I am going to show you me in action!

Now, you should know that the first picture up there is the purse I am making all cut out and sewn onto the batting.  The next step in this little process was to trim the pieces and then turn them right side out.  Then I edge stitched and started the assembly.  Last pictures shows, voila!  I am finished and have a new purse.

Now I realize that anyone who does not sew will think I have created a master piece.  Let me tell you what I think is a masterpiece and that is that slide show running up there.  That is the miracle on this page.  Now the purse is really nice, but you people know how girlie I am not so what am I going to do with it now that I have it?  That is neither here nor there.  I am here to discuss this technology business.

Does anyone remember way back when you would take pictures and then you took the film out and and took it to some place and got your pictures developed?  I can remember when color first came to pictures.  Oh, and the Polaroid Land Camera that developed the picture while you waited.  I remember the first camera I ever owned was a Brownie that my brother brought me home from Germany.  Used to hold it down about my waist and look down into the view finder until I got zeroed in and then click and when the roll was taken, off we went to get it developed.  As I recall it was about 6" x 6".  Very ugly black thing.

Well, now I have this little green thing that is about ½" thick.  I point and shoot and there is no focusing or any of that stuff going on.  When I have what I want I pull out the card and slip it in the slot in the computer or plug in my cord and the pictures pop up for my approval.  If I do not like one I delete it.  I can type in what they are and the date is automatic.  Then I click on a few more things and have this slide show for you.  Time expired maybe 2 minutes.  I can take a picture of a crying baby and send the picture to its mother and she will see it before the tears are dry.  Technology.

And do you want to know something else?  I have friends who think I am a genius!  Well, maybe I will just let them think that.  Going to send my sister a link on her email and she can read this and watch the slide show and she will think I am smart.  Or not.  See my location down there?  Takes me 48 seconds to find it and post it.  I have links on the side to other blogs.  Course I never get any house work done, my butt is as wide as the chair, and my social life is in the crapper, but I am a genius!!  LOL

Fun Places to Go!

http://www.pueblopflag.blogspot.com/

See if this works!

Pueblo Community College has a state of the art Learning Center.

December 1, 2010 when we were at the Pueblo Community College I sat for hours and watched students go down one hallway and come out another.  I thought maybe there was something to eat down there cause it seemed to be a very popular place.  And then along came Ross and he gave me the grand tour!

This is the door to the inner sanctum at Pueblo Community College.  I had done some embroidery work for Ross who runs the Learning Center, but I had no idea what the place actually entailed.  When we were at the college for World AIDS Day I got a chance to see and I was very impressed.  This program takes up the whole bottom floor of the building we were in and it is always busy.  Let me just shoot through here and point out a few things, then we will talk!

This is Ross's office.  It is very nice and he has lots of little momento's setting and hanging here and there.  He is into Rainbow's which are also a weakness of mine.  He has way more then me though.  I just keep buying rainbow fabric and not using it.  You know me well!  His office is in the center of the commons area.  He has windows on three sides so he can keep an eye on day to day operations.  Guess he never stopped to think, they can keep an eye on him also!

This is the commons area of the Learning Center. There are computers every where and they are there for the students to use. There are also little rooms here and there for different things that the students need.  There are computers in those rooms as well.

A little further down you will see a girl at a computer. She is not just any girl, she is the one who makes the media for special needs, such as braille.

Now, I forgot who this is, but he is a reception area person and I am sure he is very important since every one in the place seems to have a job that is thier job and they do it very well.  Ross is a very good task master!

 Ah!  Here we are entering what is known as the Disability Resources Center.  This is where the special stuff is made that people who need it, get it!

 And here is the girl I told you that does it.  She is a very nice girl and I wish I knew where I wrote her name down.  I am sure when I hit the publish button it will come to me.  She is a very nice girl and we chatted amicably about her role in preparing media for special needs.  This is a very vital part of what goes on in this place!

And here is my little Ross!  He is an amazing creature!  He actually rides his bike to work and drinks lots of water.  I could go on for days about the virtues of this man, but he would just roll his eyes so I am not going there.  Anyone who has ever dealt with Ross Barnhart has nothing but praise for him both as a professional and as a human being.  I am included in his fan club.

I attended a two year college and I am sure there were resources that I could have accessed, but nothing like this operation!  I can attest by sheer virtue of watching how many students accessed this area that it is a vital part of an education at PCC.  And with Ross at the helm this place can do nothing but thrive and grow!

You have met Ross Barnhart, the academia person, but this was my first encounter with that side of Ross.  I have known him for many, many years.  I knew him when he lived in Seattle.  Well, we are not that old so it was not that long ago, it just sounds like it.  Actually, I have known his mother, Nancy Martin, for about 20 years, but they were very short years!  OK, there is a point here!

If you think Ross, the professional is a wonderful man, you should meet Ross the philanthropist and activist.  My kind of man!  This article was to acquaint you with the Learning Center.  I will do an article on Ross Barnhart that will make the world stand up and take notice.  I think he would make a wonderful President!  We could write him on the ballot!

So that was yesterday and now we are on today!

I know you are holding your breathe to see how the "date" worked out last night.  Well, it was not quiet what I feared.  Joan made a very lovely dinner.  Her and Bobby's daughter, son-in-law, and the son from New York were there.  (Bobby is Ray's twin brother.) Course about as soon as I got into town, it started snowing.  Very big flakes!  If one hit me in the head I would have been history. 

So I called Ray and explained that rather than jockey vehicles around, I would just pick him up.  That was mistake #1 on my part.  Mistake #1 on his part was the screaming that went on during the trip across town.  Apparently he has not become accustomed to being at the mercy of a female driver in a blizzard.  Seemed to  be a lot of sniveling and crying going on over there in the passenger seat!

Conversation was great and the son-in-law and nephew gave me some tips on just how long to dip the lady fingers for a perfect Tiramasu.  The first time I made it I held them in the Kahlua until they quit bubbling.  I thought I had maybe not done it correctly since 3 people eating that first one I made, failed breathalizer tests alonside the road.  I now know you grasp the lady finger firmly and dip and raise rather quickly.  No bubbling should occur!  Just to be on the safe side, I had taken a Peanut Butter Pie for dessert!

Bobby gave me a tour of the house which included several stained glass windows that he had made.  They are really great and he seems to go more for the different textures as opposed to bright colors.  Very subtle.  Very nice.  And of course the snow continued to fall!  Time to go and Bobby cleared a path to the car for us.  There was some mention of a cook out in the summer!  That was rather tentative as to exactly when.

By this time those giant flakes had been falling for 3 hours, so I let Ray drive home.  Same sniveling and crying from the passenger seat, only this time it was not him!  I never knew my car could plow through drifts that deep and that fast!  He did trust me to hop in the drivers side when we got to his place and drive the seven miles of country roads to my place alone.  Course he did remind me to call when I got home so he would not have to worry.  I did.  The line was busy.

And there you have it in a nutshell.  One interesting note here,  he lives 3 blocks from the SWM of last summer fame.  Since we drove right past his house I pointed out his Victorian with the 3rd floor turret and the 7 windows that I made curtains for that are  still  not hung.  Small world after all.

So much for the warm and fuzzy, now let me hop up on the soapbox!

I just finished watching a segment on what is happening in Egypt.  In this segment the petite little female reporter was complaining about how those rioters actually punched her photographer!  Hello!  Here we have people who are fighting for a cause that means their very life and this guy has the nerve to stick a camera in their face!  I would have done a lot worse than punch him!

I would like to know at what point freedom of the press ends and infringement on human rights begins?  Have you ever watched the news very carefully?  I realize this all seemed to start about the time we bombed Baghdad and we could set in the comfort of our homes and watch the war unfold.  I realize further that we need to know the conditions our servicemen are laboring under.  What happened to creative writing?  Why must we practice the  "picture is worth a thousand words" philosophy?

In the center of every picture is a human being.  The man with his leg blown off, the woman sobbing with her dead, bloody baby in her arms,  the bomb in the car, on and on and on we go.  This is sensationalism at it's very worst.  Every station tries to go one better than the one before it did.  Whoever shows the most blood on the 6 o'clock news wins the rating war.  I am sorry, I do not look at it anymore.

Reporters have their jobs and some of them I admire very much.  Right now we are in the middle of very frigid temperatures and I just seen a young lady explaining to me how dangerous the weather was.  I could have been a little more convinced had she actually dressed for the conditions and not had to be seen with her lovely hair whipping around her well manicured face.  Just me.

I was taught, and by a very able teacher she was, that I must make the reader see what I see.  I must get my thoughts into the readers head and make them feel what I felt.  The victim must remain faceless.  I am perhaps out of touch with the media reality of today, but out of touch I shall remain.  In all my writing you will find only the essence of pain, tragedy, or grief.  Does that make me a better reporter then the one who motions the cameraman forward to see the dying face of the rebel?  I sure like to think so.

And how do we go back to the old style of reporting?  We probably don't.  Our world has become a world where seeing is believing why bother visualizing when it is right there to look at, up close and personal.  I have found the off button on my set!

Have you ever been in a situation where you let your guard down because there was something more pressing?   Can you describe your pain you felt at the lowest moment of your life?  Or do you need someone to take a picture and show it to you as a bitter reminder?  I don't.  I can still feel the ache and raw grief in every fiber of my being.  Shall I describe it to you?

And tonight will mark a new era!

I have fully recovered from my little dating fiasco of last summer, so I am going to try this one again.  Not real sure of this guy's political affiliations, but I have pointed mine out to him.  I even printed my profile description and gave it to him to study.  He does not have a computer so he has not read my blog.  I do not know if that is good or bad.  I have taken him to Weaver's Guild where he was the only man in a room full of women and he seemed comfortable.  He has attended my church several times and fits in well in that area of my  life.

OK, I met him and his brother and his sister in law at the craft fair last November.  They do woodworking, so I know he is adept at something.  Then I found out he is a weaver, so I sold him a loom.  And some thread.  And loaned him some books.  And some shuttles.  He was out for coffee and pie once.  He has met Tim.  And sister Mary, who thinks he is a very handsome fella'.  But you know me,  "Beauty is skin deep, while ugly goes clear to the bone."

So, he has a tremendous sense of humor which is a definite plus in my world.  He knows where I do volunteer work and why and seems very compassionate in that area.  He even goes to the gym several times a week and works out, so he is into the fitness thing.  He has a dog just like Elvira only his is a full blooded Lahso and Elvira is part Shitzu. 

So, after 8 years of dinging around on my own, I may be on the verge of entering uncharted waters.  After 3 months of casual friendship I am going some where in the dark, so I almost have to call it a date.  I hope nothing changes, cause I been enjoying the friendship part.  I do know Kenny did not want me to spend my life alone, but he may not get his way on this one.  Time will tell.

By the way, just for future reference, his name is Ray.