This morning a customer didn’t bother to tell me his name, just went straight to spelling it.
Yeah, it was one of THOSE names. Not as confounding as some, but definitely not one I would have gotten right without having him spell it out.
My sister and I grew up with a maiden name we always had to spell.
Now she’s a Jones and I’m a Smith!
On the other end of the phone my customer laughed with me, and then said, “Mine’s Italian. It means ‘eat goat’.”
I couldn’t help myself. “That’s awesome! EAT GOAT.”
Next time someone upsets me, that’s what I’ll say. “Hey! You. Eat goat!”
I have a tenant who has a very long name with very few vowels that ends in -wczyk. It occurs to me that he has never said his name to me either. It’s like a secret password that only the chosen can know…
In my maiden-name days, that’s how I used to screen for telemarketers: if a caller correctly pronounced the name, I didn’t immediately hang up. “Smith” doesn’t lend itself to that kind of screening…
Although there was the one time a phlebotomist labeling my blood sample asked me how to spell it. I was so taken aback I just blurted “Smith!” again, because isn’t that word self-explanatory for a native speaker of English?
This week’s metrics might be miles (on the motorcycle) or meters (SCUBA diving)… Or we might just measure the days in smiles! Whatever the maps and the dive tables have to say about it, we’ve been purely enjoying…
Coastal Highway 101
Whenever we get to this part of the country, a requisite stop is Gracie’s Sea Hag for a bread-bowl of their exquisite clam chowder… And since Gracie’s is in Depoe Bay 60 Miles north of our campground, it was the perfect excuse yesterday to climb on the motorcycle and enjoy the delicious curvy coastal highway 101, with its ocean views and salt-tanged air. Sea-spray on my motorcycle visor—that’s definitely one version of heaven.
Gracie’s clam chowder—-can’t beat it
We spent almost six hours taking in the sights and sounds of that 120-mile round-trip, hopping off the bike to walk beaches, poke through tide pools, climb bridges, and visit my favorite lighthouse (same one that’s tattooed on my arm with my daughter’s name, which means “shining light”). And (being the coffee-aholics that we are) to order a “fog lifter” at Espresso 101 in Waldport.
We ducked into a gift shop in Depoe Bay to buy a pair of tourist sweatshirts (mine says “Highway 101”!) which we promptly put on over the sweatshirts we were already wearing. We’d both unthinkingly brought the bike-jackets we’ve been wearing all summer—and while mesh is a blessing in Boise’s 100-degree heat, it’s maybe a bit TOO breezy for here…
High Tide hit around 5:00, at which point we were back in camp industriously duct-taping dollar-store plastic tablecloths over the truck seats so we could drive from one dive site to the next in our squelching wetsuits… The real picture (which I DON’T have) would be the pair of us squishing our way up the campground shower-trail in full get-up to rinse the saltwater out of our dive gear. But I’m getting ahead of myself—first we went diving.
There’s a converted fish ladder on Florence’s North Jetty with cement steps that make for easy entry and exit in dive gear. Let me just stop here and say that the water here is COLD. But oh so worth it. Pulsating jellies, skittering fish, and CRABS all over. If we’d picked up a shellfish license we could have brought home dinner and then some. Then back to camp for hot showers and a roaring fire, with a clothesline full of wetsuits dancing in the lantern-light…
Ready to dive…This morning we took the motorcycle in the other direction on the 101, south as far as Bandon… where we walked around the waterfront boardwalk with helmet in one hand and a coffee in the other, and where we improbably ran into Jon’s boss! We stopped in Coos Bay on the way back and ordered a clam basket and fish’n’chips at the Floating Fish Market, and I ogled the Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain—tall ships under full sail—as we rode out of the harbor.
Right now Jon is splitting firewood and rolling his eyes at me for sitting here by the fire with my phone (his has been in “airplane mode” the whole trip)… But I’m happy that I can blog from my phone (yes, even from the back of the bike if I want to). I’m happy that my tummy is full of clams and my head is full of ocean views. I’m happy that my bike-jacket pocket is full of wave-worn shell fragments. I’m so happy that my face is full of smile, just sitting here. And THAT’s the proper metric for a vacation.
I usually start any travel with a carefully-planned itinerary, complete with reservations and budgeted activities. My journal pages ahead of a trip will be filled with addresses and prices and confirmation numbers… But yesterday we climbed into our truck with just a map and our coffee and our camping and diving gear, hooked up the motorcycle trailer, and headed for the Oregon Coast!
We’d been planning to spend our vacation-week doing some Idaho camping, but Friday morning Jon told me he’d take me to the ocean instead. WOOHOO!! (Don’t get me wrong—I do love our Idaho… But WOOHOO!!)
So here we are on an entirely UNplanned adventure. Entirely OUT of character for me, but I couldn’t be happier. All week my FaceBook page had been popping up “one year ago” pictures of our LAST trip to the coast, and I’ll admit they were making me wistful…
The view from our campsite…
Even without pre-planning, we scored a first-night campsite with a view of the Florence marina and bridge, and this morning we settled into the state park campground where we got a spot for the rest of the week. Couldn’t have done better if I HAD planned it.
We’ve unloaded the bike and taken her for an exploratory spin across the bridge and through Florence. We’ve scouted the North Jetty and identified our dive entrance. We’ve picked up SCUBA gear on our way through Eugene. We’ve had our first seafood dinner at an off-the-beaten-path diner full of locals (always a good sign for an eating establishment—and it was so good we went back for breakfast). We’ve stood on the sand dunes and breathed in the ocean-air. I’ve probably posted two dozen photos to FaceBook—everything from the sailboats and king heron at the marina to the ripening blackberries growing at our campsite, the view crossing the bridge on the motorcycle… And this one. It’s my “happy camper” face.
We climbed my favorite lighthouse today, the one that’s tattooed on my arm with my daughter’s name (which means “shining light”)…
The headland was shrouded with fog, the lighthouse a barely-visible landmark as we pulled up on the motorcycle, and the wind whipping so hard we were grateful for the wind-proof construction of bike jackets!
Halfway down the cliffside steps to the tide pools and “cobble” beach below, a gentleman invited us to look through the two telescopes he had set up—one trained on nesting cormorants with chicks, the other on harbor seals lounging on the rocks. Gazing at the indigo-edged wings of a cormorant, I was wishing I could take a photo… And then started to wonder at my own apparent need to “capture” everything that happens.
Jon already teases me for snapping photos of everything, and for blogging about everything—and here I am sitting by our campfire and doing it some more, reflecting on the page (well, on my phone-screen, if we’re going to get literal about it). I think it’s my way of making the most of the moments I’m having—getting the most out of them, finding their meaning, making them last.
The front of my journal says “Collect moments, not things.” I’m not at all a souvenir person—I’m the shutterbug instead, and the blogger. Photos and words are the best ways I know to make moments last as memories.
So I have pictures today. The bacon cooking next to our coffee-pot on the camp stove in golden morning light. The geometrical black iron steps and whitewashed walls of the staircase spiraling up the lighthouse tower. The silhouettes of two friends we met for dinner against a sunset view of the harbor.
And words for the moments and things that don’t fit pictures. Like the telescope views, the harbor’s fog horn, the movement of anemones in a tide pool, the saltwater-spray on my motorcycle visor….
Today I’m picturing the “collected” moments as beacons that can shine forward as memories… maybe focused by words-and-photos like that lighthouse beam through its Fresnell lens.
I guess I’m just a recorder by nature. I like to take notice of my own life.
I’m not just a procrastinator; I’m also a total klutz. Some years back,my coworkers actually gave me a t-shirt that said “I do all my own stunts” after I fell UP an escalator at a professional conference. Yup, and that’s me Sober…
my co-workers actually gave me this t-shirt after I fell UP an escalator…
That awkward moment when you try to do something dignified and fall over…
May the road rise up to meet you to lessen the blow from smacking your face on the way down.
I am why we can’t have nice things.
That dirty look you give the sidewalk when you turn around after tripping over it…
I’m the girl who will burst out laughing in dead silence at something that happened yesterday.
I don’t trip. I do random gravity checks.
The awkward moment when you pull the covers up and punch yourself in the face…
It takes skill to trip over flat surfaces.
I didn’t fall. The floor just needed a hug.
Don’t follow in my footsteps. I run into walls.
Lying on your back, texting, and dropping the phone on your face…
Today I will be classy and elegant. Or I will spill coffee on my shirt and trip over things.
Did I just fall? Nope, I attacked the floor backward with my awesome ninja skills.
If there were an award for falling up stairs, I’d probably trip over it!
I kept using his toothbrush by accident… So I labeled them!
Marital communication is one of those things that grows stronger with time and practice, and Jon & I have been at it for not quite a year… Still, one of our stranger strengths is evident at toothbrushing-time….
Our electric toothbrushes run for two timed minutes, during which time we can’t speak without spraying toothpaste-lather, but we manage not to stop talking anyway. With sort of hummed inflections and plenty of pantomime (one-handed, since we’re holding onto toothbrushes) we manage to carry out fairly complex non-verbal conversations about plans for the day ahead or events of the day just finished.
Last night Jon asked me (wordlessly) if I had printed out the lesson plans for this weekend’s Sunday school (not yet, but I’ll rev up the printer today). He told me my teddy bear will fight off the bad dreams so I won’t have a repeat of the previous evening’s nightmare… (I think this mode bodes well for when we dive together; regular dive buddies develop their own underwater sign language, and we’re well on our way with ours. Though our dive conversations will no doubt be very different in content from the toothbrush-talk…)
This morning PBS aired a documentary about a tribe in Oaxaca, Mexico with a language of whistles. They have a spoken language as well, but they can communicate across the village or between foggy fields with an entire vocabulary of whistling. We’ve got a few of those too—the other day when Jon walked into a place where I didn’t expect him, it was his distinctive whistle that whipped my head in his direction. I know what he’s saying when he whistles “I’m here!” “Ready to go?” “Can you give me a hand?” “You look cute”… At the family campout this summer, his brothers laughed when I came trotting to a whistle “like a puppy,” but I know it’s a call for me and I’m happy to answer.
yup, I’ll come for his whistle
I don’t think whistles or pantomimes are included among the official “5 Love Languages” (I’ll find out—we just added the book to our morning reading-rotation)… But for us, it’s in every whistle, and every grin when a toothbrushing charade becomes clear.
This is my second installment of playing with researching social networking websites and sharing the “field notes.” After my first installment (Expedition Journal #1: Prospecting on Pinterest), a couple folks posed the eminently reasonable question of why we go looking for more things to fill our time (and Inbox) when we’re already bombarded by so much social media.
some of my Pinterest boards… Dragons, Celtic Designs, Pele–Volcano Goddess, Owls, Planning for our Hawai’ian B&B, Writing, At Home, Outdoor Adventures…
Part of my answer is the fact that there are some specific functions I’m looking for… Pinterest, for example, is far tidier and more efficient (not to mention more visually appealing) than my previous habit of copy-pasting stuff into a catch-all PowerPoint slide if I thought I’d want it later… Now I can “pin” an item with a single click, and pinning it saves the source website for future reference as well as the graphic itself. Works for me!
I’m actually on a mission to streamline and simplify my life, by finding the best tools for the things I want to do, selecting those few to use, and then re-evaluating and unsubscribing from any tools or networks that aren’t adding value to my day. My experience in the blogging-community has taught me to value the “social” aspect and the friends I meet online, so that’s a plus with other tools as well, though not necessarily a must-have. So that’s a little more explanation of my Expedition as a whole–but on to today’s topic…
One of the specific functions on my list-to-look-for is an online photo site. The crash-and-burn of my laptop (and its files) a few months back brought home to me the necessity of keeping precious pictures safely online. I have used Picasa (for photo editing) and the associated online Google albums for several years, but the online albums themselves have recently been “upgraded” to a new design which is decidedly user-UNfriendly, with fewer capabilities and worse navigation than the original, and I find myself needing a less frustrating option.
Taking photos for one of my travel-magazine articles
And free. Our budget isn’t up for paid-membership sites.
So if you wondered where I’ve been the last couple days, the answer is that I’ve been “test-driving” different photography sites looking for The One that I can start using for our family photos and photographic travelogs. Oh, and I had an eBook on Vitamins to write. (And I admit it–I was playing on Pinterest as well…)
In the event that anyone else is wanting to sift through the gazillion photography websites out there, here are my impressions of the ones I tested out. Obviously I didn’t devote tons of time to all of them, though I did stay to play for a while on the few that seemed to be likely prospects. I should also add that there are literally dozens more photography social networks to choose from–so my search actually started with combing through reviews to narrow down the list of likely prospects to check out. Here’s the run-down of my impressions (or you can just skip down to the Winner)!
MyShutterSpace.com—This site targets “digital photography enthusiasts,” but it’s definitely a showcase-space. The blog and forum entries by members are mostly brags (“My work was on TV!”) or sales pitches for their own work. Doesn’t feel to me like a community experience–more like a bunch of people jumping up and down saying “look at ME!” without looking at each other. Not interested.
PictureSocial.com—Almost identical layout and offerings as MyShutterSpace, except this one seems full of floundering photographic newbies. Not interested.
jAlbum.net—I didn’t get to try this one out; the “validation email” never arrived to allow me to complete my login. I requested a re-send, but it still didn’t show. Negative score on customer service. Moving on.
SlideShowPro.net—Looks like a great resource if you want to put together a professional looking video-slideshow with neat effects… But it’s limited to that one use. I’ll keep this in mind if I ever need a slide show, but it’s not what I’m looking for.
DivShare.com—Looks useful for online storage, and files can be shared, but there’s no “community” or social aspect, and it’s not specific to photos. That’s great if you’re looking for an all-purpose online storage option, but it’s lacking the specific tools for album-making and handling photos. Not interested.
Flickr.com—This was almost my pick! It’s a service specifically devoted to collecting and organizing your own photos, with easy drag-and-drop organizing, the ability to name and attach descriptive text or stories to each photo, and a healthy & active social community. Flickr is also easily plugged into many other applications and websites, and it’s definitely the “big name” among photo websites. Its navigation is a little on the clunky side (moving among editing and album tools) but not so much as to put me off entirely. One thing missing from my wish-list: I could name photos, but there weren’t any “tags” that would enable me to grab a certain category of pictures (e.g. “fishing” or “Suzy-cat”) from across multiple albums.
Shutterfly.com—Very much like Flickr, but with a harder “sell” for purchasing prints, and is less used by other sites and apps. This one I might use, if I hadn’t already seen Flickr.
And I might use Flicker, if I didn’t go on to discover the Winner, which blew the competition out of the water.
And the Winner is…
PhotoBucket.com! This is it!I can upload photos, organize them into albums, tag them with topics (yay!), title them, and add descriptive text or stories. The navigation is straightforward and intuitive, the tools easy to find.
PLUS, I can edit photos right here, as opposed to editing with a program on my Mac before uploading. Tons of editing tools and photo effects–purely awesome.
I can apply themes to the albums, and I can create slideshows, plug it directly to the iPhoto program on my Mac, and even connect it to my computer’s webcam.
I can share with Twitter, Facebook, or email, and choose whether an album should be public or private.
There’s an app I can download on my phone so I can use PhotoBucket directly from my phone, including uploading photos taken from the phone into any of my albums.
There seems to be an active and healthy social community here, and (oh dear) I can look at my statistics to see if I’m getting visitors.
PhotoBucket has all the stuff I was looking for–and some things I hadn’t even thought of. I declare this expedition a success! Here’s a page from my first PhotoBucket family album…
here we go–a page from my family photo album!
Post-Script: A Bonus Find
I found one more gem this week–something I wasn’t looking for, but which I think I’ll use… Actually, I have to thank blogging-buddy Kathy McCullough, who posted a beautiful birthday post to her partner Sara, with a link to Sara’s photo-blog… And so (with lovely synchronicity, given the week’s search-topic) I discovered BlipFoto. Thank you, Ladies!
BlipPhoto is an entirely unique idea–it’s essentially a photo journal in which you’re allowed to upload one photo per day–and the photo has to be taken on that day. No cheating–when you submit a photo, the site checks your camera-data and rejects photos taken on earlier dates. (I actually had to correct my camera’s “date” setting after my initial submission didn’t go through…) It’s straightforward–no themes, no widgets, no extras–simply the daily photo with your title and text (if you choose to add any). And the social aspect, with the ability to follow, comment, and rate photos just as we do with blog-posts here on WordPress.
And although this isn’t what I went looking for this week, I’m intrigued. At the end of the day, what’s the one photo that represents your day? Or, if you don’t take pictures every day, what will move you to grab the camera with the daily post in mind? I’m giving it a go–here’s my first post earlier today:
my first BlipFoto post…
“Dragon Surgery. Our son Christian brought his injured dragon to my husband for surgery–his stuffing is coming out, and it catches fire when he sneezes! All prepared for surgery–and a dragon recovery-drink for afterward.”
I didn’t fall. The floor just needed a hug.
