Bill's Tales

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

Davey Wiser's Overland Express Stagecoach in the 2011 Christmas Parade

Ahh, the holidays... You wait all year for them to come then it's just a blur of activity. At least, that's what it has been for me this past month! There was the Christmas Parade on Main Street in Placerville early in December, the Small Wonders show at Gold Country Artists Gallery, getting our Christmas letter together, being at Gold Country quite often during the month and then, of course, Christmas itself. What a month!

2011 Christmas Parade

On Sunday, December 4, I spent the afternoon photographing and videoing the Christmas Parade on Main Street. I had a great spot just across from the Bell Tower and the judging stand where I could get some great pix and videos (took both at the same time). One of my favorites is always Davey Wiser and his stagecoach (pic at the top). Davey is in town at least once a month giving free stagecoach rides to anyone who wants one and during December, he is there several times during the month (weekends) to give rides.

The parade also contains a lot of animals of all kinds and some great music and dancing. The pic here is of the combined marching band from all our local high schools (El Dorado, Ponderosa and Union Mine) and they were just great!

One of my favorite pix, though, is of the two little guys watching this great wagon being pulled by a couple horses. I would have been right where they were at that age too!

It was a great day for a parade and I stayed right to the end when Santa and the missus came through. If you are ever around Placerville on the first Sunday in December, make sure you make time for our annual Christmas Parade. It is just great!

Small Wonders

Every year around the holidays, Gold Country Artists Gallery has their Small Wonders show. We give each artist a 6" x 6" piece of wood to paint on, put a photograph on, or mount something on, then display 49 of them in a large frame in the Gallery. This year's Small Wonders show was a great one with some great, inexpensive art available for folks to buy as gifts or keepsakes for themselves.

This year I had 3 works in the show, one of which is shown on the left here and I call it Wiser's Overland Christmas Express. Davey always has his stagecoach decorated for Christmas rides and it makes for a colorful photograph for the holidays.

The Gallery looked great for the holidays and business was good this year. We have such a great collection of original artworks by some great local artists.

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, I put in some time at the Gallery in the afternoon, then came home to have Christmas Eve with our great niece and nephew (Jordan and Joey). They had their Christmas with us that evening and got some great "stuff" and we watched some kid's Christmas movies. That's Joey all dressed up in his "Construction Worker" outfit that he really enjoyed.

We had to put our Christmas tree actually outside on our porch so we could at least see it through the window. Why, you ask? Well, we have a cat that LOVES to climb our Christmas tree and we tried having the tree in the house for a couple weeks, but our cat Sam just went nuts jumping into it and climbing it, so we decided to put it out on the porch with just the lights on it. I hope that some year soon we can have our Christmas tree back in the house with some ornaments!

Jordan and her Dad, TJ, are shown here watching a scene from a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve. We had a great, but short evening with the kids and then it was quiet again!

Christmas Day

On Christmas day, it was just the four of us: Deb & me, Elizabeth and Barth (Deb's Mom & brother). So, it was a relatively quiet Christmas day at our house, which after the tumultuous several weeks leading up to the big day, it was a nice respite. We leisurely opened presents and had coffee and some great breads that Deb had made.

That's Deb on the left after just opening a present that turned out to be some much-wanted pajamas.

After that, we watched movies, had an early dinner and just vegged—which we all needed!

All in all, it was a nice Christmas.

Which brings me to now, just a couple days before the last day of 2011. Hard to believe (as always) that another one has come to the end of its reign and from here on will be just a memory. Seems like they are going faster and faster all the time.

I hope everyone reading this had a great holiday season and that you did what you wanted to do and maybe, at least, got something from someone that you really wanted!

Happy New Year!

Flags & Leaves

2011-11-30T07:13:00.000-08:00

Flags Flying in the Wind

November is ending and only one month left in this year! November was a month of flags and leaves—I'll fill you in on what that means. Read on!

Halloween

First, I just wanted to mention something about Halloween. It was on the last day of October and I didn't include anything about it in my last blog post on October 30.

Halloween on Placerville's Main Street is really special! We have something called 'Trick or Treat on Main Street' and thousands of people come to Main Street with their kids all dressed up (and many of the adults are too!) to go trick or treating up one side of the street and down the other. It is a lot of fun and a photographer's dream for taking pics of people. What great fun!

The pic here shows some of the crowd with the Bell Tower and the "Great Pumpkin" that is always part of the festivities.

Flags

Of course, Veteran's Day is in November and right around that time I took some pictures of the flags flying in the wind (above) at the Placerville Veteran's Memorial site. It was one of those photos that I just love to get of flags doing their thing when it's windy. I also thought it was a nice tribute to Veteran's Day. The photograph you see at the top of this post was one that I entered into the Placerville Art Association's Fall Show at the Government Center in Placerville and I will have one at the Gallery soon.

Leaves

I spent a lot of time "leaf-peeping" in November. The leaves this year were late getting to their colors, but when they finally did it was spectacular! I cannot remember a year when the leaves here have been so colorful. I took the picture at left at the Government Center (same day as the flags flying in the wind photo) and just loved the colors against the rock wall.

There are other leaf photos that I am working on and will have one or two in the Gallery soon. It has been an incredible month for color here!

I always miss being back east in the fall, but this year with all the colors here it reminded me a little of being back east in the fall.

Thanksgiving

It was just the four of us for Thanksgiving this year: me, Deb, Barth and Elizabeth. It was a nice, relaxing day for us—although Deb spent most of the day cooking a fantastic dinner. We barbecued a small turkey breast and had all the trimmings.

Both Deb and I had a busy Thanksgiving week downtown, so it was nice to have sort of a break.

Festival of Lights

One of the fun happenings on Main Street this time of year is what we call the "Festival of Lights". It is always on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving and it is when the big tree by our courthouse is lit. The town is also all decorated for the holidays (including the Bell Tower, shown here) and there are Christmas trees lining Highway 50 going through town.

Thousands of people show up for the lighting of the tree and various other activities on Main Street during the evening. It is great fun and there are LOTS of people!

This year too, all the light poles downtown were wrapped with LED lights and looked great.

Small Wonders at GCA

2011 Gold Country Artists Gallery Small Wonders Show

One of the things Gold Country Artists Gallery does every year is a "Small Wonders" show. We give each artist in the Gallery a 6" x 6" board and ask them to put a piece of artwork on it—painting, photograph, 3D object, etc. Then, we put all of them in a large four-foot square frame and attach it to a wall in the Gallery. All of the pieces are for sale and it is a great show.

This year, we had lots of great entries and the show will be on display through the month of December. I hope you can come by to see it. Not only is there some great artwork, but also it makes for some great, inexpensive holiday gifts.

Hope you have a great holiday season!

Beautiful October

2011-10-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

1930 Cord L-29

Ah, the month of October! What a beautiful month it has been and it started out for me with (what else!) another car show.

Niello Concours at Serrano

Every year in early October, a wonderful car show happens at a place in El Dorado Hills called Serrano. The cars are incredible and this year was no exception. Usually, there are celebrations of two different cars: this year, it was the Cord Automobile and the 50-year anniversary of the E-Type Jaguar. Shown above is a 1930 Cord L-29, owned by Chris Cord who is the grandson of E.L. Cord, the founder of the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Company.

What an exquisite automobile the Cord was! It was only manufactured for about 31 months and the total run was about 5,000 cars. It was the first American front-wheel-drive production car that was available to the public. There were several beautiful Cords at the show and it would have been enough just to have those to take pix of.

But of course, there were others too! A friend of mine had his 1940 Packard Convertible there and there were Auburns, Cadillacs, and one beautiful Pierce Arrow. I'm particularly fond of the Pierce Arrow as the manufacturing facility was located in Buffalo, New York (which is near the town of Akron, where I am from) and those beautiful cars were manufactured from 1908-1938.

I have always particularly loved the Pierce Arrow hood ornament, the Archer. I took this picture of the hood ornament on the 1929 Pierce Arrow Convertible at the show. Next year, 2012, this Concours event will feature the marque of the Pierce Arrow and 50 years of the Cobra. That one should be a good show too!

Placerville Art & Wine Festival

The Art & Wine Festival was on Saturday, October 15, on Main Street in Placerville. It was an extremely busy night for me: the banners were displayed on grids in the middle of Main Street and auctioned off via a silent auction. The money gotten from the auctioned banners enables the project to continue next year. I bought two banners (shown below) and we have them hanging outside at our house—they are so colorful and look wonderful!

The other thing that was going on that evening was the wineries in the various businesses and folks could buy tickets to taste the wines of over 30 wineries who participated. We had a winery in the Gallery, plus art demonstrations and live music.

One of the fun things we did was to put together a large, blank canvas that we had out on the street and mounted on a painter's easel for kids to paint on. The kids had so much fun doing that and we had a lot of fun just watching them paint!

The weather was great and the music (both at Gold Country Artists Gallery and at the Bell Tower) was great. A good time was had by all. But I was sure tired at the end of that night!

See more pix that I took that evening on my SmugMug page at whrstudios.smugmug.com.
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Self Portrait

So I decided to change my picture on my Facebook page and decided to take some self-portraits. I set up my tripod outside by one of our huge pine trees and tried to think of funny things to laugh at so I could get some pix of my smiling. It was an interesting exercise, to say the least! Then, of course, I could bring the photos into Photoshop and make me look about 10 years younger (HA!).

Anyway, you can see the results of one of them here.

One of the reasons I really like being a photographer is that I never have to appear in my own pictures! Of course, years later, people wonder where the heck are any pictures of Bill! I do want to take more soon, just for the heck of it and to experiment.

Fall Trip to Mountains

Usually, at least for one day, we try to take one trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains to see the fall colors. This year, we did that on Friday, October 21, and the colors were magnificent! They are nothing like the colors back east in the fall, but for us, they are quite beautiful.

We drove to Emerald Bay on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, then went to Izzy's for lunch (great hamburgers!). Then we drove over Luther Pass south of Lake Tahoe to Highway 88 and to Markleeville and beyond to the Carson River. From there, we drove west on Highway 88 through the Hope Valley, over Carson Pass and home.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day and I did get some good pix. The pic shown here was taken along one of the trails that borders the west side of Lake Tahoe, just south of Emerald Bay. We were taking a short walk down this trail, it turned right and right there was this gorgeous leaf-strewn walkway with overhanging branches—it was exquisite and, of course, no picture could capture it like we experienced it, but mine is close.

So, October has one more big day to get through (Halloween) and then we are into November. Seems like this year has been so darn quick (and getting quicker all the time). Before I forget, I wanted to add a pic of the two banners we now have hanging at our house. Hope you have a great Halloween and Thanksgiving!

The Blur of Time That Was September!

2011-10-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

Life: A Parenthesis in Eternity by Bill Robinson

Again, my favorite month...October! As for the above graphic, read on to find out what it is (and yes, it is one of my photographic art works!).

Many Happenings in September

I was so darn busy in September with so many things that it just slipped by without my updating this blog! I won't include every single thing that went on, just the highlights.

Car Shows

There were at least 3 car shows that I went to in September and at each one, I saw cars that I had never seen before. When you go to many car shows in the same area, you tend to see the same cars a lot, so I was pleasantly surprised to see some very unique cars.

This one was at a car show earlier in the month in El Dorado Hills. I don't know all the details as the owner wasn't near his car when I was looking at it. It is the customized body of a 60's Corvette (I absolutely love the 1960's corvettes, especially the 1963 Stingray!) that has been modified to fit around a new chassis with new interior, engine, etc. I have never seen one quite like this before and it was exquisite!

Next up was a car show put on by the local Veteran's group in Placerville. It was a small show at the Vet's Hall and the one car that was there that I have never seen before was a 1936 Oldsmobile convertible with a rumble seat. It was just wonderful! It had a very much newer engine in it, but the exterior was just beautiful. I also saw this one at the car show in Placerville.

The "big" car show in September was the Hangtown Car Show on Main Street in Placerville that was put on by the local Lion's Club. There were lots of cars, great music, and wonderful weather that just made it a great show. I saw several cars there that I have never seen before.

I took the picture looking east on Main Street from the veranda of The Cary House hotel. The wonderful folks at The Cary House on Main Street are always nice enough to let me go up on their veranda to take pictures of the various events downtown during the year. As you can see, the cars were lined up on both sides of the street, past the Bell Tower and all the way up to the courthouse at the east end of Main Street.

In October, I will be going to the Serrano Concours and will tell you about that in my next blog.

Kacie's Ride for Hope

Every September, a guy in Placerville by the name of Pat Barron organizes a motorcycle run in memory of his sister, Kacie, who was killed several years ago as a result of domestic violence. The motorcycle run has become a great local supporter of a great organization in town called The Center for Non-Violent Relationships (or, just The Center).

Hundreds of motorcycles roar into Placerville's Historic Main Street at about 8am on a Saturday morning in September and there are talks by various organizations (and Pat) about ending domestic violence. If you are a motorcycle enthusiast, it's a great place to come and see many beautiful road machines and participate in an event that supports a great local organization. Being a long-time admirer of those great machines, it's a great event that I just don't like to miss.

I took lots of pix that day and a few videos when they went ROARING out of town on their ride up into the mountains for the day. A good time was had by all!

A Fish Story

OK, I'm not a fisherman (a long story about my grandfather and me) but enjoy a good fish tale. My brother-in-law took his grandson fishing at our local pond on a recent Sunday in September and his granddaughter fishing at the same pond a week later. They all came away with having had a wonderful time and actually caught some fish!

My part in this was to take their picture on the day of the event as a memento for them and presented here are the pictures of some proud kids and their grandpa and the fish that they caught on two different Sundays in September (mostly by the kids!).

Oktoberfest

We have lots of events on Main Street in Placerville during the year sponsored by the Placerville Downtown Association. This year, we added a new one that happened on September 17th called Oktoberfest. If you are wondering why have an Oktoberfest in September (as many people asked!), the actual first official day of Oktoberfest in Munich is September 17th—go figure!

This was such a fun event for a first-ever time doing it in Placerville! It was extremely well-attended and there was lots of German beer, sausages and many things German. There were server races and the most popular event of all, the wiener dog races! The picture here is one I took from the roof of a business on Main Street and it was as close as I could get—and you can see why by the amount of people surrounding the "racetrack"!

Lots of fun, a beautiful day and a good first time event. If you would like to see more pictures of this event, go here.

Some Month-Ending Events

On the last Sunday in October, we had the Antique Faire downtown on Main Street. It was a beautiful day for it and lots of people turned out.

Then, on the following Tuesday a bunch of us had a party for a good friend who closed her clothing store after 18 years in business. Carol was very involved in the happenings on Main Street for many years and was, most currently, the President of the Placerville Downtown Association (PDA). As President, of course, she had a gavel and the picture here is of her passing the gavel to Sheila Hill, the VP of the organization as sort of a ceremonial thing.

Carol will be missed by many of us on Main Street for her genuine love of Placerville and contributions to our fair city.

Positivity

I actually wondered if "positivity" was a word when I started thinking about it in September. I was feeling down with all the negativity surrounding the economy and just the general negative malaise that was/is happening.

I found out that it is, actually, a word and that there is a lot of information on the web about it and there is even a great book called Positivity, which I am reading now.

I decided that I wanted to start a positivity crusade/campaign to increase the feelings of positiveness in my own life. I've posted several items to my Facebook page and am just, in general, moving in the direction of being more positive in my own life in hopes of helping/affecting my own little speck of the universe. Find me on Facebook and look at some of my items and see what you think.

Ok, About the Pic at the Top

Well, you've hung around this long so I had better tell you about the picture at the top of this blog post. At Gold Country Artists Gallery, we have themes each month. The theme for September was "abstract" and I was trying to think of what to do when it came to me.

One of the books I enjoy reading and rereading is The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer. One of the sayings in that book is that "...life is just a parenthesis in eternity..." (hey, it's that kind of book!). I was thinking about that and abstracts and created the image at the top of this post based on the co-mingling of those two ideas.

If you are ever interested, I will be glad to tell you how it was created. Suffice it to say at this point that it actually started out from one of my photographs and I eventually worked it into what you see.

I'm done for now. We're heading into my favorite month, October, and there is lots more to come in my next post. Make it a positive month in your own corner of the universe!

August in Placerville

2011-08-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

Placerville's Main Street in Summer

August and I have been very busy with lots of different projects. This had to wait a bit as I was just so darn busy and couldn't take the time to do it! I'll mention a few items in this month's blog, but there were so many other little things that came up and had to be done.

Placerville in Summer

The pic at the top of this blog shows a Sunday morning in late July on Main Street in Placerville—amazingly busy for a Sunday morning! I enjoy Placerville in summer as there are a lot of activities on Main Street during the summer, the flowers are in full bloom and the beautiful banners are up.

Chamber Mixer

I've been getting more involved with our local chamber this year in an effort to network more for the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery) and one of the events I attended was a chamber mixer and car show in Cameron Park, California. If there's a car show and I know about it and it's relatively close by, I'm there!

Someone had their 2009 Corvette ZR1 there, which is where this photo came from. Hopefully, I didn't get too much drool on that beautiful car!

Kelly's Birthday

Kelly's (my daughter) birthday was in early August and Deb and I took Kelly and her husband to dinner and a movie in Sacramento. We went to see the new Planet of the Apes movie and really enjoyed it. It was a good evening.

Flowers, Flowers

The flower baskets have now been up on Main Street for 3 months. I'm sort of the (un)official photographer for the project and have been taking pictures of them at just about a month apart so we can see the change. They look absolutely wonderful this year and lend so much beauty to our downtown.

The photo here shows two of the baskets that are hanging across the street from the courthouse.

Annual Craft Faire

Placerville's 15th annual craft faire was in August and it was almost a perfect day for it. The weather was great, there were some great crafts and people had a good time perusing them. I took lots of pics like the one here showing all the people and the booths that were there.

I hope to do the craft faire myself next year.

Placerville's Bell Tower

One of the most photographed locations in town is Placerville's Bell Tower, which is located right in the center of town. It is one of those locations that I have taken so many pictures of that you wouldn't believe it if I told you how many!

I have taken some of those pix with my iPhone camera and I have been experimenting with some of the photography apps ("there's an app for that"—or two!). The picture here shows the results of one of those experiments.

There's an app I have called, of all things, "Paper Camera" that you can either take a photo with different effects or apply different effects to photos already taken. I used it to create this image of the Bell Tower taken one day in late July.

I must admit it's fun playing around with that little camera! I think phone cameras are the replacement for the box cameras and Brownies of old for this generation (and my generation too!). Great fun if you haven't tried it!

Mother Lode Art Exhibition

One of the happenings this month in Placerville is the 45th Annual Mother Lode Art Exhibition. It is put on by the Placerville Arts Association and is a wonderful show going on for two weeks in August. There were 211 entries from all over (it's a national show) and 87 were accepted. It's over on August 28.

If you are of a mind to, connect with me on Facebook. We're heading towards September and I cannot believe it! See you next month!

July's Great Red, White & Blue

2011-07-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

West Fork of the Carson River

July is here and with it our anniversary. We didn't go away this year, but did take a day and drive to Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe for lunch. Then, we drove home alongside some raging rivers! The one shown above is the west fork of the Carson River near the border between California and Nevada. Quite a raging torrent!

Old Sacramento

I had occasion to be in Sacramento in late June and spent a short while that morning wandering around picturesque Old Sacramento. It's a great tourist area with shops, great old buildings and the great California State Railroad Museum.

The photo here is of the building at Front and K Streets in Old Sac. It was all decked out for the 4th of July.

Placerville's Annual Bell Tower Brewfest

Another "happening" took place on Historic Main Street in Placerville on the evening of June 25—the Bell Tower Brewfest. I use the word "happening" because the weather, the event and lots of people conspired to make a truly great event!

You can see by the photograph the incredible amount of people who came out to listen to great music, just be there and some to experience the beer of 35+ breweries in and around various businesses on Main Street. It was a great evening!

Combellack-Blair House

One of the oldest and best kept homes in Placerville is the Combellack-Blair house. It is now a B&B and the owners decorate it wonderfully for various holidays. The 4th of July is no exception as my photo shows.

I just love photographing that house and hope you enjoy the photo. If you are in the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery) next month, I will have a framed photo of it in my space. Come by and see it!

Banners & Flowers

Many times throughout the summer months I am downtown taking photos of the beautiful banners and flower baskets.

Every year the flowers seem to be more beautiful and the artistic banners are more colorful and beautiful. This year is no exception!

In one of my recent treks downtown, one of the shots was the one shown here. The banner is entitled "Bounty of El Dorado". It and the gorgeous flowers are located right in front of the Old Town Centre building (near the Bell Tower).

The banner is but one of the 31 banners this year; the flower baskets hanging on that same pole are but two of the 50 baskets hanging downtown this summer and in full bloom now.

Hope you get a chance to see them!

June and A Lot Going On

2011-06-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

May is finally history and with it the bad weather is gone! We have FINALLY gotten some great summer weather in the Placerville area. There were lots of things going on around here in the latter part of May and into early June that I want to tell you about.

First, let me tell you about an incredible full day on May 14!

Flowers are Up!

The Flowers did get put up on Saturday, May 14th (early) as I mentioned they would be in my last post. You can see the pic of the incredible team that put the flowers up to the left.

We had 4 pickup trucks that picked up the flowers at MORE in Placerville, then delivered them to Main Street. It took us less than an hour to get them all hung. At the top of this post, you can see a pic taken one month later and you can see how the flowers have grown in just that time!

They look awesome! I hope to have a link to more flower pics soon.

Airport Show

Later that same morning, I went to a small car/plane show at our local Placerville Airport. I went early and the weather was still OK. There were several great cars there, one of which was this '57 Buick that had an exquisite paint job.

Also, a friend of mine had his 1940 Packard convertible there and he had just had a new top put on it—just beautiful!

There were some flybys later in the day, but I didn't stay long because of the next event that I wanted to get to.

El Dorado Hills Garden Tour

And yes, that very same day was a great garden tour in El Dorado Hills. There were 7 gardens to visit, of which I was able to visit 5 of them.

By far, the most incredible place was an Italian Villa on 25 acres that I could have spent a lot more time photographing. As it was, I spent a lot of time there just going ga-ga over the gardens and the beautiful home.

You can see one of the many beautiful views I experienced that day to the left. I enjoyed that so darn much and would love to be able to visit it again just to take more photos from different angles, different lighting, etc.

Hangtown Car Show

On Sunday, May 22, we had a clear enough day to have the annual Hangtown Car Show (which was postponed from May 15 due to bad weather).

There were about 200 great cars parked on Main Street and some great music to go along with it. There were lots of car-lovers out that day and I had a great time on Main Street.

You can see in the picture that I took from the balcony of The Cary House Hotel the large amount of people who were viewing the great cars up and down Main Street.

High Sierra Iris Garden

Later that same week our local El Dorado Chamber of Commerce had a mixer at a beautiful location in Apple Hill called the High Sierra Iris Garden.

This is a great location in the foothills that rents out their area around the iris garden for events such as weddings.

The irises were in full bloom and here's a photo of one of the gorgeous irises. I have to say that the main reason I went to the mixer was to photograph those beautiful irises!

Banners are Up

The Placerville Art on Parade effort this year (Banners on Parade) is now on display on Main Street for everyone to see!

The judging of the banners took place at the local community college on May 26 and the banners were hung on Main Street on Saturday, June 4th, and will be on display throughout the summer,

The four banners above are my personal favorites and you'll just have to come to town to see them! Note that you can also see them on the Placerville Downtown Association website's banner page.

The banners will be on display until early October, when they will be taken down to be auctioned off at the annual Art & Wine Festival on Historic Main Street in downtown Placerville.

Come to Main Street and see these gorgeous pieces of community art!

Wagon Train & Rib Cook-Off

On Saturday, June 11, the Wagon Train & Rib Cook-Off happened on Historic Main Street. This was actually two events in one:

the 62nd Annual Wagon Train came through Placerville, having traveled from Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe during the previous week,
and for the first time, we held a Barbecued Rib Cook-Off on Main Street.

The street was jam-packed with people anxious to try the ribs (Placerville's very own Pigs Can Fly BBQ won the contest and there were 8 other great rib businesses represented in tents on Main Street.

The photo shown here is of one of the teams of horses pulling a couple very large wagons. It felt like the whole town came out to help welcome the wagons to town!

So, it's been a busy time and I've enjoyed it when I can. Lots of other stuff going on too, but I want to get this finished and posted. Until next time...

May: A Month of Transition

2011-05-10T14:51:00.001-07:00

Transitions...Those times between then and now. That's what this year's month of May reminds me of. Our weather is transitioning from rainy season to summer season and I am transitioning from (at least in the long-term) not as healthy and fit as I want to be to healthier and more fit.

Yet Another Car Show

I went to YET ANOTHER CAR SHOW in April that was so so, from a picture-taking vantage point. It was on the very bottom level of the parking garage of the Red Hawk Casino. It was a good venue from the standpoint of being protected from the weather, but not so good for taking pix. I did take some, like the one to the left.

Easter Sunday

We had a family gathering at our house on Easter Sunday, with me and Deb, her Mom and Brother, and Criesta (our niece) and her kids. Deb had hidden eggs around our house and outside on the porch and the kids enjoyed that. And of course, there were Easter baskets for them too.

All in all, it was a good family day!

Snow in the Mountains

The photo at the top of this blog post is one that I have wanted to get for years. It has always been a "need to be at the right place at the right time with my camera" sort of thing.

We have had some beautiful days during late April and on the last weekend of the month, the sun was bright, the sky was blue and there was still snow in the Sierra Nevada. I went to this location two different times over two days and finally got the shot that I wanted. It was a tad dangerous as it is actually from an overpass above a freeway!

WHRstudios.com is Now Up!

After an embarrassingly long time, I finally have a website up. More specifically, it is a photoblog, which is a combination website and blog. I am still developing it (and will be), but you can to to www.whrstudios.com and see what's there. I ultimately want to add to it at least once a week as sort of my photo journal.

A Walk on the Bridge

One of my favorite things to do is to go for a walk on our wonderful El Dorado Trail around Placerville. It follows some of the old railroad track areas and is part of the "Rails to Trails" program that is nationwide.

The latest section to open has a wonderful walking bridge built on one of the old railroad trestles that crosses a local creeks. The picture on the left is one I took during one of my walks.

Fitness and Beyond

Well, I've finally done it. I went and joined a fitness gym. It's called Anytime Fitness and it is located in Placerville. I've needed to get fitter than I am now and decided it was time to bite the bullet and just do it. So far, I like it and since it is brand new, the equipment is incredible! I'll keep you posted as to my progress over the coming months.

Flowers Going Up

This weekend, our committee and many other interested folks will be helping to hang the wonderful flower baskets on Main Street in Placerville. There will be a total of about 50 baskets again this year and I so look forward to seeing them hanging on our Main Street. I'll put some pix in my next blog post.

And Then, the Banners

The Banners for 2011 will be judged later this month and going up on Main Street in early June. I'll be photographing the banners for the brochure again this year and am looking forward to seeing all the wonderful creations that there will be. I'll have pictures next time.

April & Finally Good Weather!

2011-04-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

April is here and we are finally having some nice, sunny weather! Everyone is happy to have most of the rainy season (February & March) over with.

Rhythm & Blooms Fundraising

I was part of the Rhythm & Blooms fundraising efforts during March and there were two events that we had: Benefit Bartending and the actual Rhythm & Blooms Fundraiser.

Benefit Bartending

We had a Benefit Bartending event at a local restaurant (Powell's) on March 14. This was just a small event to "wet" people's appetite for the main fundraiser later that same week. There were several local celebrity folks who tended bar, raffle items and a local Belly Dancer.

Everyone there had a great time and we did raise some funds to help the effort and the Belly Dancer was great (as were the liquid libations)!

Rhythm & Blooms Fundraiser

The main fundraiser was on Saturday evening, March 19, which was, unfortunately, hampered by not-great weather so not as many people as we had hoped came out for it. However, between the efforts by everyone who put the fundraiser together, the great folks who donated items for the raffle and silent auction, and the people who did attend, we were able to raise some money.

With the sponsorships we have gotten, the sales of beer and wine at the event, the raffle ticket sales and the silent auction income, we will be able to have the same number of baskets (50) as we did last year. I would like to express my thanks to everyone involved as it was a great effort in a down economy and a lousy night weatherwise.

Blues Night at the Cozmic Cafe

On the first Friday of every month, Jonny Mojo invites the Sacramento Blues Revue folks to come and jam with him at the Cozmic Cafe, a local restaurant and bar that has a lot of local entertainment. Jonny Mojo happens to be our niece Criesta's boyfriend.

We went to the event and had a great time these are a couple pix from that night: the one on the left shows the 9 folks on stage playing some of their wonderful music and the second pic shows Criesta dancing with her daughter, Jordan.

It was a great evening of good music, great talent and watching Jordan dancing up a storm!

New Work

I created a lot of new work for the Gallery for the month of April and have it displayed at the Gallery. I also created a couple pieces for the Placerville Art Association (PAA) show at a local county government building. The pic at the top of this blog entry is entitled Party by the Lake and the one shown here is entitled Most Beautiful and these were the two that I displayed at the

PAA show.

I'm getting back into the groove of making some of my work look like paintings. I am also going to send the pic Most Beautiful out to have it printed on canvas and "gallery-wrapped" (stretched on canvas stretcher-bars) to show that type of photographic art.

I'm looking forward to getting out to take some photographs more as the weather gets nicer. I love to take pix of the flowers in the spring.

Hope all is well with everyone!

March Marches In and On

2011-03-06T08:09:00.000-08:00

A month of birthdays, cars, new camera and Rhythm & Blooms...

Joey's Birthday

Our Great Nephew, Joey (Deb's brother's daughter's son!), had his 5th birthday on the 7th of February. We celebrated it here at our house on the 6th and as any 5 year-old does, he got lots of great "stuff". The weather was nice so we were able to be outside some and then when it came time for presents and cake, went inside—and that wasn't soon enough for Joey!

One of his big presents was his very own guitar and hat. Then with the added sunglasses, well, he just looked cool!

Our Cat Sam

Our "new" cat Sam (got him last August) continues to be a goofball. He is the darndest cat we have ever had and is into everything almost all the time. He loves to be on the kitchen counter watching Deb as she cooks dinner (we don't let him stay there—he just tries to do it all the time!).

We got a new cat pole for our cats recently and he spends a lot of time on it and some of those times he is just like a monkey swinging around the poles and just being nuts.

Occasionally, he will sleep in it as shown by the picture at left (one of the rare times during the day when he actually had his eyes closed and wasn't raising hell.

He is still trying to get along with Cate, our white female who we have had for over 8 years. She usually just winds up hissing at him and batting him around from the top of the cat pole.

The saga continues...

Sacramento Autorama

Every year in February, the Sacramento Autorama happens at the California State Fairgrounds in Sacramento. It is a display of hundreds of customized cars and motorcycles that I like to go to mainly to see the incredible designs and colors.

The folks that own these showpieces put thousands of dollars into their cars and the cars are a delight to see. The reflections off some of the cars is almost blinding and the paint colors are sometimes just astounding.

I go to this show about once every couple years and enjoy it. This year they also had some of the actors from the original American Graffiti movie, along with their cars.

Jordan's Birthday

Later in the month (Feb 21st) Jordan's 8th birthday happened. Jordan is Joey's older sister. We celebrated it here at our house on Sunday, February 20, and it was great except that Jordan wasn't feeling all that well, so it was kind of a down day for her.

She did, of course, get lots of great stuff for 8 year-olds, including (so she wouldn't feel left out) her very own guitar too, just like Joey. Who knows, this might be the beginning of the next big duo meant for stardom!

Jordan loves fairies and princesses, so of course one of the items she got was fairy wings and a fairy outfit, which is what she is wearing in the picture.

Hard to believe that this young lady, the first of Jordan's two kids, is all of 8 years old! My God, she'll be in high school and then in college before we know it!

New Camera

My original camera that I bought when I started my business (a Canon 1D Mark II) was getting a little long in the tooth with regard to features (an 8 MP camera with no video capability). I bought it in late 2004—a hundred digital years ago!) and was looking for something with newer, more up-t0-date features.

I wound up buying a Canon 60D as it has an articulated rear screen (it pivots out from the rear of the camera and you can view it at an angle), takes 18 MP photos, and takes high-definition video. After reading the review of it (on dpreview.com—a great site for digital camera reviews), I decided to sell my 1D and get the 60D.

One of the first pics I took with it is shown on the right: it's a picture of the vineyards at the Boeger Winery, which is located just outside Placerville. This time of year the vines are barren and waiting for spring and good, warm weather to make the leaves pop out. It's one of my favorite wineries because not only is the wine great, but the vineyards are all on rolling hills that give it that magnificent look.

It's Rhythm & Blooms Time Again

One of my very favorite sights in Placerville is when the flowers go up on Main Street. It's a committee effort and we only have one fundraiser each year—and it's coming up this month in Placerville. The pictures at the top of this blog entry and to the left are ones that I took last year when the flowers were in full bloom. To see more, go to my page on the Gold Country Artists Gallery web site to see more of my flower pics.

I will not only have some flower pics in the Gallery this month, but also will have some to be auctioned off at the fundraiser on March 19th. For more information about the fundraiser, go here.

If you are located anywhere nearby, let me know when you will be in town and I'd love to meet you for coffee or something.

Talk with you again next month!

Beyond the First Month of 2011

2011-02-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

Better late than never at all! The month of January has come and gone and it was so fast and busy that I didn't even get to doing a blog post for the whole darn month.

The pic at the top of this blog is to honor my dear and lovely wife's 60th birthday which we celebrated in January. The celebration seemed to go on and on and on, but that's OK as it was, after all, one of those BIG birthdays! A Very Happy Birthday to one of the best people I have ever known and my best friend in the world.

The Celebration

It was a day just like any other, but this one was special because it was Debbie's 60th birthday. She worked on the actual day of her birthday and we went out to dinner afterwards. Then, we had the big celebration day on Sunday the 16th. A local celebrity and family friend came to our house to play music for Deb. He goes by Jonny Mojo and is a local blues player. He played and sang and I made a video of the whole thing that will be a family treasure, I'm sure. And Deb... Deb had tears in her eyes!

Third Saturday

Downtown, the Third Saturday of January was a great day! Not only was the weather absolutely gorgeous for January 15, but also Davey was driving his stagecoach and giving free rides in the afternoon. At the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery) the evening of 3rd Saturday was jam-packed with people most of the evening.

We had Caroll Tuttle and his friends playing jazz and some light food and drink. We were

featuring two of our artists that evening and everyone had a lot of fun, including those of us who

were "working". It was an evening of seeing friends, looking at great art and just enjoying!

The Celebration, Continued

As a birthday present, a good friend of Deb's gave her (er, us) a weekend at her timeshare near Lake Tahoe. We went there on Friday the 21st and got back home on Sunday the 23rd. The timeshare is located in a spectacular place called "The Ridge" and is actually behind Heavenly Valley on the mountains overlooking the Carson Valley, about a 15-minute drive to South Shore.

The room was actually a suite and was located on the fifth floor of one of their many buildings at about the 8000 ft. level on top of (you guessed it) a mountain ridge—hence the name "The Ridge". The picture above is looking out one of the windows at the view from our room.

On Saturday, we took the day and drove completely around the lake. It was one of those spectacular Tahoe days—lots of blue sky and exceptionally clear air with a temp in the 40's. It was great picture-taking weather and we stopped at several locations to take pics. I took the pic of Deb at Emerald Bay (an Emerald standing by Emerald Bay!) that you see at the top of this blog and many, many other pics (like the one just above). We had dinner at the Lakeside Inn (highly recommended) at South Shore and walked around South Shore before heading up (and I do mean up!) to the room.

On Sunday, we checked out early and had breakfast at one of our favorite places, the Zephyr Cove Resort just north of South Shore on the Nevada side of the lake. From there, even though it was overcast, we drove north along the east side of Lake Tahoe for awhile. We turned around and drove south and took the Kingsbury Grade into Nevada and stopped in Genoa (one of our favorite places!). Anyone who knows the story of Snowshoe Thompson knows about Genoa! In fact, the pic at left is a sculpture of the famous mountain skier in a little park in Genoa.

We left Genoa and drove through Carson Pass and on home. It was a wonderful trip, even though it was only a couple days long!

Seeing Michael

On Monday, the 25th of January, we saw our great nephew (Criesta's half-brother) for the first time in about 20 years. That's a pic of Michael and Criesta on the left. The one thing that was true was that his wonderful smile was what we remembered the most and what made us recognize him instantly! It was so good to see him and we hope to see a lot more of him, his sister and their respective families from now on.

Other Items

I spent some time this past month taking classes in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn through the local Chamber of Commerce. I also am slowly getting my office cleaned up for the first time in a VERY long time. I have accumulated so many books and papers over the years and am just trying to lighten the load a bit.

And On Into February

It's already February 6th and this is a month of more birthdays for us. Today we are celebrating Joey's 5th birthday and in a couple weeks will be celebrating Jordan's 8th birthday. They are such young little rebels!

So, you'll have pix from those to look forward to next time!

Beg/End of Year!

2010-12-31T10:26:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of 2010! How can that be? It just started and now it's over.

December was a blur. I had a bad cold that turned into bronchitis and everyone in our home was down with a cold too. Christmas came and it was a day to rest. I did get out to take some pics a couple nights before Christmas with a friend and got some nice night shots of downtown Placerville (like the one at the top of this blog).

Even though I was not feeling too hot through the month, I was able to participate in some things at the Gallery and tried to get into the spirit by watching movies (one of my very favorites is White Christmas—I actually watched it twice!).

I got our Christmas letter out and added it to the binder containing about 15 years of Christmas letters. It's fun reading back through past years' letters to see what happened then.

I hope everyone reading this had a great holiday season and that 2011 is a great year for us all!

November is a Wrap

2010-11-30T07:34:00.000-08:00

November, what a month! The above pic is a Corvette show car that was actually used in one of the Transformers movies and is a Corvette prototype car. It was one of the attractions at the annual Sacramento International Auto Show.

Sacramento Auto Show

No, this isn't a plug for the show—but I did enjoy it. This is an auto show that showcases all the new cars—or, at least all the new cars for manufacturers that come to this show (35 this year). I went primarily to see, touch, and sit in the new 2011 Subaru Outback.

I'm an Outback aficionado (I'm on my 2nd one now) and would very much like to get a new one. Not so much because the 2011 model is so great that I just have to have one, but because my current one is getting a tad long in the tooth and needs some work. Even with that, I would definitely buy one again as they are one of the best cars on the road.

Thanksgiving

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. We went to see a great movie (Burlesque), then went to a local restaurant, The Sequoia, here in Placerville. It is an old home from the 1800's that has been turned into a great upscale restaurant. We had a great dinner and were home relatively early.

Festival of Lights

Every year on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving, Placerville has their Christmas tree lighting in the evening and, of course, lots of shopping on Main Street. This year, it was incredible. As you can see in the picture, there was a great throng of people on Main Street and you can just see a portion of the large Christmas tree in the upper-right corner.

In addition, local Christmas tree-growers donate Christmas trees that are decorated by various merchants and groups and placed along Highway 50 through town. Those are lit at the same time.

It was a very festive, happy evening that all who attended enjoyed.

Small Wonders Show

For the month of December, Gold Country Artists Gallery is putting on what we call our Small Wonders Show. Every member of the Gallery was given a 6 inch by 6 inch piece of Masonite board to do something with. Many artists painted on them, some of us photographers mounted pictures on them and some of the jewelers mounted jewelry on them. It was a very creative endeavor for all the artists and the picture shows a rendition of the poster and postcard that I created.

Christmas is THREE WEEKS away and coming quickly! Hope everyone enjoys the holiday season.

In the Midst of November

2010-11-10T06:48:00.000-08:00

The month of October is now history and we are into November. I just don't know where the time goes—wherever it goes, it has a great hiding place!

Another Car Show

I went to a car show that I had never been to before in Cameron Park in early October. It was the Cameron Park Show & Shine and included not only cars, but also planes.

There is a small airport in Cameron Park (just west of Placerville) that is for those who own planes and want to have them right by their home. Many of the homes around the airport have hangars for garages, where people can store their cars and their airplanes. The streets, as you can imagine, are taxiways and that is where the show was—on one of the taxiway-streets.

It was a pretty good show with a great turnout on a beautiful day. I especially enjoyed the cars, naturally, but the mix with planes was great. There are several fly-in shows like this around California that I hope to get to soon.

Placerville Art & Wine Festival

In mid-October, we had the Art & Wine Festival on Main Street in Placerville. This is always a great event put on by the Placerville Downtown Association. In addition to great wine and wonderful displays of artwork in various venues, we also auctioned off the banners that hung all summer around the downtown area.

At the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery), we had three of our artists demonstrating the creation of their work and I got a great kick out of watching people watch the artists. People are so enthralled watching the act of creation!

We had a great winery (Gold Hill Vineyards) at the Gallery for the evening and had some special cheese to go along with the great wine. Saw lots of good friends that evening and really enjoyed it.

New Computers

My laptop that I have had for about 3 1/2 years was getting a little "long in the tooth" for what I have been doing, so I had been looking at getting a new computer. I found that Costco will custom build you a computer and their guarantee is for 2 years, not just one like when you get it from most other places. The process was smooth and my computers arrived within a couple weeks.

So, I had them put together a tower computer and a laptop with the fastest processor and largest amount of memory I could afford so that they will do what I want to do (lots of Photoshop and some video now and again) and will hopefully last me a few years.

They are both HP computers and the tower has a wonderful 27-inch monitor and the laptop is the biggest one I could get with about an 18 inch screen. Both are magnificent beasts and I am enjoying getting them all loaded up and raring to go.

The one thing about getting a new computer (or two) is that it's much like moving from a house you have lived in for many years. You have to clean stuff up and try to remember where things are so you don't forget to actually move them. It can be a daunting task, but I think I'm almost there.

Halloween on Main Street

Halloween on Placerville's Main Street is always fun, but it was especially so this year. The weather was incredible and people were just itching to have a good time with their family.

I saw the most people on our Main Street (it was closed to traffic for the event) that I have ever seen! Many of us just don't know where the heck everyone came from. We gave out candy at the Gallery and luckily, had just enough to last the two hours that kids come by for treats. Most all the businesses in town participate and it is really fun!

You see creatures strolling by that almost make you wonder if this is the one time of the year when the real ones come out and just blend in for their fun evening for the year.

We were all blown away this year by the sheer magnitude of the crowd—it was ginormous! Take a look at the picture at the top of this blog post and you'll see what I mean!

Leaf-Peeping

I did a little travelling around looking at and photographing leaves, but not as much as last year. I was in the throes of getting my new computers up and running and just didn't have the time to travel around as much in the mountains to get some pix.

I got these two shots in and around Placerville. The colors this year were magnificent and I always just love looking at the beautiful fall colors.

I think that this year, I saw the most colors on the wine vines around the area that I have ever seen. I will definitely be working on some of these pictures for the Gallery.

We also took a ride to Lake Tahoe and it was a wonderful drive on Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe. That's a side-view shot of Emerald Bay on the left—one of my favorite places around Lake Tahoe. The colors in the mountains this year are beautiful. We drove completely around the lake, had lunch at one of our favorite Places (Zephyr Cove Resort), then went over the Kingsbury Grade into Nevada and caught Highway 88 through Hope Valley to get back home. We were way too late for much color in Hope Valley, but it's always a nice drive through that valley and I never get tired of it.

Miscellaneous Items

Saw a couple great movies in October: Hereafter and RED. Hereafter was a wonderful tale directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Matt Damon as a real psychic—very poignant. RED tells the tale of some Retired and Extremely Dangerous former CIA agents who are being targeted by parties unknown (well, at least until the end). Bruce Willis is the main character, but the supporting cast includes Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman and Richard Dreyfuss. It was one of the better movies we have seen all year.

Lots of learning going on too... Between learning about my new computers and enjoying being able to use Photoshop again at its full capacity, I'm learning about some new apps and learning about Social Media as it applies to business.

Oh, and I was re-elected President of the Board of Trustees for Gold Country Artists Gallery (this will be my 6th year and they aren't sick of me yet!) and nominated as a Board member again for the Placerville Downtown Association (and then nominated as Secretary—again!—of that organization).

And, I've been just doing more learning about life and trying to just be a better person (a New Year's goal I set for myself this year) which is always an ongoing quest.

Now on to the Holidays and all that entails!

October is Here!

2010-10-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

My favorite month, October is...

And the Census Ends...

My gig with the 2010 Census has finally ended. I'm glad it's done as this last job I had with a different part of the organization was less than fun. My various jobs with the 2010 Census began on November 8, 2008 and ended on September 11, 2010. I had some great jobs and some not so great jobs; and I met and worked with some great people along the way. It was the 23rd Census of the U.S. and I am glad to have had the experience.

Flowers Downtown

I just had to put in one last pic of the flowers downtown. They have been so beautiful this year and we've had lots of comments about how they have enhanced Main Street. In these times of a down economy, people have really appreciated the beautiful flower baskets adorning our downtown.

They will all probably be coming down soon and I'm hoping that we have a lot more next year. Our Placerville Downtown Association committee usually has a fundraiser in the spring and I hope people remember how beautiful they were this year!

The Weekend of 9/11

It started out with a funeral and ended with a celebration of life. In between, there was a motorcycle rally (Kacie's Ride for Hope) on Placerville's Main Street with about 800 motorcycles to help the cause of fighting domestic violence, my various jobs with the census ended, and it was the anniversary of the horror of 9/11/2001.

The pic here shows some of the motorcycles on Main Street on that day of 9/11. I attended the funeral of a friend's Mom on Friday and the Celebration of the Life of another friend on Sunday (see my previous post about Holly). A strange and moving weekend...

Sam the Cat

A couple posts ago I mentioned our new cat, Sam. Well, he's settling in quite nicely. We are having to take him to the vet for some treatments for ringworm and some kind of cold virus. Through it all, he maintains his great, playful and incredibly curious personality.

He and Cate are slooooowwwllly becoming friends, of a sort. I think she likes having him around even though he can be quite obnoxious towards her sometimes. The pic above is one of the times when he was resting in the middle of our bed. Trying to get a good picture of a totally black cat is really a challenge!

The El Dorado Trail

Off and on, I take walks on the El Dorado Trail. It's part of the "Rails to Trails" program and runs a fairly good distance through town. It accommodates walkers, runners, bicyclists and people on horseback quite well. I haven't walked the whole way, but have done bits and pieces of it. The pic above shows just one small area of it.

Shriner's Concours

About the middle of September, I attended the Shriner's Concours d'Elegance in Sacramento. It's held every year as a fundraiser for the Shriner's Hospital in Sacramento.

A Concours car show is a top of the line car show (probably the most famous one is Pebble Beach) where each entry is judged and winners announced later in the day. A friend of mine had his beautiful 1940 Packard in the show (shown at left and he got a 2nd place) and there were many other wonderful cars.

This was a new location for the show and I think it will develop into a great location, with the setting being near the Capitol building in Sacramento. The day was a tad rainy, but it was still a great show with lots of beautiful automobiles from days gone by.

The cars showcased at the show always remind me that we used to have beautiful designs of cars years ago, whereas today it seems that many of the cars look so much alike.

Museum Day

Every year, the Smithsonian helps sponsor a Museum Day nationwide, which allows you to visit participating museums free on that day. This year I happened to see the article about it in time to get a ticket to go to The California Museum in Sacramento. It's a museum that celebrates everything California and it was a delight!

The most exciting thing for me was the Hall of Fame area where information about various Californians who have been inducted into the state's Hall of Fame is shown. I got to see a lot of information about George Lucas, especially an original Star Wars script and a couple of the original R2D2 & C3PO robot creations from Lucasfilm (shown in pic).

We spent a few hours at the museum, then went to "Joe's Crab Shack" on the river for a late lunch, then to see a movie, The Town with Ben Affleck which was very good (also had seen the new Wall Street movie on Friday afternoon which we thoroughly enjoyed too).

And Now to October

Not sure why I like October so much. It may be because both my Mom & Dad's birthdays were in October, or the wonderful colors of fall, or the wonderful smell of burning leaves I remember as a kid.

This month, I will be one of two featured artists at Gold Country Artists Gallery and I'm really looking forward to it. It's always fun to showcase your work and be able to talk with people about it. You can see more of my work on my Gallery web page.

One of my photographs is shown at the top of this blog (Cabin in Splendor) and one is shown at the left. I spent several days going through census training in Sacramento and in my off-hours gaining an appreciation for the beautiful Tower Bridge that is right by Old Sacramento. The picture at left is Tower Bridge, Night and I have two others I will be showing at the Gallery this month.

I also hope to get up into the mountains and enjoy our fall colors (somewhat meager as compared to back east). I always enjoy driving through our beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains in the fall.

Placerville's Art & Wine Festival is on October 16, along with the Third Saturday event and the Gallery's Reception for its Featured Artists. There will be lots going on downtown that evening, so if you live close and are available, please come by and see me at the Gallery.

Happy October!!

For Holly

2010-09-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

I attended a celebration of your life yesterday. Dealing with all the emotions of your very sudden passing that is left to us who are left behind on this human plane is hard and I'm writing this to the energy that is you.

I barely knew you. For a month or so, I sat next to you in an office early this year. Your humor, laughter (you had a wonderful laugh!), stories and intelligence were infectious—which sometimes made it very hard to work! In the little amount of time that I knew you and spent time talking with you, it was very obvious to me that you were a special being.

Our paths diverged over the last few months and I didn't see you very much. That was a great loss to me and I wish it could have been different.

Your life, so tragically ended, but so willfully lived was spoken to with much love by some wonderful friends and relatives yesterday. You would have enjoyed it and I sensed your presence flitting about and laughing and telling everyone "don't worry about me".

I guess what struck me most was all the facets of your life and how much you lived them and enjoyed them. The energy that was you, here in this time, will go on (I'm sure) into new adventures in the universe.

Thank you for the opportunity to get to know you, at least a little bit.

A Very Busy August

2010-08-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

And the Census continues...

If you've been following this ongoing journal, you will know that I have been working for the census since about November, 2008. I helped with some training in early August, held in Sacramento, and began this new census job in earnest in mid-August. I am a Crew Leader Assistant for the Census Coverage Measurement (CCM) operation in our area, which is essentially a QC check of the census information gathered earlier this year. It's a very different operation run by a different arm of the census.

We did the training in Sacramento and I had a chance, again, to take many photographs in and around Old Sacramento and The Tower Bridge. That bridge looks wonderful in the early morning and late afternoon with the Sun shining on it. In the photo at the top of this blog (taken in late afternoon looking east), you can see the golden towers, the state capital dome in the far distance and the Embassy Suites (where I stayed) on the right.

I spent much of the month of August deeply involved with census work, but did take a little time off now and again for some family items and some events in downtown Placerville.

New Cat

A couple blogs ago (June) I wrote a tribute to our wonderful cat Cody, who passed away in June. We wanted to get another cat so our female, Cate, would have a pal to have around and, well, we just wanted to get another cat.

We went to Animal Outreach (where we always get our cats) and after an hour of sitting in a large room and watching the cats, one of them found Deb. We brought him home and named him Sam, after another famous black cat of ours that we had years ago and loved dearly.

Our new Sam is just over 7 months old and is adjusting to his new home. Cate has not decided what to make of him yet and has spent a lot of time hissing at him, but the hisses are getting less and less, so we are hopeful they will eventually get along (and Sam just wants to play with her!).

The picture on the left is of Deb and Sam on the day we brought him to his new home. Sam picked Deb out and is very much a people-loving cat.

Third Saturday

We had the usual third Saturday festivities (Placerville ArtWalk) on Historic Main Street in Placerville.

During the day from about noon til 4 pm, Davey Wiser brings his stagecoach to town and gives free rides to anyone who wants one. The picture above is of Davey's stagecoach 'Comin' Round the Bend' and that's Davey in the red outfit standing on the left taking a break from driving the stagecoach. It's great fun!

In the evening, we had live music at the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery) and our two Featured Artists were there to greet visitors, along with many of the other artists in the Gallery. It was a fun evening!

Girl's Night Out

One of the very successful events that the Gallery participates in downtown is Girl's Night Out. It started downtown last year, happens twice a year and is great fun each time. I was downtown to be at the Gallery and take pictures of the event on the street.

Many merchants had their own events going on inside their businesses (the Gallery had art demonstrations) and there was live music and again, it was a lot of fun.

New Camera

Sometimes I just get a bug and many times that bug has to do with photography. This month I bought a new camera, an Olympus E-PL1 Pen digital camera. I had been wanting to get a camera that was in between my pocket-sized Canon Digital Elph and my big Canon camera (that is so darn heavy to lug around).

This one is a 12.3 mega pixel camera that is like a DSLR, has interchangeable lenses, HD video, image stabilization, a relatively large sensor, but without the bulk of the larger DSLRs. I am still learning about it, but all the pics in this blog were taken with it and so far, it is a great little camera. It has a similar design to (apparently) the old Olympus Pen film cameras from years ago.

I'll keep you posted about it as I use it.

What Else

Within three days during the last week of August, we had a 110° degree day and then a 60° day! The cooler weather was very welcome after that scorcher, but the temp difference was amazing in the space of just 3 days!

I've been listening to and reading Wayne Dyer's The Power of Intention and enjoyed it a lot. I just started listening to Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth yesterday and think I will like it too. I've had this incredible urge recently to read or listen to books like that for some reason and can't seem to get enough of them. Their messages are resonating with me right now, so I am just going with it!

I've also had a few paid projects that I have been working on for some folks and I have been reading and learning from the book, Adobe Photoshop CS5 one-on-one (which is great!). Adobe Photoshop CS5 has some new features that are nothing short of amazing and magical and I am really enjoying learning about it. I want to incorporate some of its new features in the work on my photography in coming months.

What's Ahead

Boy, don't I wish I knew the answer to that one! I do know there will be more census work in September, but it should be finished by the end of the month. I'm learning more about Photoshop CS5 and want to read/listen to more books like the two I mentioned above.

As always, I'll keep you posted here. Hope you come back and check it out!

Summer Goings On

2010-07-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this while staying near Sacramento where I am taking some census job training. The photo above is of the Tower Bridge in Sacramento that crosses the Sacramento River.

July 4th

The month of July always starts off for us with our anniversary, which is on July 4th. Our story about that is that we wanted to always have our anniversary off, so it was either Christmas or the 4th of July—and the 4th won out!

This year was our 35th anniversary and since I was working for the census, we couldn't go away but we did take the day and go to a movie and dinner.

Sometimes we like to go to Mendocino over the 4th of July as we really enjoy their festivities. We hope to do that again soon.

Flower Power

During the month of July, I spent some of my spare time taking and working on pictures of the flower baskets and banners that adorn our Main Street in Placerville. I am involved with both projects and enjoy photographing our efforts.

The flower baskets look magnificent right now and I took a bunch of photos of the various baskets and banners that really make our Main Street look so special during the summer. Both the Banners on Parade and the "Flower Power" effort are very special to me and I enjoy doing what I can to help with those efforts.

You can see more pictures of the banners and the flowers on the PDA website.

Census

During the month of June and into early July, I was involved with the 2010 Census again and working on yet another job than I spoke of in one of these posts in May. I again worked in South Lake Tahoe for a couple weeks in that job.

I am currently in Sacramento taking training for yet another census job that will begin over the next couple weeks and may go into September. I'm getting to meet a whole new group of people and learning about a new side of the census that I haven't worked on before. And, as a side benefit, I'm getting to spend some of my spare time this week (when not in training) taking pictures around Old Sacramento, which I really enjoy.

Endnote

Now that we are at the end of July, the year is more than half over with and that's just amazing! Some of the other things I've been doing is reading a lot (currently reading a book about one of my all-time heroes, Davy Crockett), watching movies, taking photos and just learning a lot of new stuff.

Hope you are having a great summer!

A Tribute to Cody

2010-06-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

One of our wonderful cats, Cody, passed away last week as Deb and I sat beside him with tears in our eyes.

He had not been acting right for a couple of weeks and had one vet visit and towards the last, an animal emergency hospital visit. We brought him home on Saturday and he passed away just after dawn on Monday, June 21.

Cats definitely pick their people and Cody had chosen Deb over 8 years ago at Animal Outreach, a local cat shelter. Someone didn't want him any more and he had arrived at the shelter just before we got there.

I remember he looked so sad at the shelter—but that sad look changed pretty quickly. He immediately made himself at home in our house. We became his humans and it wasn't long before he had us well-trained.

When we got our also wonderful little white female cat, Cate a year later, he put up with her hijinks and they formed a respectful (and many times, playful) bond.

He had his spots in the house that he loved: the cat pole, the shelf by the front window and our bed. Occasionally, especially when the weather was colder or he was feeling needy, he liked a lap/chest/legs to lay on and would allow one of us to let him sleep on us.

He was one of a line of cats stretching back over 30 years that Deb and I have had and made part of our lives. Cody gave us many great moments and lots of love and we will miss him forever—and Cate will miss him too.

This is a tribute for him and his life with us. Cody... We loved you dearly and will miss you.

A Wild, Fast & Full May!

2010-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

That about covers what May was for me: wild, fast and full! The weather was wild, the month went incredibly fast and it was full of things to do. This picture is (again) of Lake Tahoe, but this month it is looking back towards the spot where I took last month's picture!

Census Job Update

If you've been following my past month's blogs, you know that I have been working for the 2010 Census since about November of 2008. Well, May is the BIG month. In early May, I trained a crew of about 20 people in South Lake Tahoe to become enumerators for the 2010 Census. They formed the core of one of the crews (for which I was a Crew Leader) enumerating the South Lake Tahoe area.

After the week-long training, they went to work. I spent about 3 weeks driving back and forth from my home outside of Placerville 3-4 times a week to South Lake Tahoe to manage the crew (about 6o miles each way). During the last week of May, a new Crew Leader took over and I will be working closer to my home starting in June.

The weather continued to be wild in May with snow in the mountains and lots of rain here around the Placerville area.

Birthdays

We had a couple birthdays in May: Deb's brother (Barth) and their Mom (Elizabeth) celebrated birthdays about mid-month. Deb made cakes and we had a small get-together at the house. At one of the birthdays our cat, Cody, decided he really liked a shirt box and made it his napping place for a short time. As you can see, he really didn't fit in the box very well!

May Placerville ArtWalk and Car Show

May's third Saturday event, Placerville ArtWalk, was a grand time

downtown and the weather cooperated that evening too. We had lots of music downtown and people out strolling and enjoying the evening.

The next day was the Hangtown Car Show and it was an amazing show. There were about 200 cars on Main Street and it was a car-lover's dream! I was there for a short while and took some pictures like this one by the Bell Tower.

Banners on Parade

This is really just to give you a heads-up for next month! In late May, several of us who are on the Art on Parade committee set up and facilitated the judging of the Banners that will go up on Main Street in early June.

The pic on the left it the motley crew who were on hand to help with the judging of the banners (including yours truly on the far left).

We have 31 banners that were judged and I took all the pictures of the banners for the PDA website and for the brochure that will be created for the summer-long event.

I can't show you any of the banners yet, but watch this space for a few pics of some of the winning banners in June.

June is almost here and I can't believe it! Working so much this year has made the year just fly by. I have enjoyed it so far, though, but look forward to the end of my involvement in the 2010 Census later this summer. It's sort of a good-news/bad-news thing: the job will be over and the job will be over!

Hope you come back and see the pictures of the banners next month!

April in the Sierra Nevada

2010-04-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

The wild weather continued on into April. Throughout the month of April, we had rain, wind and snow usually in the middle of the week. I drove through a record-setting downpour just a few days ago on a drive to Jackson, CA. From here on into at least early May, we will be having a respite.

Census

My work with the 2010 Census continues. During the first week of April, I was still working at the Census office. My last day there was on Saturday, April 10. On April 13th, I began training for a Crew Leader job for the largest operation, Non-Response Follow Up (or NRFU). This part of the Census is when census workers go out and interview those folks who have not returned their census forms.

I had training in South Lake Tahoe during that week (beginning on April 13), then came back home to prepare to do my own training of the Enumerators that will be working for me. The training that I will be presenting will start on May 4th in South Lake Tahoe.

It's great to be back working in the "Field" again after having worked in the office for the last 5 months. Working in the office was a great experience, though, and gave me a real appreciation of what their needs are.

I took the picture above during one of my lunch breaks from the class I attended in South Lake Tahoe.

Third Saturday in Placerville

On the third Saturday of every month, Placerville ArtWalk happens on historic Main Street in downtown Placerville. April's Placerville ArtWalk had another event that was also celebrated that evening. April is National Poetry Month and our local arts council (El Dorado Arts Council aka EDAC) took it upon themselves to create and promote "1000 Poems on Main Street" during that evening.

And what an evening it was! Roving poets, organized poetry readings, Haiku on various businesses' windows—what a great evening! Luckily, the weather cooperated for the evening and a good time was had by all.

At Gold Country Artists Gallery, we had poetry of another kind inside the gallery—the light jazz of Caroll Tuttle and Friends. That's a picture of Caroll (on the sax) and his friends playing their wonderful light jazz at the Gallery on that evening.

If you have the time on the third Saturday of some month, come to Placerville for the ArtWalk in the evening from 5pm-9pm.

Speaking of EDAC

Since our Gallery is one of the major sponsors of the Placerville ArtWalk, we were invited to attend the EDAC member-appreciation night in April. I attended and they were very lucky to have it happen between storms at the David Gerard Winery just outside of Placerville.

It was one of those late spring afternoon happenings in a beautiful location and above is one of the pics I took at the winery.

Going into May

The title of this post was meant to be sort of a comment about what spring can be like in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and these foothills—unpredictable and beautiful. Spring and fall are my favorite times of the year and with all the rain we have had this winter, the greens are just wonderful!

May will prove to be an interesting month. I will be going back and forth to South Lake Tahoe for training and leading a crew of enumerators. So, I'll be able to watch spring evolve in the mountains in our area.

I'll let you know how it went at the end of May.

Til next time...

Out Like a Lion

2010-03-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

Being the very last day of March, you would think that Spring was actually here... But you'd be wrong! I took the picture above on this last day of March from my porch! We woke up to about 4 inches of snow and the poor trees were desperately trying to handle their new, budding leaves and the snow! Makes me very glad I don't live around Western New York any more—I really don't miss living in snow.

March has been an absolute blur! It's been a very busy month for me at my 2010 Census job and I haven't done a lot of photography. I did get to a couple of functions this month that were fun.

Rhythm & Blooms

It all started out as "Flower Power" a few years ago—those of us who are interested and have been the core group are "Flower Power Groupies"! I'm talking about the effort we have around Placerville with folks who are interested in having flower baskets on Main Street during the late spring and summer months.

For the last three years, we have had a "Rhythm & Blooms Fundraiser" to help raise money to create and hang some beautiful flowers on the light poles in downtown Placerville. It has been a big success going from 4 baskets to 8 baskets to 22 baskets to (hopefully) around 30 baskets this summer. People have attended the fundraiser and given lots of $$ to help the effort. That makes for some beautiful flowers in downtown Placerville all summer long. And of course, I LOVE to take pictures of flowers and have been the "official" R&B photographer.

Just prior to the fundraiser, there is a smaller event at a local restaurant/bar (Powell's) on Main Street with celebrity bartenders and items that get raffled. I bought lots of raffle tickets this year and actually won one of the items at the Powell's pre-fundraiser fundraiser (and I never win anything!).

These were two great events!

New Internet Connection

I have had a satellite internet connection through Hughes since 2003 and it has served me (mostly) very well. However, recently it has not been working well and coincidentally we now have the availability of wireless internet connections in our area. So, I recently switched over and am very happy with the connection. It's faster and not as affected by rain and snow as the satellite connection was.

Series on TV

Been watching The Pacific on HBO HD and am really enjoying it. I have Band of Brothers on DVD and watching The Pacific made me want to watch that again. I so enjoy movies/series about World War II and I'm not sure why—I guess it's because my Dad and his generation were there and I heard all the stories. Also, Life on the Discovery Channel HD is magnificent.

So Much To Do, So Little Time

That heading pretty much sums up how I feel right now. I have so many things going on and things I want to do and there is just never enough time (working a full-time job does that!). I just realized a couple days ago that we were nearing the end of March and I hadn't updated my Blog and I always like to take the time to do that—sort of like catching my breath and thinking about the month just gone by.

Til next time...

A Fast Month

2010-02-28T05:38:00.000-08:00

I was looking at my blog this morning and realized that I had not added anything since the last day of January! I want to make sure that I do at least one blog update a month as it serves as sort of an "online journal" for us.

More Census Items

If you have been reading my blogs, you know I work for the 2010 Census. The month of February has been a blur partly because I'm working full time at the nearby Local Census Office. This has been an extremely busy month at the office as we sign up thousands of applicants who are interested in working for the Census 2010 effort.

Last month I mentioned the Open House we had at our office in early January. In early February, I had the opportunity to be the photographer for the Sacramento Local Census Office open house.

The Sacramento LCO open house was much larger in scope and was a lot of fun. I took photos and video at that one too and enjoyed the opportunity. They had lots of guest speakers and (as with our open house in January), lots of great entertainment.

The other item they had was one of the census vehicles (named Abacus) on display—that's a photo of it at the top of this blog entry. Thirteen vehicles make up the 2010 Census Portrait of America road tour; there is one census vehicle for each of the 12 regions and one national vehicle.

Birthdays

February is a month of special birthdays in our family. Joey and Jordan both have birthdays in February, so we had a party for each of them at our house on their birthdays.

Joey's was up first as he turned 4 and one of his presents was a fire chief's outfit, which, of course, he had to put on right away and make sure there were no fires about. Joey really gets into the opening presents thing and got lots of great "kid stuff".

Jordan was up next two weeks later as she turned 7. She had a fun day and got lots of great stuff. Her costume of choice (and a present) was her ballerina's costume. She put it on right away and spent the rest of the day in it. It actually comes with a small, battery-operated music player that fits into a hidden compartment in the costume and plays music for her to dance to!

Their special days were fun and we enjoyed watching them have fun and open their presents. And of course, their wonderful Aunt Debbie was right there in the middle of it having a wonderful time.

Watching Olympics

Of course, like many others, we've also been watching the Winter Olympics from Vancouver this month and enjoying the many events. I have to work at the Gallery today (Sunday, Feb 28), but hope to see some of the highlights of the gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada.

Books and Rain

So what do books and rain have to do with each other? We have had a great deal of much-needed rain this month and they've had lots of snow in the mountains. We've got a couple days break then more rain is due, which makes you appreciate the few really nice days we had this month. But that's OK, 'cause Spring is just around the corner and we'll have nice weather again soon.

The books part has to do with the books I've read and am reading on my iPhone. I love reading books on my iPhone: I carry it everywhere with me and the books are relatively cheap. I'm hooked on James Rollins, Vince Flynn, Steve Berry, and Clive Cussler books—lots of great modern-day adventure stories. Regarding reading books on the iPhone—don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

Many Things to Do, Not Enough Time

Since I'm working full time, my time is very limited and full. Luckily, the 2010 Census is not a career and an end-date is coming! To much to do and not enough time is a refrain that I think about constantly lately, but that's OK as I know this will be over soon (and I do know how fast time really does move!).

Until next month and Spring!

It's Twenty-Ten!

2010-01-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe it's actually 2010! From here on through the rest of this century it will be so darn much easier, at least, to say the year! Instead of "Twenty-OH-Nine", you can just say "Twenty-Ten" or "Twenty-Eleven" or whatever year it is!

Party Hardy

January has been sort of a "Party" month! Some of our friends have holiday parties after the new year starts so that's how we began our new year—with a couple of holiday parties. One party was on New Year's Day and one was on January 10. It's kinda nice to get together with friends without having to worry about getting any shopping done and with all the chaos over!

2010 Census

I worked at the Census office in El Dorado Hills all through the month of January and we're in the throes of gearing up for the 2010 Census, which is coming in a couple of months. Make sure YOU fill out your census survey when it comes (it's only 10 questions!).

And, speaking of parties, we had one (an open house, actually) at the census office for the "official" grand opening of the Placerville Census Office. It was in the late afternoon/early evening of January 11. I was the "official" photographer for it. There were some local dignitaries there, as well as families of my fellow office workers and attendees from other census offices in central California.

Deb's Birthday

And yet ANOTHER party! The final party of the month was for Deb's birthday. She and I celebrated with dinner out on the actual day and then had a family party on the Sunday following. Deb's birthday is always fun and makes January a month to actually look forward to.

The wonderful cake that Criesta got from Zia's is shown on the left.

Other Items

We went to see a couple movies in January: The Lovely Bones and Edge of Darkness. Deb and I had listened to the book The Lovely Bones on a trip a few years back. Both movies were very good. The movie that tops them all, though, is Avatar. We have not seen it in Imax/3D yet, but plan on it. It is a great movie!

We've had lots of rain here this month (we need it!) and lots of snow in the mountains (need that too!).

I'm trying to balance my full-job at the census office, my part-time job as President of Gold Country Artists Gallery, and any opportunities I have to take and or work on photographs—quite the challenge.

One Final Note

On this very last weekend of the month, I had an opportunity to help showcase the Placerville Area to an Adventure Travel Writer who attended the Society of American Travel Writers conference in South Lake Tahoe. There was a nice dinner at a local restaurant on Friday night and wandering up and down Main Street this afternoon showing off our fair city.

I got to spend a little time chatting with the writer (Yvette Cardozo – find out about her travels at www.cardozohirsch.com) and got to spend some time with a local friend, Davey Wiser, who drives a stagecoach on our Main Street at least once a month and is a local treasure. That's a picture of Davey on the left.

All in all, quite a month for this first month of Twenty-Ten!

Happy Holidays

2009-12-30T05:55:00.000-08:00

This month again has been a blur and, of course, the holidays are here and almost gone for another year. The "word cloud" above shows some of the people, places and things that have been a part of our lives this year.

I was working all month at the Census office and getting ready for the holidays too. On Christmas Eve, we had my daughter Kelly and her husband Will here at the house, along with Criesta, Jordan and Joey. That's Jordan & Joey to the left enjoying one of their presents on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day was a very relaxing day and after opening our gifts in the morning, we watched movies all day long and had a nice dinner.

The week between Christmas and New Year's has been a busy one and I'm looking forward to having a few days off. It's early morning of New Year's Eve as I write this.

New Year's is always a schizophrenic time: I'm melancholy about the past year (although I won't be sorry to see 2009 pass into history) and excited about the new year about to begin. It's hard to believe that we are 10 years into this "new" century already!

I hope that for everyone the holidays were a wonderful time and that 2010 is a good year for us all.

Happy New Year!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-29T06:14:00.000-08:00

It's just past Thanksgiving and almost the last day of November and another month has come and (almost) gone. I like to get at least one blog done each month and, well, this is it!

Census

The dominating task for my month of November has been working for the U.S. Census—yet again!

The Stockton Early Local Census Office (ELCO) was one of two Census offices opened in the U.S. in 2008 to serve as sort of a "staging area" for the beginnings of the 2010 Census. From that office, several other Local Census Offices (LCO) are being born, so to speak. One of those offices is the Placerville LCO, which is actually located in El Dorado Hills.

For that office, many workers are needed to gear up for the 2010 Census and I have been hired as one of them. I started out on the 2nd day of November with a full week of training in the Elk Grove Local Census Office (south of Sacramento). Then I had a week at the new Placerville LCO and another week (the week just prior to Thanksgiving week) working at the Stockton office.

All of this is to help get our new Placerville LCO open and geared up to do the work of the 2010 Census. I'm working as an office clerk (with hopes of moving up, eventually, to other positions in the office) and right now, our office is pretty small but will grow as "Census Day" (April 1, 2010) approaches.

It's exciting to be part of a great group of people doing a job that comes along every 10 years and that has been going on since 1790!

Deb & the Christmas Tree

Deb recently helped her friend Ann, the owner of Annieberries on Placerville's Main Street, decorate a Christmas tree along Highway 50 just before Thanksgiving. Ann was a sponsor of one of the 80 Christmas Trees that now adorn the highway as it goes through our great city.

Ok, let me back up a bit... Up until about 3 years ago, there were decorated Christmas Trees displayed along Highway 50 as it passes through the heart of Placerville every year during the holidays. We have had major construction going on with Highway 50 in Placerville for about 2-and-a-half years (what a mess!). So, this is the first time our Christmas Trees are back!

Deb was there on a bright, crisp Saturday morning before Thanksgiving to help decorate Ann's tree. You can see the pic of the two of them (Ann on the left and Deb on the right) above after they completed decorating the tree.

The trees are mounted on poles just behind the barrier on the right-most eastbound lane and when all 80 trees are lit, it looks great!

And speaking of Christmas trees... We just got ours "out of the box" yesterday and Deb is busy decorating it—well, she is actually trying to get all the lights to work (she has much more patience than I do!) and will decorate it over the next couple days.

About 5 years ago, we bought an artificial tree and it was one of the best investments we ever made! We never thought we would have a "fake" Christmas tree, but it is a great one and looks great during all the time we have it up. It never dries out and we can keep it up for as long as we want!

Christmas Ornaments & Miniatures

For the last several years at the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery), we have had a miniatures show in December and will again this year. For my miniatures this year, I decided to do some photographic art-looking pictures. One of them is shown right at the top of this blog (A Christmas Stagecoach), another one just to the left (Santa Dude) and another one is shown below, near the end of this blog.

Our miniatures show is called "Small Wonders" and if you peruse some of the web pages of our members at www.goldcountryartistsgallery.com, you will see some of the miniatures that members will have in the show. You can go directly to my page on the website by clicking here.

In addition to the miniatures, I've been making some Christmas tree ornaments using some of those very same miniatures. The miniatures pictures that will be on display at the Gallery will be framed 4x6 pictures. I took some of those pictures, shrunk them a bit and decoupaged them to small pieces of balsa wood with tinsel cord attached so they can be hung on a Christmas tree.

Years ago when Deb and I were first married, we did a bunch of decoupaged Christmas tree ornaments and they have become treasures that we look forward to seeing again every year.

Thanksgiving Day and Weekend

Since both Deb and I worked the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, we went to a restaurant this year for Thanksgiving. It's one of our favorite restaurants (Marie Callenders) and the dinner was great (you could even get seconds if you wanted them!).

After dinner, we went to see the new version of A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey. We all liked it and will be anxious to see it again when it comes out on video for Christmas next year.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we were both busy. I worked at the Census office during the day, then went to the Gallery in the evening to be downtown for our annual "Festival of Lights". That's where the big fir tree near the courthouse on Main Street (that's it on the left) is lit and Main Street is closed so people can wander and shop. There were thousands of people out and about and it was a great evening!

Coming Up

Now I have to get our Christmas letter going. I will do a paper copy and some kind of thing in this blog too—I haven't decided yet how I'm going to do it exactly. But, I've created a monster with the Christmas letter and if I don't do it, I'll never hear the end of it!

By the way—in case you are wondering—that picture above is called A Christmas Wagon and is one of my miniatures at the Gallery for our Small Wonders show.

So, stay tuned: You'll either see the Christmas letter here or you'll get one in the mail. We'll probably do fewer ones via mail this year just because of the cost and time involved to do it. But, if you don't see it in your mailbox, you can always see it here!

Have a safe and happy Holiday season and I'll talk with you again next month.

October's Bright Blue Weather

2009-10-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

October is my favorite month of the year. Light takes on a special quality this time of year and makes everything look bright, and, well... blue! I have been particularly aware of the quality of light this time of year since I have been a photographer.

The picture above is my rendition of a photograph created as a piece of photographic art (that is, made to look like a painting) and is entitled East Carson River.

I will have a bunch of new work in Gold Country Artists Gallery during November, so come by if you can and see it!

Census

In my last post, I talked about the 2010 Census job. I was about to do called Group Quarters Validation. Well, that was a very quick operation and I worked a total of about 4 weeks on it. I will be starting another job with the census as an office clerk in a newly-opening office in El Dorado Hills (about 20 miles away) next week. That one will be a full-timer and should go through a good share of next year.

Airshow

In early October there was an airshow at the local Placerville airport and they were celebrating 80 years of being an airport. There were lots of small planes and a couple of large helicopters. It wasn't a big show, but it was interesting.

There also were airplane rides and flybys and it was lots of fun for people who love airplanes.

Art & Wine Festival

In downtown Placerville on the evening of Saturday, October 17, we had an Art & Wine Festival. There were about 40 wineries in various businesses downtown, good music, art demonstrations, and the display of all the banners from Banners on Parade.

During the Art & Wine Festival, the banners are displayed so the public can view them up close and personal and then they are auctioned off to the highest bidder during a silent auction that evening.

Lots of people were downtown that evening enjoying wine and wonderful music and to top it all off, it was a beautiful-weather evening to boot.

Mountains & Colors

Our fall colors are shining this month and I love to take lots of pictures. I went to the Hope Valley and the Markleeville Area and I caught the colors at their peak. I went there on one day, then Deb and I went there a few days later. Our colors here in the mountains are mostly of the gold-yellow variety, then when you come down to the lower elevations, you start seeing more of the reds in the Japanese Maples and others.

There are lots of wonderful photographic opportunities very close by and I try to take advantage of them as much as I can.

Wherever you live, make sure you take the time to notice the wonderful fall colors and the quality of the light that embraces them!

A Slice of Life

2009-09-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

Quite a month... I'm working for the U.S. Census again and have been going through lots of paper.

Family Stuff

That pic above is a photo I just took this morning of Joey (our nephew) and I just really liked it! Deb's Mom had a pacemaker put in a few weeks ago and is mending nicely. Barth had a slight accident on a motorcycle this past week and has mainly sore muscles (no major damage to anything or anybody except for his soreness).

We're all looking forward to Fall!

Census

I've got another job with the Census—this time it's something they call Group Quarters Validation (shortened to GQV). During this portion of the overall census preparation, we will go to various places that house many people (like hotels, homeless shelters, hospitals, jails, etc.) and see how many people can be there at any given time.

The census is coming up in April, 2010: hope you are all ready! I'll keep you posted. I never knew how much preparation goes into the decennial census!

Paper Thoughts

After my Mom passed away several years ago, we packed her items and brought them to our home to store and I have slooooowly been going through them. She had lots of old paper items (old magazines, books, etc.) that she sold at a flea market for many years.

Over the last several days, I've been going through lots of old Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post magazines (and many, many others of way long-ago dates) and sorting them out. I find I especially miss the old Life magazines (www.life.com – even Life has a website!) and how much they showed about what was going on worldwide before we had all the instant Internet capability. It's been kinda fun going through the old magazines and, even, looking at the ads!

If you want to have some fun, do a search on the Internet for your favorite old magazine that is no longer around and see what's there.

It seems like our lives are so darn fast now and the moments are not being captured like they use to be for future generations to peruse. Where will all those online photos be in 50 years? Oh, they will undoubtedly be searchable to the nth degree, but you'll have to know what to look for and there may not be the time to "peruse" all those (then) "old" articles as things will be even faster-paced then. Just looking back and thinking ahead to (maybe) what's coming...

A new month is coming and my favorite one at that: Fall, changing leaves, cooler, differences in the quality of light (if you take the time to notice!) and all that goes with it. Until next month...

Placerville ArtWalk

2009-09-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

On the evening of the third Saturday of every month, the Placerville ArtWalk happens on Historic Main Street in downtown Placerville, California. It is an event that I always enjoy and this year, in particular, has been especially fun since the Gallery that I am in (Gold Country Artists Gallery) has been one of the major sponsors.

Placerville ArtWalk, by the way, is spearheaded by our very own El Dorado Arts Council.

Placerville ArtWalk: The Video

I've been taking lots of photos and short videos during the Placerville ArtWalks this summer and decided to put it all together in a short video (a little over 6 minutes long.). If you are interested right now, you can go see it on YouTube here. I thought I'd delve a little deeper into some parts of the video in the rest of this post.

Code Blue

During each of the Placerville ArtWalks, there has been a band playing at the Bell Tower right in the center of town. In May, the band was Code Blue and they are a great band that plays 60's rock music. There were lots of people watching them perform and sometimes getting up to dance. What a great evening!

In and Around the Gallery

During the ArtWalks, we have had a lot of people come into the gallery. The photo at the top of this post shows lots of people in the gallery during the June ArtWalk event. The June Placerville ArtWalk was one of our busiest ever, and what makes that amazing is that usually that evening is not as busy as other third Saturdays because the El Dorado County Fair is happening that weekend.

Below are a few views in and around the Gallery:

In the photo on the left, Gold Country artist Chris Navratil helps young lady MaKayla Morris learn about pottery-making
The center photo shows the front of Gold Country Artists Gallery during one of the ArtWalks
The photo on the right shows a crowd gathered around Gold Country artist Lorrene Davis as she demonstrates the creation of a piece of silver metal clay jewelry

My Favorite

I think one of my favorite happenings during the summer Placerville ArtWalks was watching a band by the name of Diddley Squat playing at the Bell Tower. They are a blues band from northeast Texas who are great musicians and real crowd-pleasers. Rick "Saxman" Sims is one of the band members that I particularly enjoyed watching and of whom I took lots of photos. The photo on the left is one of him "serenading" an audience member up close and personal.

All the Placerville ArtWalks this summer have been great photo opportunities and it's been fun wandering around and taking pics when I can during those evenings.

ArtWalks Coming

We have one more "official" ArtWalk coming up on September 19th, then the Art & Wine Festival during the third Saturday in October. If you want to have some fun, plan on coming to Historic Main Street in downtown Placerville on a third Saturday during the next couple of months.

Free Stagecoach Rides

By the way, during the afternoon of the third Saturdays of every month (12pm-4pm), you can have a free stagecoach ride downtown—ahhh, but that's another story!

More About the Video

You may be wondering what I used to create the YouTube video. On every PC there is a resident movie-maker program called (amazingly enough), Windows Movie Maker. It is pretty easy to use and great for simple videos.

I like Windows Movie Maker for simple videos, but I am going back to using Pinnacle Studio. I have used it in the past and like its capabilities, versatility and flexibility more than Windows Movie Maker.

If you haven't tried creating a movie for yourself with stills and video, try it out—it's really fun and no matter if you have a PC or a Mac, you have the capability built-in (the Mac has iMovie).

One of the other videos I created this summer was about the Wagon Train & Founder's Day event on Historic Main Street in June, 2009—you can see that one here.

The El Dorado Trail

2009-08-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

For awhile now, I have been walking portions of the El Dorado Trail several mornings a week.

Background

As I usually like to do, I like to find out a little background about things—how they came to be. The El Dorado Trail is part of the Sacramento-Placerville Transportation Corridor (SPTC) and began in the early 1990's. You can see more about the beginnings of it here. Basically, the trail is part of the "Rails to Trails" program and follows the old railroad corridor from Camino to Placerville (and further west, eventually).

You can also find some good maps of the trails at www.trailsnow.org.

Walking/Running/Biking the Trail

I try to walk the trail in the mornings when it is cooler (at least this time of year!). Mostly I walk the portion of the trail from Smith Flat east to the bridge that crosses over Highway 50 and heads toward Camino. That's where I took the picture shown above; it shows a view as you walk west on the trail near Smith Flat.

Sometimes I start my walk further west at Placerville Station (near Highway 50 and Mosquito Road). Walking east from there is interesting because you pass through an old tunnel (a very short one) and when the air is just right, you can smell the smoke from the many trains that passed through the tunnel on their way to/from Michigan-Cal Lumber in Camino.

You always pass folks who are walking, running, biking and sometimes riding a horse. There are restrooms at a couple points along the trail (Smith Flat and Placerville Station) and they are well-kept.

If you are in need of a new place to walk, run, bike or ride your horse, check out the El Dorado Trail!

A Special Project

2009-07-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Placerville Art on Parade: Five Years

For the past several weeks, I have been working on a special project—a book! The book is called Placerville Art on Parade: Five Years and is a compilation of my photographs of the 149 works of art created for Art on Parade over the last five years.

The photo above shows the cover of the book. I created the book using the publishing program from the online publishing company, Blurb. You can view the book (and order one too!) by clicking on the link below, right. When you get to that page, you can actually go inside the book and see pages.

In addition to the book, there will be a poster, bookmarks, and note cards coming soon. If you are interested in any of those items, contact me directly via email at whrstudios55-artonparade@yahoo.com.

This is a fundraiser for Art on Parade: I'm donating all profits from this book to Art on Parade. I'm hoping it will help us continue Placerville Art on Parade next year and for years to come!

I talked about this year's Banners on Parade a few posts ago. There are brochures for a walking tour at various businesses downtown or you can go to the PDA website and see pictures of the 2009 banners.

A New YouTube Video

Some of you have seen previous YouTube videos that I have done. I recently completed one that shows photos and videos of the 2009 Wagon Train and Founder's Day event that took place in June in Placerville. You can click here to see the video.

Placerville ArtWalk in July

Don't forget to put July 18th, 5-9 pm on your calendar! That's the evening of the monthly Placerville ArtWalk. It will also be a special evening for Gold Country Artists Gallery: we will be celebrating our 17th anniversary that night. Hope you can come and help us celebrate!

The Month of June

2009-06-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've always liked the month of June. It's my birthday month, but it has always also been a transition month of some kind for me. It's the real transition from spring to summer, the transition month from one age to another, etc. This one has been an interesting one too!

More on the Iphone

A couple of posts back I mentioned that I got and iphone and I wanted to give you an update on that experience. What an incredible phone! I am still learning about it and am trying to use it as much as I can so I can learn more about it. There was just an upgrade to the 3.0 operating system for the iphone which I downloaded the other night and it adds even more great stuff.

I'm finding that I especially like the GPS capability: you can use the phone to map where you are and get directions (map and text) to where you want to go. In the new 3.0, they have added a slick "Voice Memos" app that will be very useful. I also really like it for reading books. I used my Palm PDA to read books and am now using the iphone—the iphone is better since the screen automatically adjusts to the ambient light and becomes brighter or dimmer as needed (and it's great for reading books in bed before you go to sleep).

I also love the sleek design of the iphone—it just feels good in your hand. Its surface is smooth and it's weight is just right. I did get a screen protector from Zagg and a skin for the back from Gelaskins to protect front and back from scratches. I also find that I enjoy the little touches that they included in the operating system of the phone—like having a text message button right in the contact list, being able to end one call and answer another or put one call on hold and answer another very quickly.

Anyway, it's a great phone and highly recommended!

Books I've Read or am Reading

I've always got several books loaded on my iphone and have read several over the past couple of months that I have really enjoyed. Right now, I'm hooked on David Baldacci books and am reading the second of his four-book King & Maxwell series (Split Second, Hour Game, Simple Genius, First Family). Great books all!

I'm also hooked on anything by Clive Cussler and James Patterson. I read Cussler's Dark Watch most recently and Patterson's 8th Confession, along with The Whole Truth (another by David Baldacci)—Deb is reading this one now and loves it. I highly recommend any of them.

Wagon Train/Founder's Day

On Saturday, June 19th, there was a great event called Placerville Founder's Day and Wagon Train. This year, it was the 155th birthday of Placerville and the 60th anniversary of the Wagon Train. The whole city was decked out and ready to celebrate! The Wagon Train left Zephyr Cove (on the southeast shore of Lake Tahoe) and made its way over Echo Summit to Placerville over the week preceeding the event in Placerville.

There was a lot going on all over Placerville that day, but especially downtown on Main Street. The Wagon Train came through Main Street about 2:30 pm or so and there were about 13 or so wagons and lots of horses (pulling the wagons and individual horses being ridden throughout).

I really enjoyed just being downtown and taking LOTS of pictures (like the one on the left, above).

Trip to Santa Cruz

On the day after the Founder's Day/Wagon Train, we went to the Santa Cruz area to visit Deb's sister Jeton and her daughter Jeni and to just be in the area for a few days. Santa Cruz is about 200 miles from Placerville, so it's not a bad trip. We drove directly to the coast and took Highway 1 south to Santa Cruz. For the majority of the 3 days we were there, it was overcast but still beautiful.

We love the ocean and miss being closer sometimes. We got there Sunday afternoon and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants there, The Crow's Nest (highly recommended). On Monday, we drove south to the Monterey/Carmel area and had lunch at the California Market Restaurant at the Highlands Inn.

The pic above is of one of the cypress trees in Carmel on the day we were there. On our way home from Carmel, we drove the 17-Mile Drive past Pebble Beach and the beautiful coastline along that area. One of my favorite stops there is "The Lone Cypress" whose image, I found out, is actually trademarked by Pebble Beach!

I got to spend a little time in one of my favorite all-time bookstores—Bookshop Santa Cruz. While at the coast, I took lots of pics and a few movies (mainly for the sound of the ocean!). One of the pics I took along the Santa Cruz coastline is shown at the top of this post.

Yard Sales

I've decided to have a bunch of yard sales this summer to help get rid of some of the "stuff" we have. The first one is tomorrow and Sunday (6/20 & 21) and I've got lots of old stuff (frames, books, collectibles, household items) that I will be selling. I want to get my garage and storage shed cleaned out by the end of the summer. Seems like the more space you have, the more "stuff" you have!

Gold Country Artists Gallery

I have quite a bit of new work at Gold Country this month. Here's the link to my page on the GCA website --> Bill's page on the GCA website. Check out my work; there is some from the car shows last month and one that I did of the stagecoach (it gives rides on every Third Saturday downtown).

I hope to have more new ones at the Gallery in July of the trip to Santa Cruz and from Founder's Day/Wagon Train.

Hope you have a great summer!

Happenings in May

2009-05-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Here it is the last day of May and I'm trying to remember what the heck happened this month! There were some great thunderheads in the mountains during the month and I did get a few pics of those (like the one shown above).

Census Job Update

My stint as a Census Crew Leader ended this past week. I had a great crew and our Address Canvassing Quality Control, for the most part, went pretty smoothly. It was an incredibly busy month that right now seems like a blur! I'm hoping to have another job with the census in late summer or fall, if I get selected.

Car Shows

A lover of car shows am I and the month of May was a great "car show" month—except the ones I am talking about were all on the same day! On May 17, the Sacramento Shriner's Hospital held their annual Concours d'Elegance at Mather Field in Sacramento and on the same day was the annual Hangtown Car Show in Placerville.

I always enjoy any Concours as the cars displayed are always incredibly beautiful. I got to the show early and wandered around, camera at the ready! A friend of mine was showing his just-restored 53 Jaguar for the first time (that's it on the left) and it was a beauty! I took lots of pics of many of the wonderful cars there (they were pieces of art!). I'm putting a few of my pics from the Concours on my GCA web page pretty soon, so check it out when you can.

The Hangtown Car Show on Placerville's Historic Main Street was the biggest car show I have ever seen in Placerville! I left the Concours and drove directly to Placerville and took lots of pics there too (mostly for the PDA). The picture here is one I took from the Cary House Hotel balcony looking east on Main Street—there had to be over 200 cars on the street that day. Between the Concours and the Hangtown Car Show, it was old car-lover's heaven!

Banners on Parade

For the fifth year, the Placerville Art on Parade project is in full swing. This year, as in the past two years, the art items that will be displayed in Placerville's Historic Main Street district will be banners. I wrote about this in my March blog, so I won't bore you with all that again.

The main thing that happened in May was the judging of the finished banners on May 27 at our local community college. We had two local art instructors as judges and there were 34 banners that were judged. I was there to take pictures of all the banners for the Banners on Parade brochure. The one to the left is called "Butterflies & a Ladybug" by James Stewart and is one of my favorites!

As always, I was thrilled with the quality of the banners and their wonderful renditions of local scenes. If you are around Placerville this summer, make sure to pick up one of the brochures and take the walking tour to see all the delightful banners.

Busy Summer

Summertime in Placerville is a busy time, what with all the activities downtown. The two big events in June are the Wagon Train & Founder's Day Street Faire (June 13) and the Bell Tower Brewfest (June 27). I always enjoy the events and take lots of pictures for the Placerville Downtown Association. Check out the Placerville Downtown Association website. The banners will also be displayed soon on the PDA website.

That's it for now. Hope you have a good summer!

An April Flyby

2009-04-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Strange title, I know, but April has just flown by (or did I flyby April?)! I have been so busy with the Census job that I've been hardly able to breathe.

Census Job Update

During the first full week of April, I trained (along with an assistant) 17 Address Canvassing Quality Control Listers. Then, they actully started work on April 13 and it was like a tornado through the first week, a minor hurricane during the 2nd week and a hearty breeze this past week. All of the folks I trained are doing their thing and doing a good job at it too!

iPhone

I felt a need for speed, so to speak, and decided to get a new Apple iPhone—and am I ever glad I did! Way back in 1996 when the first Palm PDAs came out, I bought one and have had one ever since to keep track of my calendar, contacts, and I have used it to read over 100 books (it has a great backlight).

To me, the Apple iphone is the next logical step as it has basically everything but the kitchen sink in it. It's also my first foray into anything "Apple" and I must say I am really enjoying it. If you are interested in finding out about the latest iPhone, check out the Apple website—there is a great video that shows it in all its glory.

Last Day of the Month

So, here it is the last day of April and I realized I had not added anything to this blog this month. So, I just had to do this quick one. Hopefully, I'll have a bit more time next month to be better!

March Notes

2009-03-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

This has been a busy census month for me and I have been one of two Featured Artists at Gold Country Artists Gallery this month. The work above is one of my experimental pieces called Alternate Universe.

New Job: Census Crew Leader

Since last November (2008), I have been a Recruiting Assistant for the 2010 Census. During the time from November through the end of February, I tested over 400 people in the Placerville area (and another 80 or so in the Sacramento area). It was a great experience and I got to meet a lot of fine people.

As the testing phase wound down, I was offered the chance to switch over to a new job—that of Crew Leader for a Lister Quality Control team in the Placerville area.

As you can imagine, the run-up to the actual census month (April 2010) requires a lot of preparation. One of those tasks is to verify addresses of all places where people live so that when the census forms go out, they will go to the right places. To do that requires two teams of people in every area of the United States and is a massive effort. There are production listers that go out and do the initial address-checking. When they finish, a team of quality control listers go out and check their work—I'm heading up one of those teams (17 people).

I went through the training for that during 5 days in mid-March and have been preparing for to train my crew starting on April 3 and continuing during the week of April 6. Then on April 13, crews will start the QC process culminating, hopefully, in an accurate list of all addresses in the US. So, a lot of my time has been spent getting ready for this effort which will go on over the next 2-3 months or so. I'll keep you posted as to how it is going as it happens.

Featured Artist at GCA

During the month of March, I was one of two featured artists at Gold Country Artists Gallery. I created about a dozen new works for the show. It started on March 2 and goes through April 5. most of my new work is images of Lake Tahoe from a day spent there in late January (see previous post in this blog). The picture on the left is the window at the Gallery this month that features my work.

It's been a fun experience to have lots of my work highlighted at the Gallery and I've enjoyed it.

I've also been trying out new programs to create Photographic Art and will tell you more about them as time goes on and I learn more about them.

You can go to my page at the GCA website by going here.

Placerville Art on Parade

Our Placerville Art on Parade committee received all the entries for the 2009 Banners on Parade and there are 35 entries this year! This is the fifth year and again, we are doing 30"x60" canvas banners. Artists apply to do one of the banners and we supply the canvas. They will finish them by late May and all of them will be judged on May 27. I can't wait for them to be done and am really jazzed by the wonderful canvasses that will go up downtown in early June. You can see 2008's Banners on Parade pictures at the Placerville Downtown Association website (all of the other years—2005-2007—are on the website too). I'll be taking the pictures of the banners this year (as they are being judged) for use in the brochure and on the PDA website.

As we head into the Spring weather, I hope life is good where you are!

February's Goings On

2009-02-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

This has been quite a month. I haven't done an entry to this blog as I have been so darn busy with other things! And birthdays... It was Joey's birthday on the 7th and Jordan's birthday on the 21st, so we had a couple family celebrations along the way too.

Placerville Art Walk

We have had an event downtown for years on the 3rd Saturday of each month where some of the galleries and businesses stay open from 6-9 pm and serve munchies and some have wine and such and live music sometimes. It's just been called "Third Saturday" for a long time.

Our Arts Council (El Dorado Arts Council) is spearheading an effort to enliven and enhance 3rd Saturday and to that end there was a committee formed (I'm a member) and we have been working on the "new and improved" (and renamed) Placerville Art Walk. Gold Country Artists Gallery is one of the major sponsors, along with the City of Placerville, Placerville Downtown Association and others. It will really get going once the weather gets nicer (April-May) with music, more promotion, and (hopefully) more businesses staying open for the event each month. I'll keep you posted about it.

Banners on Parade 2009

As in the past 4 years, we are having art downtown from June through September. The overall effort is named Art on Parade, with banners being the types of art this year (and over the past two years). The application information is out now to people who might be interested. Last year we had 30 banners up in the downtown area. The banners are 30"w x 60"h and each is hand-painted by an artist.

My main job with this effort has been to be the photographer of the banners once they are completed. The photographs are then used for the brochure and other items that we produce. You can see 2008 banners on the PDA website (and previous year's Art on Parade items).

The pic above on the left (Alchemy by Tracy Lewis) is one from last year's Banners on Parade and one of my favorites.

Flower Power

Nope, you aren't having a 60's flashback—I did say "Flower Power"! We have an effort in Placerville by some folks to have hanging flower baskets on all the light poles downtown, and this year we will have 22 of them hanging in the downtown area thanks to a very successful fundraiser last year.

The effort started with 4 baskets in 2007 and 8 baskets in 2008. After the fundraiser last year we had enough money to fund 14 more baskets for a total of 22 this year! We're planning another fundraiser for May 1 and hope to raise more money for more baskets.

The pic on the left is one I took of the baskets hanging on the Bell Tower in downtown Placerville last summer.

As in past years, the baskets will go up on Earth Day, April 22. And how beautiful they are!

Joey & Jordan's Birthday

Our nephew and niece celebrated their birthdays this month. Joey was 3 on February 7 and Jordan was 6 on February 21. For Joey's birthday, we went to the Folsom Zoo and had a picnic outside; for Jordan's birthday, we tried to get into a Chucky Cheese in Sacramento, but it was so darn busy we just gave up and went to a Round Table Pizza in Cameron Park and had her party there.

Here are two pics from their birthdays: Joey on the left and Jordan on the right on their special days.

Getting Ready for March

Finally, I'm working on some photographs that I took in January at Tahoe (see my previous post on this blog) for my Featured Artist stint at Gold Country Artists Gallery in March. I, along with Valerie Bye, will be one of the Featured Artists for the entire month at the Gallery. So, I'm madly working on a lot of new pics from the mountains (mostly Tahoe) for that show. I'll have more to put up here from my show pretty soon. You can also always see my work on my Gold Country Artists Gallery webpage.

Finally

Census stuff... I have been doing my "Recruiting Assistant thing" for the U.S. Census Bureau and so far have tested almost 400 people in the Placerville area. I only have two more weeks that I will be doing testing, then I will be going into training for a Crew Leader position—once I find out what that is all about, I'll let you know!

That's it for now!

Lake Tahoe in Late January

2009-01-31T06:30:00.001-08:00

Took a drive to and around Lake Tahoe a couple days ago and it was (as usual) incredibly gorgeous! We love to drive to the lake (about 60 miles away) and then drive the 70 miles around.

Emerald Bay

That picture at the top is of Emerald Bay taken on 1/29/09 and as you can see, there is very little snow. It was perhaps 45° that day and the bay was calm and its usual beautiful blue. There are three areas you can stop along the road to view the bay and we stopped at all three. It's one of our favorite stops along the trip around the lake.

The beauty doesn't only include the lake, either. Across the road from the stop along the north side of the bay are some wonderful rock outcroppings and since there was very little snow, the vegetation on the slope showed some wonderful colors that lead right up to that gorgeous blue sky.

Over the years, I have taken many, many pictures of the Emerald Bay area and never get tired of it. Just across the road from Emerald Bay is a trail that I haven't taken yet, but want to when the weather gets warmer so that I can get some pics from a higher vantage point.

West Shore

We continued our drive north along the west shore and got to the point near Tahoe City where the road goes right along the lake. I was able to stop and walk down to the water's edge and get some pictures, one of which is shown below.

There was a little bit of a breeze on the lake, so there were some small whitecaps lapping the shore. But, it wasn't too cold and there was very little snow for January 29!

North Shore

We continued our drive around the lake through Tahoe City on the north shore, then through Incline Village and into Nevada. Along the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe, there is a rest stop that also has some trails around it and some wonderful vantage points for photographs.

I took this picture at that location and with the snow-capped mountains, the reflections into the lake are exquisite! I spent quite a bit of time taking pictures at this location and it was gorgeous!

East Shore and South Shore

We continued south along the east shore of Lake Tahoe and had lunch at one of our favorite places, the Zephyr Cove resort near South Shore. We usually make that a destination when we want to have lunch somewhere around the lake.

After lunch, we drove through the casino area and back into California past the redone downtown area. We found a turnoff that took us closer to the lake and found a beach where we could park and walk out onto the snow/ice of the lake itself. I took this picture looking towards the north shore.

The lake was very low and I could walk out for quite a ways on the snow/ice before I got nervous. Again, the beautiful snow-capped mountains to the north just added to the overall beauty of the place that day.

Home Again

From the south shore of Lake Tahoe, we got back to the beginning of the loop around the lake and made for home. What a great day!

PS Tryout of my new camera

This short day-trip was sort of a "shake-down" for my new pocket camera, the Canon PowerShot SD990 IS Digital Elph. I got it just before Christmas and had used it but hadn't really tried it out as my major-use camera for a day. I love it! For a camera that I can put in my pocket, it takes 14.7 mega pixel crystal-clear images, wide-angle shots, and movies.

I highly recommend any of the Canon cameras and know that if you try one, you won't be disappointed!

January's Doings

2009-01-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Been so busy this month since my last post that I just have lost track of time, among other things.

My laptop is being repaired and I'm using my PC (no big deal—it works fine!), I've been doing census testing, it was Deb's birthday on the 13th, it was Third Saturday at the Gallery on the 17th, and it was "Barack's 1st Day" yesterday! What a month so far!

Deb's Birthday

It was Deb's 58th birthday on January 13. The pic at the upper-left is of Criesta and Deb. I was busy with census testing the Friday and Saturday before, so Criesta basically planned Deb's birthday party, cooked us a great meal and baked a cake for Deb. We celebrated it on Sunday, January 11 at our house with Criesta, TJ, the kids, and Elizabeth.

To continue the celebration, Deb, Elizabeth and I went to see the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an exceptionally poignant and interesting film based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story. I recommend it—it's beautifully filmed and all the cast members are great. After the movie we went to dinner.

Then, on Tuesday, just before a meeting that Elizabeth and I needed to attend, we went to a new Mexican (Cascada) restaurant that we really enjoy on Main Street. So, Deb's birthday celebration turned into a multi-day event!

Third Saturday

On the Third Saturday of every month, the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery)

participates in the Third Saturday Art Walk on Main Street in downtown Placerville. Usually, the galleries and some of the businesses are open for extended hours (6-9 pm) and may have special things going on.

On this past Third Saturday, we had our two featured artists at the Gallery and we had food, wine and live music. You can see more about this at the Gallery blog. I always enjoy Third Saturday and talking with people that come into the gallery and the other artists that are working that evening.

The pic at the right is Caroll Tuttle and Chris Teter playing light jazz at the Gallery on Third Saturday.

Barack's 1st Day

What an exciting day it was yesterday with our new President being sworn in! I watched the swearing-in and since Deb was working, I recorded the whole day on our DVR so Deb could see the "Reader's Digest condensed version" of the day's events after she got home. We had also recorded and watched the concert "We Are One" on Sunday and enjoyed that immensely.

We are both thrilled with our new President and wish him and his family the very best and hope he can help bring the country to a better place.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

It's a new year (yet AGAIN!) and as usual, I just can't help but notice how fast the last one went. Then I think about all I want to do this year and how fast it will probably go too! Actually, I enjoy the new year as it is a chance to assess things from the past year and figure out what I want to do this year. And, I want to do a lot this year!

Wrapping Up Christmas

Terrible pun, I know, but I wanted to get a picture of my daughter Kelly (that's Will standing behind Kelly) in this and catch up the remaining Christmas celebration we had. Kelly and Will were able to come to our house on Saturday the 27th of December and we had our Christmas with them then.

Kelly started a tradition several years ago of making Christmas cookies for everyone as part of her Christmas presents to everyone. We always look forward to Kelly's Christmas Cookies. For the last couple of years, she has had help from her step-daughters, Brittany and Bridget, and they have pretty much taken over the task. The cookies are soooooooo good!

Kelly and Will were here, along with Deb, me and her Mom (Elizabeth), plus TJ, Criesta and the kids (that's Deb & Joey in the picture to the left). We spent the day talking and opening presents and had a lot of fun. Oh, and Jordan told Kelly that she had to wear the tiara for the day!

Celebrating New Year's

Big party animals that we are (NOT!), we went to an early dinner—more like a lunch, really—and were home to watch movies before it even got dark. All of us have had colds, so none of us made it until midnight. New Year's has never been a big event for us, so we didn't really plan on doing much and didn't!

The New Year

2009—who can even believe it? I just get used to writing one year and they go and change it on me and I have to re-learn it all over again!

I hope some of you out there who got our Christmas letter are and will be following this as it is my way of keeping in touch with folks.

Lots to do and lots to learn... Now if I can just get rid of this damn cold!

Speaking of cold, I just got this from a friend back in the Buffalo area and had to put it in this as it gave me a good chuckle:

A Winter Statistic

98% of Americans say 'OH SHIT' before going in the ditch on a slippery road.

The other 2% are from Buffalo, NY, and they say, 'Hold my beer and watch this.'

Hope you got a kick out of that too!

Couple of Days After

2008-12-27T07:35:00.000-08:00

The big day finally arrived and between Christmas Eve (the picture of our tree on Christmas Eve is to the left) and Christmas Day, it was a whole lot of fun—especially for the kids!

Christmas Eve

Traditionally, for us, Christmas Eve consists of a gathering of Deb's family and my daughter Kelly and her husband Will at our house to have dinner and just enjoy. Will and Kelly couldn't make it on Christmas Eve this year (they came to our house later in the week), so it was just TJ, Criesta and their kids Jordan and Joey, Deb and me and Elizabeth (and, of course, the cats).

Joey got a kick out of one of our house decorations that plays music ("Jingle Bells") when you pinch its' hand and you can see in this picture how "jazzed" he was! Most of what Joey wanted to do that evening was play with the "Jingle Bells doll." Deb had made her famous turkey chili and we all enjoyed that!

The kids got to open one present each and Criesta read "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

Needless to say, by the end of the evening, we were all jingled out! TJ, Criesta and the kids left to go home so Santa could come to their house and we got ready for the "big day."

Christmas Day

Both of us were up early on Christmas Day (can't get the "kids" out of us!)—not so much to open presents or anything like that, but just to enjoy the "calm before the storm" and revel in the fact that it was Christmas! It was a cold and stormy day here, perfect for Christmas (all that was missing was snow, which we actually had on Christmas night).

Deb had made all kinds of goodies for the day and was just glad that the day was finally here so she could rest (well, sort of!). TJ, Criesta and the kids got to our house about 10:30 am and the festivities really began! The real kids (Joey & Jordan) were, well... to say the least, excited!

We finally (by their clock) got to the presents and of course, had the kids open theirs first so they could play while the adults opened their presents later. That worked... sort of.

Kids being kids, they were anxious to get all their presents open and wondered where all the rest of them were when they were done! They helped us open our presents too.

The kids mostly got toys and a few clothes. Bill had made a lot of photo-type gifts for everyone: pens, coasters, framed photos, bookmarks, etc., all the pics being from the group of pictures he chose for the Christmas letter. Deb had been preparing for the day for several days and was just glad it was finally here.

All in all, it was a great day. It was a little much for the kids and they were totally wired and got even more so as the day progressed! We had a great dinner, watched some videos and just were together for the day.

The Day After

Hard to believe... All the preparation and it's done so quickly. We had small snow and ice storm on Christmas night and the roads were pretty slippery the day after Christmas.

Deb and I took the day after Christmas to go and see a movie (Valkyrie), which we really enjoyed. With lots of leftovers from Christmas day, we didn't go out for dinner—just came home and had some of the great food Deb had made for Christmas.

We hope all our friends and family out there had a great Christmas and I'll post more in a few days before the new year (2009!) starts it all anew again!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter is Done!

2008-12-20T07:24:00.000-08:00

Once I got on a roll, it was a piece of cake! The Christmas letter is done and I have them all printed out and ready to send to some folks and have made a digitized (pdf) file to send to others. Also, I put images of the two pages of the letters on the web (Picasa) for anyone to view: page one of the Christmas letter is here and page two of the Christmas letter is here

I did it a different way this year: I created it totally in Photoshop so that it was much easier to do and I could easily include more pictures. For those that read it and look closely at the background, I put a large photo of snow-covered pines in the background (barely visible) that's one I took in the Sierra a few years ago and one of my favorites. You can see it on my web page at the Gold Country Artists Gallery website

Our Christmas Tree

The tree is up and it looks gorgeous. Deb and her Mom do a great job decorating it. For several years now, we have been collecting the ornaments put out by The White House Historical Association (yes, that White House). The pic at the top of this blog shows the 2008 ornament and it is spectacular!

More Coming...

I'll add more about our Christmas later this week. I still have a lot to do this week and just hope I can get it all done!

Building Our Christmas Letter

2008-12-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

I've just started our annual Christmas letter (I've already had people asking me about it: "When is it coming?"). I really enjoy creating the letter, but these last couple of years it has been mid-December or later before I have it finished. So, people get it very close to Christmas.

What's the Process?

The first thing I do is go back through all my archived photos of family that I have taken this year, which is no small task! So far, I have 12 DVD's worth of photos and another group that I haven't archived yet.

I take several thousand photos a year: some of them are family, some are for my business (WHRstudios) and for the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery), some are of family, and some are just for the helluvit.

I try to pick out the photos of family (and a few other items) that I like a lot and feel that I can build our yearly "story" around. I also have a binder with all of our past Christmas letters that I peruse to get the flavor of what I have done before.

Then, I use the photos I have chosen to build the letter.

New This Year

What will be new for this one is that I have a new blog space (this one that you are reading) so that readers of our Christmas letter can read more if they so choose (the link to this blog space will be in the letter). I like this idea because I can continue to sort of "add" to the letter through this blog.

I started this blog because I wanted a way to keep in touch with folks (albeit one-sided). I realized that those of you who read the Christmas letter are the same folks I have aimed this blog at—you are all people I want to stay in touch with in this crazy world (and it's even crazier this year!).

Yet Another Blog

If you haven't investigated blogs, I recommend it. There are so many out there—I regularly skim about 80 blogs for a total of probably 4-500 entries each week (I don't read that many, just the ones that peak my interest). Ones I like to read have to do with photography, blogs, science, the new administration coming in January, NPR, and many others.

Also, there is another blog that I created for the Gallery. That's one that I attempt to update once a week (along with this one, when I can).

And So It Goes...

So, the Christmas letter is in process and will be late in getting to everyone. And some I will send via email as a pdf file to save time and postage. Stay tuned for more info as I create our Christmas letter and get it on its way!

We're also decorating our Christmas tree (and that's another story—maybe another blog later this week!). The photo at the top of this tale is one of our beloved ornaments from our first Christmas together after we were married in 1975.

Whatever you are doing right now, please be safe out there...

More About 2010 Census Job

2008-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

My last couple of weeks has been taken up a lot with the 2010 Census job. I have been learning about the new job, going around to various locations in Placerville locating facilities we can use for testing, and distributing flyers and brochures.

I have also helped in a couple of testing sessions. The testing process from my point of view makes for some pretty busy days. Of course, I'm just learning about how to facilitate the testing of potential census-takers so I'm giving myself some slack. Luckily, I have good, knowledgeable folks who are helping me!

It seems that folks who come in to the testing sessions to fill out the application and take the test are very positive about the potential for a good part-time job—and that makes my job as the person administering the test easier.

Anyone interested in applying for one of the part-time jobs can find out more information online or you can call 1-866-861-2010.

The website actually has forms that you can download and fill out before you come to the testing site and it has practice tests to help you prepare for what the actual test is like. People coming to take the test also need to make sure they have two forms of identification—you can see what those forms of ID need to be in one of the links below. Here are a few links:

As time goes by, I'll keep you posted as to my experience doing this job as a Recruiting Assistant for the 2010 Census.

A New Job

2008-11-22T09:19:00.000-08:00

There has been no information added to this blog in awhile because I have been engrossed in coming up to speed in a new job. It's somewhat of a long story, so here it is.

A Coincidental Happening

I happened to be in the Gallery (Gold Country Artists Gallery) working one day in August when a lady came in handing out fliers for a job as a Recruiting Assistant for the 2010 Census. I spread the word around to folks who I thought might be interested and decided to call and arrange to fill out the application and take the test myself.

Taking the Test

I was scheduled to take the test on 9/18 and did. I filled out the application and took the test (25 questions in 30 minutes). The test was not actually easy. It's designed to test your clerical skills, reading, number skills, organizational skills and how you interpret information and evaluate alternatives. I took it and did well enough and thought that maybe they might call me.

The Offer and the Taking

The offer came over the phone on November 5. If I wanted a job as Recruiting Assistant for the 2010 Census for the Placerville area, the job was mine for the taking. So, I accepted!

A Digression

I have been working for the Post Office for about a year and a half (see a previous post about that). But what I have found is that the job is too sporadic and so very hard on my knees that I don't think I could last much longer at it anyway. And, I won't miss working at the Post Office during the Holiday season! My last days at the Post Office will be the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The Training

I was scheduled for training for the Recruiting Assistant job for three days during the week of November 10 (Wednesday, Thursday & Friday of that week) in Citrus Heights (a suburb of Sacramento). The job pays at an hourly rate and pays for mileage, so I got paid for the trips to and from the training. I got to know the 7 other people in the class and, of course, my new boss (who was giving the training). By the end of the three days, we were all ready to "hit the ground running".

What the Job is All About

At this stage, you might be wondering what this new job I have is all about. (Even if you're not, I'll tell you anyway!) Recruiting Assistants

promote census jobs
find applicants for census jobs
work in communities with local organizations that agree to help find people to work for the census
locate, set up, and run test sessions for job applicants (census takers, crew leaders, crew leader assistants)
attempt to get donated space for testing and training
work with the Local Census Office (mine is in Stockton, CA)

My First Week

This first week has been one of trying to get organized, going around to different local locations to try and find facilities that we can use for testing, and getting the word out to local people that I know about the potential for good-paying part-time jobs. I've lined up a few testing sites and am getting use to the new job.

My Con*Census*

I like working on my own and trying to figure out the best way to do things, so I think I will like this part-time job fine. I will be assisting in some testing in early December in preparation for running my own testing in this area. There's a lot to learn and, as with anytime that you work for someone (anyone, including the U.S. Census Bureau), lots of red tape and procedures to learn about and attempt to do correctly.

People have been very receptive to requests and, with our economy the way it is right now, people are interested in the potential for good-paying part-time work. I have also talked with several people who have participated in the 2000 Census and they really enjoyed the work. I'm hopeful that as I get into the job, I will too. So far, I like it—but I've got a lot to learn.

Where From Here

The Census 2010 is coming. The official date of it is April 1, 2010, about one and a half years away from right now. The government is getting geared up for it (it's been done every 10 years since 1790 and when you know how important it is, it feels like you are doing something good. Much gets determined by the census results and it feels good to be a part of it.

If you want to find out more for yourself about the census or potential temporary census jobs in your area, you can call 1-866-861-2010 or go to the official Census 2010 website.

I'll keep you posted every now and then about my own progress and experience with this job. Meanwhile, stay sane out there and hope you are OK in your own economic world!

Family Thoughts on Veteran's Day

2008-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

I've been working on an old photograph of my Dad taken in July, 1958, less than two months before he passed away at the age of 52. I found the picture a couple months back and have it now in my office.

My Dad & Veteran's Day

Today being Veteran's Day, I got to thinking about my Dad and his time in the U.S. Army from 1942-1945 during WWII. He was about 36 (thirty-six!) when he joined and went off to basic training in Arkansas in early '42. Being a lawyer, his talents were put to use as an investigator for the Manhattan Project and he was based in New York City. From what little I know about his service years, he would go out to ships anchored near NYC and interview scientists coming to the U.S.—I need to try to find out more about that.

Growing up in a small town back east (Akron, NY) in the 1950's, I knew many of my Dad's friends who served in WWII and they all seemed to have a great strength about them.

My Uncle Dutch and Veteran's Day

Then, there was my Mom's brother, Ken (aka "Dutch"), who was killed in March of 1945 in Germany. I was born after he died, so I did not know him—but I heard many stories and from what I heard, he was a pretty good guy. I have pictures, some of his letters, and the telegram sent by the War Department notifying my Grandparents of his death. I wish I had known him.

The picture on the right is of my Dad and my Uncle Dutch taken in November, 1942.

My Brother Bob and Veteran's Day

My half-brother, Bob, was career Army and retired as a Colonel. He was stationed in many parts of the world and a really smart math guy. I heard a story once that he taught some of the astronauts. He was stationed in many parts of the world and although I didn't get to know or see him very much, I was always proud of him for his service.

The last time I saw Bob, he was suffering from bone cancer (died in 1995) and he was showing me his "Curta." I had never heard of a Curta, which is a pocket mechanical calculator. Ahhhhh, but that's another story...

The picture on the left was taken in June, 1964, during one of Bob's "home on leave" times. I always looked forward to his leaves with great anticipation!

Me and Veteran's Day

My own three years, eleven months and 22 days in the USAF in the early 1970's was relatively uneventful (compared to my Dad, uncle & brother).

I was a Telecommunications System Controller stationed at the USAF Satellite Test Center in Sunnyvale, CA, for almost my entire stint in the service. I was lucky—it was the Viet Nam war and I didn't have to go there. The service, for me, was a turning point in my life in many ways and it lead to electronics and my job/career with Hewlett-Packard.

That picture of a MUCH-younger me was taken in 1970 and sitting next to me is another great veteran and uncle, Bob Thompson.

Talk to a Veteran

This is mainly a salute to the Veterans in my family who served during the last century—this is my way of honoring them, and, by inference, all who serve or have served.

Even though you may not read this on Veteran's Day, please say hello to and if you are of a mind to, thank a Veteran or an active military person the next time you meet one.

Fall Colors

2008-10-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

Been a busy month. I finished up the Post Office gig for the week and it took a few days to recuperate from that! It is a beautiful Fall here and I did get to go to the high country for a day taking pictures. I drove east from where we live about an hour up into the mountains to one of my favorite places—Hope Valley.

Colors of Fall

The colors here are nowhere near as vibrant as the Fall colors back east, but they still are a treat for us. In the high country, you see mostly yellows as the Aspens turn. Since I was looking for color, I just kept driving until I found the most vibrant and that turned out to be around the east end of the valley, near the Nevada border.

Markleeville

I took the picture above along the east fork of the Carson River east of Markleeville. I drove to that spot first as I remember it from previous years as being really beautiful—and it didn't disappoint! The river was low (as most are this time of the year) and the colors were fine along the river. Here's another view along the same portion of the river.

Markleeville is a small Alpine County town (it is also the county seat) that is very accessible in the summer and fall months, but can be a challenge to get to sometimes in winter! It has some wonderful little restaurants and is very picturesque.

Peace Along the River

I have been going to this area for several years and am always looking for new places to photograph and I found a great one this time. As I was driving west, back from Markleeville, I saw a small, narrow road going off

to the right along the west fork of the Carson River. I drove down it a ways and parked. I walked the short distance to the river with my camera and it was magnificent. Low water, lots of rocks and lots of overhanging yellow and gold-leafed trees made it a magical place.

I spent quite a bit of time there just listening to the sound of the river and watching the light. I love the "quality of light" this time of year. The angle of the sun makes for some great photographic opportunities. The picture to the left is one of the many I took along that portion of the river that day—when I look at it, it puts me right back there!

The colors change up in the high country first, then gradually make their way down the hill. We have lots of color around Placerville and actually have more reds with the Japanese Maple and Chinese Pistachio trees. But I still love to go to the high country to get photographs there—it's a great excuse to just "be there."

Photoshop CS4

I've also been playing with the latest upgrade to Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop CS4 (Creative Suite 4). It has a lot of new features that I am excited to learn about. Photoshop is, by far, one of the greatest tools I have ever used on a computer. I've used both the "big" version of Photoshop (the aforementioned Photoshop CS version) and the "little" version of Photoshop (now Photoshop Elements 7) and both are just great and your needs determine which one you choose to use. Great stuff—download a trial version and try one of them out yourself!

Working Outside

I have one word for you: ACORNS! I have never seen as many acorns from our oak trees as there have been this year! We have lived here for 25 years and it seems like the amount of acorns this year equals all of the acorns that have ever fallen in all the past years. You take your life in your hands when you walk under the oak trees this time of year (and especially this year!).

Of course, when you have oak trees, you also have leaves—gazillions of leaves. Not all the leaves have fallen yet, so we haven't raked them all yet. Luckily, I've had the help of my brother-in-law (Barth) and my nephew (TJ) to help saw up dead limbs and rake some of the leaves and acorns. I love working outside every fall, but the amount of leaves is sometimes staggering!

Halloween

And today is Halloween. Hard to believe October is done and the election is just a few days away (make sure you vote!). Halloween in Placerville is always fun with a HUGE amount of kids and parents strolling downtown between 4-6 pm and the merchants giving away treats. Not only is it a great photographic opportunity, but also it just fun watching the kids in their costumes (and even some parents). The photo at left shows a rainy Halloween (much like tonight might be) on Main Street in downtown Placerville.

Hope you have a safe and happy Halloween!

A Lost Week

2008-10-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Working at the Post Office

This week has been a "lost week" for me in that I have been working at my part-time post office job all week. The way this job works is that when the regular carrier wants a day off (or a week, in this case), I am first in line to work for him if I can. Well, this week he wanted off and I can see why!

A Big Hose

Think of working at the post office as being under a gigantic hose with "stuff" always coming out of it—stuff in the nature of letters, magazines, junk-mail (lots of junk mail, as you probably know from your own mail) and of course political mailings this time of year. Then think of no one ever shutting off the spicket to all this "stuff"!

Whenever there is a holiday on a Monday, the Tuesday after that is hellish. Next time there is a Monday holiday, see what time your mail comes—I'll bet it is late! I know I sure delivered it later than I normally do!

The Way it Works

It really is amazing how it all works. I have been astounded to find out how incredibly hard working at the post office really is, how great most of the people who work at the post office really are and what an incredibly difficult job they do day in and day out.

If you are a rural carrier like I am (actually, a substitute rural carrier), you get to the post office in the morning and there are flats (things larger than a typical letter, like magazines, fliers, large envelopes, etc.) and letters waiting for you. In my case, there are anywhere from 3-10 large "tubs" of flats and 4-10 trays of letters. I put all of that mail into the slots in cases (called casing the mail—I have almost 600 slots in the cases that I do). Some of the items in the tubs are sorted into the order that you deliver the mail (route order) and some not, but all of the letters (thank God!) are sorted in route order. I spend anywhere from 3-6 hours standing and putting the flats and letters into their proper slots.

Once the flats and letters are sorted and "cased", I then see what my load of packages for the day looks like and assign those packages to the proper slots. Next comes pulling all the mail from the slots in the case and putting it in route order in large tubs. Once the mail is all pulled down and put into tubs (which usually takes me about an hour, depending on the amount of mail), I then load the mail truck. Then I get to go out and deliver the mail, which usually takes me about 3-4 hours.

The people who work at the post office are always trying to figure out how to get the mail that comes to them to the customers in better, faster ways. I can't say enough good about what they do while doing an incredibly difficult job.

The Crux of the Matter

So, I'm "over the hump" of 5 days of working at the post office and boy am I tired and sore. Working a day at the post office is like doing a week at the gym—you use muscles you have never even felt before! I have a love/hate relationship with this job. The pay is OK (but believe me, you don't get paid anywhere near enough), the stress is sometimes almost overwhelming and it is physically very demanding. And I am dreading Christmas! Did that already last year and even though it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was still something else! Boy am I dreading Christmas (I know, I already said that).

So, the next time you get your mail late or there is some problem with your mail, please be gentle with your mail carrier—it is one helluva hard job and they do the absolute best that they can do!

Until next time...

Settling Down with a Good Book

2008-10-07T17:28:00.001-07:00

A Long Time Ago and Far Away

Just a quick post about a great book that I am re-reading for the umpteenth time...

One day about 35 years ago, I was living in an apartment with some actual "free time". Sometime before, I had picked up a copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes at a used bookstore and had been waiting for the right time to tackle it. The time finally came and what a treat it was!

You're probably wondering why I am bringing up a book I read 35 years ago... I have recently picked it up and am reading it again at over twice the age I was when I first read it. It's like getting together with an old friend again and what a great treat AGAIN!

For anyone who has not read Sherlock Holmes, I envy you in a way because you get to experience it for the first time. You get to meet Watson, Holmes, his brother Mycroft, Irene Adler, Professor Moriarity and many, many others. There are 56 short stories and four short novels. I must have about 5 different copies of it and the current one that I am reading is on my little PDA (a Palm device).

It really doesn't matter what version you read, the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are magnificent and he creates a world into which you are immediately propelled (albeit backward in time). I read a lot and I must say that there are many modern-day authors I like, but Doyle captured me the first time I picked it up and every time since.

Of course, Doyle got sick of writing Holmes stories over the span of 40 years. But how they have held up! And, of course, there is an immense following among readers the world over.

If you are looking for adventure and some fascinating Victorian CSI, check out The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

After the Studio Tour

2008-09-30T05:19:00.000-07:00

Fall Studio Tour 2008 Finished

Two weekends and one incredibly busy week in between and the fall Studio Tour 2008 is now history! The fall Studio Tour is always a busy time. You are always trying to figure out what your customers would like to see and buy.

It's the Economy Stupid

So many things can affect the success of a Studio Tour:

quality and quantity of artists
location of artists
availability of tickets and/or studio tour guides
the economy

This year, it was definitely the economy. All the planning over the past 6 months or so by the great Placerville Arts Association folks couldn't foresee what would be happening with the economy—and this year people were tighter with their money. When you consider that the day after the fall 2008 Studio Tour ended the Dow took it's largest fall in history, you understand. During the week in between, several banks failed and were taken over by others.

Location & Cohorts

All that aside, we always have fun during the Studio Tour. I was with a great bunch of people at Tony and Lu Lobue's home (and wonderful park-like back yard). Of the 4 days of the tour, the last day (Sunday, 9/28/08) was definitely the best day—but even at that, the day wasn't great. In addition to Tony and Lu's wonderful paintings, Pam Snyder was there with her great oil paintings on copper and Dianna Schwierzke had her beautiful inside-painted glass vases, cards, painted tiles and paintings.

New Ideas & Connections

I guess the thing I enjoy most is talking with folks doing the Studio Tour and getting ideas about new photo ideas I want to try. My Ready to Go photographic art (top of this post) was the most popular and the one I sold the most of. I also had several people who want to get together soon to have me tutor them in Photoshop.

Catching Up

Now comes the catching up. I've been going over my new ideas notes and need to contact the folks I talked to during the Studio Tour to follow up on our conversations. And, things just get put on hold during the time of the Studio Tour (like, for example, posts to this Blog!).

So, this is catch-up and back-to-reality week. One great thing about doing the Studio Tour is that now that it is done, I have a lot of new work to display at the gallery!

KVIE Art Auction

In the Gold Country Artists Gallery blog I have a blurb about my "fifteen minutes of fame" (actually, 30 minutes) being the on-air spokesperson for the Gallery during the 2008 KVIE Art Auction. It was a great experience—check it out!

Studio Tour Tales

2008-09-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for the PAA Studio Tour is no small feat! There are many of us from Gold Country Artists Gallery who are "doing" the tour (25 out of our 50 artists). One of those people is me!

The Studio Tour happens around here each fall and this year there are 87 artists in 35 different locations around the western part of El Dorado County. The tour takes place on September 20 & 21 and 27 & 28 from 10 am to 5 pm each day. I will be showing my work at Lu Lobue's home. There will be 5 of us at Lu's home: Lu, Tony Lobue (Lu's husband), Pam Snyder, Dianna Schwierzke, and me. And, it's worth coming just to see Lu's "back yard park!"

Preparation for the Studio Tour (as far as getting your work ready), is really heavy during this last week. We are all desperately trying to get that one last picture or card done to our liking and (hopefully) some customer out there who will be doing the tour. I've been working on new pieces and will have them at my spot on the tour, so I hope you can come and see me!

The piece in the upper-left corner of this blog is called "Roses Are Red" and the piece to the right is tentatively called "Magic Light", just to whet your appetite for more!

Oh, and by the way, you can get the Studio Tour

2008 guide at Gold Country Artists Gallery ($6). The guide is your map and ticket to the tour.

Hope to see you on the 2008 Studio Tour!

Less than 2 Weeks Until the Studio Tour!

2008-09-08T06:10:00.000-07:00

The El Dorado County Artists Studio Tour 2008 is coming up in less than two weeks! I have so much work to do and so little time to do it. I've been deciding what new works to include this year and am going to go with mostly my straight photographs that I have taken over the last several months (like the panorama shown above of A Clear Day at Red Lake that I took on the 4th of July).

It is always such a crap shoot to know what to display when you do one of these shows. The right person has to show up at the right time and you need to have the right picture displayed as they are walking by (lots of "rights" there!). As an artist, you cannot second-guess your customers—you just need to try and do and show your best work at all times; and, of course, show work that you really like too. I have found that trying to guess what will sell and what won't is almost an impossible task. You put your heart and soul (and dollars) into printing, matting and framing just hoping that this is the one that will sell well and that people will like.

Art is a very challenging pursuit. You want to do the work you want to do on the one hand, while on the other hand you really would like to sell work to enable you to do more work. It's sort of a "catch 22" when you think about it.

I love displaying my photography at Gold Country Artists Gallery and at great art shows like the Studio Tour and talking about it with people who are really interested. There is always some kind of story associated with one of my photographs. I can usually remember what the day was like around me when I was taking a particular shot and can almost just "go there" in my head and re-experience it.

Photographs are my way of remembering events and days in my life. When I do my annual Christmas letter to friends and family, I don't just write down the items—I go back through all my photographs from the year and use them as the basis to build the letter.

Off track, again...

Back to the Studio Tour... See, I start thinking about what I need to do for the Studio Tour and get sidetracked to all these other intrusive thoughts!

Stay tuned... I'll have more about the Studio Tour over the next few weeks.

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Old Friends

2008-09-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

Two weeks since my last post! Can't believe it... It has been a busy couple of weeks and THE highlight of these last couple of weeks was having the opportunity to meet with an old friend from years back.

Alan needed to come to the left (er, west) coast for family business and was able to schedule some time to stop by and spend some quality time with us. And what quality time it was! Some good food, a few beers, some laughs and a day-trip spent in our beloved Sierra Nevada mountains doing some much-needed photography. Thanks for that Alan!

Brings to mind many thoughts about old friends... As you get older, you realize more and more what treasures old friends really are... With all the ups and downs and ins and outs of daily/weekly/monthly/yearly life you sometimes don't foster friendships the way you should... If you are lucky and work at it, new friends can become long-term old friends; and, if you are very lucky, you get to have great people for friends.

Just a few melancholy thoughts on this 2nd day of a new month...

Hot August Days & Nights

2008-08-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

The Bell Tower on Main Street in Placerville shows off the beautiful flowers and the great blue skies of summer.

It's been hot, hot, hot! It seems that whenever the California State Fair is on (in Sacramento), it's hot like this. I worked at the Diamond Springs Post Office on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week delivering mail (part-time job) and it was even hotter in the truck I was driving when delivering the mail. And the nights... The nights have been hot too—we ran our cooler all night the other night just so we could sleep as there was no breeze outside at all.

We have water buckets outside for the resident animals on our ridge (deer, rabbits, birds, etc.) and we've had to fill them at least once, sometimes twice a day.

Been watching a nature drama unfold with a young fawn who we think is orphaned. It appears to be trying to gain a surrogate mom in the herd. I called a friend of mine who is in Sierra Wildlife Rescue who deals with orphaned fawns in our area (they also deal with many other types of orphaned or injured animals) to find out if there is anything else we can do. He thought it was probably old enough to possibly fend for itself and suggested we just watch it and give him a call if we see the fawn floundering and not able to get accepted into the herd. It reminds me of a picture I took of a fawn when it was encountering its first snow in our backyard—makes me feel cooler just looking at it!

I'm slowly recovering my main PC (I'm typing this on my laptop) from a lousy virus that forced me to take the PC to a local repair person (MacKendrick Computers in Placerville—very good!) and get the hard drives wiped clean and get Windows reinstalled. I had most things backed up, but still lost a lot of stuff as I didn't have a regular back-up routine (which, you can sure believe, I do now!).

And so it goes...

August in Placerville

2008-08-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

To the left is one of my photographs entitled Placerville Party that I took and made to look like a piece of art (Photographic Art). I took it at a Founder's Day celebration in Placerville a couple summers ago. Lots goes on in Placerville every month.

So, I thought I would give you a taste of Placerville in August. This is quite a month in downtown Placerville. Every month, there are events downtown and around the area that many times, either I or Gold Country Artists Gallery participate in.

The 12th Annual Craft Faire is happening downtown this coming Sunday (August 10). Main Street downtown will be closed and 96 craft vendors will line Main Street from 8am to 3pm.

Sunday also is the start of the 42nd Annual Motherlode National Art Exhibition that will be held at the Shakespeare Club in Placerville through August 24.

Every month on the evening of the third Saturday, we have an evening when the art galleries, restaurants and businesses stay open until 9pm. That's on August 16 and it coincides with an event we call Girl's Night Out. As you can imagine, there will lots of events for girls!

The Gallery will be participating in Girl's Night Out in that we will be having demonstrations at the gallery. Last month, I participated in the photography show that we had at the Gallery.

I also have a hand in the PDA (Placerville Downtown Association) as Secretary this year—this will be my last year doing that as I have been on the board for the maximum of 4 years.

Then, I'm gradually building up my small business to help folks learn about Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Once in awhile, I work at a local post office as a substitute Rural Carrier (that means when the real mail carrier wants a day off, I substitute for him). Doing that job has really helped me understand what a tough job it really is working for the post office!

Sometimes, I even get to watch movies—or even go to them at a real theater! Saw the latest Mummy movie this past weekend and really enjoyed it (great summer movie!). I also read all kinds of books and am reading Mark Twain's Roughing It (what a great book!).

Enough for now!

A new month...

2008-08-02T08:21:00.001-07:00

A new month and what a great way to start it! We had dinner last evening with our niece's (Criesta) family in Camino. CA. They are renting a house on some acreage and helping the owners with their organic farming business and learning about it themselves. And of course, the parents, kids, dogs and cats just love it there!

We had a great dinner and toured the wonderful organic farm. The house they are living in was built in the early 1900's and has a nice feel to it. The grounds are filled with herbs, vegetables and produce.

Of course, I had to bring my camera and take pics of the beautiful herbs, trees and clouds. The pic on the left is one I took showing a view looking east showing the herb garden with the vegetable garden and trees beyond. There is also a secluded area covered by a canopy of young, 30 year-old Sequoia Redwood trees (just babies in the lifetime of a Redwood) on the left side that both feels good and smells good.

Other things going on...

Watched a couple interesting movies last night: Vantage Point and In Bruges—if you get a chance, check them out (and if you notice, you can click on the link I made to the trailers). Vantage Point deals with a presidential assassination attempt and the different people involved in one way or another and the view of the event from their perspective; In Bruges is about two contract killers who are taking some "mandatory" time off in Bruges, Belgium, with comical and terrible consequences.

I'm still loading up my main PC with stuff and bringing it back from its "rebirth," so to speak. What a long process! But I guess it was meant to be.

Our own garden is looking wonderful! Deb's brother created the garden for us and is taking care of it and learning from it so that we can do it better next year. Growing now are tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, cucumbers and pumpkins. It's been a challenge for him to figure it all out but it is looking good and I think we will get a good harvest out of it throughout the summer.

Just one other pic for you of Joey watching one of his favorite movies (and one of mine!), Toy Story.

More soon...

Keeping in Touch

2008-07-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

My cat Cate and I thought this might be a great way to keep in touch with friends and family scattered hither and yon. I have been wanting to try blogs for awhile and see how to do it and how it goes. Please feel free to send comments back and be aware that these are from my little corner of the world here in Placerville, California.

This is the first of many blog entries into this blog and many other blogs, too, as I want to start several blogs. Thought it would be a good way to start out a new month!

It's a hot, smoky summer here with all the fires going on in California. Some days are better than others, as far as the smoke goes. As far as summers go, this has been a hot one as compared to the other 27 or so that we have experienced since we have lived here.

I've been battling a virus on my main PC and just got it back from having to get it wiped clean and a fresh install of Windows XP. I tried to fix it myself over the span of a week or so. I knew what the virus was and there was information about it on the web, but finally had to give in and take it to a repair person locally. Luckily, I had critical information backed up but still lost a lot of files that I had. Lesson learned... The need for backing up will be heeded from here on!

So, I'm in the throes of reinstalling things on my main PC while I type this on my laptop. The ironic part about this is that I had been gradually moving things off my main PC (the one that caught a "cold") to do to it what I had to have done to it—reinstall the operating system and files. Things sure do get strange sometimes!

And speaking of strange, did you hear the one about... (oh, another time!)

More soon...