Easter Pictures

So, the gallery of what I initially called 5-star images is up here; I think I've changed my mind about a few of them, but that could be just the 1024x768 images that are shown in the gallery.  If anyone wants 'em, I set the gallery to allow downloading of whole images -- just be aware that the new camera is 15 megapixels, so the images are...big.

Meanwhile, here are the smaller preview-sized pictures.  Comments, if any, are above the corresponding picture.

First we have NEON. ;-)  Actually, I liked all the almost garish colors contrasting with the gentle blue of the sky.  Also?  Love the clouds.

I've taken almost this exact picture before, but this is cropped extensively.  Plus, the sky was blue -- difficult for someone who generally chooses to do Disney on cooler days or late afternoon / night time.

Patrick does not often let me take his picture, so I generally snap one while he's taking his own.  Sometimes I even get away with it.

"Get ready, Screamers!  Launch in five, four, three...."

"...two..."

"...one!"  (Note that this picture looked sharp when I edited it.  It seems odd to think that some blurriness was added -- specifically to the people and background -- when it was resized for the web, but who knows?)

 Grizzly Peak.  It took me three or four visits to catch onto the face, way back when.

I like the vertical composition better, but I prefer the colors in this one:

And this one:

I've mentioned before, I think, that I love to photograph water.

The Disneyland...Honor...Band (I think that was what it was called) during the Flag Retreat Ceremony.  (Which I stumbled upon as I was attempting to attach a different camera strap, as I didn't really want to walk around with, in effect, "NEW DIGITAL CAMERA" emblazoned on my neck, even at Disneyland.)

The old logo, the band uniforms...somehow it screamed sepia tone.  I also have a B&W version.

Sunset!

And, last but in no way least, my pride and joy of the day, taken at an ISO of 3200, with my nifty fifty, in order to get the most light into the camera as possible.

Again, whole gallery is here.  Other galleries (past pictures) are here.

Adventures

Back at Christmas, I was the happy recipient of a "nifty 50" -- a Canon 50 mm prime lens that costs around $100.  It's mostly plastic and -- as with all of photography -- not the best 50 mm prime lens you can buy.

However, it's a 50 mm f 1.8 lens, so I happily brought it along to ride the new it's a small world and to take some pictures.

I got a couple of good shots, but my favorite of the night is this one, from the also newly-refurbished Sleeping Beauty Castle walk-through.

This one was taken with my trusty kit lens from way back when I bought the camera, but I'd paused there to wait for my mom to buy a coffee, and I never take photos from this angle or vantage point.

A couple of small world shots.  I like Woody the best, but to be fair, I tried to get away with an ISO of 400 in an effort to reduce noise.  I got a surprising number of usable shots, but I think next time I'll go for 800 and see what I can do with that.  There's always 1600 if I must.

Meanwhile, still slowly going through San Diego pictures from...ahem...the day after Thanksgiving.  Lots of neat Balboa Park architectural pictures, with some Seaport Village thrown in.

Seaport Village:

Balboa Park:

And that's all she wrote, for now.

The Bombest Shirt

Sometimes Patrick does things with language that really should be corrected, but instead creep into the family's unique vernacular.

"Whoosh" for Gadget's Co Coaster, for instance, or the various alternate titles he used for his favorite episodes of Star Trek and Xena when he was little -- to the point that I had to make a chart for our dad for when Patrick visited him at work.

On our last night at the Magic Kingdom, we were waiting for our return time to Space Mountain -- which was basically, I think, a gift Fast Pass given to us by the cast member when I approached and asked which queue (standby or Fast Pass) was used for wheelchair access.

Patrick still needed to get his shirt from the Magic Kingdom, so after we rode the PeopleMover (for about the 5th time) and watched the Carousel of Progress again (boo for the "no photography at all" rule -- I get no flash pictures...but none at all...really?), we headed over to a gift shop in Tomorrowland to look for a shirt.

We ended up at the Merchant of Venus (har har har; get it?) and were perusing shirts.  Unbeknownst to Patrick, one of my goals for this trip was to curb his "I must buy a shirt at each park, so I will buy the first shirt I see at each park" strategy.  So far, it had worked well.  He saw a couple of shirts on one side, but we perused the rest of them.

And then, he saw it.

"That's the bomb!" he said, taking the shirt down admiringly.  Remember, Patrick likes his shirts loud; this one was deafening.  He stared at it, and said, "That's not the bomb, that's the bombest!"

So, with grateful thanks to the Maid Service supervisor who reminded the hotel employees that they are supposed to check under beds for forgotten items, here is Patrick in his newly-arrived bombest shirt:

We bought the shirt and still had five minutes to kill, so we...wait for it...rode the PeopleMover again.  "That's the bombest shirt!" Patrick kept saying, admiringly, pausing only to watch the model of Walt's original EPCOT.

Pre-Trip Randomness

Somehow, I always spend most of the day before a trip updating various iPods.  Now that Patrick has his iPod touch, it adds another level of confusion: keeping the video contents of his iPod from overlapping with mine, so as to save space.

That said, watching the progress bars creep across on various iPods was amusing, especially....

This is my iPhone.

The free space is to make sure I have enough to snap some photos and blog or twitter with them along the way.  Notice that it is largely audio, for listening to during long lines and such.  It has a gorgeous screen, but video slurps too much battery life in case emergency calls are needed.

(Yes, I'm taking a charger -- I mean in case we get stuck at an airport or something, though right now the FAA says Detroit is within 15 minutes of takeoff on all flights.)

Anyhow, this is my iPod classic:

Notice that it's largely video, with very little audio?  That's for two reasons.  One -- some hotels have TVs with A/V inputs, so in case of too much Disney channel, we might be able to watch our own stuff.  Two -- even if the battery gets drained to zero on this, we won't be incommunicado.

Now, I also have battery backup -- a nifty little doohickey that takes 9 volt batteries (which I prefer for gadgets instead of AA or AAAs 'cause you can test the batteries using the tongue test), but I loaned it to my mom for her phone during a recent power outage and it's MIA.

About to shut down computer and put phone in Airplane Mode to conserve battery power, but will probably switch it off for twittering here and there.

See ya.

More Pictures

Mostly the Oregon coast here.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I did say "mostly."  This is the Washington coast, and I made it black and white to disguise the haze.  I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I do think it has kind of a nifty Hitchcock-type feeling to it.

I loved the pattern on the wood in this one.  I have a full-color and sepia-toned version, too, but for some reason, I like the B&W version the best.

I like stone wall on the side of this one, and the lighting from the clouds was...well, better than anything on the Washington coast.  Fortunately, they get better from here.  :-)

I can't explain what I like about this one, but I like it.

I think this would have worked better with a clearer sky, but...what can you do?

More of those white flowers.

The best way I could think of to deal with the haze in this one was to intentionally blur the background and focus on something closer that wasn't hazy.

Amazing what blue sky and good lighting does to a photo, even if you can't see the sky.  :-)

So, to get to this beach, you turned off the highway at a "view point" (a "vista point" in CA), then went down this tiny, tiny road, turned right, and went down like 1/4 a mile past seaside rental houses down to an unpaved...area.

Then you climbed through sand drifts populated with fire ants...but the beach was gorgeous, and the next few pictures come from it.

There was a lot of driftwood, and I took the opportunity to really focus on the lines and patterns -- something I have been trying to do lately after Aide T pointed out that many of Patrick's pictures catch lines and patterns that I hadn't even noticed.

I have absolutely no idea who this dog belonged to, but he was having so much fun that I just had to grab a couple of quick shots.

These, too, are from the beach pictured above.

Oooh, a pretty tree.  :-)

While this is not a technically spectacular photograph, I included it here for Patrick because its name is Herbie.

The whole gallery is available here.

Now, one more Olympics comment.  I came across this blog once when I was (I think) browsing the Livejournal filk community, and bookmarked the RSS feed.  She summed up beautifully how I felt about the Opening Ceremony (more or less live-blogged below), though I didn't cry.