YouTube and Other Obsessions

Okay, I'm not really obsessed with YouTube. I'm obsessed with taking photos and making videos. It's a lot of fun, but there are a few aspects of it that I'm not good at.

1. I still haven't learned to use my Canon EOS Rebel T5 properly, and 99% of the time I use my iPhone instead. It's a lot lighter and easier to carry, and I (mostly) know how to use it. But iPhones have their limitations, and so have I, especially if I don't take the time to really learn photography.

2. I'm terrible at getting people to watch my videos, especially on YouTube. Sometimes I spend an hour or more putting one together, and weeks later, there have been zero views.

I'm very aware that very few people follow this blog anymore, or blogs in general (Whatever and Stonekettle excepted). Nevertheless, here's a post with links to a few of my recent videos. If you come across this post, please do me a favor. Visit my YouTube channel (the main one where nearly all these videos are), watch a few minutes of pretty pictures in motion, and like (if you like) and comment (if you have anything to say). Thanks!

The other obsessions part? I have two of them, currently. It's all interrelated. I'm spending way too much time driving up and down Mount Lemmon, partly to take pictures, but also to take short hikes on side roads and the easiest trails I can find. I have three roads now that I've hiked on, not counting Mount Lemmon Highway itself or the Marshall Gulch section thereof.

I've also been on at least five trails, two of them unsuccessfully (one was closed and the other was too rugged for me). I'm doing this because it's cooler than the city, and more interesting than walking in a mall or grocery store. The other obsession, you see, is to step up my exercise and get stricter on my dieting. I had been stuck bouncing up and down in an eight-pound range for two months, but as of this part week, with the hikes and other extra walking, I finally seem to be actually losing weight again.

If only I had the metabolism of these guys!



Karen

I'm Walkin' - for Two Charities!

Here's my last call for sponsors on the Walk to End Alzheimer's (this Saturday) and Tucson AIDSWALK (this Sunday). I will be walking at both events, but the dogs are only allowed on the second one. 

Click below for details!

2012 Walk to End Alzheimer's
Tucson, AZ
Saturday, October 13, 2012 - 9:00 am

Gene C Reid Park,
Concert Place, S Country Club Rd
Tucson, AZ 85716

Coordinator: Dan Lawler
Phone: 602-528-0545
Email: dan.lawler@alz.org

AIDSWALK Tucson

Sunday October 14, 2012

Downtown Tucson -

Jacome Plaza

For more information about AIDSWALK Tucson

click here. 

Karen

Round Robin Challenge: Just in the Neighborhood

For the Round Robin Photo Challenge: Take a Walk! I asked folks to take a walk in their own neighborhoods and post the resulting photos. Here are some of mine, taken late Friday morning as John and I walked the dogs together.

This little blue bridge crosses the Alamo Wash near the local high school. Most of the wash is wild and gravel-bottomed, but this little stretch looks more like a concrete culvert. During a monsoon storm, the wash floods and so does Calle Betelgeux where the wash crosses it.

I added the caption because on this walk I was racking up steps, distance and calories burned on my Nike+ pedometer, which consists of a sensor in my new Nike shoes plus an app on my iPod nano. The Nike+ Active website has a game that equates your walking and running to travel in various cities. This walk earned me a postcard for running across the Brooklyn Bridge!

Here's how this same little blue bridge looked on one rainy afternoon at the end of July, 2007.

You know what? I think I'm wrong. There are two little blue bridges that cross the wash in our neighborhood. I'm thinking that the taller one is the one by the school, and the shorter one is near the park. But the stretches of wash beneath them look pretty similar when it hasn't rained in weeks or months.

Here's the view behind Palo Verde High School, looking northeast from Betelgeux. The steps on the left lead down from the bleachers, just a couple of feet from the sidewalk.

This is the alleyway that runs next to the wilder part of Alamo Wash, looking north. The wash itself is to the right. This is my favorite part of the neighborhood. John wanted to walk in the wash itself, but we gave it up after a couple hundred feet. The shifting sandy gravel beneath my sneakers made for arduous, treacherous walking, and I had bad memories of having to hike out of a canyon with similar conditions back in 1986 or 1987, after spraining both ankles!

The alleyway continues behind the little neighborhood park. The blue roof is the top of our underused neighborhood gazebo.

Check out all of this week's participants! So far...

Linking List
as of 12:05 AM Saturday, April 7th

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com


And by the way, Happy Easter!

Karen

Pacing Myself

Okay, so that was too much walking.

I made it to the edge of that shopping center and back, probably a little over a mile roundtrip, in 111-degree heat. It's good that nearly everyone was still at lunch when I returned, because I was coughing and hacking a little bit from the combination of heat and exercise. That sounds a lot worse than it actually was, but it was good that I wasn't due back from lunch yet, and could rest and cool off in the break room before returning to work. Twelve hours later, I still have a little gunk in my lungs. I got through my shorter walks with no problem, but I clearly overdid it today.

I'm not giving up, but I'll need to be more sensible about this. A short walk at lunch, with a bottle of water instead of flat diet soda (D'Oh! I forgot to buy the water!), and maybe some mall walking evenings and weekends. Or walking the dogs at night, when it's only around 97 degrees! Mmm, that doesn't sound very promising, does it? But I'll work something out.

Meanwhile, it's bedtime. I hope I can lie down without too much coughing!

Sorry for the short post. If I wrote any more tonight, it would be about Doctor Who anyway.There's an insane "Doctor lite" episode coming up Saturday in the U.K. The preview shows the Doctor dead. Now only that, but he died a year and a half ago, in one of the Christmas specials, and didn't regenerate. How does that work, exactly? And on top of that, Rose is popping in from another universe, and won't tell Donna her name. Fans have been posting insane theories, but I'd rather wait for the episode itself.

Oh, and one minor bit of good news. I've finally wrestled a particularly awkward scene into submission in Chapter Three of Heirs of Mâvarin, made it shorter and clearer, and managed to work in a hint of foreshadowing. I know, nobody cares but me, but it's my small victory over Crel's red dress.

Karen