learn something new and its a good day; most of the time

Today I discovered a new function in my camera software, panoramas. I made these panoramas from pictures I took at Jockeys Ridge State Park. The top panorama is facing the ocean and the bottom one is a photo of where one must walk to get that ocean side panorama.




I took this shot the end of October, today I got a good look at and decided I really like it

This Thanksgiving break has been nice on the Outer Banks. The weather has been in the upper 40's to 60’s. The kids were in the house all at once so I was able to get a “family photo ”. Friends of my boys who have moved away came back for the holiday. It was nice to see them even with the beatnik beards and the extra body piercings.

I worked Friday, which is affectionately known as black Friday but not for the reason retailers call it that, the ED was steady and no one died on my shift so it was a good day.

Today I will pull out the Christmas stuff and my youngest son and I will go pick out the tree, yes I still prefer the real trees I like the uncertainty of the way its going to look. For the next week I will deck the halls. I love Christmas lights. This is the time of year when stop lights with their red, green and gold remind me of Christmas. The other day on my way to my oldest sons house I saw a home decorated with Christmas lights and I had just a tinge of that Christmas feeling. Soon the firemen with their boot and the Salvation Army with their bell will be at the local stores and more of that Christmas feeling will come. Two weeks before Christmas I will be fully anticipating Christmas.

I like December, I don't like the shopping but I like the feel of December. It is the darkest month but we light it up with Christmas lights. By the end of the month the days are getting longer and we take down our lights. The air is cool but people seem to be warmer to each other. This is the time of year when I see people I have not seen all summer. We meet on the street, at party’s and in the isles of stores and catch up on the past year. It can take hours to get out of the grocery store and I allow for that extra time. I like catching up with friends and acquaintances. I like December.

pelican

There is a spot on the causeway between Nags Head and Roanoke Island where the birds seem to like to congregate. Today as I was driving by I saw this pelican. I was able to shoot two quick shots from afar but by the time I got the tripod out of the car the pelican had had enough of me and left. Pelicans are cool birds I love to watch them casually skim over the water only occasionally flapping their wings. These birds never seem stressed out. They are like the suffer dudes of the bird world.

On my way to my mother’s house this morning I noticed a large ray of sunshine slip through the clouds. I was driving on the bypass at the time and needed to cross over to the beach road and on to one of the beach accesses to get a “good” shot. By the time I got to the access the sunray was much smaller and I thought I had lost the shot. I almost did not climb over the dune but I thought what the heck and I’m glad I did it was a beautiful sight.

fall colors

We don’t have much of a change in the color of foliage here on the Outer Banks but every once in a while there is a spot where the color can be seen.. I spotted this while taking my son to work this morning. This bike path goes around the Wright Brothers Memorial.

We have had very pleasant weather this is to change next week, which is only right, who wants to eat a heavy Thanksgiving dinner in 70 to 80 degree weather.

very end of season

Yesterday I picked the last of the jalapenos and cut the oregano back. The weather has been very warm but a change is in the air for next week so it’s time to clean the rest of the “garden” and get the house plants in.

down time

It’s been one heck of a week. Last weekend my computer either lost a vital file when a program was deleted or caught some kind of virus. Either way I spent 2 days finding back ways into programs so I could save information I wanted to disk in preparation for a reformat of the hard drive and then a reinstall of the programs I wanted to keep. Ladies and gentlemen I do not know what “Geeks on Call’ charge but I might just call them the nest time I have this type of problem. I spent 12 hours a day for 3 days strait just to get the computer working again. Most of that time was spent “figuring” out the most “logical” way to get at programs with out the use of a desktop. I will admit I found it somewhat rewarding when I was able to gain access to information I wanted, but I’m not a hacker and it got old after a while. Bottom line is now the computer is up and running. A lot of old programs that were not being used anymore have been deleted and there is a lot more room on the hard drive.

No good job goes noticed

Yesterday I spent the day doing what I call a deep cleaning. It’s when I move all the furniture and dust behind it. I vacuum the dust out of the electronics. I mop under every thing even the area rug. Windows are washed, screens are cleaned, sealing fans are given a good going over. For 8 hours I did this and everything looks the same, no one will notice all the work I did because the cleaning was beneath the surface. The dust behind the TV accumulated because it could not be easily seen, no one knew it was there no one will know it’s gone.

Many of us have jobs we do that no one really notices. Maintenance professionals and many people who service societies needs go unnoticed unless something goes wrong. At work little things done by anonymous people like stocking the paper bin or filling the ketchup go unnoticed by many. Self satisfaction in our work goes a long way but someone taking notice and saying the job was well done is so much better. Take notice of those around you and quietly let them know they did a good job you will make their day.

Ellis island

A few weeks ago on a whim I went to the Ellis Island web sight http://www.ellisisland.org/. My grand parents and 2 aunts and 2 uncles immigrated from Ireland my father was the only one born in the US. I was under the impression that they came into Baltimore but I thought I would give Ellis Island a go. Thirty minutes later I found the manifest that they were on. It is the coolest thing. The manifest tells you how old, how tall weather they were fair skinned or dark, the color of the eyes but more importantly it tells where they were born. I never really got interested in where my family was from until I was in my 30’s by then most of the people who could answer my questions were gone. Now I piece together what ever I can find about my family, many of my mother's family are still alive but all on my father’s side are to my knowledge gone, the Ellis Island manifest is a great find, from it I can go in many directions. It gives me names of towns and next of kin. I will go to Ireland some day and look at the land my grand parents came from. My grand mother loved Ireland and because of her so do I.