How stupid is OJ? Hmmmm, that could take a while to list! Britney is certifiable at this point. Can you say "lay low for a while?" Geeze, these people don't know when to go run and hide! I'd have jumped in the nearest hole if I had any of the trouble those goof balls have had! I don't know if I blame the parents after they become of age. I think each of us has that inner voice that jumps up and screams "This is a baaaaad idea!". They just drink and drug too much to hear it.

My box from Jules arrived! Sorry for the delay in posting, we cleaned the garage this weekend! OMG can the junk accumulate! We also cleaned all the windows outside! I'm really tired! Back to the box, Jules sent~ A cute broom pen! Bag of fall harvest mellowcremes, Cowboy cookie mix (in a glass jar), deck plant stilts (so that the pot doesn't sit on the wood), cute pumpkin socks. And BULBS.. Hyacinth "City of Harlem", Daffs "Salome", Dutch Iris "Symphony", Dutch Iris "Bronze Queen", Allium "Bulgaricum", Dutch Iris "Professor Blaauw". Plus, a gardening CD! Thanks so much Klick for such a nice box! The bulbs are going in the ground tomorrow! I love everything you sent! Deb

Great pics Kristen! Just beautiful. I wanted to go out and get some pics this past weekend, but just never had the time. Micke - I'll have to go hunt down the notebook and see if those are indeed some of the daylilies I have, LoL. Maybe I should post all my "I forgot" or "tags washed off" daylilies, smiles! Deb - Thanks to you, LoL, I am now addicted to AVs. Can't get enough. Gesneriads (sp?) of all kinds actually. Thank you for the pamplet (sp?) Deb. I learned quite a bit from that. You should see my cuttings ghetto, HA! I have anything I can get my hands on rooting. Will help to make the winter go by quicker. That and WSing. Washed some jugs out this weekend. My poor kitchen looks like a greenhouse at the moment. Too much to do, and not enough time to do it in.........argh!!! Marryanne - Consider the phlox yours. I have enough from all of them to share I do believe. I want to get some more of the variegated varieties. I have seeds for Red Ridinghood that I am going to WS this year. Hope they bloom true. Well, off ot the garden to get some bulbs in before the winds decide to carry me away. Keep the pics coming!!!! Tina

I always shoot full manual for night photos with a tripod, now I have a remote to help reduce tripod vibrations from pressing on the button, should go further and use mirror lockup (MLU), but haven't. The easiest way to start would be to find a photo you like that you took in night portrait mode and look at the exif (you need to find the shutter speed and aperture). I would turn off the flash and use a longer shutter speed to compensate, you will kind of have to guess and watch your lcd. If you don't have an exif viewer, I downloaded a freebie a few years back which is very helpful, don't know if it is still available, but you can go to windows explorer, navigate to the photo, right click on the photo, click properties, click on the summary tab you see at the top, if it says advanced, click on that, and all your info should come up. If the tab on the bottom says simple, click on it to get advanced. For 4th of July, I pre-focussed before it got dark, then switched over to manual without moving my camera, used ISO 100 to keep the noise down. I've got one that turned out ok using f8 at 1 sec. This one isn't all that great, but I shot it at f8 for 10 sec. Most of them at least turned out, some better than others. The problem might be focussing in low light. Sometimes you have to use manual focus and do it yourself however your camera works for that, mine has a focus ring. I don't know if your AF will work or not, depending on the lighting of the scene, might as well try. The only way to learn to shoot night shots is to start practicing. I messed up a bunch before I got any good ones. To get the twinkle light effect, choose an aperture around f9, and adjust the shutter speed accordingly, 10 seconds us usually a little too long, try a bunch of different shutter speeds down to 1 sec, you can always delete them later. You can always try your night scene mode first, but normally you can't get them if you try to hand hold the camera. If you don't have a tripod, you can set the camera on a bag of beans on a stool or whatever you have and use the timer.