Time is winding down, and I only have about a month to go before my lease ends. As much as I like my apartment and the area it’s in, I decided not to renew my lease here. Long story short, I haven’t had a car in over a year, so I depend on public transportation. The public transit system here, called MARTA, had to take some drastic measures to stay within budget for their next fiscal year, which starts in the fall. They eliminated 40 bus routes, and made a lot of changes to almost all of the remaining routes.

There are two buses that come where I live. One was eliminated. The other was spared, but it’s only a M-F peak hour route, anyway. It doesn’t run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and the last bus leaves its bay at the MARTA station at 6:40 p.m. Not very useful. I thought about staying put and taking more cabs, but the county has set the minimum fare at $6. That could get expensive fast. So, once again, I’m moving. And, I am not happy about it.

Dealing with public transportation is becoming too much of a hassle. I can’t, and won’t, move every time MARTA decides to cut a route. The best thing for me to do is to get another car, but in order to make that work, I need to find a cheaper apartment. When I say cheaper, I mean a lot cheaper. As in paying no more than $475 a month for rent. There are complexes in the Atlanta metro with rent that cheap, but they’re in very bad areas.

So, I’m thinking about moving to one of the small towns, or smaller cities, in North/Northwest/Northeast Georgia or upstate South Carolina where decent apartments in safe areas can be rented for what I need to pay. I’d live there for the 18-24 months it would take to pay off the used car I’d buy. These smaller towns and cities may not be very happening places but, truthfully, besides my photography hobby and going to an occasional movie, I don’t do much of anything anyway. Once the car is paid off, I’ll be free to move back to the big city and go back to paying big city rent.

My first serious attempt at shooting fireworks, during a pre-4th celebration on June 26th, are in a post called SummerFest on the Green Fireworks. Comparing this set to the last set, I think I show definite improvement. Things didn’t go according to plan, but I was able to improvise and get decent results. So, what didn’t go according to plan?

Well, this time I had my complete tripod… but I forgot to bring the remote control for my camera. I put the camera on the tripod anyway, because I figured that even if I did have to manually press the shutter-release button, there would still be less camera shake than if I hand-held the camera to take the shots.

All things considered, I think the results are okay. My goal for this set of pics was to improve over the last set, and I did. So, I guess I can say mission accomplished. Here are my favorite five pics from the 4th of July. Don’t forget that you have to click on the pics to see them full-sized.

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful lady who liked to take pictures. One day, when the weather was almost perfect, the beautiful lady decided to go to the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area to see what interesting things she could find to photograph. When she got there, the beautiful lady had several trails to follow. Loving to be near water, she decided to take the trail that followed the course of the river…

Down the stone steps…

Past the hidden creek…

Through the shady woods…

To the open area on the riverbank…

Where someone built a pier…

And a house…

And their very own island…

At the end of her visit, the beautiful lady was tired but very happy. She went home, and after her aging body recovered from the miles she’d walked, she edited her pictures and found that they were good. The beautiful lady shared her pictures and lived happily ever after.

The End.

This past Saturday my boyfriend and I attended the city of Morrow’s annual SummerFest on the Green. Starting in the early evening around 6pm, it’s a family/community day kind of thing. There were rides and games for the kids, an open hydrant for anybody who wanted to get wet, food vendors for the hungry, and a pretty good band that played a variety of music. A good time was had by all, and at 10pm, the fireworks show started.

I was really excited about the fireworks, because it’s challenging to get good fireworks photos. I went online before we left, and got a few pointers for photographing fireworks and made a crib sheet from an index card, LOL. Things didn’t go as planned, as I couldn’t use my tripod, which is the best way to take some types of photos like fireworks. I left the tripod’s quick-release plate, that attaches to the bottom of the camera, at home, so I had to hand-hold the camera and do my best to keep as steady as possible and catch the fireworks. I think I did a pretty good job, but you be the judge.

Camera: Pentax K10D, ISO: 100, Shooting Mode: Bulb (B), Lenses: Pentax Takumar (Bayonet) 135mm f2.5 & SMC Pentax-M 50mm f1.7

Wow, time really flies! I just looked at my last post and it’s dated May 26th. I didn’t think I’d been off the blog that long. So, gosh, what’s been going on with me?

Well, I started dating someone, and we’re about 4 months in, now. Things are going very well, and I’m very happy. At the same time, I hadn’t been feeling very well and dreaded going to the doctor, especially now that I don’t have health insurance, anymore. I kept putting off going to the doctor hoping I would get better. I never did, so I broke down and made an appointment.

As far as I know, the lupus is still in remission. But, I also have Fibromyalgia, which is the culprit this time. It’s weird in that most people with lupus also have “fibro”, but most people with fibro don’t have lupus. I don’t know how that works, but it turns out that I was feeling bad because I was having a pretty bad fibro flare. My muscles were really tight all over, and as if that wasn’t enough, all the tendons and soft tissues around my joints (both shoulders, both elbows, both knees, both hands, both ankles, both hips, and my neck) were inflamed, which made them super sore and stiff. And, I had been like that since about March, getting progressively worse, before I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I was put back on prednisone for a month long high dosage taper, and prescribed a muscle relaxant and a pain reliever. I felt a lot better within 24 hours, and dramatically better within 48 hours. At 72 hours in (3 days), I literally felt like I had a new lease on life. I felt so good! Then I had a very sobering thought… I realized that I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good. Isn’t that a shame? Then, I had another sobering thought: I might be one of the people who can never fully come off of their meds. What made me think of that was when I told my primary care doctor that my (former) rheumatologists had taken me off all meds related to lupus or fibro, he dead-panned that that might be the reason why I was feeling so bad.

And, y’all, when I say I was feeling bad, I mean I was feeling bad. I scared the poor medical assistant so badly when she put the rubber tourniquet around my arm to draw blood! I hollered, and I couldn’t help it. One of the places I was having severe pain and soreness was in both my elbows. The med assistant tied the tourniquet right around the most tender part of my upper arm, and I was hollering before I could catch myself. End result? A nervous med assistant and the doctor taking the blood samples, himself. He had to put the tourniquet farther up my arm, and it was somewhat of an ordeal to get any blood out of me.

I still feel a lot better than I did, but my body has now adjusted to the prednisone and other meds, so my activity rate is slowing back down to normal. But, I tell ya, those first few days were AWESOME!! So, that’s pretty much been what’s going on with me, and why I haven’t been blogging much. I wasn’t feeling well, and so wasn’t doing anything, and so had nothing to talk about.

Yeah, I got some camera lenses during this time, but I couldn’t really use them since I really wasn’t up to doing too much, physically. But, since I knew there was going to come a time when I would be using them, I bought them anyway. Before I go any further, I just have to say that my boyfriend has been wonderful with all of this. I know he’s nervous about the lupus, fibro, and other issues, but he’s not letting “what if’s” scare him away. He’s the real deal, and I’m glad I met him, and I’m glad he’s a part of my life.

Well, that’s it for the update. Stay tuned for some fireworks pics I took this weekend at the city of Morrow’s annual SummerFest on the Green.

Y’all, I’ve been bitten badly by the collecting bug. My items of choice are film SLRs and old-school lenses. It all started out so innocently when I bought a DSLR last summer. After a year of becoming comfortable with the basics of photography, I decided it was time to start adding lenses to get more variety and creativity in my shots. But, the newer autofocus lenses are expensive, especially for someone on a fixed income. So, I did something that I think has kicked off a collecting hobby, or maybe… addiction?

I started stalking eBay and my local craigslist for old manual focus lenses from back in the days. I have a Pentax DSLR, so not only can I use lenses made especially for Pentax digital SLRs, I can also use any lens ever made for Pentax film cameras, regardless of manufacturer. Well, stalking paid off, because last Sunday I picked up two prime lenses AND a Pentax film camera (with a cable release!), all in really good condition, for $60!!

I know I just wrote about my new additions, but the fact that I can confidently say that I got over $100 worth of really good photography equipment for $60 is major. Everyone who knows me knows at least two things about me: I don’t like spending money I can’t justify, and I love finding good deals and bargains. I think what made me get more excited, and blog about this again, is that when I researched the Pentax ME Super film SLR I found out it was a highly liked and recommended film camera.

The icing on the cake was that I wanted to try to making star trail pictures, and the ME Super (with a cable release) was recommended as a good camera to used to do astrophotography without a telescope. That last part sounds complicated, but it’s really a simple process involving a tripod, film SLR camera (preferred, but DSLRs can do them, too), and a cable release, all of which I now have. Star trail photo credits: Peter Michaud (Gemini Observatory) and MSNBC.

The two new (to me) lenses are not the best, but they’re decent and can produce some great results in the right conditions. There are some 135mm and 50mm lenses that are more recommended than the ones I have, but right now I can’t find any in my price range on eBay, KEH.com, or any other used camera websites. Oh wait, I think I may have seen some on the National Camera Exchange website. Oops, I was wrong. I just checked (I have the site bookmarked), and they don’t.

What’s kind of weird to me is that on photography message boards, I see all these posts about people finding great lenses for $20 and $30 dollars on eBay, and I have to wonder if they’re talking about auctions or the Buy It Now option. I always use the latter, because I don’t have the patience to wait a week for an auction to end – or the nerves to stand a bidding war – and I have yet to see these great lenses for so low a price. Either my luck is bad or I’m really missing out by not bidding. So, I guess if bidding is how to get the really good stuff, then maybe I need to give it a try. At any rate…

I now own the following:

Pentax K10D & Pentax 18-55mm AL II Lens

Lens in photo is the 1st generation AL; I have the AL II.
Photo Credit: Flickr user Kornichon

Pentax ME Super film SLR & SMC Pentax-M 50mm Lens

Photo Credit: Whitemetal.com

Asahi Pentax Takumar Bayonet 135mm Lens

Photo Credit: Flickr user James_Gu

Note: The Pentax Takumar Bayonet lenses are NOT “real” Takumar lenses. Pentax resurrected the Takumar name for a budget line of zooms and primes that lacked the usual Pentax multi-coating aka SMC/S-M-C aka Super Multi Coated. Source: Wikipedia Takumar entry.

I’ve had my Pentax K10D digital SLR camera for almost a year. The lens I have, 18-55mm, is a really good walk-around lens. However, sometimes I want to get a closer shot of something, but I can’t move closer to it. That’s when a long lens (aka telephoto) would come in handy. So, deciding it was time to invest in some new lenses, I turned to the Internet. But, I’ve run into a little problem. The really decent lenses are out of my budget.

My K10D can use every camera lens ever made by Pentax, so I started looking at old manual focus lenses. They are usually a lot cheaper than new lenses, and sometimes are even better lenses as far as picture quality goes. I watched eBay and combed craigslist for days, resigned to settling in for a long wait. But, this past Sunday I saw an ad for an old Pentax film camera with a 50mm lens attached, and a 135mm lens – all from the same seller – for a really good price. I sent a message, set up a meeting, inspected the lenses (they were good), and made the deal.

So, now in addition to my SMC Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL II lens, I own a SMC Pentax-M 50mm f/2 prime lens, and a Pentax Takumar Bayonet 135mm f/2.5 prime lens. From my research, these new (to me) lenses aren’t great lenses, but they are very capable ones and not junk. That’s good enough for me, as I’d rather shoot with these lenses (practice makes perfect) than not shoot at all in the name of holding out for a better lens. As someone on a photography message board pointed out to me, there will ALWAYS be better lenses (than the ones you have).

Read about it here and here.

Grown man guns down teenage boy in front of his teenage girlfriend and other witnesses. Man flees. Witnesses give statements to police, and at some point the police ascertain a possible location for the suspect. The location is a duplex with top and bottom apartment units. The police get a no-knock warrant for both units, and execute it after midnight after identifying themselves as police officers. The next thing you know, 7-year-old Aiyana Jones is shot and killed, and her grandmother is arrested. If I remember correctly, witnesses said that the police DID identify themselves as police before storming the duplex.

Apparently, when the police entered the bottom unit, the grandmother attacked one of the officers, and during the fight the officer’s weapon discharged and shot the girl, who up until the raid had been asleep on a couch. Some police, including the one whose weapon discharged, immediately rushed her out of the house and accompanied her to the hospital, where she was pronounced DOA. Meanwhile, back at the duplex, the remaining police continue with the raid and apprehend the suspect in the upstairs unit.
…..

As is usual in police shootings involving blacks and other minorities, there are those who immediately place the blame on the police, and yell bloody murder. If this went down the way The Detroit News said it did (when I read the article over an hour ago; it could be updated with new information or corrections by now), then I believe that had the grandmother acted like she had some sense, the worst that would have happened was that family needing a new window pane and front door.

It’s the grandmother’s and the murder suspect’s fault that child is dead, and nobody else’s. It’s a testament to those police officers, and a sheer wonder, that the grandmother didn’t get everybody in that apartment killed. And, as for the murder suspect, what kind of idiot guns down someone – with witnesses around – and then GOES HOME (or runs to where he’s known to hang out at a lot)? My heart goes out to this family, but blame has to be placed where it rightfully belongs, and in this case, it’s NOT the police.

I’m not crazy about the police, at all. If I’m ever around when something is going down, especially involving blacks or other minorities, I watch them like HAWKS. I wouldn’t ever want to be a police officer, and I wouldn’t ever marry or date a police officer. But, I also know that the majority of police officers are good people with often lousy work environments (like anybody’s ‘hood), and I understand that sometimes they have to make major, life-altering decisions in a matter of split-seconds.

So, I’m not taking it easy on the police. However, in THIS specific case, it doesn’t look to me like they were in the wrong. I honestly think that had the grandmother acted rationally, little Aiyana would still be alive. Blame should be placed squarely where it belongs, and in this case, it’s not on the Detroit Police Department.

Nonetheless, a precious little girl is no longer with us. In all the finger-pointing that is still yet to come, let us not forget little Aiyana, who is now playing with the angels in Heaven.

I just watched a documentary about a relatively recently discovered tribe of natives in the Amazon rain forest. These people eat only manioc that they grow themselves, and what they can gather or kill in the rain forest.

They don’t have access to candy, cakes, pies, fast food or other junk foods. They drink water, and they walk for miles everyday… See More because they don’t have refrigeration, so they can only gather or kill what can be immediately consumed. For many months of the year, they survive on very little.

Why did I see overweight adults, including one morbidly obese woman just in the one family grouping that was profiled in the documentary? Surely, these people are making quality deposits into their bodies, right?

Being “fit” is now the catch-phrase for having a nice body, primarily to attract (or keep the attraction of) the opposite sex. This new catch-phrase is rooted in VANITY, and that’s why I resist it, personally.

FEW of the people I hear touting the “fitness” thing emphasize being HEALTHY. Those that do often confuse being healthy with being thin. To them, an overweight (and therefore unfit) person cannot possibly, in a million years, be healthy.

This is not all the time true; in fact, I would say it’s not true enough that our culture needs to start thinking differently. There are plenty of people in this country who always eat the right things, get plenty of water, and even exercise hard 3-4 days a week who will NEVER EVER EVER be considered “fit” just to look at them. But, ask their doctors and they’re the picture of HEALTH, internally.

Then, what about the ones who watch what they eat, but don’t exercise at all, and are still considered to be very healthy, medically? Besides reasons rooted in vanity, what incentive does this group have to get “fit = thin”, if they’re ALREADY healthy?

None of this applies to me, personally, because I’ll never be completely healthy or fit again on this side of Heaven. But, I’m just sayin…

Sometimes, I have to give myself time to process things and discover/examine what or how I feel about them. Well, maybe not so much discovering how I feel about them, but really just trying to find a way to articulately express my feelings. And, sometimes, it’s just better to wait to see if any new developments pop up, before commenting – because as we all know, many times the first (and usually most sensationalist) versions of news stories are light on facts and heavy on speculation. This is one of those times. Rest assured, I don’t live in a bubble isolated from the real world; I just try to keep my foot out of my mouth as much as possible, that’s all.

Topics that I’m going to get around to talking about – hopefully over the weekend – are the Arizona immigration law, Sheri Lynn Davis; the Houston charter school teacher who beat up her student, Jessica Colotl; the Kennessaw State University illegal immigrant student, and the Gulf oil spill. So, stay tuned!