Neil Diamond Kentucky Derby Pie

Every January a friend of mine had a Neil Diamond Birthday party.  It is rediculiously fun with a game of "Neilo" (where we group sing the Neil Diamond songs we have on our Bingo cards) and Pin the Chest Hair on Neil".  We also bring food inspired by a Neil Diamond song.  This year I made a derivation of the famous Derby Pie inspired by the song "Kentucky Woman" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-YpI-eJgDc

A note about corn syrup.  I searched specifically for a recipe that did not use corn syrup.  I know that there is no decisive evidence that corn syrup is metabolized differently than other sugars http://scopeweb.mit.edu/?p=2080 however I prefer to eat foods that are as close to natural as I can get them.  With that said maybe in the future I'll try this recipe with honey or maple syrup rather than refined sugars.

Here is the recipe:

1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter (melted)
2 eggs
1 T flour
1 T milk
1 t vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
9" pie shell

Combine all ingredients and pour into a 9" pie shell

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes covered in tinfoil.  Then 15-20 minutes uncovered.

note:  I forgot to add the flour and I had to cook it longer than the above instructions.

Solar Eclipse May 20, 2012

I was able to capture a quick time lapse of the Solar Eclipse tonight.  My Canon Rebel XT with a 300 mm zoom lens and a welding hood placed over the lens made for a great spur of the moment telescope!

I took a picture every 3 seconds and use a 1/50sec exposure, f5.6, ISO 100

Magic on the Sidewalk

The chalk art festival in Bountiful, Utah is sponsored by the Joy Foundation which “help[s] local youth to discover talents, develop confidence and overcome adversity through arts.”
It is in it’s eight year but I didn’t discover it until last year when a friend and I were running on Main Street in Bountiful and saw the chalk art going up.
This year the festival ran Thursday – Saturday and a big rain storm was forecast for Friday.  Although the artists covered their work in plastic much of it was damaged.  Some left it as it was and it created interesting textures in their art.  Other’s touched up their work where it had been damaged.  And a few cleaned the sidewalk and started all over again.
Here is one of the pieces that was damaged by the rain but not so much that it needed to be repaired. You can see the striated lines where the rain soaked plastic pressed down onto the chalk art.

Here is a piece by Stacy VanArsdale that was partially completed before the rain started.















And here is the same piece after it had been completed and the damage from the rain fixed.














This artist started all over again after the rain storm.  Here is the beginning of her work on Friday evening.
















And here is the finished art work which won the Adult 1st Place.


















The Avengers was a common theme at this festival and this piece won the People’s Choice Award

The Hunger Games was also a common theme.

There were also a lot of zebra’s.  All of them very colorful!



This was one of my favorite pieces.

This piece made me laugh right out loud when I understood the perspective from which it was drawn.


There was a lot of great creativity in design.

This one was captioned “Picasso’s Guernica meets Toy Story 3.” 

I love how this artist integrated the man hole cover into the classic Van Gogh work of Starry Starry Night.

There was also a lot of space for young and old artists alike to create their own works after being inspired by the artists’ work.  It was really fun to walk along and see all of those creations.

Fast Train - Slow Camera

Inspired by +Gene Bowker I went out and shot trains.  I leared a few things about shooting trains.  1) It is really boring waiting for a train, 2) setting up the shot ahead of time doesn't help because the train comes down the wrong set of tracks, and 3) it is really ESHILARATING when the train is rushing by and the world starts to whirl around you.

This image was shot at ISO 100, 3.2 sec exposure, 32 aperture, 238 mm zoom on my trusty Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT.

Multiplicity

The first step in taking this picture was setting my camera up on my tripod and setting my interval timer to take a shot every 10 seconds.  From there I just walked around the frame, smiled, and ignored the fact that I looked really silly!

Once I had the pictures taken, I loaded all the ones I wanted to use onto photoshop.

I picked one picture to paste all of the other self-portraits into.  From there I used the Lasso tool to draw a line around me in one picture, copied it, pasted it, and then tried to match the spot where it fit as best as I could.  It is kind of like putting a puzzle together. If you look at the picture on the left you can see where I have used to Lasso tool to delineate what to copy.  In the picture in the middle you can see that I have pasted it but not yet placed it.

I made a second version of the picture with one more me =).   Although I used photoshop, Gimp is a free photo editing software that would do just as good of a job as photoshop did.

Cactus League Baseball Spring Training–Texas Rangers vs San Francisco Giants

I think that going to the Old Ball Game is almost as relaxing as sitting on the beach.  There is just enough action to make it interesting but just enough lull in the game for you to be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the cool night air.  Spring training baseball is even better because you can get much closer to the action!

We were lucky to be sitting right on the edge of the 1st base line where the Texas Rangers players walked back to the locker room.  Many players walked by but only Josh Hamilton http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/texas-rangers/post/_/id/4880443/josh-hamilton-pleased-with-his-spring and one other signed autographs.  I enjoyed watching the excited fans get autographs as much as I enjoyed watching the game.  And I have a lot of respect for players who will take the time to greet their fans.

Poised to get an autograph

Excitedly waiting for players ……… But no luck this time.

A loyal Texas fan

Holi Festival Color Throw Sequence