This is what the California State Capitol Building looked like on New Year's Eve 2014. The state Christmas tree, with it's beautiful star tree-topper is on the right.

This was taken with my very special Christmas present, a new Nikon D5300 camera with kit 18-55mm and 55-300mm lenses. I also have learned how to stack images in Photoshop, and this image is a stacked collection of 5 images in total. These were taken at ISO 2000 with the telephoto lens at at f/10 @ 1/20 sec; f/4.5 @ 1/160 sec, 1/80 sec, 1/40 sec, and 1/25 sec to give a variety of exposures for the stacked result.

Thank you to all who have answered the call of duty and served, or continue to serve, in the military. Regardless of political agenda, you deserve this honor for doing that which is largely unthinkable to the rest of us, so that we can continue to live our lives as we do. Whether you served on the front lines or in some back office, whether you nursed someone back to health or killed someone on the battlefield, you have offered your life for your country and your fellow countrymen (and women), and you are worthy of our profound thanks. Today we honor you and take this moment to thank you, because there is little else we can do to repay the debt we owe to all those who serve. — Willscrlt, 11 Nov. 2014