Top 10 Photos of 2016

A photography group I belong to is doing a year in review, where we go through all of our photos from the past year and pick our top ten.  It's more difficult that I thought.  At first I thought I'd go to my Viewbug page and see what others thought were my top 10, but then I remembered it's my top 10.  The ones that I'm exceptionally proud of, or the ones that may not be technically perfect but have have a special meaning attached to them.  Most of these were chosen because there was a certain technique or skill I was trying to master and I think they best represent that particular technique/skill and some were chosen just because they make me happy when I look at them.

Here's my top 10 of 2016

Working on depth of field

Long exposure with a small aperture

This is from our Florida vacation last winter

Working on HDR

Working on HDR with long exposure

Working on post processing to make colors pop

This one just makes me happy remembering our Valentines Day cruise

Experimenting with lightpainting

Another just makes me happy.  My puppy

If you'd like to see more of my photography you can find me on Viewbug or Google+

Shadowy figure at the top of the stairs

With Halloween right around the corner the radio station I listen to was in the Halloween sprit and asking listeners to call in if they're ever seen a ghost or lived in a haunted house.  I didn't have time to call in, so I'll share my story here.

I grew up in an old house, that had been in my dad's family for 4 generations.  I always thought there was something there but never saw anything strange until one night.  My sister and I were home with a friend.  I needed something from my bedroom, but the upstairs hall light was burnt out and I was to scared to go up there alone.   The top of the stairs turns 90 degrees, so when you get to the top there's a little nook off the hallway that leads into one of the bedrooms and a window opposite the bedroom door.

My sister, our friend and I all went upstairs together, using a flash light to see.  When we got to that turn in the stairway we shined the flash light on the wall between the bedroom door and the window and very clearly saw the shadow of a man in a wide brimmed hat.  It scared the crap out of us and we ran down the stairs without killing each other in the process.

There's no explanation as to how that shadow could've been cast in that spot because the bedroom door was closed and there was nothing outside the 2nd floor window that would make such a shape.  I never saw it again after that, but it was something that stuck with me for years.

A few years ago, while doing some genealogy research, I ran across a shadowy photo of my Great Grandmother's second husband standing in the doorway of our grainery shed.  I immediately recognized the figure in the photo as the shadow figure I had seen at the top of the stairs years earlier.

Regency Beauty Institute

My daughter started at Regency on August 29, 2016.  She was only one month into her education when Regency closed their doors.  She paid the school $7000 (of her own money) for her future tuition just a week before they closed.  Now it looks like that money is gone and this has discouraged her from wanting to continue her education in this field.

I've been scouring the web looking for answers and I'm finding them few and far between, so I'm sharing every little bit of information I can get my hands on with who ever wants it.  Some of this will only pertain to Minnesota students but I'll also post any national news I can find too. If you've been affected by this school closing or know someone who was, share your story and this post.  I'd love to hear what other information people are getting.  I'll be updating as information becomes available.

10-5-2016
This is the latest from the Dept of Education
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/announcements/regency

10-4-2016
Got a phone call from the OHE stating there was only $10,000 to be divided up among the 450+ students in Minnesota.  Also if we are granted a loan discharge and then my daughter decides later to go back to cosmetology school, that loan will need to be paid off before she could receive any other financial aid.

10-4-2016
This information is from an email sent to me by the MN Office of Higher Education


"Our office has not been able to get confirmation from Regency that they will be refunding students. Our office will be submitting claims to $60,000 in bonds the state has with Regency if those refunds are not made. The only issue we anticipate is that there will be more refunds necessary than bond funds so student claims will end up getting pro-rated. This process for a refund will take several months."

9-29-2016
Press Release from the Minnesota Office of Higher Learning
http://www.ohe.state.mn.us/mPg.cfm?pageID=2215 

#regencybeautyinstitute

A house on stilts

Every time I go out to visit my parents, I pass by the big yellow house that I grew up in. A new family lives there now and it's been over 10 years since I last walked through it's familiar rooms, but I will always consider it HOME. That's were all my childhood memories are.

The house was originally built by my great-great grandfather and was were my grandpa and my dad grew up.  When I stared kindergarten we were starting a major renovation.   We were replacing the small root cellar (which could only be accessed from the outside) with a real basement and having new siding put on.
In school one day the teacher had us draw a picture of our houses.  Since I knew we were going to change the outside from white to yellow, and because you can't see white crayon on white paper; I drew a yellow house.  The neighbor boy who was in class with me told me that wasn't a picture of my house.  My house was white, I needed to draw a white house.  "Yeah, well it's going to be yellow!" I told him.

Our house on stilts

Putting a basement under a preexisting house is a little more complicated than you can imagine.  It involves digging a large hole underneath the house and jacking the house up on stilts so a new foundation cam be built, all while we were we were living there.  Mom was pregnant with my sister and was terrified to leave the house because we had to "walk the plank" from the front door over the hole, which was about a 12 foot drop, to the other side.  One day I was taking my time getting out the door to meet the bus.  Mom didn't realize I wasn't all the way out and just saw the door had been left open.  She gave it a good slam from the inside.  It hit me in the butt with such force it send me flying over the hole and landing on the other side with a thud.  Luckily I was unscathed, other than a stinging backside. Mom was mortified when she realized what happened, but we laugh about it now.

Another time I was playing with the dog on the edge of the hole.  I was sitting right at the edge with my feet dangling.  The ground underneath me started to give way and I could feel myself starting to slip.  I grabbed the dog, hoping she would be able to pull me out, but she knew what was happening and was desperately trying to get away.  She struggled out of my grip just as the ground gave away and down I went.  I don't remember how I got out or how long I was down there, but I do remember having a black eye from the fall and having to explain how that happened.

With a month left of her pregnancy and the house still on stilts, Mom was getting nervous.  She was having nightmares about the house tipping over while we were inside and she swore she could feel it swaying when the wind blew.  That last month of her pregnancy she and I had to move out and live with Grandma until the basement wall were finished and the house could be put back on the new foundation.

So how was your Mother's Day?

Mine was... well... lets say it was interesting.

I had just finished a 65 hour work week and was looking forward to spending the day at my Mom's (without my children) putting flowers on Grandma's grave, going out for lunch, maybe go for a ride on the pontoon; just relaxing.  But instead the chaos started even before I got out of the shower.

I was in the middle of a shower when there was a knock on the bathroom door.  Typical, I never have had the luxury of using the bathroom in peace.  It was Hubby telling me something was up with Alison.  She woke up with her eyes swollen shut and couldn't open them.  After I got dressed I went out to the kitchen to see what was wrong and her whole face looked swollen.  My first thought was pink eye.  I tried to pry one open so I could see if they were blood shot but even the lightest touch had her in pain.  Hubby suggested I cancel my plans with my mom and take Alison to urgent care.  So we jump in the car and head to the clinic.

We were roomed fairly quickly, they were probably thinking pink eye also.  After a short wait the doctor, who spoke in broken English, came in.  He examined her for less than 5 minutes before telling us he was referring her to the ER.  Then sent the nurse in to check her vision but they did it without her glasses so of course she couldn't see anything.  The doctor checked in on her again one more time before sending us the the ER and said something about it being stress related, but he didn't know how to explain it.

So off the ER we went.  It must of been a slow day in the ER because we were in a room in less than 30 minutes.  By this time she was able to open her eyes, but her face was still hurting.  The ER doctor came in, looked in her eyes and said at least it didn't look like an infection.  After looking at the swelling in her face, she asked what happened to her forehead.  It was very red and scared or blistered.  Alison, being a typical redhead with very fair skin, had been out in the sun a bit to long on Friday for a school event and sunburned her face.  The doctor said the severity of her sunburn was probably causing the swelling and the skin was so tight there was nowhere for the swelling to go but her eyelids.  They gave her some ibuprofen and some Bacitracin for her burn and sent us home.  A sunburn sent my daughter to the ER; sounds like a show on TLC. 

As we were walking out of the ER my phone rang.  It was my son, Jim asking where I was and if he could get some driving practice in today.  He had his driver's permit and we really haven't had time to take him out practicing as much as we should.  So I told him if he wanted to go grocery shopping with me he could drive.  But today really wasn't the best day for driving practice.  I really didn't have the patience and he seemed to have forgotten how to drive.  As we were going down the road I kept wanting to grab the steering wheel and stomp on my imaginary brake.  Finally after almost having a heart attack I told him to pull over in the nearest parking lot and I would take over.

It was already after lunch time, so we decide to get lunch.  While waiting for our food I was writing my grocery list.  Alison grabbed my pen and wrote "Delightful granola bars that don't make me poop if I eat more then one" on the list.  See a few weeks ago I bought a big box of Fiber One granola bars, she took a few  to eat at school and had to make several trips to the bathroom that day because of them. When I read that I started laughing and couldn't stop.  Then Jim said something that made no sense and I meant to tell him to stop talking stupid only it came out "Top salking tupid."  That's when I completely lost it.  I was laughing so hard I had tears, and then they turned into real tears, and I was crying in the middle of the restaurant.  The people from the nearby tables were staring at me wondering if I was having a mental break right then and there.  And in a way I think I was.  The extra long work week and all the stress of the day had finally gotten to me and I was cracking up.  When I was in college I went through something similar.  I was so tired from going to school and working all the time that it was causing me to behave in really weird ways.  It was like I was on malfunctioning auto pilot.  I worked in a fast food restaurant at the time working the drive-thru and would answer the drive thru by randomly giving out my phone number, answering the the phone by saying "Thank you for stopping at..." and at it's worse I forgot where I lived or how to get there.   I was in full blown tears trying to explain to the kids I was either having a mini mental break or a stroke.  If anybody was suffering form a stress related illness today it was me.  Luckily it passed after a few minutes and I was able to function again.

After lunch we went to Walmart.  The kids were fighting and driving me nuts so I sent them each in opposite directions to find the things we came there for while I waited by the garden center.  I texted a friend to tell her what a sucky day I was having and jokingly asked if I could just leave the kids at Walmart.  As soon as I hit send I realized I sent it to the wrong person.  I accidentally sent that text to Alison, who was walking back towards me giving me a nasty look.

Jim insisted on driving home and even though I really didn't want him to,  I was to tired and overwhelmed to argue so I handed him the keys and said a little prayer he'd get us home without killing us.  We made it home and I'm still alive but that's all I'm going to say.

We've been trying to spiff up the yard for Alison's graduation this summer and I have yet to mow the lawn this spring.  We've been trying to start the mower for 3 weeks now  The first week, the battery charger we needed had been left out all winter and was no good anymore.  The second week, the new battery charger I bought was the wrong one.  And this week with the right battery charger,  Al  just couldn't get it started.  So we decided to try and finish the screen house we started putting up

on Saturday. It's like a screen door tent with a canvas roof.  We had it almost done, just need to put the roof on. Easy right?  Wrong!  Once we got the heavy roof spread out over the roof supports and started to secure it, I realized we had the supports in wrong.  Note to self:  Always re-read the instructions after your husband has read them to make sure he understood them.  We pulled the roof off and now it's in a big pile on the ground and Al said "Screw it.  Lets finish this next weekend."   I said the permanent  one I found at Costco was looking better and better because once it was up we never had to mess with it again, and I was having second thoughts about putting this one up again next summer.  That's if it survives this summer.

After the day I had, Al decided to go out to eat for dinner.  We went to a local pub and I ordered a cocktail.  I was pleasantly suprized when the waitress brought me my drink with a ton of moonshine soaked cherries.  Normally with this drink you get 2 or 3 cherries, but the whole top of the glass was covered in cherries.  I told Al, after I eat all those cherries and finish my drink I may not need a second one.  I had about half my drink gone when I realized there was something else in my glass beside ice and cherries.  I fished it out with a fork; it was a beer bottle cap.  Al asked the waitress for a new drink for me showing her the bottle cap I found.  She took my glass back to the bar and brought me a new one but this time with the normal amount of cherries on top.  Dang, I lost all my moonshine cherries.

I hope you all had a better Mother's Day. 

Running away from home

Recently the Hubby and I ran away from home for two weeks.  We drove all the way from Minnesota to Florida.  Stopping in Loretto, Kentucky to visit Maker's Mark distillery and Nashville, Tennessee to visit the George Jones museum (Hubby's a fan).  And finally after four days of driving and getting a little lost we arrived in Bradenton, Florida. 

The weather was beautiful.  It was hard to believe just a few days earlier it was middle of February and we were in winter coats.  Here it was 70 and sunny and felt like late May.

We got into town about 3 pm and spent the afternoon just setting in; we had 3 full days to spend sightseeing.  

Sarasota Farmer's Market

In the morning we got up and headed to the Sarasota Farmers Market.  Because we work all summer we don't get to go to the farmers markets around home so it was really neat to see all the fruits and vegetables and other things for sale.  We ran across some items that we weren't quite sure what they were as they weren't something found up North.  I came across one booth that was selling fresh pineapples and coconuts with straws.  I love pineapple but have never had a fresh one before (only canned) so I bought one, they peeled it for me and I had breakfast for the next couple days.  I also bought a coconut thinking I'd take it home whole; but before I knew it the gal behind the table had punched a hole in it and inserted a straw.  So I walked around the market drinking coconut water right from the coconut.  I didn't have any way to crack it open afterwards and tried to keep it from spoiling by keeping it in our room mini fridge.  But after doing a little research I found that coconuts will only last about a week after they've been tapped and since we would be on the road for at least 2 weeks it just wasn't to possible to keep it fresh for that long and I had to throw it away.  

There were also prepared  food vendors at the market.  We tried empanadas, some German pasties, a pulled pork sandwich and a turducken sandwich.  They were all good except the turducken; yuck.  Hubby liked it though.

Mote Marine Lab & Aquarium

After the farmer's market we headed to Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium where we saw all kinds of sea life from the tiniest seahorses to manatees and sharks. My favorites were the sea turtles and manatees.  Before we left home the plan was to spend a night in Crystal River so I could swim with the manatees but once I saw how big they really were; I got a little scared and decided to skip that part our trip.  Maybe someday.

After leaving the aquarium we headed to a little seaside bar called the the Old Salty Dog and tried conch fritters.  It's kind of like a hush puppy with little pieces of conch.  We couldn't really taste the conch other than a slight seafood taste to the fritter.  Which was fine, I think if I could see or taste to much of it I probably wouldn't of eaten it. It's one of those things you're better off not thinking too much about.

Big Cat Habitat

Before we left home I had heard about Big Cat Habitat and Sanctuary, but after reading a few reviews I was a little reluctant to go.  The negative reviews mentioned small cages, not much of a natural habitat for the animals and the fact that they do circus like shows kind of turned me off, but I wanted to go see it for myself.  When we got there it was explained that all of these these animals were rescue animals who otherwise would've been put down.  I felt much better and could see for myself that they really were loved by their caretakers.  I was able to get some good photos of these gorgeous cats.  The other animals there included monkeys, parrots, bears, camels, and farm animals.

After all the walking we did the day before we decided to take it easy the next morning and headed to the beach. From our hotel, it was a straight shot to the beach on Anna Marie Island.  It was a Sunday morning and the beach was pretty quiet.  There were two large groups sitting in a circle for what I assume was some kind of Sunday service. How cool to be able to attend church on the beach.  We pretty much had the beach to ourselves except for a few people walking.   As we approached the water I saw 3 dolphin swimming by.  That was a treat to see; as I had never seen a dolphin in the wild before. 

Anna Marie Island, Manatee Beach

We planted our camp chairs in the sand and just watched the gentle waves lap at the sand while we soaked up the sun.  I took my shoes off and dug my toes in the cool sand and after a while dipped them in the water.  The water was colder that I was expecting but it felt good.  Around lunch time the beach was starting to fill up; we decided it have lunch at the beach cafe and see the rest of Anna Marie Island. Somehow we found ourselves at a pier where we found the pelicans watching people fish and trying to steal their bait.

Sunset over Longboat Key

It was Valentine's Day, and I had booked us a sunset cruise on a catamaran.  So later that afternoon we went to go meet our captain.  We had a great cruise.  It was just us and two other couples.  We all sat at the front of the boat as the captain hoisted the sails and we sailed with the wind.  Watching the sun go down over the water was a great way to end our valentine's day at the beach.  

The next morning we hung around the hotel doing some laundry and resting up and later decided to take a drive to Siesta Key.  The only island in the area we hadn't seen yet. We stopped at a few wine places and tried some tropical fruit wines and just drove around looking at the beach houses.  Later we watched the sun set as we sat on the beach again and had dinner at a beach side restaurant.

The next morning was our checkout day, so we packed up and headed for St. Augustine. We got to St. Augustine late in the afternoon.  Everything closes around 5 in town so that afternoon we were only able to do the distillery tour at St. Augustine Distillery and a wine tasting at San Sebastian winery.  

St. Augustine Distillery

I had done a little research on St. Augustine before we left and I'm glad I did.  I found out the best way to see the city was to buy trolley tickets and you could park your car and hop on and off the trolley all day long to get from one place to another.   Parking and driving in St. Augustine can be kind of a nightmare, very narrow streets.  We bought the 3 day trolley pass and rode the whole route once listening to the history and points of interest, then decided where we wanted to get off.  We spent a good deal of time walking along St George St. where there were shops and restaurants. About mid-day we found ourselves in front of Flagler College.  I would've liked to take a tour but we were there at the wrong time.   The architecture in town is beautiful and we spent most of our time walking around taking pictures of the old buildings.  Eventually we ended up along the bay front and visited the Castello de San Marco; the Spanish fort built in the 1600's.  It was interesting to see the old canons and to walk along the top fort walls looking over the water.  While we were there we watched a mock pirate attack, some of the young kids there thought it was real and kept saying "We have to fire the canons and stop the pirates!"

That night we had tickets for a ghost tour.  Hubby isn't into that kind of thing,  but he humored me.  I'm a fan of Ghost Hunters and remember watching an episode where they investigated a few places in St. Augustine, and I was hoping this tour would take us to those places.  The only place on our tour that was featured on Ghost Hunters was the Old Jail.  It was interesting that we had toured the jail that morning.  The day time tour doesn't talk about it being haunted and while our group was standing in one room on the first floor I clearly heard the slam of a cell door from upstairs.  We were the first tour of the day, and nobody else was in the building, so who slammed the cell door?  Nobody else reacted so I'm not sure if I was the only one who heard it.   

Unexplained light streaks.  Ghosts?

After my experience earlier in the day, I was very excited to tour the jail on the ghost tour.   I had overheard an employee telling another tourist that he wouldn't go into the jail alone day or night,  so I was expecting something to happen.  The actual tour was more listening to actors tell local folklore, much like the the daytime tour, but with a spooky twist.  It wasn't really what I was looking for, but it was fun.  There was a family with two preteens who were getting a little freaked out though.  As we toured the jail that night I waited to see if I would hear the slamming cell door again but never did.  I had my cell phone to take pictures and I caught some streaks of light but I'm not sure what to make of them.  Might be a bug, might be light reflecting from somewhere.  I'm not so sure it's a ghost.   

Before we left the South to go home I decided I wanted to try chicken and waffles.  I searched up the best place to get chicken and waffles in St. Augustine and found the Metro Dinner.    The Metro has been featured on Diners Drive ins & Dives so I figured it had to be good.  Never having had chicken and waffles before I wasn't sure what to expect.  When the waitresses brought me a small bowl with pancake syrup and hot sauce I began to wonder what I was getting myself into.  Being of Scandinavian descent I don't eat too many spicy foods and Hubby likes to joke that parsley is about as spicy as we Swedes get.  Hot sauce in my pancake syrup was way out of my Scandinavian taste palate.  I must of made a face or something because the waitresses said “I know.  It sounds crazy but somehow it works with the chicken waffles.”  And she was right, it was crazy but somehow it worked.  Although I only used it to dip my chicken into, there was no way I was dumping it on the waffle.

After lunch we headed over to Anastasia Island where the St. Augustine lighthouse stands.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

164 feet tall; 219 steps to the top or 14 stories and we climbed them all.  Let me tell you, it wasn't easy.  It's a very narrow spiral staircase and people are trying to go down while others are coming up.  Luckily there's a landing in between each set of stairs to stop and rest if you need to or to let others by.  Since we're both overweight and I have a bad knee it took us awhile but we took our time and eventually made it to the top.  It was windy that day on the ground, and it was super windy at the top.  So windy that Hubby didn't stay out on the observation deck with me.  I was determined that since I made it this far I was going to get the full view.  Hugging the wall, I inched my way around the top of the lighthouse taking a few pictures for a full 360 view.  If going up was hard; going down was harder.  My bad knee was tired from the climb and hurt to bend it and on top of that I was starting to get vertigo.  I really had to concentrate on one flight at a time; stopping on each landing to get my head straight before proceeding.  I was very happy to be on the ground when we finally got to the bottom.

On our way back to the hotel that night I told Hubby I was ready to go home.  We had been on the road for almost two weeks and we still had the drive home.  This morning we got up, packed our stuff  and checked out of the hotel.  Before leaving town we made one more stop at the beach and spend a little time looking for seashells before saying goodbye to Florida.  When we started this trip I suggested we buy a RV when we retire and travel across the country.  I still want to do that but to a lesser extent, I realized I missed the kids and our animals.  With every mile Florida gets farther behind us and I realize how much I appreciate home.

Next year, we're heading West.  Following Route 66 to Arizona.  We took that trip 20 years ago as newlyweds, so it will be sort of a second honeymoon.

I'm a speedlite dummy

Ok call me stupid, but it's taken me 3 months to figure out why my speedlite (flash) wasn't working with my camera and it was really one dumb little mistake the whole time. 

Shortly after I bought my new camera I realized I wanted a remote shutter release so I could take photos without touching the camera.  The opportunity to photograph my own family photo seemed like a good enough reason to buy a wireless shutter release.   After a little research I settled on the Yongnuo RC603C II because they could do double duty as a flash trigger also and they were only $30.  They were fairly easy to figure out and set up and worked pretty well. 

Next I decided to buy a speedlite and went with the Yongnuo YN560 III because it was compatible with the shutter remotes I already had.  When it came I didn't have time to play with it, so it sat in the closet for about a month.  When I finally got around to trying to set it up I found it was a little over my head and the manual was less than helpful.  I tried googling it to no avail.  I posted on various photography forums asking for help, but becasue I wasn't sure what was wrong I wasn't sure how to ask for help and was getting answers that were way over my head.  I considered sending it back and getting a different model, but the amount of time I had to return it had expired, so I was stuck with it.

I would drag it out from time to time and fiddle with it until I got it to flash; take a few photos thinking I had it figured out and put it away only to have it not work the next time I wanted to use it.  I was very frustrated because it never worked consistently.  Then in the middle of a practice shoot the batteries died and I thought just maybe that was the issue.  Still  it wouldn't work.  It seemed to be communicating with the one trigger because it would flash when I pressed the button on the one trigger but not on the other.  So I changed the batteries in the one trigger, but still it wouldn't flash when I pressed the camera shutter button.  I was about ready to take the speedlite and chuck it across the room, but realized that probably wouldn't solve the problem.  So I packed it up and put it away.

Camera with flash trigger in the hotshoe

I woke up this morning determined to figure it out, and if I couldn't do it on my own I was going to take it to the camera store.  I sat down and watched a video on you-tube that I had viewed I don't know how many times before, that explained how to set it up, when I finally had that "Ah ha" moment.  It was something so simple that I feel kind of dumb admitting it.

This whole time I had been setting my triggers up as an off camera shutter release.  But for the speedlite to receive the signal from the camera, the trigger needs to be in the camera's hotshoe.  How I over looked this one little thing and it's taken me 3 months to figure out,  I don't know.  I thought I was fairly tech savvy, but I guess somethings you just have to learn the hard way.