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

Desert Wonders & Lego Mania!

I took a brief trip to San Diego over the July 4th holiday to beat the Phoenix heat. Along the way I stopped at the Desert View Tower, which is located just a few miles east of Jacumba. The last time I visited was 35 years ago when I was a teenager. It hasn't changed a bit. This time I took some time to really soak it all in. The place has several levels and contains interesting artifacts and works of art. The highlight for me was the vintage 1933 Jo Mora "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" poster, which he had created in honor of the California Rodeo in Salinas. I grew up with this poster and the cowboys it commemorates -- it holds a very special place in my childhood memories. Here are a few vignettes from the poster.

While in San Diego, I visited Legoland. Since the place is geared for small children and their parents, I wasn't sure what to expect, but to my surprise I found that Legoland has
something for everyone. Besides, I'm just an overgrown kid anyway, so I had a blast.

Besides the rides and usual amusement park attractions, the next best thing about Legoland has to be "Mini-land." What a trip! It's amazing what can be created using a little lego block! Here are two of my favorites. I have way too many to share here. I'm thinking about posting them on the web through Flickr or Picasa. If I do I'll come back and update this post with the URL.

San Francisco's "Painted Ladies" (I was blown away!)

Mt. Rushmore (no, the faces are not photoshopped on)

Rainy Riparian Preserve

My final photo foray in May was to the Riparian Preserve near my home. It had been raining quite a bit, so I was curious as to what was going on there on a cool rainy morning. I came across more critters than I expected. I had to use my zoom quite a bit, but I got lucky with a couple of the birds who allowed me to get closer than usual. There were a couple of guys lugging huge zoom lenses, which I am sure guaranteed them spectacular photos, but I guess I enjoy the "hunt" so to speak. It's much more fun to me to try to get as physically close as possible without scaring away my quarry. Click on a picture to see the actual size image.

Brush Bunny

Mourning Dove on her nest

Great Egret

Greenbacked Heron

Great Egret (l) and Great Blue Heron (r)

Great Blue Herons

There was so much rain, the constant weight of the droplets caused one of a Yucca's spikes to completely bend over.

Here's a closeup of some of the flowers.

I came across some wild sunflowers, I guess they could be considered weeds, but the light, plus the moisture made them look prettier than one I would buy from a florist. This one was especially pretty. In one of the flowers, a large bee was doing his best to snuggle up to the flower to avoid the rain.

Playing Catch-up

It's been forever since I've posted anything. I guess it's been so nice outside for the past two months I didn't want to stay inside and post to my blog. Well, now that we're getting into the triple-digit temps, I thought I'd play a little catch up and add some highlights from the past two months.

In April, while cleaning the glass door leading out to the patio, I noticed a smudge on the stationary panel. It took me a couple of moments to view it in just the right light to make out the shape. It's a tiny handprint from my grandson, Raine. Who knows how long it has been there. I don't clean my glass more than a couple of times a year, it that, so I'm guessing it must be from about a year ago when Raine was almost 3. So far I haven't cleaned it off. I don't get to see my grandson as much as I would like, so every once in a while I sit down and look at it. It was a bit of a challenge to photograph it, but I think it came out okay.

In May, I gave myself a Mother's Day gift. For the longest time, I've wanted to convert my whiskey barrel planter to a fountain. I looked for kits on the Internet and at garden centers, and settled on one from The Home Depot. It's still a work-in-progess, but it's shaping up nicely so far. I added some artificial ivy and my oldest daughter purchased some cute little "froggy fats" that I perched on the rim of the fountain. Here's a closeup of the little froggies.

My family is really fond of a game we call "Zonk". In this game, you roll 6 dice, with the hopes of being the first person to score 10,000 points. In the scoring system, rolling six of a kind is basically an automatic win, as you are awarded 10,000 points. I've been playing this game for over 20 years, and for the first time in my life, I actually rolled six of kind. Six sixes, to be exact. Sure, I could have faked the photo, but I have a witness! I snapped this photo once the shock wore off.

Later in May, I took a solo drive out into the desert. I headed out through Queen Creek and passed by the SanTan Pet Cemetery. It's up for sale if you're interested.

I ended up just southeast of Picacho Peak and snapped a couple of cactus blossom pictures.