EMPS: Pairs of Glasses, Visualized

Don't faint, Carly: I'm posting my response to Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #72: Pairs. at the beginning of the week instead of at the end of it. Hey, it's not even Monday here yet!

As it happens, I took two photos tonight of my current pair of glasses, for use in the entry below this one. (Go ahead - take a look!) On top of that, an optician at LensCrafters took two photos of me trying on two different pairs of glasses. She did this so that I could see, on the camera viewfinder, how each pair of eyeglass frames looks on me. My uncorrected vision is so poor, you see, that I have to put my face right up a few inches from the mirror to see my face with the no-prescription frames on, which is not ideal. Also, this way I had a picture to take home and show John. He has definite and exacting tastes when it comes to my glasses. His too, I suppose.



So let's see what fun we can have with these photos. First, here is the shot of me in the pair of frames I didn't buy, taken by the LensCrafters employee but edited by me. This was my attempt at duplicating the Doctor's "brainy specs." It didn't work.

And here are my current glasses:



But that's boring, isn't it? Well, then, let's see that rather blurry photo in grayscale, with a charcoal effect added:



Or we can give it the psychedelic treatment. For this one, I used a neon effect, selectively changed the hue and saturation in spots, and then turned the whole thing negative:



And here's the shot that made me decide to do this entry right away, while I was all enthusiastic and inspired and stuff. You can see the full color original in the entry below this one, but here's the grayscale version. I fussed with the contrast and brightness a little.



That's it for now. I reserve the right to do this EMPS again though, at the end of the week! Not that I'm promising or anything, but it could happen.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #300: Eyes or Ears?

This week's question is a simple one:

Weekend Assignment #301: Which are you more satisfied with, your eyes or your ears? Why?

Extra Credit: Which would be easier for you, being nearly blind or nearly deaf?

Yuck!

Just at the moment, I'm not terribly satisfied with either my eyes or my ears. My glasses are only a year and a half old, but they're trashed. The anti-glare coating, or some other coating, has formed itself into a plastic archipelago that cannot be cleaned off nor seen through clearly. They tell me it was because I used soap on the lenses. Or something. As for my ears, well, now that I have my second cold in four months they're ringing rather loudly.

Trying on my new frames

But heck, I've had glasses since second grade. They're no big deal, as long as I have some and they work adequately. (Remind me to tell you an amusing story about that sometime.) So this week I got my eyes checked and picked out new frames, courtesy of John's health savings account, which I was added to last year. I had the silly idea of trying for Tenth Doctor style "brainy specs," geeky, black oblong frames, but they didn't work for my prescription and my face. I ended up with these instead. Oh, well, at least they're not tortoiseshell again.

This does virtually nothing for my ears.

During my last cold in September-October, I looked up tinnitus online and came across all sorts of quackery and half-baked theories. One site claimed that once your ears start ringing, it never goes away completely. Others listed various treatments, most of which amounted to "Try not to listen to it."

I don't know. Coughs and tinnitus tend to hang on a long time when I get a cold - not a severe cough or a loud ringing, but enough to be occasionally noticeable. In between that last cold and this one, I noticed that I could still hear a little ringing when lying down at night. It wasn't much, nothing really bothersome, but it was there.

Now, of course, you could run a test of the Emergency Broadcast System from inside my head.

So which one is worse? Well, as I say, lousy vision has been part of my life for 45 years, but it hasn't been much of a blight. It's only myopia, after all, almost completely correctable with glasses. And while I do appreciate some visual things such as sunsets, an actor's subtle change of expression or a good book, I think on the whole I would miss sound more than vision. Half the time I "watch" a tv show from the next room, only running in when it is clear that the sound isn't telling the whole story. Books I could listen to if necessary, and sunsets, well, even with severely impaired vision I could probably pick up on colors.

Yeah, okay, the Internet would be a problem.

But sound is the main medium for carrying words from person to person, live, and for me it's the most important part of both drama and comedy. Without sound, music becomes mere vibration. And I have a friend with impaired hearing. When she's not the one talking, I think the misses out on about a third of the conversation. I would hate that.

My eye exam went well, with one eye actually improving and no sign of cataracts or other diseases. I fully expect to happily make do with glasses that will grant me reasonable vision for decades to come. And this cold will end, and the tinnitus will fade into the background again. But if I had to put up with one or the other, I'd rather have poor vision that poor hearing, any day.

How about you? Do you have great eyes but lousy hearing, or vice versa, or are you blessed with both 20/20 vision and excellent hearing? Which matters more to you? Please tell us about it in your blog, or in the comments thread below.

While you're thinking about that, let's have a look at last week's assignment. For For Weekend Assignment #300: Best of the Memes, I asked about your past and present participation in internet memes. Click on each name below to read the full response:

Julie said...

I do this one the most often, and am trying to pick up again on doing the Round Robin Photo shoots. In addition, I'm giving the 2010 Challenge from photochallenge.org a shot, if you'll pardon the pun.

Mike said...

I also participate in Carly's Ellipsis Photo Shoot Mondays. Thought I've been a little lax there as well. I started it after Karen handed it over to Carly, but not because of that! I had been thinking about it for a while, but never thought of myself as much of a photographer. Then decided that it doesn't matter since it was just for fun.

Florinda said in comments...

I missed the assignment post and won't get a full response up in time - sorry about that! So here's a short version:


I drift in and out of most memes. The Weekend Assignment is probably my most regular one, but I consider it more of a writing prompt than a meme per se.


I've become just an occasional participant in most other recurring memes. I've done Ten on Tuesday, Booking Through Thursday, and Friday Fill-ins with some regularity, and join in some others - mostly geared to book bloggers - when the mood strikes me. I've been shifting more toward creating my own recurring features.

Your turn! Here are the guidelines:

1. Please post your entry no later than Friday, January 15th at 6 PM. (You can also post your response in the comments thread, but a blog entry is better. )
2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to this entry.
3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below.
4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!
5. I'm always looking for topic ideas. Please email me at mavarin2 on gmail.com if there's a Weekend Assignment theme you'd like to see. If I use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

I hope to hear from you soon. Let those with eyes to see, see! Let those with ears to hear, hear!

Karen

The Week in Weather

I almost called this entry "The Weather at Sunset," because most of the shots I took for Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #71: Weather are from that time of day. It was a week of mostly wispy clouds, as you will see.

Monday, January 4th

From Tucson Sunsets

I thought I took a picture on Tuesday, but apparently not. I made up for it on Wednesday:

Wednesday, January 6th. Epiphany.

Still Epiphany.

On Wednesday, Epiphany, I was out and about buying new eyeglasses and a tripod (finally), and then went on to work. Suddenly I was in a rush to pick up Kevin for church at 6 PM. I took these shots while I was at it.

On Thursday I was at work from 11:30 to almost 9 PM, and didn't take any weather photos. I did take a picture of my office, so here is that:

No weather at work.

Then came Friday. I worked all afternoon, but left earlier than usual because a computer glitch kept me from finishing a project and besides, I was coming down with a cold. So the sky was still mostly blue, except for the clouds:

Friday, January 8

From the Picasa albumClouds Over Tucson

Friday, January 8

From Clouds Over Tucson

Carly also wanted to see an archived photo of "favorite weather conditions." Obviously we live in Tucson because we don't want to live where it snows all the time, but snow is an exciting event when it happens here. I wouldn't call snow my favorite, though. I prefer the monsoon storms when they get really dramatic. Here's a shot taken in front of St. Michael's during a summer monsoon storm in 2005:

From Tucson Weather

Pretty dramatic, wouldn't you say?

I'm running late on the Weekend Assignment, but should have it up in a couple of hours. I hope.

Karen

EMPS: My Year in Pictures, Sort Of, Part Two

Continuing my 2009 photo gallery for Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #70. See also EMPS: My Year in Pictures, Sort Of, Part One!

In July, I photographed the El Conquistador Water Tower, the sole remaining structure of a legendary Tucson resort:

The top of the tower features a prospector on its weathervane. July 28, 2009

From Two Towers

In September I photographed some human "bats" on Bat Night in the Rillito River. Real bats also put in an appearance.

Bat People. Bat night, September 12, 2009.

From Bat Night 2009

In November, I took my camera on a wander downtown. I never did get around to writing about this shop I came across. The couple that ran the place was very friendly and interested when I told them I intended to post pictures of their store, Desert Bloom:

Desert Bloom, 27 N Stone Ave. November 9, 2009.

From Another Stroll Downtown

In December, I came across a couple of run down but picturesque businesses on my way back from being lost just south of the Diamondback Bridge downtown:

Yoga and Coke. Downtown Tucson (sort of), December 17, 2009.

From Lost in Tucson

And that's kind of it for 2009. I wonder what photographic adventures we'll have in 2010!

Karen

EMPS: My Year in Pictures, Sort Of, Part One

For Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot #70: Your 2009 Gallery, Carly wants to see a selection of our best photos from 2009. So I'm about to browse my Picasa web albums from last year. Let's see what we find!

Mountains, but no lions. January 26, 2009.

From my Picasa album Sabino Canyon 2009

Let's start with this one from January, taken on an afternoon tramp through Sabino Canyon. I probably had a number of shots that day that were technically better or had nicer scenery, but this is the one that's most memorable for me. That mountain lion sign amuses me so much that I've made edited versions of this shot for comedic effect. Below is an example I posted on Flickr, featuring the Tenth Doctor from Doctor Who:


The Tenth Doctor in denial. December 2009.

In February I started posting several series of "Reid Park Ramble," my galleries of photos taken while exploring Gene C Reid Park with my dogs. Here's one of the more unusual shots. The bronze statue is one of a number of figures at the Cancer Survivors Plaza. Intrigued that it looks like a person, Pepper gives its hand a sniff!

Pepper checks out a bronze cancer survivor. February 20th, 2009.

From A Reid Park Ramble

In March, I was witness to the single best sunset I've ever seen, at Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains:

Best. Sunset. Ever. Gates Pass, March 6, 2009.

From West Side Story

In April, I took the dogs up Mount Lemmon. Here's my favorite of those shots:

This was on my desktop at church for several months. Windy Point, April 21, 2009.

From Mount Lemmon Highway

My second favorite is this one:

Cayenne at Geology Vista (I think). April 21, 2009.

From Mount Lemmon Highway

In May, Pepper met a couple of young children in Reid Park:

Pepper likes kids. Cayenne, not so much. Reid Park, May 6, 2009

From Canine Encounters

In June, I found it necessary to photograph some highly unusual clouds:

One of the few times I've had pretty lens flares. June 9, 2009.

From Clouds Over Tucson

We're only up to June, so let's continue this on the next entry.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #300: Best of the Memes

Way back in April, 2004 (I think it was April 15th, but it's hard to tell from the surviving evidence), John Scalzi posted the very first Weekend Assignment writing prompt on his AOL Journal By the Way. Nearly six years later, it's time to post the 300th Weekend Assignment, with particular attention to the memes we've been using ever since to fill up our blogs:

Weekend Assignment #300: In 2004, John Scalzi proposed the first Weekend Assignment, designed "to give AOL Journalers something to post over the weekend." Over the years the blogging community has had a huge proliferation of blogging "memes" - questions to answer, themed photo challenges, lists, writing prompts and quizzes of all sorts. What internet memes, if any, do you participate in these days?

Extra Credit: Is there a particular category of memes you particularly enjoy, as a blogger or as a reader?

The shot above happens to be my only known screen capture of John Scalzi's old blog By the Way, taken one night during a temporary AOL glitch. (Ya think?) When Scalzi started the Weekend Assignment in April, 2004, the AOL blogging platform, AOL Journals, was officially less than a year old. Blogging was a new concept for most of its participants. To help them find things to do with their new electronic soapboxes, Scalzi started posting a Weekend Assignment every Thursday night, and a roundup of participants' results the following Monday or Tuesday.

I learned about By the Way and the Weekend Assignment about six weeks in, posting my first response on May 31st. The first WA I did asked for vacation recommendations for places you've never been. My entry, Temporal Mystery Tour, was for trips that could only be made by traveling in time.

I'm not quite sure whether I participated in every single Weekend Assignment from then on, but I certainly haven't missed any since that spring and summer. The weekend Scalzi won the Campbell Award, he understandably had other things on his mind, and forgot to post a Weekend Assignment. I pinch hit with one of my own, which he graciously picked up in By the Way a day or so later. When AOL Journals shut down at the end of 2007, Scalzi stopped posting Weekend Assignments (except for once) and gave me permission to continue the meme myself. Two years later, here we still are, although I post later in the weekend now. The Weekend Assignment no longer has the dozens of participants (occasionally more) that Scalzi used to garner, but I very much appreciate those of you who do play along, and everyone who turns up to read the entries.

Over the years I've only had a few other memes I participated in regularly. Scalzi's second weekly meme, the Monday Photo Shoot, was one of the first themed photo challenges. I was there from the first week in 2005, and have never missed one, although occasionally I've squeaked in at the last minute. That's another one I took over from Scalzi, only to pass it on to Carly, who does a much better job with it than I did. Her Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot is still posted each Sunday night. The third meme I always, always do is, of course, the Round Robin Photo Challenges, which Carly and I started together in 2005.

Beyond that, I've mostly avoided taking on my memes, largely because I didn't want to feel obligated to put in the time and effort for them, in addition to the three mentioned above. For a while I was answering a Writer's Weekly Question, but I didn't do it every time and the meme eventually folded. I was even more spotty in participating in Feline and Furball Friday, balancing other people's cat photos with my canine ones. I like both the photo shoots and the writing prompts, as long as they offer scope for me to write something with a little depth on a particular subject. I tend to approach both writing and photo memes the same was, with both words and pictures, albeit with more emphasis on photos for the photo memes. I have zero interest in memes that call for a series of one word or one sentence answers.

How about you? Do you play along with some of the photoblogging memes, generate lists of random facts when prompted, or ponder literary writing prompts? Do you do as much meme-blogging as ever, or not so much, or more and more? Please tell us about it in your blog, or in the comments thread below.

While you're thinking about that, let's have a last look at last week's assignment. For Weekend Assignment #299: Time's Up!, I asked whether there was anything you wanted to get done before the "aughties" were over. Because of the holidays, only Julie managed to post a response this time out. Click on her name below to read the full response:

Julie said...

Long ago I learned to resolve not to make any resolutions. Long-term plans, yes. Even those fail, but long-term plans and goals are - for me - more achievable than those spur of the moment "it's a new year and I must do something!" plans.

1. Please post your entry no later than Friday, January 8th at 6 PM. (You can also post your response in the comments thread, but a blog entry is better. )
2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to this entry.
3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below.
4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!
5. I'm always looking for topic ideas. Please email me at mavarin2 on gmail.com if there's a Weekend Assignment theme you'd like to see. If I use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

I hope to hear from you soon. Happy New Year!

Karen

Round Robin: Beneath These Roots

I half-intended to do something semi-clever and unexpected for the return of the Round Robin Photo Challenges, finding some surprising interpretation of the topic "Roots," as suggested by Vicki of the blog Maraca. Now the time has come to post, and I can't bear to do that. The fact is, I took quite a few pictures last year of the roots of olive trees in Gene C. Reid Park. It would be a shame not to finally present some of the shots I haven't previously posted.




The thing about old olive trees is, pretty much the whole tree looks like tree roots. It's a motif that's carried up the trunk, a mass of twisted limbs joined together. Tonight I came across a nice shot of the olive grove that illustrates this. (You can see it here.) But let's concentrate on the actual roots, shall we?



The other cool thing about this particular stand of olive trees, next to the rose garden in Reid Park, is that Cayenne and Pepper always seem inordinately interested in their roots.




I have lots of pictures, in fact, of the dogs sniffing and nosing and climbing around at the base and roots of these trees. But why? What's so compelling about tree roots for a dog like Cayenne or (especially) Pepper?



I had my suspicions, especially given the number of small holes in the ground I've turned up in various parts of this park, including some right at the roots of the trees that interest Pepper the most. But until this summer I didn't know for sure what the dogs were looking for. I tend to take the dogs to the park in the late afternoon, if at all; lately our attendance has fallen off to almost nothing. At that time of day, whatever critters the dogs are after seem conspicuously absent, aside from certain birds.



But one morning this summer I decided to beat the heat with a morning visit. That's when the dogs and I finally saw what had burrowed all those holes near the roots of olive trees. We never got very close, but I did manage a few shots.

Now let's go see what roots the other Robins have decided to show us:

Linking List



Vicki - Posted!
Maraca
http://mymaracas.blogspot.com/


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


Linda - Posted!
Mommy's Treasures
http://mommystreasures.blogspot.com 


Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com


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


Monica
Shutterly Happy =)
http://monica-frameofmind.blogspot.com/


Gemma
Little Tiny Pieces
http://www.littletinypieces.co.uk


Suzanne R - Posted!
SuzyQ421's Photo Blog
http://suzyq421sphotoblog.blogspot.com


Sherrie - Posted!
Sherrie's Stuff
http://sherrie-plummer.blogspot.com/


Julie - Posted!
Julie's Web Journal
http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx


Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/


Peggy - Posted!
Holmespun Fun Memes and Themes
http://holmespunfunmemesandthemes.blogspot.com

Karen