Day 2 Day radishes

October 30/ end of day light savings

We turned out to have some sun.  Mr.  Radish and I have been whining to each other about a lot of things, but at all times we are disgusted with politics and the weather.  I have tried the ploy of continuing to think of it as summer, wearing lighter clothes and no socks and not looking at the trees.  We have been huddled around our computers, which I announce is running pretty well and the margin problem has gone away. 

 

This morning Mr. Radish woke up and said, “Let’s go to the gym”. What an idea! On we got with our gym clothes, had a quick breakfast and went.  For me it was lovely as the water was warm because the heat could not be turned off in the pool. Then it occurred to both of us that we really did not want to go home.  I am burned out at trying to make my card designing work, my house at the moment is tidy, and I have writers block plus the weather is so dark that no amount of lights on can make it pleasant.  So we went to movies, he the SURROGATES, and I went the COUPLES RETREAT.  Both of them are C movies, mine maybe D+.  But they were okay. A stupid chick flick felt good.    It is for what we were in the mood. We had lunch at Applebies, came home, and the above is what there was. It was joy for 15 minutes, but it was enough. 

October 29/ a Click

 

 

Wednesday is food candy day on the Internet for me.  Thursday is photography day.  I subscribe to http://digital-photography-school.com which has short how-to articles on Photography.  Last week, after my trip there was an article on moving objects.  Their idea was arrived at by a totally different means, and I am sure theirs is the correct way.    One of today’s short articles was photographing in the rain, a useful topic for my today.  The article had fabulous photos taken in the rain and then I went to the photographer’s web site and he does ebooks http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog and has tutorials on PeachPit.  If you are a photographer, see David duChemin  tutorial as it is like taking a  short art class.

 

My husband is always asking me what I am going to do with my photographs.  Well I am not going to put them in a liquor box.  For two years I have made photo books of my photos on BookSmart.  I have a couple of images this year that I am going to give for Christmas.  But one thing I would like to do is to make a card with a photograph at will. There are a thousand opportunities for sending a card.   I would like it to be professional.  In the last weeks I have hoped to make a Christmas card. 

 

Photoshop Elements is my editing program.  I  can not do it.  In the last 10 days I have watched endless video tutorials and read hundreds of pages and I am still in a fog. If I had someone I knew show me a few times, where I was going wrong I think I could do it quickly.

 

 

I found a design site  https://www.bamagazine.com that made me realize that perhaps I don’t want to make the goopy cards I thought I wanted to make. I find that You Tube was very helpful.  And after all my laughing at You Tube, what a good learning tool it is.  I am just amazed what a good friend my computer is to me. 

 

 

Of the 13 great photos in the rain, at least three were through glass.  Keep your camera dry.  Try your cell phone through a window. 

This photo taken in mist is of my sister-in-laws home which we visited on our last trip.

October 28/ It is all about the Bride

We are having a fun time in our family because the neice who has been closest to me over the years has said that she is getting married.  Years ago when I was engaged, it was the custom to maybe have an engagement party, which was for the parents friends and close relatives.  My mother and possibly others gave me tea cups as a gift.  Two cups she said were from my grandfather.  Hum.    But then Women's Liberation came along and teas were a gala of the past.  I  had those sweet cups for many years. But a Bride to Be always had her picture in the newspaper and I would like to do an up to date version.  

Lynn Finley to Marry Steve Burt

Lynn Finley and Steve Burt have announced their engagement.  Both are living in the Portland Oregon  area and have know each other since Steve took her Italian class at the local Junior  College.  Accomplished at Italian, Lynn has traveled the world over starting when her father was in the Navy, after a University of Oregon bachelors degree, she went into the Peace Corp and has then visited her cousin Ms. NoName where ever she went including Shanghai.  Steve goes to Ireland. 

Lynn is the daughter of Jeff and Susan Finley, originally of Los Altos,now of Houston, although Susan had a slightly more prominent Haines family.   Lynn has a brother and sister.  

Lynn is currently studying at the University of Washington, at Vancouver, working , and teaching Italian.  She enjoys cooking, needlepointing and garden touch up. 

A  June wedding is in the offing. 

Steve has a big dog. 

October 27/ Alive but frazzled

I have not written because I have felt I had little to say.  But then yesterday I had a lot to say.  And I said it on Microsoft Word with out the benefit of margins.  I copied and pasted the post to my web blog and it was the same.  You could not read it.  I should have left it so you would know that I have tried. 

Eventually I got on the Internet  to Microsoft and they signed me up for $80.00.  They still have not fixed the problem.   But for the eight dollars they were to optimize my computer.   Then my router went out.   Nothing has changed this morning.   I am using some neighbors Internet which is iffy. But we do get to go and pick up the car that ran into a rock. 

For a daughter who is shaking her head over this mess.  The Internet does not work for her father either. 

October 22/ Thoughts

I am putting on Facebook that I want some JoMalone  grapefruit splash for Christmas.  Then the whole world can know. My husband would have gladly bought me this for my birthday, but I have trouble telling him that I want it.  I thought it would filter back from daughters.  Where were you daughters?  Both Mr. Radish and I, due to medical interaction, can not drink grapefruit juice which we both love,   but I love the smell and Jo makes it smell even better. 

Today I was listening to the radio and there was a clip of Michelle O which claimed that we were putting too much emphasis on certain parts of health care like taxing pacemakers, and electric wheelchairs, we should know that included in the bill is public education as to how to increase your fruits and vegetables. 

I am going to start a mini club for anyone who wants to boycott the NFL televised games as a protest to having called Rush Limbaugh a racist and therefore not allowing him to be an owner of the Saint Louis Cardinals. I have listened to a lot of Rush Limbaugh over the last twenty years and I have found him not to be a racist.  My favorite,Thomas Sowell, has written a column on this and it would behoove all to read this article, because this is more than about racism. 

Obviously this is of the Seattle Skyline. 

October 21/ Camera at hand

Driving slowly on highway 101 with a camera in hand is  a learning experience  One lesson is that you can not take close photos  at a fast speed.  I know 55 does not seem fast, but mostly that is as fast as you can go in places, and as fast as my husband chooses to drive.  Buy you see a lot. A lot is tucked in the trees as you speed by.  The coast of Oregon looks like it could use a paint job.  Oregon has always looked a little weathered,  but this trip the buildings looked depressed.  The buildings were looking like they wanted employment.  By absolute chance we found two great restaurants.  But one fine restaurant had five out of twenty tables filled.  Apparently before this current financial setback the whole restaurant would be turned three times on a Friday a night.  Saw mills were replaced by  Casinos. I guess I should be cheered by the fact that strip malls had paint.

Above is my old McKinleyville house.  We had the house designed and I love it still.  But I can not bear to look at it now because the outside yard and settings and trim are not kept up at all.  This is a case of you can not go back.  

October 19/ cows at 55

This last week’s trip to McKinleyville, Blue Lake, Eureka, California  can be divided into two topics: people and photography.  Early on, we dropped our car at the body shop, and  stopped and visited Barnes and Noble.   I bought Phillip Andrews  Advanced Photoshop Elements 7.  I can not completely understand his easy Photoshop Elements.  But I am in the middle of a learning processes between the two books.  Here is were I committed myself to RAW. I read the book, but reading the book without benefit of your computer with the Photoshop Elements software while riding down the road has little meaning. 

 

We drove down to California on I-5 and then the last leg is along the California Coast with the Redwoods and the Pacific coast.  The weather was in the high seventies and the sky was totally blue. No clouds and no fog.   Mr.  Radish generously stopped for photo ops.  Then on the way home we drove the coast which takes considerably more time.  We decided to take three days. 

 

The first day driving weather was equally perfect allowing the windows to be down when we were not grossed out by the wind.  The weather cheered us, we were buoyant.  We stopped at the many view points that the State of Oregon has created. 

 

My book had explained about shooting photos in RAW.   If you do not know what RAW is, you are right with me.  But my book had several chapters on it, and for the purposes of us ignorant, it captures detail, it allows for endless editing retaining quality of image AND it uses huge amounts of RAM both on your chip and your computer.  And most good photographers use it.  What this means is while even if you do have a digital camera that can take thousands of pictures, with RAW you need discretion.

 

We needed to make our way home.  Although the coast is slow, we came close to creeping, so the second day we needed to pick up the pace.  Still I wanted to take pictures.  It is hard to photograph at 55 miles an hour . But I wanted to photograph so I decided my goal was to photograph at 55. Going fast you have to be at the ever ready.  This means that you must have the camera in hand at all times. There is so much to see when you peer out the window for hours and see half second vignettes; unless you see the scene in advance and can decide to take the picture, get the window down, be sure the camera is turned to on, and the cap off the lense, the object goes whipping by. It is too late.    The best ops came and went at blurring speed.  Some of the time it rained, and it is impossible to take photos through glass in the rain.  A real hindrance was that the more picturesque scenery was on the drivers left side of the car because driving north along the Pacific Coast is where ocean and beaches and sand dunes are posed.  Eventually I arrived at a plan for those vistas on the left side of the car.  I set my camera to P which sets the shutters speed and aperture and focused out through Mr. Radishes lowered window and somehow I missed the side view mirror and his profile.  That I had anything turn out at all was a miracle. 

 

Anyone who has read to here has a lot of patience. Thank you. It is hard to be a writer when this week I am a photographer.  

October 11/ Vacation

Am on vacation for about a week.  Am taking my computer but may not post. 

October 9/ Olympia or Bust

Yesterday I went on a car ride to Olympia, Washington starting at 2:30 in the afternoon and returning at 10:30 at night.  There were four of us woman from church.  The day was warm and sunny.  The women were all smart and fun.  We had the sunset dinner at the Olympia Anthony’s.

The State Capitol was beautiful in both the late afternoon and in the dark. The pilgrimage was a special time for all of us. On the way to Olympia our guest told us of her life.  Ordinarily I would have bristled at someone occupying the conversation, but she was fascinating telling about her Episcopal life mixed with her Jewish life and how it all intertwined.  One back seat woman was busy casting it for a movie. 

 

We all go to the same church and the topic came up about our current practice to sing the Psalms. One woman thought the current practice was perfect, she was on the worship committee.  She had been to medium sized churches as well as the Cathedral.  One woman said that she did not like singing the psalms as you could not really pay attention to the words, you were so busy trying to figure out the music.  Our Episcopal/Jewish woman sings in the choir and she said, oh, “it is the Jewish way to sing, sing, sing.  I love it. And it is a good learning tool, if you can not memorize. Music makes you remember.”  She also mentioned that she could speak in tongues and proceeded to do so. She said that speaking came easily and she could speak in gibberish.  She then spoke gibberish. When it was my turn, I said that I did not like the Psalms sung, I wanted to pay attention to the words.  Why would you ever take away from the beautiful words?  Plus, few in the congregation join in the song.  And I added that singing took five times as long as to read.  Time is a factor at our church.

 

I bring this conversation up because this is  a classic example of four women in a car. 

October 8/ Cookbook

A little more about Gourmet.  They have a new cook book out called Gourmet Today.  It is at Costco at the moment for $22.89.  They are billing this as “how we really cook”. There are a thousand recipes, and it is similar to Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. I do think the Gourmet book has a little more pizzazz.  It has current trends and keeps prep time in mind.  Oddly enough, it has a free subscription to the magazine attached.