Lady - Macro Monday

As promised, here is the ladybird/ladybug close up.

They have been coming out again so I'm sure I'd be having more photo sessions with them soon. :)

Run! - Weekend Snapshot

Fridays for the kids are always lax days, since Saturday means they can sleep longer and play more. We planned to visit the Haus des Meeres on Saturday but were stuck at home instead.

The weather was really beautiful on Saturday but Sunday was gloomy and rainy, hopefully over the week we won't be needing the heavy jackets anymore.

Enjoy the week!

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Art Display

Back in college a good friend and I would frequent painting exhibitions, competitions and galleries to cover the event, interview artists or simply appreciate art, especially of budding artists. I still visit art galleries with hubby and the kids once in a while, but now we view works of european artists Paul Klee, Van Gogh, Monet, Klimt and Dürer. Unquestionably some of the more influential artists to present day painters that are featured at any local fine art gallery.

Take Paragon Fine Art Gallery, they have been in the fine art business for over fifteen years, taking pride in offering the best deals for art enthusiasts. The gallery specializes in contemporary, traditional and commercial art by modern international artists Vladimir Kush, Pino, Pamela Sukhum and more.

I always find a piece or two of art really enhances one's living room, that's why hubbys's works are displayed at ours. Why not adorn yours too? Paragon Fine Art Gallery can be found at 8678 Melrose Ave.West Hollywood, California or you can also visit their ebay store.

Hands and Feet - Photohunt

It seems like yesterday, he was a little baby with feet and hands that are so tiny you'd wonder when he would finally hold his bottle alone.  He would grasp your finger with his pinkish hand like he won't let go.

It is a wonder how kids grow. Now his hands can hold a lot, he can cut papers and draw circles, he can  assemble cars and stick them stickers, he can eat pizza or soup without help and simply wave his hand for a goodbye.

My little boy's hands and feet has grown a lot...I will keep holding his tiny little hand and kiss them everytime he feels pain, until the time that he lets me hold them.

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Triangle - Unique Exposures

I have used this photo once for an entry of the same theme, triangle. This is one of the 3 pyramids surrounding the bigger one at the Louvre museum in Paris.

The many speculations emerging from the construction of these pyramids are curious. Had French president François Mitterrand really required for tha panes to be 666 in numbers? I wouldn't dare count, or maybe I would given the chance to be back there and spend more than half a day!

A post for Unique Exposures

Placid - Scenic Sunday

I finally was able to see the old Danube in blue!

I will never get tired of seeing this river, in whatever season it is in, it's alwas dramatic, always attractive.

Happy Sunday!

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Speaking of lights

As was mentioned in the previous post, today is earth hour...c'mon for just an hour turning off those lights you can help big!

Speaking of lights, Farreys.com offers a wide variety of lights that homeowners can choose from. The lighting fixtures they need from the extensive collection of the site are arranged in various categories.

The search tool displays products depending on style, brand, or application, whether a simple light bulb or an intricately designed chandelier, you can certainly compare design, usage and prices from the results.

The wide selection includes both indoor and outdoor lighting, from top manufacturers Hinkley, Minka lavery, Murray feiss and a lot more. Most of these manufacturers have been established long ago and knows their trade very well.

Bathroom light fixtures, kitchen light fixtures, ceiling light fixtures and all that are also available for order. You are sure to find from a hundred selection of chandeliers, accent lamps, desk lamps, bath vanity strips, mini-pendants, pendant fixtures, picture lights, floor lamps, flush and semi-flush ceiling light fixtures, wall mounted sconces, wall mounted fixtures, one that would fit your taste and style.

You can make your lawn or pathways attractive with outdoor lights such as pier mount lanterns, post mount lanterns, flood lights, deck lights, landscape lighting and more.

If you are looking for top quality home lighting that's affordable and valued for beautiful design, visit Farreys.com, you won't be left looking in the dark.

Tan for health and beauty

Need a tan? Technically, having brown skin, I don't. Well, I do not have the latina brown skin as Jlo does but buying tanning Beds for home use is out of the question.

Just in case you plan to have a tan, residential tanning beds are now easily available for as low 32$ a month! Put in mind that bikini season is fast approaching, having the perfect tan would surely look good on the beach!

Earth Hour!

Today marks the worldwide observation of Earth Hour.

Today surpasses the 35 countries, 400 cities participants of last year as 82 countries and more than 2100 cities have 'committed'.

Vienna has been promoting the event via newspapers too.

You are also invited to join the event, turn of your lights at 8:30PM (local time) and have a candle-lit romantic dinner at home later!

Don't forget to capture a shot or video and share your city's event!

Publish your own news

The Wiener Linien (Vienna Lines) is very efficient under circumstances that a bus, train or tram incoveniently has to stop for some reason. They would immediately send or schedule buses to take passengers to their supposed destination or the nearest available line.

This tram slid off the train tracks that the Supermen had to 'manually' lift it to put it back.

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This is how I run my other blog; stuff I see in the streets, something odd, something new or something ugly like accidents or policemen pinning down alleged criminals on the ground. Though seldom, and why? For the reason that I run a city daily photoblog which I want as much as possible to be positive in tone.

In reality these photos are only stocked up in my hard drive...now, there's a good place for these photos to go. Wesay.com is your portal for photos and current events witnessed and captured at the right moment. Simply put, a news gathering website that encourages everyone to be attentive and be a participant than being just an onlooker. You can also join Wesay.com's Photo Contest by uploading your own photos.

It's the new way of sharing happenings around the world to everyone.

Unique Exposures - Shadow

"Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly."

---Ivan Turgenev

I like passing by time taking photos of snail instead...

A post for Unique Exposures.

File extensions

You've been spending more time in front of the PC more than you would watch TV or eat at the dining table...your life has been revolving around softwares, hardwares, blogs, friendly networks yet with a malfunctioning file, you might be clueless what is wrong with it.

Thank the guys over at Computerfileextensions for providing an indepth list of the most common and not so common file extensions we use everyday. A file extension name is the three or four letters added to the filename after the dot(.). With these, applications recognize the type of file and uses which programs can open it. It is not easy remembering all the file extension names and program, so it really is a nice effort that all can be found at the computer file extensions page.

We surely are familiar with file extension DOC, we knew well that Microsoft Office Word will open documents with this file extension. However, .DOC files can also be opened with Adobe Framemaker. To know this, one would be able to open a .DOC file even if he or she only has Adobe software (Framemaker in particular) installed on his or her PC.

If you don't know what file extension MDI or file extension DMG, or file extension JAD are, visit the page now and learn. The site has a comprehensive list of file extension names from A-Z.

Red Radish Salad (Ruby Tuesday)

I was never a fan of radishes, the daikon (japanese, white variety) that is but I like the red small ones because they taste sweeter like turnips in a way. If not munching on them, red radishes are pretty food ornaments when cut out as flowers.

I found this radish salad by Rachael Ray, would really like to try this soon.

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons sugar


• 1 lemon, juiced


• 1/2 cup sour cream


• 8 red radishes, thinly sliced


• 2 Delicious apples, quartered cored and thinly sliced


• 1/2 European seedless cucumber, thinly sliced


• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill


• Salt and black pepper

Directions:

Combine sugar, lemon juice, and sour cream in a medium bowl with a fork. Add radishes, apple, and cucumber.

Turn vegetables and fruit in dressing to coat. Season with dill, salt, and pepper, toss again; serve.

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Weekend Snapshot - Duckies

“To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.”

-Igor Stravinsky quotes

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Wonder what's the quack about... :D

Enjoy the week!

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Unique Exposures - Music

2 May 08

Street musicians from the city of classical Music!

"A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence."

Leopold Stokowski

A post for Unique Exposures.

Ruby Tuesday - Strawberry nutty cake

I bought this cake just to try it out, I was curious with how strawberries combined with nuts...this is a very small serving...by small,  can only be shared by two...in this case by me and the little boy.

Anyway, strawberry jam in between soft cake coated with nuts and whipped cream = 99% happiness! ;) Enjoy!

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Weekend Snapshot - Stadtpark

Strolling on a rainy day, I realized there won't be much people around...but since it was still a weekday (friday), only tourists abound at the Stadpark. Speaking of tourists, I had to wait for a group to finish their photo opp before Johann Strauß' statue there.

I managed to get one without the 'extras' but before I did, the woman in the photo below suddenly hold me by my arm and pointed to the man in front of us...I just smiled awkwardly...hoping that that photo wouldn't end up in her blog! lol. I learned from their companion (the woman doesn't speak English or German) that they are tourists from Albania.

Strauß' statue stands out from the gray arch and the sky itself...

Enjoy the coming week!

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Lasang Pinoy Sundays - Bread

 

Baking is really something I have to work on. If only I have half the enthusiasm of my kids, then this bread would have been perfect. I originally planned to just make the dough into shapes of pandesal but it was too sticky I decided it would be better with a muffin pan, but this is technically bread I assure you, flour and water, salt, fat and yeast with some other common ingredients: milk, egg. Sugar was supposed to be sprinkled on top.

 

I had planned to bake Krapfen (or Berliner Pfannkuchen), a doughnut like bread with marmelde filling, much like Dunkin Donuts'  boston creme or eclairs...I have once or twice mentioned that there are no dunkin donuts  or any foodshop specializing on donut in this 'hima' city save for a few coffee shops that serves the same kinds of donuts for an unbelievable price of 1,29Euros (1.63$),! There is one bakeshop that sells 'dunked donuts' which is literally  coated with oozing, heavenly chocolate...too bad I need to travel 20+ minutes to be there...

I guess this would have looked better when deep-fried than baked...oh well there's next time! Hope you enjoy the coming week!

Lasang Pinoy Sundays is a weekly GALLERY of the FILIPINO TASTE focusing on Food Photography.

Unique Exposures - Splash

A post for Unique Exposures.

LampMania

During my mom in law's visit last week, she pointed out our use of too much electricity because of our lighting choices...halogen ceiling lamps.

Hubby personally chose our lamps and we have had them for 5 years now, we changed the bulb not too often making me think that its not much of a strom fresser (energy eater). Also those halogen lamps produces enough heat for us to not turn on heating his winter time. Thanks to shopwiki's all-about-lamps' pages, I was able to confirm that halogen lamps lasts only 2,000-3000 hours compared to flourescent lamps that takes 10,000hours to burn out. And halogen lamps could be fire hazards too...yaay, we should change. There are now available low voltage halogen lamps but I doubt if it would fit use at home, I've seen them as more appropriate for museums and other displays or as desk lamps, then again the fire hazard is an issue so I'm having second thoughts.

I think the best choice to use are LEDs which has many advantages over traditional light sources including lower energy consumption, longer lifetime, improved robustness, smaller size and faster switching. Since hubby uses leds in his workroom he might agree to it, unless the design won't be mismatched to our interior and the price won't be a problem...leds are comparatively pricey than others but worth it I guess.