Back from Alaska and looking through pictures.  WOW!  Not for the great photos but for the 50% that were severely over cooked or undercooked.  I did not do well at all and when looking at the file info I saw that I left the ISO on 1600 most of the time.  I was not ready to shoot manual but I did and learned a lot of what not to do.  I had to learn Photoshop and i will say this again and again; I should not be that good using Photoshop.   I did get some good pictures and even have some hanging on the walls. Another saying is if you get a few good pictures you had a good day.  I would think that doesn't apply to static things.  If you are shooting action or moving things maybe.  After this experience did I go back to shooting auto?  No, on to Wildwood Park and I'm going to lick this mentality.  I spent 265 days in 2007 wandering the paths and waterways around Wildwood Park shooting just about everything.  They are somewhere on my hard drive, everyone of them.  A good friend ask me what I was going to do with all those photos.  At that moment I had no plans except to keep shooting.  He does a lot of filming and gives presentations.  He told me to think about doing something with them.  After some thought I put a slide show together and gave a talk about my year at Wildwood at Wildwood as a featured lecturer.  It was not about photography but about the amazing things I learned while looking at nature through the lens. 

I now have of photos and well underway to the 10,000 clicks.