The above photo was taken Monday, January 11, on the plane at SJC Airport. I don’t know how much it rained in my absence, though I do remember thinking it was kinda funny and cute that it started raining soon after I arrived home. The spots above are the first drops of rain.
Since then, El Nino has hit California hard, weather reports have indicated the heaviest rains since 1997, when cooincidentally I moved to California, in part for the beautiful weather that didn’t materialize the first season I was here. This week alone we’ve heard of rain caused power outtages, parts of cliff top properties being washed away, along with a tornado warning in Contra Costa County, that luckily never touched down.
It’s rained a lot this past week. Pretty much every day has been rainy throughout with some let up over the weekend, for which I was very grateful. I’m not a huge fan of rain when I need to drive somewhere, nor those who slow down to a crawl to drive in it.
Rain sometimes cancels plans and while I lucked out this week, I at first wasn’t sure what to photograph for the Topical Tuesday spot (and had considered blogging some photos that I hadn’t shown before and tying them into this week). Luckily, some photos presented themselves, and so here is this column, as usual with all photos from my iPhone.
One thing that got my attention this week was technology. I noticed a clever dad using modern technology to help his adorable daughter sell Girl Scout Cookies.
I’ve seen lots of people trying to help their daughters sell cookies this month including using Facebook and Twitter. This campaign was especially great though, as it used the HD Flip video to have his daughter talk about the cookies (including that there was no trans fat and that there were two kinds). It seemed to be working well, as in one day 16 people signed up to buy several boxes each.
Also on the subject of technology, National Public Radio brought me the story that Pope Benedict is urging priests to help bring their message to the masses through blogging. It’s actually a pretty intriguing idea for the Catholic Church which I’ve enjoyed seeing evolve in a number of ways. I remember being in Sunday school wondering why only boys could be altar servers (and a mischievous nun encouraging me to ask a priest), and then years later being one of the first Altar Girls in Connecticut which was groundbreaking.
The church I belong to, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, is already very tech savvy with sermons and lots of information online. If one or more of our pastors decided to blog, I would probably check it out, as I would a priest’s if I belonged to his or her congregation. I think it’s a great idea, and may check out some blogs made in response even if they are from leaders of other parishes and denominations.
I love color especially new combinations. It’s been hard for me to pick branding colors as so many of them appeal to me. In my former website I used red, black and to a small extent silver, colors also favored by Leica. When I was transitioning to a new site I considered quite a few new ones including purple and gold combinations. Finally I went with a deep purple and medium silver color as I wear almost exclusively silver jewelry and it seemed to suit my style best.
Here is a beautiful window display of color that caught my eye this week from H and G Furniture:
This weekend I attended a very cool workshop on night photography. At first there was some thought that it might be cancelled due to the weather. However, as predicted it did clear up and so I was on my way to Mare Island when I saw a really great photo opportunity of a bridge with the skies ranging from bright blue to rainy day gray while driving. While I realize it’s dangerous to be focussed (no pun intended) on something else while driving, I decided to set up my iPhone to take a photo and with my attention mainly on the road, took two quick snaps, one of which in my haste and dual concentration was quite crooked, and is the better of the two for it, so here it is:
At the night photography workshop (which will be its own blog post soon), one of the first assignments our instructor, Harold Davis, gave us was to photograph the rain puddles and their reflections. As we were moving quickly by one I thought had a lot of potential, I pulled out my iPhone to take a quick snap. I really like all the detail and movement it captured.
Sunday was meant to be a hiking day. Originally I was joining a group for a hike in Livermore to photograph the Murietta Falls, the biggest waterfall in the area. Unfortunately the guide had had a fall the day before and was not able to lead it, so I found another group doing a hike at Sam McDonald Park in Pescadero as a hiking group and brought along my Leica. (It also will be the subject of a blog post in the near future).
On my way there I notice some strange birds. The birds decided to walk right in front of my car and stay there. I tried to shoot them by honking the horn, and they slowly walked away. I’m not quite sure what they are, people have guessed duck, turkey, pheasant. If you know, please leave a comment below. In the meantime, here are the stubborn birds.
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