March 3, 2008

My butterfly

Zoe has developed favorites among her animals. She calls them her “babies” and carries them around, and they get special kisses at night before bed. Sometimes they go to Grandma Carol’s with her and get carried around there, then brought home again at night. She’s a very good little mother.

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February 29, 2008

Shhhhhh!

I’m tired, and grumpy (due in no small part to M’s flights being jacked up and therefore him not returning home this evening as planned) and was starting to write a pathetic “poor me” diatribe here when I decided that not only was it shitty to write that, it would be even more shitty to make you all read it.

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February 27, 2008

M = Meatloaf Maker

Grammy and Papa came for dinner last night, and were treated to some playtime in the library, dumping of clothes down the laundry chute, and the story of Corduroy.

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February 25, 2008

Just another reason to be addicted to the BlackBerry

I called AT&T this morning and, after only 40 minutes and 34 seconds, succeeded in turning off the landline at our house. Actually it’ll be off by 6 p.m. tonight, but since we haven’t used it in a long time and have already disconnected all our phones and stored them (and by “storage” I mean shoving them in a plastic Target bag and throwing them downstairs), I consider it off effective now.

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February 25, 2008

Art?

In my continuing quest to avoid any news pertaining to Britney, I frequently visit my regular favorite photo sites. One of these is photo.net, and I’ve become a fan of the News in Photography section. I clicked there tonight, and found that one of my fellow photo.netters had posted a link to this “news” story: Paparazzi admit pursuit of Britney has gone too far.

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February 23, 2008

Hurricanes vs. Highlights

Having had the benefit of working for the American Red Cross for a number of years, I pride myself in knowing what constitutes a real disaster. What is a true emergency. What really calls for forceful language and can cause emotions to run high.

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February 21, 2008

How to shoot a lunar eclipse

  1. Dig out old 70-300 mm lens, which on your DSLR becomes a 105-450 mm lens. Sweet.
  2. Dust off the tripod.
  3. Attach lens to camera and camera to tripod. Place by door.
  4. Find warmest coat, gloves and red fleece hat with cute pompom on top (one must look cute when shooting an eclipse). Bundle up like you’re the abominable snowman.
  5. Beat tripod against every part of the door frame trying to get out of the house with abominable snowman suit on.
  6. Trip motion detector light on way out. Curse light pollution.
  7. Set up tripod in driveway. Contemplate throwing rocks at big street lights that cause even more light pollution.
  8. Frame shot in viewfinder. Zoom in. Zoom out. Zoom in again. Adjust framing. Try to figure out how many stars you can get in the frame with the moon at it’s largest. Answer: one. Damn.
  9. Try in vain to operate camera with gloves that, while warm, effectively turn your hands into Muppet hands, which are not so great when it comes to pushing small buttons and turning small dials on a DSLR. In the cold. At night. Curse again and remove one glove.
  10. Fire off a few test shots. Realize after chimping on your LCD you have no freakin’ idea how to effectively shoot a lunar eclipse.
  11. Leave camera and tripod set up in driveway and come in to warm up. Remove gloves but leave rest of abominable snowman outfit on to sit at computer and search “lunar eclipse photography” on photo.net.
  12. Read. Read some more. Click links. Find a chart. Estimate your best chance given your focal length and the brightness of the moon is to go with around a 2 sec. shutter speed.
  13. Go back out in the driveway and fire off some more shots.
  14. Invite tired, sick husband to come out, and oh by the way, bring the telescope and binoculars out, too.
  15. Watch for a few minutes. Contemplate one’s tiny speck of insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe. Decide you’re freezing your insignificant ass off and go back inside. With husband, tripod, camera, telescope and binoculars.

I’ll be happy to post what I got here, if they aren’t too bad once I get them in the Mac and take a good look-see. Can’t do it tonight, though. Camera has to warm back up and I’m going to bed before it does. Tomorrow is my first day back to my 5:15 wake-up call to go exercise (yes, I’m going to call “power walking” exercise, at least until I can do more) and I need to get to bed at a decent hour.Happy lunar eclipse!

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