House of Paula

This afternoon was spent working on getting some of the trees cleared away from Mrs. B’s Water Tank

If you look at the picture below, you can see that there are all kinds of trees in this little area where the water tank is.

This next picture is the end result (I got to the point to where I couldn’t do much with the other trees because they have poison ivy in them)

Most of the damage was done with bypass lopers. Although there was a sledge hammer and crowbar involved to remove the wooden casing around the steel pipe for the gate – there’s a tree blocking the gate and the crowbar was the only way to get that sucker so we could lift the gate off. It was too windy to lumberjack and get out the either the of chainsaws. Not to mention that I don’t feel comfortable running a chainsaw without R being around – especially when it involves his mom. But there’s already a big difference in the amount of light that reaches the far end of the garden.

But even with the lumberjacking. I did get time for pictures this weekend.

[Mrs. B grows some serious Kohlorabi there was one that was bigger than a grapefruit and it wasn’t woody at all).

If you ask a million different people what makes a photograph, there will be a million different answers. For me, it’s a picture with great composition and great lighting that conveys something that moves the person viewing the image. Of course depending on what you’re taking pictures of, the subject matter that you are viewing may move you in different ways. What a good picture is not, is a highly edited image in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Don’t get me wrong, these programs have a place in the world, but if you haven’t learned the basics of good photography, you really are missing the boat.

Every morning when I check my e-mail, a quote of the day pops up and most of the time I ignore it even though I really like quotes (I admit I’m probably one of the few people in the US who still has a Bartlett’s Quotations). But today’s quote is really a good one:

Fate loves the fearless. – James Russell Lowell

I wonder what it would be like to live a life that is fearless – to boldly go where you must go. To not wonder what’s next in life. To not wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. I’m working on fearless living. I’m working on stepping outside my boxes and pursuing my passions. I want to know that I have a life well lived.

I’m sitting at my desk in tears right now.

EPMotion Video

Best thing I’ve seen in a while.

I’ll be updating a litte more regularly the rest of this summer. The month of June was spent travelling for work and rolling out a new application. I got to see a lot of neat stuff and took a lot of pictures. But there’s lots of stuff rumbling around in this brain ‘o mine that needs to be shared.

I’ve been travelling the last couple of weeks at work. Last week I was in Macon GA and this week, I’m in Corpus Christi. The trip to Corpus has been interesting to me. The area around here reminds me of Iowa. Lots of farms and mostly rural, the biggest difference is that the area is much flatter.

I did have time to go down to Padre Island and check out Padre Island National Seashore. I’m definitely going to have to plan another trip down here and spend some time driving the Seashore and taking more photographs. The water down here is much bluer than it is up in the Houston Area.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. I have tomorrow off and am going to do some stuff around the house and then Saturday, I’m going to take a trip over to Beaumont to see a friend who’s in town.