Daffodil watch 2013 is on, and we’re seeing some progress.
To me, this is a MUCH better harbinger of Spring then some sharp toothed ol’ rat seeing his shadow.
Behold!
I can hardly wait for that explosion of deep buttery yellow! Hooray!
Image Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the far right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5, the Camera+ app and very sleepy eyes.
Here we are already in the second month of this crazy New Year. I’m not sure I’m even over my New Year’s Eve hangover and here it already is February.
So to honor the shortest month of the year, I’m going to borrow from a couple of my own previous February posts.
First of all, my cross-cultural thoughts on Groundhog Day. Seems not all the world has an annual rodent pulling day:
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From the post titled “You Do What, Now?” originally posted February 7, 2011.
My boss has a sense of humor about to the level of mine, so lately we have this ongoing riff.
It goes something like this:
Boss: “So, what is this, um, let’s see what do they call it…yes, this day of groundhog you people celebrate in the US?”
Me: “What, they don’t have this holiday in the UK?”
Boss: “I don’t think so, what is this all about?”
Me: “So, wait, you’re telling me that in the UK they don’t pull rodents out of the ground in order to determine the extent of winter?”
Boss: “Not as such, no.”
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Really, how do you explain Groundhog Day to someone who doesn’t understand?
Hell, I don’t even understand, but my personal confusion not withstanding…
When the poor burrowing rat, Punxsutawney Phil, had bright lights shined directly in his sleepy eyes yesterday, he did not see his shadow.
I guess that means we are game on for an early Spring.
I’m totally ready.
I love this time of year. Spring makes me so utterly happy. It’s all full of fun and color and happy expectations.
Here’s some thoughts on February:
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From the post titled “An Ode To The Shortest Month” originally published January 18, 2011.
The second month of the year. The shortest month of the year.
February is a beautiful month.
In February, winter is not quite over, but spring is not quite here. In February we start to see the brilliant yellow of blooming daffodils against the monochrome hue of stormy skies. Daffodils are the harbinger of warm sunny days to come. They give the cold body hope.
I believe the daffodils and tulips and the snowfall of Cherry Blossoms in February are meant to keep us going like the carrot at the end of the stick. The “something wonderful just around the bend” that helps the human soul stay willing to endure the cold and damp days that are yet to be endured.
In February, Punxsutawney Phil, pokes his burrowing animal’s head out of the ground and lets us know the score. The planning can begin.
The ground begins to thaw. Birds start to think about coming back this way. There is hope.
Heck, February is also the birth month of at least three of my favorite people (wait, four! Just thought of another).
I’m looking toward the second month of the year with a not-so-secret anticipation.
So I will get all poetic and speak of daffodils and warm days.
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Speaking of daffodils, I optimistically purchased three bunches today. Their buds are closed up tight and I am not sure they will find a way to break free. Only time will tell.
For today they tell me, “not yet…but soon”.
Sort of the same message that February has for me.
I feel, dare I say it, optimistic.
Hope springs a daffodil.
Photo Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.
Ok, I have another totally hot photo gadget product review to share. I was not compensated in any way for this. In fact I paid these good people for the right to be one of the first to try this out.
It is no secret that I love photography. That much is clear if you’ve been hanging around this blog for a while.
While I was trained to take photos using a DSLR, I have become more and more enamored of taking photos with my iPhone. I think that Flickr reports the number one camera used by its members is the iPhone.
It’s great to have an always ready to use camera that also makes great shots. So to that end I am also enamored of many of the gadgets out there to help make iPhone photos that much more cool.
There are a lot of little lenses out there, most come in a package of one fisheye, one wide angle and one macro lens. The form factor on these isn’t always great. I have a set that sort of sticks on with a gummy ring and the lens is a magnet to the sticky ring. Ugh. A *nightmare* if I’m outside where it is dusty (hello? New Mexico?). Plus the ring is pretty tiny and hard to use. There are some that are a kind of jelly stick on lenses that are in one piece but offer up the same sort of issues.
Along came the Olloclip and I loved it. The clip slipped onto the phone and voila, the three lenses were all attached and it was good to go. The Olloclip is pretty spendy at $70. The wide angle and macro lenses were great but to be honest, I don’t really like the look of fisheye photos so that lens never got used.
But the Olloclip and I got along great. I used the wide and the macro quite a bit on my iPhone4s. Photography life was fabulous.
Until I got an iPhone5. Then the Olloclip didn’t fit anymore. I was not really in the mood to blow another $70 so I figured I’d make do with what I already had in my kit (i.e. the sticky lenses, ugh).
Then I heard some rumors on Twitter about a company working on a lens kit that was like a clip or a clamp which meant it could be used on any make or model of phone, regardless of size, shape and thickness and if I desired could even be used on a thin point and shoot.
Well sign me up! Only…the product, called Mobi-Lens, wasn’t available yet.
Images could be found on the company’s Kickstarter page. I had not yet taken a foray into the world of funding a Kickstarter, so I thought I’d give it a chance. For just $40 I was able to choose a red clip that came with wide angle and macro. The fisheye lens is a separate clip so no need to order that.
So here we go, the cost is more reasonable, I don’t have an extra fisheye lens lying around I will never use, and this clip will work on generations to come of whatever phone I choose to have.
Yes, please!
The Good Man warned me that one of people’s biggest complaints about Kickstarter is that even if the project gets funded, oftentimes investors never see results from their investment. The product or project just never comes to fruition.
I read the Kickstarter page carefully and I watched the videos and I felt like these were decent people who had a great idea. They already had some finished test product and they just needed money to go into production.
SO…yes…I took a gamble with forty of my hard earned dollars. This was back in October.
A few weeks ago, my gamble paid off when this little beauty arrived:
It’s so pretty! It’s red! It has really nice glass lenses!
It is very easy to use and I’ve only begun experimenting with it.
So far I think this is the best macro cell phone lens of all the brands I’ve tried (and I’ve tried a lot!).
Here is a test shot of my work keyboard:
Pretty great!
I have much left to explore with my little Mobi-Lens but so far I am totally hooked and totally in love. I am happy with my lens and I hope this company continues to blossom.
They gave me an awesome lens and made me a believer in the power of a good project on Kickstarter. Win!
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Image of Mobi-Lens Copyright 2013, Karen Fayeth and taken with an iPhone5 and the Camera+ app.
Image of keyboard K Copyright 2013 Karen Fayeth and taken with an iPhone5, the Camera+ app and the macro Mobi-Lens.
Both are subject to the Creative Commons license found in the right column of this page.
With a new year, new changes and a new job now comes a new commute.
This is me, I am now a commuter.
To be honest, I tried driving the thirty-five miles each way for two whole days, then I tapped out. It was two days too many.
Driving that many hours in that kind of traffic is not good for the already tenuous grasp I have on my sanity.
So I escaped the confines of my car and leapt into the tired, dingy but quite serviceable arms of the Bay Area Rapid Transit, also known as BART, our local subway system.
In the past when I commuted regularly, I rode the CalTrain (commuter rail as opposed to a subway), and I always really enjoyed it. Up until last week, I had only been on BART for a few random trips here and there, but now I’m doing the everyday BART trip and then catching a shuttle to the office.
I have to say, it works really well. BART is nowhere near as elegant as London’s Tube or as clean as Singapore’s MRT or as wide reaching as the subway in New York, but it does the job (assuming it goes where you need it) and mostly does it well.
I’m always amused when riding public transit because there is this whole attitude that you have to adopt. We all wear a game face that is a cross between casual nonchalance and aggressive apathy, with enough of a snarl so people will leave you alone.
You aren’t supposed to look around. You aren’t supposed to lollygag. You aren’t supposed to look people in the eye and goodness knows you don’t start up a conversation.
Even if you are a flat out rookie, you gotta look like you have done this so many times you don’t give a rip. I don’t know why this is, but it just is. This goes for all subways not just BART.
Also, public transit is always the best way to find any city’s collection of lost, offbeat and troubled people.
Friday there was a guy talking to himself and loudly groaning. He was sitting across from a guy who during the course of the journey put on eight shirts, two hoodies, then a polar fleece and topped it with a parka and a huge knit hat. It’s cold here recently but this guy was preparing to hunt penguins.
Mostly it’s just a whole lot of people trying to get somewhere. Students, elderly, professionals, blue collar, rich, poor, moms, dads, kids. Just about every make and model of person out there steps on the BART train headed somewhere.
During the course of my ride I start on the peninsula, traverse San Francisco, and end up in the East Bay. On that hour ride it is like the Bay Area has been neatly sliced in half and I can clearly see all of the different kinds people who make up this crazy place.
A one-hour BART ride is a true representation of both the best and the worst of the almost seven million people who live here and call the Bay Area home.
And I’m one of them. I’m that sort of hayseed looking girl who is eagerly looking at everyone’s faces trying to read their stories while looking like I’m not looking at all. I’m the one laughing inappropriately and feeling stressed trying to fit in at my new gig.
Not to paraphrase the Beatles or anything but…
When I ride the BART train, I am you and you are me and we are all together.
Image from LA Times.
Thanks to the folks who dropped me a note to ask where the heck I’d wandered off to and when the heck I would get back to blogging.
You make my heart sing. You awesome wild things.
It’s been a nutty week, wait…has it really been a week since I posted?
Yikes.
But here I am back in the comforting arms of My Fair New Mexico and all its glory.
And so, as Michelle correctly guessed in the comments of my New Year’s Eve posting, I have a new job and it’s all VERY exciting.** It’s a big move for me and it was tough decision. I think it’s the right move and I couldn’t be more fired up.
As though a sign from the heavens, today I discovered that one of my coworkers on my immediate work team used to work for the State of New Mexico. He is not originally from there but lived in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque for several years.
When this came to light, we had one hell of a downhome visit here at the new office. I’m a little spun around by this new job, even just two days in, and so it was completely comforting to talk about New Mexico with someone who understands. So many coworkers in California who don’t know, don’t understand. But this one does.
I’ve already offered to bake him biscochitos and we’re planning how to get some green chile up in this place of employ.
And speaking of New Mexico, I’d like to share my new badge photo with you because, honestly, I think it took the roots of my raising to get me to this point.
Here we go:
“I will cut you”
When I first looked at it I thought, “I look like a bad ass.”
Heh.
I look like a BAD ASS!
Yessss!
When I showed it to my husband, he said “I like it, it’s sassy.”
I said, “It’s not sassy! That face says ‘don’t mess with me’”
He said, “Yeah, I’d mess with you anyway.” — Which is why he’s The Good Man and stuff.
When I showed it to my best friend I told her that The Good Man said, “it’s sassy.”
My El Paso born, raised-on-the-border friend said, “Um, sassy in a chola way.”
And then I was super happy.
I’d like to think I learned from my chola sisters in my early years. They taught me a lot of things, including burning the end of my eyeliner with a lighter and how I should take my earrings off before I get in a fight.
Life lessons, really.
Ok, to be totally upfront and honest, the look on my face isn’t my inner bad assitude finding its way to the surface. It’s really just me looking at the weird badge office set up and thinking “which of these two different cameras are they using? Where do I look? What is going on back there? Do they really know what the hell is going on and when are they going to…oh damn…they took the picture.”
Badge office confusion converted into “I will cut you” is ok by me!
Rawr!
**Michelle also guessed I was either pregnant or adopting. Nope and… : shudder : Thanks for keeping me on my toes!