Birthday Road Trip

My birthday was last week, and you know how on your birthday, you get to push the envelope a little and ask for something from family members that on other days they might grumble a bit. (Not terribly; you just know it's not there favorite thing to do).

Well, my "pick" was to head to a little hole-in-the-wall cafe for breakfast, and then hit the back roads (long, boring, flat stretches) of North Dakota, with two wonderful buddies, Doug, and my dog, Ruby, and some camera gear.

First, we went to Darcy's Cafe in Grand Forks:



You know-- the perfect place--great coffee, huge breakfasts, and old, chipped, wooden booster seats, odd little photos tacked on the wall, neon lights, and waitresses that call you "hon", and Kenny's Special on the chalkboard menu.



Oh, and the ever kind server who will race out to your car before you pull away to give you your credit card that you forgot on the table!

Some Critters are FAST!

Like the kind who can who can, in the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth, unroll the toilet paper, swallow a button, and eat plaster or plastic screws or something off of the faucet by your toilet, causing your bathroom to flood--while you're trying to get ready for work in the morning.



That kind.

Day 53: Held Captive

Yesterday, we went to our first obedience class with Ruby at the Grand Forks Kennel Club. This class is so much better than the crazy experience we had at Petco with the dog trainer that it's hard to think that these trainers could possibly be of the same species!

But that does not mean it was stress-free! Oh, no--not with a lab!



We tried to prepare for the Big Day by getting Ruby somewhat tired during the day, with lots of exercise, then sufficient sleep in her crate. We made sure she was hungry, cooked special "treats" to use in the training, ate dinner early, got her seat belt harness ready and reminded ourselves that our egos would not be on the line in this class.

And then we smoothly headed out the door to the car for class. Or tried to. First, I could not get the harness on her. This little harness is to help keep a puppy safe in the car so that she does not become a projectile with sudden stops, or a projectile with sudden bursts of energy during which she tries to consume the driver. Harnesses are good.

But you have to get them on said pup. Somehow, Ruby managed to have 12 legs and 7.6 arms that flew in dervish-like directions while I tried to snap strap A to B, attach carbiner to C, and looping it around to X etc. Trust me, between her needle-sharp puppy teeth, leaps into the air, and somersaults for belly rubs, it's no wonder that I broke out into a sweat and Doug sat nervously in the driveway, waiting for me, worrying. . . .

But eventually Ruby was locked and loaded and I hit the front door with her. She misses nothing; her mulching tendencies leave no twig unpulverized, and no gallon jar of Sun Tea on the front steps untossed.

After my feet were drenched with Sun Tea, and I had her in the car, we headed off to class, but not with the nice margin of time we'd hope for. We'd hoped that Ruby would get to meet all the nice people, get her exuberance at PEOPLE and OTHER DOGS under control in time to settle down.

But class had already begun, with all 10 other pups and owners sitting in a zen-like circle (most likely after the pups had been dosed with Valium and Prozac), when we made our Grand Entrance, hoping to slip in unnoticed. Let me just say it was noisy; Ruby was ecstatic and I'm not sure her little paws really ever touched the ground in the first minutes. The trainer paused, and announced "Looks like we have one of those dogs right here!" and approached Ruby. Ruby decided the instructor was her New Best Friend, flipped over on her back, and showered the air with dog pee.

Yeah. About that little ego thing. . . .

The trainer then slipped a little Premier Easy Walk harness over Ruby's head and middle, and Goodbye Marley! Ruby turned all angelic on us and with the sheer brute force of two adult human beings, we were now able to control her wiggly 29 lbs!



And today, we rushed out and purchased our own Easy Walk harness! What a Godsend! Now Ruby is truly a Good Dog and deserves these little treats sent to her by Elizabeth and Scott.

We ARE held captive, but most enthusiastically!

Oops! Here are the Cuties in Mexico!

Thanks, Maria! I made a reference to these two cuties we spotted from our balcony in Mexico, but my photo didn't post. Here it is:



We could see them from the balcony of our room--the first room, that is. We happened to have the "fortune" to be right across the Teatro in the resort, so each night, between 9:30 pm and 11:30 pm, music blasted through our room and our bones. We could see the stage from our balcony, and under some conditions, this would be a "feature," but especially since we'd all had about 2 hours sleep the night before our 5 am flights, we really wanted to sleep. Their "Michael Jackson" revue (and I wish I could spell phonetically how Me-KELL' YACK'-sen was pronounced, loudly, repetitively) just wasn't conducive sleep.)

But they nicely moved us the next day to another room. And we couldn't spy on our neighbors on the balcony anymore.

But Where Did Angela Go? (and spring equinox at Chichen Itza)

. . . . those of you who are quite bored may have asked.

Well, I went to three places, two of which are not for the faint of heart.

First, I went to the Puppy Dimension. As the astute reader may recall, I embarked on a campaign to soften Doug's heart to the idea of getting a new dog, after we lost The Beautiful Ms. Bonnie last July. Doug said, "No more dogs." I co-opted the Netflix que and ordered doggie tearjerkers , movie after movie, until the poor man was absolutely red-eyed and chafed nosed. Then I would occasionally whistfully comment on how when he would do something that would raise the hackles of one's spouse, I would chant my mantra, "but he picks up dog-poop, so deserves a lot of grace," . . . and those good times were over.

So Ruby Baby, aka Ruby Beast, aka Ruby the Rascal has come to live with us and keep us on our toes.



And the 2nd place for the not-faint-of-heart was Cyber Hell. My hard drive crashed. The new hard drive also crashed because of the crazy Acronis back-up program (don't buy it!). The computer then had "heat sink issues" (whatever that means!), and my wonderful husband said that (not only could I have a puppy!!!!!!!) but I could get a new computer.

Since I had no back-ups of all of my software and settings, I've had to start from scratch with Photoshop settings, and then monitor calibration, preferred sharpening, sizing, color workspaces for web, for printing, for everything, etc. Sheer torture.

And then Ruby (the Beast) chewed up the data cord to my external hard drive. Just enough to make it inconsistent. So I replaced the external hard drive, transferred everything over. . . . to a new external hard drive that failed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And bought a new one, which now works, and was able to finally, get all my old photos onto it.

(Do you hear the important lesson in all this? Back up, back up, back up. Many ways, on many media.)

And we went some place else! Doug and I went to Mexico, with all three of my children and the wonderful Elizabeth, Scott's fiance.

There is no more perfect place to go in March, when your departure point is the horrific Winter of North Dakota!



This is a photo at Chichen Itza, a Mayan Ruin on the Yucatan peninsula. We had the extraordinary good fortune to get to be there during the spring equinox. (I'll write more about this later.)

If you look closely at the photograph, you'll see a snake head at the base of the ruin on the left side. Between 4:30 and 5:30 pm, during the spring equinox, if the sun is shining, it strikes one corner of the structure, creating a shadow on the other corner, creating the illusion of a snake body slithering down the side of the building.

Look Who's Come to Live with Us!

And is she ever keeping us busy! 8 weeks old and running on all engines; Meet Ruby, aka Ruby Baby.

Oops! What have I done?

Oh crap! Don't you just hate it when you mean to send something to a just a few family members, but instead you send a list--an extensive list-- of "favorite" bars in Playa del Carmen to everyone in your email contact list? With the top 15 favorite underlined? And conveniently organized into 5 categories of bars?(And nary a word that you copy and pasted this info, rather than personally experienced each one?)

Why, oh why, couldn't it have been the lovely guide to Chitzen Itza, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, that went to all of the ministers, past and present, of your church, the congregation, and all your physicians?

A re-enactment:



At least a list of restaurants was included as well. . .

And to those of you who have been asking whether you are being invited: I don't think I can get a table for 300.

Those of you have asked if I've danced on the tables in the bars in Playa del Carmen: No.

And no, I have personally acquired a thousand dollar bar tab at Senor Frogs.

And no, I have not spent half of my adult life in the bars of Mexico, although, oh, how I would have loved to have escaped the vicious temperatures and ugliness of North Dakota this whole winter!

Hasta la vista! And have a margarita.

The Month Formerly Known as March: NOW: Snirt-Pox!

Yep, "March" has been retired. It's inadequate. It does not sufficiently explain the ugliness of this foul, spirit-devouring month. From now on, I declare that the 3rd month of the year in North Dakota will be called "Snirt-Pox." As in Snirt-Pox the 3rd, all the way up to (God help us!) the 31st of Snirt-Pox.

Snirt, because the mixture of snow and dirt makes snirt, and we have it all over the city right now, in ugly, ugly pox-like piles waiting for a hint of above-zero temperatures. Witness, one of the pox:

So next time, when you are in traffic and consumed by road rage, please think twice before wishing a pox on your fellow drivers, because it could be a snirt-pox.

"But Wait, Angela!", you might say, "what about white balance? You've got all middle-grey! Fix that white!" Nope, this is it; it IS middle grey all over North Dakota right now, until the month of Snirt-Pox is over.

"But Wait, WAIT, Angela!", you might say, "you can't possibly leave us with such an ugly picture!" And you're right; I can't.

Here's something that won't make your retinas explode, like snirt-poxes. Here's a beautiful cyclamen that's been bravely blooming all winter in my office:

Now THAT's a Color-Cast, or Aliens Walk Amongst Us

Chuck and Doug revealed themselves to be aliens from outer space (or maybe from Texas). I went out to dinner last night with my sweet Douglas and good friends Chuck and Ute, and this was the most startling revelation!

Here's the proof, and you know it must be real, because you're reading it on the internet, and because this is an un-edited photo:

Now, here is the photo edited in Photoshop. First I did noise reduction, followed by the creation of many adjustment layers to pull down the glowing green and red. And, blah. . . still off in the color:


So, next I just did a simple color wash with an action, and they might be pale, but that's how you can hide your own aliens from outer space from the government if you want to; just use Photoshop--easy peasy!


By the way, it's very useful to dine with aliens. Chuck, who I know to be a guy that often tries to be helpful to people, noted that my steak was not the well-done that I requested. He turned his laser eyes on it, and fixed it right up!

(Now, if only the aliens could also zap some heat into our STILL minus 25 to minus 35 degrees in this wretched state!)

Things are Looking Up!

. . .temperature-wise. After 26 days of windchills ranging from 20 to 37 degrees below zero, we hit 33 degrees today! Above zero!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Hooray for longer days! Sunset was at 5:44 pm today!

Because It's True

I don't care if this is "unprofessional" but I think this is a very appropriate screensaver about now. And it's true.

I posted this photo last year, but thought it really deserved to resurface.

I don't often stop at Starbucks on my way to work, but I thought today should be an exception. Because I'm desperate.



Here's my approach to the window:



And now, I prepare to roll down my window. I don't want to. Starbucks Coffee is no consolation for frickin' 40 below:

Ever Wonder What it Sounds Like at -40 degrees

Well, at 40 below windchill (-23 without windchill), it sounds crunchy. There's not much noise otherwise outside, definitely no chit-chat of gathering neighbors. But the tires of cars and trucks, and footsteps, make a distinct "crunch" sound when it's this cold. It's a strange signature of this temperature; sound breaks sharper and echoes as you walk across the snow---crunch . . . ~ . . . crunch. . . ~ . . . crunch. Mostly, I try to walk very fast, when it's like this, so it's a little more like crunch!crunch!crunch!

This is the same photo, only without noise reduction applied. It's equally cold.





Our newscaster just said there's a possibility that it will be 30 to 40 below tonight without windchill, depending on cloud cover. He's a poor excuse of a rotten human being, through and through.

I'm hoping for the cloud cover.

This cold, it hurts when you breathe in, so I also tried to hold my breath, while I crunch!crunch!crunch!

Are you up for 214 pages of weirdness?

No, not my post, but an old (1962) novel, "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," by Shirley Jackson.

Do you remember Shirley Jackson? She wrote "The Lottery," and back when I was in high school, this was pretty much required reading. I've often thought of The Lottery over the years, and Shirley Jackson's portrayal of brutality in the name of compliance.

In my Classics ReRead Book Club at the Grand Forks Public Library, we recently read We Have Always Lived in the Castle, another book by Shirley Jackson; I'm suspecting this will be another book that filters into my thought at odd moments in the future, reflecting life around me.

You wouldn't think that this plot reflects any life as we typically know it. This book follows the very strange Merricat, an 18 year old woman who lives in seclusion with her sister, Constance, and Uncle Julian in a house on the edge of town. The Blackwells are outcasts; Constance was accused of but found innocent of poisoning the rest of her family, several years earlier, with arsenic, traced to the sugar bowl. Constance likes to cook. . .

The Blackwells are outcasts not just because of the family murder; they are also outcasts because they were rich. And in their seclusion their very odd, idiosyncratic and bizarre points of view become more. . . . unique. . . the more they separate themselves from the rest of the world.

I don't think this would be such a compelling book if it was just about their strangeness; what makes it most compelling is the reaction of the community to the Blackwells. Although some reach out, another response of raw hostility occurs during the midst of trying to save the Blackwell house during a fire. I read that Shirley Jackson herself in her own life felt very rejected by her community, and I think her books take those all too universal instances of people feeling like outsiders and writing about them, symbolically and metaphorically, in the extreme. And she is particular fond of examining that edge between societal compliance and differentness. Shirley Jackson never got even; she wrote! Just think what she might have written in this day and age in response to TSA checkpoints in airports!

I enjoyed this book immensely, but I will caution that others in my book club did not; they thought Merricat was too weird, but that's why I liked her!

What's even weirder is life in Grand Forks. How do we survive -36 to -45 windchills? I don't know; . . . cuddle duds help. Last night, my weather bug registered -36, but rumor has it we're settling into a bone-crunching -45 tonight.

Which way is outta here?

Is Minus 31 Degrees Really Necessary? AND the snow????

We are on the 6th day in a row of getting snow, and it's becoming quite tiresome! But not nearly as tiresome as the minus 31 degrees with windchill last night. Grand Forks has even't stopped putting its salty brine mixture on the road to help to melt the ice. . . . because it's freezing into a slick glaze and making things even worse.

It's only January, and we have much, much more of winter to go. Well, at least it's not New York. . . .

My morning task is to brush all this stuff off my car. Strangely, I have to be particularly careful to get it off the roof and hood. If I don't, no matter how much I've let the car run to warm it up, approximately 2 1/2 minutes after I start driving, the snow from the roof, which falls on the hood, and the snow on the hood is sucked into my car through it's intake system, as moisture, and freezes solid on the inside of all my car windows. It's rather disturbing, especially when 2 1/2 minutes takes me from my parking lot to the center of the bridge, and I can't see a thing! I literally scrape away a little peep hole on the inside of my car with an old plastic card/hotel door key.

I was really happy when, after many years, I finally figured out that clearing the snow from the roof and hood would solve this problem.



And just a little view outside my office window:



By the way,the book in my post yesterday is not a blurb book, but a blog2print or sharedbook. It was extremely easy to make, and before Christmas they were running some specials (which I suspect is a very frequent thing.) I sent them a "support" question, and rapidly got an answer that the photos could be sRGB (they prefer RGB) and that the 72 dpi resolution would be fine. So using the photos that were uploaded to the blog works well. It sucks up the dates of the blog you specify, so it's really easy to create a book with very little effort. I really didn't want to spend much time on this, especially before Christmas, and just get a little sampling of posts from the summer. I didn't want to be perfectionistic about it, and since it wasn't very expensive, I was willing to be quite casual about it. So I just rapidly put it together, let Doug give it to me for Christmas, and now I'm really, really glad I did it! I'll appreciate it a lot in the future, when the technology of blogs may be long-gone, as just a little memento of this fun chapter in our lives. I really did approach this as "perfection is the enemy of the good" so it wouldn't become a huge time-consuming project. I'm thinking of doing another book of just my "cranky woman" posts (see label on left in side-bar), although why I would want this is kind of a mystery to me. I guess I just value my quirky side ( I mean, I WOULD value my quirky side, if I had one.)

I'm Sorry Canon Point & Shoot; I'm Just Not That Into You

The test is over; I just can't embrace my new Canon s95 Point and Shoot. It's fine; it's not bad. . . .but it just doesn't make my heart go "pitter patter."



I got a point and shoot for Christmas, thinking it would make my purse weigh 700 lbs less, and would be easier to carry around while slogging and trudging through the snow.

And. . . . it was a lovely thought, but I just never felt like taking it out of my purse and taking photographs with it. I do have some photos taken with it, and will be happy to have those later, but they don't tend to be photos that I love, or photos that I'm excited about taking.

So, my Nikon D300s is (and acting a little snug about it) back in my purse. . . and calling my name again! (my little precious!)

I Whacked my Husband, but It Wasn't His Fault!

I was having one of those nightmares. You know the kind. The kind where you're trying to ward off the Bad Guy, and you can't move. But I tried, and tried, and next thing I knew, I smacked my husband in his sleep! Fortunately, it wasn't that hard, and he didn't even wake up. Maybe this is a case of "Let Sleeping Dougs Lie. . . . . "

But maybe he deserved to be whacked, after all!

Later in the day, he said to me, and I quote "I just had this thought, all by myself, in my own head." (Literally, he said that! And he really is a smart guy!)



Because we have these huge piles of snow hanging down over our windows. That's a bad thing. It causes leaky roof problems, and broken things. And it makes winter even darker. Last winter, we hired some guys to come shovel the snow off our roof, and after we paid them lots of money, in the spring, we noticed lots of broken pieces from our roof on the ground all around the house. And it was very, VERY, expensive replacing our roof. . . .



So Doug's Really Great Idea in his own head was that he was going to get on a ladder outside, and throw a basketball over and over at the roof, knocking down the snow!

I voted "no." Thoughts in my head ran more along the lines of him falling off the ladder, the basketball damaging the roof, breaking a window, who was going to be grabbing that ball in the snow over and over and handing it back up to him, and that it really wouldn't knock much snow down.

So we opened the windows, took off the screens, and used brooms to at least knock the hanging down snow. . . down.

My coworker tells me there are actually these long, telescoping, rake thingies that we can use to rake the snow off our roof.

I bet it would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA to try and do this before the Siberian Arctic Express hits us in the next 7 days!

Obsessed or a Resolution?

So what's the difference between a resolution, or being obsessed?

From the Free Dictionary:

res·o·lu·tion (rz-lshn)

n.

1. The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination.

2. A resolving to do something.

3. A course of action determined or decided on.

4. A formal statement of a decision or expression of opinion put before or adopted by an assembly such as the U.S. Congress.

5. Physics & Chemistry The act or process of separating or reducing something into its constituent parts: the prismatic resolution of sunlight into its spectral colors.

6. The fineness of detail that can be distinguished in an image, as on a video display terminal.

7. Medicine The subsiding or termination of an abnormal condition, such as a fever or an inflammation.

8. Law A court decision.

9.

a. An explanation, as of a problem or puzzle; a solution.

b. The part of a literary work in which the complications of the plot are resolved or simplified.

10. Music

a. The progression of a dissonant tone or chord to a consonant tone or chord.

b. The tone or chord to which such a progression is made.

11. The substitution of one metrical unit for another, especially the substitution of two short syllables for one long syllable in quantitative verse.

For whatever reason, I was determined today to find Celestial Seasoning "Nutracker Sweet" tea. Someone gave me a box of these tea bags, and I really liked it. A lot. I also realized that this was a seasonal tea, and might not be available in town much longer.

And Doug and I have been enjoying Peppermint Tea by Bigelow, which may or may not be seasonal. But Doug seems to be drinking up all my (my?) tea.

I'm developing a cold, so I decided today that I had to act fast, before this cold kicks into high gear, and all the tea is gone. And I made a list of the 8 potential stores in town that might carry this tea, and set out on a path to. . . well. . . buy it all!

I managed to hit 3 stores, and found only one box of the Nutracker Sweet Tea, but 7 boxes of Peppermint. But! I discovered two other possibilities (Gingerbread and Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride). I decided to cut my craziness (I mean, agenda) short and at least go home and try these last two teas before I continued the circuit through the city. I mean, I might even not like them!

Resolution: hoard all the city's tea????

Let Me Just Say My Children Are Odd and My Friends are NOT All Dead

Perhaps you have gleaned from my blog that I have weird children, and you would be right! Or perhaps I should say, more diplomatically, that they have strange senses of humor.

The silver lining is that Dianna showed some interest in photographing. . . . my feet! Brian gave me these socks in memory of our beloved Bonnie, and he gave Dianna this strange little book. Dianna then decided it was the perfect opportunity to photograph my feet along with her book:



But the really, really, wonderful thing is that Doug is beginning to show signs of melting his cold, hard-hearted heart (ONLY on this issue, and only if he doesn't change his position!) and relent on our getting another dog.

Sure, we could live a fine, adequate, semblance of a lame life without a dog, kind of a life that's been desaturated in photoshop of all color and joy, but there are better options! (It's probably why the dinosaurs went extinct; they didn't get to have dogs!)

Happy New Year's!

Toasting the New Year is the perfect time to put all my camera gadgets to work!

It took me a good year, but I finally figured out the very bad English translation from Japanese of the instructions for the remote for my Nikon D300s.

And my problem was so silly: I just could not find where the remote receiver attached to the camera! It turned out to be under a little rubber cap on the front left of the camera! Right there in plain sight! Ah,. . . well, . . . I got to used it quite a bit this Christmas!

So that's why you're seeing a few photos of me this year; it's not that I've suddenly turned into some kind of narcissist; it's just that it's easier to coerce me and dear Doug to pose for pictures, than other members of my family, and with this remote, now I'm fair game for practice.

So, for our New Year's toast, I used my tripod, SB800 set on iTTL, -2/3 exposure compensation and a diffuser bounced off the ceiling above us; ISO 400, f/6.3; ss .5, and the Nikon 2.8 105 mm lens.

On the Nikon D300s, you can arrange and save settings in different "banks" known as "Picture Controls." I have one set up for portraits, and one set up for more vivid color processing, and then another set to just use jpeg formats & vivid processing. Unfortunately, I goofed, and picked the more vivid processing, and then had to beat back some of that wild Nikon color in post processing. . . .



Doug and I did what we usually do on New Year's eve; we search for old episodes of "Cops", although this year we delved into new territory: "Mall Cops."

Perhaps you remember my inadvertent ending up in an episode of Mall Cops. I thought it was just a re-enactment that was being filmed, not an actual event involving a guy from Russia being tackled to the floor in the restaurant in which we were eating. And I jumped up to photograph the blood!
If you must, you can see that post here.

The episode I ended up in. . . . or rather, the back of my head ended up in it. . . is the first episode of Mall Cops, after the pilot episode.

But I digress (or am about to, now.) We had actually considered breaking with our usual New Year's Eve "Cops" tradition by going out with friends to hear music New Year's Eve.

Fate would have none of it, and sent a 2nd blizzard in two days to our little neck of the woods, and stranded us inside, with Netflix, Nikon, "Mall Cops," and a bottle of champaign.

I hope your celebrating the New Year was equally fun!

Martha Stewart Would Surely Cry!

But I did not. Ugly though it was, after it's unfortunate collision with . . . --my open purse! on the floor- -. . . my family and I still managed to enjoy this Kahlua Expresso Chocolate tart. It WAS still mostly intact on top of the bottom of the tart pan, and the floor was relatively clean. (Literally, moments before, I had cleaned up the clean (filtered, even) water that had poured from my refrigerator all over the floor. (Yeah, it was me that spilled the water.I was THINKING, deep thoughts, while filling a glass of water.))






But, Note to Self: It's NEVER a good idea to leave my purse lying around, open. I've had even worse "issues" with it in the past which should have thoroughly taught me a lesson by now.