On Photography

I have been a photo bug for about 30 or more years on and off. Mostly family stuff, but lots of flowers, bugs, animals, and anything strange or weird. Up till about 10 years ago on film cameras.

I got my first of four digital cameras about 8 years ago, and if you are like me, you take and take and take more and more pictures, put them on your picassa and never print them. So 7 or 8000 pictures later the question is what do I do with them?

Recently I visited a Mass Audubon site called "Broadmoor" and saw an exhibition of the type of photos that I have been taking for years. I looked at my friend and said to her " I have all the same type of pictures, why can't I do this?"

We had been taking pictures of a couple of different sites in the area pretty consistanly so I had a pretty good size library of pictures for a couple of these type of exhibitions.

I approached the Stonybrook/Mass Audubon site about putting on an exhibition using some of the 700 pictures I had been taking since May of this year of their "Mute Swans and their 5 cygnets". Their answer was a very excited YES!!!

So, on Friday, December 10th, from 6-8 pm my "StonyBrook Mute Swans" photo exhibition will start. There will be cheese and crackers, (tentatively) and the Stonybrook peeps and myself "The Accidental Photographer" will also be there for the opening. I am so excited about this. This is the first time I have professionally displayed any photos.

In order to save money I cut all my own mats for the photos. You can see very well that this was the first time for me. Maybe next time I use already made mats!!! But it is the photos that count and the swans in the photos.

I am also doing up some photo greeting cards with the swans for sale later on.

A sardine between two whales......a seat on the train?

A whale watch maybe, no a car accident. I was the middle car between two SUV type vehicles. I walked away feeling fine, the car, well it had to be towed. Today, the day after, I had to see a Doctor for the pain in my neck, shoulders, back, hips, leg and foot. Two days out of work on bed rest.

I am waiting on the adjuster to look at the car to tell me if it is totalled or not. The back end was completely ripped off from the license plate down.

This car is a mazda miata 2006, my midlife crisis toy!!!! So it hurts to see it so mangled. I get the news later today about wether or not it can be repaired.

Will he or won't he

Our healthcare changed policies in November. It is a company sponsored program that my husband pays $600 p/mth which is about 40% of the total yearly premium. Up until the new policy we were paying $20 copays on all Dr.'s covered and lab work also, with no deductible. When the new policy kicked in, which we chose from a group of choices, the copays went to $25 for our primary care physician and $50 for all others and $50 for lab work, still no deductible. Before the change the lab work would cost aprox. $250, I would pay my $20 copay and the insurance would discount the bill to where they were responsible for about $30 of the bill. Now the new insurance policy, same company, the same bill we pay a $50 copay and the insurance discounts the bill to $00.29, and pays the bill for 29 cents. How much did it cost to run the check and put a stamp on the envelope or pay the person to push the button to send the electronic payment? I'm sure more than 29 cents. How has our $600 per month saved us anything on an insurance bill that is discounted to the point of the insurance company being liable for only 29 cents? Oh yes, I do understand that we would have been responsible for the full amount of the bill without insurance. Hence people who use the emergency rooms. If the insurance only has to pay 29 cents then why without insurance shouldn't we have to pay the same as the insurance company or some percentage less than the full amount?

My friend and I are having a disagreement about how this will or won't change with the new Health Care Bill. In my eyes, I now have government mandated (MA) health insurance that is too expensive to use. I am thinking that the health care reform will open up insurance policies that we can afford to buy and also afford to use once we have them. The insurance connector in MA is no cheaper than what we are getting through my husbands employer, we cannot save with that program- which was already in place pre-Obama.

Does the fact that the health care reform bill passed the way it passed cause us to be going in the way of socialism? How does that work?