More on the mystery of how women choose men?

If you have been reading this blog long enough... posted "this" way back in 2007. Little has changed except said Ferrari is now married and we dont see too many photos of his wife in white salwars.. that is a sidebar discussion.

Back to the main theme.. do women choose men because they resemble some early version of their dad.. A version they have of their dad when they were toddlers and consider that the "best possible version of a guy"?

The research is still ongoing. This morning, I went to pick up FIL who arrived from India at SFO. It was hilarious to see him walk out in the same shirt I was wearing. So had to take this picture after coming home!

Yes, my shirt is faded thanks to all the chemicals in the Cupertino water and his shirt still retained a lot of the original color.. but we look like two people who could have played Benjamin Button!

His memory is not that good now. We both got the shirts gifted by my co-brothers dad in Australia a good 8 years ago. It is absolutely cozy and is one of my favorite airplane and rainy day shirts. Apparently FIL likes it for the same reason!

This is scary ladies!

A busy day in the life of Jr.

It was a case of bad planning. Daddy committing to take Jr. to a parade in Los Gatos with the school band without knowing that her dance school annual day program was on the same day!

She insisted on going to the parade inspite of the rain. Really didn't want to take a chance with the rain and get sick again, but you cannot deny a 10 year old when she begs. So off we went, and got wet in the rain and I had the added pleasure of walking back a mile and a half with a camera and saxophone hanging from my neck!

She thought it was worth it!

 This position of neck down and playing an alto-sax within a poncho had consequences for the second part of the day..

 The place was colorful and it was nice for folks who were sitting in shelter watching the parade.. not so for the kids or parents running alongside taking pictures!

 Came back home and had exactly one hour to get ready for her dance performance. We had a lot of help in the dressing up from our family friend and the end result was ?

Daddy tearing up seeing Jr. all grown up. This is the first time she is wearing the traditional dance dress instead of a paavaadai!

Had to rotate the picture by 15 degrees to make her look straight. She could not hold her neck straight..

She looked great. Just had to dance well..

She did all the steps well. The hands were good. The feet did their job, but...

She went through the motions. There was simply no smile. Even hindi movie heroines who are forced to dance in front of villains before the climax have better smiles than Jr.'s and that got her to face mommy's wrath for a good hour!

and daddy's advice session as well.. Daddy learnt early on in his ballroom dancing days that even if you falter with your footwork, a smile goes a long way with the judges! Granted this was not a competition and there were no judges but when your parents and extended family get to watch it in photos and video... there has to be a smile!

Next year, there will be a calendar system in the house that avoids such conflicts and doesn't push the kids to such extremes.. 

and we will have a smile before, at and after the performance! 

Sometimes I think we push our kids too much but then again, we got a lot more excercise compared to Jr. and the little one because we played outdoors all the time instead of sit in front of an iPad.

All said and done.. she did break our heart being sooo cute.

A photograph can only do so much justice..

It was a great idea to go work today instead of doze off at home. No pills, visited the hot room and now feeling a lot better. 

So the thought of visiting those 3000 odd photos from last week came to mind. 

After spending 2 hours on just 6 photos calling it a night.

At the end of the day a photograph even if done in Photorealistic HDR doesn't recapture the wonder of Death Valley!

This one photo below is of the Ubehebe crater. This is a composite of 7 shots stiched together. The individual shots were taken at 17mm in portrait format on a Canon 17-40mm L lens using a ND filter in manual mode with manual focus, then cropped and adjusted. I tried pulling the whole thing off with auto exposure bracketed shots in HDR and that did not work. Guess even my Mac quits at some point..

Sure there are not that many pictures like this of Ubehebe out there. We are on a rim of a crater which is around 100 feet! you get a feel for the size of this by looking at the people on the right edge.

The ND filter kit was part of the birthday present specially for this trip. Made a big mistake. Like a person who wears spectacles for the first time forgeting the specs at odd places, I left the ND filter kit on the crater rim. 

If you happen to read this blog and fate has it that you were on that crater rim between 11/21 or thereafter and you happen to have found it.. please email me.. 

Was almost in tears when we realized this at our next stop later that evening. By that time we had already driven a good 60 miles away from the crater and visiting it again in hopes of recovering filter kit was moot!

There were few good shots with the filter in the 24 hours of use like this sunset over the freeway. We didn't realize the sun sets before 4:30 in death valley! A lot earlier than the previous day when we were out of the valley. The valley is below sea level and the lowest point in the US is right here.. should have expected that!

or this one from Mosaic canyon..

These two photos en-route to Darwin falls at Panamint area..

and finally a butterfly that was everywhere in the desert.. they were even there in the salt flats. Don't know how they survive the harsh environment. 

Learned one more thing in the editing process. The canon photo stitch utility does not work on photos taken at 17mm! So figured out how to stitch them in Photoshop. Starting to really love Photoshop now. For all that Adobe hating because of Flash Player.. there is a new found love for Adobe because of CS5!

More photos tomorrow...