Photo Shoot

Today I went to shoot some pictures wtih an old friend from High School. We went down to Chelsea and Highline Park. She has been taking pictures since high school, and she is very good. You can find her work on her blog 5 of 7 Macayas approves. She was helpful and gave me some tips, maybe one day my shots will be as good as hers. But as of now, these are the best of today's.

1. Painted mural in Chelsea.

2. I was fascinated by the guy in the long leather coat. Why? Because I thought he looked a lot like Rick Aviles. Of course it wasn't him, but it was his silhoutte that caused me to stop and take notice.

3. Crumbling Foundation

4. Berries

5. Reflection

6. Boarders

7. Break

View from my livingroom window. The leaves take longer to change here, but I really love the mix of green and reds, yellows and oranges. Some of you may scratch your head and wonder how someone who lives in The Bronx, is around so many trees. Well, The Bronx has a lot of Parks and Parkland. I live in an area called Parkchester. The trees are preserved. Outside my window are lots of trees and grass. Buildings too of course, as you can see, but it is a nice mix.

On Nov. 7th, me and my friend Clarissa (yes I have a friend named Clarissa) made a date to take pictures. I have only been on picture dates with one other friend. I love it, we feed off of each other. She is an excellent photographer, she was taking pictures for the yearbook in High School, and she was good then. She is amazing now, hope to learn a lot from her.

I am taking Clarissa (my daughter) trick-or-treating on Sunday. In my neighborhood the kids don't go from house to house or apartment to apartment, they trick-or-treat in the stores. There are a lot of stores in Parkchester and the neighboring areas such as Castle Hill Avenue and Westchester Avenue. The merchants sometimes even have people outside with chairs to give the candy out. Last year we had fun taking them around. I don't think any of her young friends will be with her, but perhaps one of our friends from church who is 18 will be joining us. Clarissa is dressing as Alice in Wonderland. Tonight is her Halloween Party, hope she has fun.

The Knives Chau scarf

Some time in the upcoming months I plan to start the "Knives Chau" scarf. It is a simple enough design to copy, and I think a simple knit/purl will work. For my birthday, my friend gave me a $25 gift card to Michael's, so I can buy some black and white yarn. Not sure how many skeins I will need, I want it to be long like the picture.

I still am working on my friends baby blanket, I haven't been working on it, it is too hot and I don't have a/c so yarn work takes a back seat in the summer. But things are cooling off.

It is almost time to decorate my livingroom for autumn. Scarecrows and the like. I love this time of year.

I've also been lazy with my reading. I don't have the concetration right now. I am listening to audio books however. So I'm not completley out of the loop.

Currently listening to Dale Carnagie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living". Pretty dry however, not as good as "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I also started listening to "Mustane", a memoir by Dave Mustane of the Heavy Metal group Megadeth. That is definetly more interesting and entertaining.

This past Saturday, we went to Central Park. We haven't been all summer, and since my son is leaving this week, an end of the summer trip was in order. I think I will also go back in the fall to take some more pictures, but here are recent ones.

Central Park Boaters

A bit of Fall in the Summer


Lilly Pads


Reflections

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone. I trust everyone partied hard and rested!!??
I just rested, I was asleep when the ball dropped, but the people in the streets near me were screaming "Happy New Year" and blowing their horns. It wasn't long lasting, so I went right back to sleep.

I just read through my below posts, I posted those months ago to post on New Years Eve. Looking at them now, it is rather sad. I know I left out some recent losses such as Brittnay Murphy and Jennifer Jones (who was one of my daughter's favorite actresses), I wish I had thought to include them.

Hopefully this year will be filled with lots of reading and watching. Sometimes with the movies I do theme months. January is Foreign Movie Month. I will watch more Foreign flicks this month, but it won't totally be foreign. I realized I only watched 3 foreign films last year, which is a drop from previous years. tsk tsk.

Last night, my daughter (10) and I watched "Paranormal Activity".

DUMB!

I was geared up to be scared. We turned off the lights, and put the surround sound on. Not only was most of the film boring, the scary parts were not scary. My mother saw it and she said it wasn't scary, a friend at work said it was really scary, but then again he's 23.

I don't recommend it.

Today I plan to go see Sherlock Holmes (Downey Jr....mmmmmm).

I am also going to attempt, once again, to do PROJECT 365 on Flickr. Twice I attempted and twice I faded. It is tough taking a picture a day for a year. But I'm sure I'll finish.

Everyone enjoy the New Year!

Catch up

It really sucks that I can no longer update while at work.That is where I have the most time and do my best thinking there.

I put together some goals for 2010, perhaps this will grow.

Books
Read 100+ Books
3 memoir/auto-biography per month
1 Historical fiction per month
1 Audio book per month
50 books from the library
10 books from my book shelf


Movies
Watch at least 1 foreign movie per month
Watch at least 1 Classic movie per month


I have reached my goal of 75+ books for 2009. I am currently on book #77. I will probably finish this one before the end of the month, and start another. I don't have a lot of free time right now, so reading is slow.

I have been watching a lot of Christmas movies. Many from the lists below, many that are newly discovered. I am about done with watching them though, sometimes you can over do it.


Something Random


I got a new camera lens 18-200mm, I got the moon!