps...althoooo...i just gotta tellya, those bare baby-feet havya all beat by a mile! :oD

That pup is a rat terrier, feisty as she can be, and spoiled already.

This guy did not appreciate the way I introduced myself, this was at a submission grappling tournament this weekend.

What a great idea. Faces to go with the names.
Joe, where do you hike?
I have very few pics of myself. My son took this one of me on our annual backpacking trip to the Bighorn Mts. in Wyoming.

{{!gwi}}

Ron

Ron - that's a nice rucksack you have there. I live in west TX, there are miles of trials through rolling hills here. I spend a lot of time in the state park.

I travel a bit with work, so I always plan to see the out doors wherever I am.

Big Sur, CA has to be one of my favorites. I did RAGBRAI back in 2000, not hiking but probably the funnest activity I have participated in.

Here is a link that might be useful: RAGBRAI

West Texas, Wow, I lived in Silver City New Mexico for 16 years and got to know the Gila pretty well as well as a little of west Texas. Evwen made it to the top of Gaudalupe Peak a while ago. Now I'm back in Minn. and sure miss the mts. some days
Biking across Iowa; you must like looking at corn. :-)
Ron

Sorry to butt in and be nosy....

{{!gwi}}

But I have a question! Hey Ron, what's Silver City like? One of my favorite authors, Leroy Quintana, has some great stories based on tales his grandfather used to tell about Silver City. I'm very curious about that town, but I've never had a chance to visit. Got any pictures of town? Or stories of your own? Please share!!

Julie

I'm not a regular here - hopped in from another GW forum to see Ron. *grin* Just wanted to tell zitro_joe that I wrote an article on RAGBRAI for an Air Force magazine a year ago. The guy I interviewed said the same thing - it is a BLAST! Did you only participate one year?

Just the once, I was stationed at Offutt and my schedule didn't cooperate with me to do it again. I am planning on doing it again in the next year or two.

Hi Julie,
What is Silver City like? Gosh, I don't know where to begin. I grew up in Minnesota and am now back here where I started. I really like the climate in Silver City. I used to tell people that it's far enough south to have mild winters but high enough in elevation (6,000ft.) to have nice summers. We'd never get that unbearable heat like El Paso or Tucson. The average annual rainfall is about 16 inches with half of that coming during the rainy season of July and August. Starting on the edge of town is the Gila Nat'l Forest, 1.5 million acres to roam around in. I've always been an outdoors guy and raised 4 sons down there that love to hike and camp as much as I do. The Nat'l Forest ranges in elevation from about 5,000ft to over 11,000 ft. Silver City is about 10 or 12 thousand now, not the sleepy little town that it was when we moved there in 1985. It even has a Wal-mart now. But, to do any serious shopping you have to go to El Paso or Tucson each at least 3 hours away.
I don't believe I have any pictures of the town itself, but I could share some of the surrounding areas.
Great Mexican food there of course. That's probably one of things I miss the most. You just can't get decent green chile up here.
What else would you like to know about?
Ron

When we passed through Silver City, it had just rained and it was cold enough to wear a coat, and that was in August. A very beautiful city in it's own right. I have a few photos but will have to look for them and post them later.

The Gila National Forest is really beautiful. We visited the Indian ruins there. About a forty mile trip to get there but it takes about two hours to drive, unlike here, where forty miles takes about 25 minutes.

A beautiful place to hike and see some pristine wilderness.

Kt

bringing it back, say hi everyone!

Wow, forgot about this one.

Joe, been meaning to ask you...there is a large observatory west of Phoenix open to the public where you can use powerful telescopes to stargaze. Have you ever been there or heard of it? I didn't know if your kids would be interested in it or not. I haven't been there but know some people from here who have gone and really liked it.

I want to find out more info on it but don't know the name of the place.

If it gets much dryer here, it will be looking like Arizona before long.

Kt

Kt,

Not sure specifically but I have a friend here got his PHD in Optical Physics at the University of AZ; I am sure he may know...I know they went to Gilbert AZ to go do work on a telescope, but that is east of phx.

Joe

I used to live in Tucson, Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff has a nice night viewing program, as does Kitt Peak. Kitt is about 50 miles southwest of Tucson.

Thanks Mongoct! I think it might have been Tucson instead of Phoenix, that I was thinking of. Kitt Peak sounds familiar also.

Thanks again.

Kt

Hi Zitro-last I heard you were on your way to a new adventure-joined the military or moving because of it....What a nice old re-visited thread...We may have all grown a few years younger by now, lol....

Hi KT and Mongoct!

I've been looking around on GW and notice there hasn't been much activity or many new threads I use to visit. Kind of sad.

Still live in great old NE OH. Having a great winter so far. Weather has been great-50's last few days and 40 for the next few. snow & cold has come and snow has melted a few times. Really a nice treat that its not constantly 30 below this year....

Hope more check in here-this was my fave forum when got the photography bug. Now I don't hang around to much except more or less FB....but its nice to come back here!

Cheers everyone!