Scattered Thoughts . . .

I've been struggling with some ideas of what to do with all of my older video clips shot on cameras with far lower resolutions than is typically displayed today.  The video world and televisions are quickly upgrading to 4K while 6K and 8K cameras are already readily available. Full HD video clips only fill one quarter of a 4K screen... so... what to do with all these older clips to make them look acceptable at a time when resolutions are increasing drastically? To make matters worse, I have a lot of HD video (not "Full HD") which is even smaller! I got to thinking that I could use those lower resolution video files in picture-in-picture windows and they might not look so bad at the higher resolutions. The only way to know for sure was to try it. A screenshot of this side-by-side video technique. I went searching for some video clips and found some sailing clips that I shot way back in 2013. We were at the lake for Adam's birthday on this day. It's always

I've done a pretty good job at avoiding medical appointments for almost a year. That may not sound like much but my health has been known to prompt m edical appointments a few times a month. One of the things I explained to my doctor today is that all of this mast cell nonsense has become my 'normal' everyday life so I rarely look at it as anything but normal. I also reminded her that, as a result, I often find myself not divulging everything I should to my doctors. In my mind, everything is 'normal'.   Not seeing my doctor for about a year doesn't mean anything as far as how my health is at the moment or has been for the past year. Actually, for the past few months, my health has been pretty damn lousy. Not seeing my doctor for about a year only means I've done a good job at avoiding medical appointments.  So, my doctor tracked me down and had me come in for a visit, exam and some tests. That appointment was today.  As luck would have it, I have be

I'm still waiting to get in to see my doctor (appointment is tomorrow) so I was still just hanging around doing nothing but hoping to find something to do. As I was boiling an egg for breakfast, I noticed a Nuthatch outside our kitchen window... "Hmmmm... I haven't seen these guys since last year!"  I quickly decided that I'd grab a camera and a lens and try to capture a few photos.   Last week when doing the same, I grabbed my smallest camera and longest lens. Since my smallest camera was plugged-in to recharge its battery this morning, I decided to use my larger Sony camera body. Once again, I grabbed my longest lens. I haven't really used this combo yet so this would be a good test while giving me an opportunity to practice on these jumpy fast moving birds.  None of these birds outside our kitchen window ever sit still for longer than about three seconds so you need to be quick if you want to capture a crisp photo. This morning was no different. It

I've been laid up for the past two weeks. Actually, the past few months have been pretty lousy but the past two weeks have been significantly more limiting. I've needed a cane to get around and I've needed to be off my feet unless absolutely necessary. I have a medical appointment early next week so, until then, there has been a bit of a shift in my activities.   I've watched a lot of movies over the past two weeks... done some reading... I did a lot of research online... I wrote some additional to-do lists (like my current to-do lists weren't long enough)... and I fiddled around with my photography gear with time at the lake in mind. I even spent some time at the piano everyday which, I must admit, is a rarity.  Since most of the past two weeks have been spent on the couch, I've had a chance to scroll through thousands of my old photos. Tonight, I'm sharing a few photos from 2009 and 2010. Back during this period, I was shooting photos with a Fujifilm

This is little Nemo... one of our resident fish. A couple of weekends ago, we brought the grandkids to Dick's Sporting Goods to try on and purchase some new life vests for them to wear at the lake. They've outgrown their old life vests so it was time for a larger size.  While we were trying on life vests, a nearby display caught Lukey's eye... it was an end cap display of large inflatables for the water. Some extremely large inflatable called a "Floating Island" caught his eye and our eyes... This "Floating Island" is a huge inflatable with two areas for hanging out... a covered area for four or six people to sit facing each other with their feet in the water... and a sunning area for two or three people to stretch out comfortably. There is about a two foot by three foot hole in the middle of the covered seating area where you let your feet dangle in the water while talking with each other and drinking a few cold refreshments.   Gee and I show

Another new season is upon us and the wildlife around the house is finally starting to come alive again. For the most part, our neighborhood has been devoid of song birds for the past few years. We see the occasional sparrow or robin during periods of migration (like now... it is the season for migrating birds) and we can hear some songbirds (although, not a lot) chirping away as the sun comes up but we really don't have the numbers we should have here around our house.  I know we have a couple of monstrous crows living in a nearby tree. Since these particular crows are quite aggressive, songbirds can consider that enough of a threat to find trees elsewhere. We also have a lot of cats in the area and those are clearly dangerous predators. Additionally, I sometimes see a Red Tailed Hawk in our area. These factors definitely limit the number of songbirds that settle down in our neighborhood so it comes as no surprise to me that seeing them is a bit of a rarity. This morning

It is hard to believe but the grandchildren will be turning five this week!  When we arrived back home after gymnastics and lunch, we started preparing a birthday dinner and a nice birthday cake, however , the kids did not know that we were having a little birthday party in their honor nor at all... Sheila and Kenzie made a delicious cake for dessert not realizing it was really a birthday cake for her and Lukey. The cake was a very moist yellow cake with a chocolate buttercream frosting. When they finished with the cake and cleaned up the kitchen a bit, then I made a pretty good chicken parmesan dinner with bowtie pasta and a broccoli and tomato salad. I have to say that dinner was pretty tasty! Even Kenzie found that she likes chicken parmesan! While clearing the table, the kids were distracted by Liza outdoors so we could setup the birthday cake, light some candles and put a few presents on the table... When we were ready, we signaled to Liza so that she could herd the kids

Do you think she knew where the camera was located? We started off our Sunday by bringing little Miss Kenzie to gymnastics.  I think Kenzie looks forward to Sundays all week long just so she can go to gymnastics again! We were excited to be accompanying her as well. This was the first time that Gee and I managed to make it to gymnastics. The past three months have been exceptionally rough with home problem after home problem and health problem after health problem. These constant problems overlapped and negatively impacted everything in our life. Needless to say, we've been looking forward to some "fun time"! After gymnastics, we headed to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy some new life vests for the kids to use at the lake this summer. They've outgrown the life vests they used last summer so we needed to find some new ones in a larger size. After purchasing a couple of new life vests, we ventured across the big parking lot to have a delicious lunch at The

While I'm on a roll in sharing some photos of our times at the lake house, I went back two years to the first time the grandkids spent some time with us at the lake house.  While sorting through some of these older hard drives from that timeframe, I realized that I had some video showing the moment when they arrived at the house for the first time.  So...  I went digging for those video clips. Will and Sue (Sheila's parents) were kind enough to deliver Lukey and Kenzie to us. I expected the kids to be excited bundles of energy but, it is funny... I should have known better.  In situations like this they have shown us that they are more cautious, observant and deliberate than the type of person who throws caution to the wind with boundless excitement.  And, truth be told, I'm happy to see that they tend to be cautious, observant and deliberate when thrown into new experiences.   As we walked down the hill from the car to the house, they were wide-eyed and quietly looki