Day 144 – Birds on a wire

I’m up early and caught these sparrows perched on the telephone wires over my parents’ backyard.

Day 143 – Hydrangea

These are just outside my parents’ front door.

We’ve spent most of the day at the hospital. Dad had a risky procedure done late yesterday to clear a clot that was blocking the blood flow to his leg. That went well, but more hurdles to come.

I’ll be heading over to see Dad again after dinner. Right now I need to run to the store. Thank you all for your thoughts and good wishes

Day 142 – Traveling

I got disturbing news about my dad’s health yesterday, so I’m hopping on a plane for L.A. this afternoon. He’s stable but in the hospital and I just need to see him, hopefully provide some comfort to my mom and, lastly, get the straight skinny from the doctors. Not sure what the next few days will hold.

Day 141 – Solar Eclipse

Reno was right in the line of the annular eclipse, and I did my best to capture it. Shot at ISO 100, 1/4000s, f/32. And I still had to underexpose in Bridge and Photoshop, and changed the color balance to give them a glow.

But what a show! Fortunately, we has eclipse viewing glasses! These look very close to what we saw through the glasses.

Day 140 – 15 Years

15 years ago yesterday I found the love of my life. 10 years ago yesterday we officially said I do.

I made reservations for us at Zephyr Cove at Lake Tahoe. Our cabin was a sweet little one-bedroom with kitchenette and a fireplace.

After checking in we walked about 50 yards to this beach. You can see the cabins through the trees.

I got a photo of Sweetie in the cabin.

We had reservations for the Captain’s Dinner & Dance Cruise on the M.S. Dixie. I’d never done the cruise around Lake Tahoe, so this was a first for me but not Sweetie. It was a very short walk to the dock where she is berthed.

A view of the lake from the pier.

Another photo of Sweetie across the dinner table.

We went to Emerald Bay and back. This is Vikingsholm.

The food was just okay, and the dance floor was about the size of a postage stamp, but the two-man band was pretty good, and there were people having a great time, and we did too. Some were celebrating birthdays and others were celebrating anniversaries like us.

In the morning we had breakfast at the lodge and added two more coffee mugs to our collection.

And before we checked out, I got a picture of the two of us by the fireplace.

Day 139 – Final Project

I didn’t want to post this until the results were in. (And yes, the last photo was taken today). What follows are just thirteen of the approximately 400 photos I took of the event and the days leading up to it.

Final Project – ART 235
Medical Outreach Response Event
April 13 – 14, 2012
Silver Stage High School, Silver Springs, NV

Organizers and Volunteers
Christy (right) is the Director of the Healthy Communities Coalition. Freida (left) runs the Dayton Food bank and was the instigating force for the event. She wondered, What good did it do to give people food if they couldn’t chew it? Freida was the volunteer organizer and logistics person for the event.

Wendy organized the professionals (dentists, doctors, nurses, optometrists, etc). She is the head of Community Roots.

Rita was one of a couple hundred extraordinary volunteers. Here she is calling people who registered late for the event to let them know what services would be available.<

The Event – Friday, April 13 (12 – 5pm) & Saturday, April 14 (9am – 5pm)

Community Health Nurses consult with one another in preparation for the MORE event.

One of the dentists and his assistants heading out to the mobile dental van.

Wendy cannot contain her excitement after getting a look at the dental van. It really was amazing. It was a complete, modern dental office (five chairs) on wheels.

There were so many who needed dental work, that it was meted out via lottery tickets. On day one 8 numbers were drawn every half hour. The dentists did their best to keep up, but many clients with tickets had not been served by the end of the first day, so those patients came back the next day, as did anyone else who had a lottery ticket in the raffle can. There was no way all who needed help were going to be seen. And yet the people waited and hoped. Once their number was called, it was still a long wait and I saw some people who had been standing in line on Friday morning still waiting for dental treatment on Saturday at 4pm when I left , No one who was lucky enough to get their number called complained. They waited and waited and waited until they finally saw the dentist. And among those lucky enough to get their ticket pulled, well, in some cases they gave their place to someone else in their family whose needs were more urgent.

One client speaking to a volunteer at the lottery table.

Other services were also offered. Immunizations were by far the most popular after dental work.

We had optometrists on hand as well. The Lions Club volunteers did vision testing and screening, and prospective patients were sent back to the optometrists.

Dental work was, by far, the most requested and labor intensive service offered at MORE 2012.

Mark needed a filling in his front incisor.

Dr. Brad Munninger of Desert Valley Dental in Fernley worked his magic.

Mark’s reaction was pretty typical of all the dental patients. Big smiles, hugs, and even some tears.

“If I cannot eat, cannot smile, cannot kiss without pain, do you think I can work, attend school, participate in the normal affairs of my family, peers and community?”

~ Shaun Griffin

I was very proud to have done this project and I’m honored the organizers trusted me to do the event justice. I’m happy with the result, but more than that, I’m happy that the photographs I took will be used to influence support for further events of this type in the near future, and legislation and change in the coming years.

Icing on the cake:

Day 138 – Showing up is half the battle

Until the recession kicked the city and the business community’s collective hind end, the City of Reno held an annual Corporate Challenge. My company competed every year; the organizers doing their best to recruit participants for every event from Pictionary to darts to Track and Field to softball to swimming and even tug-of-war. I competed in 2009 and 2010 (the last year the event was held). In 2009 I competed in swimming (backstroke and breaststroke) and managed to pull off a silver medal in each event. In 2010, I bested myself and won a gold medal in breaststroke, a silver in freestyle and shock of all shocks, a silver in the long jump. Go figure. I wasn’t in shape at all, but the company needed women in my age bracket to compete, if for no other reason than to help boost our overall score. So I showed up. I swam. I jumped. I even tossed a shot put and a softball. And I had fun.

These medals hang on my office bulletin board as a daily reminder: Show up. Participate.

Day 137 – Neighbors

Super busy day. I woke up, grabbed some coffee, finished uploading the Fun Fly photos, was chained to my desk all day, came home to finish up Cindy’s photos so I could get them to her, then ran a quick vacuum around the house, and THEN I could pick up my camera. I headed outside with my tripod and tried to capture the dusky horizon, and then turned east to see illuminated homes. It’s quite unusual to see all of them lit at the same time, so I gave it a go. A bit noisy, due to the long exposure, but I kind of like it.