Life in Color Photo

Well the biggest thing to happen around here lately was the Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition coming to Corvallis, a town 20 miles south where I went to school. The reveal was today, and luckily I heard about the whole thing by reading Sarah’s blog. I emailed her as soon as I read they were here with a "what what? details!" to which she thankfully replied in great detail. We found out you could go to a nearby church and park and then take a shuttle in to the site. I was thinking it was going to be crazy with people, but we went last night (after the furniture had already been moved in) and there were probably what like 150 people watching Sciarrino? Including the world’s biggest Extreme Makeover fan, who was standing right next to us. The house is beautiful:


He was all, "I’ll be back out in a five minuets." And he did come back out and was very kind taking pictures and signing things. My first famous person siting ever!


Hey we were both really sweaty so I did us a favor and put us in black and white! It was fun to hang out there with Sciarrino and check it all out. I think we’ll drive by again in a few weeks and see what they do to the neighbor’s yard, because it was full of tents and production vehicles, front and back.  We decided not to go to the reveal today because it would have been an all day thing with how early you had to get there. So if any of you went to it, details!

Just got back from the Harry Potter premier, quite excellent. Makes me want to be magical, or at least British, despite your horrid weather Kay (which does look really nasty). I was shocked when Sciarrino and I showed up almost two hours early and the lines were wrapped all the way around the building made up of hundreds of people. A big even for Salem. The air conditioning was great, but the best might have been the overheard conversation of two guys in cloaks:

First guy: "She made me feel bad about where I am in my life."

Second guy: "You’re the manager of a comic book store, it doesn’t get any better than that."

So good I had to take it down right away so I could remember the wording exactly. Now I’m back at home. It’s 2:50 in the morning and still 80 degrees in here, and 75 outside (!) so it’s a slow go on the cooling off inside. I’m off to stick my feet in ice water.

I’ve been checking in on the weather for the past week, as it hasn’t rained and the mercury has only continued to creep up and up and up. And today is the day that has been looming ahead… the one that had 104 degrees on the horizon. Now we don’t have air conditioning, which is common in these old neighborhoods, but we do have big beautiful trees and windows and doors we can open to get cool air in. The problem is around ninety that really stops being all that effective. Case and point? It was 75 in the house this morning, and at 10:30 I finally had to cave and close all the windows and doors when the temp went up to 76 in here. And now at 11:30 it’s 83 outside already. WHOA! Once the house is locked down all you can do is wait and keep adjusting window coverings trying your best to be one step ahead of the sun.  Luckily for me I have 1) a basement and 2) tickets to the midnight showing of Harry Potter!!! I will update temps as the day goes on:

11:30 am 76 (in) 83 (out)

12:41 pm 78 (in) 91 (out)

1:45 pm 79 (in) 95 (out) I went out the last hour to water my plants and DAMN is it hot.

2:19 pm 80 (in) 98 (out)

3:24 pm 81 (in) 101 (out) okay time to bring the candles down to the basement.

9:45 pm 84 (in) 90 (out) I had to get out of the house for a while, and my mom’s swimming pool was just the place to be!

p.s. I would like to say I’m not being a wimp here, it feels a lot hotter in Oregon when temperatures are in the 100s than a dry desert climate.

Okay so yesterday my worst fears (at least regarding my iPhone) came true. I had a very full car load of orders and was at the post office taking one of their carts back and forth from my car to get all my packages inside. The third and last time I did this I unlocked my car only to have the alarm start blaring. This happens every so often with my car and all you have to do to stop it is put the key in the ignition and turn it once. So I leaned into the car to do that while holding the metal cart with a foot to keep it from rolling. As I leaned in my iPhone dropped out of the front pocket of my handbag and landed on the pavement. I picked it up, plopped it back in my purse and finished up at the post office. When I got back to the car I took it out and looked at it. It had some nice sized dings on the top, but the main problem was that the off button was permanently pressed down. There are only a few buttons on the iPhone and this one locks the phones as well as turning it on and off. So I had a problem. I brought it home and Bj was, um, upset to say the least. I was upset. I called Apple Support (crying) and they told me I could send it in or go to the Apple store closest to me (45 minutes away). I opted for going to the store, and wanted to go right then. We drove up but we didn’t have an appointment and it was too close to closing to get one, so we had dinner and headed back. While we were driving I called and made an appointment at the genius bar for the next day (today).

I went in today with my head held low. When it was my turn I explained what had happened. And do you know what they said? "You are lucky you did this now, right now we have a policy of trading straight over broken for new iPhones, but I don’t know how long that will last." I was smiling like a goof ball and a half. I couldn’t believe my luck as he popped out my sim card and put it into a brand new phone. Not only that but I got all brand new accessories as well. And I bought a case, because I am so not taking any more chances. All I had to do when I got home was sync it with iTunes:


Done and done. I told Sciarrino that when it comes down to it I get more good and I’m more lucky than not. To that she replied, "hell ya you are, and if you ever think different I’m going to come over there and smack you." Awe. Thanks Sciarrino.

So ya, I heart Apple. I can not think of any other company that would do this.

What’s the luckiest thing that has happened to you lately?

Everyone: "How slim is it?"

Well I found out it’s nice and slim enough to fit perfectly between the seat and center console of my car. Oops. But came out unscathed, when I finally managed to fish it out, slippery little sucker. Not really meant for the squeeze between your ear and shoulder conversation, which is good, because I only do that when I’m driving and need both hands, and if you need both hands you shouldn’t be talking on the phone, so ya, that’s going to stop. Anyway Let’s check out some pictures shall we? I have a photography motto: know thy camera. I’m getting use to take pictures with the iPhone. I haven’t had a camera where you have to use the screen as the viewfinder before, and it’s throwing me a bit. I find it really disorientating to compose the shot, with all the other stuff around the camera, just focusing on the screen is a bit hard. Especially because with out any settings you have to be quick with when to push the capture button.


My cousin’s little girl with Daisy the puppy. Two really fast moving things that I couldn’t really place in correct light fast enough. But still decent.


I tend to do better in the evenings anyway but this was next to an open door, so good lighting.


Bj took this of grandpa and I back lit a bit but we hold still better than kids.

So for those of you who use fully automatic cameras with a fixed lens (no zoom)  and don’t use flash (or those of you really clever with your camera phones) any tips? Or any tips in general about using a screen to compose shots? I’d love to feel adapt enough at using this to take snapshots and leave the D50 at home occasionally. I mean I love the D50, but it’s not always fesable to carry, and since I’ll have the iPhone with me everywhere (:>)… 

This morning my neighbor came over and knocked on my door. When I answer he was like, "come here, come here, you have to see this… don’t be scared." To which I replied, "Morris what it is?" in the calmest tone possible, "Just come look!" He started to lead me across the street while describing a scene he had just witnessed (because if anything happens in our neighborhood he witnesses it). "Well I was sitting out here when this cloud came over, like a funnel, I’m not kidding," Okay… "And thousands of bees descended on that tree" Which was now a mere 100 feet from me. "What? Bees? Oh, no way Morris, no way," and I flee back inside, "But Amber they’re just honey bees, it’s so cool, they are going to call a bee keeper and everything." But I wasn’t having any of that so I high tailed it back into my house. Fast forward a couple hours:


He had to cut it out of the tree, trying to get the queen so the rest would follow. In Oregon we are having a problem with declining honey bee populations, so you don’t want to just kill them, you need to pick them up and put them somewhere else, like not in a front yard. So he started to move that branch, which was my cue to move across the street:


Then he said he had to sake them off the branch, which was my cue to get the telephoto lens and shoot from even further away (at this point he had already gotten stung once, and the neighboy and I had already had to do a mad run up the street):


And after that there were a lot of bees in that bucket:


Again, that was taken from VERY far away. But there were still this many in the hive:


Crazy right? I mean hours ago there were NO bees, it’s like nature is so weird I just can’t get over it. And that’s the report from the Garrison’s neighborhood for this Sunday, July 1st.