Excitement in the 'hood

Last night, while walking the dogs, I heard a buzzing sound and smelled a burning smell. When I looked up into some trees, I saw that a power line was on fire. I could see flames shooting out and then they would die and then another buzzing sound and more flames. I went around the corner to where I thought the house containing the trees were and knocked at the door but there was no one home. After watching for awhile, it seemed that there were no longer flames coming out so after some hestitation, I continued my walk.

On the way back to my house, I looked again and saw the power line was still flaming so I went to the house behind this particular house and I got the homeowner to call 911. Soon, the firetruck came but I didn't hang around because the homeowner whose attention I got, took control of the situtation.

After I got home, I had to kick myself a little bit for not hanging around at least to take a gander at the firemen. :-))

Second photo class

Last night was the second photo class and the first one in which we were all critiqued by the teacher. Fortunately, he's seems to be a very easy going guy and was not too harsh with any of us and offered valid criticism. I'm right in the middle of the group. My photo was not the best and not the worst meaning I have room to improve and room to fail. One student, who either doesn't speak English very well or is shy with her English skills took an exceptional photo. (scroll down to the second photo) I hope you can see it here. As soon as I saw it I thought she could be a modern day Rembrandt with her use of lights and darks. Only her medium was a camera while his was paint and paintbrushes. Just beautiful. I'm sure the teacher will ask her to show it at one of the upcoming gallery competitions.

The class was very frustrating at the end because he wanted us to set our cameras on several different settings so we all had to scramble looking in our manuals to see how to do it. Since all of the cameras are different brands, the terms used for each brand is different in the manuals. So since there was just one of him and 15-20 of us, we did not get much individualized attention. Fortunately, the fellow sitting next to me was in the advanced class and was able to give me a lot of help. I'll have to go back to my notes to figure out exactly what I did to my camera. But one thing is for sure, it is no longer set on automatic and that is how it is supposed to stay.

Now, I need to find a subject for the next class and take 20 or more shots of it trying to obtain something that satisfies the "rule of three".

In the Woods

A couple of weeks ago, we were walking in the Prescott National Forest and I took some pictures. We were in the same area where the Indian Creek Campground fire began a few years ago. This is probably less than 1/2 mile from the cabin. It was a scary time for our neighbors who live there year-round.

Run Addie. Run

Roscoe taking a breather

A two-holer. An anthill that looks like nostrils.

Baseball

Wednesday night was the Dbacks against the Brewers. What better time to start taking some photos than at a baseball game. Brandon Webb was going for 42 innings without a run but he didn't make it that night. We won though which was the first win for us in that series. Here are some photos of the game.

Chris Young at bat

Chase Field f/k/a BOB

Brandon Webb pitching

Cute little boy sitting in front of us

The field

Digital photography class

I attended my first digital photography class at Phoenix College. It' s going to be a lot of work but I think it will also be a lot of fun. We have to take many, many photographs each week and then the other students critique them. That will be pretty tough because I'm pretty thin skinned to begin with and don't take criticism well. But it will be a learning experience and I just have to realize that this is the only way that I can improve my photography skills.

There is a large range of skill levels for the students. Some, like me, have had no photography experience at all. Others are pretty close to being professional amateurs. Others are in the class to satisfy an elective and there are at least four scrapbookers in the class. Some people don't appear to be very comfortable with the computer and they may have some problems since almost all of our time will be spent in a computer lab. I like the teacher and he seems to be pretty good as both a teacher and a photographer.

There will be a couple of field trips to the botanical gardens and to the art museum and then we'll go out of class to take some shots.

Yesterday, I came home from work and took a bunch of different pictures of things in the backyard. No dog pictures though. Those two weren't being very cooperative models.

Update

The windows are in and they look very nice. Now, we are on the hunt for painters to paint the entire outside of the house. When all that is done, I will post some pix but that won't be for some time.

Going up to Prescott this weekend for the Cowboy Poetry Gathering. We try to make this event every year because we enjoy it so much. Hopefully, it will be cooler up there than it is down here.

The digital photography class starts this coming Monday. I sure do hope I like it because a lot of hours are going to be invested in it not to mention the dollars that have been invested.

Out with the old and in with the new

We are having new windows installed today and tomorrow. The house was built in the '70s so the current windows are not energy efficient at all. After much research by Tom and much interviewing of different window companies, we finally selected a company and today is the day for the install. These will be dual pane, low e, blah, blah, blah. It will be nice to let more light in during the day. We just hope there's not too much light coming in now. There is a good chance we will have to get new window coverings on three of the windows and do some touch up painting. We'll just have to wait and see if we need to make a larger investment.

Machine Embroidery

I have posted some pix of a work-in-process using my embroidery machine and multi-hooping. The pix aren't that great and you can see why I have signed up for a digital photography class.

The first step is to mark the fabric square with design lines. Hopefully, you can see the blue lines here:

The next step is to place your template in the correct position. In this case, it is in the upper left corner:

Since I have a Janome machine, it comes with a handy-dandy contraption called a cloth setter which centers your design perfectly in the hoop:

Now comes the fun part. The hoop is taken over to the embroidery machine and the design to stitch out is chosen on the machine:



Now, you make sure your needle falls exactly within the cross hairs of your template:

Here the machine takes over and does most of the work stitching out the design:



And...the finished design:And one of the finished blocks:

Finally

I received my registration form for a digital photography class at Phoenix College-downtown campus. I have contacted admissions twice for it and finally asked for it to be faxed. It's a very expensive class (I think) and even though it's only one day a week, it lasts four hours. I sure hope I like it and that it's worth it.