Aside from the basketball game at Wichita State, there was plenty of entertainment between the plays, Various competitions were held for people to try and win prizes and the cheering squad were there too. The cheerleaders did their thing and a section of guys spent a lot of time lifting the cheerleaders into the air, throwing them up and (fortunately) catching them again. Fun stuff to watch.
A work trip had me in Oklahoma City one week and needing to be back the next. I did have the option to fly home and then come back again. However, the length of the trip meant that I would get back and then quickly be back on my way again. Instead, I decided to stay over for the weekend. This was because I had a Plan B. My good friends Steve and Alysia live in Wichita Kansas which is just over two hours north of Oklahoma City so, after work on Friday, I headed up to see them for the weekend.
We had a fun time for the weekend, parts of which will appear in the blog in due course. One thing they had planned was to go and see a Wichita State basketball game. The Shockers were at home and a packed crowd was there to see them. We had to do some research to find out whether taking a camera in was allowed or not and it was so I dragged the camera along. I wasn’t shooting the game really. I just wanted to get some shots to see how they came out.
The stadium appeared bright until you looked at a light meter. I needed to ramp the ISO up quite a bit which I did by switching to manual mode and then using Auto ISO. It worked pretty well. A couple of shots were a bit dark but that will be the case with any shooting mode if the metering gets confused. (My bodies are of a previous generation which does not have the ability to input exposure compensation in this mode. The 1DX does allow that. No idea why it took so long to show up but that is a different story.)
I did manage to get a few action shots. There was not a huge amount of dunking going on but I did catch a couple of more dramatic drives to the hoop. More importantly, I had a great time with Steve and Alysia. Thanks guys for setting up a great day out.
Our UK trip included a stay in the Cotswolds. While we were there, we wanted to take a look at Oxford. It has been a long time since I was last there and my previous visit was an ad hoc trip so we didn’t really see all that we could. This time, we took a guided walking tour of the city center. The guy who took the tour, Jacob, was a local lad and a student at the university. He had plenty of information at his finger tips and I suspect most of it was true. How would we know?
The tour focused on the area in the center of the city around some of the older and more famous colleges as well as some of the university buildings. It was a lovely day and the city was very busy. Consequently, pictures taken were holiday snaps – no time to try and be too artistic. We did have a shorter second loop after the tour though so I could go back and look at some places in slower time rather than get hurried on to the next part of the tour.
It is an old city with some great architecture. The school is okay I suppose but there are better establishments of learning if you are serious about your studies! As the parochial cousins go, though, they do okay. It all ended up with us having a pint at a pub down by the river so it really could not be considered a bad day.
