Christmas Critters 2014

Christmas Critter Collage 2014 2

I always have a little bit of a problem with Christmas. I’m kind of slow to get going on the ole Christmas Spirit and then I can’t just stop it on a dime. I kind of have to slowly wind down.  So that’s why I’m still posting Christmas after it is over. Today it is our Critters. We include them in our Christmas although the dogs were a little put out because we didn’t get them new toys this year. Heather brought out last years toys and they were not impressed a bit. We did have treats for them.

Do you celebrate Christmas with your animals?

Linking with Saturday’s Critters

If Santa were Truly Magical he would Assemble and not Just Deliver

I don’t get the whole deal with Santa Claus, do you? I mean the little fat dude and his elves somehow to arrange to deliver all sorts of goods from all sorts of places to kids all over the world in just a matter of hours. He is almost as good as Amazon Prime. My question is why can’t he assemble the stuff he delivers? I mean finish the job. I can tell you with Logan over the years I have spent hours putting together bicycles and action figure sets and scouring the internet looking for tips. Cmon Santa, throw us a bone why don’t you?

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I’m using my new sports video camera. it takes stills also. I hadn’t disabled the date function yet.

Santa got Logan a new trampoline this year. It is his third. He loves his Indoor trampolines and just wears them out. So Santa keeps bringing him new ones. Well Santa just delivered this big ass heavy box  that has been in our garage for a few days. And that’s the end of his responsibility. It is up to me to get the thing moved out back and assembled.

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Sorry about my messy garage. Santa doesn’t clean and organize garages either.

Yeah, well I’m an older Dad and we older Dad’s don’t struggle with the box moving it out back. We take the stuff out of the box and move it out back in several trips. That’s not as manly as taking the whole box back but sure is a lot easier.

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Nice thing about winter is that grass turns brown and doesn’t grow.

So there it is. Now if Santa was magical, couldn’t he just give me a shazzam to make it all pop together?

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The camera has a 170 degree view which gives everything a fisheye effect which works for this kind of shot.

Hey, I got something better than a shazzam, I got Heather back from a shopping trip with Nana. (In case you are wondering Nana financed the trampoline.) Heather immediately regretted not shopping longer as I recruited her into finishing the task.

So with Heather, you just get right to work. No stopping to take pics or anything like that. She is a mom you know. Mom’s don’t put up with Dad’s foolishness too much. Anyway I used my new SJ4000 camera to video Logan and his friend Q jumping and then I handed the camera to Logan to get a view of what the world looks like while you are jumping on the trampoline. It records in HD mode which for nice pics but it takes forever to load them. Sorry about all the fingers and thumbs. I’m still learning.

So, what do you think? Should Santa assemble as well as deliver?

Song-ography – White Christmas Edition

The theme on Songography is “Any Christmas Song.” I picked White Christmas because to Christmas is very nostalgic for me and White Christmas is a very nostalgic song. And a big part of my childhood was spent in Forest Service Ranger Stations up in the mountains. That was back when when snow was kind of magical and not the pain in the butt that it is now.  I’m using my  father’s old photographs so I don’t know if that is cheating or not because I didn’t take them.

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I think that is my brother, Bob, taking a photo of me and my little sister Ellen at the Payson Ranger Station on the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. My sister was born in Payson and we moved to Utah soon thereafter. I think this was on a visit back to Payson. The Forest Service was very tight knit socially and everybody moved around a lot so we knew somebody almost everywhere. I love the old school jeep and truck and the galoshes. Does anybody wear those any more? Those buckles would get iced over and they would be hare to take off.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

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I’m guessing that this is northern Arizona in the early 1960’s.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all
Your Christmases be white

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This is the old Payson Ranger Station in Arizona. The building on the left was the Assistant Ranger’s Residence. It is now a museum. The building on the right was the Ranger’s office. It is part of the museum. We lived across the street in in a cinder block house owned by the Forest Service.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

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This is my Mother at their Forest Service owned house in Happy Jack, Arizona on the Coconino National Forest (I think). This was after my parents were first married and several years before I was born.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases
May all your Christmases
May all your Christmases
May all your Christmases be white

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I think this is another scene from northern Arizona.

I’m dreaming of a white
Christmas with you
Jingle Bells
All the way, all the way

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A road through the forest. We used to do the Griswold thing and go cut our own tree (with a permit to do so of course). It was always an adventure to go find the tree. Dad was an expert at “improving the tree.”

The movie White Christmas came out in 1954 and I was born in 1955. I find the movie fascinating because to me it shows how the “Greatest Generation” thought of themselves. The old can do if we just pull together and work together spirit.

Santa Fe Ski Area late 1950's or early 60's

Dad tells me that this is the Santa Fe ski area way back when. It is a lot different now. I love the guy rocking the red ski sweater and what looks like a tow rope in the background and the shack which may have been the “lodge.”

And here is a clip from the movie. Everything is cool until you get some dialog and it is in a language I couldn’t understand. Oh well!!

Things are a lot different. Everybody is kind of spinning in their own orbit these days.

But hey, I still love Christmas for a bunch of different reasons and I still love snow, when I don’t have to go anywhere in it. Have a Merry Christmas!!

Linking to Song-ography

Christmas Critters

We have four critters at the house these days. I mean not counting the squirrels in the back yard. Three dogs and a cat. The last couple days I posted pictures of them on Instagram in a kind of popularity contest to see who could get the most likes.  The contestants and the votes so far?

Ginger

This is Ginger, our sweet Dachsund mix rescue dog. As of Monday night she had 26 likes.

Rascal the Christmas Pom

This is Rascal, our sweet lovable Pomeranian mix who just showed up at our house. We tried really hard for about a half hour to find his owner. He is the leader as of Monday night at 30 likes.

Abigail the Christmas Dog

This is Abigail our sweet Shi-Tzu Maltese mix who was given to us by a breeder. She loves to eat and also likes a pillow when she sleeps. She is at 25 likes.

LJ the Christmas Cat

 

This is LJ, Logan’s cat (LJ is short of “Logan Junior”) he has 14 likes but I didn’t post his pic until a day after the others.

We are keeping all four the critters regardless of what happens.

What about you? Tell us about your critters.

Christmas Light Tour

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The family likes to check out Christmas lights and we haven’t been able to do so for various reasons so Sunday night we made our inaugural tour. Starting of course with our house.

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Next up was the Rhema Bible Training College in nearby Broken Arrow. (No, they don’t train Bibles silly). Rhema has approximately one gazillion lights and is the most spectacular display  that I know about in Tulsa. It is best appreciated if you get out of your car and walk around. That was out for us because it was cold and misty and the kid is acting kind of like he is coming down with something. And you know how it is. Whatever you do don’t get the kid sick. That will last until he is about 72 or 73. I forget which. Anyway, if you only want to go to one place in the Tulsa area for Christmas lights, go to Rhema. Just don’t let your kids get sick.

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And they have a sense of humor. I love this sign. I think it is the eleventh commandment. At least in Broken Arrow. You know how those people in Broken Arrow are.

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And we always have to check out the lights in front of their auditorium. The other thing we always have to do is tell Logan stuff like, “Remember when you were a baby and all we wanted to do was go check out the Christmas lights, and OH NOOOOO, that wasn’t going to happen. You spent the whole time bawling and crying.” Of course we now have a new tradition, talking about it. If we don’t bring it up, he asks about it.

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And then we left Rhema and checked out another house in Broken Arrow. They have a toy drive associated with the display. Very cool. If I were a decent blogger I would have the address to this house. LIke I said, if I were a decent blogger.

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And then to Bixby, another ‘burb of Tulsa to find an animated display. While driving around we spotted this house. I love its simple but nice lighting scheme.

Ah, here we are. Animated strangeness. I loved it though although not much about it is Christmassy.  Traffic got jammed up. We sat through three numbers and had to twist and turn in the neighborhood to get out. I love it when people stop in middle of a street to gawk at stuff. I mean, I don’t mind if I do it, I just don’t want others to do it.

So, have you gone out and looked at Christmas Lights yet?

Happy Birthday Mom

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It’s my mother’s birthday. She has been gone for while but I think about her every day. Above is Mom with my brother Bob and me at the Ranger Station in Coyote, New Mexico. Once a month or so we would dress up and load up and head out of the mountains and into Santa Fe for church. Notice my brother Bob rocking the high waisted jeans and my bald head whiting out the whole pic.

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I think that is my sister, Ellen in this picture. Mom loved children.  Notice the mountain in the background. She always said she would never live anywhere where she couldn’t see the mountains. She was a true Forest Ranger’s wife.

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Here she is with Logan in Idaho. They both seem pretty happy with each other.

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Mom, the smallest, was part of a huge family. When Dad retired they moved back to Mom’s native Idaho where many of her brothers and sisters lived. She loved getting together with them, and their many kids and grand-kids.

Downtown Tulsa – Doing the Lartigue Shuffle

I own a lot of cameras. Three of them are pretty good the rest are just plain weird. At least to some. One of my favorites is the Takashi Digital Effects 521 camera.  It is a 5 MP digital camera with fixed focus, several special effects modes, and most intriguing, no shutter. Yep, that is right no shutter. You press the button and the sensor scans the image. So what you say? I’ll tell you what. If you get the camera moving while the sensor scans you can get an interesting effect named the Lartigue Effect.

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So I can make all the buildings sway to the left.

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And I can make them lean to the right.

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Or I can make them shimmy in place.

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The camera can take regular pics. They are kind of fuzzy just do the low fi nature of the device. I have to tell you that I love the look of the photo above.

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Or I can make it shoot in a negative mode.

I have fun with my funky little low tech over priced camera.

What do you have fun with?

Instagram Love

I’m addicted to Instagram. I like creating and uploading pictures and I like looking at photographs of the people I follow. It is crazy the number of photos out there. Every once in a while a company will repost a picture of mine. (After asking permission of course.) That is great because they typically have a lot more followers than I do and the pics get more recognition. Below are two such examples.

Instagram - Quik Trip

Quik Trip is a Tulsa based convenience store chain that IMHO beats the crap out of any other convenience store I have ever seen. One rainy morning I was filling my car with gas and thought that the store with the wet parking lot and ominous clouds might make a decent pic. It did and I got a few dozen “likes” (Likes are like crack to us Instagram addicts). Quik Trip asked permission a couple months later to repost it and it got a pretty good response.

Instagram - NewsOK

This pic is kind of grainy. I was downtown yesterday morning and noticed that the colored drunk-driver-proof fountain and the blue Christmas lights make a decent pic. So I went up there and tried to get an interesting pic somehow. These guys came walking by headed off I think to the Iron Gate ministry to get some breakfast and I took a pic of them walking by the fountain and then cropped it close. (That is why it is so grainy.  NewsOK, the online arm of the Daily Oklahoman reposted the pic

I have about two thousand pics on Instagram, some good, many bad, and a whole bunch in the muddling middle. I find it a lot of fun.