Creative Thursday - Lizzy's New Pentax and The Z990 In Macro Mode.

Lizzy's perspective, always makes me smile.  Since she has gotten her new Pentax dSLR, she has not had too many chances to use it.  While we were at the preserve last week, she had her first real chance.  She decided to use one of my better lenses, to my chagrin, but I guess I should have known when I bought the kids compatible cameras, my lenses were fair game.  I'll probably be selling a bunch of the lenses I bought for them and upgrading to fewer, better lenses.  Anyway, I love the above picture. It's not Lizzy's complete disregard for the broken tree in front of the lens, it is her disregard for logical focusing.  If she wants to focus on a red flower hanging from a far away tree, she locks in and takes the picture, foreground and background be damned.

Mushrooms always make a cool photo subject and the variety of colors and textures are limitless.  While at the preserve, I was taking shots of different mushrooms, so when Lizzy saw one she took the above shot.

That day, before going to the preserve, Lizzy initially wanted to take the Z990.  We all love the Kodak Z990 and for different reasons.  Lizzy loves the zoom range; Emily loves the smaller size and solid feel; I love the macro capabilities and the two macro modes.  I ended up taking the Kodak.

The below white mushroom and yellow flower were taken by me using the z990 in standard macro mode. 

Nebraska, Change Your Name To Stupid.

Pow, pow, pow.

Signing Exact English (SEE) is a form of American sign language. The gesture modified for a deaf child named Hunter is crossed fingers pointing forward moving up and down.

Where am I going with this?

A pre-schooler in Nebraska is being asked to change his name from Hunter or not come to school because of their weapons policy. They claim, "Weapons in Schools" Board Policy 8470 forbids "any instrument...that looks like a weapon,". Wait, a three year old's crossed-fingers look like... guns... dynamite... Twizzlers?   Really?  For that matter, what does a weapon look like?

I can't even get to the level of stupidity of a Nebraska school board member, so let's pretend they said, '...any item that can be used as a weapon...'. Let's follow that logic.

• No Utensils could be used to prepare or eat food.  They all are, or could be used as weapons.
• No Pens or pencils could be used to write.   Pens are mightier than swords.
• No chairs or furniture.  I've seen old westerns, they are weapons.
• No Pocketbooks or book bags.  Swing them and you got a weapon.
• No Rulers. hell, I may have to agree with this one. Nuns are well versed in the ancient art of ruler-fu. I have arthritis in my knuckles to prove it.
• No cleaning agents. They could be used as chemical weapons.
• No Cars in the parking lot.  I've seen loads of car bombs on the news.
• No School buses.  Watch Speed... No don't, that may actual lower your IQ to only ten times that of a Nebraska school board member.
• No fingers, no toes, no knees, no elbows.  I've watched Bruce Lee movies, all of these are potential weapons.

I could keep going, but this getting tedious for me, so it must be painful for you.

I Digress...

This is about a deaf child who is being denied an obviously substandard education at a Nebraska public school, unless he changes his name. Just a couple of the many ideas that popped into my head.:

• Make his name  sound like a dirty word with a clean sign. That way if a teacher says his name, they'd probably be in violation of some obscure school board profanity policy. 
• Change his name to something like, 'Nebraska School Board Members Are All Idiots', it would be a handful, but probably doesn't violate any policies.

In an age where our public schools are failing our children, do we really need school boards that make up asinine and obscure rules?  I have an idea for anyone who lives in Grand Island, Nebraska.  FIRE YOUR ENTIRE SCHOOL BOARD.

If you see them in the streets, teach them a whole new sign language.

Grand Island Nebraska School Board.

Carolina Liar, Kelly Clarkson and The Fray.

A nice lady behind us volunteered to take this picture with my phone.

Lizzy and I went to see Carolina Liar, Kelly Clarkson and The Fray at the (PNC Bank) Garden State Arts Center Sunday. I bought two second row seats several months ago off of EBay and the girls were fighting over who was going to go with me. I told them they were on a point system based on chores and behavior. Well, Emily bowed out of the contest, so even the regular chores stopped being done... epic parental fail.

The Garden State Arts Center is one of those great places. It's an outdoor arena with amazing acoustics, good venues and it's exactly 15 mins. from my house. VIP parking isn't cheap but is worth not having to walk or be bussed.

Lizzy and I left the house at 6:00pm and arrived at 6:15p.m.. As we approached the entrance gate security downed my mirrorless camera so we had to go back to the car, luckily it was only about 100ft away. That left us with only one camera, Lizzy's old Kodak with abysmal zoom and battery life. After grabbing a bite to eat and some shirts, Lizzy and I made our way down to the seats. Lizzy's excitement grew with each security check point we past. As we got down to row B, Lizzy could not believe how close we were and her eyes widened. A few moments later Carolina Liar was on stage and playing. The bass vibrations shook us, as we watched. Lizzy put in the earplugs that we brought with us.

No one was sitting in the seats in front of us.

After Carolina Liar did a generous set, it was time for Kelly Clarkson to come on stage. She was amazing! Lizzy and I sang all of the songs she did. I realized that her songs had special meaning for me, they were my divorce songs. The Kelly Clarkson station was one of my first on Pandora. I listened to 'Breakaway', 'Because of You', 'Stronger', 'Already Gone'. They were bubble gum in a time when I needed something to chew on.

Lizzy's night went from great to insane when Einar Pedersen (Kelly's bass guitarist) leaned over and gave her a pick.

Still, no one was sitting in the seats in front of us.

After Kelly's set was done, Lizzy wanted a Churro. We went to the concession stand; they were sold out so she settled for a pretzel. We went back to our seats.   As The Fray came on, the Security guard told Lizzy that she could move up to the front row. Though Kelly Clarkson and her band stole the show, The Fray was brilliant. As they sang, 'How To Save A Life', I tapped Lizzy on the shoulder. She turned around and paused her singing just long enough to flash me a smile. It was a 'define irony moment'. We came to a concert with the 1^st American Idol winner and now were belting out a song from The Fray, that we sang on the American Idol video game frequently.

Last birthday Lizzy got hugged by Triple H, this birthday she got to see three great bands, a guitar pick and a front row seat at an excellent concert. What did I get? One of only a few, 'Super Dad' years left.

MAX IPAD User of the Week.

Lizzy and I went to the Carolina Liar, Kelly Clarkson and The Fray concert last night.  We had second row seats.  That's a full blog for tomorrow.  This blog is about, why I worry about the intelligence of ipad owners. 

The guy in the front row strutted up in a bright pink shirt and non-matching bright blue pants holding a Carvel ice cream and an ipad.  Not only did his mother dress him funny, she also never taught him to use a trash can.  Before the concert even started, the slob threw the Carvel container and napkins under the seat next to him (later in the concert, even more trash.) almost hitting the guy sitting behind it.  He then decided it was time to take pictures with his ipad.  This in itself would not have been so bad, except:

1. He was so stupid, it took him 5 minutes to figure out that his ipad screen was black because his flip back case, covered the camera lens.  He then fumbled furiously for several more minutes to fold his case in such a way that it would allow him to take pictures without dropping the ipad.

2. He stood up keeping his face inches from the screen, blocking the view of the young couple behind him and kids behind them during most of Carolina Liar and all of the Kelly Clarkson performance.  For the amount of time he was looking through the ipad and not at the concert, he may as well have watched it at home sitting five inches from his tv screen.

3. An Ipad as a concert camera?  Really?  What in your feeble little brain(or lack there of) says I need an unwieldy nine inch screen to take crappy pictures of a concert.  You can buy a sub $100 digital camera that can outperform even the best phones and tablets and it will allow you to hold it over your head to take pictures.  Even if you need connectivity, to send the pictures, an Iphone or Android phone would do.

Luckily, as you can see by the picture, he didn't block Lizzy and my view of the stage.  The people behind him were thankful when he left after Kelly Clarkson, they didn't have to stand up and maneuver around him or his trash to watch The Fray. 

If anyone who reads this blog recognizes the back of this bozos head(the ipad will probably still be a few inches in front of it), congratulate him on being the MAX IPAD user of the week.  By his actions last night, he'll probably think it's an honor.

Tick... Tick... Tick...

I was out golfing the other day; though I was barely in the rough must have come in contact with something. I started itching before I even left the course and that evening, as I prepared to take a shower, found out what that something was. A tick had latched on to my umm... errrr... genitals (For younger readers, genitals are not non-Jews, but part of the anatomy). It's a disturbing site to see a tick on your testicle (Once again for younger readers, not a tougher quizzical, but part of the same male anatomy). So I sat there staring at my family jewels, which at the moment had a tick, so I guess they were more like family watches.

I digress...

So I pull a baby deer tick off of me. Yes, I know it was a deer tick. Living in New Jersey, we are out numbered by ticks, 5,143,989,383 to 1; Jerseyans can identify most types of hard ticks by sight, smell or sound. Also, I know there is a name for 'baby' deer ticks but even if I looked it up on the internet, most people know I would not have that information off the top of my head, so I'll just call it a 'baby tick'.

Anyway, I throw it in the sink and leave the hot water running for like five minutes. Why it had to be hot water, I do not know. I assume cold water will flush a tick down the pipes and drown it just as fast but I wanted to make it suffer. I probably should have kept the tick in a plastic bag, in case of disease or infection but keeping a tick bagged in your freezer, makes neither a cool trophy nor a tasty quick dinner choice.

It's two days later, and I have a typical tick bite welt. It still itches, but is getting better. Thank goodness green tea and honey are great antihistamines.

Does Being Human Make Us Less Humane?

It's 11:45p.m. on a Saturday and I'm out grabbing my last cigarette before bed. If you can call it a cigarette, it's really some electronic vaporizer designed to make me quit. I still 'vapor' outside, call it force of habit. The silence is broken by a loud rustling. I look down from my steps and there is an opossum. It is scared and looks like it just barely escaped whatever was after it. As I stare down at the poor creature my first thought is, I have to get a picture of this thing for the blog. It looks up at me wearily and jumps through the lattice beneath my stairs. I run inside for my shoes and a camera. Two seconds later I'm back out and my ape brain grabs a stick. I can hear the opossum under the landing, so I gently push the stick in to coax the scared creature out. After wiggling the stick for a while, I put it back down and walk up the steps. I hear the opossum shift uncomfortably several feet beneath me. I run back inside and grab a large cup of water.

Ecig and cup in one hand and camera in the other, I am ready to water bomb a defenseless animal seeking shelter, just to take it's picture.  As I clutch the cup ready to douse, I lift the viewfinder to my eye in hopes of a decent shot. In the darkness I hear an animal behind me. It's not bigger than me, but I can't be sure what it is. I walk up the stairs seeking the safety of the light. Shuffling begins beneath the boards underfoot. I hear whatever it was behind me, retreat through the chain link fence. It hits me. I feel regret in empathy.

I was planning to scare the hell out of a harmless animal in hopes of getting it's picture for the blog.

Opossums have never done anything to me. I've enjoyed seeing them, and sometimes their babies, go scurrying across my yard. They don't do any damage like the rabbits and groundhogs.

Why did it take me so long to realize what I was doing was wrong? Just two days ago, I was preaching to the kids about being careful in the woods and not disturbing the animals' home. As we walked down the trails, I explained to them that nature was important and that we had to make sure it always had a place. Now nature needed a place and I was trying to force it out. I decided to go inside and leave my visitor alone.

About a half hour went by and I was just finishing up writing this entry. I turned the porch light on and grabbed the ecig. As I opened the door I could just make out the hind side of the opossum at the edge of the light. I looked back at my camera, leaving it I walked out. The opossum turned back for a second. I wondered, if I had seen his eyes would pity be looking back at me? He then continued forward in a relaxed pace and we parted ways.

Sometimes There is a Rickety Bridge on the Path to Enlightenment.

I'm a firm believer that every step you take leads you to where you are. I also believe looking back on where you've been, it always seems better than it was. I'm in a good place now, I have a direction forward. Whether or not that direction is perilous, time will reveal.  For now, I enjoy where I am. I have no real wants for me, just for my children.

I get to see the kids a lot over the summer and one of the things working from home gives me, is time with them. I'm happy the four hours of daily commute is a thing of the past. Today we went to a trail on the opposite side of the preserve. I hadn't brought the kids there before. It has lots of hills and water and rickety bridges.

The sun was already on it's way down, when we arrived, so I knew we wouldn't get far. The tide was low, so the insects were active. Getting there late, the cameras were fighting the light. Forty-five minutes into the hike, we were forced to turn back and saw a family of flag tails running from our crackling steps on leaves. I let Lizzy guide us out of the woods. Though she took us down a few of the tougher paths and one a skunk had recently journeyed, we made it to the car unscathed.

Afterward, we had a lot of insect bites; not a lot of pictures; took a lot of tough trails; suffered through fresh skunk smell.

Looking back on it I realize, we had a great time.

Creative Thursday - Why I'll Miss Kodak Cameras.

Popcorn Zoo

I purchased a lot of camera equipment in the last 6 months. I upgraded my Pentax dSLR, lenses, purchased a Panasonic mirrorless(hate that term), a Panasonic pocketable super zoom, a Kodak z990; even the kids each got a Pentax dSLR. All but the pocketable super zoom impressed me.

Impressive Macro on a rose

 This post is about the Kodak Z990. The features of the Kodak are amazing. It has...

• A high quality Electronic View Finder(EVF) as well as a 3”screen.
• A Back Side Illuminated CMOS sensor(Great in low light).
• Real multi-exposure HDR(shooting technique feature only found in mid level or better dSLRs)
• An equivalent 28-840mm(Wide angle to telescope) f2.8–5.6(FAST good DOF(Depth Of Field)) Schneider Kreuznach lens.
• True HD video.
• The best image stabilization I've ever used.

From My Porch.

All of that for under $150(Closeout, original msrp was $499). The only negatives I would give this camera are, no on camera 3d and below average battery life. It uses AA batteries and good rechargeables only get 150-200 shots. I suspect this is due to the image stabilization.

Chrysler Building Steel (840mm handheld)

Kodak really missed the mark when they marketed their cameras. I don't know why they pushed their, run of the mill, low end cameras while nobody ever got to hear of their impressive higher end models. This is the second, 'high end' Kodak camera I've owned(The first being a P880) and both were excellent.

Miniature flowers on a trail (about the size of a nickel).

All pictures in this post were taken with the z990.

Lily Hiding in the Pads

R.I.P. Kodak Digital Camera Division.

Look to the sky

Kids project – Chicken Little? Chicken A Lot!

Last weekend, I bought a ton of steaks from a Capital Meats van. I would say the meat was expensive, but compared to say, an Omaha Steakhouse order, it was actually cheap. Well, of course when I bought the steaks, I never took into account that my small freezer was packed to the gills. I also didn't think about the five pounds of chicken breasts I bought on sale at A&P that were sentenced to the refrigerator and near time of expiration. The kids were over, so I decided to have some fun cooking.

I've been told I am a good cook; I never follow a recipe though. I put flavors together in my head and use them, usually to great effect.

So what was I going to do with 5lbs. of chicken breasts? I decided to have the kids make up their own recipes and we would cook them together. While they were writing down their recipes, I washed and filleted the breasts. I then made a batch of peanut sauce chicken. It's an easy recipe that requires simple ingredients. Basically, you take an almost empty jar of peanut butter(I prefer Trader Joe's Peanut Butter with flax seed), put oil and water in it and shake it up until mixed. You then fry cut up chicken and simmer it in the sauce, reducing the sauce to a nice consistency. It's a crowd pleaser and with minor modification and a few more ingredients, a great chicken satay.

It was then Lizzy's turn at creating a culinary masterpiece. She had grandiose ideas of mixing pumpkin butter and cinnamon. We settled on quite a unique dish that was extremely tasty and easy to make. We coated chicken fillets with cinnamon and sugar and fried them in a skim of oil until the sugar caramelized on each side. It was amazing showing the kids how sugar turned into caramel and also how it cooked to the chicken. It tasted spectacular. We wrapped it up and found a small place in the freezer for it. I'll make a pumpkin butter sauce for it when I serve it.

Lastly, Emily came up with panko, cilantro  and lime fried chicken. We floured, egg washed, breaded and fried the chicken until nicely browned. It was our meal that night and was delicious. The leftover was also shoved in the remaining space of the freezer for later consumption.

I love seeing the creativity of my kids when I give them a seemingly simple task. I like when they, 'get it' and create something special. Lizzy's cinnamon caramel chicken was the clear winner that night and is a new recipe in our family cook book. I hope my pumpkin butter sauce does it justice.

Yeah I know, two food posts in a row.   I do cook and create a lot in my little kitchen. That night was special though, we didn't just make chicken, we simmered creativity to perfection.

Yogurt... Just Plain Yogurt!

In the last couple of weeks, the kids and I have gone peach picking at the orchard and have been going to the local farmers' market(A whole post unto itself). Well, last week, I ordered a yogurt maker from Amazon. I've never made yogurt, but figured how hard could it be?

While waiting for the machine to come in, I made the mistake of researching the origins of yogurt. The story goes, a herdsman accidentally left a clay jar of milk out all day. The natural enzymes found in the container activated in the heat. When he got back to it, at the end of the day, he noticed it was solid so he tried some and yogurt was discovered.

What the hell was this guy thinking? WTF... WTF... WTF...  If I walk into a 7-11, make a cup of coffee and even the smallest half and half sperm floats to the top, I throw the whole cup out. This guy saw a warm jar of solidified milk and thought, 'I have to try that.'...

Oh wait...

Approx. 6000 years later, I was waiting for a UPS truck to deliver a machine so I could do. . . just that.

The yogurt machine came in and I read the recipe.  Holy crap!   Nine hours to make a batch of yogurt?   Turns out to make yogurt you need yogurt cultures. Seeing as the yogurt cultures I ordered online were stuck in postal limbo, I had to buy a tub of already made yogurt to use as my starter cultures. So, I made a late night run to the store to buy yogurt so I could... make yogurt.

The next morning, I heated the milk, mixed in my starter and put the filled cups into the machine. Nine hours later, I put the cups in the fridge.  I decided to go shopping, knowing I'd have to double dare myself to eat the 'nine hour' solidified milk when I got home.

It was late and I had nothing else prepared for dinner. I reached into the refrigerator, pulled out a white filled cup, thanked god for the life I had and wished only the best for my kids. As the spoon pierced the surface I convinced myself that it was just like a snack pack; I'm sure if I knew how those delectable wonders of science were made I'd throw up today, just thinking about how many I consumed as a kid.

Wow! It was awesome! Creamy intense goodness! The cup was gone and I wanted more! I ate a second one. I then emptied the rest of the yogurt from the cups to a bowl, for storage, and started making another batch.

Just Jump In

Today was a long day. Not a busy day, just a long day. I went golfing with a friend. The heat was brutal, but a day at golf is still a day at golf.

After golf, I had to pick up the girls. The friend I went golfing with lives a few houses down from my ex and has a pool, so he invited us over for dinner. After getting in our swimsuits, I watched the kids run to the end of the diving board and jump in. As I, myself, walked to the end of the board, I stared down at the clear cool water. The thought of jumping from the warm air to the cold water weighed heavily on my mind. When I was younger, I would have been the first one in and the last one out of the pool.

As Lizzy ran by me and jumped in,yet again, I realized, I was creating reasons not to go into the pool. The pressure in my bad ear from going to deep. The uncomfortable coldness of the water I experienced earlier in the season.

Why were these things causing so much anxiety? I had been in a pool millions of times before and only a handful of those events ended poorly. In fact, most times were awesome, fun and refreshing. I took two steps back and ran forward. I planned on doing a swimming dive but as my body reached the air, I decided to arch into a standard dive. Not a great move. My entry was olympic, but I wretched my body into a brutal position and ended up tighter than a threatened armadillo, never making it less than a foot below the water's surface. The pain in my right arm from hitting the water with too much speed and spinning ferociously was quickly forgotten as the coolness caressed my body.  Swimming to the shallows of the pool, the 90+ degree day of sport seemed to wash away. The girls, my friends kids, my friends and I had a great time.

This is one of those lessons that seems to repeat itself. Sometimes you have to just jump in. Will you get hurt or be uncomfortable? Maybe. While you're in the air and can't turn back, contemplate it.

The Emotional Adult Mind.

A lot of my recent meditations have centered around, 'seeing things through the eyes of a child'.  The goal is to seek clarity by shedding all of the learned responses and notions that provoke the emotions of an adult mind.

That being said... My emotional adult mind is still going to scream at the ancient lady in front of me who slams on the brakes in the middle of a toll booth lane. How F-ing hard is it to figure out whether you have exact change or not, before you cause a 20 car pile up?

I write an awful lot, even when I don't post. Writing tends to put me at peace. It is an open eyed meditation that purges the bad by confining it to paper or screen. I meditate too, but something about seeing things in black and white makes them vulnerable, conquerable.