A week or so back, I produced and uploaded a high quality photo slideshow of photos from my nephew’s first birthday. The video is great. The compression was horrible.
Then my favorite photo-sharing website, Smugmug, added HD video to their features. Sweet! I recompressed my video and uploaded it last night. It’s so much better! I don’t think I’ll be needing Vimeo anymore, maybe.
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Hey yall! My first article is published over at Be A Good Dad.
Be A Good Dad is a fatherhood related blog. The 4 of us dads who are now writing for it are all unique, yet united in our desires to be great dads.
Head over and give it a read!
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A week back, I really wanted to hit The Getty Center with my daughter, The Princess. We lost our shot, and so I rescheduled for this week.
Yesterday, we drove down to the parking structure, adjacent to the 405 freeway, just down the hill from The Getty. If you don’t know about The Getty Center, it’s possibly one of the best and largest collections of art in the Southern California region. It opened a few years ago to some huge fanfare and has been busy ever since.
You have to pay $8 for parking, but getting into the museum is free. Yeah, free!
I actually wanted to take public transportation all the way down there. Unfortunately, public trans in LA is a joke. There are several different organizations operating different parts of the system. So, we’d have to get on a borrowed seat on the Amtrak train out of Camarillo. Technically we’d be traveling the Metrolink. However, they don’t have enough trains, or something, and they rent seats on Amtrak. Then we’d connect with LA’s MTA for a bus to the Sepulveda/Getty drop-off. Here’s the catch. It’s $18, per person, one way. So, the two of us would be paying $72! That’s more than two tanks of gas in my little commuter Scion. We opted to drive. If urban communities want to help people contribute to helping the congestion, they need to be cheaper than driving. Even with today’s high gas prices, it’s a joke to think that I’d choose a 2 hour trip down and then 2 hours back, for more money.
OK, back to The Getty.
The Princess and I had a great time. We arrived around 11am and headed straight to the first building. We basically wandered from one to the next, covering every inch of each building. In one of the paintings exhibits, the have this really nice room with several large pieces on the walls and a couple of sculptures. They are all very typical museum pieces. Then, in the middle of the room they have several tables and drawing easels set up. The point is for anyone to wander up and sketch your own interpretation of the art on display. There were many people of varying ages that wandered in and out as we were there.
Well, The Princess is a very good artist. So we took the time so that she could sketch something of her own. She sat down at the table and looked around for a bit. Then she sorta grunted an “OK, I’m ready.” She leaned down and began to draw. It took me a few minutes to realize what she had chosen as her focus. She was drawing a young woman a few feet from her, who was in turn drawing one of the large paintings. It really was surprising to me. I was even a little emotional as I considered what she was doing. I wondered how many accomplished artists would have considered to draw someone drawing.
I could not pass this chance up, so I shot off a few frames. As you can see, she did a splendid job.
We took a break for a late lunch and then continued into the Photography exhibit. It was there that I discovered that they want to show you photographs, but don’t really like photographers.
Let me clarify. No one really gives me a hard time. I don’t let them. Also, the average security guard is intellectually scared off when you start using 3 or more syllable words. I engaged him with a short diatribe about copyright, and derivative works. He didn’t follow. I allowed him to leave, and I shot my one and only rule-breaking-shot. “This one’s for Thomas Hawk,” I thought to myself.
When we finished there, we decided to head home. We didn’t have time for the beautiful gardens, nor much more than one quick stop to enjoy the view. I promised her we’d return once more. Possibly for a group photowalk, this summer.
Above all, I had a great time with my daughter, enjoying some beautiful artwork and taking picture together. She’s a lot of fun. Oh yeah, BTW, that was her school day.
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I’m just chillin’, watching Disney’s Enchanted with The Wookiee, and The Padawan keeps jumping up and down on the toy box.
I hollered at him a couple of times, “Stop doing that. It’s loud, and you could hurt your little brother.” You see, The Joker was playing right next to the toy box.
Moments later, I hear nothing but a sucking wind. You know the sound? It’s the sound of a one year old, hurt so much that he can’t cry. He’s trying to suck in enough air, so that he can let out the most horrible cry of his life. Yes, The Padawan had jumped again, and crushed The Joker’s little right hand under the lid of the toy box. I was angry, but I didn’t have the time to punish him. The Joker was in a lot of pain. The lid had come down on his little hand, right where his fingers join his hand. There was a nice dark red line across his knuckles and a purple spot on his ring finger. Poor baby.
As I tried hard to get control of the situation, many things raced through my mind. First, Deanna was off with The Princess in the family car, with the car seats. Ah! There was no way I was going to drive my three boys to the hospital, not in car seats. Luckily, we live 3 blocks from the hospital. I called Deanna as we prepared to leave.
I scooped up the boys and we raced out the door, walking/running to the ER. As we entered the parking lot, the screaming stopped. I looked down and also saw that The Joker was actually grasping his blanket with his injured hand.
I gave him a little assessment, and he did not wince or cry when I touched his injured area. Hmmm. So I called Deanna to see where she was. She was driving into the parking lot. Once she found us, she also checked out his hand, and agreed. The Joker would survive.
We drove home.
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The Queen got one more out of diapers today! He’ll still wear a pull-up at bedtime, but he’s sporting the superhero undies, and there’s no going back.
Just an FYI. If you had kids, you’d celebrate too.
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Here’s the skinny…I’m taking my wife on a cruise for our 10th Anniversary. We’re going to visit many cities in Great Britain and Ireland. I hate the pre-packaged excursions you buy through the cruise-line. I’ve written a detailed page, you can see the tab above, and I’m interested in your input.
I need tips and ideas on what to do and where to visit. I’m especially interested in photographic locations and places you live or have actually visited.
Please head over and read the article I wrote, and comment there. Commenting has been turned off for this post.
Thanks!
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The Padawan’s 6th birthday was yesterday. He’s obsessed with Indiana Jones right now, so you might notice a theme in his costume choices in my recent photos of him.
Wanting to get out of the house, we took the family to go see the baby seals at the Carpinteria Harbor Seal Preserve. A photo friend, Leigh, had mentioned his own trip to see them last week on the Ventura County Flickr forum. So we took his advice and went for a look of our own. As we were driving up the 101, just out of Ventura, it began to rain. Honestly, I was pretty ticked off, knowing that I may miss a photo opportunity. I was also bummed out for the kids.
We pressed on, however, curious if the rain might break. When we arrived, it was still raining. It wasn’t no Oregon, we-must-stay-inside, kind of rain. It was more Oregon, you-call-that-rain!-that’s-a-clear-day, kind of rain. I was the only one without a jacket, so we went ahead for the walk.
From the parking lot, just off the Bailard exit, we had to walk down the path to the train tracks. Following the trail along the tracks for a few hundred yards, we crossed and approached the bluffs. I must say, be careful at this point! This is clearly a regularly visited location, but not regularly critiqued by the traditionally litigious Californian.
Just a few more steps down the path and there’s even a nice sitting area to view the seals. We saw quite a few, just lazying around, relaxing on the rocks. As we peered over the edge, we began to see the babies. They were closer to the sand than the others, mostly snuggling up to their mothers.
Head over and check out my Photo Set to see them all.
On a side note, I’ve been using the newly announced Apple Aperture 2, trial edition. I’ve used the Adobe Bridge and Photoshop combination for over a year, and I must say that Aperture is next on my list. I love it! Everything is just so much more intuitive. I’m less of a Photoshop artist, but I’m more of a photographer. That’s my goal.
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So, heading into my weekend, this past week, I wanted to head out hiking with the family again. When I was young, I hiked a lot. In my young adult years, I hiked a lot too. Wanting to pass this on to my own kids, I’ve recently decided that we’re going to get out in the real outdoors at least once a month. Plus, hiking is good exercise for this fat guy.
I hit the internets looking for some pointers, cause most of the local good spots are a bit tired.
While drilling down from “ventura county day hikes”, I found a cool park in Simi Valley, CA. It’s called Corriganville Park. What makes it cool is its history. Corriganville Park used to be Corriganville Ranch, which used to be a prime location for Hollywood to head to the hills for some good old fashioned western films. It seems that Ray Corrigan bought the property back in 1937 for $11,354. Corrigan built up the property over the course of years for a variety of films like,
There’s quite a bit of history packed into that nice corner of Ventura County. If you’ve never seen it, I recommend you take an afternoon or morning and wander around a little bit. You won’t be sorry.
Dotted around the trails, which run all over the place, you’ll find signs detailing where once stood the structures used for these many films.
Our kids had a great time climbing all over the few pieces left from what was clearly once a great location for filming. Head over and check out my photoset from that day.
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You know, our local library opened its doors in a brand new facility this past year. Actually I think it opened several months ago. Anyway, we hadn’t taken the opportunity to go check it out and though we should.
Since we homeschool, using the local library really should be an important tool for the kids to learn and understand. Also, it’s only 3 blocks from our house. I know, I know, how easy could it be?
We decided yesterday that we would walk the whole family over there and check it out. So that’s just what we did. It’s safe because we don’t have to walk along any major street or cross any either. We put the Joker in his stroller and the other three walked just fine. Enjoy a few photos from the trip…
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Thanks Jerry!
As many of you know, we homeschool. The other day, Deanna told me that she had been watching The Padawan as he was playing The Bee Movie game on our Xbox360. He was playing a mini-game. He had to acquire 30 flowers. With just 26 completed, he numbered the remaining flowers 1-4, ultimately figuring out that he needed to acquire 4 more.
Deanna was excited as she watched The Padawan learn a basic subtraction lesson, all without her help or the help of a flash card.
Thanks Jerry!
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Introducing The Joker. Each of my kids has a codename. This one was The Baby. But, he won’t be for long. So, we needed to pick a new name.
Recently we realized just how much he smiles. So, since his smile is just like his mother’s, he’s now The Joker.
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We drove to Pasadena yesterday and spent several hours roaming around the Huntington Library & Botanical Gardens. I’ve been there before, and it was a treat to return. The grounds are beautiful, organized into smaller gardens that are focused and specialized.
We saw most of the gardens, but spent some extra time in two of them. The Japanese Gardens are beautiful and great to walk the paths and bridges. We finished the day at the Children’s Garden, which was great for the kids.
If ever you have the opportunity, I highly suggest you visit the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. Below are several of the photos I took, with this link, to my Photo Set at Zooomr.
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************************************ Attention football fans! If you attended the Ventura County Badgers football game in San Bernardino, on May 3rd, head to my special photo gallery to view and purchase the photos from the event. ************************************
A product of Oxnard, CA.
trevor [at] trevorcarpenter [dot] com
