Life-Flight Comes to Cedar Ridge

I watched a "life-flight" helicopter enter our neighborhood last night. After staying for less than 15 minutes it took-off and headed west at about 8:25 pm.

Our neighbor heard it was over a dispute ending in gunfire.

The same neighbor also warned us that "life-flight" was coming about 5-10 minutes before they arrived.

Birthday Pizza!

I made this Margherita pizza in a style as closely as I could to what we had in Naples, Italy.

All in attendance agreed it was terrifically tasty.

It was a good birthday, and you can here me sing with my birthday present here.

December the 25th me dears, December the 25th

I had the foresight to order "Scrooge" from Netflix in advance of Christmas this year.

I've seen probably 4 movie versions of "A Christmas Carol", (including the new animated version in 3D, with Jim Carrey) and "Scrooge" is far and away my favorite.

This is a production that taps into an astounding range of human emotion. It's lovable, sorrowful, scary and funny, all in very satisfying ways.

And this year's viewing was improved by the use of subtitles so I could understand the lyrics to the musical numbers. The sound quality and the accents can make it hard to understand the lyrics, so the subtitles fill in nicely there.

Finally, this year's viewing was followed, sporadically, throughout the day of December the 24th, by an echoing of the musical numbers by Jamey. In particular I kept hearing "December the 25th, December the 25th" musically emanating from his bedroom.

The lyrics are posted here for the reader's convenience, but for the full effect, I suggest you watch the show, on Christmas Eve with children.

DECEMBER THE 25TH

From "Scrooge"

(Leslie Bricusse)

Of all the days in all the year

that I'm familiar with

There's only one that's really fun

December the 25th

Correct!

Ask anyone called Robinson

or Brown or Jones or Smith

Their favorite day

And they will say

December the 25

Correct!

(refrain)

December the 25th, me dears

December the 25th

The dearest day in all the year

December the 25th!

Correct!

At times we're glad to see the backs

of all our kin and kith

But there's one date we celebrate

December the 25th

Correct!

At times our friends may seem

devoid of wit and pith

But all of us are humorous

December the 25th

Correct!

(refrain)

If there's a day in history

that's more than any myth

Beyond a doubt one day stands out

December the 25th

Correct!

I don't hear any arguments

So may I say forthwith

I wish that every day could be

December the 25th

(refrain)

Music Review - November

Hope Sandoval

Have you ever had a dream where you are swimming underwater and then you realize you can't get to the surface in time, so after some brief moments of panic you surrender yourself to fate and breathe-in, only to discover, in a suffusion of pleasure, that you are able to breathe water.

Hope Sandoval's voice has the same effect on me: I want to resist, but can't and soon I discover I don't need to. Don't want to. The waves are lapping, darkly above me. I'm drowning, but her merciful mermaid song soothes me. Her voice bends and sways like the murky light making it down through the waves. It is eerily beautiful, like far-off whale song.

The dream, I am happy to announce, continues with "Through the Devil Softly" the latest release by Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions.

Disclaimer: I am reviewing Hope Sandoval here, not the album, which I have yet to hear. My faith in her is so near absolute that I feel safe in recommending the album, though I have not heard it.

Interestingly, after writing my review, I went to Amazon and read some reviews of the album, only to find my words echoed:

it will just grab your soul and refuse to give it back...

So beautiful. Haunting, mysterious, heartbreaking, dreamy.

Red Cracked Bolete

Months ago, Jamey became interested in collecting wild mushrooms. This is due at least in part to his love of eating mushrooms.

As a Botany major, I took it as a point of personal pride to figure out how we could do this safely.

After some research I decided on a book. Then, when I went to Powell's to get it, I found a Powell's Staff recommendation to be even better than the one I had found online.

It's called Mushrooming Without Fear, and so far has proven effective, as we have tasted 2 mushrooms we never had tasted before, and we haven't become sick on either occasion!

We've had the book since early September, but early attempts to locate mushrooms in the wild failed.

Our first success was a week or two after our first attempt, when Arthur spotted some puffball mushrooms in the lawn at Lewisville Park. We didn't eat those, but followed the advice of the book to harvest once without eating, just to gain practice at identification.

Then a week ago we found some large puffballs in our own lawn. We sampled those after frying them in butter. It was thumbs up all the way around. (Note, we're not counting Heidi when it comes to discussions of mushroom consumption.)

One of the more sweeping restrictions advised in our guidebook is the avoidance of all mushrooms with gills. This turns out to be a majority of mushrooms.

Defying the odds, yesterday I spotted a cluster of meaty looking 'shrooms and sure enough, they had pores, not gills. Out came the book. After carefully reading the identification cues, we determined that these were Red Cracked Bolete.

Due to the very distinctive features of this mushroom: blue bruising on the bright yellow pores, red tint showing when the cap is damaged, etc..., we felt confident in moving forward with the taste-test.

Jamey gobbled the first batch, again, with vigorous approval. The next morning, Arthur tried some in his omelet and found them satisfying.

So, we have learned something new. Added to our culinary repertoire and had fun in the process.

More Homemade Loaves

I'm still infatuated with the look of these no-knead loaves.

First Heat of the Year

The temperature dropped to 67 degrees this morning, so I started a fire. Yes, we are wimps.

Garlic Planting Time

This is your friendly reminder that Garlic-planting season is upon us.

So wrap that garlic garland around your neck, and after you've staked all the vampires, plant the cloves. By July you'll be feasting on fresh homegrown hardnecks.

I say hardnecks, because after my batch this past summer I've decided that the Italian Red hardneck garlic has a far superior aroma and flavor than the soft-neck garlic I normally find at the supermarket.

Happy gardening!

Swoosh!

Summer was camped out over the land.

At night, when he was resting, Winter

crept in, furtively, retreating when his rival woke.

Finally, Summer had enough of his toes

being frostbitten in his sleep

Yesterday he stood up in a huff,

Put on his great dusty coat

and swooshed out of town.

Today the wind still swirls

while Winter, grinning, peers over the mountain.

September Music Review

Ingrid Michaelson

Forgive me if I'm behind the times on this one. Since I don't get broadcast television I didn't know until today that Ingrid Michaelson's music has been on Grey's Anatomy for two years. I also didn't know that she was a MySpace sensation that self-produced her way onto #2 on the pop charts with her debut album Boys and Girls. Nor did I realize that her new album Everybody was number one on iTunes as recently as this August. I found her because a coworker suggested Vienna Teng (also very good) and emusic suggested Michaelson as being similar to Teng.

What I have known from the moment I heard her music is that her music is extremely accessible. Just as Peter O'Toole opines about the desert in Lawrence of Arabia, I believe the beauty of Michaelson's music is that "It's clean."

She has a knack for presenting sentimental lyrics in a way that doesn't leave an overly sweet aftertaste. On the song Giving Up she doesn't reveal why she's giving up until the final line, which adds considerably to the impact of the lyrics.

She has had some widely played songs, such as The Way I Am and Be OK. The latter appeared in the recent Anna Faris movie House Bunny.

However, as is often the case, there are plenty of gems that are a little less catchy and a lot more interesting than the hits, such as Giving Up, Corner of Your Heart, Far Away, Die Alone and others.

Potential defects:

• Some of these songs might "get stuck in your head"
• Some songs my be too slow and sentimental or repetitive.
• Her staying power is still a question. I've only been listening to her for a few weeks.

Here are some video links for you to sample the music:

Die Alone

Maybe

Corner of Your Heart

Extra-special Bonus!

Some great tracks from other artists I've recently come to know and like:

Vienna Teng

Sia

Peter Bjorn & John

Etta James

Rainy Saturday

Heidi said:

"Everything I wanted to do I can't do, so now I can do stuff."

"What?"

"That makes perfect sense."

Dinner With Julia

OK, Julia wasn't there, unless you count "in spirit".

Heidi and Jill picked out four recipes from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and we prepared them last night.

The simplest dish was essentially a cake of sliced potatoes boiled in clarified butter. I probably don't have to explain how deliciously smooth and rich these were.

We also had a lovely chicken in creamy port and mushroom sauce. This one involved drizzling the chicken with brandy and igniting it, before drenching the whole thing in the very rich sauce.

A delicious Swiss chard dish in creamy sauce and a zucchini dish where the zucchini halves are stuffed with a creamy, cheesy, breadcrumb and shallot paste.

In honor of the occasion, Heidi's brother David prepared French 75 cocktails which involve lemon juice and champagne amongst other ingredients which I'm not aware. It was very bright and a fitting accompaniment to the smooth, warm flavors in the main dishes.

Gourmet Bread

This picture shows a cross-section of the loaf of no-knead bread I made yesterday under the tutelage of Dwayne Kryger.
Dwayne demonstrated a pull-and-fold technique that increases the elasticity of the dough as a way to trap the bubbles more effectively. It really worked. Whereas my first couple batches began by popping holes in their top, this batch never let the gases escape without handling.

My oven runs hot, so I burned a portion of the crust. Nonetheless, the bread was very respectable even though from beginning to end the process took less than 12 hours.

Today I'm working on a version with 1/3rd whole wheat flour. I'm going to let it rise overnight for the utmost in bubble size and flavor.

Even Better Than The Ramen Girl

Julie and Julia - a fantastic movie about Julia Child and her enduring legacy. If you are at all a foodie, you must see this movie.

On to other things that are even better than The Ramen Girl:

New York Times No-Knead Bread - Crispy on the outside, chewy in the middle. Cheap as flour, tasty as a $4.50 loaf.

Bagpipes at a funeral, eat less sugar, singing with your family, reading your niece's a bedtime story, bringing zucchini bread when you visit, sleeping on a firm bed.

The Ramen Girl

I'm a big fan of great food and Japanese culture, so it's probably no surprise that I liked The Ramen Girl. Think Like Water for Chocolate meets The Karate Kid.

I chose to watch the movie mostly because the cover features Brittany Murphy in a kimono. I'm thinking, this movie has promise!

What made a believer out of me was the excellent character-acting and the really decent screenplay.

When Murpy's character Abby's boyfriend leaves her, she is miserable and wanders into the local ramen shop to find it's propietors generous and kind, though the chef is almost always gruff. He is also a master ramen chef, and his broth stirs something in Abby.

Ultimately Abby and her ramen-chef sensei, odd partners, turn out to be just the ingredient the other needs to create a more satisfying, flavorful life for themselves.

This movie is a bit thin in places, but overall it is well played and heartwarming.

Amadou et Mariam

If you had to pick the best musician out of a crowd of musicians you've never heard before and you happened to notice only one of them was a blind guitar-player, what would you do?

And what if that the blind guitar player happened to be a West African with a blind chanteuse for a wife and bandmate?

Before I get to far in this, and the reader starts to think I buy into nothing but stereotypes, let me say this was essentially the situation a few weeks ago while I was browsing emusic.com.

I had a few downloads to use up and I wandered over to a list of African guitar legends. Having heard of none of them previously, I was left to read these books by their respective covers. Each was generally interesting, but when I found the blind husband and wife team, my instincts took over; this music I must hear.

Now, if I had made this choice and my stereotype-based choice had proven wrong, you wouldn't be reading this blog because I wouldn't have written this blog.

As it turns out though, Amadou et Mariam have been a particular pleasure for me to listen to as of late, which is why I'm bothering telling you so, if I may steal the line from Dr. Seuss.

They aren't bombastic, or in-your-face with their skill-level. Rather, their style is understatement. They tend to have a gentle, typically African sounding rhythm section. The guitar is used rather sparingly but is of good quality. The guitar doesn't become the obvious focal point of the music, which is the great evil that good guitarists often partake in. Instead, many parts combine to create a satisfying whole: brass, drums, vocals, strings interwoven well, with some particularly attractive and brief solos for the brass and strings.

I also like the fact that the lyrics are in French which always sounds nice and allows me to focus on the music and the mood that's created by it.

This is my musical recommendation for the month.

You can listen to perhaps the best track on their Greatest Hits album in the following embedded YouTube video

Magenta Potatoes

Boy were we sold a bill of goods.

Heidi picked up these seed potatoes labeled "Red" and put them in the ground in all good faith earlier in the spring.

Now that it's summer and the potatoes are ready to harvest*, we pull them from the ground and lo and behold, they aren't red, but magenta!

Despite the unabashed false-advertising of the seed-potato seller, being hungry for breakfast, we decided to see if the flavor and texture of the potatoes would be at all decent.

We found the potatoes also completely different from those of our recent memory; rather than thick-skinned, dry, bland and starchy, these were thin-skinned, moist, sweet and silky. Preposterous!

These were potatoes not in need of sticks of butter to make them delicious. I had thoughts of adding these to my butter to improve the butter's flavor.

Having recovered from the shock to our systems these unexpected events caused, and having nothing else at hand for breakfast, we promptly devoured the lot with garlic and thyme, a la Alice Waters.

* In all seriousness, why did it take 35 years for me to learn that potatoes can be harvested before fall?! This stuff should be taught in gradeschool! Use flashcards if necessary, but teach the children for heaven's sake!

Pictures From The Trip

Outside the Denver Art Museum (DAM), construction was underway. They screened off the scaffolding with deluxe art-screens. Since the images were not printed on opaque fabric, the construction site was partially visible. This one was humorously appropriate.

Annika

Mikaela

Trip to Colorado

Back in April, when I was a full-time employee with three weeks of vacation due in May, I made one of the more larkish decisions of my life and purchased tickets to see Leonard Cohen in Red Rocks Ampitheatre (just outside Denver, CO).

Sure, Denver is not Hawaii, which Heidi and the boys have been planning and pinching for, but a concert like that would be a fine centerpiece to a week's vacation. And there really is quite a bit to see in Colorado.

One week later, I was laid off.

In the ensuing 5 weeks, as I combed the job-sites for relatively scarce openings, I contemplated the ethical complications of funding a road-trip to Denver on unemployment checks. It never came to that fortunately, so I was spared confronting that dilemma.

As it happened, I found a fine contract job that surrounded the date of the concert (June 2nd) on each side by nearly 2 weeks.

After debating the wisdom of asking for time off of a one month contract, as well as spending disproportionate amounts of money to see a concert, I decided wisdom would have no part in this decision.

Unless I'm mistaken it is well-documented that many people maintain their entertainment budgets even as their budget for "necessities" decreases. Such was the case on this occasion. I simply wasn't prepared to relinquish my fun, no matter the cost.

I worked the weekend before and rescheduled my flight so that I would have minimal impact on my contracted hours.

Heidi and the boys kept to the original schedule and so were waiting for me at the Hotel, when I arrived just after 10pm mountain time Monday, June 1st.

The day of the concert, we had to buy me a jacket, the boys ponchos and Heidi and umbrella. That's right, Denver, Colorado. In June.

Nevertheless, we did the downtown, viewed the Denver Mint from the outside (tip: make reservations if you want to see inside), viewed the Denver Art Museum from the inside and visited my aunt Jane and her two adorable daughters Annika (pronounced ah'-ni-ka) and Mikaela (spelling?).

Finally, after a good long visit with Jane et. al., we headed out to Red Rocks to see my personal favorite artist, Leonard Cohen.

After scouting the site for food vendors and noting a lack of traffic, we pulled up to two orange-vested young event staffers and asked where to find a sandwich. In turn they asked if we knew the concert was postponed; it was too cold to perform.

At this point I rubbed my forehead in my hand, grasped my hair and scratched my head, in what I imagine to be similar to the way I've seen my brother do it when he's reached near the limit of his patience.

Heidi and I were both queasy.

We drove back to Denver.

On the drive back, Jamey noted his sincere empathy. (He also noted the silver lining, which was that we would get to go swimming back at the hotel.)

I tried to let my rational side take over while discussing the events in the car; my emotional side was thoroughly defeated.

Cohen at Red Rocks! It was to be mythic in its wondrousness. A great man and artist, an iconic locale, a logistical feat just to attend. And yet, it was not to be. At least not for me.

I've just read the concert was a resounding success:

http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2009/06/last_night_leonard_cohen_at_re.php

The show began immediately with "Dance Me to the End of Love," and it was obvious that Cohen had lost none of his emotive powers as a singer. If anything, he was able to hit incredibly low notes, especially during "In My Secret Life," that were a marvel to witness.

There are lessons in all of this, I'm sure: plan better, don't count on concerts, don't be foolish with money, buy the $550 VIP tickets in Seattle, because they are cheaper than the alternative, etc....

The lesson I'm choosing to focus on is this: Life can drop you on your face with no rhyme or reason. Pick yourself up and keep going. Maybe, just maybe, you'll get another chance.

Weasel At The Fort

Just because it is called the Least Weasel, doesn't make it any less weasely.

Click on the link above and you may find yourself looking face-to-face with an adorably cute little, elongated-mouse. That's one way to look at it. Another way to say it is "an adorably cute little ferocious killer".

Wikipedia claims this is the "smallest carnivoran", which I think means no smaller animal hunts other animals. Anything smaller would be forced to eat insects or vegetation, due to laws of physics.

While out watering our gardens, we heard the vociferous chirp of a small animal. The sound reminded me of aggressive chipmunks in campgrounds, that try to rouse you to breakfast so they can get there "cut" sooner.

The noise was persistent enough that I became curious. As I came closer to the sound, I was able to see motion, on the ground, through branches of a Cascara tree.

Rounding the tree, I clearly saw a flailing young rabbit, which was the one making the loud chirp. Around his neck was a smooth brown neckscarf, which presently evaporated like chocolate quicksilver into the underbrush. The rabbit flailed a bit, but lay motionless not long after.

Within 2 feet was another young rabbit, laying, still-breathing but wounded, near the one that had been struggling with the weasel. Wikipedia affirmed that weasels will "overkill" and attempt to store the excess food for lean times. This appeared to be the case here.

I stood still for a few minutes, and the weasel began poking his head out of the underbrush. First here, then there, then somewhere else. He had many little lookout spots, spaced about 3 to 6 feet apart, that he used randomly to evaluate the scene. The speed with which he reached each lookout was astounding, literally appearing at a new hole before I'd gotten accustomed to the notion that he'd left the previous one. Moving three or four feet, through tunnel, in less time than it takes to say "accustomed".

I tried to hold really still to encourage him to act naturally. He became somewhat bold, a few times venturing completely out of his tunnels and onto the surface, allowing me to view his entire diminutive body. Since he never stayed out long enough to go back to his kills, I got the sense that he didn't trust the coast was truly clear.

Good News

Recently I've bemoaned the news as being all too depressing. I even suggested to my coworker that there ought to be an outlet for good news, since all the major news outlets seem so heavily tilted toward bad news.

It seems that idea was conceived of already, 12 years ago. You can find the result at 

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

Update: in a slight bit of irony, it turns out that goodnewsnetwork is a pay service. While it is only 2 dollars per month, and undoubtedly worth every penny, I thought I'd better provide a free equivalent so as not to be foiled by a whiff of bad news:

http://www.happynews.com/index.aspx

Cactus About to Flower

I have a cactus that I found in Las Animas county Colorado and have had for about five years. 

Right now, and for the first (or maybe second) time, it is beginning to flower. It's not a very showy flower, but I think it may be the only non-christmas cactus I've gotten to flower at all.

 

Not that I've really gotten it to do anything. My only achievement is just that I haven't let it die. 

I think it is cool that a transplant from Colorado is doing so well on my windowsill. 

Meanwhile, my other cactus is now 6 spine-clusters long on the new segment it grew and which I mentioned on this blog in April of 2007.

Cool Snow Pleats

This morning, as we headed out for Coffee at Battle Grounds, we found pleats of snow folded up on the bumper of the Saturn:

Frontal View of Snow Pleats

Side View

I leave it to the reader to ponder what type of conditions lead to snow formations of this nature.

Garlic Going Great Guns

I have a mnemonic device for remembering when to plant garlic. Just think vampires. What day of the year are you most likely to encounter a vampire? Halloween, of course. So, just remember, on Halloween get out all your garlic, brandish it at the vampires you meet and when they've gone off to find less well defended necks, go plant your garlic, so you'll be ready to defend yourself next year.In all actuality I read a book called Growing Great Garlic wherein the author suggested planting garlic in the northwest between Oct. 15th and Nov 15th (if memory serves).

Halloween makes it really easy to remember.

For the second year in a row, I remembered to plant garlic in the fall (Nov. 1st this year), but this year things are looking so much better, it almost feels like this is the first time.

Supposedly, garlic that is exposed to cold temperatures gets a sharper bite to it. This winter should have provided that sufficiently. 

Believing that the garlic has already weathered enough cold to imbue it with all the flavor it could need, I have erected a (ramshackle) hoop greenhouse over it, so that it can grow with wild abandon. 

As I write this, we are getting our umpteenth snowfall this winter, but under my hoops, the garlic looks like this:

Also, there are a few cilantro plants and a spinach that have survived the winter in there. 

Speaking of Cilantro, I need to write about the delicious avocado salsa I made for our breakfast today. That might be in the next post or so.

Made The Paper

The Columbian reported on Green Mountain School's Shadow Day. 

Since I couldn't stand and watch a bunch of kids playing without joining in, and since I didn't understand the rules to many of the various games that they were playing, I began shooting a basketball at one of the hoops.

At their age, the children in Jamey and Arthur's class don't tend to think of the basketball hoop as something within the realm of their interaction. They are just too high up. However, once I began doing it, a few of them thought to give it a go.

Before long most of them were making shots with some regularity, despite being only barely able to toss a ball that high. Their natural ability struck me as rather impressive. I coached them a bit on technique, but mostly just gave encouragement. The kids really lit up and had a blast. 

One of the other parents took a picture and that was submitted to the Columbian, who felt it worth publishing in their "Community" section.

You can see the picture they posted in their archive:

http://www.columbian.com/article/20090211/COMMUNITY03/702119998/-1/ARCHIVES

And You Thought the Previous Post was Long and Tedious

The following is basically an argument for turning off the flash and turning up the ISO for indoor photography.  Unless you are really bored, you should take that advice for what it's worth, quit reading this post and resume doing the important things in your life.

Grumpy, thanks for providing me with a realistic image with which to work. If I didn't acknowledge the realities of indoor flash-photography, my readers might rightly accuse me of oversimplifying the challenges of color correction.

This is absolutely NOT a criticism of your photography skills. I have succumbed to the use of flash photography on many occasions. Often one is not in the mood to tinker with camera settings and disabling the flash is often one of the more inconvenient or impossible settings to achieve in a camera. 

Instead, this post is about raising awareness about the control one can exert on the color of the lighting in a photograph. It's about the idea that a high ISO setting in indoor environments, and spending some time using Picasa can help people easily reduce noticeably "off-white" lighting in their photography.

Now I'm 'bout to get Henry Higgins on you. Only my pedantic tirade will be about lighting, not speech.

Last warning: the following is boring. Leave now or risk falling asleep on your keyboard.

No sooner had I pressed "publish" on my previous articulation on the ease of color-correction in Picasa, than the Grumpy one publishes an array of photographs that appear designed to disprove my thesis.

Case in point:

Here we see a photograph with no fewer than three distinct light sources. Areas where the light sources blend are present as well, and pretty much rule out the possibility of whole-picture color-correction.

I will diagram it:

I have highlighted three different color regions by surrounding them with a different colored line.

The fourth color region is the orange-colored background, which I felt was too large to draw a border around.

Through tinkering, I have reached the conclusion that the reason for the pink hue in this photo is that the camera was white balanced to sunlight (true white light), and the camera's flash is slightly to the pink side of white. Thus every picture where the flash is the dominant light source will have a pink tint. (I'm sure that Grumpy's fancy new camera has the smarts to know when the flash is on and automatically white-balance for that. Now he just needs to remember to bring it along. ;) I kid.)

• In the foreground, which I've circled with a bluish line is the area where the flash dominates. 
  
• The near background has some flash-influence, especially on lighter colored items. I've circled these with a mint-colored line.
  
• Far in the upper right background, circled in yellow is a window to the outside. Using Picasa's Neutral Color Picker in this region yields no change in the tint of the picture. This is how I reached the conclusion that the camera's white-balance was configured for sunlight.
  
• The rest of the background is distinctly orange-colored, which is clearly the result of incandescent lighting in the room.

So, now we understand the competing light-sources in the picture and it should be obvious why we couldn't just use Picasa's Neutral Color Picker to balance the color for the whole photo. Picasa assumes that only one light source is at play in the entire picture. 

Perhaps someday an algorithm will be created to white-balance automatically by region, but that's a fairly complex problem, so for now color-conscious photographers have to make everyone go outside for a portrait, or they turn off their flash. In this way, a single source of light can be achieved and subsequently "corrected" if the camera's white-balance setting was incorrect for the type of light in the portrait.

In the above picture, the color can be corrected for the foreground by using the Neutral Color Picker on the tablecloth near the bottom left corner of the photo. 

Better yet, you can choose to use Picasa's Auto Color button and it will do almost the same thing, but a little better.

In general, the Auto Color feature does a better job of finding a neutral color to correct by than I do. 

Generally, what it appears to do is line up the red, green and blue in the histogram so that they overlap as much as possible. Picasa doesn't give you the ability to slide the colors around manually, which is entirely sensible considering the difficulty involved in that.

Nonetheless, as a photography geek, I think it would be nice to have a tool for tinkering with the color levels.

I have had that before, and Paint.NET has that ability. But for whatever reason (training perhaps?) I am only marginally successful at using those tools.

Photo Editing Technique - True Neutral Lighting and Getting the Most Detail

Several times I have fallen victim to leaving my camera on the wrong color setting and having the resulting picture look off-color as a result. This will be a tutorial on how to correct color in Picasa 3 and also how to manually adjust the contrast to get the most satisfying and realistic color and light balance.

Here is a photo of a snowy landscape I took in the early morning. The camera white balance was set for indoor lighting, which caused this natural light to appear blue:

Notice the histogram in the bottom-right corner; the blue, yellow and red are occupying different areas, which means there is very little true white in the picture. Especially odd in a picture so full of snow and clouds.

To fix this, click on the eye-dropper button under the label Neutral Color Picker, then click on a spot in your picture that you know should look pure white, or pure gray. I've provided suggestions off the tips of the two arrows. 

If you have picked a good white spot, your picture will look much closer to true white as in the following:

Notice the Histogram now shows the colors overlapping much more. This shows the histogram agreeing with the obvious: I've made the picture more "neutral" gray.

Still, the picture seems too dim and hazy as compared with my sensation of it with my own eyesight. So, I'd like to see it a bit lighter, clearer and perhaps a touch bluer, as the morning light often is.

I'll begin by trying to make the most of the brightness range, shown in the histogram by how well the pixels fill the total width of the histogram. At present, my pixels are bunched pretty tightly in the middle of the histogram, which means most of my picture is just medium brightness. For a picture that is more satisfying to look at, you will have some pixels near the bright end and some near the dark end of the histogram. To accomplish this, we'll use Picasa's Highlights and Shadows sliders. 

Move the sliders to try to get the pixels to fill the empty areas on the right and left sides of the histogram, but be careful not to lose too many pixels off the edge, or you will cause pure black or pure white, which is equivalent to losing detail in your photograph. 

Here you can see how much I used the sliders and what it did to the picture and the histogram.

You could stop there and have a pretty realistic representation of the light conditions. 

I am going to take it one more step though, and see if I can bring some of the blue morning light back. To do this, I'm just going to slightly add to the color saturation.

By increasing the saturation just a bit, you bring out some of the color that was actually recorded and just make it more prominent in the photograph. The arrow is pointing out that the white in the foreground is still white, unlike the original, which had the entire photo tinted blue.

This strikes me as fairly realistically conveying what the morning air looked like to my eye. 

Perhaps I've added too much blue because of a weakness for hypersaturation. 

But since the viewer can't be there to smell the cold crisp morning air, she might forgive me for trying a little too hard to make the image look crisp and cool.

My Paint.NET Project

After getting the kids going, I thought it would be smart to get some good quality skills that I could then use to give them room to aspire to. So I looked up a tutorial on how to make glassy-looking orbs and gave it a whirl.
Here are the first two products:

Arthur's Paint.NET Project

Over the past two days I managed to get the kids worked up about Paint.NET.
I think it started with Shadow Day, in which I was allowed to "shadow" the boys as they went through their school day. 

During the afternoon stint, I was able to sit with Arthur as he participated in combining simple geometric shapes into a larger outlined shape.
At the same time, Jamey has developed an interest, for other reasons, in drawing certain creatures, which I won't say anything about, since he will undoubtedly want to debut them at the proper moment.

In any case, they were both ripe for exposure to Paint.NET, which I promptly exposed them to, and much to their delight.
Here is a photograph of Arthur's work. Jamey's, I feel sure, will be forthcoming, perhaps on The ES of J.

Porch Light

We won't be accused of moving too quickly on this issue, but we finally installed a porch light that works. We are very happy with it. It has a motion-sensor, a timed shutoff, three bright LED bulbs, a small solar panel and a battery pack. All for just $99.99 at Lowe's.

It took 3 sunny days to charge the batteries, but tonight I was greeted with cheerful, autonomously activated white light when I came home from work.

For those of you who may have visited us and may have come or gone during the night, you will have experienced something more akin to falling into an inkwell than traversing a welcoming porch. No more. Now, through the wonders of modern technology, you will be bathed in LED luminosity every time you approach.

Random Smells

There is something especially unsettling about unexpected unpleasant odor. 

A loud noise may wake you from a peaceful sleep and trigger several hours of insomnia. A bright light may make you wonder who's coming up the driveway.

Taste and touch are usually applied to items under your control and so an unpleasant experience there is generally brief and well understood.

Smell is different. There can be great mystery in smell.

One such mystery is at play as I write, although the evidence has diminished greatly for the past two days.

In my bedroom, about three days ago, an odor reached its zenith. For intensity and area, I'd rate it an 8 of 10, with 10 meaning I'd have to sleep in another room. For pungency and foulness, again, 8, for it had a vigorous and repulsive presence like some of the fancier cheeses. But like those cheeses it had a quality about it that you might admiringly call "boldness" and maybe a faint chord of sweetness that may make you a bit curious as to the taste. 

I have a wary admiration for cheese. It is clear to me that bold and delicious flavors are to be found among the great cheeses of the world. Yet to eat many of them for their flavor would be, for me, much like bungee-jumping for fun. Just more than one of my constitution craves.

To return to the mysterious odor in the bedroom, I will say that at first I assumed the blame entirely for myself. It is entirely within the bounds of reason that I should suspect myself of having left something "perishable" laying about for far too long in some forgotten corner of my room. I've lived with myself long enough to know this. That is why I asserted to Heidi that it must be the shirt that I had overworn and left in the corner.

This explanation being wholly believable, we hit the lights and went to sleep.

The next day, however, the smell was more intense than ever. Enough so that Heidi decided to take action and removed the offending garment at once to the laundry room along with several others which might also have been suspected of creating the olfactory caucaphony.

Still, with the obvious culprits removed, the smell grew intense by an order of magnitude. 

You may suppose that I am going to carry on and explain how I solved this riddle and wrap this entry up in a tidy bow. Should you suppose that, you will now be treated to a rude surprise.

As yet the source of the odor remains undiscovered. The intensity has flagged remarkably in the past two days and leaves open the possibility that this mystery may go unsolved for quite some time due to lack of available evidence. 

Should the facts reveal themselves, dear reader, you will be the first to know.

Indie Music

When I first subscribed to eMusic.com I wondered if I would be able to find enough high-quality records to justify the subscription. 

I've subscribed for about 6 months now, and I'm starting to feel like I'm just scratching the surface of a deep gold mine.

Recently, because of a subscriber's poll ranking it the best album eMusic has, I downloaded In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. I was not disappointed. At all. That album is ridiculously good and unique. You will not hear music this interesting on radio.

Other artists that I've been very pleased with:

Artist Album

Neko Case Live at Austin City Limits

Radiohead In Rainbows

Zbigniew Preisner 3 Couleurs : Rouge

The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs

Elliot Smith New Moon

The Decemberists Picaresque

Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister

Arcade Fire Funeral

The National Boxer

Flooding and Rooftop Adventure

Was it last year, or the year before that we had epic floods that closed I-5 and Mt. Rainier National park?
Well, we're at it again. In Clark County there are two road closures and a warning because of water over the roadway, all within just a few miles of my home, which I affectionately refer to as Fort Bale. See map below for closure locations.

Not only have the roads flooded, but as a result of the record snow we had in December, our roof has never been more compromised. The plumbing vent over the laundry room has been snapped off at the roofline, and the stove pipe has suffered enough that a small leak became apparent after yesterday morning's torrents.

I left work at 1 PM yesterday to come home and deal with the leaks, having no interest in tearing into our walls with the custom plaster job to fix water damage.

For supplies, I bought some roof sealant tar that touted the ability to go on wet or dry surfaces, two 75' ropes that looked like they could support my weight, two carabiners, an LED headlamp with a nice bright and focused beam, and a pair of flyfisherman's felt-soled boots.

The rope I tied off, each to it's own hook on the south roof. These are the hooks Heidi hangs her geranium baskets from. I'm glad now that I oversized them.

The felt-soled boots proved insufficient to walk up the wet metal roof on the north side; it's just too steep. So, I walked and crawled while tugging my way up both ropes and intermittently adjusting the Italian hitches on my caribiners, so that, should I start to slip, I wouldn't build much momentum before the ropes grew taut at my beltline.

Not finding the caulking gun I believe I had in the laundry room, I was forced to go primitive and I brought my needle-nose pliers and a spackle blade with me. I used the pliers to pull the nozzle off the caulk tube and later to squeeze the last bits out of it. With the spackle blade I smeared the tar over every seam I thought could plausibly be the source of the leaks we observed.

Luckily, as I worked I discovered that wet denim grips sufficiently to wet metal roofing.
However, that also meant that by the time I was done, I was shivering from cold.
Getting back off the roof was a little nerve-wracking because of how stiff my legs had become. They proved flexible enough though, and I was soon in the blessedly warm shower, shedding the evidence of my adventure.

For the first time in days, I slept well and completely through the night.