Vacation (continued)

I know, I know. It’s been too long since any info on the blog. I’m sure all of my fans have been waiting with bated breath to find out ‘wass up scott, yo’. Well the deck is built and I’ve been chillin’ on vacation with the golf tourney in Glen Ellyn, the visit to my son for rib scarfin’, bike ridin’, disc golf playin’, leinenkugel beer drinkin’, whale fish sandwich eatin’, r and r time. First the ribs! Wow! I think there were 3 pounds for each of us! So, along with ribs we had homemade mac and cheese (steves’ cheese from Wisconsin) and homemade sourdough bread. I survived the bike ride, about 30 miles in the country with young legged son. So far it seems that I can still keep up. Then it was off to disc golf. Now as some of you may know, we are a family of disc golfers from way back so it was good to get out on the course. Number one son thrashed me but the weather is giving me a good excuse for the loss. It was right in the middle of our east coast heat wave. The temp was 100 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Ouch. DIL (daughter in law) came home from her conference and we went out for giant fish sandwiches appropriately called ‘whale fish sandwich’ at the Red Horse Tavern.

VACATION? DECK BUILDER!

So this is vacation? Anyway, building this deck is something that had to be done. My wife was tired of having the dogs traipse through a mud puddle to get to the pen. So this was the first order of business after my vacation started. I knew that later on in the week I was heading to Chicago for the Ed Posh Charity Golf Tournament so I had three days to get the whole deck done. Right off the bat it started raining. So now the dogs aren't playing in mud, I am.

Getting this done was a must for selling this house but once again we're making this house so livable we want to move and take it with us. We've made so many improvements that we're thinking of raising the price. How about that for going against conventional wisdom.

Spoke with my friend David about our art projects and we have decided that being starving art mavens is in our future. It's easier than you can imagine! In any case I am pulling some things together to get the art thing goin' agin'. It's usually good for my sanity in any case.

I'll post again when the deck is finished. Ta-ta for now.

VACATION!!

Did you read the headline? Breathe a sigh of relief because vacation has arrived. I seem to have survived the trip back from Delhi but not without 12 hours of sleep last night. Ouch, that trip kills me! But enough of that for now. The navy polyester is hanging in the closet, (actually stands up by itself), not to be seen or discussed until August, got it? Hmmm, ok. So now to satisfy LDK at lapdogknits.blogspot.com heres what we had for dinner tonight. Nothing special but there might be a few added ingredients that she doesn't have. Got some catfish from the market. What to do with it? Fried? Nah, to fatty, stinks up the house. Baked? Pretty pedestrian but has possibilities. Oven baked with breadcrumbs it is. Pantry searched, cabinets opened, no breadcrumbs! Ok, what do we have? Found some sesame wheat crackers and some honey wheat pretzels. Perfect! Ground them up with the roller. Threw in some parmesan cheese and the not so secret ingredient, Old Bay Seasoning. Run the fish through some milk, then into the cracker mix, drizzle with butter and off to the oven, 450 for about 18 minutes. WoW! A new favorite. Daughter made the fabulous salad, pictured, and we had a feast. BTW, spent part of the day at the town pool, as you can see, with wife and daughter. Got a great swim in before the storms came.

Sleepless in India

India! Here I am on the other side of the planet trying to get back on track before heading back home. Getting here and going home is always the worst part. Being here is like a weird vacation. The chronology: 1) Suffer on the flight over. 2) Check into a fabulous hotel and slip into a coma. 3) Hit the gym for exercise and then the spa for a steam and jump into the cold pool (55 degrees to really get your heart started). 4) Fabulous breakfast (or dinner in my case since the time difference is about 12 hours.) 5) Wander around the grounds for awhile to take a few pictures to post. 6) Back to the room to post the blog, prepare to sleep, and head home. I have lots of pictures from here and I am starting to think about how to post them. Stay tuned. BTW, this pic is a couple of years old but my brother should recognize the bowl.

Salmon on the breezeway

Here's a shout out to my cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com. Havin' comfort food on the breezeway. Saw from an earlier post comment that you wanted to see food, more food, so here it is. Not exciting, and yet delicious. Mom drove, (yes, drove), to Dans seafood shop to pick us up some salmon. Drove, because the thermometer here is approaching 100 degrees. Potatoes, fresh tomatoes, salmon on the grill and 'tres bien' another culinary masterpiece. Miss you, LDK, and tell that man of yours we want to see the both of you soon here in fly-over country.

Bee hitchhiker

After coming back home from Wisconsin and hearing all week about my cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com my mother is thinking that she needs to get 'hip' and get a laptop. So here's mom at her first laptop lesson and she rocks the macbook. Also, she transported this sunflower from Door County and she claims it to be her pride and joy. The bee came along for the ride.

Here is the end of the conga line that I found snaking it's way up the mountain. It's fairly steep but pretty much any one can make it up to the top. So I think that it turns out that every tourist that comes to Hawaii make this a 'must do' at some point. Anyway, it had stopped raining and even this old man huffed and puffed his way to the top and it was well worth it. And at the end, on my way out of the park, I was rewarded with this beautiful rainbow. Wow!

I'm in Hawaii with my new camera and thought it would be a good time for a test run. As I usually do when in a different time zone than my home I try to stay on my home body clock. So, woke up at 3:00 in the morning thinking what to do now. I like to wander around as the sun is coming so I set off at about 4:30 in the morning to do a little exploring. I saw a sign for diamond head crater. Hmm. The thing that I like about being up at this hour, even in a big city, is no people. So, I figured this would be a good time to find the Diamond Head Crater trail. After about a half hour walk I made it to the entrance of Diamond Head Park. There were about three or four other people there for the 6 a.m. opening. Great. At five before six a couple of mini busses showed up along with a couple of vans. Now it started to rain. Well, pooh. The gate opened and I decided to press on in the rain. I thought if any crowds were going to develop they would be put off by the rain. At the beginning of the trail I made a quick pit stop. When I emerged five minutes later there was a line of hundreds of Japanese tourists snaking their way ahead of me up the trail. Waaaah! So much for a quiet morning walk.

My cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com wants to know whats' for dinner. So it seems that I am not the only one food obsessed. Well, LDK, I'll be dining on Indian and I'll post a picture for you although I have it on good authority that you should never be hungry again after last week. Ha. LOL!

This is a little more interesting, not only for the bokeh but a bee wandered into the shot also. I might have to drag this into photoshop to bring out some more detail. But back to the shot. This 2.8 lens in macro mode does a fair job of throwing background out of focus so your eye is drawn to the main subject. I'll be looking forward to my 2.0 leica lens that is arriving soon to see how it compares in normal and macro mode. Now then, that was alot of info and no food or drink whatsoever.

It's time do a little experimenting to see what this little camera can do. It has a fairly fast lens (2.8) so the depth of field should be fairly shallow with hopefully good bokeh (out of focus) areas. But as you can see, even at 2.8 the depth of field is not very shallow and the background flower is still in relative focus. This little camera has a macro mode, so back to garden for same shot in macro mode and we will see what happens to the bokeh.

Oh lifes' ironies. If you've been reading these posts then you noticed the Guinness from two days ago in the land o'er the sea. Well, back in GE, mama said 'let's go to Shannons'. No problem there. So, one more meal in a glass (guinness). But since I was there I went for the bangers and mash also.

I know, I know, I promised you no more food (or at least less) but here in I am in the land of Erin Go Bragh and what is a guy supposed to do? This is not food! Am I to go home never having an original Guiness? I think not. So I think I was saved (or I was able to rationalize) by this little spot that was flying the Norwegian flag. I had to, I must, I had no control, I went in. There weren't any Norsk patrons in here but the Guiness was everything that I had imagined. Ambrosia.

Left my little Nikon in pieces yesterday. Turns out that a drop of 3 feet is not survivable. Ouch. What to do? Here I am, a photographer, trying to live by the adage that the best camera is the one you have with you and I've got nuttin', zip, nada. Off to Fry's electronics I go which could be trouble. Lo and behold, after a bit of looking, I come across a Panasonic P and S thats a steal at fifty bucks. Wow! So the first shots were of White Fence Farm dinner last night and today the glasses on the left in the macro setting for close-ups. Very nice. Now all I have to do is make sure this little camera stays tightly in my grip.

Ok, I'm back from the proverbial war and in GE. So I'm thinkin' , what to eat tonight. What better to forget my daily travails than comfort food in the form of chicken and fixins' from White Fence Farm. Right after I had made this momentous decision my son called. Now, some of his favorite eats are in the surroundings of the old homestead so naturally I had to make him envious about my WFF decision. So right off the bat I mentioned corn fritters and I could feel him start to drool right through the phone. Pretty amazing. So before you think this blog is all about food (ribs one day, chicken the next), I'll try to expand my horizon and tell you a bit about the photographic plans in my future. So, ta-ta for now.

While I was visiting my brother in Door County, WI., my cousin, who can be found at lapdogknits.blogspot.com, came by to show off her new shoes. She seems to have made a wrong turn on the west coast and ended up at the Clearing retreat center in Wisconsin. She says her new shoes are made up of old tires. Whaat? This new fangled invention will probably reach us in flyover country in about 100 years. But I have been able to find the shoe laces. Cool.

My cousin at lapdogknits.blogspot.com showed her wonderful ribs and they looked delicious. But were they? No one can really know. Now then, my ribs, I can truthfully tell you that they looked delicious before my brother and I ate them but the proof is in the pudding (or ribs in this case) and we make quick work as you can see.

So, here are the cairns that have materialized at the edge of the water in Door County. But enough of that for now. What's up with this blog? Well, having recently retired from my nearly non existent wedding photography business, I've decided to travel back to the future with my photography and experience it for my own enjoyment and share it with my multitude of fans ;) lol.

Well now, I suppose you're wondering why I'm starting this blog standing next to what looks like an old teepee. In actuality I am visiting Door County, WI. and this is some kind of beach art that has popped up over the years, that and the cairns that have been built nearby.