The other day we found the "Alley Cats" alley in El Cajon Ca. Located 1/2 block north of Main Street (the first alley)

The alley is decorated with, well, Cats!  Fat cats and silly cats.  Scardy cats and even some rats.  Singing cats and wild cats.  Cats at work and sexy cats.  Just about any old cat you can think of. 

 Just lots of cats!!

The paintings cover most of the walls, fences, trash bins, electric boxes, over some doors, and any other available space that suits the artists vision.

 

 

 

 

The alley is between the El Cajon courthouse and Magnolia street, behind Por Favor Mexican Restaurant whose entrance is on Main Street.  On the other side of the alley is the Art Museum of Olaf Weighorst.  Mostly wild west, some American Indian paintings - each painting has at least one horse.  El Cajon has some pretty cool stuff in little corners, if you look hard enough. 

 

 

 

 

All photos taken with my iPhone.

Answers to the common questions:

1. from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch
2. No, not really
3. 45 minutes to an hour
4. about 24
   

For the questions to the above answers, just keep reading.

Acupuncture is complex branch of ancient Chinese medicine, but its practical principles and methods are easily understood: fourteen major energy channels, called meridians, course through the human body, and Chi (pronounced chee) circulates via the meridians to all parts of the body. Chi is the vital force, the presence which separates the living from the dead. Its balanced, unimpeded flow, or balance, is critical to sound health.  Any misdirection, blockage or derangement of flow, or balance of Chi, may result in pain, dysfunction, and ill health. Through acupuncture needles, or other means, the acupuncturist stimulates certain points along the course of the meridians. This helps restore the normal balance and flow of Chi and sets the stage for the body to repair itself and maintain its own health. Do you have to believe in it for it to work?  My first acupuncturist told me "no, we also treat horses"!

Lisajeanne, at the Balance Center, begins my treatment with new, one-time use needles. Since the middle 1990's it is the law that only disposable needles may be used

The needles are inserted into a clear plastic tube and with a very controlled TAP, the needle is inserted into the correct meridian. Then the depth is adjusted.

Question #1

How deep are the needles inserted?

Question #2 Do they hurt?

Question #3

How long do they stay in?

Question #4

How many do they use? So, here I am as the final needle is inserted.  Now, she dims the lights, and with beautiful meditative music in the background, and I just lay back and relax, usually take a short nap.  The needles are telling my body to shape up and fly right.  I hope my body is listening. 
If you're in the San Diego area and are needing a tune-up, or have the urge to be a pin cushion, give Lisajeanne a call at:

The Balance Center
251 E Main Street
El Cajon Ca 92020
Phone (619) 440-4333
Lisajeanne Potyk L.Ac.


Photos by Deinna Adzima

Here is one of the nice things about living in San Diego Area, Deinna found this Rose blooming a few days ago.  The  summer garden has given up the last zucchini, tomatoes plants are on the compost pile. The only thing left are Jalapeno peppers, but the avocados are almost ready to be picked.









I did get a comment on how this was done. I just purchased the David Honl  (LINK) Lighting accessories kit and thought I would test drive it. The overhead SB800 has his 8" snoot on the strobe and the second SB800 Camera right has the 1/8" Grid, casting the spot on the background. So far I like his stuff.

Lightroom 3 Beta is ready for download, testing and Adobe is looking for input prior to it's formal release. If you have never used it here is your chance to test it for free. Remember this a BETA version, meaning it's for testing only until the final release.

From the Adobe Web Site:

What Is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is a digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for serious amateur and professional photographers. With Lightroom, you can organize, enhance, and showcase your images all from one fast and nimble application that’s available on Macintosh and Windows® platforms.

• Manage your growing photo collection in a visual library that makes it quick and easy to organize, find, and select your images.
• Get the absolute best from every shot—whether raw, JPEG, or TIFF—using state-of-the-art nondestructive editing tools.
• And when you're ready, showcase your images with the impact they deserve using customizable print layouts, powerful slideshows, web gallery creation tools, and connection to online photo sharing sites (may require third-party plug-ins).

Link to Adobe Site and download click HERE

This morning Deinna asked me if she could make me breakfast. She asked, "How many eggs do you want?" I said, two. She cracked the first egg open and was surprised to see double yolks. We both replied that this was unusual. Then she cracked the second egg, and we were surprised to see that it also was a double yolker! These eggs were bought from the normal grocery store, where we seldom get two yolked eggs, much less two in the same carton, and then to see TWO in the same pan! Pretty cool.














Naturally, I said, "Stop the cooking! Wait for me to ge my camera." Yeah, she said, like how hard is that to do. So she took the pan off the burner and waited. Well, what can I say. I take advantage of all photographic opportunities. She laughed.

I'm on my way to the liquor store to buy a lottery ticket.

While in North County visiting the art show at Valley View Casino, we decided to make a quick trip to Bates Nut Farm ( 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Center, CA) to photograph a few Pumpkins for Halloween. We turned on to Woods Valley Road and joined a line of cars that was almost three miles long with an average speed of - oh, about 3 miles an hour! Lots of mostly stop, and then a little go. For the next 25 minutes I tried to convince Deinna all these cars could NOT be going for pumpkins, especially the limousine that we were following. Well, seems I was wrong! As the limo turned into the driveway at Bates Nut Farm, we could see that the parking area was nearly full and, as I was reminded frequently, every single car on that road turned into the farm. All we saw was an enormous amount of people amid acres and acres of pumpkins.






















The Sea of Orange.




























Rides with the Mule team.



































Pumpkins are just plain fun.





































The Scarecrow Contest.
























































All sizes and shapes, just load 'em into your wheelbarrow, have 'em weighed, and off you go.














Tractor and wagons rides too.

Check your color challenge from X-Rite.
FACT: 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency.
Take the online color challenge, based on the official FM100 Hue Test by X-Rite.

My Score was 18
Test yours HERE

Struck by the contrast of this this brick wall. I used my iPhone for these images.


















Then we went to lunch at the Olive Garden and here was a red armored car.















A red pepper in the garden.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has recognized the work of Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith as co-inventors of the CCD image sensor. And the work of Charles Kuen Kao for his work in fiber optics, that now provides the means for our high speed communication today.

Here's a link to the Nobel Prize website.

Here's a link to The Imaging Resource website that has a good article

Aiyana, from a recent portrait session.

Our second involvement with San Diego Hospice was to photograph the participants and events at Camp Erin the weekend of September 25 and 27, 2009.


From the Camp Erin website:
Camp Erin is a bereavement camp designed for children ages 6-17 who have experienced the death of a parent, friend or loved one. It is a weekend-long experience filled with traditional, fun, camp activities combined with grief education and emotional support -- facilitated by grief professionals and trained volunteers. The Moyer Foundation partners with local hospice and grief counseling organizations in the communities where the camps exist. Because these organizations are seeing and treating grieving children everyday, they act as the natural camp hosts and registration points for children and Camp Erin bereavement camps.

Our Involvement:
Deinna and I have both had loved ones helped by San Diego Hospice. Through our photography, we thought this would be one way to give back and show our support for this worthwhile project. Camp Erin is the largest network of bereavement camps for children in the country. Twenty-eight camps in eighteen states.

Camp Erin is free for all children. Application is required. Check the above website link for more information and locations. The website will also explain who Erin Metcalf, of Woodinville, Washington is, and how Jamie Moyer and his wife Karen, co-founders of the Moyer Foundation, became involved.




Camp Erin was held at the YMCA's Camp Marston, a few miles south of Julian CA. If you are looking for a project to support, after working closely with counselors and staff, we can highly recommend San Diego Hospice, the Moyer Foundation and Camp Erin for your consideration.

If you subscribe to San Diego Magazine or see the current issue (October '09), look on page 118. They have published one of my photographs. In this issue they have partnered with the San Diego County Medical Society to showcase the outstanding Doctors in 46 specialties. Chosen by the physicians themselves, they identify 475 that they would recommend to their own family and friends. They deem these doctors as those who minister not only to the body, but also to the soul.

Recently, Deinna and I volunteered with San Diego Hospice to do photography for them. The first project was to do some head shots so they could update their web site. As we completed this, we were requested to do a full length of Dr. Steven Oppenheim, M.D., who has been recognized by his peers as a "Top Doctor" in Palliative Medicine. The picture I took is the one featured on page 118 in the above mentioned magazine.



















(Click to enlarge)

One of the the nice things about San Diego is making new discoveries, or remembering things you may have forgotten. This is the case with the San Diego Firehouse Museum. A few weeks ago, as Deinna and I were going downtown, we crossed Columbia Street and I saw the Museum. I realized that it's one of the places I had heard about but never visited. This past Friday Deinna was looking for a place to try out her new Nikon D90 camera. So, we packed the gear and were off. Our friends Gary and Julie's son, Greg, was on duty at the museum that day. Greg is volunteer Firefighter at Deerhorn Valley in Jamul.















Located at 1572 Columbia St. San Diego CA
Here is the map LINK.





















































































From models to the real thing below, the Firehouse has a wide collection of fire related items on display.














1903 American LaFrance "Metropolitan Steamer 1991" built for Milwaukee WI. Steam cylinders 9" stroke-9-3/4' bore. Pump Cylinders 9" stroke- 5-3/4" bore. Allegedly pump 1100 gpm. Weighed 8200 lbs., less fuel & water. It burned bituminus coal, or "Cannel Coal", and was drawn by 3 horses, accompanied by a hose/fuel wagon.














The fire box on the "Metropolitan Steamer 1991".













































The caption on this photo reads: "This Firehouse occupied the site since 1916. Girolomo Navarra, Jerome's grandfather, bought the building in 1921 which became the original location for Jerome's Furniture Warehouse. Girolomo's son Jim, Jerome's father, would arrive once a week to haul away the manure produced by the horses that pulled the fire engine.




















The fire pole for sliding down is located on the opposite wall, but after a quick trip down, you must climb back up.















Hand-drawn fire hose cart, circa 1852, used in the Thames Shipyard, New London, CT.
On loan from the Maritime Museum Association of San Diego, CA.



























The "Dispatchers Console".
Alarms were received from an Alarm Pull Box on the street. The Dispatcher took the information and relayed the Box number to the Fire Stations.



























The Harden 6 inch Grenade. Thrown to extinguish fire.
Here is a LINK for more information.







































Waiting for the next alarm.












































Located at the rear of the building is a 50 foot high drying tower, for drying the fire hose.















Captain Kevin McWalters takes this "Seagrave" out for exercise. It had received an oil change earlier in the week.

Greg Gorton watches as the truck departs.

In the middle of June, Deinna told me she had made a dental appointment. Nothing new, except the appointment was with a Dr. Gabriel Adame, in Tecate B.C., Mexico! Tecate is located about 22 miles from Jamul. It's a 30 minute trip from our home, southeast on highway 94 to the Tecate turn off on Hwy 188, or Tecate Road.
I'm by no means a fan of going to the dentist. I have disliked it since my childhood. Many of our friends have been going to Dr. Adame for years. (SITE LINK HERE) So, with my bag of fears bundled up, I drove Deinna to Tecate. We parked in a dirt lot, (in Tecate, California) which was within 300 yards of the border, paid $5.00 for the day, grabbed our passports (now required to get back in the USA) and made our way to the border crossing.










































After entering Mexico, you turn left and walk parallel to the US Border for 2 blocks, turn left again and you're at the dentist's office. Since I was there anyway, I decided to have them look at my teeth. I had to have an X-ray taken. At the end of the visit I paid $5.00 - and that was for the X-Ray. The waiting room was made up of 95% Americans, who came from all over to have their dental work done here.
















After the dental visit, we stopped in this restaurant for lunch. Not only challenged by the language, we also had no pesos. We finally figured out the cost and came up with enough dollars to pay and not require any change.

We got our food and sat down to eat, and within 5 minutes met the owner of the restaurant who spoke perfect English. I asked him how old this building was and inquired about the domed ceiling. He told us that the ceiling was only 5 years old and was done by one man and a helper. He built it up from each corner, a little at a time, and in one week finished not only this one, but an identical one right along side of the one pictured.

After lunch we walked to the square.














































So much unemployment - one of the favorite pastimes is a friendly game of dominoes with your buddies under the trees in the town plaza.



Tecate beer chairs - the plant is located just a few blocks away.























































Passports in hand, we head back to the USA.

Running the Numbers II
Portraits of global mass culture

Digital artist looks at how much we consume photographically.

View Chis Jordan's Web Site HERE then click on Running the Numbers II.


From his web site:
This new series looks at mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. Similarly to the first Running the Numbers series, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: the number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes, for example. But this time the statistics are global in scale, rather than specifically American.

Finding meaning in global mass phenomena can be difficult because the phenomena themselves are invisible, spread across the earth in millions of separate places. There is no Mount Everest of waste that we can make a pilgrimage to and behold the sobering aggregate of our discarded stuff, seeing and feeling it viscerally with our senses.

Fires around the Mediterranean

From the BIG PICTURE , check out the fires in Spain HERE. Seems like California is not alone in the never ending battle.

Car collectors and automotive enthusiasts gathered at National City’s Kimball Park for the Eighteenth Annual Automobile Heritage Day on Sunday, August 2nd in National City. Automobile Heritage Day celebrates the City’s rich automotive history. The event is free to the public and started with a parade at 9:00 a.m. at Papa Gallo’s on Cleveland Ave. and 20th Street, and ended at Kimball Park behind City Hall at National City Blvd and Civic Center Drive. The car show was from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

If your a fan of the the old west or the Starz Encore channel that shows old western movies you may have heard of or seen Bob Boze Bells. He does true facts stories on the the western channel between movies and publishes "True West Magazine". Currently he is working on 10,000 bad images, a self assigned project. This could be a good photo project! Check out his blog and artwork project HERE.

Here is the quote from his site.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Pots And Pans?
A photographer is invited to a friends dinner party. He brings along some new images to show his host. The host looks at the photos and exclaims, "These are wonderful! You must have a very good camera." The photographer says thank you and the evening continues. After dinner, the photographer turns to his host and remarks, "The food was wonderful, you must own some very good pots and pans."

All the picture done in the camera! Check this Amazing night LIGHTING SITE.

July 20th will be the 40th anniversary of the trip to the Moon.
Check this fantastic SITE. Images have "Buttons" to see pictures, audio, and more.