A couple of days ago, we had a glorious sunrise. I was shooting through the living room window which is not really sparkling clean. Its too bad we do not have underground services. All the lines are so ugly against the beautiful sky.
I have been for my blood tests again and see Dr. Donna tomorrow and Dr. Sparanese in a couple weeks. ho hum. I am trying to eat less to loose a few pounds. Would be nice to get into my little black suit by May for our trip to Russia.
These swans were at Esquimalt lagoon a couple of days ago. People were feeding them and the geese and ducks. I was not in the area where the flocks of birds were feeding. These shots turned out not too bad for the zoom required to get them. No tripod, just handheld. The image stabilzer on the Canon S3 IS is really very good. I think I will load these to Flickr in a day or two.
This gravel pit is scheduled to become a huge development project. I finally manged to get a few shots of the area before it is no longer in operation. It was a cloudy day and I was shooting into the sun, again. They are not too bad for all of that!
Yesterday we went for lunch at the Checkered Flag. They have quite an extensive menu. Was very nice. The place is covered in really old car pictures. Interesting to see all the kinds of autos from 1895 and on up.
After lunch we drove about a bit. Past the gravel pit that is going to one day be a big development of houses. We stopped for a view over the area and I managed to get a few shots of this gravel pit still in operation. Then we saw a ferry heading for the drydock in Esquimalt, probably. And finally a stop at Esquimalt lagoon for some swan pictures. None of these great but will try tweak them... maybe tomorrow.
Walked a bit today. Am going to try and fit into my little black pant suit by May... so this is going to take a lot more walking and a lot less eating, if I am going to manage it by May. Even the short walk I had today was refreshing. I am getting sooooo fat and stodgy.
This little cyclamen is in full bloom on the little rockery by the path next to the garage. It is the best little plant - grows from a corm. I have the red polyanthus (primula) in bloom also.
I played with the helicopter rides (see the link to the right) My highest scare tonite was 426. I do not feel like doing any photoshop or Flickr stuff today. It was too cool to go outside, although the sun was shining. I really should get out and prune the roses and anything else that needs it.. and lots of things do need to be clipped back.
This blue poppy in the rain that I shot at the Gardens in Vancouver, when we were there with Pam, has been on my blog before. BUT, I am trying to learn how to do Out of Frame photos and the Out of Bounds framing, too. So far, I have done this rendition of the blue poppy as an out of frame. I still need practise. I also need much more practise on the Out of Bounds ones. Just takes doing it until you understand how it works, I guess. This out of frame blue poppy was done with the pen tool in photoshop, so I have learned how it works, maybe. :)
I have spent a lot of time on Flickr in the last couple of days 'cause I added my Iceberg rose to the Mega Shot group and had to do follow up on that. This takes me ages to do. Plus I did a bit extra. I have no idea how people do hoards of these comments and adding photos in one day.
After a couple of tries I managed to get this Out of Frame made in photoshop using the tutorial here
I can see lots of mistakes and I must do it over again. I still have not managed to do a good Out of Bounds frame... cannot get the shadows to work... or much else, really. The best tutorial I found for Out of Bounds frames is the one by Serrator
We had the cabbage rolls that I made yesterday, for dinner tonite. They were yummy. I have half of the batch frozen for a quick dinner sometime.
Yesterday I made up a double batch of baked beans. I now have 2 one litre containers of beans frozen and ready for a quick meal. We shall have about a litre and a half for dinner tonite, with bread and spinach.
Baked Beans
1 onion sliced 2 tsp dry mustard
1 ½ tsp. salt ¼ lb salt pork sliced
¼ cup brown sugar ¼ cup molasses
¼ tsp. pepper
Cover tightly and soak for an hour or more. Add mustard, salt and ¼ tsp. pepper.
Cover and cook on top of stove about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 149 C…300 F.
Place half of beans and half liquid in bean pot over which put onion, half of brown sugar half molasses and half of the pork. Add remaining beans, brown sugar, and molasses with sliced pork on top and sprinkle on the ¼ tsp. of pepper.
Cook, covered 4 to 5 hours. Remove cover for last half hour to brown pork. Add liquid
If required or 1 - 14 oz (397 g) tin tomatoes.
Serves 6 to 8
Today, I have made a large roasting pan full of cabbage rolls. I shall freeze half of them when they are finished baking.
I will have some cabbage rolls, backed beans, spaghetti sauce frozen and ready to eat, for a quick dinner when I should need it. I also have a few jars of yellow plum sauce frozen. This stuff is superb on banana or apple pancakes. It makes a nice ice cream or berry cup topping too.
Loaded a few more photos to Flickr for the Victoria Grid project. Here are a couple of them.
Flickr was having hiccups and went down before I could finish sorting the photos and posting to groups. Oh well.
I have loaded these 6 photos to Flickr's Victoria Grid project for January. The grid is at 10 mile point this month. When I was out shooting there was very bright sunshine. I was shooting south over the water. Despite those difficult shooting conditions I think the water ones turned out not too bad, after all.
Steve C. is getting his photos from his trip to China set up in a new album on his web site. Gorgeous landscapes. He is getting to be more and more well known for his photography and managing to sell a few, too.
Yesterday we went out to the place that used to be the George and Dragon. It is all newly renovated and looks really good. The food is pub style, but really quite good. So, next time we go to the Belfrey we will be able to have dinner here.
Quite some time ago I made a pdf and added music to it. I thought I had made the slide show with the adobe reader and added the music with that program also. I spent a few hours last nite trying to get this to work, but could not make it work. I can make the slide shows with adobe photoshop but cannot add the music. I have concluded that I must have had a trial version of the adobe acrobat program that I used to make the slide show with music. This program costs in the range of $200. I am debating getting the toy, or not. Its fun to play with, but I have so many other things happening now. I don't know how to attach the .pdf to this blog... I shall have to load it to my web page, I guess and then link to it.
I have found my notes on how I made the slide show:
Create a slide show in Adobe Photo album and save
Open in Adobe Reader and hit the X top right
Go to the Picture Tasks Icon in the menu at the top
Export to
And add the music
Select all
And export or save…
Change the fade, etc and add music
save
Strong quakes roll off
From the Times Colonist
A series of strong earthquakes rumbled off the northern tip of
The two strongest quakes, both measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, hit 225 kilometers west of Port Hardy within 45 minutes of each other at
A slightly smaller quake happened before the 6.5 tremors, with several smaller tremors afterwards, including some reported late last night.
No tsunami warnings were in effect as of last night and none was expected.
In Port Hardy, police said that there had been no apparent damage or injuries.
The quakes’ epicenter was in the same area, south of the
Some residents of Bella Bella reported feeling the quakes, as did residents of Port Hardy and Port McNeill.
The site and magnitude of the quakes was not unusual, said seismologist Stephane Mazzotti, with the Pacific Geoscience Centre in
If the quakes had occurred near a town, they could have caused considerable structural damage.
Of the top 10 biggest quakes in Canadian history, according to the government website, eight of them had a magnitude between seven and ten. The eighth and ninth each had magnitudes of 6.9 with one of those in B.C.
I finally finished my North Vancouver Island album and loaded it to my web page. More to be seen here=
I was having fits when I couldn't get my WS_FTP thing to work... first time I tried to use it since Trevor reloaded my PC. Finally got it. Here are a few of the photos from the album. I was using my old Canon Powershot A50.. not bad for the little point and shoot. I did not know much about file size then, either. I didn't know it shot in RAW or even what RAW was.
This little girl at the campsite at Port McNeil was making her cat smile for the camera. Too cute.
Flares that I might want to add to my Flickr account. 
We watched them unload this logging machine from a truck and start it working in the bush. This thing would do clear cut logging.
More flares... from the campsite at Port McNeil.
Some rust, from Kelsey Bay, I believe.
A retired logging truck seen at Winter Harbor. We must go back there, although its probably all changed by now, with all the new development happening up island.
The board walk at Winter Harbor.
I have been playing in photoshop a bit, learning how to use some of the features. This thistle has an embossed edge, with a bit of noise added. I did a different edge today using the outer bevel thing with a texture on it. There are a bizillion combinations.
Yesterday the VCCC had its annual tour and doughnut stop at McCall's at the end of the run. It was a cool but no rain light cloudy day. A very nice run organized by Reg, Helen and Bob, Joan. Was good to see everyone. Happy New years all around, of course.
Don W. and John and Is phoned today... more happy new years.. everyone seems to be doing fine.
