Naughty Naughty Naughty

Pictures of the little one at her mischievous best during an afternoon spent at the local park!

I had just gotten out of a serious headache that afternoon. So I parked my "you know what" at the edge of the slide area and started taking pictures.

Jr., a happy go lucky kid who is always smiling, sat down on the bench for a second between her running around. For a fleeting moment I saw a serious side to her that I have never seen before. Do not know what made her so thoughtful for a few seconds. She was off and running again in no time.

Wishing all Americans a happy 4th of July! Let us hope this year brings better things for the US of A. Oil independence, an end to the war, better politics, and everything else the majority of Americans are said to want in opinion polls but somehow never happen!

Surprisingly, Jr. is being taught in school that 4th of July is America's Birthday(not Independence day!). Maybe they are trying to rewrite the history books and remove the "I" word. Maybe they dont want people to think that Independence implies a dependence at some point prior to the Independence?

Jr. came home and declared that it is America's birthday and we celebrate it with fireworks and no school for tomorrow. I did not want to explain the concept of Independence or dependence to Jr. after a long and tiring day. That can wait for some time later.

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Random Photos..

It is pretty late in the night (by middle aged daddy standards).

So why not let the mind wander and just pick some photos from the last few days and post them ?

First, a nice graduation shot of Jr. thanks to another parent's camera.

Next a tip for people who suffer migraines in the middle of a hot summer afternoon. If you ever said to yourself, "If only I could chill my head", I have the perfect tip.

1. Take some crushed ice in a Ziploc (or other local brand name) resealable plastic bag (the sandwich size bag works best).

2. Wrap it in our Indian towel(aka thundu). This does not work with the turkish bath towels!

3. tie it around your head so that the crushed ice bag ends up just above your neck in the back of your head, and lie down so your head is pressed against the pack and in a few minutes, the headache is gone! At least this works for me.

Actually the last three pictures were taken in reverse sequence. San took a picture of the "sick me", and that prompted me to take the other two pictures as I unwrapped the towel.

Finally, to complete the randomness(?!), a picture of a squirrel at our local park, which took off just as I had him in focus..

I did not know that squirrel ears were that intricate. Did you ?

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The time, it keeps on flying..

As a person who skipped Kindergarten completely and went to first grade at the age of 4, the whole hoopla about a pre-Kindergarten graduation ceremony for Jr. sounded crazy!

Graduation party ? For graduating from what ? Playing in the yard ?

Add to that the timing of the party at 10:30 in the morning on a weekday, there was no way I was attending the ceremony. Jr. came and gave me the extra special hug and kiss and practically begged me to come. I still had to disappoint. San however relented and went for an hour. Apparently the ceremony was a huge success. All the parents were teary eyed that their little ones were now graduating from the daycare and moving on to different schools to attend KG.

In a way, I guess it is fitting to have some kind of graduation, because making it through all that playing in the yard, knowing your ABC's and 123's is an accomplishment by itself. All that hype with the gowns, tassels and caps are a little too much, but maybe even that is for the better ! They get used to the graduation ceremony concept at an young age.

The only problem was that San took the old S30 to take pictures.
San suffers from a not so rare disease called newmachineophobia where the symptoms are :
initial fear of touching new machine
expectation of extensive hand holding in terms of using said machine
learning to love the machine
hogging the machine
forgeting that they actually were afraid of the machine at one time
declaring that they always were okay with the machine

The beauty of this disease is that it cures itself. We have seen her go through this with the car, the van, new DVD players, cameras, camcorders, etc. Now she is going through it with the new Canon EOS! So she took the S30, which failed to open its shutters during the ceremony! Now we are waiting for photos from cameras of the other parents who were present, so I can get glimpses of what happened at the ceremony.

To compensate, I took a photograph of the little one with her hat..

Now, that is something to get all teary eyed! My little baby is all grown up..

In other news, this blog graduates after its second year and on to its third! Let us see if can go on for another year!

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Focus Pocus

Like Narayanan Sir pointed out, the picture of the baby was out of focus.

Sometimes the camera has a mind of its own, thanks to the advanced technology!

If you look into my viewfinder you find 9 focus points in the shape of a diamond. Obviously, when I have the little one in a big chair and the chair is a few feet in front of a wall, the camera decides that it got a hit on 4 points out of 9 on the chair, 4 on the wall and 1 on the kid! So, it focused on the chair. The fact that baby is a fast mover, does not help.

Now that I have read the manual, I can actually make sure that the point that lights up in red is the center point! and the results are much better.

The zoom rocks! Picked this little one at almost 90 feet!

Poonam wanted the little one parceled to her. Tonight I plan to post some photos when baby is doing combo #1. Poonam will beg for a return shipping label after seeing those photos..

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First pic

Have been busy at work lately. Also the girls are behaving at their worst when I get home! There has not been a lot of time for photography, considering the new camera and lena have been with me for 3 days already.

The indoor pictures (have not taken a lot of them) look great. Here is a picture of the little one, with absolutely no alteration.

The beauty of this camera is that it captures the scene, almost as you see it. Exactly same colors, light hues.

Promising you many more pictures to come..

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