This one time, at band camp...

Tomorrow I schlep myself, my flutes, my music, and a week's worth of clothing to Williamsburg for what generally amounts to band camp for adult musicians. Never having been to a real band camp, though, I can only assume. We're staying at the Patriot Inn (remember, Williamsburg: Colonial reenactments, Jamestown settlement, home of the College of Williams & Mary, archeological digs, etc.) rehearsing about 8 hours a day for five days and performing two concerts. The whole enchilada is called Williamsburg Consort, and it's by invitation. I got connections, see.

It's only 45 minutes away but with the amount of rehearsing it doesn't make sense to drive up there every morning before 8am and drive back home every night after 9pm. Through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, which at any given time on any given day will have some 30-minute delay. Name a reason and it probably has happened or will happen. And there wasn't an "off-campus" option. I'm rooming with my flute buddy Amy.

My lips are going to go numb and my arms are going to fall off but I'll probably have a wonderful time.

In other news, this is the first year that Old Dominion University (ODU) has had a football team in I don't know how many millions of years. Actually it's been 69 years, according to the website. They had their second home game tonight, or so I heard. I think the fireworks I hear outside are from some ODU football celebration. We won, and I can't even believe I'm interested in trying to understand this whole college football thing. It took me an hour to figure out what division they are (FCS, formerly Div I-AA) and how that compared to, say Michigan State (yeah, right, even I know that Michigan State is, like, the bomb). So, anyway...we're 2-0. Woohoo. All season tickets are sold out, too.

I forgot to mention: some of our favorite people are students at ODU, including Kathryn "Kat," and Kent, a friend works there, we love to hang out in the student union (Webb Center), and it's five blocks from our house as the grackle flies. 3/4 of a mile if you drive.

This is also the first time ever that I've mentioned sports in this blog. It might be the last. Let's just wait and see, shall we? I don't do sports but we're all pretty excited about this ODU football-thing. We usually only get excited about sports when the Army-Navy game rolls around (Go, Navy) or during Olympics season (Go, Ice Skaters. Go, Gymnasts). Did you know you can get one of those football-shaped blue and white foam stress balls, the kind you squeeze like a maniac, at the Shell gas station up the road. It has the ODU Monarchs printed on it in gold. For only 5 bucks. Is that real gold?

Phun with Photoshop

I was playing with digital image color correction last weekend in a way I never have. For some reason this chapter in my favorite Scott Kelby book, The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers, completely escaped my notice. At the time I probably thought I knew it all and I didn't need it. I'm too stupid to figure it out myself really. I swear I'm going to go through ALL my old photographs and color correct them.

Right after I finish that five year plan. In Trebuchet. Or Poor Richard. Cooper Black, perhaps?

The "before" is on the left, "after" on the right, screenshots from Adobe Bridge. The photos don't show up as large as they used to, but clicking on the photo will bring up the larger version and the corrections are more apparent.

Waves and Vegetation

Color corrected. It's amazing what just a little bit will accomplish.

Bird

These little guys just skitter around all over the place. Color corrected and sharpened.

Splash

Color corrected, cropped, sharpened. I like the effect you get with a long lens. It looks like there really is this wall of water, which there sort of is but it's exaggerated by the 300mm lens. Or whatever I have it set to.

Bird Sans Trash

Major work in addition to color correction and cropping and sharpening...I had to remove this stupid piece of trash from the photo. I lid of some sort, like from a Pringles can or something. I was so caught up in trying to capture the bird that I didn't see anything else. So that was a little tricky but fun.

Curl

I think this is my favorite. I sat on the beach and took dozens of shots to get this one, with the shutter set to burst. Color corrected, cropped, sharpened. This was inspired by a beautiful book of photography called Waves by Steve Hawk. I pull it off the shelf every time I hang out at Barnes & Noble but haven't been able to justify the purchase. There is another book, called Beaches, that I just don't care for as much. The Sea/Day by Day looks promising. If you didn't know, you'd think you could be anywhere in the world, instead of little old Ocean View, Virginia.

Sitting

I had unlocked the car, pulled open the door, looked up, and saw this right in front of me. I don't know who they are but they looked peaceful and a little romantic in an everyday kind of way, which is my favorite kind of romantic. Simple and unfussy. Color correction, cropped, sharpened. I sharpen everything a little. Most of the time I just think it looks better. I can always undo it if it doesn't look right.

Before we moved here in 1994 I could barely pick out Virginia on the map. I just never paid much attention to the East Coast. Now I can name many lovely things about the state, not the least of which is it's proximity to the center of the political and naval universe, not to mention vast expanses of water. Which is really kinda cool in a geeky sort of way. It's weird, though...my brother, who lives in Wisconsin, the upper Midwest, also lives near vast expanses of water. I was reminded of that when I was looking at his lovely photos from Lake Michigan. In fact, Wisconsin has a surprising amount of shoreline. I'll have to look that up. We all live near major water - me, Mom, Sister, Brother.

Wow, I'm definitely going through a beach phase. I posted all these photos to Flickr.

Soup or...

Harris Teeter has impressively expanded their salad bar menu. For lunch we had a coastal South American country.

Cone of Uncertainty

We were not in it.

By "we" I mean Hampton Roads. By "it" I mean the projected path of TS Danny, which us weather watchers have been hoping would strengthen and throw up some severe weather, but not enough to make us evacuate. The projected path has bands and it's all known as The Cone of Uncertainty.

By "us" I mean Nick and me.

So every few hours we're checking out The Weather Channel or Wunderground. I've lost some faith in TWC's integrity ever since they started pretending to do "morning show" type stuff. Now that Al Roker is involved...well, gimme a break, huh?

But I love the term "cone of uncertainty." I intend to use it liberally.

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Speaking of liberally, we are cooking liberally from our America's Test Kitchen cookbook. We love the French Onion Soup, and have mastered the art of cooking a whole chicken in a covered pot (chicken en cocotte) . Sounds straightforward, and it is. The question is: why doesn't EVERYONE cook it like this? It's so simple and makes the best gravy and the meat is tender and juciy from the thigh to the breast. Oof, is good.

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I'm so late with this post...T.S. Danny is a dim memory.

Combing After Bill

Bill, the hurricane that whipped up a few waves and some riptide warnings and left some fun debris. Here's my haul from today's 30 minute walk on the beach...The red bits look like they are from car taillights, and probably are. A couple of funky little pieces of iron. A whole shell - some type of whelk maybe? A beautiful flat triangular shaped rock. A heavy piece of pottery. The propeller looking thingy is the hinge end of a very large (probably clam) shell.

This beach thing is fun. It's probably a good thing that I didn't start doing this 15 year ago.

Today's Quote

"I am working on my 5-year plan, but still choosing a font."
Michael Anderson, from his blog profile at tp.oma.
http://theportfolio.ofmichaelanderson.com/about/

Today's Quote

"It’s ok if there are better players than you on your team; sometimes your job is not to be brilliant yourself, but to enable others to be their best."

WENDII, http://www.manager-tools.com/2009/08/cricket

Action Swatch

Some knitters complain about swatching, that it's time consuming, or that they don't need to because they already know what their own gauge is because it's so consistent. Be that as it may, swatching is a valuable exercise to ensuring the sweater or sock you are knitting doesn't become that nightmare object that you knit for size 32 but it turned out to be size 50.

And do you notice that when you do screw up gauge, it's often on the side of too big? Why don't we ever accidentally knit it too small? Well, I'm sure there are knitters who do that, too.

So have fun with your swatch! After you've knitted and counted stitches and rows and determine that yes, you were right all along, put that swatch to good use. If you are really on top of your game, you'll intentially swatch to about the same size every time and after several years will have enough swatches for a small quilt. Or a large quilt depending on how prolific you are. HA!


Action Swatch #1 is relaxing with a cup of coffee on my desk.

I spun this yarn from a 50-50 merino-silk top sample that I purchased at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. For non-knitters, that's fiber consisting of 50% merino wool and 50% silk.

This was my very first spin, by the way.

Action Swatch #2, in Lion Brand Cottentots, is holding down a small table. It doesn't say on the label that it's that strong, but clearly it's doing very well. Not only that, it's holding up a small box of found objects, a measuring tape, and the leg of freshly knitted socks. So fresh they haven't been blocked.

Action Swatch #3 is in residence as a cover for the Blue Faced Leicester I have parked on my drop spindle. This was a sock swatch for the very first socks I knit, of Regia something or other, a cotton/wool/nylon blend. Very sturdy stuff which in the hand doesn't feel like it would be that comfy but on the foot is very nice.