We arrived in Las vegas and were greeted by a limo driver and champagne. I saw the driver standing with a sign saying “Agnew Party” and thought it was interesting that there was another Agnew group. How dumb am I. After dinner we went into the casino where I won $100 on a $1 slot with a $5 investment. Then played more with their money, increasing my take to $200. Sue and I tried to win more but stopped when we got down to $105, giving me a net win of $100. Doing blog on my iPhone. Not too easy. Photos from phone. Trying to upoad slot pix without success yet. No free wifi in hotel. Going to try to find a Starbucks tomorrow I may not be able to post to my blog until I get back.
[Ed. Note: I finally managed (4 days after the fact) to post the photos from the first night in Vegas.]
Day 314—Anatomy Of A Cappuccino
Today we spent a couple of hours discussing our coffee menu with Gene Lemos, the owner of Vaneli’s Handcrafted Coffee in Rocklin. We will feature Vaneli’s coffee, first because it is the best coffee I have ever tasted, and second, because it is roasted locally. Gene, and everyone at Vaneli’s, is passionate and knowledgeable about coffee. Upon our arrival, Gene offered us a drink. I had a cappuccino and Jesse and Rich, neither one die hard coffee drinkers, had mochas. The cappuccino was as good, if not better, than any I had in Italy last fall and the taste of mocha that Gene served me in a tiny espresso cup, left over from the others, was smooth, creamy, and chocolaty; in short, a perfect mocha. Gene and his staff will be giving us barista training when the time comes. We are thrilled with the opportunity. And Gene made the drinks himself which we enjoyed during our discussions. After our meeting, we joined the rest of the staff at Vaneli’s for their monthly barbecue lunch. What a great group of people. They made us feel welcome and comfortable, eating amidst the bags of coffee beans and espresso machine parts in a large warehouse. What a fun day.
Day 313—Challenging
Today’s Flickr theme is “your daily challenge” and I must say, without a doubt, my daily challenge is Bobo. Next month, I will have been challenged by this creature for ten years and I have struggled with aggression issues since the day we brought her into our home. Sometimes I feel as if I have made no progress with her at all. And, at other times, I can’t believe how far I’ve come. Since I’ve taken up photography, she has become one of my favorite subjects—colorful and interesting. She alternates between being camera shy and returning to her cage as soon as I pick up the camera or, as she did today, posing and approaching the lens out of curiosity.
Since my other daily challenge is getting my shots in focus, Bobo, a constantly moving target, contributes to that daily challenge, as well. I love to get shots of her approaching the lens with her face looming into focus but today, I couldn’t manage to get one of those shot focused properly. The in focus area when this lens is wide open (my 24-70mm zoom) is only an inch or two so it is an extreme challenge when she moves toward the lens. These two shots were the only two out of more than 30 shots that her eyes were in acceptable focus. They aren’t as perfect as I’d like because the reflections in her eyes from the lights in the kitchen indicate slight movement. I couldn’t use the tripod because she was moving around the kitchen counter and when she finally did stop moving for a second, I had the shutter speed set to a slow 1/30 so I guess I should be happy that they’re in focus at all.
Day 312—Shopping While Hungry
They say you should never shop when you’re hungry and, in my case, that is so true. I stopped by Trader Joe’s late this afternoon to pick up some slivered almonds for Bobo and came home with a couple of individual pizzas (goat cheese and mushroom), a cheese I’d never tried (Sage Derby), and this carton of mini cranberry pistachio biscotti, placed strategically near the cash register. The chocolate would have won out but none of it featured sea salt which is my new favorite way to eat chocolate so I thought I’d try the biscotti. They really are quite delicious. And I’ve only eaten a few, so far—after all, they’re “mini” biscotti.
Day 311—Flying Gravel
Today they sawed through the concrete wall at Famous Mo’s to make way for the drive-thru window. It was a very dirty and messy job and there is dirt and concrete dust everywhere. I took lots of shots of the demolition, a few of which I posted on Famous Mo’s Facebook page and here are a couple of the clean up. I had lots of light this afternoon so I was able to use a fast shutter speed to get the flying gravel stopped in midair. In the first shot, Jesse is shoveling debris into his truck bed to take to the dump and in the second, Rich is cleaning the hole in the wall for the window. I love the flying gravel.
Focal Length 48mm
ISO 100
f/6.3
1/500
Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/9
1/800
Day 310—Aerial Acrobatics
I know it’s going to be a good day when I have shots of my hummingbird before 7AM. I decided to go outside to see if the hummer would come. He did. I considered changing to my 28-300 zoom but knew if I went back inside, the hummer would probably be gone. So, these shots are severely cropped because my 24-70mm lens was attached. I used the on-camera flash again set to -1.3 and ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/250. I increased the exposure 1/2 stop on the first and a full stop on the second so I probably shouldn’t have decreased the flash as much as I did. My next project will be to see if I can expose the hummer and keep the leaves dark. That’s probably a job for my speed light.
Day 309—Abstract Glow
This is Moonstone, a white rose with pink edges. As the setting sun turned the “golden hour” golden, I went out front to take a few shots of Moonstone. I haven’t featured this rose before because, quite frankly, it is not one of my favorites and, it has so many petals it rarely opens into a beautiful rose. Today, though, it looked quite lovely in the late afternoon sun. But, as much as I love roses, it turned out to be just another photo of a rose. It wasn’t until I cropped it severely and added a very slight vignette that the light seemed to explode from within, creating an interesting and much more compelling shot than that of the entire rose.
Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/7.1
1/500
Auto WB
Day 308—Soul Men
Michael St. John and Martin (Mott) Reaves of Foxtrot Mary brought the house down tonight with a heart-pounding rendition of Soul Man, and, an hour later, they did the same with Louie Louie. People attending the Senior’s First event at The Ridge Country Club in Auburn tonight were dancing, singing, clapping, and tapping their toes to Foxtrot Mary’s Memphis soul sound. I took some promo shots of the band before the event and managed to capture a few good ones despite feeling a little like I was herding cats when I tried to get eight musicians in front of my lens. It is obvious that I need to learn how to tell people what to do. That just doesn’t come easy for me.
The first shot is one of the band shots that I like but that they probably won’t be using. It’s a little sloppy. Yes, I do need to learn how to pose people. I processed all three shots using a Lightroom preset called cold tone. I didn’t like the natural colors of the photos and black and white just didn’t work. While it probably doesn’t matter a whit, Michael and Mott are singing “Soul Man” in the second shot and “Louie Louie” in the third.
Day 307—Glass Blocks
The glass block windows at Famous Mo’s are fascinating to me in the late afternoon when the sun shines through. I took this shot and made it more dramatic by applying one of the black and white newspaper Presets that my friend Melinda gave me. And, today’s Flickr challenge is “repetition” so I think this qualifies.
Focal Length 56mm
ISO 100
f/4
1/640
Day 306—Wine Tasting
No wine shown in this post, but we painted the walls in the hallway at Famous Mo’s a lovely, deep red. The color is called “Wine Tasting” which seems to be an appropriate choice for our venue. Today was one of those days that I didn’t feel like taking many photos. I took this shot because we wanted to post it to our Facebook page to keep people apprised of what’s going on at Mo’s. It does have some redeeming photographic qualities, such as leading lines, though. Please visit our Facebook page and “like” Famous Mo’s, no matter where you are.
