Monthly Archives: December 2013

Lessons Learned from Lomography

(The old Amerada Hess Petroleum building. They packed up and moved to Houston in the 90’s. They left the building though. I like all the windows and the almost ceramic finish on the lower level exterior.)

Early last week before the big snow storm I grabbed my La Sardina Lomography analog camera and went for a walk around downtown. I’ve learned a few things about my cheap film cameras over the years. The first thing is that they work best on a bright sunny day. Duhh! is what you old time film photographers say, who would never leave digital. Sorry, is what I say, not everybody is as smart as you!

(This is the old YMCA on Denver Avenue. It is being repurposed into condos now. I was a member of the Y for about two weeks in the early 1990’s. The clientele was kind of rough. Subject of another post I think. This building is similar to the Amerada Hess building because of all the windows, and the ceramic like exterior on the first level. The Amerada Hess building is at the far right of the photograph.)

Second, you have to pay attention to the details because there is no “A” setting. I’ve learned on the Sardina that for single exposures I better have a 400 speed film or things will be dim. If I want to do double exposures I better use 200 film. 100 film, uh, no. Also, you have to manually focus and for goodness sake take the lens cap off. Film photography is expensive, make the most of it.

(The Tulsa County Courthouse. I’ll be visiting again to make my annual trip to pay our real estate taxes. It is across the street from the YMCA building. )

Third, you have to make yourself happy. Most people don’t understand why you are using film. Most of them happily abandoned film for digitial years ago and have never looked back and they don’t know what is wrong with you. (I’ll happily admit that a lot is wrong with me.) What of it. What can I say, I like the look and feel of the pics, I love seeing the grain of the film. Plus it is kind of like Christmas every time I pick up a roll of film. There is always some surprises and a few disappointments.

So far I have four Lomography film and three other film cameras. I hope to get another for Christmas. This one a pinhole camera. In other words no lens, just a pinhole. That’ll be fun. That’s getting down to basic.If I get it, as opposed to the lump of coal I deserve.

So that is what I’ve learned. Tuition has been kind of high. What have you learned lately?

Trees of the Season

Heather has been working on the house both inside and out. Above is our living room. She makes works hard to make a very festive yet welcoming room. You can tell that LJ, the cat on the hearth is pretty happy with the result. He and Chrissy the Christmas cat take turns on the hearth. Or more precisely he gets the hearth until she kicks him off of it.

Heather also decorated the outside. I put the lights on the eaves and Heather added the lights on the shrubs and wrapped the trees. Plus she put the tree in up the dining room window. I did a lot, I promise. Just because you can’t see what I did doesn’t mean that I didn’t do it. Or something like that.

This is the dining room tree that you could see through the window. It is our “old” Christmas tree recycled.

And this is my Nana,the world’s greatest MIL tree, or more precisely one of her trees. She loves the Gulf Coast so she has a palm Christmas trees complete with a flamingo. Works for me.

Oh, you thought she had just one tree, no, sorry this is sitting room tree in front of a window.

Two trees you thought, sorry, this is her third tree. I like it best ofher trees. So territorial looking. Notice the stove, it is from one of her forbearers who were Oklahoma pioneers. It’s the real deal, but it is not hooked up to a flue. So no fires in it for now. In her previous house she had it hooked up and used it for heat once in a while when it got frosty.

Do you have a tree up yet? I mean if you celebrate Christmas.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday – Where I Stand Edition

Where I Stood

Hey everybody meet Seven. He is the horse my son rides at his Thereapeutic Horseback Riding lesson every Saturday morning. Seven was donated to the center by a ranch here in Oklahoma. He is a trained cow horse but he has a trot that will “scramble your brains” which is not good for cowboys in the saddle all day.

Silver

I captured this at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City during our Fall break trip in October. Notice I got myself along with Heather and Logan to the left.

Tiny

I’m a geocacher, an internet based game (check out geocaching.com) where people hide containers or “caches” out and about in the world and then other people go find them using handheld GPS receivers (“GPSr”). The biggest cache I found was a footlocker in the eleavator penthouse of a New Orleans high rise office building (the owner of the building is a geocacher. He has a security guard take you up to the penthouse so you can go find it). This pictured is the smallest I’ve ever found. Talk about a needle in a haystack especially consider that the accuracy of a GPSr is only about 12 feet under ideal conditions. So if the hider’s GPSr is off by 12 feet and the finder’s is off by the same amount then you have a radius of 24 feet to check. Fun, fun, fun. I have found about 1300 of them over the years and hidden 27.

In the Cupboard

Well instead of Cupboard, how about Pantry. Above is my wife Heather at my cousin’s store in Rigby, Idaho. It is The Prepared Pantry. They have all sorts of baking mixes that are great. They often have free cooking demonstrations on Saturday where they give out generous samples of the food.

Shadow

I found this shadow at Powell Gardens near Kansas City Missouri back in October.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

First Snow

We had our first snow of the year on Friday. It started with sleet and ice on Thursday during drive time home (fun, fun, fun, rednecks on ice!) and the snow started early Friday. Rather than play bumper cars I worked from home. I just love having that option.

And I shoveled the driveway. It was a wet snow and it pretty much did me in. And again, for the thirteen years that we have lived in the house our driveway was shoveled first. Then three of my neighbors came out and shoveled theirs. I think I shamed them into it. I don’t feel bad, they shame me into mowing my yard in the summer. Our four driveways were the only ones shoveled in our part of the neighborhood.

I was glad we had put our Christmas lights up outside while it was still warm. I hate putting up lights when it is cold and it is impossible with snow. It is not supposed to get above freezing until Wednesday. Oh, I’m already hearing the moans of sympathy from those who live in Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, and Maine for me having to bear our brutish temperatures.

So I turned on the outside lights while I shoveled. Sorry, I think lights with snow is pretty.

Inside I got our gas log going. That’s Chrissy the Christmas Cat, our big, fat, lazy, Maine Coon. She’s going to not move from that fireplace except for eating and pooping until April.

Heather worked hard decorating the house all day. She does a heck of a job and I’ll post some of her handiwork later. She has quite a collection of snowmen. These are just a few. She says she needs a snowman clock for kitchen and you know I think she does. Maybe we can get out today. The street in front is a solid sheet of ice but maybe it will be passable once the sun gets up.

The annual University of Oklahoma vs Oklahoma State University football game (called the Bedlam game) is being played today at 11 am. It is going to be below 20 degrees at game time. Lots of people I know are going. Those are known as crazy people. I just can’t imagine being interested in going to a game and freezing in a crowd. I am a casual fan of both teams. I prefer the professional version of the sport personally. Uh, I mean, the National Football League version.

So, how is Winter going for you so far?

Weekend Reflections – More Christmas Lights from Rhema Bible Church

I’m apologizing up front. Just the other day I posted a bunch of photographs of the lights of Rhema Bible Church in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow.

Sorry, but I like Christmas lights and they do a good job. They also have a pond that winds through their campus and makes for great reflections.

I bet right now that there is ice forming on the pond. It has cooled down into the low 20’s and it is supposed to get down close to zero tonight. Degress F, not C.

So I’m glad I took the pics when I did.

For the first bunch of years that we lived in Tulsa we didn’t go see the lights because we heard the traffic was bad. Well we braved it one night years ago and found out that there wasn’t any traffic. It seems like that happens a lot to me.

(Logan, Heather, and a pomeranian named Rascal.)

Have a great weekend! Get out and go see some lights. Don’t worry about the traffic just go.

Weekend Reflections

Rhema Christmas light display lights up Broken Arrow

Skywatch Friday – Winter is on its Way

It was just a couple weeks ago that the temps were still warm and toasty and the grass was green. Things have changed since, the temps have dropped considerably,and tomorrow we are going our first cold blast. We expect to to get a wintry mix here in Tulsa and of course we are a panicky bunch so the milk and bread is all gone from the grocery stores along with the snow shovels.

Unfortunately we are not so careful driving on snow and ice. I mean why should we slow down or leave early. So we drive the same speeds and the body shops are going to make a fortune working on the cars for months to come.

I don’t think that tomorrow it is going to be like February 2011 as show above. That’s Chrissy, our big cranky Maine Coon who really doesn’t like being rousted from her nap for a snowy photo shoot in the back yard. As you can tell she was telling me about it. You can also see that her claws her out on her back feet. I’m wearing a canvas jacket and leather gloves and had so she was a little frustrated. She likes to see blood when she gets mad.

Me, I don’t worry about the weather too much unless it involves tornadoes, then I worry a lot. I don’t worry about cold and snow. Our neighbors to the north have a lot more snow and a lot colder temperatures than we do and they do fine.

Skywatch Friday.

Water Tank Wednesday – Glasnost Edition

A few weeks ago I dropped off the kid at a friend’s house so they could play video games while I went geocaching at Lake Bixhoma. Near the lake are these water tanks for the city of Bixby.

Near the water tanks is the Oklahoma Geophysical Laboratory. Way back when in the early 1990’s, when George H. Bush was President he and Michael Gorbachev agreed to let the Russians build a nuclear monitoring station there so the Russians could keep tabs on the USA anytime we wanted to test a “device” bigger than 50 kilotons. Their monitoring station was deeded over to them and was considered Russian Territory just like an embassy (can you imagine that howling that would result if our current President agreed to anything of the sort.)

Several years later the technology needed advanced to the point where the Russians didn’t need the site any more and they deeded it back to the US.

Here is a brief newspaper article on the matter. This is an essay written by a woman whose father was involved in the project. And this is a brief history of the Oklahoma Geophysical Laboratory that talks about the Russian monitoring site and also some interesting information about how the facility is still involved in monitoring the world for nuclear tests.

Unfortunately, the lab and the old Russian site are well off the public roads and gated from inquiring bloggers. I would really like to go check things out there and take a few pictures. Apparently the road by the Russian site was renamed “Glasnost Road” and the road sign is still up.

Water Tower Wednesday is a feature my blog friend Fashionista. Check out her blog Out and About in New York City. The water towers in New York City don’t have near as much rust as the ones above do.

Oh, and yes I looked for four caches and found all of them.

Rhema Bible Church Christmas Light Display

Monday night, Heather, Logan, Me and a dog named Rascal loaded up and drove over to the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow to check out the Rhema Bible Church Christmas Light Display. It has been going on for 30 years and just keeps getting bigger and better all the time.

Being the wimps we generally just drive by with the seat warmers going this time though the temperature was mild so parked and walked around a little bit.

Its best seen on foot where you can get in amongst the lights. It really is magical with the bright bulbs and reflections. There are a lot of people there but it is not packed and everybody is in a good mood.

There are not too many rules and there are no minders barking at people. Mainly just stay on the walkway is the only thing they ask.

There are no fees for anything. They do have drinks and snacks for sale. They just ask that people have a good time. There was no problem with that. Lots of smiles and picture taking was going on.

The most popular decoration was a bridge of lights over a pond. The colors changed constantly to the beat of music.

All I can say is that Logan, Heather, Me, and a dog named Rascal all got our Christmas Spirit going. Kudos to Rhema Bible Church for putting this on. Public Service Company of Oklahoma probably has them on the Christmas card list. I do that for my best customers.

If you are somebody who celebrates Christmas what are doing to get your Christmas Spirit going?