i suck at photoshop.
it took me about a half hour to get the image at the top to look halfway decent. i bet mike could have gotten it better than that in about 5 minutes.
i took the picture that is source for the banner image back in March, just down the street from my condo, next to the Edgewater Hotel. Somehow, i managed to take a really good picture even though the camera i used was just a canon powershot s500, a run of the mill 5 megapixel compact camera. I actually ordered a print of the picture, 20×30, and have gotten it framed; it looks really nice.