A Favorite Place

Yesterday we went to Summer's Past. Hailey, Jackie, and me. I love that place and can always find new things to take photos of. The snack bar was open, but the place was not as crowded as it has become on weekends. We sat and drank some iced tea and then Jackie and Hailey went to the gift shop. That usually gives me some time to walk around and take photos. It was only a little while when they were back ready to leave. I think I've burned them out on the place and they were bored. I did get a few photos and even some while they waited on me to hurry up...though not anything I want to post. Darn.

We had a lovely lunch after in Alpine. A resturant there makes the best BLT I've eaten in years. We sat outside on the patio and the lunch was totally enjoyable. On the way up to Alpine we had noticed a place with cactus for sale and had planned to stop on the way back but both Jackie and Hailey were ready to go home. Naps were mentioned. So we didn't stop at the cactus place...saving that for next time.

Shooting in jpg or raw or Both

Taking photos in both jpg and raw gives a greater choice in processing and in choosing the best version of the photo. The first picture is the original jpg as it came from the camera. I did use the vivid setting. The second photo is the raw version saved in jpg without any other changes. The third photo was processed in Adobe Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop. The photos were reduced in actual size for showing on the net.

Changes

In the years since I took my first computer class at our community college back in 1989 lots of things have changed. In the beginning I just wanted to run the office at the storage with a computer program. My first computer came from Costco, or maybe the store was still the Price Club. Anyway it was a Packard Bell. And compaired to the computer I have now it didn't do very much. It did have a hard drive with 20mg of memory. Wow! For a few years back then, I was alone at the storage. My husband and I had separated years before and my children were grown and out on their own most of the time. David joined the Navy where he he was found to have schizophrenia and he spent some time in the Navy hospital before being discharged. That is a whole other story.

I took an ROP class in commercial design...old fashioned commercial design where we worked with pen and paper...not computers. Other students talked about computer desktop publishing using CorelDraw and when I saw the software for sale at Costco I bought it. That was the beginning of my life with computers. After I closed the gates at the storage I could work on the computer as much as I wanted. As software got better, we all needed better faster computers. My first community college classes were in real estate. I got a sales license but I already had a job running the storage and never got into selling real estate. The beginning computer class was an eye opener. The class had two different groups of students...older people like me that wanted to catch up with this new technology and young colllege students. By the end of the class most of the older students had dropped. I hung in there. The hardest part of the class was writing programs in basic. URF! One student brought in a chewed up floppy disk and told our instructor that his dog ate his homework. The final exam was really hard. One young man turned in his final and left while the rest of us labored on. I answered all the questions and no one else had left. So I took my exam to the instructor. He asked me if I was sure...guess he meant did I actually get through it. I remember telling him that it was a good as it gets. Later when the grades were posted, I was one of only two students with an A for the class. That made me feel really good. After that I took more computer classes and real estate classes and then discovered the art classes. I was having a great time. The most amazing thing happened to me. I found out that I could learn and get good grades in my classes. My child hood had been full of stress. I loved my mother but she was basically an angry person. Then I was shy and going to school was never easy for me. I got through it and even made it to college for awhile but there were many times I would have to read something over and over before I could remember it. Looking back I think it was the total stress of trying to get through my days in some sort peace. I always read a lot.

Then I married a basically angry person and the stress continued. We raised four children, each with their own set of problems. Our oldest was our nephew. Our first child, David, was six months old when our nephew came to live with us. We had a daughter and another son. The years when the children were little were wonderful and fun. I thought my children were perfect and good. My mother had been so angry at my sister and I so much of the time. There were lots of spankings with the hairbrush and yelling. My children didn't need any of that! But the good times never last. My children were faced with the worst drug out there. Meth, when they were still in middle school. It was something I had never heard of and the only thing I could tell them was to not use drugs. Not to try it because it sounded dangerous. They looked at me and swore that they wouldn't use, but they lied. Kids lie to parents. So both our nephew and our youngest developed drug problems. My daughter was one of the lucky ones...she didn't get hooked. David didn't do drugs.

Learning that David was schizophrenic was the greatest tragedy of all. But then my youngest son has had had problems with crystal meth for years and years and that is another tragedy. He is Hailey's dad. He has spent most of Hailey's life locked up...for failing drug tests whenever he got out on parole. He was never guilty of the original charges he went to prison for, but took a no contest plea for a short time in jail and probation. I've gotten off what I meant to write about.

The wall paper on that first computer was the Corel tiger. For some reason I love that photo. So for all these years the one thing that has pretty much stayed the same whenever I get a newer better computer...I use the Corel tiger for my wall paper most of the time.

If you have been to my blog before you will notice that I have changed my design. The picture at the top now is one I created with an early paint program. I did work on it a bit later but basically it is the same as it was twenty some years ago.

My Webpages

Does anyone remember Prodigy? I had my first web page there back in early 1996. When it changed...sold or something, I started a webpage at AOL. AOL would not accept my nickname and I couldn't think of anything so picked dotcombs. Back then we needed a lot of patience to upload files and our time on the site each month was limited. Someone wrote me a strange email mentioning dotcombs and the similarity to dotcom. I didn't think too much about it at the time. I started another page at Netcom...they sold out to Mindspring and I really liked it there...Mindspring became Earthlink. I finally could buy my own domain name and I parked it at Earthlink. I had hoped to get dotcombs.com but someone had already taken it. Probably that strange person that wrote the email about dotcombs. I choose dotcombs.net for my domain name. Over the years I check dotcombs.com and for awhile there was nothing then odd sales sites. When it came up for renew the first time, I looked for it to be up for grabs, but it was renewed. Whatever.

For a few years I had a Geocities account too and kept my computer graphics there...I really enjoyed creating computer graphics. I had started making them before I ever knew what the internet was. I made cute clip art that could be added to envelopes and letters. I already had CorelDraw software...bought at Costco. I took a CorelDraw class.

I had taken a class in what was called back then...digital photography. Digital cameras were not available for anyone to buy...they were thousands of dollars expensive...our class had one to use and it took photos in black and white. I got to use it once and only in the classroom. In class we scanned photos in b/w and used software to change them. We worked in b/w. As a class project I scanned several old photos and made a printed album using the computer. I also took several art classes and in one of the classes we had a Mac with a computer paint program in color. I learned the difference between a computer drawing program like the CorelDraw, a computer paint program, and photo editing software. The instructor let me come in after our class time and work on that computer. My computer drawing was crude and took me forever. I did learn a lot though. Later I bought my own scanner...it scanned in color...and a color ink jet printer.

This is one of the first photo edits I did in color. I printed this as a 7x10" poster.

Original photo

The first photos I put up on the internet were my scanned rose photos. My scanner came with photo editing software. I registered it and when Adobe bought out Photostyler they sent me an offer to get Photoshop at an upgrade price. I have been upgrading PS ever since. All my early rose photos were edited. Graphics on the internet changed quickly. I made gif files with transparent backgrounds and animated gifs.

In late 2001 Hailey and I moved here to an area where the phone lines were old...no fast connections to the web so while I could keep my website at Earthlink I had to find another way to connect to the net. I went on cable. I shut down my pages at AOL too. Over the years I put a lot of stuff on my website. Lots of it forgotten. When Geocities shut down, I realized I hadn't updated my pages for several years. I bought another web site, dotcombs.org, and I started a board for Janee's Photoshop group. She had to give up her board and her Photoshop classes. We did OK for a couple of years and then our favorite member passed away and everything seemed to stop. Most of us moved on to Facebook to keep in touch. There are some nice places on the net to post photos. Webshots, Flickr, pbase, Picasa, are some of them and I have photos at all of them. I don't need the big web site anymore so am going to slowly check out what is there, what I want to save, and by the end of the month the site will be moved...if I keep it at all.

Amaryllis Belladonna

My mother grew amaryllis and took the bulbs with us wherever we moved. They would disappear for much of the year then lush green leaves would sprout up and like green pompoms cover the ground. It was nice to see that green along side of our house in our mostly brown dirt yard. The green would die down and there would be dry brown earth. A few weeks later, like something magical stems with brown pods pushed up out of the dry ground. Soon the pods would split and lovely pink flowers bloomed several from each pod.

I never got some of my mama's amaryllis bulbs to plant and always missed them. Then someone gave me a big bunch of the bulbs with the green leaves still attached. I didn't know if they would grow but planted them anyway. I was managing the storage then and had only a large brick planter for them. They grew but didn't bloom the first year, but did the second. I was a happy camper. I looked forward to seeing the pretty pink flowers bloom in summer. One year my dogs got into the planter and dug up the bulbs. I found some white garden border fencing and put it around the edges of the planter. I forgot to dig up the bulbs when I left the storage. Maybe the new owners would not have liked it...I didn't ask, and I didn't take my amaryllis bulbs. A couple of years ago I found some pink amaryllis bulbs for sale at local nursery. I bought three bulbs and planted them in two large pots. They bloomed last year and now are blooming again. The bulbs have divided too so have more amaryllis this year.

 I told a friend that these always remind me of something from outer space!

A Distant Tree

I've called this view my mini view because I can see the hills in the distance. For several years a tree has been the focal point of many of my sunrise photos. I was never sure what property the tree grew on but it showed above the other trees and above the hills beyond. I came to like the tree. Then one day a few weeks ago I looked out at my view and there was no tree. I don't know when it was cut down, but still feel sad at the loss.

Here in Eucalyptus Hills we were very close to one of the worst wild fires in California history. It happened back in 2003 and was called the Cedar Fire. Some homes burned on the edges of Eucalyptus Hills but both Lakeside firefighters and a change in wind direction kept it from storming through here. We left without knowing if we would have a home to come back  to. Not a good feeling. Since then many eucalyptus trees in this area have been cut down. At first the chain saws could be heard every day. There was another fire scare a few years ago with the Witch Creek Fire that burned north of here.

Now we only hear the chain saws once in awhile. I didn't notice the sound of saws when the tree was cut. Or maybe I did but didn't pay attention.

This first photo is of an old dead tree that I took many photos of and on the right "my" tree.

This is the last photo I took of the tree. It is strange to feel a sense of loss at something like this tree but I do.

Schizophrenia

A 24 year old man stabbed to death his mother and sister this past Monday. His mother was an officer with the San Diego police. His sister had just graduated from high school and was looking forward to art school in the fall. Two lives taken away for no real reason. They say the young man was schizophernic but was not on meds. Someone on the news said that the young man would not have had his mental illness for long, and that he and his family were still learning to cope. He and his older brother had some sort of fight while the mom and sister were away, but the brother said that it was settled. This is all so sad. This family had no idea that their son and brother was a danger to them. If they did, what could they do about it. His mother was a police officer who's duties were working child abuse cases. You would think that if there was help for her son she would be able to find it. In reality there is no help for families of the mentally ill. And most of all there is no help for the schizophrenic. 

The families often have only two choices. Live with the problems or send the victim of mental illness out to live on the streets. And who is to say that someone with schizophrenia is a danger to himself or others.

My son joined the Navy and then fell apart. He went awol and came home. He cut his wrist. Then was in the old Navy Hospital near Balboa Park. They kept him there in the mental ward for several weeks while they worked on a discharge for him. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was put on meds. After his discharge, he had counseling through the county for a time. The meds made him feel sick. He stole our car and drove it to Nevada. We had to go after him and drive the car back. His father had to go up to Idaho and bring our truck back. He was stopped at the Canadian border in a stolen car from Reno NV and spent some time in Eastern State Hospital in Washington state. He left home many times and then called home and his father would go and bring him home. His father flew to Washington state to drive him back after he drove our truck there. Finally he took the car we had brought back from Nevada and ran it into a creek somewhere in Northern California. That was the last time he took off in one of our cars.

I was still at the storage when he started throwing my furniture and he broke a maple rocker. I called the sheriff for help and they just made him leave. The next day he had made it up to Mojave and he called me and said that someone there must have been killed. He said that there was blood all over. I asked him if there were other people around and he said yes. I asked him if they saw the blood and he said that they didn't. A few months ago he mentioned that phone conversation and told me that he thought about it and decided that there wasn't any blood after all. When he told me that voices told him to hurt other people I told him that he didn't have to do anything they told him to do. He is not the kind of person that ever wants to hurt anyone else. I have sent him money Western Union when he gets himself stranded somewhere. His dad has made countless trips to towns in Washington, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona to bring him back home.

When my son went off meds and refused to ever take them again, I tried to get a conservatorship that would have given me the right to hospitalize him for a little while. My stepmom said she would pay the fees and maybe we could get him back on meds. I made the right phone calls and someone from the courts came and interviewed my son. She told me that my son was not all that ill and that there was nothing I could do. She told me that unless she agreed that a judge would never hear the case. No recourse. That was over twenty years ago. We have gone through a lot.

Do we think that our son is a danger to us. No. He is basically a kind and gentle person. He can rant and rave and get angry over things we don't understand. Once he shoved his arm through a window and cut his upper arm. He woke me up and I wrapped a towel around his arm and I called 911. When the paramedics didn't come we had to walk out our long drive to the road to find the sheriffs were not letting the paramedics come to the house. I held my son's arm above his head while he bled and we talked with the officers and they asked us dumb questions. Finally my son was taken to the hospital. Someone there told us that my son needed treatment for his mental illness. Then when they checked into it...nothing...my son was sent home.

My son and his father lived in a separate house on my stepmom's place. After my stepmom died I bought the property. Hailey and I moved here from the storage about ten years ago into the house that had belonged to my dad and stepmom. Five years ago my daughter came to live here and she wanted her dad's little house so my son and his dad moved in with Hailey and me. It hasn't been easy for us. I truly love my son and Hailey loves her uncle. We hear him at night talking to himself...sometimes working himself into a fit of anger. I hope I'm doing the right thing. I don't sleep much at night.

Google Earth

Google Earth is an interesting program. It might be a little scary too. The first time I looked at a view of my place it looked like this.

The weired concrete shape at the lower left is our neighbors parking area. I've always wondered why they made it that way. The nice thing about it though...it made it easy to find my place.

Google Earth got better over the years and really improved in 2003 with color and a better picture. This was taken in Dec 02 and makes our area look nice and green.

A big change is the swimming pool. In the above photo the swimming pool is is a large brown spot circled in concrete at the side of my house. My dad was tired of the pool and decided to make a very large planter out of it. Over the years we had small kids pools for Hailey in the summer. She outgrew the kids pools so one year we got a blow up pool. That lasted one season. Then we got an above ground pool and it took us a couple of years to get it put up. Those things are not as easy as they look to install. So this shows a view of that pool. We added concrete around the pool.

My daughter came to live here for awhile and in the spring of 09 decided we should dig out the original pool. I posted photos of all the work it took in an earlier blog. Last summer she moved away. This is the latest view taken in August of last year. Summer time things around here get very dry and brown.

Google Earth has a street view that takes photos of the view from the street. Since we are back from the road our street view is just our long drive with the palms and one tiny view of the house across the neighbors field. And the view shows lots of green so the photos must be from this last winter or spring.

It is amazing how much the Google Street View photos show of most people's homes. Our house is back off the road so it is our palm lined drive that shows up in the street view.

Cactus Flower

Cactus Flowers

Humming Bird at Feeder