About this site (and me)
I use this site to log and publish bits of my digital life. Who am I? My name is Phil Martinez and I work as a Mechanical Engineer in Lawrence, KS. I have a son named Zachary who is almost in high school and is great at composing modern pop style instrumentals. I entertain myself with and enjoy programming, social media, friends, KU basketball, gadgets, music, podcasting, web dev, photography, frisbee golf, and tacos.
Recent Pictures
(click to view on Flickr)
My other websites
58% GeekLawrence Tweetup
Philsquare
philmartinez.com
Also Find Me Here
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PHOTO: Bee on Flower
Friday, 3rd September 2010 @ 8:19 am | Category: Photography
This is from my neighbor's small flower garden. After seeing this large bee hanging out on these blossoms I grabbed the camera (I ask my neighbor for permission first) and snapped some photos. The camera is about 12 inches from the bee. It seemed like a nice calm bee so I wasn't to worried about getting stung.
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My latest creation, philmartinez dot com
Tuesday, 31st August 2010 @ 7:31 pm | Category: Update
I am proud to announce the launch of philmartinez.com. This website is my active portfolio. It highlights my various areas of expertise and will be updated with notes about projects, science, coding, tech, et cetera.Philobyte.com will still be updated with more personal events such as holidays, camping/hiking adventures, vacations, and so on. However, philobyte.com is not a good place for me to rant about coding syntax or talk about technology. This is my fun site and that's how I will keep it.
So check out my new website located at philmartinez.com and let me know what you think. Thanks!

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Sunflowers in Kansas
Sunday, 29th August 2010 @ 8:44 pm | Category: Photography
Last Wednesday my friend Jeff and myself visited a local sunflower field to take photographs. We arrived in the late afternoon as the sun was falling to the West. Since the flowers were facing the East, we had the challenge of shooting pictures towards the sun. This created a very bright and over-exposed picture and caused deep shadows to rest in the center of the flowers. I tried shooting at different angles and cycled through a variety of camera settings. Fortunately I was able to bring many of them to life in post-processing. Below is a few from the set. Check the entire group on flickr here.




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Nice weather and the hike
Monday, 16th August 2010 @ 10:51 pm | Category: Update
After several weeks of intense Kansas heat, we finally got a break. This last Sunday it was hovering around 80 degrees. After barricading myself indoors for the past 10 days or so it was nice to get out and enjoy the cooler weather. I decided it would be a great time to take a hike and also snaps some photos along the way. Clinton Lake has some great trails. The one I travelled was called the North Shore trails. The trails are about 23 miles long and are very well maintained. I spent about 3.5 hours hiking approximately 4 miles. Here are some photos from the hike. You can also view the entire set here.


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On top of The Oread hotel
Tuesday, 27th July 2010 @ 4:26 pm | Category: Update
Today I attended the monthly Lawrence lunch Tweetup. For this month we met at the Bird Dog restaurant located inside Lawrence's newest and grandest hotel, "The Oread". For dessert, the Bird Dog provided our group with ice cream. Interesting enough they served it in dog food bowls.After the lunch we were invited to the top of the hotel for a brief tour. I was able to take some great pictures. You can either check out the photos from the entire lunch here or check out the tour shots at my events page.

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Float trip and camping at Blue Springs Ranch
Thursday, 1st July 2010 @ 8:17 pm | Category: Trips

We arrived on a friday night and set up camp. The next morning we were bussed 5 miles upstream and dropped off to awaiting rafts. After loading the rafts were shoved off and began the slow ride back towards the camp. Most of us didn't spend much time inside the rafts. The water felt good and the floatation device was used like a mini raft. Throughout the river we entertained ourselves with rope swings, water gun fights, sandbars, baby ducks, caves, and of course beer and wine.

Check out all the pictures on my events page or on flickr.
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Building a license plate holder for my mom's Mazda
Tuesday, 22nd June 2010 @ 11:31 pm | Category: DIY Projects
My moms Mazda didn't have a standard bolt pattern for mounting a license plate. She stopped by my house on her way to Minnesota and needed to replace the 30 day tag before continuing with the trip. Unfortunately, no place in town had a plate holder that would fit this car. So I decided to make a quick trip to the hardware store and build a plate holder for her car. It took me about 45 minutes to get it built and mounted. Here are some pictures from the build.Clicking a photo below with send you to a larger photo on my project flickr account.










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Photo: My Patio Tree
Wednesday, 16th June 2010 @ 9:30 pm | Category: Photography



The tree which shades most of my patio produces an incredibly beautiful display of flowers every spring. This year I was able to grab a few photos of the tree in full bloom on a nice clear day.
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