Keith’s Amusing Musings

TB and I have worked on adding more vegetables to our diet over the past year. Due to the seasonality of certain vegetables and the time it takes to prepare others our options have been severely limited. As a result, we have resorted to trying more exotic veggies like bok choy and broccolini. It has gotten so bad we have also started eating brussel sprouts.

TB thinks brussel sprouts taste dirty so she tends to take extreme measures when seasoning them to help cut the taste. One thing she started doing recently is cooking them in undiluted chicken stock/broth. She covers the sprouts with a pre-made stock made by Swanson then simply boils them. It has made such a noticeable difference I actually like when we have brussel sprouts for dinner now. :shocked:

Keith

For class #3 we met at Seattle’s historic Pike Place Public Market. For this class we were to practice composition, flash photography and motion blur. The class met at “The Pig” (if you have been to The Market) to spend 2 hours capturing scenes in and around the market. Since our class meets at 6PM it was a typical dark, damp and chilly Seattle evening.

I have never been to The Market after dark or around closing so I was impressed with the magnificence of the neon lighting and the efficiency of the vendors as they quickly closed up shop at the end of another long work day. I hoped to make the most of my time by capturing at least a handful of interesting elements of The Market many people have never seen or subconsciously ignore.

Below I have included several of my favorite shots from the photo shoot. They are representative of the other hundred or so photos I took during the outing.

Like any digital photographer I have invested in high-capacity memory cards which would allow me to take hundreds of high-quality pictures. However, I spend a lot of time taking each photo so I seldom take more than 50 pictures on any given shoot. I also tend to be my own worst critic so only a small fraction of those pictures ever make it from the camera onto my computer for processing.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Keith

I have received several questions regarding the name of this web site, lesia.com, which serves as the home to Keith’s Amusing Musings. I mentioned in my initial post that Lesia — pronounced like Lisa [LEE-SUH] — was my biological mother’s first name. I have owned the domain name for many years and finally decided to do something constructive with it to honor the woman who raised me until shortly after my 13th birthday.

Coincidentally, the person I have considered my mom since losing my mother is named Risa — yes, pronounced like Lisa but with an ‘R’. Some things are just plain mysterious. Sadly, some engineering software company beat me to that domain name so I will have to wait for them to go out of business.

Keith

TB and I have been living in an apartment for 76 days and are excited we will be moving back into a house before the end of the month. Moving from our previous home into the apartment and dealing with many external pressures during this same period has brought us closer together literally and figuratively.

I was spoiled in our previous home. We had too much space — many rooms remained empty and unfurnished even though we owned the home for four years — and I was accustomed to having everything conveniently placed in an uncluttered manner. My home office was my sanctuary where I could enjoy listening to music; surfing the web; reading and, on occasion, playing my trumpet.

The fully-furnished apartment we currently reside in has some great characteristics including being conveniently located in downtown Bellevue and a fantastic view of Seattle and Lake Washington. The only real issue is the lack of space. Since moving here I have grown more appreciative of the space I took for granted in our previous home.

My apartment “office” is really a bedroom with a full-size bed pushed against one wall and my computer equipment squished against the opposite wall. I do have a desk and chair but not enough tabletop space for all my stuff so I have resorted to using cardboard boxes. It is not pretty but it works.

Yes, that is a Crate & Barrel box serving as a monitor/laptop stand.

Keith

If you are using Internet Explorer and want to know a fast way to search the Internet using MSN Search keep reading.

Simply using a couple Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts you can quickly execute a search as follows:

1. Press <Alt>+D
2. Type live (or msnsearch)
3. Press <Ctrl>+<Enter> (this will auto-complete & navigate to www.live.com)
4. Type your query
5. Press <Enter>

Note: Steps 1-3 will work for any www.WHATEVER.com site assuming you type WHATEVER in step 2.

Even faster, if you have the MSN Search Toolbar installed (desktop.msn.com), you can perform a search using the following steps:

1. Press <Alt>+M
2. Type your query
3. Press <Enter>

Keith