Two Months!

Well, I guess it has been more than two months since I have blogged. So much for my goal of at least twice a month. May and June just got away from me, consumed by both planned and unexpected events.

The end of April marked another birthday for me, and for it I took a day train ride to Mt. Hood to see the pear blossoms. While the train ride was nice and enjoyable, I didn't see as many tree blossoms as I wanted.

Pear Blossoms-April 2019

Heather Hobson Lewis-April 2019

May got devoured by a night class and my dog Fern getting sick, and then injured a week after she got well. She's fine now, except her weak leg acts up now and then causing her to whine and limp.

June exploded with a construction disaster, resulting in the hired worker being fired and Tom and I taking the entire month to undo the damage done. I'm glad to report that we are done now, and the mistakes the fired worker made have either been redone or hidden with molding. The whole experience was very disappointing, and makes me think of the old quote, "If you want something done right, do it yourself."

Needless to say, my writing ended up moving like a snail these past months, but I am slowly writing the first draft of book 8 of The Conrad Chronicles, though what I really need to do is finish formatting book 4 and editing book 5.

Happy Readings!

Plane Photos

By now, if you have paid any attention to my blog, you will have noticed I like to have a window seat when I fly in a plane. One of my main motivations is I enjoy taking photos while hovering miles over our planet.  Of course, given airplane windows are double paned  and often have dings in them, the photo quality isn't the best. Then of course, there are the times

when the window seat one gets is by the wing and you end up with the wing dominating all you photos.

Regardless of all this, I just did a flight from Oregon to New Jersey and back. Hogging a window both directions, I took several photos along the journey. Here are a few of them I thought you might like.

Sky and Clouds

Mt. Hood

Great Lakes

Midway Airport

Chicago

Airplane hanging from airport ceiling

Happy Dog Christmas!

Boomer and Fern enjoyed a wonderful Christmas. Their stockings were filled with many new toys that they have happily shared with each other.

Enjoy these Christmas morning photos.

Fern, Christmas morning 2016

Boomer and Fern, Christmas morning 2016

Fern, Christmas morning 2016

Boomer, Christmas morning 2016

Graffiti Art: a few last photos from Romania and Serbia

Wow, I didn't realize a month has passed since I last added to this blog. The holidays have started to consume my attention.

Before I forget, there is one last batch of photos from my summer trip I wish to share. Usually I am not a huge fan of graffiti, but some I saw in Belgrade and Bucharest really caught my attention. They either caught my eye because they had a real message or were like mural art or both.

The first really made me do a double take. As I looked at it, I thought of my sister's husband and how this would be so his style. It's a thinker.

Building in Belgrade

Belgrade

 

This next batch of graffiti made me smile, as I am a vegetarian and try to be vegan. After spotting the first one from the city tour bus, I started seeing them all over Belgrade written in both English and Serbian.

Belgrade

Bucharest

These next two I spotted connected together along a wall in Bucharest, Romania. I had just exited a city park with my friends, and as we walked we passed by these pieces of graffiti art.

Bucharest

Bucharest

 

Though this giant banner doesn't fall under the true definition of graffiti, I felt like it was. As I was driven through Bucharest many historical buildings were covered with giant banners like this one. As I was into the architecture, I found these banners too modern and frustrating for my taste.

Architecture of Belgrade, Serbia

Since I blogged about the architecture I saw while visiting the city of Bucharest, I thought it only fair to share pictures of the buildings of another capitol city, Belgrade. My first few days of my vacation were spent in Belgrade, thus they were also the days I was recovering from jet-lag. Yet, I managed to tour the Fortress in Belgrade, take a bus tour, see the Millennium Tower, and visit the Tesla Museum. Add in some walks around the city and I collected a few photos. Here are some of my favorites.

Belgrade Fortress

These first photos are of the Fortress in Belgrade. If it has a more official name I don't know it, since I didn't go on any tours. I just walked around the various ramifications. Though there is an outdoor dinosaur replica museum that I did visit.

Belgrade Fotrerss

Millennium Tower

The Millennium Tower is a beautiful structure that is in an area called Zemun. You can take a tour into it, which I did. Once inside you go up a spiral staircase. At the top you can walk around and from there get some great  photos of Belgrade.

Spiral staircase of Millennium Tower

View of Belgrade from Millennium Tower

Throughout the city there are many wonderful looking buildings that solidified for me a that I was in Europe. Here are some of those pictures for you to enjoy.

Belgrade

Church in Belgrade

Church in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade government building

Belgrade

Favorite Photos from Serbia and Romania

I spent several hours sorting photos from my trip to Serbia and Romania. As I did so I revisited all those special moments.  Yet, a handful of photos really caught my attention, and not because of the memories to which they were attached.

These photos appealed to the artist in me. Each captured something I felt was unique. Lighting had a great deal to do with this. How the light falls has a great impact on photos, which is often why photographs take pictures in the early morning or just before dusk.

These first two photos that caught my eye were taken in the town of Sremski Karlovci in Serbia.  I aimed upward to catch the church steeples around sunset and these amazing shots are what I got.

Given my camera is a simple digital 14 Mega Pixels Kodak, the kind that can fit in your pocket, I was impressed by what I was able to capture.














This next picture startled me when I saw it. While at the Romania National Museum I snapped many shots of manuscripts. Since a flash was not allowed, all the photos were taken with the lightning that the museum provided to illuminate the objects. When I looked at this particular manuscript it didn't look much different than the others, but the photo revealed something very different. See for yourself.

Hopefully you see what I do, that some of the writing is in gold and jumps off the page almost in a 3-D effect. Naturally I am curious what the gold lettering reads.

This picture, also taken at the Romania National Museum, I had help creating.  My friend Cristy posed for it per the suggestion of our friends. We took two shots, but this one really looks like he could be holding that staff. Though I do wish I had noticed the water bottle at the time and had him set it aside.

The final picture I will share I took on my flight home out the window of the plane. According to the flight plan provided on the screen the plane was just reaching Canada at this juncture. The way the window ended up angled at the bottom of the picture accented the island. This is one of the better photos I've ever taken out of an airplane window.





Though I like the benefit of being able to take photo after photo with a digital camera and being able to discard all the bad shots (which I had many), I still miss my old, heavy Nikon film camera and the days you had to wait until all the film was developed to see if you had any good shots at all. Yet, given suitcases are now weighed, it's a good thing I can get some great shots with a light pocket-sized camera.

Architecture of Bucharest, Romania

Photographing architectural features such as buildings, archways, and gates is something I enjoy doing when I travel. While in Bucharest I took over 300 photos, most of them of buildings.

Bucharest has some very old buildings and wonderful statues throughout the city. Yet, I did find it distracting that some of these glorious pieces of architecture often had advertising banners hanging off them. Those ads often kicked me from my thoughts of what the place was like in former decades to the more modern age. In addition businesses like Pizza Hut screamed America to me and not Romania. While these historical detractors exist in Bucharest, I avoided photographing them and focused on the ancient (by American standards), unique, and beautiful.

As I walked, rode a tour bus and in my friend's car, I often focused my camera, occasionaly with some nice results. Here are a few of those photos. The buildings I know the name of I labeled.

This building is across the street from the Romania National Museum

Detail from building above

Local friends called this pair of buildings the Twin Towers of Bucharest

Parliament Building or The People's House

Inside the Parliament Building

Parliament Building

Parliament Building

Bucharest as viewed from Parliament Building

Inside Parliament Building

From the roof of the Parliament Building

September 27th, 2015 Eclipsed Blood Moon

September 27th eclipse-Blood Moon

Last night I drove to the top of Berry Mountain in Humboldt County and watched the blood moon rise.  Using a small tripod and my little digital camera I was able to get a few decent shots, as well as some that turned out artistic. Take a look for yourself.

September 27th eclipse-Blood Moon

September 27th eclipse-Blood Moon