Cherry picking

We spent the afternoon at Brentwood, approximately 15 miles from Livermore picking cherries off the trees. The kids had a blast as we went with their classmates.

It was difficult to find a place that was open and it was more difficult to find parking and we got stuck in the return home traffic on 580 and 680 to San Jose... but, there is always a but..

It was great watching the kids go crazy with the picking, sampling, becoming instant experts on fruit ripeness metrology and watching them compare notes on cherry softness, color etc. It was hilarious!

The weekend has now come to a close and it is back to work and school tomorrow with two of six folks in the house still sniffling with a cold. In retrospect, it was a wise move not traveling far this weekend.

The parents who have extreme diet restrictions as well as movement restrictions have successfully made it from Cupertino to Great Mall and back and have topped the record with the Brentwood trip.

Next step, 2 hour trip somewhere.. fast.. so we can get ready for 4th of July!


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Roosengarde Tulips

The perceptive lull in blog posts is due to three things

1. Lot of travel. In the last 21 days have visited Austin, Phoenix, Seattle. While the first two were business trips, the last one was personal. We attended the Ceremonial South Indian Baby Shower for my SIL. It was a fun event with family and friends.

2. The increased travel which translates indirectly to yoga attendance has left me with some vulnerability for hay fever and allergens. Also flights at this season must be notorious for picking up germs. No amount of Emergen-C packets prepared me for the allergy onslaught this week. Had to leave work thursday afternoon and slept through the entire evening. In a fit of determination, went and did Yoga first thing friday morning only to be sent back reeling friday night. Right now the body is on a delicate balance and have waved the white flag with the pollen around Cupertino.

3. There was a lot of photoshopping between sickness and work in the evenings over the last week. Finally got done with that.

While we were in Seattle got a chance to visit Roosengarde, a place for Tulips. We missed the fields of Tulips by 3 days. They did have a few gardens still left uncut and we were lucky enough to get some snaps. Now that my strategy for Photographing landscapes has changed with the Photoshop CS5, you can see the preliminary results ..

More to come, pollen permitting!


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Progressing further on waterfall hues

Two more pictures after making three copies of the same picture and focusing separately on water, rocks and trees and a final merge..

Another technique that came in handy was to focus separately on things in foreground and things in background (with tripod) and merge the photos together.

Tried it on the Golden Gate bridge the other day from Sausalito and it works.. Same goes for waterfalls. Got this tip from Jay Patel who happens to have a wonderful website where he tells us how he took the photograph! A big thanks to him for the pointers.

Think that pretty much covers the falls in the two mile hike radius from the parking lot!


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More from Uvas

It takes me an average of 15 minutes a photo to work out the entire pictures..

Focus on green leaves and grass, water streaks, rocks, bridges etc, skylight on individual basis and then apply all the elements to the landscape photograph.

This is no different from the teeth whitening, red eye reduction, skin wrinkle removing, eye lash sharpening and putting these elements in a portrait photo.

Still feel it is too long. Have to figure out how to automate some of these tasks!


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Uvas Canyon

We visited Uvas Canyon State Park near Morgan Hill last Sunday with the Cousins. Was in two minds to go on Sunday as there was an early flight to catch on Monday morning, but went anyways.

We walked around for 5+ hours through the park and covered multiple waterfalls and walked along creeks. It was a very pleasant day and we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon enjoying nature.

This was my first trip with the Canon 5D Mark II with the L series lens and most importantly the Manfrotto tripod.

The pictures have improved by leaps and bounds compared to the old broken tripod and the 400D + sigma lens combination. Not that those were bad photographs but yours truly has learned a lot of tricks since that trip two years ago..

Here are a few pictures.. (the second and fourth Images are HDR composites of 5 images taken at -2.0, -1.0, 0, +1 and +2 Exposures respectively and then tone adjusted in Photoshop)

Seriously thinking of getting a photo site..

Any suggestions?

A trip to Sausalito

Last weekend we decided to drive to Sausalito, thanks to NPR. Apparently the storm had moved over the bay area and it was supposed to be an extremely good visibility day to see the golden gate bridge and also the road down to Sausalito was going to be kept open over the weekend.

So off we drove and had a great time. Got to take some pictures of the bridge, then the kids spent two hours at the Kids discovery museum and we ended up driving around the cute downtown in Sausalito and had some great food at a Nepalese restaurant called "Taste of the Himalayas"

It was an afternoon well spent with something for everyone in the family!

A few photographs from the trip.

Separate posts on the museum trip and tiffin experience later...


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Our Tax Dollars at work..

It has been an interesting week to say the least.

Left San Jose last Sunday afternoon to visit a few Texan cities and came back Friday night.

Needless to say the kids were happy to see daddy back, the wife expected daddy to be his 100% as though he has not left the couch after a week of hectic work, and the work just continues on..

While this is all expected and is being handled with some deep breathing and selective shutting off of various senses at various times, the trip did have its tense moments.

My drivers license, god bless the DMV expired in November. Anticipating this had gone and stood in line for a few hours at the DMV in late October and received an extension (which is a piece of paper with my signature and DMV seal etc.) which lasted a few months.

We keep waiting for this license that never showed and have traveled multiple times with the expired license and this piece of paper. As it so happens, the paper also has an expiry date and it had "expired" recently!

Without realizing this, yours truly keeps showing this piece of paper and travels.. the typical conversation when I show my ID will be :

ID'er (TSA agent, Car renter, Hotel lobby clerk, etc. ) : This license is expired. You know that right ?

Me : Oh Yeah. Here is my extension. Waiting for the license to come in the mail

ID'er : Okay, go right on..

So on this trip, got waived through San Jose TSA, Boarding card checking dude, AVIS car renting dude at counter .. and finally when I was about to go out of the parking lot some kid who probably gets paid a minimum wage at AVIS to verify your identity against your contract says :

Sir, your license has expired

Me : Oh Yeah. Here is my extension. Waiting for the license to come in the mail

MWD : Sir, your extension has also expired. I cannot let you drive out with this vehicle. I have to cancel this contract ASAP.

Me : WTF !!!

So had to think on my feet, call a colleague to the airport and get him to rent me a vehicle.

Subsequent to that the same Drivers license was used at two different hotel lobbies and they waved me through while my friend couldn't contain his laughter watching me hand it over nonchalantly. What else could I do?

That got me worried. What if the Austin TSA flagged this and don't let me fly back to San Jose without a "valid" photo ID?

Spent a few hours on hold with the California DMV and finally reached a person in Sacramento headquarters who was nice enough to send me another extension by FAX !

The funny thing was Austin TSA dudes who looked at my expired license and waved me through as well! I did have the extension in my pocket if asked and was ready go through the "Oh yeah..." routine..

While I was contemplating all this tax dollars at work, an older lady (in her early seventies is my guess) who happened to be just in front of me on the security line was pulled out because she had a tub of skin cream. The conversation with the agent was

TSA : Maam, we need to take you and the bag because there is something in your bag which should have been in a separate ziploc bag..

Lady : It is skin cream and it is almost empty

TSA : 100ml or less maam. You know the rules

Lady: The tub says more but the amount left in the tub is way less than 100 mL

TSA : You have two options. Either we throw this away now or you go back in line to the counter and put it in your bag and check it in and come back through the counter.

Lady : Fine. Throw it away ! (and shakes her head)

That sparked a different thought in my head. With technology being so advanced why cannot they

a. detect that it is indeed skin creme
b. make the lady put some on her skin to show it is indeed skin creme
c. check it to be really <100 ml

and send it on!

Better still do away with this 100mL bullshit because I am sure the real terrorists who bring explosives will manage to pack a punch in <100 mL and will be whisked in with good valid ID's!

Took one look at the drum where the skin creme went and was appalled by the sight of so many tubes of diaper rash creme, face creme, shaving cremes, perfumes, colognes, etc. etc.

How much of value is wasted across the United States with this stupid rule? We seriously need to reevaluate the security policy that continues to harass folks and does not do what it is supposed to do..

Until then we continue on with thought like "Hmm.. didn't know we could blow up planes with diaper rash cream!"

As irony would have it, the new drivers license arrived by post on Saturday afternoon!


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Couple of hours at the Oakland Zoo

It was raining in the morning and outside temperatures were in the high 30's. We had made plans earlier to walk around Berkeley and then go on to the Oakland Zoo by noon. The weather was not something we factored in.

So we whiled away the morning indoors with the kids playing Kinect and then the sun came out! It was warm enough to walk outside without a jacket. It was already 11:30 AM.

With a rush of last minute enthusiasm we declared "even if we get to spend only two hours at the Zoo, so be it! Let us go" and we drove off to Oakland.

The weather was perfect to walk around and we got to spend exactly two hours at the zoo. We knew we were going to cover a small section of the zoo and let the kids go at their own pace till the zoo officials kicked us out at 4PM.

We were in for a treat. The lions and tigers were at their active best as were the macaws! The rest of the cages and enclosures were empty but thanks to the skyride we were able to figure out which enclosures had active animals and go see those.

Here are some pictures, thanks to the 70-200mm lens and the 2x extender which was used extensively on this trip. The wife and kids as well as BB family gave the photos a two thumbs up..

The small play area with the frogs and tortoises brought back so many memories of our last trips to the same zoo..

The little one still has the same fascination for the golden lion at the exit after four years!

The kids got their share of "rides"..

Finally for the photographs of the Tigers and Lions. Have never been able to get them like this in any zoo trip so far! Must have been my lucky day..

As far as wild animals go this is what we got to see. So in line with the S.Ve. Sekar joke,

Question : Can you name 10 wild animals?

Answer : 5 Tigers and 5 Lions!

you get 5 photographs of the Tigers and 5 of the lions.

Well, let's make that six pictures of the Tigers as this last one is too good to not post on the blog!

Our short visit in video.. The 70-200 converted to a 140-400 may be great for pictures but it is not easy to shoot video with such a huge lens combination. Holding it steady in your hand becomes quite a challenge.




The next visit might be a few years down the road for all we know. One thing is for sure. If you want a place where kids can have some outdoor fun, the Oakland zoo will always make it to the top 5 in our list!


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Negative tide day

Friends notified us that yesterday was "negative tide day" and a rare occurrence that coincided with sunset time!

The weather was perfect and there were more than 2000 people in Half moon bay to walk the tide pools and show kids the little critters that are found in the few hours where the water recedes far back (things which were 6 feet underwater come to within a foot of water levels during a 2 hour period)..

We walked 2+ miles with the kids on slippery sea weed, kelp, gravel and barnacle covered rocks to see some amazing little ecosystems!

Here are some photographs..

The pelicans and gulls were enjoying the critters as well, albeit differently! They celebrated tide pool day as early dinner day!

When the water receded there was a 500 feet stretch of sand that was almost a marsh glistening in the sunlight..

Snails and mollusks everywhere in all kinds of colors, trying to hide under the rocks, but not fast enough.

This fish was well camouflaged in a very small tide pool. An older experienced tide pooler?! pointed it out to us as we were asking him "there is nothing there! what are you photographing?"

What looks like an ugly bag is a living creature which shrinks to the touch and supports a zillion other organisms that are piggy back riding on it..

We saw four different starfish, a chocolate brown starfish..

A red and gray softer starfish (softer to touch)..

An orange starfish

and a pink starfish

We also saw some sea anemones that were simply gorgeous!

We made our way back out of the tidepools towards the rocks to enjoy what was definitely  one of our best sunsets to date!

When you have a whole bunch of kids on a beach all excited and hyper the energy level of the place is up a few notches and that adds to the experience.

Just wished that the tripod which was in the van had also been lugged around to capture the colors post sunset. Another day, another time!

This is the best I could get with a high ISO sin tripod.. It was too wet and slushy with kids and dogs running around to place camera on anything and try a timer shot.

The time spent at the beach and the tide pools was worth it. It took us an extra hour to get to the beach because of traffic and we also spent one hour getting out of the parking lot to the freeway! So if you do plan on doing this next year (or the next negative tide day), get there at least two hours before the low tide starts and make dinner plans in one of those beach side restaurants and drive home with less traffic later.

If you have kids in the under ten age group, the tide walk is strongly recommended!


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