In 3D!

Hubby and I made a song for you for this 3 day weekend! Of course, please do remember why we have this long weekend.

It is called Memorial Day for a reason. :)

 We made this with an iPhone app call LaDiDa. It takes no time at all to record. I downloaded it via the email I sent myself from the app.

Then I used iTunes to convert it from the aiff format and pulled one image and the music into a video software to create it. Yes, it took a little while to make, but I get sidetracked doing fun things like this sometimes.

In Flanders fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Why am I so techy?

Since we are so busy scanning photos, I decided I'd start sharing just a few of them.  There is a photo theme (join us here) in the forum on gadgets and I saw this scanned image about the same time as the challenge was put up and thought I'd share it for my photo.

This is my Grandpa and his corner of the kitchen.  I have no idea what all those gadgets are for, but I do know it was his ham radio and that he used to talk to the truckers as they drove by St. Louis.  I remember being in his house and the truckers calling out to his "handle."

 
I love this black and white photo of his set up.
I also see Grandma's electric knife plugged into the wall.

Grandpa always had to be the first to have the newest gadget, whether it was a television, radio, video recorder, or tool to work on cars in his garage.  Grandpa worked for Union Electric, so he had a lot of electrical knowledge.

Although gadgets are much different now, I find myself always drawn to the computers and phones and other things, such as televisions and gadgets.  I know where I got those genes from!

Fotki Phone App

I've been with Fotki since 2006 already!  Wow!
Back when I did digital scrapbooking mainly with a Yahoo Group, we would share our creates through Fotki for others to download.  They had to download piece by piece, but it did allow for .png's, so it worked well.

The cost of the site is reasonable and you can catch deals.  I am paid up until 2025!  

Then Flickr came along and, although Fotki does have a social aspect, Flickr was much more popular and I was drawn to start putting my files there as well and stopped using Fotki so much for blog hosting and sharing.

However, Fotki is still better for its own reasons as I'll explain below, but recently I discovered they came out with their first phone app (as seen above) and I was super excited!

I can see all my private photos easily and choose them and download them to my phone if I want to share them, or instead of having all the photos on my phone of my family, create an album of photos to share with people in person and hand them the folder on Fotki, provided I have a connection wifi or through the phone service.

Here are some reasons to use Fotki:

1.  Password protected folders or albums.   I love being able to upload photos for a specific group of people and password protecting it, then sharing that link and password with just that group of people.  The photos can then be downloaded individually by those people in full resolution.   I have shared photos with the band, church, scouts, reunions, weddings, Big Brother, Big Sister, weddings, and the like.

2.  Comments.  Recently, we have begun a huge project scanning old family photos.  I am putting them in password protected folders, one for hubby's family and one for my family, and the family is coming in leaving comments on the photos as to who is in the photo and the location.   Of course, they can download the full version of the photos at any time too.

3.  Upload via FTP.  I love that I can use FTP to upload my photos to Fotki.  I create the album in Fotki and then I upload very quickly through the FTP.

4.  Upload via email.  This is a very special attribute of Fotki!  You can assign an email to each folder and share that email.  Anyone can send a photo by email to that email address and it goes straight into the folder.  For instance, I offered my folders to this group and all of these photos were uploaded by people other than me so that people I do not even know could come and comment on the photos to share who is who.  

I have set this up for weddings also and spread word of the email address and into a password protected folder so entire families can share the photos they took easily.  They can even be taken with phones and sent to the folder via email on the phone. The sharing can happen in private instantly.  Love this!

5.  Organizing photos.  The features to organize photos exactly the way I want them are great too.  Flickr folders can be confusing to me, but the folders on Fotki feel just like the folders on a computer and are easy to understand.

I am also in the process of putting all my photos up on the site as a back up, but now with the access via the phone app, it will put every photo I ever took at easy access.

You can pay extra to add videos, but they charge by the gigabytes (I think it is .08 cents a gigabyte which is not bad).  I haven't been willing to pay that just yet, but may in the future.  The charge is also for playing the videos, not just hosting them, so if I do so, I would limit access to the folder and just use it as a back-up.  If I wanted free hosting for videos to share, youtube does that for me.

So, bottom line is that I tend to use Fotki for backup and for family and I use Flickr for social things online.

The Rose

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?"

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she gave me a giant squeeze." Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?" I asked.

She jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, have a couple of children, and then retire and travel."

"No seriously," I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age. "I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she told me. After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends.

Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this "time machine" as she shared her wisdom and experience with me. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said "I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know."

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began:
"We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success.

"You have to laugh and find humor every day."

"You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!"

"There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability.

The idea is to grow up by always finding the opportunity in change."

"Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets."

She concluded her speech by courageously singing "The Rose." She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.

At the years end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.

The Rose
Artist: Bette Midler
Words & Lyrics by: Amanda McBroom

Some say love it is a river
That drowns the tender reed
Some say love it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed
some say love it is a hunger
an end less aching need
I say love it is a flower
and you it's only seed
It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dyin'
that never learns to live
When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong
just remember in the winter
far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed that with the sun's love
in the spring becomes the rose

Author Unknown

Photography Theme: Gadgets

Oh, digital scrapbookers are gadget geeks too, are they not?!!

This should be a fun theme.  I'm tempted to post some old photos too of gadgets my grandfather had!


Click here to join us in sharing your photos of gadgets.

New Pages app

When I logged into my Facebook ap from my phone this morning, it offered me to download the new "pages" app, so I did.  I remember when they offered me the new "messenger" app too.  I actually just removed that app from my phone yesterday because it never made sense to me to have the messages in two different apps.  I could read them from my main Facebook app and, in fact, had to access them through both apps to get the new message alerts to disappear, so it was annoying to me.  I'm sure having two apps also puts more drain on my battery power.

But I downloaded it anyway to test it out for a while.  I did find that if I just "favorite" the pages I own so they show up on the left rather than buried, I can access them just fine from the main app.  This new app might be really handy for people who own more pages than I do.  I either own or help run 5 pages; not too many.  It must just be a ploy to get us to remember Facebook and use it.

Night Photography

I recorded and put up a new lesson for the photography class today on Night Scene Photography.  I really had fun preparing for this one and playing with my own camera and long shutter speeds.

I took the above photo last night and as I drove by looking for something to photograph for the lesson, I realized that this National Guard Armory sign might be cool because my son will be coming home from boot camp next week and it might be something I can use my digital scrapbooking skills on and make a gift for him.  I'll share if I get it done.  He's been gone since January 15 and we are anxious to give him a hug.

 
These photos were taken in downtown Cape Girardeau.  I love the complementary blue sky against the amber lights that have light rays coming from them.

 
This one was taken at an intersection so there were cars going by in both directions creating an interesting streak on the rule of thirds line.

 
I like this one because it shows the clock and the bridge, as well as the cars going by.  What fun it is to sit and play, but of course, you have to be tough and ignore all the people looking at you funny with your tripod set up half into the street!  Don't get hit by a car!

You are the individual . .

“The race advances only by the extra achievements of the individual. You are the individual.” Charles Towne

How many bananas does it take to . . .

9 days and a wake-up (as our son says is military phrase) we will get to see our son who has been gone to boot camp since January 15.

Do you think this is enough bananas to make banana bread for 45 soldiers? They must get ugly brown first so they are sweet inside before I can make the bread. Our son wants us to bring the bread and is telling his soldier friends.  I sure am hoping they like the bread as much as my son is building it up to be. 

I asked him if other mothers were bringing something to "family day" before boot camp graduation day.  He said, "nope, just you."

Okay, I admit, it warm my heart inside and makes me feel good to be a mom.