Christmas Gift

We received our first Christmas gift over the weekend. Our neighbors, who spend more time on the road than we do, gave us a poinsettia. It is really pretty. It is so pretty that I decided to share it. I'm trying to get into the Christmas Spirit. Having children around would make it much easier, but receiving gifts is certainly a start.

Jane is working tonight. She continues to push herself. I know we can use the money but wish she would try to let up a little. I know that Jane bought a present for me already. She was all smiles two days ago when she came in being sneaky, telling me to stay away from her car. Hmmmm.... she always buys nice presents. Now, I have to figure out something nice for her. Something that we can take to DC with us when we go there for Christmas with our daughter and grandson. Then bring it back home. Dang, wish I could stop feeling that Christmas is such a hassle. It is such a happy time for so many people. I'm just an old Scrooge. :(

We had a lot of sun and a bit of warmth today. Still supposed to get near freezing tonight. No clouds to hold in that little bit of heat that we had. And, I don't have my honey to cuddle up with tonight. Guess I'll add an extra blanket.

Well, enjoy the Christmas gift. Hoping you are close to completing your shopping.

L8r

Bringing the outside in

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... it's cold in Texas. It rained last night and a little throughout the day. Jane's work called early and told her not to come in. That was good. We cuddled up in bed and saved on the heating bill. :) The only times we've been out was to walk Oscar and he wasn't too keen on long walks. Too "dog"gone cold. He he.

I've been in a picture taking mood. The weather is rotten but the leaves look good. The overcast light is good for saturation. But, I'm a wimp. I grabbed a few nice looking leaves from a neighbors sweet gum tree and brought them inside. I finally came up with an idea that I liked. I taped a leaf to the light globe in the kitchen and got a few images with it backlit. Came out pretty good but I was still not satisfied. Another idea. I increased the intensity by running the resulting RAW image through the HDR software. Voila!! I have always been a fan of strong reds and yellows. Made my day.

It's still cold. And we're still confined to the house. The heating bill is climbing like crazy. But, I got a cool image to add to the collection. I will be glad, though, when the weather is better. Po' folks don't need the huge heat bills and I need to get back to photographing things as they are instead of bringing the outside in. :)

l8r

PS: On second thought, I'll post this one that is THREE RAW images processed through the Dynamic Photo HDR software to make an honest to goodness High Dynamic Range Image. The light on this one is a little flatter and from the front.

It's still raining. I may gather some more of the outside tomorrow and bring it inside. >)

Shut in! Shudda gone to the Seashore

The weather forecast scared us out of our trip to Padre Island National Seashore. It is ugly outside ... and C O L D!!! Jane is under a blanket, napping. She worked last night and is scheduled to work all day tomorrow. I'm entertaining myself with photography and a new piece of software. It probably is miserable along the coast as well. I'm disappointed though. I was so looking forward to a few seascapes and bird photos.
Instead, I'm taking pictures from the back porch and converting them to HDR images. It is interesting. And, I'm learning much more about Adobe Photoshop Elements. I found the necessary Adobe plugin for processing Nikon's RAW format files. Nikon has their own proprietory format known as NEF. I don't know why we can't settle on a standard. I think it has to do with money. Nikon wants $200 for the software to process their proprietory format. Thank goodness for the internet. It took some digging but my persistence saved $200. Maybe I can convince Jane that the $200 I saved should be applied to another Gigabite of RAM for my computer. :)
HDR is a process for expanding the latitude of an exposure. It is intended to save extremely contrasty scenes. To accomplish this, multiple images at different exposures are blended. This image, for example, was created by sandwiching images exposed at two stops over exposure, two stops underexposure and one exposed properly. In the overexposure, the clouds were clipped (or washed out). In the under exposure, the shadows were nearly black. The resulting image maintains details in both the highlights and shadows. Click the image to see a larger example. I may have made it a little dramatic by adding a few "personal" touches. :)
This technique is pretty much reserved for landscapes. Aligning multiple images of racing motorcycles is a bit more than I want to try. As a matter of fact, wind-blown limbs, leaves or waves will discourage any combining of images. But, for landscapes and many seascapes, it's a blast.
I guess the bad weather has a few benefits. I'm thrilled with what I have learned today. And, I'm just getting started. Who says an old dog can't learn new tricks? :)
l8r

Old-Age Depression

I think I've finally figured out the reason for my aggravating feeling of deep "funk" over the past several weeks. It must come from our recent trip to my 50th Class Reunion. Those people were so OLD. It was not a fun reunion. The first thing was the lack of pretty women. My high school class was filled with pretty women. What happened? The years have been hard. I'm looking forward to closing time. You know, the girls all get prettier at closing time. Ha Ha ... somtimes I crack me up.

Second, after a few hours it began to seem as if we were at a Revival Meeting instead of a class reunion. I guess old age has all my classmates preparing for heaven. I began to feel as if I was the only immoral member of our class. I wanted to have fun and they all kept "Praising the Lord." They must all be Republicans. :)

One consolation from the reunion ... I realize what a pretty woman I married. You can see for yourself by browsing these pictures from the reunion. Jane is the pretty one. :)

Anyway, I came away from the "fun" get-together rather dejected ... and depressed. I'm not ready to go to heaven. :-)
l8r

Sunsets, the weather and buying a new truck

It's cool here. A front came through yesterday afternoon. I got outside long enough to enjoy the freshness of the cooler air, and to get a few tasks accomplished. I let one of Jane's roses die. I'm trying to revive it by drowning it. :-) I've pumped water onto the yard for the last three days. Hope that rose returns.
We shopped for a new truck earlier this week. After that trip to the Four Corners Area, we learned that my small V8 is not enough for even our small trailer. It is fine on the flat but those big hills make it whine for mercy. I was whining for mercy after hearing the price of a "cheap" diesel truck -- $44 thousand dollars!!! And, the one I really like is $55K.
Our latest plan is to wait until next year. We'll check for deals on a 2008 after the 2009 trucks are released. We're not planning another long trip until September of next year. Maybe we can get a less-than-40K truck for that trip? :-(
I don't know the cause but we had a gorgeous sunset this evening. Maybe the cold front influenced the colors. I couldn't resist grabbing a camera and snapping off a few frames. Following is one of them. Another advantage of living on a lake. The reflections double the size and intensity of the color.

Again today, I was reminded of how unfair the "Global Economy" can be. A friend's job is being outsourced ... to India. It saddens me to know that the people who count don't standup to the "establishment." The less fortunate, less educated seldom vote or get involved. They feel beaten down and helpless. That's a shame. Only their passionate participation will change the hold Corporate America has on our politicians. We, the people, don't count. We have no money to influence the outcome of an election. All we can count is VOTES.

Please wakeup people. You CAN make a difference. What good is a global economy doing you? Goods are cheaper but you have cheaper jobs. It's sad. The profits remain with the corporate structure but our benefits are in India ... and China. It will be that way until you vote.
l8r

Plans...

It's close. If all goes as planned we'll leave Monday for a short stay at the Padre Island National Seashore. It will be our first outing since the aborted trip to Utah. We're pretty sure it will happen and are hoping for nice weather.

I had to replace the outboard battery in the RV. It was an Interstate battery and we were allowed full-adjustment. We'd had it for only eight months. Since the replacement was free of charge, I decided to purchase a spare. I'm now trying to figure out how the connections are supposed to work. The dealer told me to wire it "negative-to-negative and positive-to-positive." If there is anyone out there with knowledge of such things, I'd like to hear from you. I may have to call our most experienced RVing friends, Bob and Rose.

I've been entertaining myself with membership in a photography club and enrollment in the online photo sharing site ... Flickr. It's addictive. I really enjoy browsing other folks pictures. And, it's a bit like having Pen Pals. I've connected with photographers from around the world and of various levels of skill. Some really put me in my place. These guys a GOOD!!!

I'm not well prepared for a blog post. I just felt guilty from doing so little to maintain my site. Maybe I will have more items of interest after our trip to Padre Island. I'm anxious to see some wildlife ... up close.

Until

l8r

Story with a happy ending

My computer came home this week. It arrived late Monday. I was relieved to find that everything was intact. My clumsy attemt at repairing the problem did not eradicate my data. Whew!

I was able to stay "connected" by using Jane's computer. It is very limited, however. I was not able to work with my photography. I'm looking now at adding memory to this computer. I've been researching something called HDR. It is a technique that requires more software and more memory (RAM). HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It may be a way to increase the latitude in high contrast images. The technique involves "bracketing" the exposure to capture the highlight AND the shadow detail. The multiple exposures (from three to five) are combined or sandwiched into one image, offering detail at both ends of the exposure scale. The use of multiple images is what causes a need for more RAM. I don't know how much more. Happiness is in learning. :-)

l8r