Spring

[Enlarge] Shamrocks growing wild in a local park

There is a small park not too far from our home in Sacramento that is allowed to be almost wild. It appears that it might have once been the site of a farm house because there are some trees and shrubs that are probably from the garden around the house. I enjoy walking to the park and taking my camera because there is always something to photograph and remember.

This time of year, it is the shamrocks and bluebells that are the most interesting. I tried to get out on Saint Patrick’s Day to get a foto of the shamrocks blooming but it was too late in the day when I got out and the blossoms were already folding for the evening. I settled for a nice display of the leaves and a distant view of the field under the oaks where so many shamrocks grow. You can’t tell the flowers are folded so easily at this distance…

[Enlarge] Shamrocks cluster under the oaks.

In the same area, there are bluebells that appear in the long grass. They seem to stay away from the shamrocks – better to have a private showing I guess.

wp:thumb src=”IMGP0701.jpg” cap=”A bouquet of bluebells for spring”—> ->

Trabajo

[Enlarge] My first trip to Morelia from Cueramaro had some dramatic views.

With all my digital pictures on my external hard disk and a much more capable notebook available, I took a few minutes this afternoon to put a some fotos related to my work in the galleries. Commuting is a compilation of some of the views out the windows of the buses I ride from Morelia to Cueramaro and back again on weekends when I am in Mexico. It is a beautiful trip on the luxury coaches of Primera Plus with DVDs playing movies while the countryside of the Bajio rushes by.

I also put together a series of fotos with the team from Scio Consulting in Morelia. I enjoy working with this team and the work we are doing as much as anything I have done in my working life. Working with Scio is very much a part of a long time dream we have had since we started building our home in Cueramaro. You never know how these things might work out, but following our dreams has been a wonderful experience. —>

The

[Enlarge] A storm entering Acapulco Bay around New Year’s Day, 1996

Yesterday, the desk in my office at home was a mess and it looked like it might never recover. As one of the final steps in my notebook upgrade, I added a 300GB Maxtor One Touch external hard drive. What that meant in simple terms was the AST server I have held onto for years as a networked storage machine had outlived its usefulness.

The AST Manhattan server was a great server in its day – less than ten years ago. Now, both the product and the company that built it are history. I got it as a cast-off about six years ago when there was an upgrade at my work. I loaded it up with SCSI drives I had around and managed to get around 8GB of useful space out of it which for me was more than I ever thought I would need.

Now, with digital cameras, music and a wealth of documents, it was becoming barely adequate and a large waste of space. It was still running faithfully but my new 300GB drive is about the size of a half sheet of paper and an inch and a half wide. As I transferred my fotos from the AST, my old laptop and an assortment of CDs and floppy disks, I was surprised to find I had over 2,000 files. Some of them are better than others, as I have gone through three different digital cameras over the years. I was gratified to see that some of my most treasured fotos – ones taken with my Hasselblad and transferred to CD by Kodak are still some of the best technically and artistically. At the time, in 1996, digital pictures were quite exotic, expensive, and could only be done with special scanners by a few of the major photofinishers.

But, nearly nine years later, those color negative scans are still as good or better than what I can produce with current equipment. I was told at the time it was too expensive – but now, looking at them next to my current pictures and knowing that the negatives are probably not in nearly as good shape – I’m pleased I made the investment.

I don’t know when it will be that my new hard drive or PowerBook will reach the end of their usefulness – a lot sooner than I would like I’m sure. But for now I feel like I have what I need. —>

Miguel

[Enlarge] Miguel and Gabriela as they enter the reception for their wedding, January 1st, 2005.

It was a great honor and joy to be part of the wedding festivities in Cueramaro for Miguel (Rey’s nephew) and Gabriela this year. I have been wanting to get the pictures of their wedding added to my gallery for sometime. Because of some problems with the files of the pictures I took, they had to wait until I got my new PowerBook to take their place in the family album. Fortunately, we were able to retrieve most of the fotos and they look as nice as I remember that day.

You may have noticed this picture on my sidebar for awhile now. I kept it up there because they are a beautiful couple and to remind me of the task I had before me to get their fotos together to answer all the requests for them. I have changed it now for a picture of a swan from the Parque Zoologico Benito Juarez in Morelia. Getting the fotos I took there online is my next big project and one I am looking forward to because it was such a wonderful place to visit. I will need some help with that one though, there are a lot of animals in the pictures I can’t begin to name! —>