"I Love To See The Temple"

Ok, Ok, didn't mean to harass anyone with my last post, just hadn't reviewed my photos yet ...

That being said - I realized on my way to the Botanical Gardens, watching the temple get closer and closer to me, that I was going there to get the perfect shot of the Brisbane Temple. A perfect shot, for me, would include it being framed by a circle of leaves, a crisp photo, well, a bunch of stuff - I'm picky.

As I kept sight of it, I realized that I would be hitting the bend that it was on and be just across the river from it - the closest I could get without being on the other side (or in a boat). All of a sudden, I was in the rain forest of the Botanical Gardens full of bamboo and no way to see out.

Darn, I was hoping for that great pic! And then I spied a wooden walkway down on the water, through the bamboo - but didn't know how to get down to it. When I found the entrance, I decided I would do it on my way back and finished the Botanical Gardens - which is a good thing since I saw the coolest poinsettia bushes. Then headed for the walk way.

I was humming "I Love to See the Temple" and acting about as weird as I usually do on walks, or, well anywhere, but very few people around to frighten. I still could not see the temple and thought the trip was going to be a bust, when I rounded a corner and there was the temple, framed in leaves:

So I started taking photos. Took a bunch and brought them home. Went through the flower ones first and posted them - thus the cryptic ending to my last post ... and moved on to the temple photos.

To my dismay ... the perfect shot was not in them. I had tried:

And tried:


Tried some more:


And more:

And more:

Without boats:

Or with boats:

A good photo was no where to be found:

Oh well, I had fun trying.




... maybe next time ...

Botanical Gardens

Friday ...

... my last 'goof off day'.

I was laying in bed reading a book and decided that the book was good enough, that I could just lay there all day and read. About 1/2 hour later, I was out of bed - decided I couldn't just read a book on my last day of 'alone adventuring' ...

Had one more place to go - the Botanical Gardens. It is right on the river walk, why had I not been previous? It is like 2kms down the river walk and huge! I have being lazy - expanding my 'zone of fun' a little more each day.

Laced up my walking shoes and off I went. Halfway there, I realized why I was going - and it really was not to take photos of the plants, or just enjoy the rain forest, giant trees, Gods beauty everywhere you looked, it was not just to get a walk in ... as healthy as that may be, it wasn't to get out of the apartment and smell the fresh, fishy, flowered, Brisbane city air ...

Why did I really head out today?

... tell ya in another post!

I'm Dangerous ...

Decided to see what it would take in Photoshop 7 to stitch together a few photos for a panoramic shot. Had to scour the help files - having distinctly remembering it being called 'stitching' in Photoshop 4. To my complete an utter amazement ... I don't have to do anything. I take 5 photos along the same plane (horizontally), overlapping a bit and pull them into Photoshop 7 under New / Panorama and it recognizes the similarities and creates the panorama all by itself!

HOW COOL IS THAT?

Now I feel the necessity to have panorama's of EVERYTHING (more to follow ...)

Night Shots ...

Gary was working late and called to see if I wanted to meet him for dinner. Since we hadn't eaten out the entire time I have been here, I really haven't been out wandering around in the dark, so I took the opportunity to steal his Nikon Cool Pix camera and see how well I could get some night shots.

I set it to night setting, but left on the flash, since if you turn off the flash, the shutter speed is so slow you can't hold your hand steady enough to get a decent shot. With the flash on, sure - you look like an idiot taking a photo of a freaking bridge a half a kilometer away with your flash on, but it fools the camera into a much faster shutter speed.

The buildings ... not so bad (this was where I was walking to and where Gary works):

The bridge was a bit finicky. Some turned out, some were a bit blurry:

I used an 'unsharp mask' on this and got the lights looking like it wasn't out of focus when clearly it was:

But it still looked crappy - so I 'posterized' it and called it 'art'.

The final shot I took tonight (Wed night) was of a building that was all warm and glowy. I KNEW the photo would be crap:

But pulled some of the detail out using Photoshop ... but still ... crap:

So, what do we do with crappy photos? Throw them away? NO, darken them a bit, posterize them and call them 'ART'!

I know y'all SO care, but I can't sleep and don't know what to do with the photos I play with other than post them on my blog ... Your eyes have to suffer ...

Since y'all are just starting yours (while I am desperately trying to end mine) I hope your Wednesday is as good as mine was!

Running, Running, Running ...

... out of time ...


Went out walking this morning, well, just because that is what I do now in the mornings.

I was standing at a corner basking in the sun and people watching when I realized that I was standing in front of Gary's office. For weeks I really couldn't place it in perspective with where I was walking ... although I knew it was near. So, of course, I snapped a photo:

It reminded me of a conversation we had the night previous:

Gary: "You're days here are numbered."

Me: "Yeah, I figured that ..."

Gary: "You want to fly to Sydney for the weekend? Something?"

Me: "Nah, I'm good"

We continued to plan my last weekend here in Australia and I was sad. It has been fun here, but I guess I miss my 'Texas Home' also. It is difficult living two different places.

I approached the apartment and smiled ... "Home", my feet hurt and I was ready to be done with my 2 hour walk.


Entered the apartment and it had a melancholy air - the flowers had petals that were falling off ... as if to remind me that time was running out - hurry and finish what you intend to do.

I turn the corner into the office and turn on XM Satellite radio to have a bit of music to compete with the 'music' of bustling downtown Brisbane as I unpack my backpack.

I see my books on PhotoShop CS 4, and LightRoom - haven't even cracked them. My baby computer - has pretty much been neglected.

I sit down, download the 3 photos that I took on my walk - another indicator that time is short - I have taken all the photos I guess I need to take!

Why so down? I still have 4 full days here, but really only 2 to wander around and goof off by myself when I had so many to start with (Saturday will be a full on road trip day, and Sunday is, well ... just Sunday).

Still, when Monday morning comes - I will be ready to head to the airport. Miss my house, miss my Charlie, miss Ryan and Jessie and my 'Texas House' routine. Won't be back here until October some time, though, so I need to really soak up the Australian experience.

Two days ... I think it will be enough time ...

Tuesdays "Church" Walk

I decided I had cabin fever and had to get out of the apartment even though I was not feeling that hot.

One of the places I wanted to go was a section of downtown that seemed busting out with churches and take some photos - so I made a loop today and tried to photograph as many as I could find (it helped if they were a bit tall since I was wandering around sky scrapers!).

Didn't even have to use my barf bag! All in all a nice walk ...

Well, Glad Monday is Over ...

Spent the ENTIRE day laying in bed and puking up regular coke (my diet for the last two days).

It is now almost noon Tuesday and I have severe cabin fever as it is one BEAUTIFUL day outside all these windows surrounding me! I have vowed to head out to take pictures of 4 churches (conveniently all in a row ...) a ways a way and I am waiting for my blasted little camera (OK, Gary's little camera - I couldn't bring any of my photography equipment with me since I was bringing over Gary's projector and he told me they were mine for the time I was here ... trying to figure out how to sneak his Nikon Cool Pix home without him noticing...) so Gary's camera to charge ...

Things have been really fun - just the past two days have not been so great. A bunch of people at Gary's work are out so either Gary brought this home to me (he had it, but it only affected him a tiny bit) or I got Gary's entire office sick! Hope it was the first one ...

Well, I am going to give up on the camera and take it as is. Will, of course, post some pictures later today - my Tuesday afternoon and your Monday night ... still trying to get used to that (so is my son who called me at 4:00am forgetting the time change ... fun, fun, fun).

Off to adventure!!!

Friday, Saturday & Sunday ...

all rolled into one ...

Friday:

Didn't go out since I serendipitously woke up to an e-mail from JJA on Enrichment stuff and realized that I had not even started my calendar and newsletter - thus did that all day - even calling LC at 10:45pm at the potluck party to harass her about book club!

Feeling very 'righteous' after that and Gary and I headed for the Temple. At the garage, he turns and asks me "Do you have your temple recommend?". Note: THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO ASK!!! Ask when I am at home, when I can get it, not 2 seconds away from the friendly gentleman who kindly offers to call the states and get my bishop out of bed and harass him for me. As fun as that sounded, the new bishop probably would only be able to guess if I had one, and it was only 10 minutes away - but fighting rush hour traffic - although we can see the temple from out apartment, we were not going to make it for that hours session. We came back an hour later and I decided to snap a photo of the 'squeaky clean' garage (complete with an entrance there full of beautiful plants, pictures on the wall - very homey ... or well, churchy):

Saturday was a road trip. I was not feeling so hot so we were hoping to get a few waterfalls in. After throwing up in a bag (one of my FAVORITESTS things to do) we hiked a few minutes to this: Perlingbrook Falls:

We then headed to Natural Bridge Falls - after thinking that a natural bridge was an arch - I couldn't figure out why it was named that - until I realized that it was just an arch on the ground!

A professional photo shoot was going on and it was very interesting. The model was sitting on rocks in a river that had to feel like ice water. It was probably 10 degrees C so about 40 degrees F - cold! We had jackets on and we were hiking through a rain forest to get there. I can't imagine how she did this without turning blue or having her teeth chatter. Does not look like a fun job.

For some inexplicable reason - the photographer had her pick up a pair of scissors and start cutting up the dress ... ART ... I guess:

I did not see this, Gary and I had separated, but he watched her wade through water up to her pelvis - eek! Cold!

Continued to take photos of Natural Bridge Falls - we had come down a bazillion stairs and I was delaying going back up again - still not feeling so hot....

As I mentioned, we were hiking through a rain forest. This is a tree where vines have braided themselves around a giant fig tree and will eventually kill it, leaving just the lacy braid of the vines behind (the vines are huge!):

Here is just one of the trees in the Rain Forest - with Gary standing by it. They were large!

This is some vines trying to find a host I guess, they are about 12 - 18 inches across and look like giant ropes lying about:

We left there and headed for lunch - not that I was very hungry - but the scenery was great:

PONIES!!!!

There were 3 lorakeets in the trees for a while and I never got a good 'shot' off:

We were VERY BAD and fed the local wildlife!

The birds were fun - I am sure they wanted to kick us out, but still fun! I drove a bit on the way home and HATED it. Got home, was really very ill and walked straight into bed and stayed there until now - Sunday afternoon just getting up to throw up! (The trip was worth it, though)

Had noticed my flowers as I stumbled past last night were working on the last two buds opening but not there yet. When I finally got up, the process was final:

I REALLY, REALLY like my flowers ... can you tell? Gary has it so easy - I am very easy to please:

So that gets me up to date - it is about 3:30 Sunday afternoon - y'all are sleeping Saturday night away and will get up and live your own Sunday - hope you have a wonderful day!

Great Minds

A little test ...

My dad sent me this and I have seen it before, but since Gary had not - I thought I would post it.

Only great minds can read this!

This is weird, but interesting!


If you can raed this, you have a sgtrane mnid too Can you raed this? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. I cdnuolt blveiee that I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd what I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a word are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is that the frsit and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the word as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

Thguhot I wloud try it for mlyesf! Let me konw if you hvae a gaert mnid...

Gary made me laugh ... said when he saw it - the words looked perfectly fine to him! (He is a horrible speller)

Thursday's Adventures

Might just break your computer with the following slide show ... not really but there are 60 photos in it! Couldn't decide what to leave out, so I pretty much left most everything in.




I took the City Cat across the river (both Gary and I are unsure what the river is named ...) to a place called South Bank - most likely because it is, well the south ... bank ...

It is famous for a man made beach - I believe somewhere reading that it was the largest - I don't know - in Australia, in the World, I will Wiki it and see if I can be a little more accurate. Anyway, it was under construction so I didn't get a chance to get any good photographs of it.

Have plenty of the arbor that runs forever - covered in flowers.

Another great day in the land down under ...

What do you do when you have slept all day?

Play with PhotoShop while Gary sleeps, of course!

I am a bit psycho about my data, and keep it backed up many places, but actually brought two 500GB drives with me (they are adorable - the size is a bit longer and a bit thinner than a pack of playing cards). One is almost completely filled - it contains all my photos and my ever burgeoning compilation of graphics - thus - I can PhotoShop my brains out!

I have not even had the time to crack the book or even play with my new version of PhotoShop. It might have to be something that waits until I get home.

My Thermostat:

I read a Real Simple Daily Quote yesterday ... and didn't even realize it fit perfectly for my day ... until I looked up 'verdure' in dictionary.com!

OK, I said I would keep it short Wednesday - but since it is Thursday here - I believe I can get away with a second post on that technicality ...

Promised to be short ...

Woke up around 10:00am, didn't feel so hot - so rolled over and slept until 2:00pm. Now that is what a vacation needs every now and again!

Continued my lazy day by reading a book and enjoying my flowers. I believe all the buds on the 'bottom floor' have opened. I am now waiting for the 3 'upstairs' to open and won't that be a pretty little arrangement!

Will at least try to get out of my jammies tomorrow ...

Even the Chores ...

... are adventures!!!

Slideshow of my Tuesday activities:


So, I decided to pace myself a bit and Gary needed an extension cord for his Institute class this evening so I decided to head off in a different direction and go shopping. Shopping here reminds me of Norway - European style - but probably the same way someone would shop that lived in downtown Manhattan: walk to the store and buy what you can carry back. With my backpack - can get a liter of OJ, a liter and a half of milk, and quite a bit more and not have it be a difficulty. Had I needed to get more - Gary has a small pull cart - sort of like rolling luggage that will hold a few bags of groceries. Found the place fine - but as intimated in my slide show - got turned around while exploring a beautiful little park and was very happy to find landmarks - high up in the sky to lead me back home!

Does anyone remember Woolworth's in the States? I do, when I was rather young there was one in the town I grew up in. I remember buying yarn there. It seems as if they just died off ...

But not in Australia!! It seems to be the Wal-Mart of the country (a blatant example - the 'rollback' sign ...). There is one that is a grocery store - called Woolworth's - but everyone calls it 'Wooleys'. Then there is more a regular Target, Wal-Mart one called .. um, I can't remember. When Gary gets back from teaching Institute I will ask him. They are the biggest retail stores I have seen so far!

Winter seems to be over!!! It warmed up so not so bad today.

One reason I am happy about the weather. There is a weird code in Australia for ventilation in apartments (homes too, maybe - I don't know) in all bathrooms and kitchens.

So? You ask - we have the same thing - with the fans. Yes - but here they are a wee bit more proactive about it. In our kitchen and my bathroom - the top 3 inches of the windows (very large windows, mind you) are just a screen - no glass, no covering, no way to close it! In the laundry room and Gary's bathroom, there are fans pumping in outside air - there is no on/off switch - it just runs and runs and runs.

You will never get 'sick building syndrome' in Australia!! So - when it is 6 degrees Celsius outside - it is pretty much 6 degrees Celsius in my bathroom (42 degrees Fahrenheit) or darn near close to it. With the window actually inside the whirlpool size tub / shower stall, it gets downright breezy taking a bath or shower!! I gotta tell you - getting up in the middle of the night, wandering down to the bathroom to, well, you know, sitting down and shrieking from the cold toilet seat has brought back fond memories of camping in the fall / winter!! That's exactly what going to the bathroom is like here - camping - only much cleaner!

So warmer weather means warmer bathroom means happier, less shrieking Lori!

Things really are as wonderful as they look and as I describe. Don't mean to go all Pollyanna on you - so NOT my style. But man - this is really fun! Beautiful town, beautiful weather, beautiful apartment, lots of alone time (a VITAL necessity for me), lots of computer play time, lots of quiet, lots of reading and naps, and lots of time with my hubby - all to myself!! No kids to compete with, no Charlie demanding Frisbee throws, just me and a flower wielding Gary. I cannot emphasize how wonderful it has been! Almost 30 years of marriage and this seems to be the honeymoon I would pick!!

Sorry about the daily novellas - just so much I am excited about, so much that is different and I want to share it all! Hopefully you are just ignoring my 'verbosity' if it is a problem for you!

Will work on making Wednesdays post shorter!!

Monday's Adventures

Since I know y'all are dying to know - thought I would recap Monday before heading off to bed.

6:30am - Called Jessie - over at Randall's house after church (yes, it is weird calling and talking to Jessie on Sunday afternoon Monday morning).
6:40am - Tell Gary goodbye and head back to bed (stayed up till 3:00 working out problems with RSS and Randall's picking Jessie up - not that it helped ... and then played with photos)
10:00am - Got back up - headed to the City Cat

City Cat is a boat service that goes up and down the river and stops on alternating sides of the river. It is for tourists and for those just needing to get somewhere. My plan was to get on at the nearest ferry terminal going either way - ride it to the end - turn around, ride it to the other end and then wing it from there. It is about a 2 hour 'round trip'.

I did just that - rode it from end to end and then instead of coming right back, got off a few terminals away and walked home - pin a star on my forehead!!! It was another beautiful day, had a great time seeing more of Brisbane and enjoyed my walk.

Came home to find my lilies Gary had given me had burst - so I had to play and take pictures.

Was a good girl and then finished up some laundry and 'cleaned' up the apartment. Note: when the washer is European size - the loads are small and quick to do. That is the theme here - cleaning - the apartment is small (OK, not really is a very large apartment but a third to a fourth the size of our home) so small and quick to clean. I kind of like coming over here and living the 'simple life' - no closets stuffed to the brim with junk accumulated, no grungy buildup (OK, my house doesn't have that either thanks to Alma), no disorganization set in yet. It should inspire me to go home and simplify ... wonder if I will do it?

Enjoyed a simple dinner with Gary then played with photos, read and just dicked around writing my blog here while Gary put the final touches on his institute class (held on Tuesday nights).

Below is a quick slide show of my day - not very spectacular, but I liked it!

So - will hit 'publish post' and head off to bed on another wonderful day in the land down under ...

Off to dream about Tuesdays adventures ...

Asian Lilies

This:

Time:
They:

Are:
Pink!!!
Gotta love a guy who gives you flowers this beautiful - just because.