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As promised, here are some pictures of the sights around the Pacific Northwest. Click on each one to see a larger version- 400x268 px, which should open in a new window. I also have the full sized versions of each (1700x1292) if anyone's interested, or will resize to whatever size you'd like.

Colours of Pike Place Market:

I love the colours here. This may end up as a desktop image, just because. Scaled down it loses some of the visual effect, so you're encouraged to look at the bigger one.

Cascade Aspens:

Majestically tall trees against cerulean blue skies and puffy white clouds.

Rosario Vista South:

From the southern inlet at Rosario Head, the view south towards Whidbey Island. The distance between the beach in the foreground to the top of the bluffs is roughly 60 feet/18.3 metres, just to give a rough idea of the scale.

Rosario Vista North:

From Rosario Head itself, looking north and north-west. Fidalgo Island is the landmass to the right side of the image. Looking across the water, the San Juan Islands are visible in the background.

Rosario Inlet:

Looking down into the inlet by Rosario Beach from the Head, this is one of the several outcroppings of volcanic rock visible in the inlet. The rocks (and the barrier islands in the Sound) themselves can be traced to volcanic activity during the formative days of the planet (Proterzoic-Triassic eras [~1.1 billion-225 million years ago]) near Trail, British Columbia- about 180 miles/300 kilometres north-east, with modification during the last Ice Age. It's really possible to see where geophysical forces (plate tectonics et al.) have buckled the strata in the rock (i've a detailed image of some of these folded igneous and metamorphic strata, although i can't presently recall what type of rock they are- green schist?).

Views From the Inlet:

The view here is from one of the rock outcroppings at the base of the head. There are tidal pools on both sides of the little (10 ft/3.3 m high) outcropping from which this was taken. The view here is looking roughly south-south-east. The previous two images were shot from the right side of the image at the top of the rocks, approximately where the secondary lens flare appears.

Sorry this is just slightly off horizontal! This was taken from one of the rocks defining the tidal pools. The Olympic Peninsula is barely visible on the horizon.

The Prickly Side:

Pretty self-explanatory. Just a close-up of a thistle along the trail from Rosario to Bowman's Bay.

Weathered and Worn:

Judging from the trunk, i'd guess this to be an aspen. It was likely felled by a storm and probably came from the San Juans or possibly Vancouver Island, and has probably been where it lies for quite a while- it's roughly 15 ft/4.8 m from the tidal lines at high tide.

Edit: OK, so i'm a hopeless geek at times. I've actually looked to try to find out some of the interesting tidbits about the geology- they're not just more random trivia stashed in my mind for retrieval at odd times. That, and i've eavesdropped on at least one guided nature walk through the place and retained a little of the information (which is why i remember the rock is green somethingorother) even though it's visually dark grey to black in appearance.
That and i'm trying to figure why LJ broke the formatting and put the mood and music elements at the top of the page, instead in their standard place below the body of the entry.

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Well, i've decided that the original images posted as the larger versions of the shots in the last post were just too small. They've all been reposted at either 600 or 800 pixels in the larger dimension. Apologies in advance if this causes horizontal scroll, but at 400px, they still lost just too much in translation.
Still haven't found the Photoshop CD to install it on the laptop, so getting these done has been a laughably roundabout process. The laptop has an easily accessible open USB port, but no Photoshop. The desktop has Photoshop, but no easily accessible USB port. Therefore, the process of transferring images is something like this:
1) Copy images from the camera to the laptop.
2) Upload from the laptop to my domain server (BTW, if anyone is looking for web hosting, i'd highly recommend FlyingPorcupine, which is co-owned by heathwitch)
3) FTP GET images from the server to the desktop.
4) Open images in Photoshop, tweak/resize accordingly.
5) Push images back to web server.

I should just break down and add a USB card to the desktop, but i refuse to move the damn desk again. It'd probably fall apart if i even tried, so it'll probably just wait until i upgrade the machine and/or move.

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Well, today was interesting. damashita is off visiting her "second mom" who's birthday is today and then stopping to see her friend mistress_gaelan on the way back for perspective from someone who's in a successfully functioning polyamorous relationship.
So alexander and i are just hanging out today. He has "allowed" me to get the pictures i wanted to get posted up for public consumption- not necessarily by choice, but as a product of not doing things he's been requested to do before we can do things he wants to do- for example, i told him that he needed to find his knee and elbow pads before we could go skating, and he categorically refused to even look for them. Later he wouldn't get dressed to go outside for a walk, so we stayed inside until he did. So, instead of skating and playing hockey today (which had been a big part of the original plan for the day), we just went for a walk around 5:30, then came home and took wrist shots at the goal (well, primarily i did- from fairly decent range, and he chased the puck, which got him great volumes of running around and will hopefully wear him out enough that he sleeps well tonight). Alexander's as ineffective hitting the net from 5 feet as i am from 40-45, but he's a very enthusiastic retriever.
He's been doing very little other than refusing to do anything he's asked, being openly defiant, and asking a never ending stream of questions to which he's too damn smart to accept "It just is" or "Because i said so" as an answer.
I am so not nearly patient enough to be a stay-at-home parent, and have nothing but the utmost respect for those, like damashita who can do so and still fit in time to practice their professions in the process.
Alexander's just gotten sent to bed. His usual bedtime is 9:30, but he's refused to nap today. I'll let him read for another fifteen or twenty minutes while i try to pick up some of the mess of toys he's strewn all over the living room (which refusal to do earned him his trip to bed).