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Looking Back

As Shirl and Patti observe, and I have also noticed, signs of the end of summer are starting to be visible.  My garden is a bit overgrown and overripe now, and some of the flowers are past their prime, but it was a glorious spring and summer.   

 

 

 

Crape Myrtles

The crape myrtles in Northern Virginia have bloomed gloriously this year except in my yard.  Well, that's not completely true.  1 out of 4 bloomed nicely, the rest were disappointing. Here are some pictures I took earlier today:

We have two crapes at the bottom of our driveway.  Above is the one to the right of the driveway. Below is the one to the left of the driveway.  The left one was replaced last year because the previous one died - of what, we are not sure.  They are supposed to be matching trees.  Do they look like matching trees to you?  They do not to me. The one above, though seemingly healthy and fully leafed out, only grew sparse flowers. The one below did not flower at all:

Above is an older crape (at least 10 years old) on the side of the front yard - our one success of the season.  It flowered nicely. Below is a close up of some of the flowers:

 

Finally, we have another crape in the rear of our house.  This one flowered a bit, but I think it could have done better, and I've scolded it accordingly:

I did give it some points for producing this specimen, but next year, I am expecting more:

Don't Miss

Leora's Farmer's Market Sky. 

She looked up, and she looked down, and captured a perfectly beautiful day.

Gorgeous Nature Photos

Click

Hat tip: Cecil

Now These...

...are some cool photographs.

The Grand Finale

I promise, I am done after this.

They know how to grow flowers in Woodinville, Washington:

The Herbfarm might possibly have been the best restaurant at which I have ever eaten. Better than The French Laundry. Maybe tied with The Inn at Little Washington.

In person, these pansies were darker - for a moment I thought they were actually black.

Seattle Panorama

No Mt. Rainier in the shot, but the full mega-pixel file of this picture is pretty cool, if I must say so.  It can be blown up quite large and huge amounts of detail show up.  I used one of the many available free online panorama makers to make it.  How it's done: You take a series of shots from left to right (or right to left, if that's your preference), keeping them all on the same level, overlapping at will.  Then give them to the panorama maker and press the "stitch" button.  Voila, they are seemlessly put together as one, and you can zoom in and all around and see all kinds of detail.  If you click on the picture above, you will see a larger version, but not the full one.  I can't post anything that big here.

A Few More...

 Seattle - Pike's Market, which reminded me a bit of the markets in Budapest and Barcelona:

More Photos

Continuing the vacation story...

So, to recap, we spent a night in San Francisco, a couple of nights in Napa, and then we left for Seattle - - the only part of the trip which was unexplored territory for me.  My husband had been there before for work, and described to me what an interesting city it was, with beautiful Mt. Rainier in the background.  I was very much looking forward to seeing and photographing it, but unfortunately the mountain remained completely hidden behind heavy clouds the entire time.  Not a trace of it anywhere - and we really looked. But it was ok - we had a great time anyway.

One of the nicest things we were able to do was to meet Draftervoi (Dave) and his wife Teri for breakfast prior to leaving for Seattle.  I've been corresponding with a group of people on a message board for the past 10 years and Dave is one of them.  He and I have had some fascinating political discussions and I was really looking forward to finally meeting him.   The meeting was fun, but all too short because we had to leave for the airport. So many things to talk about, and so little time!  Hoping we have an opportunity to do it again one of these days.

Leaving San Francisco:

 

On some of these, you can see smoke from the recent terrible West coast wildfires:

 

Napa Views

 

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

We traveled from Seattle, WA to Newark, NJ yesterday and spent the night in NYCity.  Husband has business to do here, and I am spending the day on my own. I leave for Virginia this evening and he goes home tomorrow.  I've been working on a list of things I want to see/do today.  Trying to pace myself though because I am tired and not yet back on east coast time, I have a long day ahead of me, and once I check out of the hotel and check my luggage, I have no place to go to hang out and rest.  Good time as any to post some pictures.

Backyard garden at the Union St. Bed and Breakfast, San Francisco.  Cool place to stay, but lots of steps and no elevator.  We had huge heavy suitcases because we were going to be traveling for over a week. Woke up before dawn for a 7 am flight, flew all day, hit horrible traffic coming into town from the airport due to Gay pride parade (at least there were amusements to keep us busy while we were bumper to bumper - Giant men dressed as butterflies! (Wo?)men wearing nose rings and army boots!  Tattooes rivaling Bradbury's Illustrated Man!) and then we arrive and have to schlep bags up steps.  I was cranky to the lovely people who greeted us on arrival.  I apologized later, but still feel bad about it. But really, they ought to warn people. 

The B&B was a lovely place to stay.  Very friendly staff, great breakfast the next morning. Each room uniquely decorated.  It was in a very nice part of town - kind of a tease because we had no time to explore it in detail.

Napa Valley grape vines.

 

Striped petunias.

A lime. (God, this must be so fascinating for you.  There's truly nothing as wonderful as someone else's vacation photos)

I suspect you can guess what this is.

Oh, I see.  That pic up above may not have been a lime after all. Notice in the upper left on this one, a dark green fruit.  Conclusion drawn: Lemons start out dark green and then turn yellow as they ripen.  One learns all sorts of interesting things when one travels, I must say.  Next trip:  I will try to determine if limes start out yellow and then turn green as THEY ripen.

These pictures were taken at Caymus winery, by the way, which has a nice garden.

 

They also have some nice wine.

More to follow.

View From a Plane

From Virginia to San Francisco:

 

Great Photography

Truly beautiful and interesting pictures of flowers. 

Late Spring

 

Self-Portrait

Virginia Beach 5/17/08

Just some pics of random people - surfing, flying kites. It was a delightful weekend.

ManBabies

Those are some strange looking photos.

A Morning Walk in Old Town

 

 

   

Spring Pansies in the Rain

They've come back very nicely from the way they looked a few months ago, after an ice storm squashed them flat:

Cayman Slideshow

Grand Cayman

Made with Panorama Composer

Cool

You know they way they have 360-degree panoramic photographs?  How about a 360-degree panoramic VIDEO?  

It's called, "immersive video."

Forbidden Pictures

Pictures taken in places where photography is not allowed.

Ice

   

My poor pansies:

The ice created serious problems for some yesterday. Many had difficulties getting out to vote.  The evening network news had cameras aimed at pedestrians in Northern VA, and practically everyone was slipping and falling on the black ice. This morning, school opening in my area was delayed 2 hours.  Taking daughter to school late meant missing my art class. 

Contrast

Taken less than an hour ago:

 

 

 

 

 

Taken this past spring and summer, same location:

 

 

Windows to the Soul

...in a range of colors.

Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007

More pictures accompanied by lots of interesting commentary.

Also: Some very nice astronomy wallpaper here. I change my background periodically.  Right now, I am using the picture of the Andromeda Galaxy on the left.

Has Photography Lost its Soul?

Has photoshop killed photography?

Did plastic kill leather?

Seasons

First snowfall of the season, a few minutes ago:

A Walk Around the Lake

Yesterday afternoon, Halloween. Very few people around. The forest was a bit spooky.  Well, more than a bit. I stayed for 1/2 an hour, then had to go pick up daughter from school. I wondered, if someone murdered me and left my body in the woods, what would she do to get home?

I watch too much CSI.

Obviously up to no good.

The Twins at Three Months

Was up in Rhode Island visiting family this weekend. Had a blast playing with, feeding, and photographing my nephews:

This Morning's Pictures

A couple are backyard foliage, the rest are of the Potomac River and Old Town, Alexandria:

 

 

 

This Morning's Pictures

Went for a walk this morning before class:

Potomac Ducks

Note to self: Next time, find potty trained birds to photograph.

Guess Whose Eye That is?

Finally figured out how to photograph it.

Kitchen Flowers

New Camera Arrived Today

Effective Photographic Technique

Check out these pictures, taken with flash and without.

What A Fabulous Shot!

Shirl captures the moon.

Take Me Away From the Ballgame

My family knows I have no interest in baseball, but they like it when I go with them to ball games every so often.  I usually go to one or two baseball games a year.  This past weekend I did my duty, closed my eyes, thought of England, and went.   We had great seats which might have been totally wasted on me, except that I came up with an idea to keep myself busy.  I took pictures.   

Oh, this was going to be fun, I thought as I snapped the mascot:

But then I discovered a problem.  There was netting in front of us which was there to protect the crowd from getting hit by the ball.  My camera loved that damned netting and only wanted to focus on it, instead of the action behind it:

If I zoomed back and shot from a distance, there was no problem:

But when I tried to zoom in more closely, the same thing would always happen. Nice looking net, but not what I really wanted to photograph:

I finally figured out that the camera didn't notice the net right off and that if I snapped the picture very quickly, I could get off a zoomed-in shot while it remained focused on the players:

It took a bit of messing around with things to figure out how to wait for the pitch AND get the focus right as well. Notice, I was paying zero attention to the game. The Nationals were playing the Padres, by the way, for those who are interested. The score was 6-0 by the time I realized anyone had scored, or even where the scoreboard was:

Look! You can actually see the ball on this one. I was so pleased to have caught this wonderful and amazing thing.  Well, I had to get excited about something, didn't I. To me, when baseball is on TV it might as well be a screen filled with static.  (I deeply apologize to the baseball fans out there for being such a killjoy):

Wow, look.  The pitcher has the ball:

Next, a picture of the players watching the game:

Oh, an interesting t-shirt:

Back to the game.  My that umpire has broad shoulders, doesn't he.  Not bad for an older...oh, yeah, baseball:

I caught the ball:

And then caught it again.  My but he has a nice...uh...stance:

Oh, what's this? 

No explanation, the presidents just showed up, without a word, accompanied by a lizard from the other world, no doubt. Did anyone interview them about the situation in the Middle East?   

Before I had a chance to yell out, "When do you think the troops should leave Iraq?" they were gone. Just like that:

Party's over.  Back to this monotonous game er, I mean, entertainment:

It had reached the point where I had to find something else to do.  I was beginning to feel like I was in an episode of the original Star Trek where, on a certain prison planet they put prisoners in front of a whirling vortex which would empty their minds of everything and they were so bereft of thoughts, it was torture.  There are other things to see and think about here.  There must be.  Let's explore strange new life and civilizations, and go boldly where no baseball fan has been been before. 

Lights!

Hmm.  Interesting in close up, are they not?

I call this next one, "A picture of a picture behind a net"

   

Oh, what's this?  Here's a diversion!  This man is going to film us.  He wants us to say hi to him, and to wave:

Ah, seems a willing fan has been found:

One last picture before putting the camera away:

And that's a wrap until next season, folks, when I am forced to undergo  um, I mean, when I joyfully attend another delightful sporting event.