Lunch With Mary...

I had lunch with Mary today. Mary D Hume is a steamer built in 1881 to run the coast between San Francisco, California and Gold Beach, Oregon. She ran well for a long time, becoming the oldest working freighter for a short period around 1970. Nowadays she waits for tourists to come take her photo and serves as the place you can walk your dog after driving Highway 101 and seeing the Pacific Ocean.

The rain this year has been unrelenting on the coast, but we went camping anyway. Due to the moisture the Pacific is brown and not very photogenic, but the wildflowers are off the hook! So instead of sunsets and birds and such, here are some flowers for you to enjoy.

 If you are in my own family and read this you are required to sing the Banana Slug Song as you view the pictures. If you don’t know the song then you weren’t there for the good times. It’s a closed club, you are either in or your not. Sorry.

Banana Slug….Banana-nana-nana.

Shasta Photo Club - HDR class

This weekend the Shasta Photo Club had a teaching field trip to Lassen Park where we worked on Panoramic shots and HDR's. The group was great and the teachers were both gracious and patient. Frank Kratofil and Jim Arnold did a wonderful job of explaining the how and when of using HDR and then led us all to do some demonstration photos. This first shot is an HDR blended in Photomatix and then Photoshop CS4.

The shot is a 5 image panorama of Manzanita Lake and Lassen Mountain in Northern California, even though it is the middle of May there is still lots of snow everywhere. After a break for snacks we headed up to the main mountain to wait for the sun to set. We had great clouds but not much color. Oh well, you can't order perfect sunsets, you just have to be ready and be there.

Even though we didn't have great color we still had weather and nice clouds. Everyone learned a little something and a good time was had by all.

 

If you are looking to learn photography a club is a nice way to advance your skills.

The Boys Of Summer

Everyone loves birds - they never hurt anyone, they are cute...What's not to like?

The best part of having a backyard is being able to have bird feeders.

These guys are the best, they are bright and colorful and easy to attract in large numbers. Unfortunately they are voracious eaters... That means they are expensive!

Oh well, they are still very entertaining and they only hang around for a few months.

That's all for today... go out and feed some birds, it is fun and a great time to take some pictures.

Back Out on The Trail

After what seemed like the world's longest rainy season Spring is finally upon us. Now that it finally seems to have dried out, off we went looking for signs of summer.

Years ago there was a plan to dam the Yuba river in Northern California. The "Greenies" had a fit and the state budget didn't have enough money, also if I remember correctly there were a couple of crooked politicians who were stealing.

Never heard of that before.

Anyway - that is enough politics... here are the sights of the Yuba River Wildflower Trail near Wildwood, CA. If you have a chance to get out there before the summer sun turns it into a desert then do it. It is a great flower year!

 

There were Butterflies and their cousins in abundance.

Flowers of every color and waterfalls everywhere.

The array of color is spectacular, reds, yellows, greens, violet the entire pallet

Bye - Bye !

Hurt Goes Both Ways

I disappointed someone today, and to make it worse he is - or claims to be, a Christian brother. I hung up on him after asking him not to call me anymore. And then I blocked him. I did it in anger. I’m still angry.

I could even be wrong.

I really don’t care.

There are people in this world who have the patience and understanding of a saint. Who can accept imperfection in others without a thought to themselves. Who are living examples of Corinthians, the very essence of the passage describing love. Long suffering, never remembering anything against them, living to serve others in prayer and with their human needs.

I am certain that the Lord pairs people like them with people like me to protect them.

We do our best, we try. We forgive for a while. But eventually we have to call out the idiots in this world who choose to be users.

Someone has to look them in the eye and tell them that God loves them, but they are done. The house is closed, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.

So, if I have disappointed you I am sorry -- sort of -- if you deserved it then grow up. And don’t call me, I’ve blocked your number.

How to Make God Smile

For the last few years I have been getting together with a group of buddies and fishing on a river in Oregon. It is always fun and this year was no exception. Due to health problems in our group -- we are all over 50 these days, there were some changes in the cast, but everything was excellent.

As usual my favorite moment was one that could never have been planned, it just happened. We had caught a nice fish and wanted some pictures to torture one of the group who could not attend this year. We staged ourselves with the perfect background and got ready to go. It was a great fish, colored up with bright reds and silver, a hook jaw and strong as a bull. We made fun of the missing member and reveled in our plans to take not just one but multiple pictures with this monster fish. One on the bank, then one in the boat, maybe one in the water with waders on. We had a story all cooked up about how even though the fish all looked alike they were in fact all different. We had just gotten into a group of nice fish that maybe looked similar. So up to the front of the boat we went for our first shot. And then this happened. That fish is living free as I write this, he's probably still laughing at the old guys who have grip the strength of a little girl.

There is a moral to the story: “If you want to make God smile just tell him your plans.”

Life Takes Courage –

A life without courage is a sad thing to behold, mostly because it lacks the fun and vitality that we all know it should hold. For some reason everyone around us can see how we should be living our lives, what careers we should pursue, who we should marry, how we should handle a difficult relationship, yet for those of us actually living our lives it is a constant struggle to make the right decisions.

It’s not the jump into the unknown that is most fearful; it is deciding for yourself how much to jump. Should I completely change my life, or should I just jump off the curb instead. No one is afraid of a six-inch leap, but a sixty-foot cliff is another thing altogether.

I have a friend who changed careers and was told that it would take a minimum of four years to achieve his goals, he did it in less than one year. He chose to burn the bridge behind him and left himself only one way to go, that kind of courage is uncommon. I cannot wait to see the results, I am certain that his leap will change the lives of those who know him, they have seen what is possible with their own eyes.

Others lack the courage to face up to the choices they made earlier. There comes a point in men’s lives where they have to reexamine themselves and what they have become. They may have gone down a path which led them to somewhere they did not intend to go, and yet there they are, their choice is clear – continue down the trail or jump off a new cliff. Both choices may take courage but usually only one is correct.

Make sure you are jumping for the right reasons, not to get away from something but always towards the noble choice. If you are jumping for yourself and you are a grownup make sure it’s you that matters most. When my friend jumped into a new career he had the backing of all who knew and loved him, everyone believed he could do it and he left no wreckage behind. It was a glorious leap.

Have the selflessness to make the good jumps and to back away from the bad ones. Listen to those who truly love you most, they can sometimes see with clarity things which evade us when we are struggling to decide our own destiny. Listen to the counsel of loved ones and be courageous in your choice, then follow the path with fortitude, it is the right leaps that make life worth living.