Just noticed some orchids were blooming in the side yard....

Hey there,
Pat had mentioned the other day we had some orchids blooming, I'd assumed it was the usual suspects, but this time it's one we hadn't had bloom in the yard that I can recall. Thought I'd take a quick picture.

We've hit a few day dead spell, so it looks like I get to watch the Florida/Oklahoma game to see which team lucks into a National Championship (gotta get a little dig in a the BCS system). Tomorrow is new tire day... man, truck tires aren't cheap, and hopefully we'll get some calls for diving this weekend... otherwise we'll go out diving for fun as Pat has Sunday off. Next week's looking much busier on the boat. This time of year it's pretty sporadic for us 'til March.

later,

Steve

Here's a macro shot with the Canon g-9

I took advantage of the sun today to take a shot of one of the plants outside of our house. The camera can get much closer, but I wanted to show a bit more of the bloom. This is a closeup photo of a Blue Ginger (Dichorisandra thyrsiflora) which is found in many Hawaiian gardens.

Later,

Steve

I'm off today, so hey, let's get a headache together....

This is a 3-d photo pair of a fuchsia from our porch. If you are a long time reader, you might remember this post from last year with a 3-d iris photo pair. I'm thinking the iris one is a bit easier to see, so for more thorough instructions and practice you might want to click on the link and look at that one first. What it all boils down to is that your brain normally sees two separate images (one from each eye) from slightly different angles and then puts them together so you can perceive depth. You can do the same thing with photographs by taking an image and then taking another image from slightly to the left of the original viewpoint, and then reversing them (first image on the left and second on the right) as you look at them. At that point you need to cross your eyes to where you see three separate images and the middle one will be in 3-d. Once again, the linked post explains it better, and a couple of the commenters mentioned a trick that helped them focus to get the effect.

I went down to the harbor today to check on the status of the boat and trailer. The boat is out of the water (I had it in a slip for a couple days while the trailer work was being done) and back on the trailer, which has had a primer coat. I suspect the remaining paint job occurs during my next charter or when they can stick it in a slip for another day. Nothing much other to report at this point.

Aloha,

Steve

Bouganvillea, gingers and other stuff....

Aloha,

Went out for a walk around a subdivision down the hill from us. When we moved here you could buy an acre down there for about 85 grand and it was basically empty, now it's sky high (we've had a huge property value appreciation in the last 6-7 years) and gradually filling up. I took the liberty of taking a couple shots of plants we see. The first one is the flower of a costus. They are a lot like gingers in appearance, in fact I think one of the common names is Ginger Lilly. They're a pretty neat flower that we don't have on our own property.
The second flower is a bouganvillea. Every time I hear that name I think of McHale's Navy... I think they mentioned Bouganville a lot on that show. It'd be curious if that's where this plant originated. Anyway, the leaves on this plant turn bright colors and they can look quite spectacular. Bouganvillea is planted along much of the highway around Kailua-Kona and makes for a brightly colored border - tourists love it. It's great stuff... 'til you own it.... It's a lot like blackberries, it grows like a weed and takes over things and it has nasty thorns. We had a 40 foot high cascade of white and purple next to our house that I decided to cut back one day because it took up half of our immediate front yard - turned out to be just 2 plants. It took me 2 weeks to get it cut back and I was quite cut up by the end of it.


I thouhgt I'd give it a break from the scuba posts for the most part, although I did see this facinating article about the recent Soloman Island earthquake lifting an entire island 10 feet, exposing and likely killing the local reefs. It's amazing what a force nature can be.

Happy Easter to all!

Steve