What weird weather we're having #3

Sally, I have a bunch of pictures from UK if you want them, I just finished going through all my pictures for the photo contest so I even know where to find the good ones.

That’s an adorable picture.

Tilly, me and mom live in the middle of town; I’d love to live in the woods though. I’m sure there is all kinds of stuff going on around you, if you’re not seeing it then it’s just not happening where you are. You could try just taking your camera out for 30 min. a day and just taking pictures of stuff, plants, water puddles, clouds, etc… it’s amazing how many cool pictures happen when you just go out to take pictures, but have no preconceived ideas of what you want to take.

Oh, I forgot to mention... It's started raining here about 6:30 and was pouring there for awhile. It's tapered off now, I'm hoping it holds off until the kids are in school.

The photo of the old brewery is great - wouldn't it be fun to turn it into a lodge/bed & breakfast. As an architect I could plan the "fix-up", someone with business skills could do that part, and from the sound of it many in this group could do the food. Redchic you can do the marketing with your incredible photos.
I am having trouble getting my head around never skiing again - when I was going through a divorce (with 7 kids), on Friday afternoon I would often announce "10 minutes to get your gear in the truck - we're going skiing". They would scramble and hop in and chatter all the way. They were the happiest bunch of teenagers, and we have good memories in spite of the turmoil our family was going through. When you ski hard all day and are exhausted at night all your stress is gone and you have spent hours out in the snow. It's great.
Today is rainy and since I have a cold I am still in bed and being lazy. The bulbs will have to wait!
Zhinu, your talk about just taking your camera out for 30 minutes and taking pics has inspired me. If you don't have a goal of taking certain pictures it does not seem to require so much commitment...

We love the old Brewery and wish someone (who just won a big lottery) would do something wonderful with it. They just haven't found the group that has the money and the vision in the same pot!! I always thought that something like the market in Eugene (was it the Center or Central Street Market) years ago would be great with all the Art and Craft Shops, the Bakery and Coffee place and we loved the Diner. We would always stop there when traveling between Cal. and WA on holidays. The bakery made the very best Poppy/Sesame Seed Sourdough I have ever had!! Guess maybe I should start buying lottery tickets!

It is pouring again!!

This is funny, my new camera is a Panasonic DMC-L27. I wish I had it all summer, cause I always had my old one with me at all times in the yard and where ever I went. Got some good shots but most of them came out bad. Going back over them to find some for the contest, found many that would of been great if I had the new one. And I haven't had much time to play with it since I got it.
Zhinu, You are right not around when they are.

Its raining here to.

As for playing, took this shot
Ugly Mug LOL

Good photos everyone (Except Tilly's lol) You all make me feel included with all of your rain stories. Though today I only had about 6" of water to bail out of the boat before crossing from the light house. Yesterday afternoon the sun came out and everyone was out in it to soak up some rays. Dogs everywhere on leash with owners taking in the glorious warmth. There is nowhere as beautiful as Sitka when the sun is out. Mountains hanging over the hamlet with fresh white snow building on the tops of the peaks.
Portland, I too love skiing and at 55 my hips are starting to ache, but I think more motion is better than none. Yes I still ski the trees and try to stay out of the tree holes. Once I was flipped upside down in a hole and it almost luxated my hip when I had one leg to pull myself out hanging in the branches above.
I am only a visitor here at the light house and it is not an active light house, only a special home for the tourists who visit Sitka. The owner is the person who I work for so I get priority to use it when I work for him as a veterinarian. I commute from it to work across the 2 miles of crossing to work as a vet in Sitka. Look up "Rockwell Light house" on google earth and you will see where it is in Sitka sound.
I have my kayak out here and paddle around the islands before I go into work. This is a collapsed sea cave on one of the Islands near the light house. Kind of fun to surf in and paddle out with the swell from the ocean.

And all this time I thought you liked my photos. LOL

Trying out the new camera, from my front yard over the house. looking up to the sky.

I love all of yours except one LOL

Portland, yeah and it doesn’t even have to be somewhere special. Before I sprained my ankle earlier this year I was just going out to the lot/pond in the middle of my housing complex around sunset a couple times a week and I got some great pictures. Even your garden has great opportunities, bug and flower pictures, same with parks, even downtown you can get some great bird or building pictures, or people, but I don’t take a lot of people pictures.

Mom, oh the Eugene bread was good, Sourdough wasn’t it; I don’t remember poppy seeds. I do remember going through a couple loaves on the way from Eugene to Olympia every time we came up here.

Soferdig, Crop the boat out of that pic and it might be worth entering. I love coast line and caves (not going in them, just to look at, I’ve gone in cave a couple times, but it gives me the willies), but the texture on that picture is particularly cool.

How about fish diving into trees?

Portland and Zhinusmom, I love your ideas for the old brewery. They both have a lot of Potential with the right investments and both could likely work! Wouldn't it be fun? and a ton of work, but it would be good.

Portland... seriously, you have 7 kids and kept track of them all while skiing?!?! That's amazing. My mom had a terrible time just trying to keep track of two of us. But, I think that it was a great theraputic release for the whole family. A great idea for those who have the ability to do it.

Zhinusmom... I think that the place in Eugene that you're mentioning is 5th Street Market? It has a great bakery in it as well as many other arts, crafts, diners, retail, flowershops, etc. The two buildings do look similar, except the one in Eugene is smaller scale of course, and it is a brick building as well. Actually, I think that I read somewhere that it too was a factory of some sort in the 50's maybe? I'll have to look into that. And, now there is an excellent brewery right across the street.

Sofer, what an interesting situation you have and what fun, even on the cold days I would think. The scenery around there is amazing! Although, I'm not sure that I could take it in the winter, but the rest of the year would be well worth whatever mother nature dished out. Certainly you must have some great pictures.

Tilly, how do you like the new camera so far and what of it's features? the pictures that are in this thread of it look really good! So did you get lucky in guessing a good buy or did you have to hunt to find it as I did? I rarely have good luck going on a guess and didn't want to take the chance. The first time, and only time prior to this one, that I bought a digital camera of my own (i've had to use others for work and such) the color of the pictures was so muted that it looked as though most of them were processed as Sepia tone pictures. I couldn't even correct it with a photo editor. It drove me insane and I went back to disposable cameras for quite a while.

The weather today was... rain followed by a little sun break and then repeated at least 12 times.

I have a question or favor to ask of anyone whose interested..... I'm having an aweful time trying to decide which pictures I want to enter in the photo contest. If I were to post the pictures that might have potential to my picasaweb page, would anyone want to look at them and comment either directly below the picture(s) or in a dmail on which they think might have a chance?? I can post a link to the web page here to make it easier. I don't have the picasa page separated into distinct categories yet, but I may by tomorrow evening.

red, I've been thinking how to do something like that, so I'll take a look.

Opps... forgot to copy/paste the rest of my post.

Ok, I really hate getting up in the middle of the night and if it’s still full dark it’s the middle of the night.

red, I’m pretty sure you are right, 5th Street Market sounds familiar; if that wasn’t where we got bread I’ve still been there several times for some reason.

Yes!!!! It was the 5th Street Market......as I said haven't been there for many years but we all loved that place....could spend hours just looking!

I'm sure we would all love to look at your photos...the only problem being you take so many really good ones it would be hard to decide what we liked best!!! You go girl! We will help all we can!

Zhinusmom - I like the idea of the 5th street market even better than the bed & breakfast for the old brewery. What fun that would be! it could be a destination with camping nearby and apple festivals and all that stuff. And an artist community! Music venue!

Sofer - I loved Sitka and all those little towns. It was nice and sunny when I was there so I have not experienced the winter in such a cold place. It sounds like you have a very interesting & rewarding job.

Redchic I would like to see the pics. And we did occasionally lose a kid. Once we came to a fork in the run and of course one little guy (who skied like a bat out of hell) went the opposite way and it was a while before we realized he was gone. Since I was on the patrol in college I headed for the nearest patrol shack and there he was, sitting on the counter with his legs & skis out straight as he was so little, and munching on a cookie. He looked at us and said "You guys got lost" and would not share his cookie. The easiest way to afford skiing for a bunch is season passes - that was a lifesaver.

Foggy now but sun today. Yeah!

It is even beautiful when the winter monsoons are here. This is from the lighthouse I live at. Looking at my neighbors in their island homes. Kind of neat.

Wow, thanks for all of the encouragement of wanting to see pics! that's great. I'll pull up the link here in a second or two. I almost crashed the computer last night trying to upload, remove and move too many pictures around. Really thought I was going to loose everything when the power flickered. It's good, because it reminds me that i've been wanting to back up to n external drive.

Ok here's the link. http://picasaweb.google.com/redchic/PicsForDavesPics#

For the ones you like, you can either post directly underneath the picture or send the number to me in a dmail, which ever you like or is easiest!!

Portland.... I love the part where your son said that you got lost. That's great! It would definitely make my mom happy to know that she wasn't the only one to have one dissappear on her (usually me)

Zhinu, I'd love to see your pics as well! It was easy to do, just took a little more time than I wanted when my computer stalled and gagged.

If I have a minute later on I'll see if I can find a picture of 5th st. They did some renovations about 5 years ago to make it look a little more modern--which I didn't like, but nike was behind the investment sooo...... But, if I can find a picture before then, that would be good.

That's a great pic Sofer! Do the neighbors' houses ever get beat up in storms?

Those are just wonderful, This is like a contest in a contest, so many to chose from.

haha.. Thanks Tilly, I think this gives me some better much better ideas than my cat sitting on the computer desk pointing at the ones she likes! (which may have something to do with when the cursor moves.... still working on that)

Tilly, how do you like your camera so far?

So far I like it, just learning what it can do it has soo many functions, all new to me. I thought my Nikon cool pix was hard. Ha
This is one I took in the GH. and testing all the settings. the little flower is a half inch. This is the best I got so far. I bought it from a friend and they lost the book. We sold them at my store. For $200. I got it for $50.00.

That's so funny Tilly. I actually had a nikon coolpix as well before this one, but I really don't consider that as my first decent camera since I accidentally dropped it and broke it after only a week and a half. But, I did like it. A week or so later I got the Dmc. and then promptly misplaced the owners manual when I was packing and unpacking stuff rather hurriedly, I think that I'll find it eventually. If I find it, I'll make a copy and send it too you :-p I went online and was able to look up some of the info I needed for some things other than the IA setting, especially since the IA setting and I don't always agree on what it should focus on and I really wanted to figure out how to get past that. But, I still haven't ventured out into the most complicated settings yet, I'm working my way there and I'm sure that I'll have to get the instructions for those as well off of the internet. You got yours for an excellent price though!! The pic has great colors to it and the leaves are sharp! I bet that if you were to take the plant outside and take a pic there, it would focus on the flower instead. There's something with greenhouse lighting, at least for me, that seems to throw off the automatic focusing.

this is the courtyard of 5th st. market after the renovation. Actually, I couldn't hardly find any decent pictures before the renovation that were after 1975, which it was that time frame when it really took off as a business. since the renovation most of the brick has been covered over.

then here's one of the bistro type areas on the inside

I would love a copy. So thank you.
I do love my Cool Pix, I keep it in the car with me now.
I did not think about the lighting In GH, will try it again outside.
Took this off the back porch of the wild cherry tree which is about 100 yards away. I like the zoom which is twice what the Cool Pix is, wish I had it when everything was blooming.

All my entries are done, I will go back and look at yours again, I know you have me beat in some, you have some really great pics.

I think I have mine picked out, but I want a couple more opinions before I finalize my choices.

Just did a go thru sending my choicies, sending Dmail.
I will pull all mine out yours are to good. LOL, NOT Ha Ha

I'm ready send them on, LOL

Good..... Don't you dare pull yours out Tilly!!! I'm not sure how I will get at you if you do, but I'll find a way! lol. It's a beautiful area that you live in there Tilly!

This message was edited Oct 21, 2008 8:19 PM

Lovely pictures, everyone. Congrats on your new camera, Mary.

Redchic, I've been to picasaweb - so many beautiful ones there. I'm really partial to sunsets and water droplet and ice droplet pictures - they really capture a special moment.

red, did you post a link to your pictures that I missed?

yep, I would love any input that I can get too!!! Look up above in this thread for Soferdigs last picture. Just below that I posted a bunch of verbage, in that stuff there is a link to my picasaweb album. I'm just now getting to you dmail, sorry I'm a little behind :-s

Oh Shelly, I think I will get rid o my camera......I have never seen so many beautiful pictures......and I am not just saying this....you have some of the most incredible shots....how are we suppose to choose. I was on the phone with Laura an I think she was getting tired of my....OMG you have to see #, Oh how incredible, Oh OH OH.....I will be going over these several times before I could begin to narrow it down.......Really Shelly they are beautiful!

Red, ok here is what mom and I came up with. All of your photos are great, but these are the ones we think you should submit by category.

#28 Annuals
#98 Bulbs
#106 Bulbs
#69 Insect
#89 Insect
#24 Misc.
#73 Misc.
#26 Perenials
#14 Pets
#15 Pets
#99 Rose
#16 Scenic
#55 Scenic
#7 Trees
#108 Trees
#64 Wildlife
#65 Wildlife

#82 we think you should submit, but we’re not sure where. I’m leaning towards Fruits, because it’s the “food” category, mom thinks scenic, but you have so many great photos for that category already, maybe misc., but we do think you should submit it even if you drop one of the other photos we suggested.

These we think are well worthy of being submitted, but don’t know what they are, so don’t know where to put them. If you want to sort them into Annual, Pernial, and bulbs we can go through and choose the two per category we think you should put up.
#22 (not sure which plant type)
#48 (not sure which plant type)
#51 (not sure which plant type)
#63 (not sure which plant type)
#75 (not sure which plant type)
#79 (not sure which plant type)
#79 (not sure which plant type)
#93 (not sure which plant type)
#96 (not sure which plant type)
#101 (not sure which plant type)

And of course I would get other opinions.

I set-up Picasa tonight and will get my categories uploaded for your opinions tomorrow. Right now I’m going to go watch NCIS with DH.

Zhinusmom..... don't ever get rid of your camera!!!! we'll all regret it, because we'll miss seeing everything that you're going to share with us in the future!! You and Laura are both great, i can't believe that you were actually talking about it on the phone. It's nice to hear families that are so close to one another. Their does seem to be quite a few on these threads, it's refreshing. Does 5th street market look anything like you remember it? It really did make some pretty big changes. If you are ever back down here and want to get some bread or whatever from that bakery though, you have to know that they have moved. The bakery that was there, Metropol, actually outgrew their spot there and had to move out of 5th st, and into a larger place. There is now two of them and they share space with a WildOats market. There is another small bakery in the same place as they were in, it's good too, but not quite as good.

Zhinu, thanks so much for doing the work to type that all out. That was far more than I was expecting!! But, I will be happy to do the same for you when you post a link for yours. I'm looking forward to it. Please convince your mom to go out and take more pictures. I like taking breaks from here for NCIS as well. lol If I get a chance tomorrow I will see if I can sort those into categories, but I'll do it in different folders so as to not mess up all of the nice numbering that folks have already done!!

Katie.... are we going to see any entries from you? You're here and have pictures over on the other threads.....

Weather today: Absolutely Fantastic fall weather! Unfortunate as all get out that I had to be inside. I was really upset with that one today.

I never could actually get rid of my camera, I have too much fun with it.....but your photos really are that beautiful.

That is pretty much the market as we have known it....we started going there in the mid to late 80's...Metropol....that is the one!!! I do hope to get back down that way one of these days. We had good friends in Corvallis that we used to visit.....she had a bad break down....attempted suicide....they got a divorce......she is back in Corvallis.....he is remarried (to the correct partner this time) and they live in Portland now. We are still very close with all of them but don't get down that way very often due to work and financial issues.

Laura and I spend quite a bit of time together and even more on the phone. We often talk to each other while reading threads and discuss the goings on. We get along very well. Wasn't always the case.....we have since discovered that we are both much easier to get along with when on the proper medication. But then MY mother and I spend a lot more time together than we used to also.

One of the things we often discuss is the really good friends we have made on DG even if we have never met them. We like it here.

Everyone have a good night....sounds like it may be a bit chilly in the morning.

5th Street Market has changed (not all for the better) but it's still fun to rummage through the shops. It has one of the last kitchen stores in town. Metropol is a great bakery, I go to plays with friends once in a while and first we go to lunch and then hit Metropol for dessert! They have a great $2.00 sample tray.

sofer...one incredible pic after another, thank you for including us in your journey.

redchic...I'll look at the pictures too, but you know I'll like them all. LOL

Got half the deck and the steps stained today, hope the cold night doesn't mess up the good job I did!! My neighbors had to come check it out (a woman, staining and WOW she did a good job).

Beautiful fall day, sunny after the morning fog.

Sally congrats on the deck....of course you did a great job! I don't why so many people find it so hard to comprehend that there are a lot of things we can do.....and often a lot better than the guys!!! One of the best car mechanics we ever had was a woman.....I sure wish she was still in this area because a lot of the guys I have had to deal with in recent years aren't all that great!

Thanks Zhinusmom, I wish she was around here too! It took me a long time to find a mechanic that listened to me. Since DH had a heart attack, I've had to do a lot of things I never did before. One day I'll show these guys what I used to do when I was working. We built solar panels for satellites, I was the lead and did launch support, which took me to some very interesting places. Fun job, but very stressful.