Weekend Assignment #162: Karma Chameleon

Woo Hoo! Look, I'm famous... well sorta... This weeks Weekend Assignment was inspired by ..... ME!

Weekend Assignment #162: Reincarnation is a fact and you are going to come back as some type of animal. What kind would you prefer and why?
Extra Credit: Do you think you have good Karma or bad? Do you believe in Karma?

My first instinct was a house cat! I mean... what a life! AND they don't even have to pretend to like you!?! But, John beat me to that one... Hmmmmmmm....

So....... what animal is beautiful, intelligent, loving, strong and, most importantly, admired?

"The horse is God's gift to man."--Arabian Proverb

"And God took a handful of southerly wind, blew His breath over it and created the horse." ~Bedouin Legend

Both very appropriate quotes since some of my favorite horses are Arabians!

I think I would love to come back as a horse. To race the wind just because and to kick up my heels in pure joy of being alive. To have a pure and forgiving heart. To be strong, yet gentle and curious.

Horses - if God made anything more beautiful, he kept it for himself. ~Author Unknown

As for the extra credit portion of the assignment.... I don't believe in Karma with a capital K.... but I do believe that what you give to the world and how you see the world shapes the things that happen to you. Bad things sometimes happen to good people, but how you face the bad things makes us who we are. And, I do think the world helps the person who helps themselves. I've read lately that reality is created by thought and that you can change your reality by changing how you think... Sounds like karma to me!

Check This Out-- Very High Cool Factor!

Stephen Hawking is one of my favorite people. I love his books, lectures, and most especially his spirit. On Thursday he was given a chance to ride the 'Vomit Comet' and experience Zero G. Check out the stories here and here and also here and here! And, one final link to what he thinks about Humans and Space.

I saw the video of his trip on CNN and the grin on his face said it all. The report stated that the plan was for 6 instances of Zero G, with the possibility of ending it after 1 if Stephen wasn't comfortable..... He negotiated them into adding two  more times for a total of 8 and they said he would have done more!

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Blue Skies

Well, this assignment from John was a no brainer:

Your Monday Shoot: Picture some blue, blue skies. Wide stretches of blue are the goal here. Fluffy clouds are great, too -- but try to get the skies mostly blue. Interesting stuff in the foreground is groovy, too.

What's a picture of a pretty blue sky without a couple of horses up front for contrast?!? And, as luck would have it, yesterday morning showed me a beautiful, cloud free sky... Perfect for Mr. Scalzi to fly thru. Unfortunately for him..... He was flying somewhere else and had to spend some time sitting on a runway in a plane that wasn't moving. Oh well, at least you get to enjoy my pretty blue sky AND my pretty horses!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Bunny Day!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Bunny Day! And, in honor of the day I made this:

 

Hope you enjoy the day and have a chance to spend it with people you love!

sidenote: if you like the graphic I have it in this size as a jpg, a smaller gif file (with transparent background), and even a couple of others graphics over at my 'other' Journal.

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Blossoms and Blooms

This week the blogfather offers up a chance to bring a little Spring into our blogs. I had taken a few pictures of new blooms last week, but couldn't decide on just 1 to use... heck, I had trouble picking 6!

 

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a snap of some of the latest blossoms and blooms near you. If for some reason it's still too chilly where you are, one, you my sympathy, and two, go ahead and use a picture from your archives. But everyone else should go out and take a fresh picture if they can. Let's see what spring looks like here in 2007.

For my entry, I give you an explosion of color!

 

Want to play along?? Put up a pic, pop over to By the Way and leave a link!

Just Another Gratuitous Animal Photo

and a little Photoshop fun....

I have a friend who just got a new addition to her 'family'. This little girl was born a few weeks ago, and I finally got out there to take some shots. When you take pictures of something alive, in a large pasture, and with a wide angle lens.. well, it is easiest just to start firing off shots and see what you have when you are done. Little baby horses just don't pose very well. LOL!

A bunch of the shots came out great, and my friend was thrilled with them. I had one shot that I just loved..... except it wasn't one of the better shots. This photo had a few problems. It had a lens flair, it was a little washed out, and I didn't care for the composition (lots of pasture, tiny horse)... BUT, the little foal was leaping in the air so joyfully and I had caught her with all four feet off the ground! My friend commented that several others in the series of shots were great, but I liked that one, go figure! Here is what came out of the camera 'raw'

For anyone interested, here's what I did to get from the original to the finished product. I'm Learning! First I cloned out the lens flair, then I cropped the picture down using the rule of 3rds to give the shot some interest, and then I added just a little rotation before hitting the ok to crop button. Then I adjusted the washed out problem using levels. Now I had the little guy looking like I wanted... but the background was a little distracting. Hmmm.. selecting the foal, inversing the selection with a nice feather and adding a slight Gaussian blur took care of that. Since the picture now looked like something I might want to frame, I decided to add some 'strokes' around the picture (and a touch of beveling) to simulate matting it. I chose black for the outer mat, then two colors of green which I chose by using the picker to get the colors from the picture itself. Almost done! I then added a 'frame' from my effects folder to go around my mats... and VIOLA!

What do you think??

For anyone interested, the little girl is a Fjord. They are really cool horses. They look and act much like draft horses, but are small, almost pony sized. Here is a link to a page with info if you are interested!