Horatio

WOW! I am happy to hear that the leopard geckos are young. Fantastic! How long do they live? I have a very large terrarium that Haku lives in. It is a reptile cage. For Haku, it is three feet long by two feet deep and is eighteen inches high. Then I have a tube that runs from the bottom of the glass terrarium, through the screen lid and into a series of other tubes. This way Haku can climb from his cage through a series of tubes into his other cage. He loves his palace. Thank you for your good wishes. It is time for us to move out of Florida and let someone else deal with hurricanes.

Oh my goodness! You are going to be the proud parent of two leopard geckos? That sounds incredible! I am so excited for you. Who will take care of them when you are in New Zealand? Please send photographs of your new family members when they arrive. Yes, if you mother has some Skin So Soft, you need to put a container in your suitcase. The mosquitoes are monstrous in New Zealand. I am looking forward to seeing all of your photographs from your trip! On a weather related thought, we are very fortunate that the latest hurricane decided to head away from Florida. Hopefully, all the rest of the storms for this year will stay offshore.

Avon Skin So Soft, the creme version, keeps mosquitos away, while making your skin feel wonderful.. I now carry a tube everywhere I go. Yes, crickets can be quite invasive at times. Sometimes I wonder what brings the hordes of crickets or locusts, but they sure do invade the place when they arrive. The little carcasses are all over the place. In high up places that you would never expect. On top of cabinets or other odd places. You will have completed four years and starting on the fifth year. Congratulations!!! Your feelings are the same all over the world. Employees will give their best, but it is management that leaves everyone wondering. The problem as I see it, is that a management position is a goal for some people and once they get there, they forget where they came from. Your New Zealand trip will be here before you know it, and you will be back at work, even faster. I am looking forward to hearing all about your exciting trip.

Oh no!!! I know that you are not a fan of hot weather, so you must be very uncomfortable. That was the only problem when we lost electricity during and after a hurricane... no air conditioning. This meant that you had to keep your windows open. With the windows open the mosquitoes would eat you alive. Somehow, they managed to squeeze through the screens to get inside. You are waiting for fall to cool down, and I am waiting for the beginning of winter to have an end to the hurricane season. Great news about your New Zealand friends. Knowing that they are safe and sound is a relief. Your work anniversary is approaching. Can you believe another year has passed? It sounds so weird to sound like your parents, but time is flying by. Soon, it will be peak for you with the holiday rush of everyone sending all of their packages. It seems that as soon as you get past one peak, another one is approaching.

Topazia, it always makes me wonder why the power companies do not begin a process of placing the power lines underground. Every year the power companies spend millions and so many people are without power, it would only make sense just to relocate the power lines. I had no idea that you were without power for so long and had flooding. That is incredible. We worry about the storm surge along the coast. - Kat -, I am sorry to hear about your colleague's family in the Bahamas. I hope that they are not in Marsh Harbour. The winds and storm surge did so much destruction. I am waiting for word from my Bahamian friends. They live in the Abaco's, Marsh Harbour and Treasure Cay, and Freeport, Grand Bahama. Phew! I am happy to hear you are not one of those people who stand outside and watch the tornado touchdown. The earthquakes are pretty scary. I hope that your friends were far away from the epicentre.

Topazia, what is the elevation in your city?

LOL!!! You also do not live on the coast where there is a mandatory evacuation order. We were fortunate that a high pressure front parked itself along the coast and pushed the low offshore. Those of us along the coast, were a bit worried because using the original models, where the front was further inland, the path would have meant that the worst part of the hurricane, the northwest corner outside the eye, would have been directly overhead our area. Has your area ever seen a really strong hurricane? My recollection was that the hurricanes downgraded once they came ashore.

Thank you for your good vibes our way. I did not head to Florida before the storm, but I might be heading there today, depending on the word I receive from the guys watching my house. The house can be repaired, it is the trees that I worry about. The house can be rebuilt in months the trees take hundreds of years. Like you, I can never understand why people would go out on the water with no safety gear. Then they are lost or stranded somewhere in the middle of the Gulf Stream, which is very scary. I have done some search and rescue in the waters between Florida and the Bahamas. You have a hard time seeing an eighty foot boat. It is almost impossible to see a fifteen foot skiff, a kayak would be like spotting a little microdot. Thank you for telling me that you and your family have been cautious. Tornadoes seem very fast moving with not lots of time to watch. During a hurricane, there are always those people who want to be out in a storm, looking. They do not realise that they can be thrown around in the wind. On the other side of the planet, New Zealand just experienced two earthquakes. One earthquake, followed by one aftershock. I hope everyone there is okay.

Well, here comes Hurricane Dorian, a category five. Yes, this is going to be a big one, headed directly for our house. If this storm keeps heading towards our house, if you thought last week was bad, this week will be worse. Ha, ha, ha... I am just giving you some warning. Thinking about the open ocean, I think you have a healthy respect. The ocean is a very powerful force of nature and it cannot be tamed. It must be respected. I watch people go out into the ocean three or more miles offshore, without any life saving equipment or other Coast Guard required supplies, and before they head out, they do not even check the weather. In fact, I know of two guys who go three miles offshore in kayaks. That is really not smart. I think you are good with your respect of the ocean. Would you promise me one thing? If a tornado is coming, would you please head into the storm shelter?

I agree with you, - Kat -, MacKenzie is getting more beautiful every day. Hearing that you are considering keeping photography in your life, into the future, makes me smile. It is a great to hear that you will have a terrific hobby or perhaps business in your future. LOL!!! Hurricanes sounded terrifying??? Tornadoes are so much more terrifying! The hurricane is slow and you can get out of the way. A tornado forces the person to go into a spider filled storm shelter. I am more terrified of spiders. So, now we learn something about you, that you have a somewhat phobia of large bodies of water. LOL!!! Summer is when almost everyone wants to take their time away from work. The problem is that then, life becomes stressful and hectic. I hope you can make it through this with your sanity.

Oh my goodness, MacKenzie is so beautiful. Three years old, Happy Birthday to our favourite little princess, with her new castle! I bet it is the most fantastic castle a little girl could ever have. Yes, I totally agree. A rested toddler is a happy mother. LOL!!! If MacKenzie can sleep in the tent and she loves it, then by all means this is the way to go. Did you know that MacKenzie has your eyes and smile? It is a definite sign exactly who this little princess belongs to! LOL!!! Just how you work, parent and keep your sanity, I have no idea. You have so much on your plate. Just hearing about your schedule makes me tired. Of course, taking care of such a wonderful toddler like MacKenzie can give you lots of joy and makes you not realise just how tired you are. For other news, - Kat - is such a talented photographer. I do believe that she will go places with her photography, if she wants. You can see how she has captured the essence of each and every animal. I kept thinking that this or that photograph was my favourite and then I would look at the next one. There were little nuances in each photograph that made it more special than the one before it. I hope - Kat - continues with her photography. Not much is happening out in the west, I hope life in Florida remains calm and no serious hurricanes hit the coast. That would be good for both of us. We are just installing our new pool screen. If a hurricane takes this one down, I am filling in the swimming pool with dirt and making it a permanent frog spa. The only good news is that we have a whole house generator and this will make life so very nice should we lose electricity from a hurricane. I really do not want to try it out, but life will be good if this is the case. The only drawback, we might be making coffee for the entire neighbourhood when they see we have electricity and they do not. Thank you for posting a wonderful image of our favourite little princess. Happy Birthday to MacKenzie.

Perhaps another night photography session would be appropriate with your instructor. He can give you some ideas on how to create a specific focus for your night photography.

Oh my goodness, I repeat the same things over and over again, trying to improve. There are lots of exercises that I will give you to do. It would be easy to think of one different exercise each week.

Thank you for keeping us in mind with anything happening in your life. We always want to know. Stable is very good on your mother's condition. Would you like to give us an idea of where you would like to direct your focus with the camera? There are also fun things that you can try at home. If we can tear you away from your latest game.

Haku is such an interesting hamster with his own personality. There are days when he grabs one of his favourite treats and other days when he acts like he does not like the same treat. The one treat that he always loves, are pine nuts. We are using the pine nuts to do the colour experiment. I will keep you posted on this.

Thank you for the update on your mother. Hopefully, your mother is not suffering with any eye trouble. I hope that the doctor has fixed the problem. Would you please keep us posted on your mother? We would like to make sure all is okay with her.

LOL!!! They are not huge enough! These are absolutely wonderful. My favourite images are... all of them! You have done an incredible job at capturing all of these animals. The toads are terrific, the tongue on the goat is a perfect touch, the parrot hiding his head and the penguins, lemur, orangutang, and snakes are superb. I know that you will figure out the editing, but honestly, these are not in need of much in the way of post-processing. Thank you so very much for posting these.

Taynio, I have been thinking about you. How are you? How is life treating you? I am so very happy that you had not changed your email address. Hopefully, you will stop back in and let us know what is happening in your life. Thank you for posting a message.

Absolutely, ask all the questions that enter your mind. This is how you learn. We are excited to see your next set of images. You should have the ability to change your monitor brightness. I would ask this questions. Oh my! I am so very sorry to hear about your mother's eyesight. I do understand that many people life their life with a floater. From what I understand, you will get accustomed to the floater and kind of see "around" it and not really notice it. Hopefully, this will be what happens in your mother's situation. At the moment, I am in Mount Rainier and will post the hippo photographs as soon as I return home.

I have been thinking about this. Yes, I agree, I would not want to give Haku any kind of food dye. But, I think I have found an idea. Get eight different colours of the same type of fabric. Cut little squares and insert the same nuts or seeds in them. Haku loves Pine Nuts, so I would use those. His first option would be to smell them and try to reach the contents. But, what if the green one never had any nuts, but the smell was there. You could do something such as the red one has five Pine Nuts, the blue one always has only one nut, or something along those lines. And when you presented them, you always mixed up the way the colours were presented. You could see if he always went to the red one first and avoided the green one. Any thoughts on an experiment such as this?

- Kat -, that is a perfect question for your teacher. He can give you several situations to make you think about how to increase your shutter speed when it comes out too slow. For the fireworks, I wanted to have my shutter open for at least three seconds to five seconds, but I did not want the image to become too bright. So, I decided that I would under-expose the image. If I had used an Neutral Density filter, then I would have had drastically different results. Of course, I was just trying to see what would happen. It was a very good learning experience. A group is a much stronger force to be reckoned with. Good luck on this. I just know you will succeed. I am shaking my head at doctors and getting someone in to see them when there is a real problem. It is good that your mother will be in there tomorrow. We are saying lots of prayers for your mother. The zoo... I have three images of a hippopotamus that was watching me watch him or her. It was pretty interesting. I will search for those images.

Thank you for your kind words. I decided not to follow the myriad of advice that was offered on the internet, and went back to what I learnt in my old film days with a manual camera. For me, it was all about shutter speed. LOL!!! It will be fun to see what I come out with. Welcome to the corporate world. I am sorry that there is favouritism, but this is something that will happen no matter what corporation you work for. I hope that you can get this resolved for you and your fellow employees. Please keep us posted. I am so sorry to hear about your mother. It is very important that she see her doctor as soon as the offices open up. You are so right, this is so important. We will keep your mother in our prayers until you let us know that she is okay. We love it when you stop in. Please post some of your photographs. I am happy that you and your teacher will be getting together for the zoo trip. We will be waiting for your zoo photographs.

- Kat -, we are very happy to see you!!! You are are number one pyrotechnic friend!!! I am sorry to hear that it rained, but at least you did have some time to send off some fireworks. We went to the city display and some of their fireworks started fires. At least it is the fire department that is conducting the fireworks, so we know that they have the ability to take care of the fires. I will post a couple of images after the post. Yes, animals do not understand the fireworks. I am happy that you are so kind to your pets and do not leave for long at this time. The booms are pretty scary. Ouch, I totally understand the situation at your workplace. It is quite frustrating. Everyone wants to take their time off during the summer. This means that almost the entire summer, the workplace is short-staffed. That is so difficult. Soon if will be fall again, and the employees will be back at work. Your work anniversary will be here soon. Only four months to go. You are racking up the years! I am happy the wait for your online game was worth it. Enjoy yourself! At the end of the week, I head to London for the airshow and it will be time to take lots and lots of photographs of airplanes. There will be an incredible amount of aircraft from all over the world at this airshow and I am really excited to see what this year will bring. Each year is better and better, so I am quite excited to attend. Are you still taking photographs? We would love to see some. Please stop in and visit more often. It is always terrific to see you and hear about what is happening in your life.

That is a terrific question. I have no idea. I wonder if there is any method to test this. Haku loves peppers, perhaps I should attempt a red, green and orange pepper test. The problem is if they have a slightly different smell, then I will not be able to tell if it is the colour, or the smell. This will be a fun test.