ALWAYS A LADY

Ladybugs have always been the one insect I actually like. When they did all of that malathion spraying out here a while back to attack the dreadful little flies that were causing so much havoc, we lost a lot of garden visitors. I had not seen lady bugs in a while so when I see one now I'm like a kid again.

JELLYFISH - Part 2

JELLYFISH

LORIKEETS

I went to the Long Beach Aquarium today. I'm really disappointed with my pics of the fish. Taking them through the glass was a challenge (frown). I've still got to browse through and pic out some good ones but I thought I'd start with the pics of the Lorikeets they had there. They were enclosed in this large aviary you walked into and there was a ton of mist so I'm glad I was wearing my wig (smile). For $2 you could buy...oh, I forget what it was but it was something sweet in a little cup and the birds would come right up on your hand and drink it. They were the prettiest birds!

HOLLYWEIRD

This is just a fun post since I haven't been out to take pictures.

For a while Hollywood and the infamous Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Strip had become so odd most Angelinos began to call it Hollyweird. I recently visited for the first time in a long while and was glad to see that they have been renovating the area trying to bring it back up to scale, especially around the famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre. It's a tourist trap but rightfully so.

Who can resist the small thrill of walking down the street where everyone's head is down looking at the names in the pink stars that line the streets looking for names of movie stars they know and like?


There are actors and actresses walking the streets dressed like movie stars or movie characters ready to take pictures with you. There was Marilyn Monroe, Batman and Chubakah.


In front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre (below) it is packed with tourists looking at all of the foot and hand prints of famous movie stars, taking pictures





Tour buses sitting waiting to take passengers on tours of Hollywood and the movie stars homes. This is just one of the buildings on a corner.


There is the Hollywood Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It Or Not and the Hollywood Museum in the old Max Factor Building. This chastity belt was only one of the many thing inside Ripley's Believe It Or Not. I'm sorry but all I can think of is how awful this must have been to wear and wondering if it got rusty.



And then there is the also famous Kodak Theatre which is just a couple of doors down from Grauman's Chinese Theatre.



As always, wish I could post more picture but I'm sure you think you've already seen enough (smile).

TODAY'S PHOTOS

I thought these were some interesting little things hanging from a tree up in the hills over the canyon. I don't know what kind of tree or what these are but they reminded me of Christmas tree ornaments:




As I wandered around the hills there were all of these tiny little butterflies and dragonflies (if that's what they right name is) flying around. It was difficult trying to get a picture of one. I never did get a butterfly that would sit still long enough for me to focus on it.




I do love being outdoors but I can't stand when the little flies and gnats are doing fly-bys in my face making life difficult. I'm so busying swinging at them I miss my shots. LOL! I did manage to get this one of a red ant coming out of their home.

LITTLE ANTSES

I spelled that wrong on purpose. Hee, hee, hee. Just some pics I took of ants on a bird of paradise.

FTD CALLING

My doorbell rang today and it was FTD delivery flowers from a friend of mine for my birthday! It was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful things anyone has done for me in a long while. Of course, I had to take some pictures to share these roses.

PETERSEN MUSEUM

I went to the Petersen Car Museum today and took a whooooole lot of pictures. :-) I'm only going to post a few because these are really for my other blog Down Around L.A.. I've got to say, it was pretty cool!

ON THE JAZZ CRUISE

For anyone who scoffs at the click 'n shoot cameras, I think this the pics below are a pretty good example of what they can do. These were taken on a jazz cruise with no flash and sometimes the boat was a rockin'. When I bought this camera, though I wanted a fully manual camera I knew I didn't have time to learn and/or refresh my memory on all of the ins and outs and that I would miss a lot of pics trying to play with the settings. The camera store owner and I went over all of the cameras for what I needed and I was pretty impressed with this Fujifilm camera. I still think it's one of the best decisions I made based on these pictures.



Larry Carlton


Marion Meadows

I took my disk to the kiosk at the photo shop on board and had some of my photos made into 8x10's. I took them to the autograph session to be signed and the artists REALLY got a kick out of the fact that these were photos taken of them just the day before. I was a hit! LOL!



Steve Oliver


Boney James

One of the things I wanted to do was records some of the artists performing and I'm really happy with the quality of what I recorded. Considering I had to reduce some of the quality to minimize the file size to upload to YouTube, this is pretty darn good.

TODAY'S PHOTO - 06/15/08

Well, I know this is a little.... interesting but for some reason I like this picture. My sister was barbequing yesterday and I just snapped a couple of pictures of the pit.

GOLD FLAME ROSES

I'm so frustrated. I can't capture the exact color of these roses and I haven't figured out how to adjust the color without messing up the picture. The camera keeps flushing out the true red that is around the edges. Sigh! Still, their beautiful nonetheless. I'll take any tips anyone has to offer. I have trouble capturing my red roses also.