I thought it was a shoelace too Capt because I wear metal shoelaces
Really nice pics Varm! I love the colors in the second one and I can tell you'll get some other really good ones when you scout out a few new places. I like the blue sky effect too!
One thing I never understood though is the white balance thing. I guess because I don't know how to do it with my camera. You said you took a picture through 2 coffee filters... what does that do? I guess I need an explanation of white balance. There's a "white balance" thing on my camera that I can move a slider up (which starts turning everything blue) or down (red) but I always thought that was just for effect. I know there's a thing that does custom WB too. Maybe that's where I'm supposed to hold up a gray card (like I've read somewhere before) or take a pic through coffee filters or something, but I don't really know what that does.