Megabytes

There is some construction going on in the neighborhood. I sketched the shovel of a truck at rest.
In the same area, this tree provides shade and habitat to many creatures.

I didn’t notice until after I completed my drawing that it appears there is a face in the tree trunk. I took a photo, too. I get a kick out of comparing the photo and my drawing. Looks like I shortened the trunk a bit.

I’ve done my share of complaining of late. Well, I’m not really a complainer by character. But I sure have noticed the weather being cooler and rainier than usual. My friends have commented on this too.

Well, here’s the silver lining - great sky! The clouds have been full of texture and shape. Even the rain has added a glistening sheen to the sidewalks, flowers, trees, and streets.

And so, the header of my blog for June is a photo of a recent stormy sky. Yes, it has been modified a bit in Photoshop. I used a Hot Tip from Lynda.com that I read about just this morning. The tip was all about how to adjust skin tones using the Lab Color mode, but I thought I could as easily use the Lab Color mode to adjust the sky tones.

Here’s a before and after:

Can you see that the AFTER image has some more depth by darkening the different channels in Lab Mode? In the original tip, the subject was a man’s face which was adjusted to give him a bit of a tan.

I’m learning to enjoy the energetic skies that the wet weather brings.

Yesterday, the weather was all over the place. It felt as if it would rain from midday on, but held off until near sunset. I took an exuberant long walk up and around Mt. Tabor while on the phone to my parents. We spoke for over an hour, during most of which I was walking. Well, that felt great in my body; stretching and using muscles and breathing deep. all while connecting with my parents.

For dinner, I fixed some swiss chard and rice while A brought home a couple of pieces of baked chicken. delightful. Then she and I took a walk around the neighborhood, a more relaxing stroll than my earlier exercise. We have new neighbors moving into the house behind us and we stopped there to welcome them. They invited us in to see the work they were doing; scraping off wallpaper, pruning shrubs, removing carpet. Our 10 minute walk became an hour!

When we returned from our walk, I noticed the sky was doing remarkable things. I got my camera, turned right around and went out again. Forty-two shots later, I returned home amidst the heavy drops of rain that were just beginning to fall. The air was warm and the sun was just setting and the rain felt good. like a release.

Webvisions bills itself as a conference that explores the future of the Web. And certainly most of the scheduled sessions have been about appropriately technological themes like CSS, RSS, Javascript, social media, Drupal, memetics, and more such topics.
This year’s event, held May 22-23, 2008 at Portland Convention Center, was true to form with at least one exception; the presentation by Jensine Larsen, A River Runs Through The Digital Divide: Women Using Global Communications Technology to Shift the Balance of Power.
With images of women from countries around the world playing in a slideshow behind her, Ms. Larsen told the story of how she came to create World Pulse magazine, and its website, PulseWire.net. WorldPulse asks women activists these questions: What is your vision? What do you see? What do you need? The answers are always immediate and well-thought out including 7-page plans for village support programs and 10-page business plans.

Ms. Larsen shared with us the struggles of Malalai Joya, Afghanistan leader who was elected to Parliament in 2003 and later silenced by her own government. Ms. Joya refuses to be silenced. She continues to speak out and organize. Some Malalai Joya links: Women in Media and News Blog; Defend Malalai Joya; Speech on YouTube; World Pulse Magazine article.
PulseWire is an interactive website where women worldwide, including those using internet cafes in rural areas, can speak to the world and collaborate to solve global problems. Ms. Larsen mentioned a statistic that 80% of women have cell phones compared to only 4% having a computer or access to one. Given the large number of cells phones, PulseWire makes posting from a cell phone a priority in its interface. They also provide lots of training for new users, sometimes registering the new user to get her started. The site uses a Google translator to facilitate translations in 12 languages for visitors.

Excerpt from Malalai Joya speech:

I will continue to speak out because I have no fear in my soul anymore. I have seen too many sorrows. Maybe it will be me they kill, but there will be others whose voices will be louder than mine.

I know life is so beautiful. But a life without freedom, democracy, and peace is meaningless for me. I have many small hopes and dreams, but as an Afghan and as an open-minded and conscious young woman, my only dream is to see my country free.

I have heard lots of beautiful things about my country from people across the world who had visited it before the war. I was born in war and have seen nothing or heard nothing about my people and country except war, killing, violence, the kidnapping and raping of young girls, terrorism, and fundamentalism.

I believe a day will come when there will be peace, security, and democracy and all the people, the girls, the children will sing the song of freedom and have smiles lingering on their lips.

You can hear our exciting performance at 5pm and attend the Red Dress Party at 9pm. We intentionally set our event earlier to avoid conflicting with Red Dress. We feel our audience members are likely to want to support both efforts.

Portland Gay Symphonic Band will delight you with music by Tchaikovsky, Whitacre, Ticheli, and Saint Saëns. Tickets ($12 adults, $8 seniors and students) are available online until 1pm, Saturday, April 12, 2008. Tickets at the door are $15 adults, $10 seniors and students.