Category: Art

Pleasant Evening Stroll with Apollo and Spring Flowers

For the first time in nearly a month, Apollo and I took a pleasant evening stroll around our neighborhood.  I didn’t get much exercise, as I became easily distracted by all the beautiful blooming spring flowers and trees.  The temperature stayed in the 70s and the sky remained cloudless as the sun dipped toward the western horizon.

Flowers with Apollo
Flowers with Apollo (click for rest of album)

The forecast for the next couple of days, however, predicts more rain, so Apollo and I may not get out and about until later this week.

Terry and I also visited our local Home Depot to purchase a replacement day lilly (for the one lost to the driveway re-construction a year or so ago) and a couple of new flowers to add to the bed around the mailbox. As soon as the day lillies bloom, I’ll snap some photos and share them here.

Sunrise (Singular) for Groundhog Day

No repeats.  No snoozing to ‘You Got Me Babe’ from the alarm clock.  Just one single solitary sunrise to greet the groundhog last Saturday morning:

Groundhog Day Sunrise
Groundhog Day Sunrise (click on image for the other 58 photos in the album)

I almost gave up on this sunrise. The clouds stayed a dismal grey until the last ten minutes or so before sunrise. At least I had a cub of fresh made Irish Blend tea to keep me warm while I waited for the drab to transform to gilded.

Shadow Box Racing Memories

Shadow box Christmas giftJust after Epiphany, Terry received a large box from our daughter containing two gifts. The largest one, shown at right, displays all three tickets and several cutouts from the program, memorializing our trip to the United States Grand Prix last November.  Terry displayed it promptly and prominently in our great room.

Great big thanks to Nic and Rachelle for such a thoughtful gift and keepsake.

Oh, and the second gift?  For her BFF, who still hasn’t stopped by to retrieve it.

First Snowy Sunrise of 2013

First Sunrise 2013
First Sunrise 2013 (click image for rest of album)

When I let Apollo out this morning at 5:30 a.m., I saw the moon.  I didn’t think much of that until I let him back in and it dawned on me (pun intended) that I could probably see the sunrise today.  Today being New Year’s Day 2013.  I was supposed to wake up to snow falling, not mostly clear skies.

I groaned, though, because even without a wind, the temperature plummeted over night to the lower teens.  I didn’t fancy standing outside for a half hour or more to photograph a sunrise.  I made a compromise and setup the tripod and camera in the as-yet-unfinished Purple bedroom, where the window faces east and doesn’t currently have a screen installed.  I could open the double-pane window and have an uninhibited view of the eastern horizon (with the exception of the leafless winter tree skeletons silhouetted against it).

I waited until five minutes after sunrise but should have hung around ten minutes or so longer.  Instead, I went outside to shovel the driveway and the stairs before the sun, which wasn’t supposed to be shining this morning, could melt the powdery stuff to ice.  The sunrise never produced any golden or pink overtones to the clouds, but it did become a bit more dramatic than what I photographed above while I shoveled snow.  Oh well, such is life.

Happy New Year!

Movie Review: The Hobbit ~ An Unexpected Journey (2012)

totem-trekThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

4 out of 5 stars

I waited until the last possible moment to decide to watch The Hobbit ~ An Unexpected Journey this past weekend.  If I plan to spend the money to watch a movie in a theater, I do it opening weekend, because then most of the money goes back to the studio, which in turns means more movies that I like being produced.  In other words, I vote with my money.  And, Terry and I prefer to watch movies from the VIP seating on the balcony of Theater 7 at the Legends.  Well worth the climb up the stairs to the third floor Saturday afternoon.  We arrived with eight minutes to spare and sat through an amazing number of previews, but not any advertisements, which was a change for the better.

My most recent reading of The Hobbit occurred three years ago, when it was chosen as the book of the month for November 2009 for the Fantasy Book Club at GoodReads.  While I like The Hobbit, I’m not really the target audience for the book, since Tolkien wrote it for children.  But as with most well written children’s tales, there is much to be gleaned and learned by the adult reader.  I’m excited to re-read The Silmarillion next month for the same book club. In fact, I may read it as an ebook and also listen to it as an audiobook.

I loved the increased frame rate speed used to film The Hobbit.  I’ve been screaming for smoother sharper filming for years.  Really, there’s no excuse not to.  My eyes can drink in more than just 24 frames per second so please flood me with clean, crisp imaging.

I felt the focus of the story shifted away from Bilbo almost too much, and became Thorin’s story with Bilbo relegated to comedic sidekick. My foggy memory of reading The Hobbit three years ago recalls an older Thorin, still prideful to the point of arrogance, but not this brooding barely middle-aged dwarf, a veteran of many hard-fought battles.  I came away thinking Peter Jackson tried to turn Thorin into a darker, shorter Aragorn.

And the whole albino orc and warg subplot is just a bit much.  I’m pretty sure that wasn’t conceived in Tolkien’s mind.

Overall, I’m satisfied with the first installment of the drawn-out film trilogy adaptation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d encourage you to catch it on a big screen near you soon.

May the Mouse Be With You

Thirty-five years ago I got sucked into Lucas’ Star Wars like most everyone else in the world.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched that movie since then.  More than once in a movie theatre, and many, many times since via my own home theatre.  Every word of dialog is memorized.  Every scene emblazoned on my mind’s eye.  Every soaring sound of the score composed by John Williams ringing in my ears.  It was the right movie magic at the perfect time.

So I scratched my head earlier this week when my phone kept crawling across my desk or buzzing in my pocket because of the swarm of tweets bombarding cyberspace about Disney buying Lucasfilm.  I didn’t get a chance to really delve into that development until days later, thanks to endless meetings at work.  I did glimpse some pretty funny images cropping up in my newsfeeds.

Here are a few of the ones that caught my eye:

And my thoughts on the billions Disney gave George for the Star Wars franchise? At least there will be a seventh movie. I’ll keep hoping it will better than the last three.  George doesn’t need to worry about his retirement now (not that he ever had to worry much).

Meanwhile, I’m still missing those droids I was looking for . . .