What I Learned in March: 2014

1. I figured out how to shoot closeup photos with The Baby. Learning a new camera is a process. The Baby is nothing like The Precious. As I was making my second round of Flower and Garden Fest, I wanted to get a slightly different perspective on one of the dishes I was trying. Typically, I shoot my close-ups with The Precious, because I know how to make it work, but it's too unwieldy to manage with one hand and I needed the other for the photo, so I picked up The Baby. (Yes, I went with two cameras. Let's not discuss how insane you think that makes me, mostly because I do not care. It's not like I ask anyone else to carry what I bring with me and also, The Baby *in its case* weighs less than my cell phone! So there. I digress.) The first shot came out blurry -- too close to properly focus. Zooming out enough to allow the camera to focus didn't achieve the photo I wanted. Hmmm. I tried the macro setting again and it still wouldn't focus (I'm not exactly sure why not...still learning). So I started messing with the pre-programmed "scenes." Lo and behold, there is one called...Close-Up. Angels sang and I got exactly what I was envisioning!


2. You know the mini corn-on-the-cob often found in Asian cuisine? It's not some special miniature variety. It's regular corn, picked immature, just days after the silk appears!

3. The back story to the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. I have long enjoyed discovering the "history" created for the various Disney attractions. "Legend" has it that it started out in 1911 as the last outpost for explorers heading into the jungles. The owner had to abandon it in the 1920s, though, due to illness, and it was left vacant, until a group of adventurers decided to purchase it themselves. The Great Depression hurt their business venture. As they struggled to stay afloat (har har), a Hollywood film director asked if they would escort him down the river so he could film local wildlife...and thus was born the Jungle Cruise tours we know and love today!

4. You can actually *hear* an earthquake. I don't mean items falling off shelves. I mean the actual plates of the earth shifting and rubbing. I heard it with my own two ears, sitting on top of one, quite literally.

Every month, Chatting at the Sky shares what she learned. Big things and little things. Life lessons from the serious to the silly. I've decided I want to participate. Just another means of capturing who am I along this broken little road called life.