"Pic-of-the-Day, 9-14-11"

(Written 9/14/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Nice MDers Over 35 blog)

This is a pic of my fav gazebo at our City Park. I was lucky to grow up just a few hundred yards from this spot.

It's a wonderful place for a family picnic, or just to use as cover from the oppressive sun and heat of a summer day.

It's not possible to show all of the beautiful scenery within view from there. To the left about 50' is the large lake at the north end of the park. Maybe 150' behind the camera, the stream emerges from a wellspring, and flows thru a small pond and under a gorgeous bridge. Yet another, unseen, stream behind the gazebo flows to the lake from a larger pond to the right, which in turn is beside a scenic bridge and the south end of the park.

Is it any wonder why I moved back to Hagerstown?

"Yeah, Call Me Shallow"

(Written 9/12/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Nice MDers Over 35 blog)

I doubt that I'm alone here, but I have a whole lot of reasons for totally rejecting out of hand women as possible girlfriends, and men as buddies.

The idea for this article came from comments on another blog describing Mensa's looks in glowing terms. But I could never date her because she has a "horsey" smile (she arches her upper lip a lot when smiling thereby showing off her gums). Who wants to stare at gums for the rest of their life???

And forget women who chew gum, especially bubble gum. I've had nightmares about, "Oh, yes, baby, right there!"

Another one is a local attorney who does tv commercials. The man does NOT move his upper lip when talking. It's like watching a ventriloquist! Yuck! He and I will never EVER be buddies.

Also on my list would be women who don't shave their legs or armpits, have more that one small tattoo, and women shorter than 5'4" or taller than 5'9".

And I'll never be more than acquaintances with nail-biters, lovers of cruciferous veggies, religious zealots, or anyone who uses a cutesy spelling of their first name.

Some minor annoyances are acceptable IF there are compensations. For example, I hate bumper stickers, but a woman with *great* legs is okay even if her bumper has three various-colored ribbons. NRA stickers are, of course, an automatic disqualifer.

And some characteristics are fine, in moderation, but disgusting otherwise. I like most any perfume on a woman, but if you use so much that you smell like a French whore house, goodbye! And I believe in some absolute male/female differences. I can fart, but you can't. And when we dance, ladies, *I* lead. Deal with it.

I once had a boss who was a wonderful and interesting guy, with undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard. He had great friend potential *until* we ate together. The man ate a salad like a frickin' Hoover vacuum cleaner. He'd stab his fork deep enough into it to get about 1/3rd of a bowl, jam it into his mouth with dressing spraying all over, and then seemingly swallowed it whole. It took him about four minutes to finish a meal. I thought I was gonna hurl every time we ate together.

Yeah, I'm shallow. Sue me...

"Pic-of-the-Day, 9-10-11"

(Written 9/5/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Nice MDers Over 35 blog)

We are lucky here in Hagerstown to have several permanent sets of gorgeous swans in our city park. But they are a struggle to photograph because they're soooooooooooooo white. That is one thing a camera struggles with far more than the human eye. Unless you're VERY careful with your camera, it will turn large parts of the swan into blobs of pure white that lack any detail.

There are several ways to cope with that, and this pic shows one way. It was taken in a fairly shady area, thereby lessening the normal contrast. Then when you edit it, you can keep dialing up the contrast and brightness until just before the highlights start to blow out.

Another trick I used here is a visual one, which fools the human brain. The swan is in the dead center of the pic, but doesn't look like it. The slanted rock at the bottom seemingly "pushes" the swan towards the upper right, as does the submerged diagonal walkway. And the off-center lighter green reflections "pull" the swan to the right.

As I mentioned to you, I often walk around a subject for several minutes before taking the shot. After doing that for a long time, you develop a good "feel" for photos. I shot this one very quickly because I knew the swan might move along at any moment, I loved the reflected light, and I knew the large rock would look good.

"Flower-Pic-of-the-Day, 9/5/11"

(Written 9/5/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Nice MDers Over 35 blog)

I've decided to regularly add some of my favorite flower pics to the blog. This is, of course, because I'm in a writing dry spell and just sticking a pic on here is at least something.

This pic is of the flower (well, not so much) of a cactus I brought back with me from Arizona. The flower only lasts one day, then dies. So you have to be quick with the camera and hope it's a nice day for photography. The cactus died not long after because, really, a cactus doesn't like Maryland weather.

What you see here is mostly the base and stem of the flower because, frankly, I liked the results better. The actual flower was a rather drab white. I moved it out to Mom's driveway and shot it from above against the macadam to get a good background.

"Just a Pretty Flower"

(Written 9/3/11 by ChristopherK2 for the Nice Marylanders Over 35 Blog)

This is just one of the many flowers I posted in an article on Ugly's blog. (Alas, this blog isn't as picture-friendly as Ugly's).

For the rest of the pictures and the full article, go to:
http://ugliermarylanders.blogspot.com/2011/08/early-spring-is-gone-but-hooray-for.html#comments

It's probably best to skip the comments, as most are just more ugly drama.