It's Gone to her Head!

Thank you, everyone, for all your very nice comments on the Beautiful Ms. Bonnie and her book reviews.

But I fear it's gone to her head! She's now taken to donning sunglasses, to avoid being plagued by fans wanting autographs. . . .




Oh, there's no living with her now! She tries to place orders for treats (actually, she asks that pretty relentlessly in general).

But this is where I may have to draw the line. I WILL NOT fetch her ball for her,

. . . . no, I will NOT!

. . . but she disapproves of my laziness. . . .

Actually, if you like the Beautiful Ms. Bonnie's book reviews, you can click on the "books" label in the sidebar on the right, and read any you might have missed. And I'm sure sweet Bonnie will gradually return to her silly old self. . .

The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie & the Four Agreements

The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie has just finished another book, and is pleased with it. She says she's more philosophical these days, being in her dotage and all, and liked grappling with some of these spiritual/meaning-of-life/what is heaven?/what is hell? questions.

The author, Don Miguel Ruiz, offers a code of conduct for humans, based on ancient Toltec wisdom, to make people happier:

1. Be impeccable with your word

2.Don't take anything personally

3. Don't make assumptions

4. Always do your best.

The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie thinks this is just fine for humans, gives the book 3 paws up, but made some amendments for the dog world. She said:

"1. What the heck? I ALWAYS keep my word, except for those very special circumstances, like if you leave a whole pan of cookies on the counter. Of course, I'll tell you I'd never ever, ever, touch them. But what self-respecting dog wouldn't? And about leaving the front door open a crack? I'm outa here! I'm sniffing out good dog poop and email messages in the neighborhood, and finding decaying-meat delicacies. On that, I give you my word!

2. Silly people, really, you shouldn't. I really, really love you from the bottom of my heart, all the time, even if I chew up the remote or throw-up in your shoes. But I will take it personally if you act like you're going to take me for a walk, and don't. How could you? Just look into my beautiful brown, SAD, eyes!

3. Well, clearly, this doesn't apply to me. I assume you will treat me every time you walk in the door.

4. I do, but people don't. You're all so . . . dramatic. . . and WHY are you trying to be best at those things? The real secrets of life should be to be best at these things: Sleep a lot, especially in the sunny spots. Smell everything. Never pass up getting body parts scratched. Enjoy your food. Know that your people are the Best and Totally Good. And know that you are loved."

"Books are humanity in print." Barbara W. Tuchman

Odd Desk Companions and a Search for a Favicon

Calling all Blog-Readers! My brain is depleted at the moment, and I'm stuck in trying to come up with a favicon for my blog. A favicon is a little image-doohicky-thingy that sits in the address bar to the left of a web address.

If you're viewing this through Google Chrome, you'll see the usual Blogger favicon, the pregnant-Letter B in an orange bubble. If you're viewing this using IE or Firefox, you're likely to see a blotchy-squished face of me, about the size of a tiny pencil eraser and looking like a smudge next to mypixelatedoasis.blogspot.com.

Motivated by shimelle's Blogging For Scrapbookers class, and following these directions from blogging tips, I created a favicon. But I don't like an eraser-head-smudge-face for my favicon, and I'm asking all of you for suggestions.

What would make a good, simple, favicon for my blog? A letter "A"? Maybe Bonnie's little face (although I don't want to smudge her either)? Any thoughts on this? (I vote "no" on using the Evil Cedar Waxwings.)

And while you think about this, I thought I'd show you a photo of my phone being a couch potato, and my pen prepared to fight the good fight.

I Blog, Therefore I Am.

Well, . . . not really. But I really, really do like blogging! And today, I thought I'd update you on how Bonnie is doing, and tell you about a new little tool I learned about in the Blogging for Scrapbookers class.

Bonnie's paw is a little better this week, but we're still not feeling very confident about this. I've read that older dogs are stoics. . . that there is survival-value for a dog to not reveal illness if it can help it, so by the time a dog is making it clear that they're hurting, they may be in a great deal of pain. I looked up the medication Bonnie was on, and found it that Rimadyl is not a steroid, but a pain killer. She's out of this medication now, and what I worry about is that she'll now show signs of being in pain again.

This past summer, while Doug was away, I indulged The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie with this food, and she's been quite impressed with it ever since. Pardon our blur, but she was on the move, and I was experimenting with my external flash. I'd set the external flash at +1 exposure, and the camera exposure at -1.0. Wait a minute! Hold the phone! I think I know what I did wrong! I set the CAMERA FLASH EXPOSURE at -1.0 instead of the CAMERA EXPOSURE at -1.0! Time to check the manual again; maybe that's why the flash didn't freeze the action!

The tool that I learned about has to do with Google Reader. Using the Reader is a great way to read others' blog posts, but it's nice to use the reader to conveniently gather the posts to read. What I learned is that if you sign into your Google account, and go to http://reader.google.com click on settings, and then click on "goodies" , you'll see a little bubble labeled "next." You can drag the "next" bubble right onto your browser bookmarks bar. Now, whenever you click on "next" on your bookmarks bar, you'll bring up posts in your Google reader.

Also at http://reader.google.com, in "settings", then "goodies", you can find the "subscribe" bubble. Drag this to your bookmarks bar as well. Now, everytime you're reading a blog post (like mine, perhaps?) and think you'd like to read this person's blog again, just click on your "subscribe" button that's sitting happily (or at least obediently) on your bookmarks bar. If the blog lets you sign on as a follower, this accomplishes the same thing (oh, look! Mine again!), but the "subscribe" button is handy when a blog doesn't have a "follow" widget already built into the blog. (And of course, you might like to subscribe to my blog, even though "I Blog, Therefore I Am" is not true, but I do have SOME narcissism, and really, really do like when people read my blog.)

Vacation Log

My friend and fellow-blogger Jeanne mentioned a class on her blog a few days ago, and I decided to check it out. I love to blog--in fact, I'm just a wee bit addicted to it, but every once in a while, I need a little burst of inspiration. I decided to sign up for the same class, Blogging for Scrapbookers, and even though I started late, am liking the the ideas. Whether  any of them find their ways into my blog remains to be seen.

I decided to post some photos of an album I've been working on: Our Vacation Log. The inspiration for this comes from the photo storage process I mentioned a few weeks ago:  What to do with the Photos? I keep finding photos that I fall in love with again, and want to feature in some way.

And there are some who might begin to notice that as they move through middle age (not that I would be so rude as to mention specifically WHO but I might be one of them), they don't always remember exactly which trip occurred when. And trips I have taken with family tend to be very near and dear to my heart.

 

So I decided to create a very simple 8" x 8" ringed binder that would have one page per each trip we've taken over the years.

And I'm really enjoying the process!

It's such a "trip down memory lane", perfect for the "empty nester", (and rather useful for advocating to one's spouse for other trips, as I keep sharing "remember when we. . . . . " pages.)

One of the best parts is that I'm forced to choose only 2, 3 or 4 photos that seem to represent the trip the best. It's really an album about the highlights, and I keep the layouts as simple as possible, so that the "foo-foo" doesn't grandstand and take away from the focus of the memory and the photos.

This last example was not exactly a "vacation", but was one of the more memorable sets of trips in our lives, a trip down to Texas following the Grand Forks's flood, leaving our children with Robert and Barb, (where they all seemed to overwhelmingly fall in love with each other), and then the trip back to get them way too many weeks later when our house was approaching habitable again.

I'll share more later about the wonderful geeky details I'm picking up from this class.

Signs of the Times and Oh! How I wish I could show you a photo of a gecko in a toilet!

Last week, I got into the elevator at work, and was greeted by this:



They're everywhere! The fight against H1N1 is on, but I'm beginning to feel a little stalked by hand sanitizers. The other day I shook someone's hand, and felt like a total social pariah!

Shhhhhh! Don't mention the rest of this blog to Dianna!

She tells me that her standards of cleanliness have dropped a bit, being in India. (If you ever saw her room, you'd be rather chilled by that statement!)I asked her how she does laundry in India.

"In a bucket."
"The same bucket you use to wash down the bugs every morning?"
"Yep. And there's a gecko that lives in my toilet."
"Did you try to flush it?"
"Yeah, but he just scrambles to the side, and lives on the ledge."

Wow!

This past 3 days, she's been on a camel safari! Then she'll be on the Darjeeling Express, and will eventually get to Calcutta, take a plane to Chennai, and start her 2nd project in Pondicherry on airborne mosquito illnesses. I think Pondicherry is less rural than Karigiri, but more rural than Chennai.

Halloween Winners & Duds

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's photos of Halloween costumes and ghouls tonight!

Sadly, not many trick or treaters came to our door. I guess it's just too cold, or people are too afraid of H1N1 "treats", or they fell in the pit left by Excel. Only two groups made it to our door--a group of real trick or treaters, and a group that pretended to be trick or treating, but really handing out religious treatises on sin. Guess it beats being egged.

Actually, Excel worried about the pits as well. Friday, they came around and filled their doorways to Other Worlds with temporary cement.

We decided to head off to the "Tales of Terror" at the local little historical museum, which had decided to reveal some of the dark tales of Grand Forks on its premises. Kudos for their creativity! They told about a former mayor/physician (not be be confused with our current mayor/physician, Mayor Brown). Dr. Wheeler, in 1886, was a student in Northfield, MN (where Dianna is a student), and helped foil an attempt by Jesse Jame's gang to rob a bank. He killed a man and was able to acquire the body as a medical study cadaver. Supposedly he kept the skeleton hanging in his closet in Grand Forks.

Here are some shots of the museum:

Again, kudos for creativity, but what is this? Not a fashion statement, I'm thinking. Maybe something about protecting breasts from xrays???? I'm going to have to return to the museum when I can look around a little better and see if I can figure this out.

Basically, we stood in line for a long time. Long enough, literally, for cob-webs to develop on the historical exhibits:

The apple cider and home-baked cookies were great, but after about an hour, my husband and I decided that the queuing to be taken out in little groups of 5 into the more dramatic, gory aspects of the program, just wasn't worth it. We bailed out, and headed home to watch our Netflix copy of "Drag Me to Hell."

OK, this movie is just creepy!! One son pointed out that there were humorous elements, and thank heavens, because I kept trying to look for those moments to keep from being totally creeped out! Remember how scary Exorcist was when it first came out? Well, this was effective, even in this modern, jaded, age.

Excel! Excell! Will there be a Ka-Boom Ka-Boom?

Remember this post? Our House Might Explode ? (Worth another peek to see me with Wella 411.)

A year ago, yesterday, we got a phone call from our local station telling us about this. And yesterday, one WHOLE YEAR later, this was going on outside my door as I got ready for work.
So now we have a pit where we used to have a side walk (just in time for Halloween!).


. . . . and another mystery hole here (in the ground, you dirty minds!), as well as several more in our yard.

But, in THEORY, our house should not explode now, like the house in Fargo, and the many houses in Minnesota, and Iowa, and. . . .

Other states were much quicker at replacing the exploding gaslines, but we don't have an exactly immense population here in North Dakota. So our law suits tend to be cheaper, although personally, I tend not to think of any of our bodies as exactly expendable.

I talked to "the guy" in my driveway a few days ago, as they were again placing their mystery markings of "Doh" and "Pec" all over our sidewalks, with brightly-colored little flags, about what was what. He said that Excel was going to be fined a huge amount of money if this wasn't done before January 1st. They finished in Minnesota last year, because their deadline was January 1, 2009.

Would have made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside if I thought Excel was just doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, given the 13 people they blasted in Fargo last year.

But I do hope they didn't do a rush/sloppy job with these gaslines. . . .

The Beautiful Ms.Bonnie says there are some Sad things in life

The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie read the book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. She doesn't have a photo of the book, because she already lent it to someone else, so she's showing a self-portrait with her kleenex. She says she needed it for this book; she cried as she read this book. She said she started out thinking she was going along for a light-hearted read, and then was sucked into the vortex of one of the saddest times in modern history, the German occupation of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, just off the coast of England, during World War II.

Bonnie said she enjoyed the quirkiness of the characters, although some have criticized that the voice of the individual characters are not distinctiveness. They were still fun to get to know! It's just that she found if very sad to get this glimpse of human cruelty and deprivation.

Bonnie's also feeling sad these days because her foot hurts. She's a determined trooper, and can be quite playful even if it does hurt. She turns 15 years old this month, and just had to take a little ride to the vet; the vet said she has a tumor in her paw, and that if the oral steroids and antibiotics don't seem to be making a difference for her next week, surgery or "maybe it's time to talk about other alternatives" are on the horizon. :(

And yesterday, Shannon asked about whether I bounced the flash, or used a diffuser. I did use a diffuser, but don't remember if this particular shot was bounced, or direct flash. Unfortunately, I can't find metadata included in Bridge on the flash settings; this might not be encoded in the shots. Does anyone know?

And Shannon is right! Bouncing a flash (aiming the flash toward a white wall, or ceiling, so that a large area of light is reflected onto your subject) tends to make a much more pleasing shot, with less harsh shadows. I think my shot may have had some shadows that were coming from the sunlight behind it, and bounce may not have prevented all of this, but especially in a dark room, bounce is best!

Flowers Just Because

Several times a year, I get a nasty 48-72 hour migraine. This weekend, that, coupled with some arthritis flare-ups, left me rather. . . . subdued. My dear, sweet, husband, for no reason at all, bought me flowers!

The perfect thing for practicing with my external flash! I shot toward a bright window, ISO400; f 18; ss:1.3", exposure compensation on camera -.33, and I think the exp compesation on flash was set to +.7.

I've been trying to figure out a good approach to using my flash. Here are the 3 methods I've found, at least in the way I understand them:

1. Set your camera to ISO: 400; f 4.0; shutter speed 1/40 and shoot. The reasoning is that ISO and shutter speed control the ambient (background) lighting, and the burst of light from the flash will "freeze" the action so the slow shutter speed will be fine. The slow shutter speed is suppose to allow the background to have at least some light. With this, I think that sometimes an f of 4 will be ok, like for one person, but in other situations, on want much more of an area in focus and want more than an f of 4.0.

2. OR, With ISO 400, first take a shot in P mode, of the background area, without your intended "model" in the foreground, and the flash off. Look at what the settings are that the camera picks. This is going to determine a good exposure for the background, which will be controlled by the camera settings. Now, set the camera in M mode, using the same settings determined by this "test" shot, turn on the flash and shoot. Camera may set flash correctly, or I adjust the exposure compensation + or -. What I don't like about this is that I'm not sure I'd always like the aperture (f) chosen by the P mode. However, I do have more control over the ambient lighting (background) than I would in the first method.

3. OR, With ISO 200 or 400 (depending on light conditions), shoot in A mode. I pick the f stop that I want. Set the camera exposure compensation at -1.0 (this will slightly darken the bacground); set the flash at +.7 and shoot. Again this may be exactly what you want, although may decide to increase or decrease camera exposure compensation, or flash exposure compensation. It might take some adjusting the exposure compensation on camera and on-flash to get what I want, but I should have more control over the outcome.

So, what do all of you think? Playing with external flash(es), what kind of settings do you tend to use?