Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Last modified picture, unless I have some more spare time...

Just one more for fun. Sorry about the loss of your right ear Darin. Hair is hard to blend in so it looks a little like the picture has been modified.



34 days 8 hours 37 minutes

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

just for Jake...


In two or three posts back I received the following comment:

michelle said...
"Dad, Jake is requesting that you do that to a picture of him."

Jake is Jacob my favorite Grandson. So Jacob this is for you. I did it a long time ago when we lived on lopez Island and you refused to look at the camera so I removed your head from the picture, turned it and then put it back on. I just loved this picture.











colorized pictures...just some fun...

Here is two old black and white pictures that I colorized.

Jackie Cook

Guy and Dick Driver with real cool hats...
5 weeks 6 days 4 hours




Friday, March 14, 2008

"I don't remember being there.."

Here is some of the fun things I like to do with my photography...
A picture I took of my brother and his son DJ...


A picture in the mountains of Washington...

And here it is. I sent this to Guy and he called me back asking where this was taken.

he...he...he...



Thursday, March 13, 2008

Interesting what you can find on GoogleEarth...







I remember when I first started my family research, I was trying to find information on my great grandparents, John and Annie Darrow. I found that they homesteaded in the hills above Red Lodge, Montana.

My Grandaunt Nina in her waining years wrote about her memories in Red Lodge, Montana. Among other things she talked about the "root cellar" on the property.

A few years ago Jackie and I found the old homestead that was settled in 1899 and took some pictures and brought back some memorabilia. Nothing was left except some boards on the ground and the root cellar.

That brings us to Google Earth and using the Latitude and Longitude of the homestead I have now confirmed the exact location of it. In the photo you can see just to the left of the push pin is the root cellar that is still there after 100 years. The middle picture showes it's location from Red Lodge and the road in the lower picture is just a narrow one lane dirt road out in the desert. The top picture we took several years ago.

6 Weeks 5 Days 3 Hours

Pentax is here...

Sorry about the delay in posting. I came down with a bad cold and today is the first time I felt like doing any thing.

But I have some big exciting news, well, exciting for me. Yesterday I received in the mail my new camera. I was told it would not be shipped from the manufacturer until after the 1st of April. Have no idea of why my supplier had it in stock but I got it and is it super.

In 1976 Jackie gave me a new Pentax K1000 SLR camera that I used for years taking not only print photos but hundreds of 35mm slides. A few years ago I advanced to digital photography but still missed the challenge of creating unique pictures. I was ready to purchase the Pentax k100D last month but found that they had discontinued it for the K20D and the K200D, digital SLR camera. I bit the bullet and ordered the K200D.

One great feature of the camera is that you can insert the batteries turn it to Auto and start shooting. I had my first picture in about 10 minutes. Now I can start learning all the advanced features and shoot all the pictures I want. It's a little on the expensive side but it will last me the rest of my life. I can also use the old lenses that I have for my original K1000, but only in the manual mode. This camera uses a view finder and then when you take the picture you can view it on the large screen. I don't know how many pictures I took with my old digital that I had to guess at because I could not see the picture on the screen on a bright day.

Here is a 6+ minute video if interested.


6 Weeks 5 Days 14 Hours

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Women in art, not all there...

There are four beautiful women missing from this video. That would be my wife and 3 daughters. What a joy they all have brought to my life.

7 weeks 6 days 13 hours

Monday, March 3, 2008

Book review

Jackie here. I just wanted to interject that this weekend I finished the book recommended by Deanna – “Julia’s Chocolates” by Cathy Lamb. I second Deanna’s opinion – I loved it! I had a hard time putting it down (Dick can attest to that), and have recommended it to my book club. Now I’ve got to get busy on the next book club read. I won’t get the book until Tuesday afternoon, and book club is a week from Thursday! This book club has been so good for me. I’ve read books I probably wouldn’t have before, and have lots of titles to pick up once we get “on the road”. I’m going to miss that group of women!

8 Weeks 1 day 7 hours

Sunday, March 2, 2008

It's been a "good" weekend

If I am going to get used to Blogging, I better add another one. We have had a fun weekend, we went to the store to buy just two items and it took us over an hour. First we ran across a friend of Jackie’s from School and had to answer questions about RV’s and then the conversation turned to work and I had to put a stop to that. On the way to the check out counter, (still with just two items) we ran into a couple from Church who just got home from Reno. They had a great trip and, and, and… By the time we got to the counter there was a huge line in the quick check out. I checked and three people had more that the maximum number of items in their carts. What should a person do in times like these?


Last night we drove to Sunnyside to watch our Ephrata Tigers boys’ basketball team win the District championship. Wow, what an exciting game, the score went back and forth, then it was tied at the half and again at the end of the game. The boys pulled it out of the hat in overtime. It was a real nail biter. We took friends with us and had a good time. Long trip, 2 hours down and 2 hours back, but we made it home by about 10:30 PM. Good friends, good conversation, good game, so it turned out to be a (you guessed it) good day. I still don’t like to drive that long at night.




Last fall I added a hitch to the front of my truck and then purchased a bike rake to fit it. We can’t put it on the rear because of the 5th wheel trailer, so yesterday I put it together and then modified it so we could turn it 90 deg. to keep it from sticking out in front when not in use. Now all I have to do that the snow is gone is get the bikes out, clean and oil them up, and we are ready to go.
What do they need except some chain oil to get them back on the road?


8 weeks 2 days 6 hours