The Time Sink

I'm thinking I'll step away from the ocean for a week and put up some other shots for a few days. ...and just to break things up a bit; I have plenty of shots from that thirty-six hour stretch, but I'm thinking some of them may work better in a piece for Views.

Hey, the rains are back. Kinda'. At least enough floated down from the north to water in the transplants I did yesterday. ...and maybe if there is more scheduled I can get out and get some bulbs planted in the evenings. Yeah, that would be cool.

Sometimes blog fodder just happens... When we got back from the coast the other weekend Brad and I took a few moments at the neighbors' grabbing some sunset, low angle shots of the blooms on their flowering quince. ...and as I moved to get out of the way of one of his shots I noticed the sunlight in his hair. Easy enough, "Hold still a moment, Brad; there's a macro shot to be had!"

That night when I brought the shot up in Elements and showed it to Shelley she said, "What's that? Weeds?" Umm... No, that's Brad's hair. That got me a, "Uh-uh! No one will think thats what it is! Put that up on your blog and see what people say."

Hey, I'm easy <g>! So up went the shot and this morning I had five emails from the faithful waiting for me: all five said "hair" and two said "Brad". That pretty much said it for me! ...and Brad was pleased since he said you'd all get it.

Today's photo shot? The basketball? Yeah, well, I did take the camera along to the game the other night to try a few things out. One thing I learned right away was that even though the lighting looks great, it really isn't all that great for my level of camera. ...and since I didn't have permission to tap into the arena's strobes and didn't think I could time my shots to the 'authorized' photog's use of them, I figured I would just play around.

...and the tele turned out to be a waste of weight in that the extra stop it cost me pretty much took away anything with any motion (minor things like 'players' and 'pep squad' and 'the band' and such). ...but I found if I balanced the A-2 on my knee and prefocused on the basket, I could get a shot or two. The one I have up is just a product of patience.

No post. Heck, I didn't even remember to upload the photo post for Friday until mid-day!

The week is over but the weekend is looking full. Mañana we're heading out early for a seminar on studying and good study habits. Shelley says it will be a laugh filled riot. The teen has another opinion...

Woot! Now that was an entertaining and informative morning and afternoon! One of the local team's coaches has developed and spread the concept of an Academic Game Plan ever since he showed up here in the valley. ...and he's boosted the graduation rate of the football team by some tremendous amount. So when he scheduled a seminar for college and high school kids and parents we gladly gave up our Saturday and headed downtown to see what was up with this grand Plan.

Right. Brad planned on being bored; Daniel planned on not liking it at all; Shelley was hopeful; and I was hoping to see what this guy had to say. I've been following his system (in bits and pieces ) in the local paper and in sports magazines and realized he was presenting some things I'd picked up during my teaching career as well as a whole slew of things he had a totally new take on.

Did we have a good time? Yep, all four of us. Did we learn anything? For sure. We brought home several ideas we can use to extend the current system the local district has in place. Did we get any bonuses? You betcha"! One of the local high school principals gave two excellent motivational talks during the seminar. Oh, and Brad had his sideline cap autographed by an alumnus of FSU!

The plan was deceptively simple: while the floor was still torn up, replace one ruined board and change out the kitchen faucet. Easy enough, even when I knew the stop valve for the hot water would also need changing since it wouldn't stop (discovered during the Great Hot Water Heater Event). ...but it was only after I got into it yesterday evening that I discovered that the dippity-doo who did the plumbing had wanted to make sure the compression fitting on the copper pipe coming out of the wall would never loose contact with the angle stop. Ever! He used Loctite!

So I'm dealing with half-inch copper and a couple of wrenches under a kitchen sink. Yeah, I got out the Makita and cut the blasted fitting off. I figured I'd go with compression, but my brother-in-law had a better idea: sweat some proper half inch IP threads on there. Oh, yeah.

So he cancelled plans for a romantic evening at home with my sister and came by. We finished up the work on the replacement pieces, changed out both angle stops, replaced the faucet and just generally made sure things are ready for the flooring crew this next week.

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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