2011-04-15 Thursday's lunch break stroll through Orange

I needed to drop a check off at Wells Fargo, so took the opportunity on my morning break to walk to Starbucks/Wells Fargo and grabbed a snack while I was at it. I brought my little camera and took a few pictures along the way. This was like an appetizer though. I wanted to take pictures for the rest of this beautiful day!

So at lunch I took my serious camera for a walk. By then the sidewalks were teaming with like minded strollers out enjoying the beautiful Spring weather, so I ducked down a side street and went flower hunting through the residential streets.

2011-04-13 Wednesday

Wow, it had been so long since I'd posted on Blogger when I went to post yesterday that I messed up my own themes and put my garden entry on this one. I'd intended this one for local travel so I've moved that. Meaning, if you were here in the past 24 hours and are just sure you saw a post about our new "Creeping Cape Lilac". That post has been moved to the "Home Home on the Range" branch. I'll take you to the UCI Arboretum instead. If I can get this thing to cooperate with loading photos that is. I had the darnedest time yesterday loading photos that are on Flickr. I couldn't get "paste" to work at all. So today I read the Blogger "Help" and one solution was to try clearing the cache. The other was to use "Firefox" (I was on "Explorer" at the time). Using Firefox sounded like the easiest of the two since I already had it loaded and sure enough, that worked. So maybe the photo pasting will go better for me today. Here goes . . . How's that? Do you see the picture or just a bunch of characters? So far I see just characters. What happens if I click save? It stays the same. OK, I'll try "grab link" instead of "grab code" . . . http://www.flickr.com/photos/twobears2/5603951555/ How's that? Still I only see the characters and I've already clicked "Save". Grrr. OK, I could go into Flickr and try "Share". I've been having trouble with that too though, because it only sees one of my 4 (or is it 5?) blogs and won't let me train it, but this is the one it sees so I could try it-- still, yesterday Flickr insisted that it wanted to make a new entry and I don't want it in a new one, I want it in this one. I used to be able to do this easily. I'm thinking they've made too many changes to Blogger since I used it last November. Are they trying to frustrate me? Well, hold that thought. I may be back tonight, but since I've gotten home from work I've been gardening (i.e., am now exhausted) and I have not eaten yet (i.e. am on the verge of being cranky), so I'm in no mood for foolishness. :-) So more likely I'll try to get the image in here tomorrow. I'm going to post this though, just in case that is the magic I've yet to try. P.S. It was! It was! Hurray! Now I just have to remember that it's the "Grab Code" option in Flickr. Remind me if I forget, Okay?

2010-11-16 Tuesday at Balboa Island

Don was off today. We spent much of the day preparing for a camping trip, and then made a stop at the Newport Beach Public Library where I bought a couple of biographies: Zane Grey and Julie Andrews, and a book about angels. On the way home, drawn in by dramatic lighting, we detoured to Balboa Island and stayed long enough for a few photos.

2010-11-15 Photo day

Don and I took a week off from work, but then Don had to work today after-all, so I spent the day with my 70-300 mm lens. I left the camera on automatic most of the time--which caused a lot of my images to be out of focus either because of a very shallow depth of field, or because of too slow of a shutter speed, or both. I just didn't seem to have the patience today for constant lighting changes--being in and out of shade and then missing a good shot all-together because the setting was wrong--so for spontaneity's sake I settled for automatic. Another day I might try less magnification for greater clarity, but this was fun. I did use a wide angle lens for one shot of a large tree, but found I really needed the long lens for the caged creatures if I was going to have any hope at all of eliminating the cages--not all that much success on that front though. The Orange County Zoo at Irvine Regional Park in Orange has rather finely meshed cages, much to my consternation.


Nearby sign reads "Pony Rides".


Woodpecker in Sycamore tree.


Bald Eagle


For my HBPL friends.


Sycamore tree.


Woodpecker in Sycamore tree.


Peacock


Train tunnel,


Peacock


Is this a pepper tree?


Coyote


Coyote


Benches


Bald Eagle


Sycamore trees.


Mine


Peacock


Peacock

2010-11-14 Roses

Greetings and salutations!
So, not too long ago when I posted a photograph of a rose on my Flickr account, I discovered a message attached to it inviting me to join the "il ROSETO" rose photo group. I viewed the group's photos and even though at least half of the comments attached to photos there were languages I didn't understand, or maybe because of that, I joined.
Seeing the really beautiful images there of roses, and how the ones that stand out get umpteen million comments on them-agreements that they are as exquisite as I thought, I've been inspired to improve my rose photography--which is why if you go to my Flicker account these days, you will probably be bombarded with roses. And now, lucky you, they are spilling over to the blog.
Fortunately for me, I only have to travel about 3 miles to get to an excellent rose garden, as the Westminster City Hall has sponsored the Orange County Rose Society for years---I think since 1969 actually.
So here are a few practice shots from yesterday afternoon.

Friday at the Aquarium of the Pacific

Saturday (Oct 16) was a workday for me, so I had Friday off. Friday was the last day that our free Chapman tickets to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach were good, so after Don's doctor visit (he checks out in top shape after his ablation surgery two weeks before), off we went to the Aquarium. Many of the tanks are open at the top to the outside, so get natural sunlight. This being an overcast day though, lighting was a bit dim and my camera settings were set for the dimmest of conditions; with a "Hi1" ISO (equivelent to 3200) which I hoped would allow me some depth of field and reasonable shutter speeds--hee-hee, as it turns out though, silly me didn't notice that I had previously set the camera to a -2.3EV adjustment. Grrrrr.
So images are a bit dark, but here are a few, and later I'll post a few of Don's videos: