Posts..

The lamp ones.. not the blog ones..

Found throughout Disneyland in various themes..

Caught these in the New Orleans section..

Next time we should spend a week there and explore every little detail in that place.. just fascinating!

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Busy bees...

It has been a very hectic work week with not much time for family, leave alone updating the blog.

This morning while standing in the backyard trying to catch an AT&T signal on the iPhone to call work, a dead bee was spotted on the concrete!

Having made several unsuccessful attempts to catch the bee live on the rosemary and sage bushes, this was an indirect blessing (for me , not for the bee) to capture this using the macro.

So put a drop of hand sanitizer on a piece of paper, plopped the bee on that drop and took pictures with the macro..

Then saw my own busy bees sitting in a dark room with dark glasses and clicked away..

Here are the big busy bees, up close and personal

When things get tough, you can always be happy that a chance encounter with a dead bee or catching your kids at play can put a bright spot in an otherwise hectic day.

We had friends and relatives over for dinner and that was really refreshing. Have to do this more often.

The economy rant needs a post in itself..

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To do Pooja or not to do Pooja ... that is not the question!

Technically there is no Deepavali for the family, what with my Grandpa and my Aunt (periamma) passing away last year.

When you get down to explaining it to a 5 or 8 year old, especially a five year old and go

"we don't have Deepavali pooja this year"

LO: why?

me: Because we remember your great Grandpa and I remember my aunt

Jr. : because you are sad? We are sad too when we talk of Great Grandpa!

Me : Not really. Just to remember them.

LO : But now we are sad because grandpa is now a god "AND" we don't celebrate Deepavali! (she made the "and" the punchword)

Me : hmmm.. we still get to eat the good stuff that Paati will make and you get to play with fireworks.

LO and Jr. : (all smiles) OK!

So Grandma made her usual good eats and San got us some mathaapus and we had some quiet fun for 15 minutes total in the backyard! Enough to make the kids say "that's enough. let us go back in!". The outside temperature helped with that decision.

In India this would never happen. 15 minutes of fireworks and we call it done? Never!

My brother and me would start a good 15 days before Deepavali and go on for another day or two after Deepavali was done..

Guess that was another time another place altogether... but I was there for a few minutes earlier today, transported by the smell of the smoke and the sparklers...

Jr. is still scared! Her mother and grandma defend her by saying things like "she is a docile kid" etc. etc. when I challenge her to be a little bolder and continuously frustrates me. Who knows, maybe in time she will learn to love sparklers?! The funny thing is she is scared of the initial burst when the thing catches on fire. Once it is past that point, she is happy to hold it and watch it go.

The little one needs no telling. She is like a tigress.

Couldn't keep her still for the photo!

Grandma joined in for a minute within those 15 to pose for this photo..This photo meets all ISO Grandma 9000 standards she set for me before taking the picture..

"We should know it is me, but my face,dress etc. should not be prominent" she said. "No problem, pannidalaam (that can be done)" I replied with the air of the Sathyam studio photographer who told my parents "yes that can be done" to any request they make simply so he could be done with us in those good old days!

Then the kids were down to the last few sparklers and daddy decided it was time to do some quick photo experiments..

We just set the timer and captured all the fun..

This whole plan to do the sparkler thing was about to be abandoned because daddy got called to work earlier today and we lost our internet connection at home from 2-6! We now have high speed internet though. Just choose the wrong day to upgrade I guess.. luckily things got sorted out just in time for me to return home and do this.

We had a wonderful time eating and sparkling.. we pretty much did everything except the prayer and the new clothes. With four birthdays coming in the month of November that isn't an issue either. The kids went and thanked "Kollu thatha" for watching us from above and making the evening worthwhile.

Hope you all had a wonderful Deepavali !!! We did.

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Ikebana show - Wow!

Did not know much about Ikebana till today. Still don't, but at least got introduced to the concept at the Flower show at the local community center.

It was awesome!

The arrangements looked picture perfect to the point where Jr. and the little one kept asking "Are they real flowers or fake?" over and over again.

Are these real daddy?

how about these ones. are they real?

I learned something new today. My kids are uncomfortable around "perfection" or the notion of "perfection"..

Was taking pictures of the arrangements and the flowers in the arrangements and in the process learnt a lot about changing zoom lenses fast. Finally decided to do multiple rounds of the show...

with wide angle
with telephoto
with macro!

see results..

this one is with the sigma lens maxed out at 200mm taken at ISO 1600, f6.0, 1/60 sec.
Autofocus makes a big difference..

this one with the 50mm macro lens at ISO 1600, f5.6, 1/60 sec. The macro lens was on manual focus and it has a real small depth of field but where it focusses, it is unbelievably sharp and detailed. Should have taken a tripod with me and it would have been better..

The next bunch of pictures are taken with different lenses..

The bud and the flowers are either zoomed in or magnified with macro. You can see the image differences..

For those local readers, it is open tomorrow also. Definitely worth a visit.

A big thanks to the organizers and participants in the events for this visual treat.

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Intricate detail

In nature.. (a chrysanthemum bud)

and man made (a hand crafted Indian doll - the head is as small as a dime)

the world is just different when you got nice glasses....

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