I Want Fondue for Every Meal

Last month, hubby & I went to dinner at The Melting Pot with another couple and had a very fun and delicious fondue dinner. After doing the lion's share of food prep at a family gathering recently (my poor MIL was laid up with a torn hamstring), MIL offered to take me wherever I wanted for dinner. I chose Melting Pot and we had another yummy, fun meal. Why can't I have dinner like that every night?

My First Camera

We were talking about cameras tonight and J's little digital camera. He's 8 years old, which was how I was when I got my first camera. It was a Kodak Instamatic X-15F.



I loved that little camera. It utilized Kodak's then new Flipflash technology. More often than not the flash wouldn't fire and that was always frustrating. Somewhere I've got very exciting pictures of our cat Ling-Ling sitting in a window, my mum & dad sitting in very stiff poses dressed in 70s finest fashions, or very low resolution shots of the front of Nana & Grandad's house. Perhaps I'll get Steve to scan some of those shots and share them in another entry. I loved that little camera and would save my allowance to buy the 126 film, a flipflash and then be able to pay for the photo processing.

That little camera has been gone for years. I would love to find one to put on display next to my antique Kodak that I found last summer in an antique shop. Maybe I'll go check out Ebay.....

Back to Normal

Okay, before you laugh yourself silly at my title--because we all know that I am as far from Normal as possible, I just have to say it's nice to be normal again. J went back to school 2 weeks ago. We're working on getting his back to normal routine consistent, but that's okay.

I, for one, have jumped in with both feet at my daily routine. This time last year, I was struggling every day with what I was going to do and when. This year, routine has fallen neatly into place and I couldn't be happier. It's great to drop J at school and get on with my day the way I want to. It's also lovely to enjoy the peace & quiet of my house once school starts in the mornings. There is no constant barrage of questions, video game requests, etc. It's just nice to have my own thoughts to myself again.

So much so, that I find all sorts of new creative thoughts abounding in my brain. It will be great to start doing some writing on a regular basis.

The Photographer's Right

Sometimes I am amazed at the genius that business owners exhibit, in order to promote their businesses. Often times I've seen an advertisement in a magazine, a commercial on TV or just heard about a business idea through word-of-mouth and think, "That was brilliant!"

Similarly, I am equally amazed at people's stupidity when it comes their businesses. Case-in-point, yesterday my family & I traveled up to Hillsborough, New Hampshire for their annual Hot Air Balloon Festival & Fair. Both Steven & I were each armed with one of DSLR's, he the Canon 40D and me with the Canon 20D.

It was a pretty day, the fair was busy and we were making photographs of things that caught our interest. Now the fairgrounds have a Midway with carnival rides and games, as well as a vendor faire. We came across this really neat booth where a woman was selling decorative fabric hot air balloons. There was something for everyone, be it for a nursery, a race car fan, a sailing enthusiast, or just a colorful souvenir of a day at the fair and festival. We both raised our cameras to take pictures of these little balloons because it would have made for a great photograph. As soon as the owner saw us with our cameras, she came rushing out and told us what we were doing was illegal and we were not allowed to photograph her work. My husband, being the well-studied man that he is, told her very politely that we were within our legal rights as this was a public place. She started spouting off rather snottily about how she sells these things all over the world and she knows her rights and ours wherever she sells them and we were not permitted to do so. We argued the point with her for a few minutes and finally I said, "You know what dear, we know what our rights are. We could give her some free publicity on our photo and blog sites, but she's too short-sighted to see the bigger picture. That's her problem." We walked away...for a while.

Needless to say, I am not one to take things lying down and walked past her booth and exercised my rights several times. If she wasn't so small minded, I would have normally provided her information & examples of her work for people to enjoy, potentially contact her and purchase. But since she couldn't see the big picture, she won't get any free advertising from me.

Hindsight is 20-20 as we all know. If we had really wanted to push the issue, we should have asked a local police officer to come over and explain our rights to her. We should have also made use of the fact that WMUR Channel 9 of New Hampshire had a reporter on scene to report on the balloon festival, and made our point in the court of public opinion. Woulda, coulda, shoulda....

As I reviewed our photos today I came across the ones I took of this lady's booth and decided to voice my rights for all to see. From now on, I will carry the following document with me to present to an offended party, The Photographer's Right published by attorney Bert P. Krages II of Portland, Oregon.

If you are a photographer or even a person who just likes taking snapshots, keep a copy of this with your camera. If challenged, I encourage you to stand up for your rights.

Peace, Jennifer

Mosaic

Neila tagged me this morning to make a mosaic about myself. Here goes:



1. Jenn Kastner - bowl5981, 2. Orange and yellow floral cupcakes, 3. Algonquin Park Sunrise, 4. Soft purple, 5. Bono 1, 6. The fluke of a whale as it dives, 7. London from the Stone Gallery, 8. mini cakes taste samples (for a wedding cake), 9. bookshelf spectrum, revisited, 10. Jonathan Livingston Seagull “I am ready,” he said at last. And Jonathan Livingston Seagull rose with the two star-bright gulls to disappear into a perfect dark sky., 11. Cd Art, 12. Driftwood in Ocean Park, Maine

Go to Flickr.com and type your answers to the following questions (one at a time) into the Search Box.


The questions are:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.


Choose 1 image from the FIRST page of results, remember the image you choose doesn't have to be exactly what you were looking for - just the image you like best from the first page.

Copy your URLs to the Mosaic Maker here and publish your mosaic to your blog.

I tag Kathy!

Jack from Project Runway

Sometimes you see something on You Tube that you know you must avert your eyes because of the burning, but this I think takes the cake. I sat and watched all 2 minutes and 52 seconds like a deer caught in the headlights.

Tower Hill

Hadn't been up to Tower Hill in a while, so my trip up with friends, Kathy & Deb on Saturday was wonderful. They'd never been there and I gave them a guided tour of the place. We were fortunate enough to find this male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly feasting on the Mountain Laurel in bloom.