The camera was just released in October and Adobe Lightroom wasn’t able to convert NEF files (Nikon’s RAW file) to DNG files (digital negative). In Lightroom, I went to Help > Check for Updates and downloaded version 2.1. That solved everything!

• Old People Love Popcorn
• Poisoning the Well
• Kite Festival This Saturday
• Kindergarten: You In?
• You Won’t Get a Job in Michigan

http://www.jasminesadler.com/blog/ - This blog belongs to my sister. She wrote in it while she had an internship this past summer. One of my favorite posts to read there is this one where she talks about heading out to LA and having a good time there!

http://rawrshegan.wordpress.com/ - This one belongs to a guy named Stephen whom I met through my sister. He’s doing study abroad in France and takes tons of pictures and videos. An interesting post that he made is this one where it is entirely in French. That post gives the impression that he picked up the language well enough to write an entire post in it. I’m not sure if that’s true but I’m going to believe it because that’s awesome.

http://mookzofhazzard.blogspot.com/ - A blog by an old college friend of mine who I randomly keep in touch with. I recently found out that she blogs every so often about whatever she feels like. It’s always about her and it’s always interesting. This is my favorite one of hers. I think it’s because she is one of the few people on this planet that can see through the garbage that people have to go through in order to “stay in line” in the workplace these days.

http://www.xanga.com/dough1boy7/ - Narendra’s blog. Whenever he posts, it’s something great and you can tell he took some time to think about what he’s writing. I enjoyed reading this post. He expressed a few of the thoughts I was having about what is and should be important in people’s lives.

http://aspiringwriter.wordpress.com/ - Sarah’s blog. She’s aspiring to be a writer (get it?) but doesn’t know much about writing a book, getting published, and everything in between. She got a suggestion from someone that she should start a blog on writing a book. That way, she can find information for herself and put it in one place which could help the next person who wants to write a book. She has an intro post which is a great start on a long journey!

http://bloomingnyc.blogspot.com/ - This blog is by an old friend of mine who is currently living in New York. She writes about some of her experiences there being a a teacher in Brooklyn and other random New York happenings. I really enjoy her series on training for a marathon which supports Leukemia and Lymphoma research.

http://awesomenessinc.wordpress.com/ - A blog by an awesome guy who I met through some friends and am utterly glad that I did! I saw this post right when I was about to submit mine. I was just talking about something similar to this yesterday and how a lot of people limit themselves to drinking for their main source of fun. Little do they seem to realize a whole world of enjoyment which can be found in everything.

http://lizstableinphotos.wordpress.com/ - The only blog on this list by someone I don’t actually know. Her name is Liz Stablein and I found her blog by doing a search for photoblogs. She posts a picture about every other day and they’re always great. This picture is one of my favorites because I’m a HUGE fan of night photography and how different things look at night.

Take a few minutes this lazy Friday afternoon (it’s raining where I am) to read a post or two from each site and find something new and interesting.

• I Question Anyone Who Questions Me…
• I’m Number One
• Kindergarten: You In?
• My Sister Blogs
• To tide you over…

I found out that they allow each person who has an account with them to create their own promo codes which allow a new subscriber to get some super-special deal that lets more people consider hosting their own website.

The one that I created for my friend gives her one free domain name which is free forever. This is in addition to the domain name that Dreamhost gives new subscribers for the first year. So she saves $10 a year for as long as she leaves that domain name with Dreamhost. She can take her hosting elsewhere and leave that domain name with Dreamhost and never have to pay for it ever!

They are also currently offering unlimited bandwidth and unlimited disk space for any of their plans. A year of unlimited hosting and unlimited bandwidth at Dreamhost goes for $119.40. That was the best deal that I found when I was looking and it’s the one that I recommend to anyone who is just starting out. After the year is up, you can decide then if you want to get a two or more year plan. The longer the plan, the bigger the discount.

Click this link and enter Jermil into the promo code section to get a free lifetime domain name in addition to the one that Dreamhost gives you for free. I wish someone had that code for me when I was starting out! I think there’s a limited number of people who can use that one. If you try to use it and can’t, let me know and I’ll look into creating a new one.

If you need help getting things started once you sign up, I’ll be happy to help. Just think… soon you could have a moderately popular blog (and way more cool stuff) like me!

• Skyline Automotive Sucks!!!
• Welcome Visitors!
• The MadMil Workout Plan for 2008
• Good Ol’ Thursday
• Come Celebrate With Me!!!

I keep it in a little black pouch and I was nervous to check the condition. I shook it and nothing rattled so i figured everything was okay.

I went to the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon last night to work on my night photography portfolio for class. I could use my 18-55mm lens just fine. But when I used the one I dropped, I couldn’t get anything in focus. I thought maybe my eyes were doing funny things and I just couldn’t focus. But when I walked around to find a better shot, I saw a big crack in the front of the lens!

Luckily it was just the UV filter that I put on the front to protect the actual lens from dirt and smudges and such. I had no idea it would protect it from BREAKING!!!

Here are some of the pictures from that night.

• I Made My First 5 Dollars Doing Photography
• Stay out of Jail for a Grand card (part 3)
• I Can See Infrared Light With My Bare Eyes
• PHT Midterm Review
• Cat Piss Triumphs Over Miracle Gro

• I Dropped My Lens
• Crazy Horn Honking Old Lady
• You Know What Would Look Even Better Than If You Were On Fire???
• I Made My First 5 Dollars Doing Photography
• Sports Jacket?

Tuesday night was one of the coldest nights of October in northern Virginia. 40 degrees and high winds blowing almost constantly at about 20 miles per hour. I decided that would be the perfect time to get astonishing night shots in Old Town Alexandria.

When I was done taking pictures for the night, a friend and I walked back to my car.

While walking back to my car, I happened to glance at the sidewalk in front of me. In the middle of a ridiculous windstorm, a 5 dollar bill seemed to be stuck on the sidewalk. I picked it up and it was a normal 5 dollar bill with no fishing line attached to it and no gum keeping it stuck it to the ground. It was all mine!

My friend who was lucky enough to be allowed to witness me make masterpieces said that it was like God paid me to take pictures that night. I looked at it in a similar way because if I wasn’t taking pictures that night, chances of me finding a 5 dollar bill were extremely low.

Either way, it was a great feeling to think that I was getting paid to do what I love. I was thinking about framing it!

• New Pictures
• Good Ol’ Thursday
• I Almost DIED!!!
• My Best Blogging Friends
• Stay out of Jail for a Grand card (part 2)

• Pictures from the Shenandoah Mountains
• I Actually Learned Something At Work
• Rich Vos at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse
• Even More Pictures
• Pictures from the 2nd

(Click it)

• I Made My First 5 Dollars Doing Photography
• Tell a Story With Pictures
• Which Picture Is Better?
• I Dropped My Lens
• The MadMil Workout Plan

I was lucky be born right as the personal computer became popular. I remember being a lil kid and my parents had a Commodore 64 that we hooked into the TV with the rabbit ears and I could play Space Invaders. Then they upgraded from that and got an Intel 386. This was back when I was too young to realize that the computer was a big deal.

But fast-forward to today. Anytime I want to know anything about anything, I hop on the computer and Google it. I get the answer in far less than a minute. But that’s only if I have to get up and go to the computer. I can do that exact thing on my CELL PHONE now. I have the internet in the same thing that I use to call my parents! How UNBELIEVABLE is that???

But we take these things for granted. Imagine growing up in the 70s and you want some pizza. You have to get up and flip through a fat yellow book while getting ink on your fingertips and dropping the book on your big toe. Now you do a google search.

Remember when we had to do book reports??? I know I had to actually go to the Detroit Public Library and get the book. Then read it and write about it. That’s over Johnny!

You can go to Amazon or eBay and get them to mail you the book overnight! Or you can download the e-book and read it on your computer while you click back and forth to check your email and facebook. But then you’d still have to read it. Hmmmm…

You can search in Google for “book report” and “Atlas Shrugged” and get a book report there I’d bet. Or you can read someone else’s summary and make a report out of that. You could probably find every edition of Cliff’s Notes for every book that was made and read that online.

I don’t know. I think we’re extremely lucky to be the first generation to be born with internet. Right now, the internet is flying around in the same air that you breathe. All you need is something to interact with it and you have all the questions, answers, and porn you could ever need EVER!

It’s just amazing. 2 thumbs up for the internet.

• I’m Number One
• Deleting Multiple Texts on a Blackberry Curve
• Adventures in Volunteering
• Jermil Martin: Good Football Player, Better First Name Holder
• Welcome Visitors!

I got that quote from Kanye West’s book titled “Thank You and You’re Welcome“. You can find it at the very top of his blog.

I’ve started using that in my daily life. Anyone who asks me a question, I ask them at least one back. It makes job interviews more fun. It also gets you interested in people and let’s people know that you’re interested in them.

I talked to a guy who gets free front row seats at MMA fights because he takes pictures of the fights and the fighters. I found out how he got to that point and realized it was basically an accident and the benefit of putting yourself out there, being willing to fail, and being at the right place at the right time.

But back to the book, it’s full of euphemisms which Kanye says he uses in his actual life. It’s not a long book but it’s very interesting.

Some of the quotes are able to stand on their own and he doesn’t provide any explanation for it. But others, he gives experiences from his past that explain why he subscribes to that proverb.

The design is also interesting. The quote (or sometimes, the most important piece of the quote) will usually be given huge letters while the explanation is given in normal text. I think that was done to make sure the important part sticks in your mind while you absorb the reasons the way you’d absorb anything you read.

It’s 52 pages and one of my favorite books of the year. If you’re in my area, I’ll let you borrow my copy or you can buy it at Kanye’s blog for about $10.

• My Best Blogging Friends
• I Know How Lucky I Am
• I Can See Infrared Light With My Bare Eyes
• Work Nuggets
• Women Are Not Liars