Getting Hard not be Depressed

[Palouse]

Welcome back, Rick. We're here to help you pick up. Days are getting longer—they say!

 

[Philinnz]

Welcome back, Rick. We're here to help you pick up. Days are getting longer—they say!

longer? shorter for us.. todays drone shot of the local racecourse

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[ac12]

longer? shorter for us.. todays drone shot of the local racecourse

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I have to learn how to fly my drone.
It has been a couple years since I last flew.
I'm still a novice flyer, still learning how to control the drone. I only fly in an enclosed parking garage, where the drone can't fly off to "never never land."

 

[McQ]

I took up painting last week to have something to do. Made my easel in my woodshop.
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Louis, these are strikingly beautiful! As are the ones in the next set you posted. I'm blown away!

How did you photograph them? Setup, lighting, etc.? It's pretty tricky to do well, and you did it well.

 

[Terri French]

Very wet here in N. Idaho. The snow ok we had has melted and frozen into a lovely slick, shiney surface that requires I put slip on spikes on my shoes to navigate around to pick up the dog crap. It's a challenge.
We got very busy with Mari's chemo/radiation and weren't paying attention to our dogs, so the aussies bred, resulting in 10 puppies adding to the carnage in the yard. Fortunately we found great homes for them, they'll went away 3 days ago. I have to confess, the puppies were a ball. We donated two of them to the local bicycle club which helped them out financially. Winter is very hard for me, but I know the days are getting longer, I had a lot of fun photographing the puppies and best of all Mari's last three MRI's have detected no reoccurrence of cancer. We're on a roll.

Sounds like lots of good news for you!!

 

[Philinnz]

I have to learn how to fly my drone.
It has been a couple years since I last flew.
I'm still a novice flyer, still learning how to control the drone. I only fly in an enclosed parking garage, where the drone can't fly off to "never never land."

Modern drones are so clever, as long as you wait for it to find the home via its gps (not long) it will remember where it took off from and should return there should things go wrong. I have had my mavic 2 pro now for a couple of years. never a problem. 458 flights, 203km. Images and video quite impressive given the tiny camera

 

[NaptownSailor]

Louis, these are strikingly beautiful! As are the ones in the next set you posted. I'm blown away!

How did you photograph them? Setup, lighting, etc.? It's pretty tricky to do well, and you did it well.

I paint in my basement woodshop, which has good overhead LED lighting and a window well. Keeping the woodworking to a minimum for now to avoid airborne sawdust, even though I have dust collectors. Handheld D800 an Nikkor 50/1.8G for the "official" shots, which are on my website. These images on the Cafe are iPhone grabs. Paintings are on my studio easel, which I made a couple weeks ago. Link below to the Paintings gallery.

https://www.jacqueslouis.com/Paintings

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Vernazza

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Acrylic cells

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Based on Hokusai's "Red Fuji." If Hokusai and Van Gogh had traded places.

 

[Replytoken]

I paint in my basement woodshop, which has good overhead LED lighting and a window well. Keeping the woodworking to a minimum for now to avoid airborne sawdust, even though I have dust collectors. Handheld D800 an Nikkor 50/1.8G for the "official" shots, which are on my website. These images on the Cafe are iPhone grabs. Paintings are on my studio easel, which I made a couple weeks ago. Link below to the Paintings gallery.

https://www.jacqueslouis.com/Paintings

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Vernazza

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Acrylic cells

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Based on Hokusai's "Red Fuji." If Hokusai and Van Gogh had traded places.

I like the flower pieces you displayed on your website. Nice use of color.

--Ken

 

[NCV]

Sorry ... don't mean to be a downer, but I must admit it's getting harder and harder not to feel a little depressed right now. This is my view outside to our back yard right now...
'
Purposely underexposed a bit to try and match what my eye sees. It's so dark and gloomy outside that some of the lights that are on dusk-to-dawn sensors in the neighborhood are still on at 10:45am!!

Have had several inches of rain over the past few days and the ground is now "super-saturated" - which for me means when our dog goes outside for his daily constitutional, I must wade through the mud and slop, baggies in hand, to clean up. And, if I'm late it melts into a real mess!!

Then there's the whole COVID stuff, the terrible actions of a few idiots last week in DC, the news in general, etc. Getting tough to find much joy right now.

Although it looks like we'll have a trip in late May to Utah and Arizona to get out of the house for a while!! At least I can spend some time planning that!!

Ken

Yes, on top of strict lockdowns with heavy restrictions on our freedom movement, it has been raining almost continually here too. Seems the weather is adding to the depressing times we are living through.

I try to avoid the news with its tally of death and the incompetence of our "Dear leaders" to sort the big problem.

I am one who loves to get out and about and I realise I am getting more and more tense and nervous, with the virtual house arrest we are under here. I work at home which makes the imprisonment even tougher.

I do manage to escape captivity on the back of work appointments occasionally, to alleviate the boredom of being locked into the confines of my small city,

I wanted to try out a new lens this weekend on a rare day of sunshine, and I risked a €400 fine to visit a castle twenty minuets away by car! The exceptional qualities of this lens cheered me up a bit.

 

[Minuteman3]

Yes, on top of strict lockdowns with heavy restrictions on our freedom movement, it has been raining almost continually here too. Seems the weather is adding to the depressing times we are living through.

I try to avoid the news with its tally of death and the incompetence of our "Dear leaders" to sort the big problem.

I am one who loves to get out and about and I realise I am getting more and more tense and nervous, with the virtual house arrest we are under here. I work at home which makes the imprisonment even tougher.

I do manage to escape captivity on the back of work appointments occasionally, to alleviate the boredom of being locked into the confines of my small city,

I wanted to try out a new lens this weekend on a rare day of sunshine, and I risked a €400 fine to visit a castle twenty minuets away by car! The exceptional qualities of this lens cheered me up a bit.

That sounds really difficult. Luckily, we have not been on quite that tough of a lockdown. Even during the most severe restrictions in Mar-April, we could go places by car, however most parks and so on were closed so the available options were quite slim!!

I think one of the only ways we survived those very tough restrictions was our hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot), were considered "essential" so we could get paint and other home improvement items to keep us occupied!!

Take care, and I'm convinced the worst of this mess is over now that we're actually rolling out the vaccinations (even though it seems very slow, it's actually remarkable that these companies were able to get us to this point so quickly.)

Ken

 

[NaptownSailor]

When all this first began, we used to walk in the park or around the neighborhood, carrying a bag to pick up litter. Amazing how much crap people discard in places other than trash cans.

 

[jbird]

Well, I did have some time to draft up the driving itinerary for our trip in May. Two main objectives on this trip ... I've got a one day "high performance driving school" day from Ford Performance in Park City, UT, as a result of buying a Ford Explorer ST. Plus, we have good friends who moved to Phoenix AZ last year and we plan to see them for a few days.
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There may be other stops along the way ... and my wife hasn't "approved" this routing yet. I was kind of hoping to avoid California coming back, buy geography (and the availability of roads) somewhat limit our options!!

Perhaps it's time for a glass of wine ...

Ken

Where are you stopping in SW Utah? It almost looks like Bryce Canyon NP. If it is, try to get into the lodge.

 

[jbird]

When all this first began, we used to walk in the park or around the neighborhood, carrying a bag to pick up litter. Amazing how much crap people discard in places other than trash cans.

I was out at a local park not too long ago,I picked up At least 6 plastic water bottles. There was a trash can not 20 feet away from where I picked up the bottles. It would not be hard to get on an eco-inconsiderate people rant when I think about it.

 

[Minuteman3]

Where are you stopping in SW Utah? It almost looks like Bryce Canyon NP. If it is, try to get into the lodge.

Currently, it's basically a placeholder ... Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon. We've stayed there a couple of years ago and it was really nice and a great value. I'm waiting to see if the Navajo Nation opens up Monument Valley by the time we make the trip as if they do we'll probably go that direction if they do.

As they say ... stay tuned!!

Ken

 

[Palouse]

When all this first began, we used to walk in the park or around the neighborhood, carrying a bag to pick up litter. Amazing how much crap people discard in places other than trash cans.

I was out at a local park not too long ago,I picked up At least 6 plastic water bottles. There was a trash can not 20 feet away from where I picked up the bottles. It would not be hard to get on an eco-inconsiderate people rant when I think about it.

We live on a corner lot, and for some reason it collects more than its share of trash. Being between the High and middle schools can't help! We've found all the usual culprits—bottles, bags, fast food containers, paper, junk mail, bike helmets, bowling ball, lots of bikes, baseballs, gloves, mittens, pens, and even a handgun (found by city workers trimming vegetation).

 

[jbird]

Currently, it's basically a placeholder ... Ruby's Inn at Bryce Canyon. We've stayed there a couple of years ago and it was really nice and a great value. I'm waiting to see if the Navajo Nation opens up Monument Valley by the time we make the trip as if they do we'll probably go that direction if they do.

As they say ... stay tuned!!

Ken

We stayed at the View motel. It is very basic but the view is magnificent. The food there is ok but not great.

 

[bsinc1962]

We live on a corner lot, and for some reason it collects more than its share of trash. Being between the High and middle schools can't help! We've found all the usual culprits—bottles, bags, fast food containers, paper, junk mail, bike helmets, bowling ball, lots of bikes, baseballs, gloves, mittens, pens, and even a handgun (found by city workers trimming vegetation).

When the outbreak first started we would hike to all ends of the property looking for deer and elk antlers. Once I'm healed up we'll do it all over again. It's amazing how they litter the area with them. If they had a little bit of courtesy they would drop them all in one place.

 

[Growltiger]

I have squirrels who drop litter in my garden. They run across to a nearby field where maize is grown, steal it, bring it back here to eat it - and then drop the chewed cores in the garden.

 

[Palouse]

I have squirrels who drop litter in my garden. They run across to a nearby field where maize is grown, steal it, bring it back here to eat it - and then drop the chewed cores in the garden.

We have tree rats who do the same with pears and walnuts from our yard, or a chestnut down the road.

 

[Growltiger]

We have tree rats who do the same with pears and walnuts from our yard, or a chestnut down the road.

I love the squirrels. They wouldn't like to be called bad names like that.