Hiya.

My name is Tony Ballinger, and I'm a web designer living in Oak Park, Illinois.
When I'm not designing for the web, I enjoy music, go to concerts and play with gadgets.

Vacation Day: Garfield Conservatory

April 3rd, 2006

To be honest, without a digital camera I could probably stand to be at a conservatory about fifteen minutes. But with a digital camera, I think I killed over an hour here. Leaning into flowers, sticking the camera into cacti – I was having a hoot. The only shame is that we went on an overcast day, so a lot of my photos didn’t turn out quite as saturated as I would have liked. Midway through the visit, I figured out how to manipulate the focus of my camera by locking the focus on some object, and then moving the camera to another spot entirely. I really should read the manual that came with the camera before my next visit.

High point: Faith showed me a little area where you can sit by an indoor pond and watch koi swim. It’s very relaxing. I might come back sometime with my iPod and watch the fish swim a soundtrack of Brian Eno’s “On Land” or Daniel Lanois’ new album “Belladonna”.

2 Responses to “Vacation Day: Garfield Conservatory”

  1. Joe Says:

    I haven’t heard On Land, but I do have Belladonna, and dig it. Last time I went to the conservatory, I was there for several hours. It’s quite nice.

  2. tonyballinger Says:

    On Land is an extremely mellow CD. What the kids today might call “Dark Ambient”. Lots of low rumbling and FM synthesis pads.