Day 258: Rafters/Heather

Again, there's not really much to say about this one.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70 mm

Day 257: Theater/Heather

This is the marquee from a theater in SE Portland that was purchased a few years ago by the Flying Pie Pizza Company and renovated. It's a cute little theater. I saw a movie here tonight for the first time with one of my Meetup groups. We were divided between those that saw "The Social Network" and those of us who saw "127 Hours."

f11, Exp. 1/500, 27 mm

Day 256: Out and About/Heather

We had a pretty nasty storm blow through here today so when it was over, I decided to go look for damage. I was opening the folder of pictures to view them when the storm hit and the power flickered. When I got home from taking pictures I was quite dismayed to see that the memory card was apparently corrupted when the power flickered. This is the only good picture I got; the rest are unrecognizable or have heavy lines going through them. Luckily, it seems I only lost a few of the 700+ pictures that were already on the card!

This was taken at the business park about a mile from my house.

f7.1, Exp. 1/200, 38mm

Day 253: Paper clips/Heather

There isn't really a lot to say about a pile of paper clips.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 252: Starts with "W"/Heather

This is the most my weights have been used for in ages. Now that my back room is cleaned out again and I can get to them, I should probably start using them for their intended purpose.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70 mm

Day 250: Goodwill/Heather

I spent today cleaning out/reclaiming my back bedroom which had become a storage unit as opposed to my exercise room. In the process, I came across several things I decided to donate to Goodwill.

f3.8, Exp. 1/80, 22 mm

Day 249: Shallow Depth of Field/Heather

Shallow Depth of Field: bring the main subject into focus with the background blurred. This is best achieved using the aperture setting. This is a shot of my Japanese Maple.

f4.5, Exp. 1/320, 70mm

Day 248: Growth/Heather

I should probably clean out the pantry more often. At least they weren't all mushy and watery yet!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70 mm

Day 247: Minute/Heather

Tonight, I went to my friend's version of the TV show "Minute to Win It." I managed to get a shot of him holding the "stop watch" (aka my cell phone) during one of the challenges. Judging from the pictures around it, it was the challenge of separating Skittles by color and putting them in cups.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70 mm

Day 246: Looking out my back door/Heather

Here's the view from my back door looking across the street to the west:

f5.6, Exp. 1/125, 70mm

Day 245: In the Fridge/Heather

I seem to have a lot more beverages than food in my fridge at any given time. My newest obsession in the olive bar at Fred Meyer so I tend to have those to go with my drinks.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 44mm

Day 244: In the Gutter/Heather

I was surprised to actually get a couple of shots for this theme that I thought were really cool. It just goes to show that my friend was right when he said anything can make an interesting photo if shot right.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 243: Under the Weather/Heather

I woke up this morning with the head cold that's going around. Here's my cold remedies:

f5, Exp. 1/60, 35mm

Day 242: Awards/Heather

The Academy Awards are on tonight. Here is one of the first awards I ever won. It was for a bowling league I was in when I was 12. Everyone got one at the end of the season but I was still pretty excited to have a trophy of my own.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 241: Speakers/Heather

One of the speakers from my surround sound. I'm going to have to draw a diagram and take a lot of pictures if I ever move to put it all back together!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 240: Scarves/Heather

This ended up being a fun picture to take. The grey scarf was my dad's, made for him years ago by my mother. The blue one belongs to a friend of mine who left it here one evening.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 239: Siblings/Heather

Today is my brother's birthday so I wanted to take a picture of something that reminded me of him. But we were hit with snow and since I'm a wuss when it comes to driving in it, I had to come up with a Plan B. So here's my boys. Raised together since they were puppies, if I tell Charlie to go get his brother, he'll go over and bark at Sammy. If he feels like listening, that is, which is rare.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 238: Staplers/Heather

It turns out staplers are not that exciting of a subject. I thought this was a cool shot though. I know it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that my stapler is purple!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 237: Vertical/Heather

I was really at a loss on this one until I realized the object didn't necessarily have to be vertical by nature, the orientation of the picture being vertical would suffice. In this case, I did find a vertical object, however.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 34mm

Day 236: Signs of Spring/Heather

I took a bunch of nice shots of some little crocus-looking flowers that have bloomed, but ultimately decided on this. I'm pretty sure it's a daffodil but could also be a tulip. I chose this because I felt it was more of a sign of Spring being on the way than the flowers that are already bloomed.

f10, Exp. 1/125, 70mm

Day 235: Starts with "U"/Heather

I took the dogs for a walk along the river today and as I was driving home, I was thinking I would just have to settle for a picture of an umbrella for today. As I was exiting the highway, I saw a sign for the U.S. Forest Service office. I see that sign all the time-it's about two miles from my house-and I've never really paid attention to it before. So I decided to check it out. I'm quite pleased with this shot of the U.S. Forest Service logo I was able to take.

f10, Exp. 1/400, 24mm

Day 234: Cooking/Heather

A friend of mine is running a half marathon in April to raise money for leukemia and lymphoma research. So another friend hosted a dinner here to help her raise money. He's from India and made a 4-course meal from scratch (and made a disaster out of my kitchen!). Here's a shot of one of two curry dishes. This is the lentil curry.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 233: Picture Frames/Heather

You would think with all the pictures I've been taking, I'd have something to put in these. I've got a couple of ideas for them and actually have two of the dog frame. One for each dog-I definitely have a lot to choose from when it comes to pictures of the two of them!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 232: Chocolate/Heather

Forrest Gump was right. Life really is like a box of chocolates. You never do know what you are going to get. In this case, it was yummy deliciousness.

f3.5, Exp. 1/40, 18mm

Day 231: Measurement/Heather

As usual, the artistic value of this shot in reality is much different than how I was imagining this would turn out!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 230: Coins/Heather

At one point, James decided he was going to start collecting proof sets for every year we were together. Here's one of the sets of presidential coins from his collection.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 229: Hearts/Heather

I bought a heart-shaped box of chocolate for the Anti-Valentine's Day party. Of course, I dumped all the chocolate in a bowl and hid the box as it didn't go with the party's theme!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 22mm

Day 228: Hands/Heather

I had a houseful of people over today for an Anti-Valentine's Day party. So this should have been an easy challenge given I had a lot of hands to choose from. But I forgot about it until after everyone left, so I had to get a shot of my own hand.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 227: Starts with "V"/Heather

It would make sense that being so close to Valentine's Day I would pick something along those lines for today's shot. But I didn't. I went with some old VHS tapes instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 44mm

Day 226: Seeing Red/Heather

I found quite a few red things laying around but none that I really thought were good for this theme. I finally settled on the wrapper of my Norfolk pine that doubles as a Christmas tree.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 225: Layers/Heather

This ended up being more of a challenge than I thought it would be. I tried to get a good shot of my mini-blinds but didn't get any I really liked. So I tried the siding on the back of the house and found those to be slightly better.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 27mm

Day 224: Earrings/Heather

There's really not a lot to say about this one. The antique-looking earrings belonged to my grandmother.

f5, Exp. 1/125, 70mm

Day 223: Table/Heather

"If I don't make eye contact, maybe the human won't notice I'm standing on the table." No, my dogs aren't supposed to be standing on the table. I do have some rules they clearly don't believe in following.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 29mm

Day 222: Basketball/Heather

I'm not really a basketball fan, but I am a fan of winning things so when I had the opportunity to enter a drawing for tickets to tonight's Blazer game against the Bulls, I went for it-and I won two tickets. It was a really good game-it was pretty close the entire time with Portland winning.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 221: Football/Heather

Today is Superbowl Sunday. It is also the third anniversary of James' passing so it is bittersweet that his team played today. Unfortunately, they didn't win.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 44mm

Day 220: Creativity/Heather

My plans for today included a glass blowing demonstration. Though I've seen this done before, it was really cool to not only watch the vase being made from the very start but also to have the technical aspects of the process explained as well.

f4.5, Exp. 1/25, 70mm

Day 219: Sequence/Heather

At game night tonight, one of the games being played was Sequence-a game I loved when I was younger but haven't played in years. Unfortunately, I didn't get to play tonight but I had a blast playing Taboo instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 218: Hot and Spicy/Heather

I admit I took some liberty with this in deciding that "spicy" was subjective. It just so happened that I have one packet of hot sauce in my collection.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 62mm

Day 217: Hangers/Heather

It turns out taking a good picture of hangers was not as easy as I thought it would be! This one's not too bad though.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 40mm

Day 216: Aces/Heather

I raided the Pinochle cards and pulled out all the aces for this shot. It's not the best but it is the best of the bunch I took today.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 70mm

Day 215: Starts with "M"/Heather

All day long I thought about various things that start with the letter "M." I still hadn't thought of what I was going to do when I found myself stuck at a stoplight (as usual) on my way home from work and realized I was staring at a mural. I like the way this turned out as it looks like the retaining wall and bench are part of the picture but they aren't.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 24mm

Day 214: Moss/Heather

This morning I went on a very scenic hike in the Columbia Gorge with the dog lover's Meetup group. One of the things I noticed was the abundance of moss and since we didn't have a theme, I sent Selina a text to see if that would work for her. This is the first time in a long time I've actually had a hard time choosing a picture because there was more than one I liked!

f8, Exp. 1/250, 70mm

Day 213: Cars/Heather

My plan for today was to meet up with some friends for brunch and then head over to the International Car Show. I had visions of all kinds of awesome shots that would be hard to choose from. But I woke up with a headache that just wouldn't go away and ended up not going to the car show. As today wore on and I realized my headache was here to stay, I finally just took a shot of my cars.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 212: Short/Heather

Once again this did not go as well as I had hoped. I volunteered at a fundraiser tonight and was offered one of the centerpieces to take home with me. My intention with this shot was to show how short the container the flowers are sitting in is.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 211: Long/Heather

I really didn't know what to do for this one. I had a dinner at my house on Sunday and one of my guests brought me flowers. As I was looking for something to use for this shot, I decided to try to get a picture that showed the length of the stem on one of the flowers.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 210: Frosting/Heather

This did not go the way I had envisioned it. I went to a bakery in Portland that specializes in cupcakes and they had doggie cupcakes so I bought a couple for the boys. I didn't get a shot I liked of it so I took a lazy shot of the frosting I had in the cupboard instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 38mm

Day 209: Dry/Heather

I thought this was an interesting theme and one I had no clue as to how to pull off. I finally decided to try for a shot of Charlie being dried off. In hindsight, I probably should have used a towel that isn't almost the same color as the carpet!

f5, Exp. 1/60, 18mm

Day 208: Veggies/Heather

I had a pizza party for my young widow and widowers Meetup group last night and as usual, I was concerned I would not have enough food, despite always having enough food to feed a small country. So I bought a few things to round it out, including a veggie tray. Of course, I had leftovers.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 46mm

Day 207: Black and White Tree/Heather

Since my camera doesn't shoot in black and white, these are always a fun challenge for me. For this shot, I decided to wait until dark and take a picture of my neighbor's white birch tree.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 65mm

Day 206: Yarn/Heather

I was on the go all day today and when I remembered to check and see what today's theme was, I saw we didn't have one. Looking around my desk, I saw a skein of yarn and called Selina to see if that would work for her for today.

This was supposed to be a potholder/trivet for my brother for Christmas. Maybe I'll get it done for his birthday in February instead.

f5, Exp. 1/60, 62mm