Bridge across the Bokeh
The waterfalls between Portland and The Dalles are connected by an old (by American standards) road with picturesque little bridges.
DrSita’s just crossed one here. The shallow depth of field and blur is deliberate. Honest.
Step #4, Alligator sandwiches, Navelgazing and Last Thursday
Leif's Bread Recipe (click for bigger) DrSita comes back late this evening and in the meantime, I’m baking bread. Sudarat gave me a bread baking stone and it’s getting it’s baptism by yeast today. When DrSita rang yesterday she seemed to be reeling from culture shock from visiting New Orleans, and this morning I turned my computer on and got this Skype message:
[6:21:11 AM] WIFEY! says: i can’t believe i forgot to tell you: i ate alligator!
I dunno, you let her wander off for 48 hours and this kind of thing happens…
What else? I went to Bertie Lou’s this morning for breakfast, had a long chat with Stu & Anne yesterday, watched Cloverfield last night, Hancock the night before, and life’s pretty quiet all in all.
Bertie Lou's- Best Mediocre Breakfast since 1964 I got tagged by Colibrí and El Charro Negro for an “upload a photo and say 16 things about yourself” Flickr meme thing, so i have to do that. I didn’t realise it had to be in Spanish though, and thinking of 16 things to say was harder than I thought so I just googled about for ’50 questions’ type posts and came up with the following:
1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Jesus, that’s a lot of white hairs in me beard. Time for a shave…2. What is your favourite ringtone on your phone?
Any of them are fine EXCEPT the one that I used to have as an alarm at 6am meaning it was time to commute to Sunnyvale for Yahoo(!). Still gives me shivers when I hear it.3. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Hoping DrSita was alright in her haunted hotel in Louisiana. Wishing the Colbert Report would go on a bit longer, and mulling over the implications and repercussions of time travel in LOST.4. What’s a word that you say a lot?
In English, anyroad
In Spanish, orale5. Favorite age you have been so far?
23 was a good vintage.6. What is your current desktop picture?
Laptop: That Ubuntu heron thing
Home PC: Bokeh-y grass
Work PC: Yes we canine. On black.7. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?
Pump the return me money button, rock the machine a bit, send another coin in after it, swear, weep.8. Last magazine you bought?
Word magazine. Best music magazine on the planet. If we lived in the same country for more than 10 months at a time, I’d subscribe.9. Can you cook?
Now and again. I can follow a recipe if it has pictures of what the result’s meant to look like. The House Speciality is Shepherd’s Pie. And right now I’m 6 hours into a bread recipe.10. Last movie you watched?
Cloverfield, 2 hours ago. Monsters rock!11. Do you like marmite?
Hellz yeah! ‘cept nowadays it gives me terrible acid indigestion.12. Favourite crisps?
US: Funyuns
UK: Quavers
Mexico: Lays, amarillo13. Do you own a donor card?
Yep. Help yourselves.
Sellwood Park in the mists 14. Are you a collector of anything?
We move too often to amass a serious amount of anything, I’ve 11 and a half thousand photos on Flickr though and I think my two dual lens vintage cameras might be the start of something bigger….15. Do you believe in ghosts?
Nope.16. Have you ever done anything more self-obsessed than this?
Can I interest you in my blog..? agaveweb.com/blogNow I have to translate all that…
The Continuing Adventures of Me’n’Mario’n’Ange:
Last Thursday. I shifted my hours at L&C to a bit later so we could explore the area a tad. It was a misty morning & Atticus was full of beans and came with us.
I thought the park by the Sellwood bridge would be pretty atmospheric what with all the fog so we had a little wander round there before heading up to Tryon park next to where I work. We managed a fairly large loop of the trails there, the mist had more or less disappeared but the sun was low in the sky and casting some nice beams through the trees. I also took advantage of having two experienced dog handlers to pass Atticus over to so I could use my TTV contraption. Here’s one I liked:
Non-native invasive species We walked briefly around the L&C campus then I went to a meeting about the new CMS we’re going to be adopting at the law school. It’s an impressive system and will eventually make everything run more smoothly… but I think the changeover is going to be a little bumpy. Nothing too severe though, and I likes a challenge.
After than we went CD & poster shopping round Hawthorn way. Word Magazine cost 17 bucks. But it’s rarer than hen’s teeth in Oregon so I bit the bullet and paid up. I shall read it very slowly…
25% of Millennium Music In the evening, ‘tapas gringas’ and beer in Clinton with everyone + a Spanish friend of ours.
Lovely. Anyroad, off to try step #5 in Leif’s recipe…
Cannon Beach Again
Very similar to the one from a couple of days ago, but I like this one too. One of these days I’ll learn how to process black and white shots properly, adjusting the RGB channels and all that.
From labourers to teachers to physicists to web monkeys
Dad just published the fruit of years of research by my Uncle David and Auntie Liz in his Flickrstream– the family tree dating back the 18th century. It’s altogether humbling and an impressive project in itself.
Click to view HUGE file, involves a bit of scrolling... Today DrSita headed off to New Orleans, back on Friday. News as and when. Mario & Ange Pt II:
Last Tuesday, did 9 to 5 on campus, while M&A went to the zoo (i think…), then in the evening Sita cooked (again) and we played a new board game, Sequence, which is like Connect 4, but with cards, teamwork and a lot more vitriol…
Wednesday, 9 to 4 on campus for me, then a walk with ‘Cus and in the evening M&A&me saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in the frozen mists of Moreland. 3 hours long or so, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like a sci-fi Forrest Gump. 4 Lulus.
The Cute Book
This one’s from Powell’s cooking and crafts bookshop on Hawthorn(e?). Taken through the fisheye obviously, which has been enjoying something of a renaissance in my affections of late.
Dr.Sita’s in Tulane till Friday so Me and Atticus might finally get round to getting some pictures printed and sent to my beloved subscribers.Sellwood Morning
T’was a misty morning down by the river in Sellwood. Why matey here was fishing in a river that had clearly posted ‘contaminated water’ signs due to the recent floods is anyone’s guess though. I like to think the local council was paying him to provide ambience…
Cannon Beach (Haystack Rock)
This is from Friday’s jaunt to the seaside. Cannon Beach was looking as lovely as always, Haystack rock, if that is its real name, looked suitably emblemic, and the light, ah the light was golden and gorgeous.
Can we fix it?
Make your own at obamicon.me I hereby promise to post a proper entry tomorrow all about our adventures with Mario and Ange.
Tryon Walkies
And we’re back! Happy MLK day… This is Atticus leading the way around Tryon State Park on a cold morning (you can see his breath)…
It’s official
"Over the Hill" It’s been a great week with all our visitors. There will be photos soon. Promise. Meanwhile: Tonight… bowling, snacks, beer. Tomorrow, airports & farewells. Monday: catching up on a week’s worth of internet…
Tilt-shift Agave Field
There’s a technique known as tilt-shift which makes your photos look like close-ups of a miniature landscape by throwing sections out of focus and whacking up the brightness. It usually takes a good half hour of fiddling with images in Photoshop to achieve the effect and I’ve never really been happy with the results. However, Tiltshiftmaker.com makes things a lot easier…
This photo is from the toll road back from Tequila. We were travelling in a teeny tiny little car…
1st International Tapatían Phototour…
Ange, Mario, Myrna, DrSita y su servidor... Lovin’ it… Busy week ahead 😀
We’ve got visitors
Having a fine old weekend with friends from Mexico staying. Here’s a quick pic from yesterday’s expedition…
Bijou
Taken after stumbling into the street blinking and full after lunch at Bijou in Portland with Tanya and Jonathon.
The sleet had just stopped, the sun came out, and it wouldn’t hail for another hour or so… Good weather for Powell’s books, then bananagrams.
I tried this in black and white, but decided it worked slightly better desaturated.
Starry snowy night
We had another flurry of snow last night, about half an inch, but by the morning it was gone. While it fell I took this long exposure shot with a flash so you get the trails of the snow with some flakes ‘frozen’ by the flash.
End of days
After the snow comes rain. After the rain comes snow.
Red
I’m feeling a little delicate today. Here’s a bold start to 2009.
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
The fourth little piggy built his house out of snow. So Christmas has been and gone, the dog’s chalked up another few thousand air miles and I’ve got lots of new warm clothes for the rest of the winter. It was a lovely break all in all. I sorted out several laptops, got dragged through dozens of sales, all but destroyed several ficus trees, ate better than during the last 6 months, read Sir Pratchett’s Nation (one of his best I reckon) and now have an iPhone Touch to keep me out of trouble. The snow has totally disappeared and I’m at a loss for where to go for photos, though the waterfalls might be pretty impressive at the minute…
Back to work on Monday, but for now we’re weighing up the options for this evening’s seeing in of 2009… The neighbours are having a knees up, there’s a pub crawl in the NE, then there’s always the town centre too. It’ll probably be pretty subdued no matter what, but I’m already eyeing the six pack of zider in the fridge.
Since I’ve been sorting out me iTouch and organising music libraries, I thought I’d do another meme. 20 odd questions and you randomly fill in the answers with whatever the next track is on shuffle. It’s blatantly not aimed at married, thirtysomething males but it’s a chance to go through me iTunes library. If the list doesn’t appear below, click the title or the “More” thing if you’re having a slow day…
