Month: April 2015

A Word About Navigation

It has come to my attention that not everything on this site is obvious to all viewers.

When thumbnail-size images appear in an array across a page — like in the case of the previous post — most folks perhaps know that, if a “pointy-finger hand” icon appears in place of your normal mouse pointer arrow or whatever it may be, you can click on that thumbnail image and see a larger view.  But what most may not know is that you can click again on the larger image that pops up to automatically toggle on and off horizontal bars above and below the large image.  When the bars are toggled on, you can view the file name or title (if one exists) in the top bar, while the bottom bar presents an “x” to collapse the view and get back to the original page along with left-and right-facing arrows on the right side of the bottom bar to navigate through the entire “gallery”.

rDay Thirty-One, One Thing Leads to Another

Took off this morning to see my body shop friend, amid cloudy skies, quickly alternating from overcast to bright sun and everywhere in between in typical Oregon spring fashion.  The first distraction was seeing that I needed to rapidly drive to the other side of town to get some views of the local mountains if I was to capture the highly variable cloud and lighting conditions that give context.  

(Some background:  Mt. Emily has been the area’s most overused visual cliche, and despite my protests, many of my web design clients insist on using its image on their sites.  So I have somewhat capitulated, and have been building an archive of Mt. Emily photographs for such purposes that hopefully at least improve a bit on the usual blandness of what is typically submitted to me.)

The roiling skies had mostly calmed down by the time I found a vantage point, but I gave it a whirl anyway.  

Then, on the way back across town, I spotted a new offering at one of the local car dealers, a mid-2000s Porsche Boxster.  I immediately braked, parked and set to documenting this relative rarity (for this neighborhood), as it happens to be one of my favorite P-car models.  The upshot is that a salesman — a fellow grayhair and, as it turns out, a fast car enthusiast — invited me to take it for a drive.  He rode shotgun, and I learned that he is a classic/hot rod enthusiast who shows his cars around the region.  In fact, we later stepped to his computer where he showed me his very fine 350-engined ’34 Ford pickup.  The test drive lasted nearly an hour, and involved several twisty on-ramps, a freeway sprint to the Ladd Canyon pass, and romps through uninhabited in-progress housing developments.  Thinking better of it at the very last moment, not wanting to trigger heart failure in my beloved spouse as I came into the driveway, I ended up declining the salesman’s offer to take it home for twenty-fours for rigorous testing and inspection.

 

rDay Thirty, Arbor Day

20150424-DSC_0057As I was shooting this afternoon, a guy stepped off his porch and asked me what I was seeing.  I said, “sky, clouds, trees”.  He said, “Oh, I wondered if there was something I should be aware of.”  I said, “Yes, sky, clouds, trees.”

And we continued our walk around the neighborhood …

rDay Thirty, Front Yard Fowl

Here is approximately the view I had out the kitchen window:

20150424-DSC_0008Then I spotted some movement — what I am told are white crown sparrows, nibbling at dandelions.  My lens was too short, my handheld grip was unsteady, and my view through the less-than-pristine window glass killed any potential sharpness.  But let’s severely crop a couple of these shots, and take another look:

Looks like I will never be a birder, but you might want to see a website I built (and fitted some of their photos to the headers) a few years ago — Friends of Ladd Marsh — for people who know what they are doing and how to do it.

And, if anyone is wondering, the lawn mower has not yet returned from repair.  Hence, our minor jungle.

rDay Twenty-Nine

Alternating clouds and sun, mostly the former.  Shopping today: health food store, Safeway, Walmart, BiMart.  Bump into Dennis in Safeway, one day back from Bahrain.  Walkin’ the dog around the ‘hood, sighting cars and oddities along the way.  

Man puts 8 bullets in his Dell, tells police it’s worth the ticket

laptop_bulletholes

On Monday around 7pm, 37-year-old Colorado Springs resident Lucas Hinch took his Dell XPS 410 out into the alley behind the building where he lives and runs a homeopathic herb store, pulled out his 9mm handgun, and put eight bullets through the PC, in cold blood.

More details here