It's a new year.... and the same stuff.

I'm in the middle of deadline day and also getting ready for tonight's Sabres game.

Then it's a "normal" month before a very busy February.

It's nice to get the holiday's over with so I can get back to normal. I'm not far behind on stuff but I do have some things in the works that look to take up a lot of time the next few months.

So here's to a new year and another quick blog post.

I think I am done with trying to post every day. For the past few months I have not been any good at it.

It is not that I don't have the work. It is more of the case that I've been more busy this year that I have been before.

So I'm going to scale back a touch and post when I can.

I may even look to build a new website that is more of a portfolio site.

So for now here is an image from last night's Geneseo at Avon basketball game.

It started out and stayed close for three quarters until Geneseo was able to pull away in the fourth.

I was driving past the local rock salt mine the other night when I noticed that they had placed a Christmas tree on top of the highest pile.

At the time I did not stop but I made a mental note to swing by another night for the image.

So the next night I made sure to get the picture as I was in the area again.

Since the salt mine is private property I could not get as close to the tree as I would have liked so I had to improvise and choose my spots carefully.

The first spot was a little to far to take with my 70-200mm lens and zoom in as close as I wanted so I changed to the 300mm and held hope that my crappy tripod could hold the set-up stable enough for the slow shutter speeds I was going to use.

As I sat along side of the road taking pictures I had a sheriff's deputy pull up. Now my car was still running with the trunk open and the four way flashers going so I figured he was a tad curious as to what I was doing.

The only thing I did not fully expect from him as he rolled his window down with me standing there with very expensive camera equipment in plain sight was for him to ask the dumb question. "You taking pictures?" he said. I really wanted to give the Bill Engvall "Here's your sign" answer but this was one of the few deputies I did not know.

After that I changed locations and headed back up the road to the intersection where a small dirt road is that would set me up directly across from the tree and bring me closer that where I had started from.

I changed back to my 70-200mm lens and after a few adjustments I captured the image above.

It was an interesting night to say the least and I got an image I really liked.

If I have time the next few weeks there are a few other Christmas light set-ups that I will set up for but if I don't I at least got this tree (it would have bothered my if I had missed my chance).

My last football games of the season took place this past weekend.

I spent two days in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse covering the Class B and D New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship games.

One game saw Letchworth capture their first ever state title and the other saw Hornell walk away with their third strait state title.

It was a weekend filled with many emotions. Joy, excitement and sadness where a few.

Both teams experienced the joy of winning and both had the excitement of making the big game.

In the same token both experienced sadness.

For Hornell that was the retirement of longtime coach Gene Mastin. Mastin chose to come back for one more season after last years dream season. He could have walked away from it all last year but chose to come back for one more run. The nice thing is he leaves his new coach with a bunch of great kids.

As for Letchworth. Their sadness is a past coach and supporter of the program being diagnosed with cancer. I'm not going to name the coach but it was nice watching the team and coaches wave to him (when he was in the the booth) and celebrate the win with him on the sidelines.

So here's to the Red Raiders of Hornell and the Indians of Letchworth.