Stuff from my apartment

onefouroh

I have a cactus! Isn't it cute? It was a gift from my lovely friend Arika.

onefourone

I may have a slight obsession with Coca-Cola. I'm working on it.

onefourtwo

Bought these little guys in Sierra Leone. Sums up most of my interactions with people.

onefourthree

I may also have a slight obsession with Star Wars. Just a tiny bit.

onefourfour

I needed a better backdrop for these guys, maybe something jungly.

onefourfive

Nearly started a fire with this candle. Maybe I shouldn't talk about that.

onefoursix

I think this lamp is my favorite. You can't see the whole thing, but it's pretty awesome.

onefourseven

I never knew birds laid rocks instead of eggs. But whatever.

onefoureight

It's embarrassing how many tries it took me to get the tornado going and pick up the camera in time to take the photo. I'm sure I looked ridiculous.

onefourniner

I find the neatest stuff at Hobby Lobby.

Obstructively Cynical

"One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical."


Chapter 5, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Does anyone know what time it is?

1:30

I love the red in this. I think red is becoming one of my new favorite colors, actually. (Sorry, hues. Pfft.)

1:31

This was a perfect day for this kind of photography. I'm actually really proud of this.

1:32

Similar, but different. My camera doesn't let me get any closer. I'd love to get into microphotography someday.

1:33

I think dandelions are really pretty when they aren't getting yellow crap everywhere. These needed to be a bit higher from the ground.

1:34

I would love to walk through this place. It's across the street from OMS, very Frank Lloyd Wright-esque, and the sun hit the windows at just the right angle this day.

1:35

My flag worked quite well as a backdrop for the Civil War stuff. I need to do more with these, but first I need to build a lightbox. And buy lights.

1:36

1:37

My mom keeps weird stuff in her house. But it makes for interesting photos.

1:38

See? Weird.

1:39

I need to do more with musical instruments, too. Anyone have a bunch I can photograph?

Hey, Who Turned Out the Lights?

(If you know where my title comes from, we need to be better friends. But there are a lot of lights in this one. Purely coincidental. Also, this is the last of Florida.)

onetwenty

This hotel we were at had some really fantastic light fixtures. I was a little concerned that they all had a fleur de lis motif, mostly because that is how the French marked those on death row, but whatevs.

onetwentyone

I really wanted to bring one of these home.

onetwentytwo

This one was in a bathroom. You know it's a nice hotel when the bathroom has more intricate lighting than your home.

onetwentythree

Even the normal ceilings were cool. This one made me dizzy, but it also made me feel like I was in the holodeck on the Enterprise.

onetwentyfour

That's a dagger sticking out of that post. Not sure how it got there. I really wanted to climb up to see it.

onetwentyfive

Again, awesome lighting in an awesome restaurant.

onetwentysix

This pie looks pretty awesome, right? And it was. Until I tasted it. Foulest thing ever. Except for the strawberry. And the curly-cue of white chocolate. The rest? Blech.

onetwentyseven

It's cliche, I know. But still freaking awesome!

onetwentyeight

I've been wanting to post this one for a long time. The light from my cell phone makes my lamp cast a shadow of the Rebel crest from Star Wars. Best. Lamp. Ever.

onetwentynine

There are about a million types of flowers out there. I'm close to photographing all of them, I think.

What did Idaho, boys?

Considering how difficult it was to get to Idaho, I was worried that the visit itself would be problematic. Fortunately, this was not the case.

Way back in 1989, my family took a month-long cross-country trip to California and back. I was three, so I don't remember much, but I do remember having a good time. What I couldn't remember was whether or not we'd spent any time in Idaho. I didn't think we had, but my dad says we did - either way, we never made it to Boise, so it was nice to be able to check off a new destination in the U.S.

Boise exists in a bowl, so everywhere you look, there are mountains. I'm not used to mountains. I was thrilled when I saw them from the plane,

and then again from the window of the condo where we were staying.

Lovely people in Idaho! Betty Mae was our home hostess, and she took us to a Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I just wasn't expecting it to be so huge!

I'm not used to living in cities where you can walk everywhere (just about). Of course, I walk to work, but that's about a minute and a half when I'm practically crawling. (Or ten minutes if you ask Beka.) But we walked all over Boise, and it was all I could do to keep up with Betty Mae (who is in her eighties).

Saturday afternoon saw us at a lovely mother/daughter dinner. I wore my punjabi outfit and we talked about how women in different cultures respond to certain situations. I met some lovely ladies and had great food!

Later that afternoon, we drove up to Table Rock. And I do mean up.

I'm still a little fuzzy on the why, but at some point, someone stuck a huge cross up on this flat area above the city. It's stayed every since, despite some efforts to pull it down. It lights up at night and can be seen from just about anywhere in Boise.

That's the downtown, by the way. Maybe a 15 minute drive from this point.

Such a gorgeous country!

We spoke at the church the next morning. The UB church in Idaho is literally a log cabin. 

Very cool.

We went to Idaho City Sunday afternoon, a neat little town from the Gold Rush days.

The roads made me a little nervous.

But the views were worth it.

We finished the day with a nice dinner at one of the church member's homes, filled with fun and fellowship. 

And then we had to leave. We had some slight trouble Monday morning getting on our flight, but then it was smooth sailing (flying?) the rest of the way. 

I loved Idaho. The West is such a beautiful place, and I'm looking forward to going back someday. 

The Fourth Was Not With Us

I had plans to write this yesterday, but by the time we got settled in, all I wanted to do was crash.

I had to wake up at 3 am, but it's hard to wake up when you haven't really been asleep in the first place. I'd had one of those weird dreams where you're worried about something ridiculous and it keeps getting twisted. (In this case, it was about mobile apps. Thank you, Susan.)

But I persevered and we left at 4 after checking to make sure our 6 am flight was still scheduled.

My dad dropped my mom and I off at Ft. Wayne International Airport. It's not international. It's barely an airport. But whatever. No sooner had he pulled away from the curb did I notice the board said our flight was cancelled.

And indeed it was. The storms on Thursday had diverted two flights to FWA and all of those people were waiting to get to Chicago as well. That is probably the only thing that saved us, because we were put on one of those flights. We had, however, only just begun.

The nature of the beast required that we fly on American to Chicago and then United the rest of the way. I would not recommend this to anyone, for the distance between the two terminals in Chicago is not less than one mile. We ran our little hearts out and made it to the gate in time to board. Which would have been great, except we had no boarding passes.

We got those and squeezed into our middle seats, exhausted and less than enthused about the two hour flight.

And then we waited. And waited.

Apparently, Chicago was trying to catch up on flights, because everyone was trying to leave at the same time. We sat in line for 25 minutes.

Which meant we were late getting to Denver.

We ran to the next gate and got in line for boarding passes. But we weren't in the computer, and the plane was full because they had given our seats away because we got a later flight from Chicago. We were informed that the next available flight was at 4.

It was 11:30.

What can you do? We ate lunch, rode the moving walkways, played solitaire and caught our breath. We also called our contact in Boise to inform her that we would be late.

I got dizzy watching the moving walkways.

We also called my sister to let her know that we were in the same city - truly a remarkable event. She was garage saleing, so we talked about what she should buy and the state of people's yards. 

Finally, at 4, we boarded our tiny plane to Boise, Idaho. The weather was so-so, and we proceeded to experience some of the worst turbulence I've been in, enough to lift us from our seats and do spinal readjustments several times. 

What fun.

But our fearless pilots (I actually have no idea, they could have been screaming like little girls) got us safely on the ground. 

Yay, Idaho!

May Radio

http://www.onemissionsociety.org/audio/may-2012-not-a-game


Very enjoyable spot, and fun for us to do!