There have been some colorful skies from my office window lately. I like it when the color reflects off the Arkansas River.
I did a little science experiment with the following two photographs.
I stitched them together using Microsofts’s Free Image Composition Editor (ICE) and got this:
Not too bad, it would have been better if I had straightened the two photos before stitching them together. Or maybe next year Santa will get me a new camera and wide angle lens?
The latest issues of this long running collection of short stories does not disappoint.
Lots of ironic and unsuspecting endings in this year’s collection, lots of talented authors who know how to write stories that suck you in.
The quote of the entire book is in the story, “Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events” by Kevin Moffett.
“Talent realizes its limitations and gives up while incompetence keeps plugging away…”
I love it, because it is so true.
An interesting note is that a couple of the stories this year are about climate change in the near future and how it affects people.
If you love short stories or if you would like a sampling of great stories, this is the book. Also interesting is that there is a little bio on each author and the author says a little something about their story.
I rate the book 3.5 stars out of 5. I’ve bought it every year since the mid 1980’s and I’ve loved them all.
Son and I saw this car in the terminal during a recent trip to the Tulsa Internationnal Airport.
We saw this in the parking lot. Nice red truck behind it also.
Check out Ruby Tuesday for more red photographs from everywhere.
SuperPizzaBoy and I traveled to Tulsa International Airport to pickup my brother Bob. We had a little time on our hands waiting for his flight and I had a camera so like a good blogger I started taking photographs. The above is a bust of Oklahoma’s beloved Will Rogers with a Santa cap.
We also found this statue. It is named “Morning Mission” and is dedicated to the 16,000 American and Allied young men who received flight training in Tulsa during World War II.
And we found this facsmile of a wellhead at the airport. It looks pretty authentic to me except look at all the missing bolts on the bottom flange. That doesn’t give me a whole lot of confidence.
Above is about one fifth of a mural dedicated to the energy business of Tulsa. I just love it. Those guys are using internal lineup clamps prior to welding a section of pipe plus there is a refinery in the background. I found some free software that stitched the whole mural together. The result was excellent but you would need a 30″ wide screen to make sense of it.
We found the chapel right next to the United Airlines baggage carousel. I don’t think it is used very much. We went in quietly and checked to make sure that nobody was in there before we started taking photographs.
It is really nice with several different areas for prayer and contemplation. They had many different copies of the Bible, the Koran, some Jewish books, and texts from other faiths.
It was decorated very nicely and maintained well. The last signer of the visitor register was two days before son and I were there.
What do you have at your airport? I mean besides airplanes and such as that.
We had a visitor to our backyard land on son’s trampoline. It was checking out the action at the bird feeder. The birds were all gone. There was the only critter at the feeder. He didn’t move a muscle.
I don’t think he was fooling anybody though. The hawk took off and did a fly by on the squirrel and left. My fully automatic camera helpfully focussed on the branches.
I’m not at all a bird guy but I think that it may be a Sharp Shinned Hawk. It was very small and has a square tail. Don’t be afraid to offer a correction. I’m still trying to learn these critters. Wife Sweetie tells me that the squirrel is a fox squirrel. We have lots of them visit the feeder.
Tulsa’s oldest city park on a cold,foggy day.
This year I am ringing in the New Year by adopting the technology of toy cameras from the 1960’s.
Nana, (aka “Greatest MIL in the world”) bought me a new camera for Christmas. It is a Diana Mini. It is very retro and very low tech. It uses 35mm film, no autofocus, no auto exposure, no auto nothing. You have to manually set the focus and guess at the exposure, you even have to advance the film manually. It’s made out of plastic, even the lens. I just love the look of film and have been attracted to Lomography, the art of low tech analog photography.
I’ve had a lot of fun with it, although my first roll of film was a complete disaster, between forgetting to take the lens cap off, not advancing the film, not setting the focus right, and other problems the first roll of film was a complete mess. For professional assistance contact the video production company in San Antonio. However, I salvaged one photo. I call it: “The Spirits of Christmas.”
I think the bottle was empty when I took the photo, I really don’t remember.
I had a little more luck with the second roll.
There is something about film, especially low tech film, that I just love. The colors seem deeper and the photos seem to have more “immediacy” about them, plus they seem like they are from a long time ago. I know that I’m not making much sense. I just like them, when I remember to take the lens cover off.
The processing is pretty cheap. I go to Walgreens, they charge $2.99 if all you want is the CD and no prints. I think they feel sorry for me. “Well we tried Yogi.”
If you are geocacher there is the added bonus that the plastic containers for the film are great cache containers. They are waterproof.
I’m still a learning. For such a low tech device it is taking me a while to get the hang of it.
By the way, I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!!
I picked this book up in a bookstore a couple weeks ago. For years I’ve occasionally watchined Anthony Bourdain on his “No Reservations” show on the Food Network. He always seemed like a ready for anything, at ease guy as he goes around the world eating chopped lamb brains from street vendors and other adventuresome cuisine. He looks like a guy who smokes and drinks too much and stays up too late and probably doesn’t read his Bible every day. He also seems like a guy who can tell some good stories.
Kitchen Confidential came out ten years ago and is still in print in this 2007 updated edition. It is Bourdain’s description of his career as a cook and chef and many observations on the restaurant industry. The man can write. It is one of those books where you start reading it and you can’t stop. He says he wrote the book for the guys who work in restaurants. He tells a lot of stories about working in restaurants. I am sure that some of the stories are actually true. They are all entertaining.
I rate the book 4 stars out of 5 it is a darn good read.
