Kate and Terry-Travels in Cholula Red

Just a Few Shots

2012-01-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

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The other day I went to pull down one of our shades, and the string broke.

Oh no!

I've read many times what a huge pain it is to restring the blinds in a motorhome, but what were we to do?

I went online, found instructions, then decided the best place to start was with a restringing kit. They have them at Camping World, but gosh, they want $11.00 to ship this tiny package of hardware and strings! Since there's a Camping World about a scenic hours drive away, we decided a little car trip was in order, so off we went.

Not too much to say about these.

All were taken from a moving car.

I was kind of excited to get this shot.
We were driving one way,
he was flying the other . . .

I snapped this in the window of a school.
I thought about stopping,
as I really liked the reflections
in the windows,
but we kept going.

The sun was setting.

And soon it was dark.
I wish I had gotten the moon a bit sharper.

That's it for today.

Silly . . .

2012-01-24T15:25:00.000-08:00

I looked down at my breakfast
and for some reason,
I thought that the toast looked really lovely.

So I took a picture.

I took this with my iPhone.
In downloading it to the computer
I found one more from the other day.

For some reason, I liked this shot.

I'm very easily amused.

I must be really bored. . .

It's Raining

2012-01-20T21:06:00.000-08:00

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There's been no rain for quite some time, so of course, the day we have to go out, it starts pouring.

We had an appointment to give blood, so there wasn't much choice, we bundled up and out we went.

While I was waiting, I decided that it was about time I got the camera out and shoot a few pictures, weather be damned.

Like always,
these look better if you click on them
and look at them at full size.

Rain drops were the order of the day.

I'm fascinated with infrared photography,
even though I don't really understand it.
I have a few programs that try to simulate it.
Here's a shot processed to replicate the effect.

And here's another attempt at Bokeh.
I'm trying to learn
to use the aperture setting on my camera.

The blood drive was held at a local church,
so I grabbed this shot of one of the arches.
I love the simplicity and shapes in this shot.

Other than these few shots,
the only news
is that we're still working in the house.

Work Work Work

2012-01-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

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Been busy in the house, so there isn't really a lot to write about.

One thing though, I found our first "real" digital camera. Now we did have one of the first Apple QuickTake Cameras (which I also found). I used it but never really got into the whole digital photography thing, it just didn't really click with me.

Then, my friend got a Sony Mavica that took pictures directly to a floppy disc. We borrowed it several times and that was my real start. By the time we had decided to take the plunge, a Sony Mavica 1000 was available, and that was what we went with. Similar to earlier Mavicas, this one took it's pictures to a small CD. For the time, it was very slick, with a full 10x optical zoom and tons of bells and whistles.

Today I found that same camera, tucked in the back of a closet. Wow, that thing is HUGE! It was still in its' case, with all the accessories and the original receipt. That puppy was $1,300 back in 2000!

But we loved it and took a ton of pictures with it. When we got married, we took the Sony along on our honeymoon (our first trip through the southwest). Of course, this meant we also had to take something to read those CDs, so we hauled our Bondi Blue iMac along with us. Click the computer link and you'll see what we were hauling in those days! But we thought it was wonderful.

Not too long ago, I looked at some of those pictures, and my God, they are really terrible. The quality is somewhat lacking, but mainly, it's the photographer. I guess I would just point and shoot at anything, clueless about composition or anything else.

At least it serves as a reminder that I've gotten a little better in the last dozen or so years.

One other totally unrelated note . . .

The other night, we again watched the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Am I the only one who thinks that if this were released today, Eli Wallach would be a shoe in for an Oscar nomination? A damned near perfect film, with an outstanding performance by a gifted actor.

That's it for today.

Under the weather . . .

2012-01-14T23:59:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit under the weather, and would like to thank all of you for the emails.

I think the worst is over, so hopefully I'll be back soon.

Blah Blah Blah

2012-01-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

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Another post full of unconnected ramblings, I guess I need to do this every once in a while.

_______________________________

You know, my entire life, I've been a reader and a pretty good speller. I can spell Albuquerque (duh!) and Mississippi and lots of other words that a lot of folks have trouble with.

So I was kind of surprised when I was trying to look up the film Christmas in Conneticut and couldn't find it . Then I noticed a correction and suddenly realized it is spelled Connecticut.

We're never too old to learn.

_______________________________

I'm continuing to love my iPad, and I'll repeat something I've said before . . .

You really have no idea how much you'll be using an iPad until you actually get one. Hard to believe, I know, but it's true.

The longer I use it, the more things I find to like about it. I've written before about the many photo apps, several of which I use every day. I've also moved most of my reading over to the iPad, I use it for newspapers, books and magazines.

And there's always something new.

I've found several interactive books that I've really enjoyed. I've always been a reader, and I find this new technology a welcome addition to my library.

The idea that books can not only be the written word, but also contain pictures must have been a new concept at one time. Audiobooks were another innovation, yet both these are now considered mainstream.

And I believe the next great leap is to truly interactive books. They will contain not only audio and pictures, but also moving images, movies, music, links to extra online media and who knows what else? I think in a generation, these will also be accepted as completely normal.

Now I'm not saying all literature will be like this, but it will be one more choice available to fiction lovers.

With this in mind, I'd like to point you to a website put together by the fine folks at Moonbot Studios. Based in Louisiana, they've created something unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's called the Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Part children's book, certainly part adult book, a trace of Buster Keaton, a nod to silent film and just a hint of Hurricane Katrina, it's quite unlike anything I've ever seen. It's not an actual physical book but an eBook (which is available as an app on the iPad).

Take a look at the website and, even if you don't have an iPad, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.

If you do have an iPad, I can completely recommend the Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Even at $5, it's a great deal.

_______________________________

One final thought, have you seen the film My Favorite Year? From 1982, most people have probably already viewed it, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Perfectly cast with Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Joseph Bologna and Lainie Kazan, it hits so many notes, all perfectly.

Laugh out loud funny, boatloads of charm and an underlying warmth, if you've never seen it, please do so. You wont be disappointed.

_______________________________

Done rambling, at least for a while.

the Monarchs

2012-01-09T23:02:00.000-08:00

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Here in Santa Cruz, we have a Monarch Butterfly grove. For some reason, that fact had completely slipped our mind and we've almost missed them this year. They usually arrive some time in October and leave around the first of February.

Realizing that the time has almost passed, we thought we'd better hustle and go see how many were still around.

NOTE: I know I mention it a lot, but for these pictures in particular, they really look much better if you open them full size in a new window.

The grove is located at Natural Bridges State Park.
They've kindly built a boardwalk
that meanders through the eucalyptus trees
back to where most of the butterflies hang out.

There's also a freshwater lagoon.

The water is covered
with a green algae like substance.
It's not smelly or scummy,
and it's a pale shade of green.

The ducks like nothing better
than to glide along
with their beaks in the water,
scooping up the "goop"

We went all the way to the end of the boardwalk
and didn't see more than a dozen butterflies.
Oh no, had we waited too long?
Then we looked up . . .

These pictures are pretty dark,
it was pretty late in the day,
and the grove is heavily wooded.

And since the butterflies
were about forty feet up in the air,
it's a good thing
the new camera has a 35x zoom!

I never did get the shot I really wanted,
but at least I caught a few of these beauties.

There were also calla lilies.

This is my favorite shot of the day.
I tried it with both the camera and my iPhone.
For this shot, the iPhone did a better job.
I was mesmerized by the grain in this board.

After a walk down to the beach,
I took this shot of my sweet man.

We may try to go see these beauties again before they leave for the year. If we do, we'll go on a warm day and try to get there a little earlier in the day.

We also have plans to go and see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo soon. If we take a day off every now and then, we've found it's better to go and do something really fun.

It keeps us motivated
and reminds us of what we're working for.

From Inside the Coal Mine

2012-01-06T22:14:00.001-08:00

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Just one shot, because I've been working in the house all day!

So here's the deal, can anyone identify these guys?

Shooting in the Dark

2012-01-05T22:50:00.000-08:00

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In thinking about light, I decided to try shooting dark.

Most of my Christmas shots were taken with the Canon SX40, so tonight I decided I'd see what I could get with my iPhone.

The iPhone's sensor (equivalent to the film) is small. Smaller sensors mean a lot more noise (pixelization), and generally, this is also true with the iPhone. That said, I've found the new iPhone 4s handles noise better than I had expected.

In this shot,
I played around with shutter speed,
moving the camera as the shutter was open.
It's my "arty" shot.

And I like the color.

I was pretty impressed with this shot,
hand held, using an app called ProCamera.
I like the sharp contrast
between light and dark.

Taken while we were stopped
at an intersection.
Not bad for no flash.
The texture and the pattern
appealed to me.

Finally, this shot, taken from inside the car.
Again, I like that the iPhone
was able to capture both the light and the dark.
And pretty much everything in between.

That's it for today.

What the Camera Sees

2012-01-04T20:53:00.000-08:00

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I'm constantly amazed at digital photography.

Since I never did serious film photography, I'm not sure how film and digital relate, but the way it was told to me is that film photography is a chemical process.

It's all about how the light strikes the film, with each roll having a a particular chemical makeup. Even more chemicals are involved in the darkroom. It means that if you want to have complete control over your photos, you need to know what you're doing. You can still shoot good photos and have them professionally developed; however at that point you give up a lot of your creative choices.

Digital photography doesn't deal in chemicals, it deals in information. It's all 1s and 0s, like any computer program. And like so many computer programs, a lot of the information appears to be hidden, unless you know how to find it.

That's where photo manipulation in the computer comes into play.

Ideally, for the most information, you would shoot in a format known as Camera RAW. This pretty much bypasses most of your slick digital camera pre-sets (things like white balance, saturation, etc.). The drawback is that most RAW files are huge, so they slow your camera way down. Still, if you want to be able to extract the most information from your digital photograph, ideally it should be shot in RAW.

My Canon 7d shoots very quickly in RAW, but my iPhone 4s and my Canon SX40 shoot only in jpeg.

Jpegs don't have as much hidden information as photos shot in RAW, but there's still a lot more than you see when you download your picture to the computer.

So where is all this going? I want to encourage all you casual photographers to take a shot at playing with your pictures

Here's a shot I took of the small shelf in our bathroom. These are some of my very favorite things, and I take lots of pictures of them, always trying for the perfect shot.

This wasn't it.

Still, I wanted to see what I could do with it.

A bit of sharpening,
and a change in lighting for a hint more drama.
The difference can really be seen
if you click for a larger image.

And pardon the dust.

Later, around sunset,
I looked outside
and saw pink skies and a rising moon.

Now this bore absolutely no resemblance
to what my eyes were seeing.
I knew the camera had done better than this,
it just needed a bit of help.

A change in exposure brought this.
Not great but better.

Next I started really playing.
A bit more saturation,
a bit less contrast.

More saturation,
some softening.
It's moving into unreal territory,
but sometimes I like it there.

And finally,
completely unreal,
a soft dark dreamy quality.

Now take another look
at the original iPhone jpeg.

The camera saw all of these variations
from this one single washed out photo.

Pretty cool, huh?

So if you've never played with your digital photographs,
I encourage you to do so.

Remember,
the camera always sees more
than it shows you at first glance.

A Question of Light

2012-01-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

There REALLY wasn't much to shoot today,
but I did have to make a quick trip to the market.

The more I take photographs,
the more aware I become of light.
Photography is all about light.

I wish I understood it better.

With light in mind,
I decided to look for white objects.

I found these.
I love white flowers,
but I find them hard to photograph.

The detail often gets lost.

Now this next isn't a great shot by any means,
but I was fascinated by how
the satiny sheen of the mushroom came through.
(To see it better, click to enlarge).

This is what attracts me to photography.

Here's a shot taken with an iPhone.
The lighting?
Harsh supermarket fluorescents.
The subject?
Dirty mushrooms.

But for some reason,
the large mushroom (center right)
seems to glow.

This kind of surprise is what keeps me taking pictures.

A Day in the Life

2012-01-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

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I'm not really one for New Years resolutions, but I do like to set goals for myself (like clearing the house!).

I've decided that this will be the year when I use my cameras, one way or another, every day.

Lately, it's been hard for me to find things to shoot. After moaning and groaning about the lack of subjects, I've finally decided that it's not about the scenery around me.

It's about what I see.

And then what I decide to do with it.

For instance, why do I like this shot?
Don't know, but I do.

When I keep myself aware,
I find beauty all around me.

Even at Costco!

I've decided that,
when my Canon isn't appropriate
(like in a store)
I'll just use my phone.

All but three of these pictures
were taken with my iPhone.

I find that trying to keep
my "photographer's eye" open
makes me see things I would ordinarily miss.

I'm also trying to see the same scene
in different ways.

There are so many camera apps
on the iPhone,
I'm trying to learn which ones
give me the results I want.

Then, just as I was thinking about
training myself to
"see" photographically,
I looked at the sky
and saw this.

A gift from nature.

Turning in the other direction,
I saw how huge it was.

Look how small the skyline is . . .
It was like a special effect in a film.
But real.

Then I looked up and saw the moon,
and decided to pull out the Canon sx40
for a zoomed in shot of La Luna.

And that's it for today.

More work in the house tomorrow.

A Happy New Year to You All

2012-01-01T22:53:00.000-08:00

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A wonderful start to the New Year, here are a few shots of the beach. There's not much to say, so just enjoy (and if you're so inclined, click each image for a larger version).

Be seeing you in 2012!

Finally, the Last Lights

2011-12-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

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Many of these are nearly the same as I posted on the Flickr site, but I wanted to include some of them here. While the subject matter is the same, these shots were taken on my second visit to the Global Winter Wonderland, so, for my money, they're a bit better than those of my first visit.

This was one of my favorite parts of the venue.

I'm particularly fond of sun and moon images

These were so bright and carefree.

Definitely a family event,
it was really something
to see the faces of the children.

Imagine all this light and color,

then add in Christmas music!

While we don't do a lot of Christmas any more,
I love this kind of thing.

I especially liked this star.

And this snowman.

I liked how they portrayed
the landmarks from Different countries.

I tried to get the moon in this shot,
but it was too far away
to show up like I wanted.

A little better here.

A holiday shot.

Here's a close up of one of the displays.
The bottles have colored liquid,
then the light shines through.
At least that's how I think it works.

Pretty clever.

And finally, here's my first attempt
at posting a video.
They were selling these drinks,
I thought they were way cool!
I didn't have one,
but I did take this short video
with my iPhone.

And with this post,
I promise no more Christmas pictures.

I got an email the other day from a friend. He was asking what our plans were, saying we never mentioned much on the blog, mainly just posted our pictures. The inference was that this was turning into a photography blog!

And lately, I guess it is, so I figured a quick update might be in order.

We're still working on the house. It's a long process, but one only we understand, so please don't offer recommendations that we should bring someone else in, or just leave and sell it as is. I know those of you who write with these recommendations mean well, but trust me, I haven't put the whole story here. We are making progress, and have a handle on the whole thing.

I just figure continually posting "we're still working on the house" would get kind of boring, so that's why I don't mention it too much.

Maybe this is turning into a photo blog?

Time will tell.

MORE Christmas Lights!

2011-12-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

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Going to the Global Winter Wonderland for the second time, I kind of knew what to expect, so my photography took a different turn.

We arrived right at dusk,
which is quickly becoming
one of my favorite times to shoot.

The moon was just a sliver.

The outer edge of the venue
is decorated with the most amazing trees.

Each has thousands of lights,
all of which change color
at different times.

The colors are mesmerizing.

They offered myriad opportunities
for pictures.

Most of today's pictures are kind of abstract,

but that's what I was going for!

Lot's of color.

Sometimes,
this is my favorite kind of photography.

It seems like the purest form of light.

I'll have one more post on Christmas lights,
then I promise
no more.

Until next year!

Later.

Canon SX40, Zoom and Bokeh

2011-12-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

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I'm still playing with the new camera, and I have to say, I love the zoom on this camera.

Now, if it would only teach me photography!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of bokeh. I seem to have better results when my subject is far away. Knowing this, I tried a few shots from this vantage point.

The X in the middle
is about where this shot was focused.
Not too sharp but not bad.

The X off to the left
is what remains of our Japanese maple tree.
I thought all the leaves had blown off,
but it looks like some hung on.
Not too healthy, but they're still there.

Here I tried focusing
on the intervening branches.

And back to the dying leaves.

And again, the branches.
One thing I'm learning about bokeh,
it's good to have a colorful background.

I think the dying red leaves make for a perfect blend of color. I considered dealing with some of the digital noise in the background, but decided that, for this test I wouldn't bother. At the size shown here, the noise is barely visible, but if you click for as larger version, it's pretty pronounced. Still, these are just test shots.

At least I feel like I'm gaining a bit of control over the camera. The SX40 is so new, there isn't a lot of information out there yet, so I started a Yahoo group so there will be a place to exchange some information. Hopefully, some folks will be able to assist me with some of my questions.

On another note, I found an interactive eBook (actually an iPad app) called "Master Your DSLR Camera: A Better Way to Learn Digital Photography". So far, it seems to be really excellent. Sort of like a book, but with all kinds of interactive presentations. When they talk about, say aperture, you can actually see what each setting does. So far, I think it's well worth the $10.

And now I'm off with a friend for another visit to the Global Winter Festival. She was unable to go the other night and I figured there might be a few more pictures to take!

Hugo for Christmas

2011-12-25T21:49:00.000-08:00

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At the last minute, we decided to spend Christmas day at the movies.

We went and saw Hugo.

WOW! Hugo

This is my favorite film in a really long time.

One note before I start . . .

It's filmed in 3D, which was okay, but didn't really bring anything extra to the story.

Not that Hugo needed anything extra, because this film was superb on so many levels.

If you read the reviews, they all mention that the film is based on a book called the Invention of Hugo Cabret. It tells the story of an orphan who lives in the walls of a Paris train station, his job being to keep all the clocks wound and running.

Because this sounded like a delightful premise and I love the films of Martin Scorsese, I decided it was one film I wanted to actually see in a movie theater (which we rarely do any more).

Building slowly, developing character and emotion (remember those attributes in film? They're so rare these days) it starts as the story of Hugo, but expands and grows into so much more. Characters who start as supporting players enhance the story and before you know it, this film has you completely engrossed.

Besides Hugo (played by newcomer Asa Butterfield), and his friend Isabelle Chloe Grace Moretz), Ben Kingsley gives a subtle, deep performance that for me, became the real heart of the film. Portraying a dour, mean spirited toy shop owner, his story arc was the one that really got to me. Hours after seeing the film, it still haunts my thoughts.

There is also a delightful turn by Sacha Baron Cohen (whose other work I despise). Who would have thought he could bring such delight and subtlety to a supporting role? It was a revelation.

If you're a fan of film, particularly the early pioneers, this film will hold special significance for you. And if you're not, it's still an amazing ride.

And the photo at the top? Well, we had a short walk between theaters and this display caught my eye. I love the idea of a bearded Lady Santa. At first I tried to get rid of the reflection, but after viewing it in the computer, I kind of like the whole look.

Here's another shot of a window display that was drawing all kinds of attention. From a distance, it looked very much like crystal snow. On closer inspection, the effect was created using nothing more than small foil circles. I loved it.

And finally,
in the true spirit of the holidays,
I include this.

The theatre had a standee for Star Wars and this young Father brought his sweet 3 month old baby girl up to have her picture taken. I asked if I could take a shot and he agreed. I don't think she liked the film at all.

That's it for today.
Hope your holidays are happy and bright.

Hoping You're Warm, Snug and With Good People

2011-12-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Haven't been online in a couple of days, but have been busy.

We took a short trip "over the hill" to visit an event called Global Winter Wonderland. It was just wonderful, and since we went on an off night, not crowded at all.

I took so many pictures, I decided to post them to my Flickr stream rather than here, something I don't usually do.

If you want to see them, they're located here.

I'm not totally happy with posting in Flickr since I have little control over my shots, but occasionally, I do post there. Would you rather see them there or here on the blog? Personally, I like the way the blog is self contained, but who knows what the future may bring?

I hope, wherever you are, you're safe and warm, surrounded by those you love and hold dear.

Do You Decorate Your Motorhome?

2011-12-20T21:51:00.001-08:00

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We don't go overboard, but we do have lights, both white and colored. We put them up the first year we had the rig and they haven't come down since. Being that they're up all year, I guess they don't really qualify as Christmas decorations, but this time of year, I claim them as such.

The first Christmas we had the motorhome, we also got a small sparkly Christmas tree. Now that, we take down and put up as the season dictates.

It's hard to find a place for a three foot tree
in a 30 foot class C,
but I found one!

We hang it
from the upper cabinet above the beds
in the back of the bedroom.

When the overhead lights are out
and the tree is lit,
it's pretty festive!

Unfortunately,
the only decent picture I could get
was with the overhead lights on.

Playing with Bokeh

2011-12-19T23:22:00.000-08:00

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Bokeh | bōˈkā|
noun Photography
***
the visual quality
of the out-of-focus areas
of a photographic image.

I love bokeh, but I'm having a hard time learning how to achieve it. I've read lots of articles, but like so many things photographic, I'm finding it tough to put what I read into practice.

One thing I do know, you want your aperture set as wide open as possible. This insures that parts of your picture are in sharp focus while the background is blurred.

It sounds so simple . . .

Out of approximately one hundred twenty tries today,
I came up with three.

Not my best work.

I seem to have better luck
when shooting objects that are far away.
These are the lights
on our little outdoor Christmas tree.
I was about twenty feet away.
Poor composition, but that wasn't the point.

Here, I was actually trying
to get the lights in focus,
with a blurred green background.
Oops!

This came out the best of all.
This is a thin strand of star tinsel
we have on our outdoor tree.

I'd really like to master this technique
while there are so many Christmas lights.

Maybe next year?

This is a totally failed attempt at bokeh.

Since living in the rig,
I've been very careful
not to add seasonal decorations,
but this little guy proved irresistible.
He's a mere two inches tall,
and I love his face.

Hope you are all having a happy!

More Christmas Lights

2011-12-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

We went out again,
I can't help it,
there's just so much
good stuff to see!

Today's entries
are all pictures
of one homes display.

And what a show it was!

If you really want to see the detail,
click each image to enlarge.

This display was so beautiful,
and so very detailed.

There must have been
a dozen of us taking pictures.

I wish I could see
everyone elses shots.
This was, by far ,
the best display yet.

I can't begin to tell you
how very Christmasy
these displays make me feel.

They make me happy!

Santa in His Sleigh

2011-12-17T23:42:00.000-08:00

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I really do enjoy going out
and looking at Christmas lights.

Tonight we went out,
just winging it,
not really knowing which neighborhoods
had dolled themselves up for the season.

We saw some nice displays,
but out of all of them,
this one was my favorite.

Here's a closeup.

We used to do it up, back in the day, but somehow, we've lost the energy to decorate like this. Still, I'd like any and all of you who take the time to make the season more festive, to know that all your efforts are appreciated.

Got Recipes?

2011-12-15T19:17:00.000-08:00

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My friend Jonna sent me a request to join a recipe tree. I've participated in several of these over the years and have received a couple of great recipes, BUT . . .

There's always a but.

The way it works is you only have to send one recipe, but then you have to forward the request on to twenty people, hopefully people who will respond.

Well, I managed to scrounge up twenty people, but I've already gotten a bunch of emails from friends who either don't have the time or don't feel like they can come up with twenty people to send it to.

So since I love trying someone else's tried and true recipes, I thought I'd throw it out here . . .

Anyone want to play?

If you're interested, please email me, or leave a comment and I'll send you the full instructions.

Or you could just post your very favorite recipe in the comment section and then I'll have a whole bunch of new recipes to try!

More Clouds and "Monty's"

2011-12-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

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We had errands to run, but didn't get out till late afternoon. We're making progress in the house and with the shorter days, sometimes things just get away from us.

So I was pleased to find one more cloud shot.
Clouds make me smile.

One of our stops was the local library,
where some trees have held on to their finery.

Amazing color.
Ain't nature grand?

There's a bar here in Felton named Monty's
It's been here for a gazillion years.
It used to be called George's Log Cabin.
For as long as I can remember
(and I'm old)
they've been the star of the town
around Christmas time.

They've just started decorating.
That's Monty and Sarah
in the picture above.

I like these reindeer.
(click to enlarge).

Here's a shot of the inside of the bar.
It's Happy Hour.

And here's another shot from Sarah
She helps with the decorations.

I'm sure I'll be posting more shots
as the season continues.

One new thing I'm trying . . .

After poking around the internet,
someone said it would be best
to shoot Christmas lights
right at twilight.
While they may look better
to your eye when it's full on dark,
the camera seems to prefer a bit more light.
The decorations still show up just fine.

I really like that I got the moon in this shot.

It seems that this will be
the year of trying to learn how to shoot
Christmas decorations at night.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Some folks have asked what software I use.
Generally I use Camera RAW,
a plug in for Photoshop.

Most of what I deal with
is exposure, saturation and sharpness.
It's a long steep learning process.

Good thing I'm retired

Clouds

2011-12-13T22:19:00.000-08:00

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I think more than anything else, I miss the skies of New Mexico. The sharp turquoise and the ever changing clouds that sail by as if they have somewhere important to be.

Here in California, the skies may be blue, but it's a pale comparison to the skies of New Mexico. And there are so rarely any clouds worth speaking of.

But today,
I looked out my window
and much to my surprise, I saw this.

Well, not this exactly.
My camera was up front,
so I took this with my iPhone,
using the Hipstamatic App.

I'm still not sure if I'm a fan
of this kind of photography.
It seems to be quite popular these days,
making new photographs
look like they were taken
with an old plastic lens camera.

Realizing that the clouds
weren't going to float away,
I went and got my camera
and took this shot.

Not a great shot,
but I love the clouds so much.

Then I started playing with it a bit,
desaturating the landscape to where the clouds
were as wispy as could be.

Once more,
softened,
giving the setting a gauzy look.

I do so love photography
and manipulating images in the computer.
It makes me feel creative.

I have to wonder,
if I had been into photography
when all of this was done in the darkroom,
would I have been so enamored?

I wonder . . .

Back to the clouds.

In a short time,
the white puffs were evolving into this.

As the sky darkened,
my attention was drawn elsewhere.
We have the most amazing
Japanese maple tree.
Up until the recent wind storms,
it was heavy with leaves
sporting a striking shade of red.

Now,
most of the leaves have blown away,
with just a few left to remind me
of the former blaze of color.

That's it for today.

I'm going to bed
and dream of New Mexico skies.

Our Catalytic Heater

2011-12-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

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Now that winter is upon us, there's been quite a bit of discussion of catalytic heaters over on the Lazy Daze board. While many folks have mounted their catalytic heaters (usually an Olympian Wave) permanently, we had ours installed so it can be moved, or put away entirely.

With this discussion, several folks have asked for pictures of our setup, so I decided that I would do an entry here on the blog. If you're not an RVer, this might not be of any interest to you (or maybe it will?). Anyhow, you have been warned.

When we first got our catalytic heater, we got a Wave 6 figuring that bigger is better. A few uses disabused us of this notion, and fortunately, we found friends who were amenable to a trade.

For mounting, we decided on a quick connect valve, but we knew we wanted a hard wired on/off valve. A bit of scouting around found the best spot for this was under the kitchen sink. We could hook in to the propane line for the stove, and we could use the empty space under the kitchen drawers as a place to store the propane hose when not in use.

Here's a picture of the connection to the propane. The red handle is the shut off valve. We make it a practice to turn the propane off at this valve every time we turn the catalytic heater off. Pardon the dust, I do my very best to keep this clean, but it's kind of intimidating with all this electrical equipment!

You can see the actual heater hose extending from the cabinet face next to the propane detector.

Here's a shot of the area when the heater is not in use. After use, we simply push the hose back in the area behind the cabinet. As you can see, the hose sticks out just a bit, but it's pretty inconspicuous. You'll also see that the screened cover is back in place under the sink. Originally, this panel was screwed into the wood, but we removed it, then sawed off the screws flush and glued them in place (this pleased me cosmetically). Then we simply placed velcro on the back of the panel and the front of the cabinet. It holds the panel in place just fine, but others may find a cleaner solution for attaching the panel.

Here's a shot of the hose when it's extended and attached to the heater for use. While it looks like it's in the way, it's never been a problem for us. The hose is somewhat stiff, and we always know when it's in use. We've had this setup for over five years now and it works well for us.

Usually we start with the heater facing the front of the motor home. We usually put it in the kitchen as you see here, but it can be moved forward into the actual living area if we like, due to the length of the hose. You'll notice a red mat under the front of the heater. This is a silicon baking pad. While the heater doesn't put out a lot of heat straight down, sometimes, we feel it gets a bit warm in front of the heater. The silicone pad simply makes sure no extra heat reaches the flooring in front of the heater.

After a while, when the rig is nice and toasty, we'll take the heater into the bedroom area and face it towards the back of the rig.

One huge advantage of the catalytic heater is that it requires no battery power to run. It's also extremely efficient on propane, and quite small.

I should also mention that it's important to always have ventilation when using a propane heater. We open the vent in the bathroom, which seems to offer plenty of airflow. We also turn it off at night (we never sleep with the propane heater running). Also, we always turn it off when we leave the motorhome.

We use our Olympian Wave 3 about 80% of the time. The furnace is awful handy, but it's very noisy, pretty inefficient and uses a good amount of both propane and battery power.

A Solar Christmas

2011-12-10T23:35:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post tonight,
I'm still up in the Bay Area,
but I wanted to share.

I took this shot with my phone.
It's one of those happy little elves
sitting in my friends Christmas tree.
I think it looks so full of holiday cheer . . .

Then we visited an amazing neighborhood
where I took way too many pictures.
I wanted to share just a few.

This should give you an idea
of the tone of the neighborhood.

This was my favorite house.
Not just because it was so very festive,

but because of this.
I think this guy must be an RVer at heart.

Is this too cool or what?
I'll be home tomorrow,
maybe more to follow?

Having a wonderful time.

Ongoing Lessons- 3 (Sort Of)

2011-12-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

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As much as I intended to write about my new found understanding of "photo talk", once again, it seems to have seeped from the sieve that is my brain.

I want to thank all of you for your many suggestions as to where I might go to understand the terms that escape me; however I guess I need to explain something.

I've read all the links, studied the books, watched the online videos, but I really, really believe that I am missing a link in my brain that lets me connect all these elements when I actually have a camera in my hand.

I've written about this before and it seems to not have changed much

Just so you know, I'm also missing the brain link for understanding electricity. Watts, amps, volts, they occupy the same non-space as aperture, ISO and shutter speed (not to mention depth of field)

Let me be clear here, I understand aperture, it's the size of the opening of the lens, bigger equals more light. I understand shutter speed, it's how fast the shutter opens and closes. Fast, equals less light, slow equals more light. ISO relates to how much light the sensor collects (lower numbers are for when you have more light and large numbers are for when you have less light).

It's how they all interact that gets me confused.

So I will continue to study and maybe one day a bolt will shoot from the sky into my head and Voila! I will magically understand all these interactions.

Until then, I guess I'll just keep shooting and posting my pictures.

The night I thought I had the epiphany, I shot quite a few pictures in poor lighting. In this one, my goal was to have Terry in focus with the background blurred. I later removed the color and gave it a slight blue cast.

All pictures can be clicked on for larger versions.

I'm pretty pleased with this one.
Not too much noise for such a dark shot.

Another dark shot,
the Casino at the Boardwalk
as seen from the wharf.

Now It's the next day
and I had full light.

I intend to take more shots
of Christmas lights.
Here's my best attempt.
So far.

And here's my favorite shot
of the last couple of days.
I went to shoot the rose,
and was excited to see the grasshopper.

So that's it for now,

I'll keep reading and studying and shooting.

This weekend I'm off to San Francisco.
Maybe I'll get some good shots while I'm in the city.

Ongoing Lessons-2 of 3

2011-12-04T00:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm posting these
so we can remember
what a great time we had last night,
but be warned,
these are poor shots.

The boats were beautiful,

and the company superb.

But gosh, it was cold!

This was one of my favorite boats.

Yeah, I know, not too sharp.
Let's call it my artistic vision.

Or not . . .

This is the best shot of the night,
but it's nothing to brag about.

A bit better
(but this ship was at anchor).

This is what I mean when I say
I cannot hold a camera steady.

As we were leaving the harbor, I was complaining to Terry about my crappy shots. I was really discouraged.

He reminded me that years ago, we were at Disneyland and wanted to take pictures of the Main Street Electrical Parade (something we had never gotten good shots of). We took our (film) camera in to the Camera Shop on Main Street and the fellow very kindly sold us 1000 film and set our camera to something (but we don't remember what). Whatever he did, for the first time we got great night shots.

Remembering this, Terry mentioned that he had set his camera to ISO 800.

As I said before, I never mess with the settings in my camera, because I really don't understand them.

But this got me thinking . . .

Since we were heading out the the wharf for some nice warm soup, I decided to try a few settings myself.

I looked in my camera manual (which I keep in PDF form on my iPhone and my iPad) and saw where I could adjust the ISO setting and put it at 1600.

Not really understanding exactly what the correlation was, I also changed the shutter speed to 250.

Then, as we waited for our soup, I started taking pictures. The restaurant is glass on three sides, dim fluorescent lights inside and lots of ambient light outside, street lights, neon signs, etc.

And interesting things started to happen. Even though the light was dim and indirect, my pictures were fairly good. We ate our soup, then went out on the wharf and shot some pictures of the boardwalk across the dark water. And they weren't half bad.

So very slowly, the relationship between how the digital sensor deals with light (which is what ISO stands for in the digital world, I think) and the speed of the shutter have started to make a bit of sense.

I haven't had time to work on the pictures, but I will in the next posting.

Just so you know, I'm writing this all out here so I can reference it. Hopefully by the time I'm done working this out, I'll be able to use it when I go out and shoot pictures!

Ongoing Lessons - Number 1 of 3

2011-12-03T23:31:00.000-08:00

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The More I Learn the Less I Know

WOW, what a day! My mind is spinning and I can either write or work on pictures, but I have so many thoughts I choose to write.

Tonight was the annual Yacht lighting ceremony down at the Santa Cruz harbor. I'm not very good with nighttime shooting, so this was a perfect chance to bone up before we go out and try to see some Christmas Lights.

Have I mentioned before that I really don't know one end of the camera from the other? Focal Point? ISO? DoF, f-stops you name it and I don't understand it.

I usually shoot in 3 burst exposure mode (now there, doesn't that make me sound like I know what I'm talking about? Dream on). All I really know is how to set it up in the camera so that it will give me three shots every time I press the button. One will be lighter, one will be darker and one will be somewhere in between. Why? I don't know (or care) it just gives me an idea of what is possible with each shot.

But now that I'm using a point and shoot-ish kind of camera again, it has things like Snow, Fireworks, Candlelight, Beach, that kind of stuff. Now I may not know all my camera terminology, but these terms I understand.

When we went down to the harbor the other night, I shot using the Fireworks setting. Out of the various "scene" choices, it gave me the best results.

So tonight, I decided to try shooting in the dark using different presets.

But I get ahead of myself

We arrived at the harbor
sometime around 4:00.
While we were scouting out a viewing area,
we realized this guy
was about twenty feet away.

Remember you can click on any image
for a larger version.

Was he in the least bit concerned
that a couple of hundred crazy people
were hanging out in his front yard?

Not a bit.

I'm including this shot
because I've never gotten a picture of a bird
from this angle before!

And what would a day at the beach
be like without a pelican?

Or two?

This was shot from where we finally landed
to watch the yachts
as they come out
in all their Christmas finery.

I couldn't resist one more shot of the moon.

And what's this?
Some new kind of bird?
Possibly a small flock
of the elusive Smiling Bunny Bird?

Nope, that's the fine people we met while waiting for the boats. We had a great time getting to know each other, and if I remembered their names, I'd mention it here. . .

Let's hope they get in touch by email.

Now about the yachts . . .

Everyone saw my nifty new camera and decided they wouldn't shoot at all, because I so obviously knew what I was doing.

That was their first mistake . . .

What would drive three such seemingly sane people to make this choice?

I surely don't know and wish the burden hadn't fallen to me, because I failed miserably. I tried Night Shooting. I tried Fireworks. I tried Candle Light, I tried Sports, I even broke down and shot on Automatic!

But you know what? Those darn boats won't stay still for a picture!

I got some shots, but I'm not pleased at all. That said, tomorrow, I'll post a few as "memory shots". Memory shots are those that serve as reminders of good times. And reminders that we always have more to learn. And reminders that I really need to take a photography class.

But that's for tomorrow.

And about those lessons? That's for tomorrow too. Or maybe the next day.

Just a teaser though . . .

Tonight, after forty plus years taking pictures (seriously for the last seven or so) I think one more bit of photo jargon finally found the proper receptacle in my brain.

I'll talk about the great revelation
in the next day or so.

But now, it's off to bed.

Sleep Well.

Still No Power

2011-12-02T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is the second day (and night)
that we've been without power.

Again, how glad am I
that we're in the motorhome?.

Windy . . .

2011-12-01T21:31:00.000-08:00

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I'm sure happy we're living in the motorhome.

We seem to be in the midst of a pretty violent windstorm. The power went out last night and as of 9pm, is still not happening. I can hear the wind whistling, the trees groaning and the debris scuttering along the ground.

But here in the rig, we're snug and warm.

How well I remember when we were living in the big house, what a pain it was when the power went out. We still had heat, but no lights, no computer, no internet. Scrambling for batteries, tripping over my messes.

Now, here in the rig, it's really not that much of a bother.

That said, I find the wind and its' accompanying noise bothersome. Makes me wish I wasn't under all these trees!

I always think back to when we were first in New Mexico and I got a taste of what a real windstorm was like . . .

You can read about it here.

Wow, reading that, I seemed to be so much more in touch with everything when we were on the road. Now I seem more numb to my surroundings. Just reading that post makes me itch to leave this place.

Snap out of it!

There is one good thing I'm noticing during this storm. Since we've switched our lights over to LEDs, we use hardly any power at all. We've used all the lights we wanted, both last night and throughout the day into this evening and still, the batteries read 94% . Not bad at all. While it was expensive, it sure seems worth it at times like this.

We still have the stock fluorescents that Lazy Daze installed at the build, but one of these days I'll get around to changing those too. For now though, all our tiny fixtures have been switched to LEDs. I love that they burn so cool, the halogens were so hot, I was always worried about heat build up.

I'm reading this and I guess it's kind of indicative of my state of mind.

Wandering, scattered, wistful and ready to leave.

Still, I look across the rig and see my sweet mans face and know that everything is all right.

I'm going to hit "publish" before I ramble even more.

Another Day

2011-11-29T23:53:00.000-08:00

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We spent a bit of time in the house today, but with errands to run, we again found ourselves down in Santa Cruz. Due to this damned daylight savings time, before we knew it, the sun was setting.

Since we were already down in Santa Cruz,
we figured a visit to the wharf was in order.

Seagull hineys,
I love em.

There's something about the pose
this gull was striking . . .
Maybe he was stalking prey.

Good sunset tonight.

As the sun went down,
I couldn't resist the color
of the sun on the water.

I just kept shooting . . .

One final sunset.

Then I looked up
and saw this lovely sliver moon.
This is a SOOC shot with the new camera.
You can click to open
in a new window and see the detail.

When I put it in the computer,
I enhanced it just a bit.
I'm sure pleased with the
image stabilization of the new camera.
This was taken hand held.

This is for Russ and Donna.
You guys could stay right here . . .

Now that the sun was down,
we decided to head over to Carpo's,
our favorite restaurant.
While In the moving car,
I usually shoot with my iPhone.

It keeps me occupied . . .

Lately I've been playing
with an infrared setting on the phone.

I'll tell you,
I really need to get back on the road
so all I have to do is play with my cameras,
sight see
and have a good time.

Back to work tomorrow.

Living Beyond Limits

2011-11-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

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It wont come as a surprise to regular readers that we've been kind of stuck as far as clearing the house. I don't know how to explain it, we want to get it over with, but a strange paralysis seems to have afflicted us both.

So we continue to pretend it isn't happening and just go on with our lives like this giant elephant isn't in front of us.

But today, I came across this.

Several thoughts struck home.

"In order to move forward
you have to let go
and embrace the new."

"Borders and obstacles
only do two things.
They either stop us in our tracks
or force us to be creative."

"If my life were a book
and I were the author,
where would I want this story to go?"

And finally

"Rely on imagination
and
Believe in Possibility"

This really hit me over the head.

And today
we started working in the house again.

More Photography

2011-11-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

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I'm continuing to play with the new camera, and I remain pleased.

Last night, I decided to test the low light capability of the SX40. This is often a problem with digital cameras, they seem to get confused when there isn't enough light and are prone to digital "noise". Noise can be seen in many digital photos as the pixelization you sometimes see in the darker areas.

Knowing this, I decided to try shooting well after dark. I found myself down near the Santa Cruz boat harbor and it seemed like the perfect place to try a night shot.

While it was well past dark, the harbor is flooded with a lot of lights. I shot using several different scene settings and found I got the best results using the "fireworks" setting.

This is my favorite shot of the night. The photo below is SOOC (straight out of the camera) except for resizing for posting on the internet. You might want to click it to enlarge it to see the detail.

By enlarging it, you can see some noise in the night sky, although it's not too severe.

Here's the same shot after I did a bit of manipulation. I sharpened it up a bit, cropped it and played with the detail and color. For a hand held shot taken at night, I'm quite pleased.

I believe the excellent quality I'm getting from this camera has to do with Canon's new software and the fact that they've changed the sensor type (BSI CMOS). So far, it seems like they've hit on a winning combination.

And for no reason at all,
I'm including these two shots.

- - - Red - - -

- - - Stripes - - -

That's it for today.

Adam Sandler and 667!

2011-11-25T23:05:00.000-08:00

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Not much to write about today so this will be a short post.

I will say I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. We stayed indoors, cooked goodies and watched movies.

But before I go any further, I have a confession to make.

I can't count.

Remember how I said that yesterday was my 500th post?

Duh, well, no it wasn't. Somewhere, I got that idea, but in reality it was my 667th post! I kind of know where the error was, but it's so confusing I can't explain it, just take my word for it.

Sorry!

Now, about Adam Sandler.

I've tried to watch several of his films, but I find him silly and often really gross. Then someone told me I should watch the Wedding Singer.

Starring Adam Sandler and the adorable Drew Barrymore, what a delight this film is! After watching it and checking reviews, others suggested another pairing of Sandler and Barrymore called 50 First Dates.

Another lighthearted and endearing movie!

If you like romantic comedies with bucket loads of charm, check out both these films.

And that's it for today.

Happy Thanksgiving (500)

2011-11-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

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I'm busy cooking
(and taking pictures),
so for now, here's an old picture.

Today, I'm experimenting
with a new veggie dish,
so I'll try to post more pictures later
(check back if you care).

And the 500?
This is my half a thousandth post
on this blog, can you believe it?
Started in early 2007,
almost five years
and five hundred posts later.

And still,

I'm Embarrassed to Admit It. . .

2011-11-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

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but I'm a tech junkie.

Like regular readers don't know this already.

So it might come as no surprise that I just got a new camera.

Let me back up a bit here.

I love my Canon 7D, but I do have a couple of issues with it.

It's big and heavy. Now, when I'm shooting, that's not such a huge deal, since I use my Cotton Carrier. The problem comes from the fact that I like to carry my camera with me wherever I go. This means that I have to carry a large bag, in which I carry the Canon 7D and my other "purse" items. This adds an additional four pounds or so to my daily load. That doesn't sound like a lot, but believe me it is.

Then there's the issue of changeable lenses. I love the shots I get with the various lenses, but unless I carry both of them, I always seem to have the wrong one. If I decide to carry both lenses, then I'm adding another one to two pounds.

Don't get me wrong, I really like my Canon 7D, but it isn't perfect.

So I've tried shooting with my old Panasonic FZ30, with its' wide to 18x optical zoom. I love the convenience of no extra lenses and the very light weight.

But it's slow. . .

And I like shooting with my iPhone 4s, but it also has it's limitations (mainly the zoom, which degrades photo quality pretty quickly). That said, it's a fantastic macro camera.

Then, while looking around the internet (a dangerous habit, I know) I saw some photos shot with a Canon SX40, and WOW . . .

So I got to thinking, why not give it a try? With Amazon's generous return period, I pressed the buy button.

Did I mention that the Canon SX40 has a 35x optical zoom?

So the photos I've been posting for the last few entries (except for the Los Gatos iPhone 4s series) have been shot with the Canon SX40.

Yep, that incredible hawk shot, handheld from some fifty feet away. And all the other beach pictures.

And the flower pictures from the arboretum? The first and last purple flowers were shot from at least fifteen feet away, handheld. They're actually very tiny blooms. Now, I did a bit of manipulation (mostly cropping and slight sharpening) but you can't work with what isn't there.

I have to tell you, I'm impressed with this camera.

***-***-***

So here's a few more shots, all handheld.

And because it's a new camera,
I screwed up and accidentally changed
the aspect ratio to 1x1.

I was several hundred yards away,
these pelicans were maybe 1/4 inch high
with the naked eye.

Here's a shot I took
from one of our favorite spots.
It's a small rock
off of West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz.
(Russ and Donna will remember this spot).

And standing in the same spot,
with the zoom fully extended,
here's the pelicans and cormorants,
lounging on the rock.
(Click to Enlarge.)

Here's a screenshot of the two, side by side.
The quality isn't great, (it's a screenshot after all)
but I thought it was the best way to show the zoom

Here's a shot of the sun going down
over West Cliff Drive.

I finally realized my aspect ratio error
and got this full shot of the sunset.
It was one of those yellow sunsets

I'm not sure of where this is all leading. After all, how many cameras does a girl need? I know I'm keeping the iPhone (because, you know, it's also a phone). The Canon 7D is an incredibly fast camera, perfect for capturing those birds in flight. Then there's the versatility (and relatively light weight ) of the Canon SX40. I have yet to test the speed of this camera, there just aren't a whole lot of birds to test the speed on (sure wish I was back at the Bosque).

But I'll keep shooting with it and let you know . . .

Patterns

2011-11-21T22:32:00.001-08:00

Sometimes,
all I see is Patterns

Light

Shades of Grey

Hues of Red

Decorations of Nature

Warmth

Clean and Cool

Shadows

Vibrant

Indeed

Los Gatos

2011-11-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

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Just a quick post.

I had a meeting this afternoon over in the village of Los Gatos. Russ and Donna talked about the crappy weather we had while they were visiting, so I thought I'd post a few pictures of what the area can be like.

I used to live in Los Gatos, and intend to go over there again to shoot some pictures.

As you can see, its quite picturesque.

I love this wall,
it was built in 1910
and I think it's wonderful
that it's still standing.

So much of silicone valley
has been torn down,
with new buildings replacing old.
It's hardly as I remember it
when I was a child.

It makes my appreciation
for places like Los Gatos
all the more dear.

Now I'm off to bed.

Five More

2011-11-18T21:22:00.000-08:00

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Lets see . . .

I'm feeling much better
(actually it turned into a one day event,
possibly allergies rather than a cold?).
Yesterday we went shooting
down at Elkhorn Slough.
Today we ran errands and gave blood.

Boring.

So here's a few more shots from the Slough

Not as clear as I'd like.

Here's a full figure shot
of the fellow from yesterday.

I love the way these guys hang around
balancing on one leg.

And this one,
I just liked.

That's it for today.

Just One Shot

2011-11-17T22:48:00.000-08:00

I have a Code in By Dose

2011-11-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

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Boo hiss, I have a cold.
Sore throat, drippy nose
and I feel like I've been beat up
with a sack of oranges.

All I want to do is lay around,
blow my nose and eat
(I seem to be of the feed a cold persuasion).
And of course we need to go grocery shopping.
What to do?

Scavenge the cupboards!
Let's see, I have canned chicken,
onions, cheese and tortillas.
Looks like enchiladas to me.

Unlike most, I prefer flour tortillas
in my enchiladas.
Actually, I prefer flour tortillas
most of the time.
I especially like the raw ones that you cook yourself.
Costco has an excellent brand.

So I take the canned chicken,
chop up an onion, add garlic powder,
cumin and a bit of green enchilada sauce.
Then I cook the tortillas
and put a bit of green enchilada sauce
inside each one.
Then I load it up with chicken mix,
add a few thick slices of pepper jack cheese,
and finally a hefty glop
of shredded Mexican cheese.

Roll em up,
place them in a 9x9 pan,
cover the whole thing
with the rest of the sauce
and lots more cheese.
Then it's in the oven.

Now, this is true comfort food.

And I'm going back to bed.

Another Fine Day

2011-11-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

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Mostly photos today.

I took this a few days ago.
For lack of anywhere else to post it,
I'm posting it here.

We had such a good time
with Russ and Donna.
They headed down the road this morning.
Sad for us,
happy for them,
being free and on the road.
On their last night here,
we took them into Capitola,
where we hit the sunset just about right.

Capitola boasts an old country style,
with brightly painted cottages.

If you click this,
you'll see I played with it a bit.
I like the dreamy look,
unreal, but it appeals to me.

Is this the great view?
We almost ate dinner here,
but decided to go with Carpo's.
It's our local favorite and a sure thing.
The food is always great.

One thing about sunset on the coast.
It happens so very fast,
changing from minute to minute.
First it was all red and pink,
but just for an instant.

Then, true twilight took over.

Someone left a perfect rosebud
stuck in the fence on the esplanade.

A great evening made better
because of the excellent company.

Just a note.
The first photo, the raindrop,
was taken with my Canon 7D.
All the rest were taken using my iPhone 4s.

Friendship

2011-11-12T21:41:00.000-08:00

Just a bit of rambling today.

I value our friends, what would our life be without them?

One of the pleasures of being back here has been reconnecting with old friends. Some I contacted immediately, others I run into here and there, and the connection is immediately, happily re-established.

But this last week, we've had the pleasure of enjoying friends who are also RVers.

And we've been reminded of a simple truth.

While we love all our friends, there seems to be a special bond between those of us who live the RV lifestyle.

There's no having to explain the joy of living in a small confined space. We all instinctively understand the difference between a house that moves and a stick house. We know the joy of going to bed (in your very own bed) and waking up in the morning, looking outside and realizing you're in a whole new environment.

We understand the reality of conserving resources because we live it every day. Water, electricity, propane, we all understand pretty much how they work and the need (and ways) to conserve. We understand shopping for groceries, keeping in mind smaller cabinets and a smaller refrigerator. We understand cooking in a tight, well stocked kitchen, having all the necessary implements, but nothing extraneous.

It's a lifestyle that is hard to explain to those who haven't lived it.

And while I cherish and treasure my old friends, it is so wonderful to spend time with new friends who understand the direction our lives have taken.

I wanted to post this because I guess I'd forgotten . . .

"Two may talk together
under the same roof for many years,
yet never really meet;
and two others at first speech
are old friends."
- Mary Catherwood

Terry's Pelicans

2011-11-10T21:57:00.001-08:00

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Just a quick post tonight.

After looking
at the hundreds of pictures
I took yesterday,
Terry showed me
the ten he took.
As always,
his careful approach
resulted in great shots.

As it was pelicans we were chasing,
he agreed that these were the shots
I should post.

I should learn from him.

But I probably wont!

Photo Safari!

2011-11-09T21:13:00.000-08:00

What a fun day!

As I said yesterday,
today we got to play tour guide.
We took Russ and Donna
out to see the the Pacific ocean
from the Santa Cruz perspective.

Here we go.

Our first stop was the Pacific Garden Mall.
Not many photo opportunities,
but I did like these heads,
poking out from under a roof line.

I also thought this bird was pretty nice looking,
but Donna may have gotten a better shot.

Next, we took off in search of pelicans.
Unfortunately,
I think they heard we were coming
and mostly, they decided not to show up.

This isn't a pelican

There was no shortage of pigeons though.
We all thought they were pretty funny,
congregating for lunch at the garbage cans.
Later, we saw repairmen
covering the openings with smaller doors.
Where will the pigeons meet now?

We had a yummy lunch,
and I liked the way the sun looked,
shining through the sunshade.
This picture was taken with my iPhone 4s.

To make this entry slightly RV related,
here's a shot of a motorhome,
Santa Cruz style.

Due to lack of pelicans,
I'll take pigeons.

Next we took off down West Cliff Drive.
Again, welcome to Santa Cruz.

Lovely flowers on West Cliff Drive.

FINALLY, we saw some pelicans.
They were a long ways away,
but we saw them.

Using my iPhone
I took this shot of the sun on the bay.
The sun was quite bright
so I was shooting blind.
I was pleased to see that a gull
had flown right into my shot.

If you blow this us (click on it)
you'll see a a line of pelicans
flying out to sea.
Kind of like at the end of Jurassic Park

And finally, birds at Natural Bridges beach.

And one final shot (taken with my phone).

This was one of the first days
I went out shooting with both the Canon
and the iPhone.
It's an interesting experiment,
and one I will repeat.

Russ and Donna have decided to stay a while,
so more fun is in our future!

a Fine Day

2011-11-08T23:11:00.009-08:00

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So there I was in the grocery store when my phone rang.

It was Russ and Donna, Lazy Daze/blog friends, and here they were, just a few blocks from home!

Let me back up just a bit here.

Our RVing life has been one of those wonderful curves that life often throws us, taking us down roads never imagined. One of these is the immediate bond that seems to come between some of us. It's probably been the most delightful surprise of our RVing life.

I often get called on when folks are interested in the 30 foot Lazy Daze. It isn't the most popular model, but those pf us who have made this choice, all love it. I first heard from Russ and Donna in an email, then a phone call. We talked for quite some time, them asking questions, me trying to be as honest as possible. When they made their decision (a 30 foot twin, similar to Cholula Red) they let me know and I made sure to ask them to come see us if they were ever in the area.

That happened about six months ago when they picked up their rig. On their way home to Oregon, they stopped off for a visit and right away, I knew these were good friends.

And good friends they remain. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear they were here for a visit. As they had driven a long ways today, we agreed that dinner was in order, with a tour of the area tomorrow.

So here we go.

I took this on the way to pick them up.
This isn't a great shot,
but something about it struck me.
Maybe it's a memory shot,
the way the sun peeked through the trees.

Off we went to dinner.
I love both Russ and Donna,
so of course I took a few pictures.

These next two pictures pretty well sum up Russ.

I am the Walrus
koo koo ka choo

Now I wasn't sure about this shot.
Donna always shows pictures
of Russ eating dinner.
When I told her I wanted to take a picture,
she grabbed her burger,
so I think this is OK.

The waitress was nice enough
to take a shot of all of us.

And finally,
here's a shot of their dear dog Poppy.
It wasn't the clearest, brightest photo
so I manipulated it into a painting.
Now I kind of like it!
(click to enlarge).

Tomorrow we're all off on a Photo Safari
Wish us luck!

Another iPad Test Part 2

2011-11-06T11:54:00.002-08:00

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I'm still playing with all this photo stuff.

Late last night I posted this from my iPad.

This morning, in looking at it, I now understand the limitations.

While it would be fine if my computer wasn't available, and it would certainly be handy, I''m not completely happy with this method for posting.

I love to post my pictures large. I understand that it takes longer to load these images and for that, I apologize, but as a memory book for me, I like them large. And for checking the quality of the photo, large is always better.

Unfortunately, it seems that when I post from the iPad (or the iPhone), I lose control over the size of the pictures.

So while I may be posting from the iPad occasionally, I will most likely continue to post from the computer.

If this topic interests you at all, take a look at the photos below. These are the same pictures I posted yesterday, taken with the iPhone 4s and edited with my iPad (using the excellent ProCamera app both for the photography and the editing),

As posted yesterday, the size, when clicked on, remains the same. However when I post from the computer, I can specify the size I prefer for the clicked on picture.

If you're still with me here, this first is the original picture, taken as I mentioned using ProCamera. I like this camera app because unlike other iPhone camera apps, it allows you to select separate focus and exposure points before you shoot your picture. It also allows you control over the white balance before you shoot, and it shoots at full resolution. It's a great deal at $299.

Anyhow, back to the pictures.
The original.
This area is quite dark
except for the overhead LED light.
By picking different focus and exposure modes,
I got the shot I wanted

Here, I played around a bit
with sharpening and saturation.
While not a great shot,
I like the composition
and the slight desaturated look.

And here's the one I like the best
(click to enlarge).
A sepia filter has been applied,
again, a bit of play with saturation levels,
and finally, a bit of softening.
Normally I prefer my pictures sharp and clean,
but lately I find myself drawn to
a sort of muted, dreamy effect.

My exploration of digital photography
and manipulation continues.

Another iPad Test

2011-11-06T00:09:00.001-07:00

I've again been staying up too late, playing with photo editing on the iPad

Here's an original photo and two different manipulations.

Blah Blah Blah Blah

2011-11-05T20:50:00.005-07:00

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I keep making these meaningless posts, I'm not sure why. It seems like we aren't really doing anything worth writing about. I guess I'm trying to keep some kind of record so when we go back out I can see how little there was to do here. . .

One good thing, we did talk with an old friend who is a realtor. She's agreed to come look at the house and give us some idea of where we might go with it. Maybe that will light a fire under us?

Who knows.

Anyhow, today I was parked in a lot , and found a shortcut through a florists shop. I was going to take a few shots, but the light was really bad. Then, as I reached the back door, I saw this guy.

I thought he was quite photogenic!

Then, a while later, Terry shot this
(using his iPhone!)

Who says that there's no Fall colors
in California?

That's it for today.

How Do I Post From My iPad.

2011-11-04T12:25:00.005-07:00

OK, I'm trying this for the first time.

Today we went over the hill and once again visited Lion's, our favorite Chinese supermarket.

This is always an adventure. It,s like visiting another country entirely. One of these days, I'm going to visit this store and find someone who can give me a complete tour. I say this because, even though I consider myself somewhat of a cook, I look through the aisles and shelves and about 90% of what I see is completely unknown to me.

So I wander the aisles, and entertain myself making up uses for all this food, and occasionally, i find something that just cries out for a picture.

Like this.

So let's see if this works . . .

Random Thoughts

2011-11-01T17:12:00.008-07:00

Nonsense post today, just rambling . . .

*-*-*-*-*

While watching the Big Sleep, I particularly noticed a line in the film.

Humphrey Bogart (or Phillip Marlowe in this case) asks a waiter, "Is there a phone in this joint?"

I'll wager that line won't be in many movies from here on out.

*-*-*-*-*

The other day, we spent an afternoon "over the hill" in Los Gatos. Some forty plus years ago, when I first took my test for the Post Office, I received an offer of employment from the main office in San Jose. Two days later, I received a similar offer from the Post Office in Los Gatos (where I was living at the time).

I seriously considered the Los Gatos offer, but was convinced that the San Jose offer was more advantageous, since with so many employees, chances for advancement were much better in San Jose.

Driving by there, it occurred to me how very different my life would have been had I chosen to work in Los Gatos. I would have never met my dear Terry, who has shaped so much of my life.

Isn't it amazing when you stop and think what these seemingly minor decisions make in the paths our lives eventually take?

*-*-*-*-*

Today, we were in the grocery store and I found myself in the pet food aisle. And there, in the middle of a regular aisle was a large refrigerated compartment, complete with a freezer.

Inside the freezer, I saw this

I'm not sure why it struck me so funny, but it did. So, of course, I got out my phone and took a picture. Really, isn't this a bit much?

But that's just me.

And please don't yell, I'm a dog lover, but this seemed over the top.

*-*-*-*-*

That's it for today

The Dregs of LA

2011-10-30T18:09:00.010-07:00

Well, the last of my pictures
(at least from the Los Angeles trip).

All of these were taken with the iPhone,
and feature a variety of subjects.

This is Tiger, I took this using Camera Fun.
It's a free app the lets you see results
live before you shoot.
This effect is called Canvas.

I wish I could remember what app I used for this.
Probably Instagram, but I can't say for sure
We were driving down the freeway
and I liked the look of the sky.

Just a plain shot,
taken as we were driving
(not me, but the car was moving)

This was taken at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater
after the Mary Blair event.
Probably as close as I'll get to the Oscars!

This was taken during our
visit to the first Apple Store in
the Glendale Galleria.

On the Jungle Boat Cruise in Disneyland.

Inside the Haunted Mansion,
shot from a moving car in the dark.
I was pretty pleased with the results,
since I'd never use my real camera in a dark ride.

This is the tree that was the model
for the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House.
Isn't it a beauty?

I was pretty happy with this shot.
Taken in Downtown Disney
at night, hand held,
I did just a bit of manipulation.

Once again, I have to say I'm really impressed with the camera in the iPhone 4s (are you sick of hearing this yet?). While I don't think I'll be giving up my Canon yet, it's just so darned handy to have the phone. And with the new operating system for iPhones (ios5), now even when the phone is off, it's a quick one second access to the camera, making it my go to choice when an quick photo op arises.

Just One Shot

2011-10-29T21:40:00.005-07:00

I was down in Santa Cruz
at the Magic Hour
and caught this one shot
(with my iPhone 4s).

Steampunk!

2011-10-28T21:50:00.011-07:00

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A few days ago, I wrote about the Steampunk exhibit, and today I'm showing some pictures.

In honor of the movement, I've done a bit of coloring of the photos. Except for a few, most will be presented without comment.

This is a Steampunk Vampire Hunting Kit.

He actually walks!

I liked to expression
on this gentleman's face.

This is what you get
when you tell your friends
"I want a picture,
but don't look at the camera . . .".

Doesn't this guy look kind of sinister?
Cool, but slightly dangerous.
Or maybe a bit deranged?

What can I say?
I loved the whole thing.

Soundsational!

2011-10-27T17:06:00.013-07:00

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I loved the parade, but unfortunately, we weren't in the best spot for photography. That said, I did get some shots of the performers.

I have to say, these people are the best. Dancing, smiling, wearing heavy costumes, and keeping it up all along the parade route. And it was hot!

So on with the parade.

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I loved this dress.
what fun would it be to twirl in this?

A bit of detail from one of the floats.

Talk about colorful!

I loved this shrimp.

This colorful costume
is based on the colors Mary Blair
used in many of her
South American paintings.

The Arucuan Bird,
again from South America.

I love this detail,
it was some twenty feet up in the air.

More costuming.

Dancers from the Lion King.

This is Evinrude.
Snuck in from the Rescuers.

Butterfly Woman.

Here come
the Mary Poppins Chimney Sweeps.

And Mary herself.
Is this carousel horse something?
It goes up and down,
just like it should.

And here's my favorite float in the parade.
I believe he's the Master of the Hounds.
He's based on one of Kevin's
incredible paper sculptures.

And those are all the pictures
I took of the parade!

A Photo Tour of the Park

2011-10-26T21:45:00.013-07:00

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I've been to Disneyland hundreds of times. Parts of it still hold magic for me, others, not so much.

That said, it is one of my very favorite places to take pictures. There's a never ending supply of people, emotions, backdrops and wondrous creations.

It's just about the perfect spot for photography.

This is a series of memory shots,
lots of big pictures,
so bear with me as we spend
a day in the park.

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Practically Perfect in every way . . .

An original costume sketch
of Bert's Jolly Holiday attire
(from Club 33)

This gent was so helpful.
He's a 30 year veteran of Club 33.

This sits in Club 33.
It's been played by the likes of
Paul McCartney and Elton John.

An authentic French ladies commode.

Fortunately it now sits
over indoor plumbing
instead of a chamber pot.

The balcony of Club 33,
above New Orleans Square.

One of my favorite views in Disneyland.

Just a shot I liked.

Again, a view I appreciate.
I think it's the shapes.

Ditto.

Not a great shot,
but the three dimensional quality
of the light appeals to me.

The Castle.
I always take too many pictures
of the Castle.

Like I say,
too many.

It's also good to look down sometimes.

The Mark Twain.

The Haunted Mansion.
All duded up for Halloween.

As were these folks,
portraying the typical 1950s
Disneyland Family.

Tomorrowland at Dusk.

Finally,
I was so tired,
all I could do was hang out
in the lobby of the Grand Californian.

Where I couldn't even hold my camera still.

All in all, a fine day at Disneyland.

Back Home Again

2011-10-25T12:23:00.010-07:00

And by that I mean back in Cholula Red.

What an amazing five days . . .

The first night, we attended an incredible Mary Blair event. If you've never heard of her, well, you should, and you can read a bit about her here. I'm also including a link that talks about the event here. To see a sampling of her artwork, click here.

It was the perfect venue to see so many old friends who I've greatly missed over the last six years. One special note, I had the honor of being introduced to Tyrus Wong, whose work I've greatly admired for most of my life. Rightly inducted as a Disney Legend in 2001, his artwork is beyond compare. If you're a fan of those amazing forest scenes in Bambi, you have Tyrus Wong to thank. As a special note, this last Monday, October 25, was his 101st birthday. I had the pleasure of shaking his hand, a special honor for me and an occasion I wanted to remember here.

The next day, we went to Disneyland, where we had lunch at Club 33. Then we got to watch the new parade, Soundsationsal. Our friends Kevin and Jody are the designers of the parade, and Jody came to visit us at the park and show us all the extra touches they included. That was a real treat. Then we spent the rest of the day in the park, and I was too tired at the end of the day.

The next day we were completely wrung out, so we lounged a bit, ate lunch at Damon's, a Glendale favorite, then visited the original Apple Store. That evening was spent visiting with Howard and Annie, our hosts for this little jaunt (Paula had previous plans, but we did get some time with her).

Sunday we had plans to go and see Kevin and Jody's new home in Anaheim. Just as we arrived, we got a phone call, and they were still at the Muzeo in downtown Anaheim, attending the opening of the Queen's Gallery, a Steampunk exhibition. Knowing my penchant for photography, they thought we should come down before visiting the house, and were we ever glad we did! It was a delight and I will be posting some of those shots in the coming days.

After that, all of us headed out to lunch (ever had a 50/50 milkshake? YUM!). Next was a short tour of historic Anaheim, including a visit to the tree that was the inspiration for the Swiss Family Robinson tree house in Disneyland. What a trip to see the same beautiful roots, actually connected to the earth. A strange sort of deja vu, quite special.

Then we headed to the new house. Actually a beautiful 1800s Victorian, completely restored. We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up, and making plans to never again let such a long time pass between visits.

Then it was back to Glendale, and early Monday morning we were off on our way home. We drove up 101, including stops at Andersen's Split Pea Soup, and another at the Madonna Inn. Then it was home at 5:00pm.

I have literally thousands of pictures from both the Canon and the new iPhone 4s, but most of them will need a bit of work, or at least resizing. Hopefully they'll be up in a day or ten.

A note about all the links on this post. They all lead to a variety of really interesting web sites, so you might want to make sure to click each one.

It's good to be back. I had a great time, but I sure missed Terry. And now I have a bit of room, so we can get rid of even more more.

And sooner or later,
we'll get back on the road.

Preparing (and a Panorama)

2011-10-19T18:41:00.006-07:00

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Just a short post today as I'm getting ready to get up early and head to LA tomorrow. As always, I'm disorganized, but excited.

And still playing with the iPhone.

I found a program called AutoStitch that allows you to take up to twenty pictures, then it stitches them all together in to a panorama. While I'm able to do this on the computer, it's pretty snazzy that the tiny iPhone does it in a short minute or two.

I need some more practice as it's not as clean as I would like. I believe this is a function of my shooting the same image several times. I think the software isn't able to line things up perfectly when all the shots aren't quite the same (white balance , etc.).

Still for not knowing what I'm doing, I'm pleased with the results. And I'm sure with practice I'll get better. Over the years, several people have asked for pictures of the bedroom in the Lazy Daze 30 foot twin (it's the least sold model) so I thought this would be a good place to start.

Now remember, this isn't clean and sharp, but I did it with an iPhone and it required nothing of me beyond the initial snapshots. You really do need to enlarge this to see the detail (fuzzy as it is).

All in all, I think it's a good start. I'm questioning whether I should bring my Canon along when I go to Disneyland, or should I just take the iPhone? I already have thousands of shots of the park, so I'm leaning towards the phone for convenience sake.

I just can't decide.

Either way, I'll be posting some pictures of the trip. I may try posting some to Facebook. I'm not very active on there, but the phone connects immediately, so I may put some shots up there first, then post better images here at a later date.

I'm getting excited about my little trip, so I'll close now. I still have a ton of last minute things to attend to. I want be ready bright and early tomorrow morning when my friend Misty comes to whisk me away to lala land!

Baby Feet and Tiny Planet

2011-10-17T23:37:00.007-07:00

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There I was, shopping at Costco
when I saw these adorable baby feet.

Of course, I asked permission
before whipping out my new iPhone
and taking these shots.

I then proceeded to have a delightful conversation with her Mother. She asked why I wanted to take shots of her baby's feet. I explained that I've always loved baby's feet. They're sweet and soft, and so very pure. She agreed, then shared the fact that she also was a photographer, so no explanation was necessary.

Just one of those chance encounters that brightens so many of my days.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Now onto other things,
like those wonderful iPhone apps.
This one is called Tiny Planet.

You open the app,
choose your photo,
then it does this!

It works best on photos
with a clear horizon
and clean, sharp photographic elements.

Monument Valley via Tiny Planet.

I'm still having too much fun . . .

In just two days, I'm off to Los Angeles.
I'll unload some Disney,
and visit old friends.
Friday, we'll have lunch at Club 33
and spend the rest of the day at Disneyland.

Should be fun.

More Pictures

2011-10-16T20:23:00.017-07:00

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I realize that this is really supposed to be an RVing blog, and we're still full time RVers. That said, while we're still clearing the house (I know, we're lazy and slow . . .) other things occupy my mind.

For you RVers that don't care about my computer fetish, or my photography, I do apologize. I'll get back to RV and traveling info when we get back on the road.

But for now, I really am in Computerland.

And once again into photography.

Boy, do I love the new camera in my iPhone 4s. I decided to get out and take a short walk around the neighborhood with the idea of seeing what I could shoot with the phone.

I didn't even make it out the door,
before this pattern caught my eye.

That's what I see every day, but today,
something about the shapes and patterns
appealed to me.
I backed up just a bit and got this shot.
I love the Cheshire Cat,
he's one of the first things we bought
when we got Cholula Red.

As I stepped out into the street,
I met up with these guys.
They seem to have the run
of the neighborhood!

As you can tell, we're somewhat rural.
We have a huge wisteria
with lots of twists and turns.

And moss.
I like the way this new camera
handles light.

Finally, I went in the house
to run a few tests on the macro capability
of the iPhone 4s.
This piece stands just a bit over an inch tall.

This is SOOC, except for resizing.
Pardon my feet.
And my purple toenail polish.

After just a bit of cleaning up,
it gives entirely serviceable results.

As always, if you're interested,
make sure to click on any image
and you can see much more detail.

I really do think I'll be using this camera a lot.
I'm not ready to give up my Canon,
but this will surely do in many situations.

And it weighs almost nothing!

iPhone 4s Photo Comparison

2011-10-14T21:47:00.003-07:00

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It took a bit of doing, but I have my new iPhone. I'm much too tired to talk about it much, but so far, I'm impressed.

Siri is an amazing thing. I've used dictation and talking apps on my phones before, but this truly does take the game to a whole new level. As time goes by, I'm sure I will be mightily impressed with this new software.

But for me, it's the camera. Yesterday, I posted two photos, one from my iPhone 3gs and one from Terry's iPhone 4, which was a huge leap forward.

And they've done it again, because here's an almost identical shot taken with the new iPhone 4s.

Click on the above image and make the window as large as you can. This is a photo that was only made a bit smaller for posting, but has not been manipulated. This is from a phone!

And here's all three photos, left to right, 3gs, 4 and 4s. Click on this one and enlarge it to 100% and you'll see how impressive this new camera really is.

I can hardly wait to go out and spend a bit of time shooting with this camera, uh, phone. Yes, it makes phone calls too!

GRRR, a Rant

2011-10-13T17:48:00.012-07:00

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OK, I just need to get this off my chest.

Two weeks ago, I realized I couldn't find the cable to connect the Kindle to my computer. I wanted to update some of the books for Terry, but the cable seems to have hidden itself in some dark corner of the motorhome.

We may never see it again.

I went looking for one around town, but I get frustrated with box stores, they so rarely have the exact thing I need. After a non productive afternoon, I went online to Amazon. There, they had what I needed for just $4.00.

I placed my order, because, really, I love Amazon, don't you? Usually excellent service, even from their associate sellers. (And just a bit of self promotion here, if you order from Amazon, feel free to use my link at the top of the page).

I placed this order on October 1, expecting it to arrive in a couple of days, five at the most. A week went by, no cable, so I wrote the company, inquiring. A day later, they wrote back saying they had sent it, but neglected to add tracking, so would I mind waiting a bit?

This annoyed me, but being a retired employee of the USPS, I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So today, 13 days after I placed the order it finally arrived (from southern California to central California). I opened the package to find they had sent the wrong item.

GRRRR.

I emailed them, and they wrote back

"I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you and my late response. Sorry to hear that you might have received the wrong item (s). My records show that this is the item [MICRO-USB-CBLE-06] sent to you. Now can you please confirm the SKU, barcode number on the sticker of the actual packaging for the item received?

Also if you can send a picture of the item versus your device we can determine if this was a shipping error or if we received the wrong item from the manufacture company. This information would be very helpful to help in this matter. "

Well, geeez, I thought this was a bit much for a $4.00 item, but I complied, along with a terse note.

THEN they sent me a note saying a replacement cable would be mailed to me, but added this

"We currently do not offer reimbursements on return shipping. So you are not required to return them. However if you do not mind sending them back at a low shipping cost, (you can even return them in the same package you received them in) we would highly appreciate it. "

Well, that nailed it. Do they really think this is any kind of customer service? First they take two weeks to get me a small cable, that if they would have bothered to send it first class would have been here in at least a week. THEN they have the gall to ask that I send their error back to them at my expense?

I don't think so.

Or am I just having a bad day?
What do you think?

All right, rant over.

Tomorrow, my new iPhone will be here, I can hardly wait. In preparation, I've been updating software and playing with the cameras in the old phones.

Here's a shot taken with my iPhone 3GS
Straight out of the camera (SOOC)
It could be fixed, but it would take a lot of work.
(click to enlarge)

Here's pretty much the same shot
taken with Terry's iPhone 4.
It's a superior camera,
the photo is much better,
but could still use work.

In the next day or two,
I'll take a similar shot with my new phone.
Then I'll be able to tell if the new phone
is a real improvement.

My hopes are high!

Nothing Much

2011-10-12T20:45:00.002-07:00

Busy busy busy.

We did another flea market this weekend. Dang, if they weren't so darned lucrative, we might give up. Then it was another carload down to the auction. And I'm planning a short trip to LA to shed some of the Disney.

Then there's all this Apple stuff . . .

I'm really excited about my new iPhone, which will be here Friday; however in order to take advantage of all the goodies, there's some software upgrading to do, and it seems like everybody in the world is doing the same thing.

It's been slow going.

Since I'm at the computer anyway, I've been spending some time playing with my pictures. I have an app called fx Photo Studio Pro that I've been playing with on my iPad, so it was kind of cool when I realized that a Mac version was available in an app bundle that I recently purchased.

This is just the kind of app that I'm so very fond of. You import your picture, then there are literally dozens of effects and filters. Once you see an effect or filter that you like, you can then decide how much of the effect you want to process into the picture. You can even apply one effect, then layer others on top of it.

This is hardly great art, but I find it helps open my mind to new ways to look at things, and I enjoy it immensely.

Without any further comments,
here's a few variations
on one picture.
(You can click on any image
for a larger version).

That's it for today!

Apps for the RVer

2011-10-07T18:35:00.010-07:00

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Once again, I want to talk about my Apple toys. As you're probably aware, Apple announced the new iPhone 4s just the day before the untimely death of Steve Jobs. They also announced an upgraded operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad. These will offer a ton of new improvements, but I'll cover that at a later date.

My phone is now two years and two generations old. The new iPhone 4s has a truly amazing camera (the main reason I want one), so I'm getting the new iPhone 4s! Pictures will surely follow.

Today, I want to talk about how very useful these devices have been to us as RVers. For starters, there's the obvious fact that it's a telephone. Remember when we had to look for a phone booth, then when you found it, the phone wasn't working?

Back in 2005 when we started full timing, a GPS was a new found delight. Not always completely accurate, at the time it seemed like a miracle. I remember when I got my first one (named Edna), asking the people at Garmin about how it worked. I was amazed that there was this satellite system in place that anyone with one of these devices could access!

Technology, I love it.

Well, now I no longer need a GPS because there are all kinds of apps that access the embedded GPS chip in both my iPhone and my iPad.

For keeping records on the car and the motor home I use an app called Road Trip. Not only does it keep track of your gas mileage, but all tuneups, insurance, etc. giving you a complete record of your vehicle expenses. It also exports for backup in case you ever lose your device. If you want to try it for free, you can try Road Trip Lite, or you can buy the complete app for $4.99. I've been using it for quite a while and am really pleased. When I purchased it, the price was $2; however if I didn't have it I wouldn't hesitate to purchase it again.

Then there's the apps that help me find campgrounds. When I was recently up at the LaDeze get together, this was a hot topic of conversation.

There you are, driving down the road. It's getting late and you want to stop for the night. I remember when I would sit there, going through three or four books, trying to decide where we were and where the next campground was.

But now there's all kinds of apps that will help you with this. As I mentioned, the iPhone (from the 3 on out) has a built in GPS chip, as does a 3G enabled iPad. This means that it knows where you are, so that when you ask an app for a campground, it gives you the one that's closest to you at any given time. This is just too cool.

I got some of these when they were free or cheaper, but we use all of these and consider them worth the cost. The campground apps that I like, in no particular order, are

CampWhere ($4.99)

I was turned on to this (Thank You Calicia) at the LaDeze event. While it costs a bit, it is location aware and gives you tons of information about public campgrounds nearby. This is great because many apps focus on private RV parks

Oh Ranger! ParkFinder (free)

This is a really great public campground app that includes a ton of information, including park phone numbers, information on permits needed, links to campground websites, info on events at each park and guides to what kinds of activities are permitted in each park (biking, hiking, camping, fishing etc.).

AllStays Camp and RV ($5.99)

This one is pretty comprehensive, and was my favorite before I found Campwhere. That said, when you buy one of these apps, they're yours forever, so I'll be keeping it. I like that it includes both public and private campgrounds.

RV Parking.com (free)

This one includes over 19,000 parks, and it's free!

National Parks Explorer (free)

This one focuses on National Parks. It comes with the Grand Canyon and the Blue Ridge Parkway installed. If you want to add other parks, there's a fee.

National Parks Companion ($.99)

More info on our National Parks

Cal Parks(free)

A great app if you'll be camping in California (if you can afford it!) Includes camping information, pictures, hiking trails and info on marine life.

Park Guides
National Park Field Guides (free)

Sorted by state, this offers a ton of information about our National Parks, including information on indigenous animals, plants, and other things you might want to know about your National Parks.

There are also apps for both Escapees and Passport America, but I wasn't able to find the links right now, sorry.

Anyhow, you can see how very useful these apps make these devices for the RVer. There are also many, many more (Gas Buddy, Yellow Pages, WiFi Finder), but I think that's enough for now (assuming anyone is still awake and reading).

I'm sure some (if not all) of these are available on other platforms, but since I'm an Apple girl, I'm writing about apps that I know, from personal experience, will work on these devices.

Please, feel free to let me know of other apps you find particularly useful when you're out on the road.

We Have Visitors!

2011-10-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

I look out the front door of the rig
and what should I see?

Now, we don't live on a farm

or anywhere near a farm . . .

but they made themselves
right at home!

This guy seemed to be
the leader of the pack.

Here you can see
that they're right outside the rig.

Finally, a neighbor came to get them
and take them home.

The End
(like Donna does!)

I'm so easily amused.

Steve Jobs

2011-10-05T17:29:00.018-07:00

Well Crap.

Just yesterday, Apple announced the new iPhone 4s. As usual, many analysts and bloggers stated that it was no big deal, another disappointment from Apple.

But I don't believe it, because I've never been unhappy with any Apple product I've ever had. And I've been using Apple products since 1985.

Yep, I'm an Apple fan, always have been, and proud of it. And I'll be updating my iPhone 3s to an iPhone 4s. Just the camera is enough to get me all excited.

With this in mind, I've been all over the internet today, reading about this exciting new device.

So you can imagine how very sad and shocked I was this afternoon to read of the death of Steve Jobs at just 56 years old.

I am stunned and so very sad. I knew it was coming, but it seems too soon . . .

I'm sure you've heard all about this, but I just need to write it out, so bear with me here.

Steve Jobs and Apple changed my life.

I remember in the early 80s when I kept hearing about software. Hardware I understood, but what was this software everybody was talking about? I thought about it and wondered, but by this time it was so entrenched in our vocabulary that truthfully, I was embarrassed to ask anyone.

Finally, I went over to a friends house and she had a brand new Apple computer, a Macintosh Classic. We sat down and she began to show me what it could do (after kindly explaining what software was). I was enthralled. Let me be clear here, I had never sat down in front of a computer before. I had friends who were geeks, but they built their own, learning endless lines of code to run DOS. I knew that it wasn't for me, so I had given up on the idea of ever using a computer.

But this I could do!

The mouse, what a wonder that was. And how very clever that there was that tiny garbage can in the corner where you could "throw something in the trash"?

I was hooked.

I bought myself a Mac Classic, a printer and a stack of floppy discs. I also bought an external hard drive with a whopping 20 megabytes of storage (more than you'll ever need, I was told). The external drive was so big that it had to sit underneath the computer itself. The cost was just under $3,000.

But I was bewitched. I bought myself a phone with a headset and spent all my extra waking hours on the phone with my friend, who would walk me through the basics of the Mac. I really couldn't let it go, I was like a sponge that hadn't seen water in years.

I went to my first MacWorld and was like a kid in a candy shop. I bought an external floppy drive. Now I could swap discs, wow, and there were so many cool things, it was a whole new world. I bought a Compuserve package, and suddenly, I could get on the internet. That was before I even knew what the internet really was, but I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

And in learning the Mac, I was introduced to word processing, which led to my newsletter which introduced me to so much of the Disney Universe. It was all due to the Mac. Without it, I would have never attempted a newsletter, much less managing the subscriptions, mailing labels, etc.

Then came digital photography. We had a film camera, we would take pictures, but faced mostly disappointment when we finally got them developed. I just wasn't much of a photographer (and I'm still not). But with the aid of digital manipulation, I was able to learn how to fix many of my shots.

It was a learning curve but I took to it.

Us Apple people were in the minority, laughed at by so many friends on PCs. Then Windows came out. In my mind an excuse to try to make the PC somewhere near as user friendly as a Mac. I didn't think it worked, but many people were pleased.

I stuck with Apple as the computers continued to improve. Faster, more powerful, certainly more elegant than anything else on the market. I loved the hardware, the software, I just couldn't understand why anyone would want any other computer.

Then there was digital music. The iPod was an amazing game changer. Suddenly PC people were starting to pay attention. This thing actually worked! I think that this was where the tide began to turn.

And through it all, there was Steve Jobs. Nitpicking the hardware, always making it better. Friendlier. Less clunky. More beautiful. And always more user friendly. I love how it all just worked.

Then came the iPhone and things really began to change. Suddenly, we all had computers in our pockets, WOW, it was a whole new ballgame. And Apple was getting some respect.

And now there's the iPad. Go back and watch Steve Jobs presentation. It's been said he knew what we wanted before we did. And it's true. Everyone who reads this blog knows I love my iPad, and I'm certainly not alone.

I recently read an article talking about all the choices everyone has as far as tablet computers. The final line read "But people don't want a tablet, they want an iPad". And it's true.

Steve Jobs knew what we wanted before we did.

I have faith that Apple will continue to shine, the infrastructure is certainly in place. But a bit of the enthusiasm, the shine, the sparkle is gone.

And we are all the poorer for it.
My thoughts go out to his family.
And we are all part of that family.

RIP
Steve Jobs
1955-2011

Note: This lovely silhouette image was created by Jonathan Mak Long (thank you Lorna for supplying that information). The other image was pulled from the internet, I could not find anyone to credit for the work.

Santa Clara Mission Cemetary

2011-10-04T16:00:00.004-07:00

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The other day, we found ourselves over in San Jose. Keep in mind that I was raised in that area, spent the first eighteen years of my life there.

Still, things have changed, and even using a GPS, we managed to get ourselves lost. So there we were, knowing sort of where we were, but in totally unknown territory.

All of a sudden we saw this huge cemetery.
Barely two miles from where I grew up,
I've never heard of it before.

There's always something new.

Regular readers know
we can rarely pass up the opportunity
to take pictures when we find
such as treasure.
Today was no exception.

A close up,
with a bit of manipulation.

It turns out that this is the
Santa Clara Mission Cemetery,
one of the oldest cemeteries
in the Santa Clara Valley.

Who knew?
Certainly not me.

Unfortunately,
there has been some vandalism.

Look closely here.
Someone has broken off her hand.

Sadly,
while there was a great array
of beautiful old statuary,
someone has gone through
and caused a great amount of damage.

But I refuse to take pictures of this,
it's just too heartbreaking.

I think she looks sad.
Lovely, but sad.

There were also lots of flowers.

This shot gives you an idea
of the different kinds of monuments.

But it's the details that I love.

This piece is life sized.
What a superb work of art.

More detail,
I love the hands

There are many mausoleums,
but I only had my telescopic lens with me.

This was the widest shot I could get
and I was a long ways away . . .

This place is so huge,
we both decided we might go back another day.
And next time I'll bring a wider lens!

Here's one more shot,
taken while Terry was driving.
This used to be a high school
(my sister attended school there).
Next time we're over in the valley,
I might go there and get more pictures
of the beautiful tile work.

Gosh, I'm so scattered with my blogging.
I go for days, sometimes weeks,
with nothing.
Then here I am with all these pictures!

I guess that's just how it goes . . .

Down the Coast

2011-10-03T16:35:00.004-07:00

I had a truly spectacular day
driving south down Highway one.

The weather was perfect.

I decided
that I would take
every single coastal access road.

It made for a long,
but oh so glorious trip.

So, here,
in no particular order,
are my favorites from the drive south.

There were flowers.

Beaches.

Fog,
rolling into valleys.
filled with water lilies.

Incredible coastline vistas.

Swaying blooms against blue skies.

Even more incredible vistas.

And one more,
I just had to include this one.

It was a perfect day . . .

Reminding me,
once again,
that

the Elk

2011-10-02T19:19:00.003-07:00

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I spent the night in Crescent City, getting up early so I could take my time moseying down the coast. I was hoping to take lots of pictures.

The absolute highlight of the day happened as I was driving through Redwood National Park. I had stopped at the Visitors Center, where there is a huge meadow with a sign taking about the elk herd.

But there were no elk to be seen.

I went in to the Visitors Center where they told me that they hadn't seen the elk in a couple of days. Oh well, I had a lot of miles to cover and was most excited about the ocean views anyway.

Then, just a few miles up the road, I saw a bunch of cars pulled over, so of course, I had to look. . .

And there in an open meadow
was a herd of elk.

These guys were standing
out in the middle of a meadow,
looking kind of lost and forlorn.

A close up . . .

I soon found out that they were looking this way because, off to the left about one hundred yards was a herd of females. They were being guarded by one gigantic buck.

Here's a close up
of the poor young bucks,
hoping to sneak into the herd.
As always, you can click any photo
for more detail.

But the big buck catches him
and sends him running.

Then bellows at him for a while,

just to make sure he knows his place.

"Oh all right, I'll go away.
Not happily, but I'll go away.
Till I try again."

And this is what it was all about.
Out of decorum, I edited this a bit.

If you're interested in the original, click here.

I spent a couple of hours watching this herd, I have to tell you, it was fascinating. I've never been this close to such a large number of wild animals. Birds, yes, but not any animals near this large. These guys were huge. And quite beautiful

If you ever get the chance to visit this area, make sure you ask around and see if the herd is out and about. And if it's rutting season, all the better.

Tomorrow, down the coast.

Crescent City

2011-10-01T17:55:00.007-07:00

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While I had a great time at the get-together, I ended up leaving early. Getting up to Oregon had been a hard drive affair, no stopping except for gas and bathroom breaks. I knew I wanted to take it a bit easier on the drive home. I had to be back in San Jose for Doctor's appointments first thing Tuesday morning, so with this in mind, I decided it would be best to get a start late Saturday afternoon, rather than waiting for Sunday morning.

Kathy, another attendee, also had to drive quite a ways, so she decided to leave at about the same time. While we weren't traveling together, we decided we would meet up for dinner in Crescent City.

After dinner, where we found how well we got along, she invited me to spend the night in her Lazy Daze rather than me having to rent a motel room.

What a great invitation! I, of course accepted.

We found an RV park right on the bay.
Since the sun had not yet set,
we went out for a walk.

This was right behind where we parked the rig.

This shot has been cropped way down and blown waaaay up. I was a long ways away from these guys, but I loved the bird with the long legs. I believe he's a heron. It was just that time of day when the light was fading, and there was a slight case of mist, so this isn't as clear as I would like. Still, it's the only shot I got of him.

You can click to enlarge to see more detail.

He had lots of company.

The sun started to set,
giving us a wonderful warm glow.

And finally, it went to bed.
And so did we.

Again, Thank You Kathy for a lovely evening.
And I also wanted to thank Nancy
for allowing me to stay in her rig
during the LaDeze get-together.

What great friends I have!

Pictures

2011-09-30T21:54:00.008-07:00

As I said before,
I had a lovely time on my little getaway.

It was so great to be among
so many fine women RVers.

If any of you Lazy Day ladies
ever get the chance to go to one of these events,
you really should attend.
It's enlightening, educating
and just a whole lot of fun.

This is a shot of Lorna,
she's responsible for
the LaDeze get-togethers.

One day, my friend Nancy and I
took off on an adventure.
We spotted a sign for a place called Wildlife Images.
We had no idea what kind of facility it was
and decided we needed to find out.

As we pulled in to the parking lot,
look who came out!

His name is Defiant.
It turns out that Wildlife Images
is an animal rescue organization.
They return a full 80% of their rescues back to the wild

I took a ton of pictures during our visit.
Somewhere along the way,
I changed my camera setting
to manual focus instead of auto focus.

At least I thought I did.
It was only later that I discovered
I had hit the image stabilization button,
totally disabling image stabilization . . .

And the reality is,
I can't hold a camera still to save my life.
So when I got home and looked at the pictures,
a full 99% of them were less than ideal.

MUCH less than ideal . . .

So there are just a few
that are even presentable.

I liked this one and it's even in focus!

And for some reason,
this one cat was in focus.
Sort of.

Since I had so little to work with,
I reworked this one.

The next day, I had much better luck,
but that's for another blog.

On the Road

2011-09-26T19:50:00.029-07:00

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I'm still not back home, but up at a friends in Redwood City. I just wanted to check in and say what a truly fine time I had. The fellowship was superb, and I had many adventures, took a million bad pictures (really, one day my auto stabilization was completely turned off . . .) and will be sharing more soon.

But for now, I just wanted to say what a gift music can be when you're traveling. Today the weather was perfect and I drove Highway One along the glorious California coast from Fort Bragg all the way down to Redwood City. singing all the way.

Below is my album list, I put them all on my iPhone, hit shuffle and let the music accompany me down the coast.

It really was a perfect day.

While not to every one's taste, for me it was an ideal mix. Looking at it should give you an idea of where my musical head was today, so what would you add to this list? I'm just curious if you have any additions.

One more note, some of my favorites you may never have heard of are in italics.

Bob Dylan-Nashville Skyline
the Byrds-Sweetheart of the Rodeo
the Cowboy Album
Disney-Pardners
Don Edwards-West of Yesterday
Donovan-Gift From a Flower to a Garden
Donovan-Sunshine Superman
the Eagles-Greatest Hits
Emmylou Harris-Duets
the Everly Brothers-All Time Original Hits
Front Range to Back-Red River
George Jones and Tammy Wynette-16 Biggest Hits
Guy Van Duser-American Finger Style Guitar
Hazel Dickens-Pioneering Women of Bluegrass
Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton-
Honky Tonk Angels
Ian and Sylvia-Greatest Hits
Iris Dement-Infamous Angel
Iris Dement-My Life
Jimmy Buffett-Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Jimmy Buffett--Havana Daydreamin'
Jimmy Buffett-Living and Dying in 3/4 Time
John Denver-Rocky Mountain High
Johnny Cash-Live at Folsom Prison
Johnny Cash-the Essential Johnny Cash
the Kingston Trio-36 All Time Greatest Hits
Leon Russell-Hank Wilson's Back (a GREAT album)
the Mamas and the Paps-16Greatest Hits
Merle Haggard-16 Greatest Hits
Michael Martin Murphy-Playing Favorites
Nitty Gritty Dirt band-Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Paul Simon-Graceland
Paul Simon, Art Garfunkle-Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme
Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits
Peter, Paul and Mary-Peter, Paul and Mary
a Prairie Home Companion-Soundtrack
Randy Travis-Always and Forever
Randy Travis-High Lonesome
Randy Travis-Old 8x10
Ray Charles-Genius Loves Company
Ricky Skaggs-the Essential Ricky Skaggs
Roy Rogers-a Tribute to Roy Rogers
Ry Cooder-Jazz
Tammy Wynette-Stand By Your Man
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris-Trio
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris-Trio II
Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash-Storytellers Live

And if a day with this kind of music
sounds like your version of Hell on earth,
I just don't know what to say!
(yes Jonna, I'm talking about you . . .)

Going Away For a Few

2011-09-21T18:46:00.004-07:00

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Once a year a group of women who own Lazy Daze get together to hoot and holler and generally have a good time. This year, at the end of this week, it's taking place up by Grant's Pass, Oregon.

I thought and thought, knowing I should be working and really not wanting to desert Terry to go play. I also knew there was no way I could take the rig all that way just for a few days.

Then I got a call from a friend who will be attending and she offered that, if i would like to attend, I could come and stay with her.

It was tempting, but I decided there was no way I could attend.

Then, Terry said, Honey, if you want to go, why don't you just go (or something to that effect).

Then there was the problem of a car.

I really didn't want to go away in our only car leaving Terry stranded. But we went down to the local car rental place and got a decent price on a car for a week . . .

So I'm leaving tomorrow, heading up to Oregon to visit with all the lady RVers.

I'm excited, not sure of the internet situation, so I'll talk to you all later!

Editing Photos

2011-09-16T21:23:00.011-07:00

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Since I've been writing about photography and reworking some of my old pictures, I've received several emails (and a few comments) asking about photo editing.

There are tons of photo editors out there, and I suspect that most of them work pretty much the same way. Most photos only need a bit of work, and for many folks, I don't really think much more than a straightening, cropping and maybe a bit of lightening or darkening is necessary.

If you have any of the many photo editors available (Picasa seems to be a favorite) then that should be all you need.

Really good photographers (of which I am not one) generally shoot somewhat slowly, taking time to think about what they are shooting prior to pushing that button. I consider these folks true photographers.

Then there are people like me. I shoot tons and tons of pictures. Rather than a photographer, I consider myself as someone who works with photos. I try to stay aware of things that interest me, photo wise, and I shoot everything that I think just might make an interesting photo.

Then, I put them in the computer, throw most of them away and start editing the rest. To be clear, I usually only get a few shots out of every days shooting. Not the most efficient way, but it's my way.

One more note before we go on to the photos. None of these are great shots, I just went back through old photos and tried to find ones that would be good examples of what can be done. To see the real detail, you should click on each photo to enlarge it, then the difference really shows up.

Here's an original shot, SOOC
(straight out of the camera,
except I made it smaller for posting here).
As you can tell, way too blown out,
but the bunny is pretty cute.

Here it is,
cropped with a bit of exposure editing
and a bit of sharpening.
Not a great shot,
but you can see how a poor shot
can be rescued.

Here's one of my gazillion hummingbird shots.
This was taken with my older Panasonic,
so it isn't really sharp.
My Canon is much faster than my Panasonic.
Again, SOOC.

Cropped, sharpened
and brightened just a bit.

The next six shots
are all from this same original.

Here it is with just a bit of editing,
(perhaps a bit too much red?).
For this one, I bumped up the contrast
and the sharpening.

And here it is,
cropped to focus on the birds.

Cropped even tighter.

Here, I turned the contrast down,
so the background blurs a bit.
Since the bird is in focus,
changing the contrast
hasn't affected him too much.
Not better, not worse,
just a different take on the same shot.

And I thought this guy
deserved his own shot.

Hopefully, this might inspire a few of you to play around with some of those shots you'd normally throw away. I find this kind of work fascinating, and I spend way too much time doing just this sort of thing.

When I should be working on the house . . .

Oh well.

What I've Learned

2011-09-13T20:34:00.009-07:00

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It's been really interesting
going through my old pictures.

Lots of memories.

And wow, I think I really have
gotten better as a photographer.

Well, maybe not better,
but certainly more aware of what I'm doing.

And I clearly understand the computer better,

So here's a few more oldies.

Artist's Point in Death Valley.
We had been in the rig for less than six months
when I took this shot.

From around the same time period,
we were down by Hearst's Castle,
inside a glassed in arboretum.
I love this shot of the seagull
walking on the "roof".
This might be my first (of many)
seagull photos.

And once again,
Bosque del Apache.
I miss the cranes.

That's it for today

A Few Landscapes

2011-09-12T21:28:00.002-07:00

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Like yesterday,
I reworked a couple of older pictures.

And like yesterday,
they look much better
if you click and enlarge.

Both of these were taken
at Bosque del Apache,
outside Socorro, New Mexico.
It's one of my all time favorite places.

A favorite to visit.
A favorite to shoot pictures.
A favorite to just be.

I wish I was there
right now.

A Few Birds and . . .

2011-09-11T21:15:00.006-07:00

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Since I haven't been shooting much, I decided to go back and rework a few of my old pictures. It seems like the longer I work on the computer, the more I learn about working with my photos.

Or maybe my eye is just evolving?

Anyhow, here are a couple of pictures I took a few years ago.

The hummingbirds were taken
through the window of the motorhome
right after a rain.
(This one looks much better if you click to enlarge).

One of my first shots
after I got the Canon 7D

Then there's this one.
I'm not sure why I like it,
maybe it's the layers of patterns,
the screen
the window film,
the background.
Whatever, I like it.

That's all for today.

Zite!

2011-09-10T21:29:00.003-07:00

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Another iPad post, I just can't help myself.

More and more I've been exploring news and magazines on the iPad. As I've mentioned before, National Geographic is a wonder on the iPad. Then there's Wired Magazine. If you're not familiar with Wired, it's a great magazine that offers all kinds of information, mostly centered on new technology. Dealing with all things technological, you would expect extraordinary things from them on the iPad and they don't disappoint.

It's so interesting to watch how traditional publishing is making the move to digital editions. While some magazines simply scan their content (reformatting it to fit the various screens), others, like National Geographic and Wired have taken it a step further. The articles are the same as the print version, but are enhanced with interactive movies, slide shows, internet links and whatever else they can think to include. It's like the magazine experience on steroids. I love it.

Then there's an app called Zite! It's a news gathering app, but it works differently than others I've tried. You start out by picking from a selection of topics (like World News, Politics, Science, Food and Cooking, Fashion, Travel, Pets, etc.). You can also add in your own search terms and they will add them to your personalized magazine. But here's where it differs from other apps. Every time you read an article, you have the option of "liking" an article. If you mark it as liked, the app remembers and in the future will add similar pieces to your magazine. While I'm not sure what magic algorithms they use, I can tell you that after using the app for more than a month, they have definitely tailored my "magazine" to my taste.

The iPad continues to amaze me, and more and more, is becoming my "computer" of choice. I still use my MacBook Pro for heavy duty digital photo editing, but for 95% of my computing needs, the iPad fits the bill perfectly.