Volume 14 – A New Hope
16 – Eastermas Llama
Easter is a special season. The holiday is one of the celebrations that actually contributed to the creation of the word “holiday”. Over the years traditions evolved in different cultures and somehow, we now have an Easter Bunny to help celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. One popular origin story for the Bunny involves the appropriation of the spring festival celebrating the Germanic Pagan goddess of spring, Ostara, who held rabbits as sacred. The eggs (that I’m told rabbits do not lay) symbolize life and rebirth. As for our family, Easter gifting led to me coining the word “Eastermas” and we somehow have an Easter Llama as a decoration. We enjoy any reason to gather family together to laugh and eat well. I feel Jesus would approve, and chuckle..
15 – Real Art
Lately we have been getting back into the habit of going out to dinner on a more regular basis. Before the lockdowns, we regularly went to dinner with friends, but the practice never really started back up after all the hoopla died down. Part of the reason was the huge spike in pricing brought on by restaurants trying to recoup the losses from months of survival mode. Another factor was that we, as a family, are pretty darned good at food prep. Saturday found us at our second-favorite Mexican restaurant enjoying dinner and their house margaritas. They weren’t as tasty as the house margaritas from our favorite place, but they win the prize for the visuals. In a world where taping a banana to a wall is considered art, these qualify as masterpieces.
14 – Time To Go
When we moved into our house in 1977, there was an established 15′ palm tree in the back yard and another right next to the back wall of the garage. The garage palm left us early as it was in the way of a room addition, but the yard palm eventually reached about 70’. I always grumbled about the palm fronds after every windy day, but it was the seed pods that sealed its fate. 8’ long and fairly heavy, they fall pointy-end down and have decimated the corrugated roof on the new patio and even put a few dents in the metal-roofed gazebo. One nearly hit me while I was picking up fronds and that prompted a call to our favorite tree guy. Carlie and crew showed up at 8:00am on Tuesday and by 11:00am, I was thanking them as they drove off with a full trailer. No regrets.
13 – Cherry Blossom Season
We have eliminated all the old messy trees on the property and replaced them with more manageable versions. The Crepe Myrtles in the front yard drop some stuff, but the front yard redesign will handle that. Our Blood Orange tree has gouged me for the last time and the fantastically tall palm in the back yard will disappear in the coming week. It’s not that we hate trees, but maintaining large foliage that dumps a truckload of crap in your yard holds no appeal for anyone trying to reduce ongoing maintenance. In seeming defiance of our plan, the kids gifted Kim with a Cherry sapling a while ago. This spring, the little thing surprised us with a beautiful bunch of blossoms. As with all trees, there will be maintenance. The photo-ops may be worth it.
12 – Hello, Spring!
On the first Sunday after the Vernal Equinox, we made the drive up the hill to church after a short hiatus due to Jackie’s skating competition and a rather nasty cold the week before. The weather on Sunday morning was an example of why the number of people fleeing the California dumpster fire is lower than one would expect. The sun was shining, the sky was clear and the temperature was very pleasant. As usual, we left a bit early to get gas and stop at our favorite High Desert café for breakfast. Also as usual, the place was packed and breakfast was great. On the way out to the car, Wonderful Wife commented on how pretty the mountains looked. Of course, that triggered photo mode in my brain. I included the sign and the incredibly blue sky, because…sky pretty.
11 – Winning
Sunday was a good day. The sun came up without hiding behind a gloomy layer of clouds and the only reminder of the inclement weather from the last few days was a lovely blanket of snow on the mountains. A beautiful day to drive to the High Desert for church. But we didn’t go. The scheduling conflict that kept us from heading up the hill to church wasn’t in the least bit onerous. Instead, we were witnesses to our minor miracle at the local ice-skating venue. Jackie had her first competition of the year and was performing a variation of her routine that she hadn’t been practicing for very long. Over the last couple of years, we have learned not to worry too much about such things. She absolutely nailed the performance and finished first. Winning is good!
10 – The Best is Yet To Come.
Back in late ‘73 or early ‘74, I expanded my lens arsenal for my Minolta SRT-102 with a Vivitar 75-260 F/4.5 zoom. With the original “kit” 50mm f/1.4, that gave me a total of two lenses. I wasn’t rolling in cash since I was saving up for our wedding, so a fast, fixed focal length telephoto wasn’t an option. It turned out to be an excellent zoom for that era and I think that’s where I developed my current fondness for the convenience of a zoom lens. Over the years, I have owned quite a few and not all were stellar. Happily, in the last decade or two computer-aided design and fancy glass have given zooms image quality that make them more than a convenient option. A good zoom is not cheap, but it is way less than two or three lenses covered by its range. I love a good bargain!
09 – Vegetable Beef Stoup
Though winter is not so gradually fading to spring, the days when a steaming bowl of soup sounds like a good idea for dinner are still with us. I am married to someone who not only loves soup, but has made it a lifelong mission to make soup great again. Whether it is Chicken Tortilla, Chicken Noodle, our House Chili (technically a soup?) or her family’s legacy Vegetable Beef stoup (stew + soup) pictured here, all of them are made to be the entire meal, rather than a course. We use a 16-quart (yeah, that’s 4 gallons) stock pot and 64oz deli containers to make a commercial-sized batch and freeze most of it for easy access to a nice hot meal that can be whipped up in a jiffy whenever the “what’s for dinner” question results in a shoulder shrug and a blank stare.
08 – And Smart Too!
Anybody who has followed the Picture-A-Week Project for a while is familiar with the fact that we are (justifiably, IMHO) proud of our Grandchildren. We are blessed to have three children that grew into successful, well-adjusted adults who have further blessed us with grandkids that are worthy of the overt, unbiased (maybe a little biased) pride we feel when we see what they have accomplished so far. For nearly six years we have seen the little beauty in this week’s image go from a shuffling toddler in rented skates to an amazingly talented figure skater competing and winning against skaters literally twice her age. She is sweet (with my eyes closed at the occasional moody moments) and, as we saw her being recognized as Student of the Month, really smart too.
07 – Glitter Bomb
On Sunday afternoon we had a family gathering to celebrate several events. One of them was Daisy’s third 20th birthday. The first two were local family and this one was sort of a sub-birthday to include her brother and his wife visiting from Phoenix. It was a nice gathering. One feature of the party was Daisy’s special birthday cake made by her Aunt Kassi. It was supposed to be the star of the main party, but the seasonal flu took Kassi out of the picture last week. What was special? If you look at the picture, you will see what looks like a cloud of tiny glitter particles bursting from the cake as the candle is blown out. It looks like that because it actually was a cloud of tiny glitter particles bursting from the cake as the candle is blown out.
06 – Hot Tub
Years ago when we discovered the Sous Vide method of water bath cooking, it changed the way we prepared many different meals. When used for meats, it took the “done” level of steaks and such from roll-of-the-dice to a predictable outcome. A couple of years ago, we found a new use for the technology preparing for our family gatherings. When serving a large group, getting everything cooked and ready to serve at the same time is a challenge. We started putting various foods in large deli containers or Ziploc bags to keep them at serving temperature in the Sous Vide bath until mealtime. Adding a standby AC power supply to the mix made transporting ready-to-serve Super Bowl pasta dishes 50 miles to the venue a breeze. Isn’t tech wonderful?
05 – Snow Bunny
Terrible week for photography. Work was very busy and the urge to seek some recuperative couch time after the final bell was pretty strong. The weekend was taken up with the restart of home projects stalled by a frenetic holiday season. Instead of capturing new photos, I spent a considerable amount of free time exploring the enhanced editing tools that came with the Topaz photo software that I recently updated. The new tools use AI processing, and I decided to try them out on my collection of photographic problem children…old, scanned prints and slides. The results ranged from pretty good to amazing. The best part was finding forgotten gems like this week’s 48-year-old image of an absolutely lovely young lady posing for her husband. (Me.)
04 – Focused
Rain and potential snow on the way to church up in the High Desert moved our Sunday morning plans to the local ice rink for Matthew’s hockey game. We went from cold and rainy to colder and dry to watch the teams battle it out on the field of ice. I didn’t just choose this week’s image for the obvious excitement of a high-speed vignette of an action-filled sport with our favorite hockey player as the subject, I chose it to showcase the autofocus, autoexposure and sensor tech that gives a modern camera the ability to capture images in ambient light where film cameras would need a flash and luck to even come close, if at all. The tracking was able to isolate Matthew in the scene and freeze the action as he flew by at full speed. Magical tech!
03 – Maho Again
Our trip on the Icon of the Seas was interrupted by a few pesky stops at some Caribbean islands. Ok. That’s not really how we felt, but for us the ship was the real destination. Since we had chosen an itinerary which stopped at St. Maarten, a trip to Maho beach was a given. Years ago, when I first saw a photo of the planes skimming the beach as they landed at Princess Juliana Airport, it became a bucket list destination. Unlike the 54-year wait for my Santorini photo-op, it was only about 5 years until we got there. Since Caribbean itineraries are somewhat limited, we have been back a few times and it never gets old. The Sunset Bar at the end of the beach keeps getting bigger as do the crowds, but the spectacle stays the same. Photo fun!
02 – Home Away From Home
Saturday afternoon was spent unpacking and making ourselves at home in our cabin on the Icon of the Seas. The long day of travel on Friday with a frustrating time getting from the airport to the hotel were swept away by the impression left on us by our first glimpse of the “worlds largest cruise ship”. We had seen all the pictures and trailer videos of the ship and read the reviews but the sheer scale of the ship just smacks you in the face when you see it in person. Not just big, but beautiful. The designers pulled out the stops and created a 250K ton, floating work of art. From the artsy, high-tech Pearl staircase on the promenade to the computerized elevator system, nothing failed to impress. A week isn’t time enough to see it all. It was fun trying though!
01 – Learning New Things
Resolutions. Almost everybody makes them at the beginning of the year with hopeful intent to persevere and make the thing resolved come true. A recent poll found that the lifespan of most resolutions is about 4 months. Silly poll. I have been losing weight for over 30 years based on a resolution. Kidding aside, I made a resolution back when I first learned of them to learn something new every day. I haven’t quite kept up the pace after the first year when I read our entire Encyclopedia Brittanica, but I have done pretty well. Over the years I have learned woodworking, photography, and even how to ride a unicycle. This year, I have resolved to learn to make useful things with the 3D printer. Behold the mini-bunny cookie cutter designed from scratch!