jacolily’s Neighborhood

What are your favorite web or mobile apps? Which ones do you use everyday?

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Tweetdeck  for organising all my twitter stuff

Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest?  Seems like I started this just a few months ago.  I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.

For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo.  You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject.  The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right.  By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject.  Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.

Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is?  Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter?  Do you remember the rule of thirds?

Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest.  Take some photos using diagonal lines.  Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year.  If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines.  No excuses this time. 

Here is a great article on diagonal lines  http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography.  Any questions...please ask!  Take care and  have a wonderful week.

Finished The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  This is a companion book to Life As We Knew It. 

Alex lives with his parents and two younger sisters in New York City.  When the asteroid hits the moon, his mom is at work (she works in a hospital's OR) and his dad is in Puerto Rico for a funeral. 

Alex has to figure out a way to keep his family safe and together, at least until one or both of his parents comes home.

I think I preferred Life As We Knew It, but this was good, too.

These books (there's going to be a third out in April) are so scary, too.  I don't think I'd do well in a world where I'd have to acquire food someplace that isn't a grocery store (or any of the places where we normally get food) and I certainly don't know how to cook and wash clothes without electricity and running water. 

the dead and the gone

Susan Beth Pfeffer

Yikes there were some very scary photos this week!  Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween.  I miss Halloween so much.  The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween.  Now that I'm retired well, it was even less.  We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here.  Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.

Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time.  Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl.  Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity.  Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier!  Great work there.

Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that.  My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.

Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan.  My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.

Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos!  Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown.  What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice!  It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two.  I loved the pumpkin and  hunted house photo.  The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling.  Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster.  Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.

Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend.  I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute!  So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter!  That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit.  Nice work there!

Since I have been neglected my blog I thought the perfect way to work back into it would to do a post everyday with the catchy little title/themes...Me and My Monday, Things on Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday...I think I made up Thankful Thursday, but since we are in the month of Thanksgiving I thought it would be appropriate.  Problem is, I do not have a catchy title/theme for Friday.  I know many people used to participate in Ugly Outfit Friday, but all of my outfits are ugly and I am not in to photographing myself lately.

So...what to call today....Fantastic Friday would probably be okay if it was indeed a fantastic Friday, but it is not.  Freaky Friday might work better, but what do I post for that?  Fried Friday could be an interesting.  Kind of stumped.

Plus, after having a horrible night, I wake to find out that a neighbor's husband hung himself.  And then one of the blog families I have come to love is losing their little boy today.

Maybe a more appropriate title would be F-ed Up Friday, but that is probably too offensive.   

Xkcd is usually pretty good -- but this is genius.

Orbitals

Happy Friday!

How do you use the Internet to stay informed about the things that matter to you?

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I think a list would be appropriate here -

• Twitter - used as a pseudo-RSS feed of various things. A lot of local social media opinion too.
• Facebook - used to spy catch up with people I wanted to forget about once I left that school or workplace
• Livejournal - the underworld of Top Gear and Dr Who fanfic..
  
• The Riot Act - local news and opinion
• ABC News  - Australian news and TV
• Email - Genealogy mailing lists, junk mail and everything else I signed up for once upon a time
• Flickr - photography and pretty pictures
  

Addicted? Probably

Finished Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain by Paul Meier and David L. Henderson for Thomas Nelson.

The thesis with this book is that hard times can either bring you closer to God or drive you farther from God.  When bad things happen, it tends to be for one of two reasons:

1)  God is using these incidents to improve you in some way.  For instance, if you have a problem with patience, perhaps you will be put in situations where you have no choice but to develop that quality. :)

2)  God didn't want this to happen, but will work within these circumstances so your life will continue to be what He wants.  This is where free will comes in.  He doesn't "let" you get mugged, but if you trust Him, He can take your fear away.  (as an example.)

I don't think this would be a good book to read while you're going through difficult times (although maybe that's just me; hearing about how God works in mysterious ways after my dad died made me want to hit people in the face) but I think it'd be comforting to read after, once things are calming down a little.

I do have some issues with some of the things the authors said.  First, as someone who's struggled with faith, I can tell you that atheists don't think that there's no point in being a good person in this life.  You can be a moral or ethical person without believing in God.  (And really, isn't there something to be said for doing the right thing because it's the right thing, not 'cause you think God will smite you?)

And second, they trotted out Carrie Prejean as an example of faith and not, say, prejudice.  Yes, she has every right to believe whatever she wants.  But let's not act like she isn't a bigot.  If she had said that she didn't think black people/Hindu people/atheists/immigrants or any other group shouldn't be allowed to get married, we wouldn't even have to have discussions on whether or not she's prejudiced.  And yes, it is the same thing. :)

Finding Purpose Beyond Our Pain: Uncover the Hidden Potential in Life's Most Common Struggles

Paul Meier M.D.

So, one of the things I’ve gotten to spend some more time with during my – err – sabbatical from gainful employment – is my piano.

For those who’ve been around here a while, you might recall that a couple of years ago, I was stressing about and then actually enjoying learning a little music theory in the last piano class I had before I started taking private lessons.

So, last year, after I’d settled in and developed a bit of rapport with my teacher, I’d described the things I’d liked and not-liked about the classes I had taken.  One thing I’d said I’d appreciated (and that maybe it was my analytical-science side coming out) was the introduction to music theory that I’d had – how it helped shaped the way I heard and learned new pieces.  She suggested that I start a series of workbooks on music theory for the piano.

Fundamentals of Piano Theory (K Snell Series, Primer-Level 10)

I think this series is pretty good, and after a year or so I’m right in the middle of the set.  I’ve really enjoyed learning the hows and whys of how a musical composition is put together.  We’ve covered meter, scales, keys, intervals, chords, ornaments, motifs and have begun to analyze different compositions for melodic phrase structure.  There are also sections for ear training and sight-reading.  Altogether, I think they’ve really helped me be a better (and I use this word very generously) musician.

So, of course, reading and dissecting music naturally began to make me curious about how it gets created.  Do you start from a motif and build?  Do you start with a feeling and go?  What are the “rules” that make something sound “good”?  And so on…

Pretty Famous Motif

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And so, last month, I started another series: “The Craft of Music Composition”.  This also has several levels and naturally I’m starting at the entry level, since I’ve never written music in my life.  The first book has a sort of a lead-you-by-the-hand way that takes some of the intimidation out of the idea of putting notes to paper (or notes into Finale’ as the 21st century equivalent might be…) – while learning some of the common techniques used by composers.

Get Started

I’ve never really considered myself a “creative” person.  Insightful, maybe.  Analytical, for sure.  So composition is way out of my comfort zone – and maybe that’s good.  I don’t know that there will be any critical successes coming from my brain, but it sure is fun to sit and plink-plunk-plink at the keys and decide what you think sounds good.

Wish me luck!

Finished Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

This book is told through a series of diary entries. Miranda is a normal teenager, living with her mom and two brothers (one older, one younger).  There are two noteworthy events for her at first--her dad's second wife is pregnant and she's going to be the godmother.  And an asteroid is going to hit the moon, which everyone's excited about. 

Except it turns out the asteroid was bigger than anyone thought, because it knocks the moon closer to earth.

This may not seem like a huge deal.  Until you remember that the moon controls the tides, so there are a lot of tsunamis.  There are also a lot of earthquakes and volcanic activity (something about gravitational pull; Miranda doesn't get much more specific).

Because of the tsunamis, oil refineries are mostly gone (gas goes up to $12 a gallon) and there's not much electricity.  And after all the eruptions, plants aren't growing so well, either (volcanic ash blocks the sun, which means no light for growing).  And of course there's no electricity, so grocery stores aren't open very long.

It's scary to think about how screwed we'd be if a huge event like this actually happened.  Still, a very good book.

(And tomorrow I have to go to the store anyway, so I may be stocking up on canned goods.)

Life As We Knew It

Susan Beth Pfeffer