Resurrection

My computer has magically come back to life! I am so happy to see it again. Now quick someone hand me a backup drive while we've still got time. Or maybe I'll just wait until it crashes again and then think of taking action. Babysitting again tonight. Nothing terribly exciting around here. I have a few craft projects I've been stewing about, so we'll see if something happens. I have a vague urge to decorate the house for fall. I'm thinking wall applique and paintings and pumpkins. Where are my crafting buddies when I need them? Did I ever show you the paintings I made my sister a few Christmas's back?

Seasons of Love

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes in a year. Or roughly that. If you take into account leap years, there are 525,966 minutes in each year. So if you approximate that there have been 2007.75 years since say... Christ was born if you're into that kind of thing. If not you could just say it's been that many years since a carpenter dude became the ultimate super star. So, if you decided to take our economic stimulus package worth $700,000,000,000 and divided it by the number of minutes in those few years you would get a handy $662.87 per minute. That's not an awful hourly wage I'd take $39,772.20 an hour. A slight step up from my current wages. Honestly though, if they do ever pass the money I'm hiring a lobbyist. Just think I could ask for a paltry 0.0000142857% of the package for good Samaritan purposes. I could find some great things to do for the economy with $100,000.00. I'd promise to spend it on something like housing.

Not a political blog, but...

So, I haven't ever really posted here, but I thought some people might be interested in alternative bailout proposals since the bigg'un failed today.

If you're interested, this post on Daily Kos has some alternative takes from other sources, specifically mentioning previous banking crises in the past, and how those crises were averted.

Marsh

Went for a little nature walk today. Nothing too interesting other than that. I did go to Brooklyn for dinner last night which was entertaining because of all the conversations I overheard on the street. The best one was when a group of teenage boys walked by and one of them said "Dude, what if my house was White Castle!" and the other boys made awed and amazed noises. For those of you who don't know or haven't seen the movie. White Castle is a burger chain on the east coast, similar to burger king.

From 9_28_08

From 9_28_08

From 9_28_08

Extra Postage

I'll try to make up for the lack of a post yesterday by posting twice today. Also I'm staying up so that I can see Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey is supposed to reprise her impression of Palin. The last one was so awesome I can't miss it. Plus Scott's computer is so safety-ized that I can't watch video online, so if I miss it I'm SOL. Anyway, if you're easily grossed out close your eyes. Or maybe you should have already closed your eyes. I think it's interesting the way this Rat decomposed and looks like it's melting down the drain. I also like playing with macro focus on my little camera and these water droplets were begging to be photographed. The grass is in a really nice area on the water where I think I'll try to do a photo shoot some time. I'm always on the lookout for new locations these days. I'm definitely enjoying being an off hours photographer. The only problem is that now I'm really starting to get impatient and I salivate over the new Sony camera. It's the a900 So many awesome features! It even has a feature where you can take a test image then change the settings and it'll give you a preview of how those settings will look so when you actually take the picture you know it's just like you want it. I saw it at work the other day and it was hard to keep the saliva in my mouth and my feet on the ground.

Missed a Day

Whoops, didn't get home until late last night. So it looks like my effort at going a whole month with a post every day didn't quite work out. I did the Big Brothers Big Sisters Race for the Kids today. Just a 4k run/walk. The weather was pretty iffy, but the rain held off until the end. It was a nice path along the river in the fog. My little didn't come, but I'm excited to see her in November when our program starts up again.

My Dear Departed Friend

I knew it would happen sooner or later. I knew I was asking for it, thinking about how I should buy a drive to back up my files. I knew that as soon as I had files that were important that I would lose them. It's true, I saw the blue screen of death today and after rebooting and seeing a half start up. Then doing a safe start up and trying a system restore the final image on my computer was slightly askew lines of dots. Small, white, evenly spaced dots that make you start seeing optical illusions if you stare at them too long. Yes, my computer is my dear departed friend. Thankfully it's last act was to burn a CD of pictures that someone had paid me for. I will have to take it to a PC doctor type place to see if they can retrieve some of my info or even fix the thing. I don't think it's too bad of a problem, but maybe I'm just being overly optimistic. I'm thinking if I have to go the route of a whole new computer I might become a Mac convert. Sigh, I just wasn't ready for computer to go. Luckily Scott just left town so I can use his. If he were around I don't know what I'd do because we're not very good at sharing computers.

Extra Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from the Saturday photo session. I think she's a little model at heart. Gotta go so I can get up at 5 am to take Scott to the airport. I am not a morning person, but I try.

Killer Mosquito

It's been cool around here lately, so I thought that all the mosquitos had gone away. Just when you think you're safe a killer mosquito escapes from his wintery prison and comes after you with the hunger of a bear just out of hibernation. Seriously these mosquitos love me. Well all mosquitos love to eat me. Last night I got bitten 5 times just sitting at my computer. I was certain that I would be drained of all blood before I managed to kill it. I didn't have any doors open and we're on the second floor so I don't know how it got in. I hate the bite between my toes the most. All the bites collectively started itching furiously at about the same time tonight. Of course I had my hands full with two little girls that I was babysitting. I had to learn all about the secret maze in Central Park that had a secret elevator and a secret fairy world that the elevator took you to after you made the troll gaurding the entrance laugh by tickling him. So adorable, but not as adorable when they're too excited telling you their story to finish their dinner. They also love to play hide and go seek. except their idea of hiding is usually to go around a corner and then to race out and let you find them. Though I must admit I did get startled when one of them hid a ways back in the closet and jumped out at me yelling while flicking the lights. They thought it was hilarious.... I did too. Fun times.

Family Trees

Wasn't really sure if I was up to the challenge of photographing a whole family instead of just one little kid. But this family was definitely up for anything. Even climbing trees! It was definitely more difficult than focusing on one person, but I think in the end I managed to get a couple good pictures. At least when people are older than one they can smile on cue.

From 9_21_08

Karys the Cutie

I had a photo shoot yesterday and today. I shot an adorable one year old girl yesterday who was super photogenic. I'll probably post something longer about it later, but I'm off to bed now. I don't know where all my time goes these days. Every picture of Karys just gets cuter and cuter as I go through and edit them.

Taboo

Went to a Taboo party tonight. They asked us to bring dessert. So I put my husband's master cutting skills to work. I think we could go into the business. I know we pay around $300 for a sheet cake for birthday parties for the rich kids in the museum. Heck I could mix up a box cake for that much. Anybody want to purchase some Taboo brownies?

From Desktop

Sitings

Alright, I'm running low on my tank of interesting, so today's episode consists not of the mundane details of my life, but of web searching and random sites that you can visit too! Share the thrill as you discover whether your telephone number spells something as nifty as "5053 am a glut" Next time someone asks you for your number you could just smile and wink and make that great little gun hand motion and tell them, just dial "a 01 he is 1 to" and watch as their brows furrow in confusion, as you smile to yourself knowing that they will be hunting and pecking on their phone trying to figure how to type all those letters using the keypad without the aid of auto complete. You could even start your own website, or create a really awful infomercial where you shout from the top of your lungs for people to dial "it o a kink o" then spell it out for them real slow and repeat! Oh the fun you could have! All you've got to do is visit this website ! Of course you could be really lame, and have a number that doesn't spell anything even when you add the eleventh digit.

As if that wasn't enough self promotion for you, did you know that any gmail lovers out there can have their very own plethora of e-mail addresses all within one low low priced account!? Well you CAN! All you have to do is think positive!! soon MellowDaphne@gmail.com could become MellowDaphne+ScottEqualsLove@gmail.com. It would all go to the same place and you can sort it by incoming mail so that all your illicit liasonees think that you have a special e-mail just for them. MellowDaphne+BittyBear@gmail etc. The love is endless! Just be sure not to hit reply to the wrong e-mail. Texting the wrong person is also bad form, just FYI. Especially when you're saying something unflattering about the person you accidently texted to. But I digress.

In two easy steps and all for a low low low price you can be marketing yourself like the best used car salesman in town..town..town..town. This is a once in a lifetime, limited offer, get it while it lasts!!!!!!

Fall-ing

From 2006_10_22

I feel it in the air. The weather person says we've seen our last 80 degree day. I just couldn't help but think of good ole Phoenix. I remember one year where there were no days in October with a day with tempratures below 90 degrees, or was that 100 degrees? I still miss it. Though a nice fall day does have a certain feeling to it. I notice it much more here in the NorthEast than I ever did before. Even in New Mexico, where we had fall it just kind of came, turned brown...er and then turned cold. Here, the sky changes color. The washed out blue that you see through the haze of summer heat and humidity goes away and you start to see a deeper more intense blue that makes you feel like things have come into some sort of sharper focus. Everyone comes back from their vacation homes in the Hamptons and the city starts to buzz a little more.

These pictures are from a few falls back. Sky, Anna, Scott and I always take a fall trip to somewhere in the area. We usually manage to cover quite a few states. I think our record was seven different states in one weekend. It's always nice to take a weekend to relax and appreciate the East Coast instead of keeping your head down and buried in the New York City sand ....or smog.

From 2006_10_22

From 2006_10_22

Neuro-Politics or Political Neuroscience

So tonight I went to a lecture/talk titled "The Neuroscience of Elections and Human Decision-Making: Find Out What Really Rocks Your Vote" I thought it would be interesting to hear a little bit about what Scott does (NeuroEconomics) and a little bit about politics at the same time. Neuroscience is so cutting edge, that the people who study politics and the brain don't even have a decisive name for what they study yet. I think it's a multiple choice question at this point.
A. Neuro-Politics
B. Political Neuroscience
C. Both
D. Poli-Phrenology
Basically I learned that they all think that people make political choices and those choices come from the brain. So they've got the right region of the body, but they still don't know what region of the brain correlates to particular emotions so there's not a ton of data on exactly what Donkey vs. Elephant brains are thinking. People who say they're more liberal are often more adaptive to change both by their account and in one experiment they even adapt to physical change more quickly than conservatives. The test had subjects press the space bar if they saw an M or not press the space bar if they saw a W. This happened 500 times with 80% of the flashes indicating that a person should press the space bar. Everyone had trouble not pressing since they got so used to pressing, but conservative people had a tougher time than liberals.

Now you've had your science lesson for the day. They didn't do much besides speculate on how this related to McCain vs. Obama and how people would vote. Neuroscience is pretty interesting though, because of how little we actually know about how the brain works, or what areas of the brain do. The first FMRI (Functional Magnetig Resonance Imaging) test was conducted in 1991, so science hasn't been looking at live people's brains reacting to anything for very long. Glad I have Scott around to keep me updated.

It's all rooted in the brain.

The Feeding Machine

Scott has been cooking up a storm lately. He's very much into healthy food, which is great, since I don't cook with much variety. PB&J or a Quesadilla anyone? I'm stuck in my college food making rut while I hear about friends making elaborate and tasty meals. Scott has been coming home and cooking two meals every evening. He eats so much one usually isn't enough to provide leftovers for the next day. I'm not sure what will happen if we ever have two of him in the house, I think I would lose a few pounds fighting for my food. Tonight he made gumbo and ribs, last night he made meatloaf and stir fry. The sad thing is, I didn't get to eat any of it. By the time he's done cooking at 10:00 at night, I've already gone past the starving point and made myself a sandwich. So silly.

News from the Front Lines

You may have heard in the news about Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy. For those of you who don't know, it was a 150 year old investment firm that was the fourth largest on Wall Street. I'm not sure how this news hit the rest of the world, but in New York it was huge news. Two of our good friends got their start working there for two years. They still have friends who worked there. Walking past the morning coffee carts you can overhear conversations between people discussing whether or not they expect to have a job by the end of the week and that is in midtown where there aren't really many financial jobs, so it still remains to be seen what the fall out from all this will be. New York City depends on tax revenue from all the wealthy financial industry folk in order to run the city and when they don't earn money, the city doesn't either. That means that subway stations don't get painted and there might not be as many firefighters around.
Despite the fact that this is all not the greatest news for New York, personally I think it's about time the tax payers stopped bailing out Wall Street for the risk the people flinging money around decided to take. Many people were surprised that the Fed didn't step in to help this time like they did with Bear Sterns, I'm happy they didn't. Legislators have bought out Freddie and Fannie and they're all in a tizzy over the housing market being down, but how is it that when food prices go up it's a problem and when gas prices go up it's a problem, but when housing prices go up, it's not a problem? The housing bubble is all intertiwned in our country's financial mess and that bothers me too. I hope to own a home one day, but right now I'm priced out of it. Housing prices need to drop so the honest hard working joe schmoe who actually saves their money and doesn't borrow more than they can pay back has a chance.
Excuse my rant, I don't typically like to be too political, but sometimes I think people need to understand what all these things mean to them. I'm guessing the majority of people think that it doesn't affect them, but it does. The money that I pay to the government should go into things like schools, not into pockets of already wealthy risk takers.

Posting

From 9_14_08

Some of the things that people take the time to create and post are pretty random. I saw these stuck to the side of a telephone booth. I wonder what they think they're going to accomplish. I guess they're just getting their message out to the world. Similar to a blog really. I don't understand how the picture of Snow White fits into this whole thing though.

From 9_14_08

My Husband is Hot

Today Scott walked to catch the train into the city to go do some work, and I stayed behind to do laundry. He told me that as he rounded the corner of our street, a girl walked by and pretty much ignored him as people tend to do. But then as they kept walking she stopped, turned around and just stared him up and down appreciatively wearing a little half smile, then turned back around and kept walking. Later, when Scott was on the train, sitting in the fairly empty car, a girl leaned across the person sitting next to Scott and said "Can I have your number?" Scott thought she was asking him for a pen, but when he finally understood the question he just replied "No, sorry." I told him that he should have at least explained that he was married so she didn't feel so shut down, but he said he did attempt to flash the wedding ring a bit after that. So, there is my proof. I have an attractive husband and all the ladies want him. I think it's the new shoes that I took him to buy. They attract the girls like flies. Later, I went into the city and we scouted some photography locations together for my photo shoot next weekend.

From 9_14_08

Looking Around

In New York, once you leave your house for the day you pretty much have to take everything with you. Unless you happen to live in Manhattan where it's no problem to go back home an grab a jacket. But most people aren't rich and even the rich people will have to take half an hour to go half a mile. Distance is very distorted around here, for instance, I live only 5 miles from work, but it takes me a full hour to get there. Anyway, just because of the way things are people often end up sleeping on trains or any old place since it's too far to go home for a nap. There is also a constant search for restrooms. If you're out doing something all day you'd better hope that you plan to spend money somewhere that has one. There are very few public restrooms and you don't want to be on that train ride home with a full bladder as the train car bumps and jostles you over the train tracks. It gets to be a very long ride. So I've started collecting pictures of these things. Public Restrooms, people sleeping in public and people carrying multiple bags and purses, or even extra large purses or suitcases.

From 2008_09_11

From 2008_09_11

From 2008_09_11

September 11th 2008

I always thought that being in New York City on September 11th would be an obvious thing. When it's Easter or Valentine's Day or even Memorial Day, there are little traditions that are symbolic of that day that most people uphold. So in a city that was so dramatically affected by such an awful event I would expect them to have a moment of silence or wear blue ribbons or do something to mark the day in remembrance. It really just seems like most people go about their day as usual. A handful of people gather at the World Trade Center and recite the names of the people who were lost, and there are a few other small events. But considering that I've seen more people at a bar on Saturday night than I did at the lantern lighting ceremony I went to, it's surprising. Perhaps the grief is still to fresh for people to really do anything about it, but it seems a little sad in it's own way that people are so noncholant about it. Perhaps it's good, the terrorists didn't slow us down, but it seems un New York. I wonder if part of the problem is also the squabbling that goes on among surviving family members. They go back and forth about who can be on the list, because there are lots of people who died years later from working in the asbestos filled dust and some people think they shouldn't be on the list and some people think they should be. So perhaps the net result is that there is no strong leader who does things that incorporate everyone. I know there are people who are working on raising money for the memorial, but that's different than grass roots organization.

From 2008_09_11

An interesting side note, the Tribute in Lights, are a beautiful temporary memorial, but this is the last year they are contracted to be there. Everyone thought a memorial would have been built by now. I still ride the Path train into the cavernous hole at the WTC and see people at work, but nothing near completion. The Tribute in Lights is also not located directly at the World Trade Center, because I was there last night when I took the picture and it was definitely coming from further downtown. I could even see it from our house in Jersey.

From 2008_09_11

From 2008_09_11

More Attempts

It's difficult to be interesting every day. I was supposed to go out with Anna, but now she's caught at work. One of these days I know we'll go do something fun and interesting. Here are some more logo attempts for Recap. I'm thinking I may want the arrows to be more rounded, but I got tired of logo-ing before I got that far.

From Website

From Website

A Bust

Usually when I say I'm available on a week night for babysitting 95% of the time I don't get called. But somewhat unfortunately I got a job for tonight, which meant I had to cancel on poor Anna and we didn't end up going to do anything. I went babysitting instead. But right outside the place where I babysat, I saw this place.

From 2008_09_09

Of course it reminded me of another Oliver that I know and love, and I just had to share the latest Oliver Lohman-Halstead cuteness with everyone.

Plans for Tuesday Night

There are tons of things going on every night in New York City. So much that it's really hard to choose what to go do when I finally decide to go do something. Sadly, most nights I just go home instead of taking advantage of everything. Maybe after this month is over and I'm done blogging every day, I'll try going out every day for a week. It's really not easy to do both though. If I go out, the blog just doesn't get posted. Anyway, help me choose. I'm going out with my friend Anna dinner and drinks might be included, but for the main event we've got two categories. Books or Music.

Option 1: David Carr at Barnes & Noble
The New York Times reporter reads from his riveting memoir, The Night of the Gun. Carr takes an honest look into the abyss, and sometimes what he sees isn’t pretty.

Option 2: Michael Kimmel at Borders
Believe it or not, Kimmel’s Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men is an important study about why Gen Y, video-game-loving frat guys are going to be the death of us all.

Option 3: Boris Savoldelli + Elliott Sharp
Tickets: $10
Music made up entirely of vocal sounds is almost certainly the oldest in human history; the advent of digital sampling and looping technology enabled one singer to perform multiple parts live, which brings us to Boris Savoldelli. On Insanology, the Italian singer’s 2007 CD, he evokes the Beach Boys, covers Jimi Hendrix and leaves the pop realm behind in harmonically dense explorations and hocket-like exercises. It’s frantically eclectic, but Savoldelli’s methods of layering and juxtaposition provide a stylistic unity even as he draws on disparate genres. For his first-ever New York appearance, he’s joined by the equally versatile multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp.

There are many other options, but this is the narrowed list. The book stuff is all free, but I've been into acapella type things lately so I thought the music act sounded interesting. Vote for your favorite and I'll bring back a report.

Just a Shower

The hurricane or Tropical Storm Hanna turned out to be an afternoon rainstorm. I've seen more wind around here in regular weather. Granted I did have to go walk in it and got soaked up to my knees even with an umbrella. I stayed inside most of the time, I was at a video shoot for work which reminded me of the good old days in college. We were working on a video for the new exhibits. The actress we hired was just so engaging and cute, it was fun to see. Hopefully all of you will get to come see the finished product.

From 2008_09_06

From 2008_09_06

Logo Design

For those of you who don't know, www.RecapPhotography.com is now active. It has been for awhile, but it's VERY basic. I am still in the process of trying to brand myself and the logo has been a huge challenge. Here are a couple options that I've drawn up. See if you like any of them, or maybe they'll inspire you to give me a great idea for something that would make a fantastic logo. Let me know your thoughts!

From Website

From Website

From Website

From Website

Hurricane's A Comin'

Scott's Dad, Brian called the other night to check in. They live in Baton Rouge and got the tail end of Hurricane Gustav. That part of the family are all holed up using a generator to run the refrigerator. Though I'm not sure what they do for groceries since they don't expect to have power for another week. The grocery stores probably don't have power either. Though he did say that the governor was working to get the infrastructure such as grocery stores and gas stations set up first. They seem to be doing alright for now.

Scott and I on the other hand, should probably go to the store and buy some water. Hurricane Hanna is headed our way. See Map:

From Desktop

The weather channel tells us this:

THIS STATEMENT RECOMMENDS ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN BY PERSONS IN COASTAL SECTIONS OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY... SOUTHEAST NEW YORK...INCLUDING ALL OF NEW YORK CITY AND LONG ISLAND...AND SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT.

HOME OWNERS ARE URGED TO SECURE ALL LOOSE OUTDOOR ITEMS. GARBAGE CANS AND LAWN FURNITURE CAN EASILY BECOME PROJECTILES WITH THE ONSET OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS. ALL RESIDENTS AND VISITORS ARE URGED TO STOCK UP ON BATTERIES...FLASHLIGHTS...DRINKING WATER AND NON-PERISHABLE FOODS. PEOPLE ARE ALSO URGED TO REMAIN INDOORS DURING THE STORM AS THE COMBINATION OF HEAVY RAIN AND GUSTY WINDS WILL RESULT IN LOOSE SOIL AND THE THREAT OF DOWNED TREES...LARGE TREE LIMBS AND POWER LINES.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the large tree that nearly landed on Brian's house. Apparently it was quite a close call, but the tree missed hitting the house by about 15 feet.

I guess we'd better get those snow shovels out of the backyard. Don't want those to be projectiles. Do you think wind chimes count? Hmmm Somehow I think this is all going to turn into a little rain storm. Perhaps the people who live out on Long Island will see some action though. I wouldn't want to live out there.

A Run of Bad Luck

I don't know what's been in the air lately, but it sure is making me sneeze. Though you probably could do without the visual, the trashcan next to my desk is piled high with thoroughly used tissues and my nose just WON'T stop running.
That's really not so bad compared with what's been going on around the office lately. Sadly, two of my coworker's mother in laws died this week. Another coworker's grandmother died. Another coworker went to the hospital because of reaction to a medication only to meet yet another coworker already there, a few beds down. To top it all off, my boss has been pretty much working from home for the past month laid up with two bum ankles, one broken ankle and the other twisted.
So hopefully whatever it is that determines when good and bad things happen has had enough of the bad for now and we can start on an upswing.
Perhaps soon I'll be hearing about people who win the lottery and strike oil and have babies and maybe win a race or something. Who knows what could happen!

New Floors

We were super excited to get all new flooring put in on the first floor of our apartment recently. No more fading maroon shag or decrepit golden linoleum. Now we have new tile and wooden floors. We used to have a room we called the "ugly room" now it's just the guest room. Anyway, in order to get it all nice we did have to put up with dust in every cupboard and crack, but after much cleaning it looks great! One other minor inconvenience or convenience depending on the way you look at it, was our displaced fridge.

From 2008_08_05

Headshots

Are you keeping up? Hope I'm not posting too fast for you all now, I know I've been slow, but every month I think to myself that maybe I'll make it a month with posts every day. Then every month I seem to dawdle so much that I am just barely able to make it have as many posts as my least posted month. Anyway, we'll see if this works out.
I had a photoshoot to take headshots with a gorgeous 15 year old girl. She and her mom are into theater and she needed some updated pictures for her look book. She very much reminds me of Leighton Meester from Gossip Girl. She was so sweet and fun and of course very photogenic. She was also very composed since there were people walking by as we tried to take pictures. Some people even deliberately walked straight behind her as if they were trying to get into the picture, or see what we were taking pictures of. Ah Manhattan.

From 08-08-26

From 08-08-26

From 08-08-26

From 08-08-26

WIADCP

If I asked you to guess what the largest parade in New York City was, I'm not sure you would guess correctly. It's the West Indian American Carnival Parade. Quite the mouthful, but it's well represented since Jamaicans, Barabadans, Trinidadians, Guianans etc. are all included. Though I'm not sure that is what those countries call their citizens. Perhaps it should be Barbabadosos and Trinis. Anyway, it's a very colorful parade where thousands of people get together into their own "mas" groups and select themes and make costumes then dance together in the parade. Some of these costumes are so elaborate that I can't imagine having to cart them the whole length of the parade. I did see a lot of girls with their headdresses off. Most people just came and watched and represented their country however they could, whether it was skirts in the color of their flag or even wearing their flag as a skirt. There was alot of national pride. I commented to Scott that I think the US is probably one of the few places where you'd see a parade celebrating another country. Sometimes I'm proud of our nation. Oh and there was a lot of really good food. Jerk Chicken is so delicous and spicy and the smell of it being barbequed was definitely in the air.

From WIA Parade