Mosaic of Me

Celeste did this, so I thought I would do it too. Here's how:
* Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search.
* Using only the first page, choose an image.
* Copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker over at FD's image maker.

The questions:
What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you attend?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Favorite drink?
Dream vacation?
Favorite dessert?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
One word to describe you.
Your Flickr name


1. Nicolette the girl with the chocolate-chilli voice, 2. birthday soup - no shells all meat!, 3. A walk in the park, 4. The Chesil Beach at Portland - Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, 5. Nicolas Cage (1), 6. Bonnie Maid Lime Rickey, 7. . Grantchester - (The Jogger) ., 8. custard pie, its sweet and nice..., 9. Doubleblind anonymity, 10. Watching the fireworks, 11. Reading book..., 12. Knickers now on!

Play if you want to and let me know in comments if you did.

What I've been doing, learning, thinking about

It's been several days since I've blogged; also since I've finished a book or posted to my online discussion group, and I have two unwatched DVDs at home as well as a bunch of postponed housework. What is the cause of all this inactivity? I've been dealing with photographs.

I'm scanning, I'm saving, I'm emailing the scanned files from OHP's computer (where the scanner is) to mine; I'm cropping, enhancing, and filenaming as descriptively as possible. Then I'm importing the files into Picasa and creating captions, sorting the photos into folders and albums and uploading Web Albums. (At this point they're all Unlisted, which means only people I invite can see them, since they mostly consist of pictures of other people.) I'm even pinpointing locations with the mapping feature -- who knew Beard's Plaisance was on Google Maps?

In the last few days I've done this with about 500 photographs. I haven't even made a significant dent in the albums and boxes of photos we brought with us (nearly all pre-digital). It's going to take quite a while, and my joints are telling me that I need to do a bit more dogwalking and less computer-sitting. But here's what I've learned and what I've thought about while working on this project:

• I wish I had done more labeling earlier - like, when the pictures came back from the developer. Names are not too hard for the most part, but dates and places elude me. It's hard for me to look at one of my children and say "He was 5 there" or "She was 3."
• I wish even more that I had asked my parents and other relatives who are now gone more about the photographs while I had the chance. I have a number of unlabeled photos my father took in Japan and Korea that I'd like to know more about. Finding a group of Korean War vets who served in the same units has been some help, but I wish I would have asked him.
• How well-documented my children are, compared to me and my siblings, and even more so to my mother and her family! And we didn't even have a video camera! Still, I doubt a month went by without a photo being taken from their births till high school graduation, at least. I have about 6 pictures of my mother up till she became a mother (not even a wedding picture!), and as best I know, just one of my grandmother before her marriage -- and that one I'm not positive about. Part of this is due to economic factors and part, perhaps, to a strain of introversion that runs in the family (and which I've inherited). My siblings and I were photographed fairly frequently during early childhood when either my father was overseas or we were all far away from my parents' families. I have almost no photos of myself in high school or college. I really have to thank Onkel Hankie Pants for taking so many, many photos over the years. I took some too, but my skills were very limited at first.
• I have three children and, while they share some traits, they are each quite different people. Most of the pictures I've been working with are post-1980 so they feature my daughters a lot. For each of them there is a word that describes their facial expression in photos taken in early childhood -- before they knew how one is "supposed" to look in a picture. I would describe Sisterknits' expression as INSOUCIANT, and Cordeliaknits' as "SELF-SATISFIED" -- and I don't mean that in a bad way. She just seems to be so pleased with herself and her situation in so many of the pictures -- in a more lively way than just contentment. As I move backward through the photos, it will be interesting to see what I think SonShineIn's expression is. Try this at home! Look at pictures of yourself or your children, if you have them, at a young age -- probably 7 is about the upper limit. What is your expression? (I'd have to say mine was "DEMENTED GLEE." See below, my first grade school photo from Coldwell School, El Paso, Texas. It's a bit subdued because it was a school picture, but that wide grin is in nearly every photo.)
• I was a little surprised that there seem to be more pictures of my kids with their aunt than there are of them with me. I suppose it just seemed that I was around all the time and we didn't think of photographing so many of those moments. Does anyone else have this phenomenon? (By the way, there are probably even fewer of them with their father, since he took so many of the pictures.)
• I love Picasa. It was recommended by a genealogy newsletter some time ago, but I've only really begun using it fully quite recently. It allows you to organize the photos on your computer into albums (the folders are the same as in My Pictures in Windows) and also to provide captions which have no appreciable length restriction nor any restriction on what characters you can use. Then you can make Web Albums, which can be either Public or Unlisted. If Unlisted, only people you invite can see them. And then, the viewers can leave comments -- corrections, additions, memories, whatever. I think Sisterknits may be right when she says, "In two years, everything will be Google."
• Although Picasa has some editing capabilities, I am using Paint Shop Pro. Onkel Hankie Pants has version XI and I have version 8, they both work really well. I learn new things about using them every day, because I seem to learn best by trial and error and saying "I wish it would do this" and then finding out that it does, indeed, do this. The last photos I deal with will be better served than the first, but the important thing is getting them all digitized, labeled, sorted and shared.
• And here at last is the picture I promised. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother made that dress, although I don't remember a lot from that far back.
  

We have had 59 inches of snow this winter

and although some of it melted during our January thaw last week, quite a bit is still here. So in response to requests, here are more pictures of snow!

This first one is "Why do I have to wait?" which is what Rusty is thinking as I am taking the picture. The big mound in front of him represents partly fallen snow and partly shoveled snow from the walk. All the photos were taken about 3 pm so it is getting on for sunset already.



The second photo shows our "back yard" such as it is, and a bit of the Mansion House behind us. Our house stands on what was once the majestic front lawn of this house, which has now been added to and contains apartments -- all of which appear to be rented by very nice, quiet people. Our deed says that we may never build a house higher than 1 1/2 stories on our lot, to maintain the ascendancy or at least the view, of the Mansion House (it's called that in the deed). Most of our back yard is the slope up to where the trees are. I think the light is pretty on the snow.




Next, looking over our side and front yard -- the corner of our lot -- toward downtown.
Here is a picture of our house as seen coming back from a walk on Maine Street. You will note we have not shoveled the front steps and walk. This is because (a) it's Maine, no one uses the front door, in fact in the country houses often have front doors but no steps up to them; and (b) the walk is a bit steep and tends to get slippery very easily, so this is for the protection of UPS delivery people and such, who do try to use the front door because that's where the address is. (The mail carrier delivers to the side, where the mail slot is. No complaints from the USPS here.)

We like our big 50s picture windows because they let lots of light in, and on sunny days like today we get free heat, which is not to be sneezed at these days, when a gallon of heating oil costs as much as a gallon of gasoline. The white, non-snow thing visible at the lower right corner is the electric door to our garage, which opens into the basement. In all the years we lived in Exile (aka "40 below keeps the riffraff out"), we never had an attached garage, or a garage door opener, and indeed for the most part did not have a garage our car would fit into. So we think we are living in the lap of luxury now.

When fall comes to New England, part 2

friends come to visit! Who would have thought? Of course, there is the attraction of 'leaf-peeping' although we have not nearly reached peak season yet. Still, we recently enjoyed a visit from Lemondancy and friend, the perfect guests (they cooked and took Rusty for a couple of long walks!) and today we will be welcoming Wolfie's Woman from Minneapolis; next weekend The Accountant will be visiting. Let them be an example to others!

One of the things we did with Lemondancy and friend was to visit the Crystal Spring Farm with The Documentarian, my sister-outlaw. While the younger folks did a little hiking, I did a little photography. Here are a bunch of pictures.

Mysterious flowers (mysterious to me)

More colored leaves on the ground than on the trees, it seems


Exposed rock, a common sight around here:


I might post a few more later, but Rusty really, really wants a walk right now.