travel spot: Friends

Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts

11.24.2011

Ten Days of Thanksgiving: Days 9 and 10

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that you are actually reading this on Friday, after you have successfully stuffed yourself with food on Thursday and so you couldn’t get off the couch, even to read blogs (gasp)! Or maybe it’s Thursday and you are tired of watching your uncle Leo yell at the football game, so you have popped online for a brief respite!

Today marks the last two days of Ten Days of Thanksgiving (inspired by Lisa). It has been fun to do this, both to remember the little things and because it makes me realize how many there are! It was HARD to narrow it down to only 10! I hope that you joined along, whether publicly or privately, and that we all keep remembering to be glad of the little things all year round. Happy Holidays!

And now, numbers 9 and 10!

United Airlines: I have to admit, I sometimes use Delta, but generally United carries me across the nation to see the ones that I love. Be it West or East, United gets me to where I need to go. Luckily I travel a lot for work, so when I want to travel for pleasure, I have a few points saved up for fun! Also, earlier this year when my flight from San Francisco to Sacramento (a 30 minute flight) was delayed for a couple of hours, they gave me a $200 voucher for my troubles. Thanks to United, today I am Back East, celebrating the overeating of turkey and the playing of Pictionary with my friends and family.

In addition to the United plane seen here, I saw Air Force One in San Francisco!!!

Travel: I am thankful for travel for many different reasons. First, I find that travel broadens the mind and opens up the horizons. No matter if you are going to Missouri or France, you learn something about people, history and landscapes, just from going to a new place. And from there, you may learn something about yourself. Other than that, I am thankful that I get to travel. This year I was lucky enough to go on several trips, including a Round The World trip which ended in May! I also got to spend a lot of time with friends and family, which has been great since I am normally so far away from them!

Going boonie bashing with my parents -- Northern CA

Me and Mark Twain -- Hartford, CT

River Float Trip -- Current River, MO

Drinks at Limon with H -- San Francisco, CA

Grandma S's house -- MA

Fishing with Bro -- Marin County, CA

Racing with M -- Newburyport, MA

Me and Dad -- Markleeville, CA

Dancing with Penguins -- KC, MO

A's first birthday -- Sacramento, CA

Road Trip to Reno, NV

Cardinals Game -- St. Louis, MO

NYC, NY with the B's

Meetup with Lisa -- Minneapolis, MN

Raise your glass! A, K and K -- East Bay, CA

I hope that you are having a great day with YOUR friends and family! Gobble, gobble!

Where have you traveled this year? Do you travel for work or for fun? Do you get to see your friends and family a lot?

11.07.2011

An Apple a Day Monday: I

As you may know, fall is apple season. You are probably tired of the “pick your own apple” places and all the apple hype, but I am not. I love apples. I am so happy to have several trees to “pick” from at home. Last weekend, an orchard near us invited everyone to come join them in picking the last of their apples and making cider from them. You could bring your own apples if you liked, even knobby, small or slightly holey ones or you could use their apples if you didn’t have your own (free of charge). Once picked, the apples went into a hand cranked cider press and came out as cider! It was great fun! We brought some of our own apples, picked some of theirs (and ate many of theirs!) and hand pressed our own yummy apple cider.

There was also a pot-luck, so we brought a dish to share and some chairs and hung out all day with friends and family, chatting, taking photos, eating apples and enjoying the fall weather (which has been unseasonably warm this year!)

Next up: There is more than one way to skin an apple. Don’t forget to check back next Monday to find out how...and for another edition of “An Apple a Day”, which will be a feature each Monday in November.

What is your favorite apple related food? Have you ever picked your own apples? How do you get YOUR apple a day?

10.27.2011

8:12 On The Go

This week's assignment was about taking photos of things that are in motion (<--- pdf for lesson here), which can be very difficult. I am sure we have all gotten photos like this of babies, dogs, athletes or even your family eating Thanksgiving dinner:

Note that my friend who is holding the baby is not blurry. The baby, on the other hand, is moving just enough to be a little blurred, which ruined an otherwise good photo.

So how do we get it so the subject is not blurry and the action is frozen? There are a few things you can do. You can adjust your shutter speed so that it is faster (If you have a point and shoot, use the "sport" setting, which is the icon of the running man). This, as we learned in lesson two (the one with the water on the glass) can decrease our lighting. So, we may need to bump up the ISO or lower the f/stop. Remember the Exposure Triangle?

Our Assignment this week was to do one or more of the following:

1. Use a fast shutter speed outdoors to photograph your moving subject
2. Experiment with panning
3. Embrace a little blur indoors
3. Take action - practice your skills at a sporting event
4. Take a portrait of your pet-in-motion

Here are a couple examples. I chose number 1 and kind of, but not really number 4. I just noticed there are two number 3s, which doesn't matter since I did not really practice either of them.

The first photo of Lucy was taken with a shutter speed of 1/250, an aperture of f/5.3 and an ISO of about 3200.

The second photo was taken with a shutter speed of 1/800. The suggested setting is at least 1/640 outdoors and at least 1/250 indoors. As you can see, it freezes the action enough to catch me in midair and catch that little bit of sand being kicked up. Isn't that fun? The ISO in this photo is 640 and the aperture is f/8.0. The only thing that needs work now is that the photo is exposed on the background instead of the subject, which makes the subject's face dark. That is one thing the lesson suggests, is using Manual Mode, so you can expose the light to the subject's face rather than the background.

What have I learned? I have an easier time "stopping the action" when I am outside, since there is more light and it is easier to up the shutter speed without compromising your light. When indoors, it is hard to get a good balance. I am definitely getting more comfortable with upping my ISO, which I was not really using when I started taking photos with my new camera. I thought I had to slow DOWN the shutter to get enough light, when instead I should speed it up and raise the ISO.

Join us next week when we talk about Portraits. Don't forget to link up with Kate!

Have you ever tried taking action photos?

10.23.2011

Sam I Am

This week's beer is... Sam Adams. I have to admit, I am not a fan of their Summer Ale. However, I may have to try one of their fall or winter brews this weekend, while I am at...guess, guess....

You guessed it, I am in Massachusetts this weekend, racing in the Newburyport Green Stride Half Marathon. I am probably running right now, as you are drinking your coffee and reading this post. So, you know the drill, put down the coffee, grab a beer, and look what happened to me this week! (Inspired by Kim) (photo credit)

It was another busy week, but in a different sort of way this time. On Monday I finished up with my last client in Cape Girardeau and headed to Columbia to check out of the office. Now I am once again jobless! Back to the old drawing board. But first, let's start at the beginning...

Last weekend one of my very dearest friends came to visit me! She and I have been friends since...well probably about 20 years. We played little league together. Her nickname is Red.

We decided to do some hiking at the Trail of Tears State Park. Along the way, we found....More Ponies! These ones let us touch them!

Then we went hiking! It was great! Except I told Red that the trail had "a few hills". I didn't remember that it was quite strenuous! We took her dog Lucy and poor Lucy was tuckered out afterwards (and so were we!)

Even though she was tuckered out, she was happy to dress in this banana split costume and pose for the camera. Can't you tell how happy she was?

The foliage, or as my family likes to jokingly call it, FOILAGE, is beautiful right now!

After Red left, I took at 16 mile run, my last run in Cape. It was 90 degrees. It was brutal. This is the Cape LaCroix Creek trail, where I have been running for the last 4 months.

And then it was time for me to leave Cape. A departing shot of my "home", the Candlewood Suites.The drive to Columbia is about 4 hours. It rained the entire time.

I had to check out all my equipment and I said goodbye to my friends in the office in Columbia. More importantly though, I checked the color of my urine against this chart in the bathroom. My favorite? The second one from the top...in case you can't read it, it says, "You're just fine. You could stand to drink a little water now, maybe a small glass of water." Who writes these? And who has pee the color of the bottom one? If you do, you better get to the doc ASAP! (or maybe you ate beets?)

And then? One last run in Missouri. This time the weather was in the 40s.

Total miles this week: 30.

And now?

Wish me luck. Hopefully I get a beer when I am done!

What did you do this week? Do you live close to your best friends? What friend have you had the longest? Have you ever dressed up your dog in a costume?

8.21.2011

Lost Coast

source

You may be familiar with the Lost Coast Brewery? NO? Well, shame on you. It's in Eureka, CA, which if you don't know where that is, is in Humboldt County, yes the one of the legendary weed, and also the home of CSU, Humboldt. Also, another random factoid: do you remember the scene in Return of the Jedi when they are in the forest with the Ewoks? That is Fern Canyon, and it too is in Humboldt County. And it is gorgeous!

The reason I picked this as my beer of choice for Kim's blog hop is that, as you may know, I went home last weekend/week. So my this weeks Look What I Did Last Week (<----- click here for my older beers and posts) has a lot of California in it. So, get your beer in hand and get comfortable!

The big event and reason I went to CA was...this little girl's 1st birthday! How exciting!

She is my best friend's daughter, aka, my neice. Can't you see the resemblance?

In honor of her birthday, my friend's MIL wanted to throw her a big party. With hundreds of people, and decorations and favors and food and...(you are probably wondering WHY, but this my friend is another story in itself!)

So we made 300 cake pops. No joke.

You can find the recipe HERE.

We had a few casualties. What do you expect? The poor thing was like, "Nobody sees me as an individual! They just want to use me! Don't they see I am more than just a sweet little ball of strawberry? Cake pops have feelings too! There is nothing left for me in this life!"

Plop.

Just a very tiny part of our 300 pop assembly line. A.Very.Small.Part. (it took 3-6 of us 12-14 hours to make all 300, roll them, dip them, sprinkle them, wrap them, tie them and label them).

Then I got up really early the next morning and snuck out for a (very awesome 6 mile, 60 degree) run before anyone could make me wrap another cake pop (or dip. or sprinkle. or roll. or.....PLOP!)

But they found me. And made me start helping with the decorations.

See those small balloons? I tied all those balloons. I am not exaggerating. 20 tables, 3 balloons each (the big ones, praise the lord, were self closing) plus extras for the porch and the gift table etc. My fingers were sore for days. I could barely open a beer. Kidding. This was a booze free party - I am not sure why...is there something wrong with an alcohol fueled 1 yr old birthday party?

Then I went home for a couple of days so I could get a vacation from the party! I did not take these while driving. Okay, maybe I did.

I took advantage of my favorite time of year at home and one of my favorite fruits by picking some blackberries (YUMMY! pick one, eat one, pick one, eat two...etc) and making blackberry cobbler! The recipe will be posted later this week.

(ps I can't believe I paid $3 for a tiny tub of these at the farmers market. If only they were ripe every time I went home!)

I went to visit my oldest friend. Not oldest like she's 100 years old, but the one I have known the longest. Remember this post about my first day of school -- she's the one with the Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox. I was so jealous of that box. It was metal and her mom gave her way cooler things in her matching thermos. Way. Cooler. Now she's a mom and will soon be packing a way cool lunch for her little boy.