Silly Kitteh!

You gotta love my daughter's cat, Bones. He is such a character. Now that my daughter is 18, she is spending quite a bit of time away each weekend and her cat misses her horribly. So, he has no choice but to bond with me. Here he is joining in while I'm enjoying my Sunday morning routine -- me on my laptop -- and of course, Bones is right there in the middle of it. For some reason, he loves snuggling up behind my laptop while I'm working.
Here is is again snuggling up to the salt and pepper shakers, snoozing away. What a goof!

Marshmallow Clouds

Today was one of those "picture perfect" days. White puffy clouds and beautiful blue skies. Something I've always wanted to photograph are the silver grain silos near my house. The first picture shows off the gorgeous clouds and skies.

This next picture provides a more panoramic shot. As always, you can click any of the pictures to see them in greater detail. In the second one, you can even make out the Phoenix sign near Usary Pass.

This last shot is of Red Mountain, which is just to the left of the silos in the previous images. I took this picture out at Tyler Ranch, which is just north of the 202 (Red Mtn) at the end of Val Vista.

White Lightning!

Wow! Talk about lightning. The storm we had this evening had more lightning than I've ever seen. It was flash after flash after flash, just like a giant strobe light, with continuous thunder for at least four hours. I checked the Southwest Lightning page and my mouth fell open. The entire southern and eastern portions of the Valley of the Sun were being inundated with lightning. The red dots reflect lightning that has occurred in the last 10 minutes. I think you could say we got hammered!

This video shows a small portion of what we experienced. If you pause the video at just the right spot, you can see just how bright the lightning was. It lit up my front porch like it was the middle of the day.

Whoa!!! Hold the phone! I thought the storm was over when I sat down to add this post, but it just started up again in earnest. I think we're in for a wild night! Here's another lightning flash count. The storm has converged into a ball over the Phoenix metro area. Amazing!

Surprise Lunchtime Visitor

We've been experiencing quite a bit of rain over the past few days, which is always welcome during our hot Arizona summers. Due to the rain we got overnight and early this morning, the outside temperature at noon today was right around 90 degrees instead of the usual 104+. When I lived in California, anything over 82 degrees was downright hot to me. After 8 years of living in the desert Southwest, I've become pretty acclimated to the hot temps, so 90 feels absolutely great! Due to the lower temperature, I decided to go out for lunch and after getting inside my car, I rolled down all of the windows to let the warm breezes through. Just as the last window was down, a little brown damselfly floated in through the passenger window. It really took its time, hovering just above the dashboard, slowly moving from the passenger side to my side of the car. But, just before it exited my window, it stopped right in front of me and hesitated for a moment, almost as if to say "Nice day, isn't it. I hope you don't mind me taking a shortcut through your car." After a second or so, it gently made its way out my window and was on its way. Was a sweet little surprise.

Summer Escape

Ah, the White Mountains of Arizona. What a great place to escape the desert heat. Last weekend, I accompanied my RVing friends to the annual Bluegrass festival, which is held at the Hon-Dah Resort and Casino. You can count on the summer rains and the cooler temps. A perfect place for a summer escape!

I'm still learning how to use my new camera and took a few snaps of the wildflowers that were all around our campsite. You can click a picture to see it at a larger size.

These red flowers were everywhere.

Check out the little beetle on the upper right flower.

Pretty little wild daisies.

This one reminds me of the desert mallow that grows near my home in the Spring.

I don't know what type of flower this is, but there was this big, fuzzy, orange bee I was trying to photograph. He ended up on the wrong side of the flower, but after taking the picture and viewing it at full size, I was amazed to see there were lots of little black beetles crawling all over the flower.This one was interesting. Not exactly a flower, but I thought she was cute. Of course, this is my little "Chiquita" taking an afternoon nap.

Excellent! Where there's a will, there's a way.

Well, I pulled it off! I found a way to adapt a filter for my new camera. Take that TC! Via the Internet, I found an adapter tube meant for use on a FUJIFILM S5000 camera, which basically performs a 49mm to a 52mm conversion. After measuring, I was pretty confident that the tube would fit right over my lens. The adapter arrived in the mail today, and Voila! -- it works! I still need to make it more secure so that it won't fall off, but it's definitely usable. Take a look for yourself. The text is kind of small (and a bit fuzzy), but the company who made the adapter spelled FUJIFILM, FUJIFILAM.

Say Cheese!

I gottez a new kameraz! Sorry, for the poor spelling, I think I've been spending way too much time at icanhascheezburger.com. Anyhoo, I saw a great deal on a FUJIFILM FinePix S1000fd at Dell and couldn't resist. It's basically the bigger brother of my current camera (FinePix S3100), and has the additional features I've been wanting. It's really great at taking pictures in low-light and indoor situations and the video capability is pretty darn good. I've been tinkering with it for the past week and am finding there is a lot to memorize, but overall, I am extremely happy with the camera. The only down-side is that Fuji, for reasons I cannot understand, didn't design the camera to be able to handle screw-on filters. My older camera came with a special adapter that enabled 55mm screw-on filters. But, not with the new one. I went to Tempe Camera, hoping they might know something I didn't and possibly have a suggestion on how to adapt a filter, but the condescending older gentleman who assisted me, basically told me to forget it. According to him, "Cameras like mine are cranked out in mass quantities and are outdated within 3 months of being produced." You know, you can say the same thing about cars, but that doesn't mean the product is worthless. And, to add insult to injury, he said "Fuji figured people who buy this type of camera wouldn't want to use filters." Okay, what kind of people is he referring to I'd like to know. People who aren't serious about photography maybe? His attitude basically told me that I'm not a serious enough photographer for him since I own a lowly Fuji product (which they no longer carry by the way). Too bad for him, 'cause Tempe Camera lost a customer.

Here are a few shots I've taken that I'm pretty happy with. All were taken indoors without a flash and without a tripod. Click a picture to see it at its actual size.

Cristina's 18th Birthday Flowers

Closeup of lily stamen (Super Macro mode)

Closeup of daisy (Macro mode)

Glass hummingbird - approximately 3" in height (Super Macro mode)

Image taken inside my pantry