TSA, Trouble Serving America

It was hotter than heck in New York this past week. I took a ton of photos, none of which are very impressive, but here are some hidden treasures in Central Park.

I bought a new lens yesterday. I'm very excited about it. My old zoom has just not been performing to the way it used to and had already had my lenses in the shop. I was either switching everything over to Nikon, or giving a new lens a shot. Excuse the pun.

It's actually not new, but a used lens. Canon EF 80-200mm.

The only negative that I see so far is the weight of the lens. It is one heavy appendage. I won't be flinging this one over my shoulder. And dropping it? Yikes, I could break concrete with it.

So that brings me to an interesting TSA story. Come to find out, you are not allowed to carry weights onto a plane that weigh more than 2 1/2 pounds each. My daughter wanted to continue her weight training during our trip, so she brought her hand weights with her. At LAX, as we went through the scanners, the weights triggered a luggage search of her carry-on. They found them, looked at them, and said they were fine. They were 5 pounds each. (Yes, my daughter carted 10 pounds of weights to New York) On the return, I told her to just take them out and put them in the bin with her shoes so they wouldn't have to do a search. Well, that didn't go well. This power hungry jerk grabbed them and said they couldn't go, quickly demanded that she follow him as he was walking out of the scanning area. It all happened so fast and she had a panicked look. I leaped into action and called to the man. "Excuse me" wouldn't get him to turn around or even give me the time of day. First of all, he had no idea of how old she was. How dare he just take MY kid. NO WAY! He wouldn't speak. Wouldn't say where he was going, what he was doing, nothing. So-- I made her stay there and I followed. No one is allowed to just demand that my kid follow them. Sorry folks. Mother Bear is here. As he was all in his huff and stuff, he handed me the weights and said they couldn't come on the plane. I knew it was worthless to try with him so I asked for a supervisor. He just walked away. Another TSA guy flagged me over and said to just put them through again. That it was fine. Oh, OK. lol That created this other power hungry woman (very vocal) to go nuts. "Not on my shift!" lol

I finally got a supervisor to come over. She was so willing to listen and discuss the issue. She gave me a solution and had one of her people (not the jerk or the vocalist) stay with me through the process to get them checked in. However, he didn't stay with me long enough and as I walked back in, (only shoes/wallet in bin), I got body searched. I got yelled at for trying to take my wallet out of the bin so it sat there until I mentioned I didn't want it stolen. She ran the pad that she patted me down with through the machine to make sure I didn't have any explosive residue on me and I was done. Her words: "You're done". No thank you for the pat down, no thanks for patience and understanding. No hug or kiss for the tender moment I had to endure being touched by another human-being other than my husband. I think these TSA people need to be trained better. I have a serious problem with them.

My observation is that they are minimum wage employees and aren't required to have continued education. I don't know, but give a minimalist power, and you get TSA employees. It wouldn't have taken much to have a dialog. Regardless of how many times they have to say, no liquids, no this, no that, that is their job. That's what they're paid to do. So if they have a problem, they're in the wrong job. Be nice TSA people. Oh-- by the way, the TSA who said it's OK, run them through again, he got reprimanded. Just wait (weight) till I bring my new lens through. LOL. It weighs much more. Yes people, I won't be able to hit anyone over the head with a five pound hand weight, but my lens?? Yes. None of it makes any sense to me.

Go Pro or Go Home

I thought I would post some of my son's photos from his last few mornings at 17th street in HB and the Wedge in Newport. He wears a "Go-Pro" on his head and then begins shooting. He says one of the down falls of the Go-Pro is that he can't take the photo when he wants to. He sets it to begin shooting and it takes a still pic every so many seconds. There are times when he misses the shot he wished he could have gotten. His videos are hysterical. I love to watch them. He gets pounded by the wave and then he comes up, swipes the lens, takes it off, points it at himself and then gives some crazy smirk into the camera. I think I need to buy him a good underwater camera. (with a buoy on it!) He loves taking photos. Imagine that!

Not sure which direction he was in these!

Deb's Art Blog Header

This week I was given the job of changing out a few things on my sister's blog. She wanted to give it a fresh new look so we took off the doggy header and I added in a gator header. I was able to use her art from one of her new releases "Underpants Thunderpants!" published by Parragon. On one of the spreads is this adorable gator with a monkey hiding behind a pair of boxers in a tree. Click here to see the book. I thought it would be cute to have him eating her blogging words. My what big teeth - Better go eat!

Deb's Art Blog

July Brings June Bugs?

Here is a sample of a calendar page that I did for a client this last month. It is so fun to do different things. Last week I was in San Fran (with my artist rep. hat on) assisting my sister in her studio. She has been offered a phenomenal children's book job from a client that we sent her marketing info to last year. I can't spill the beans yet as the contract has not been signed. And I'll let her do that. Three of her new children's books are out. Check it out here!

http://debmelmonstudio.com/

http://blogdebsart.blogspot.com/

I'm very proud of her.

And my other sister and I set up a wedding on Sunday at the Strawberry Farms in Irvine. Transformed the bathrooms from sterile to stylish and the check-in table made you look for sure!! Fun times. We always seem to laugh at something. Mostly ourselves.

PS: Yesterday we had all the doors open. There were at least a dozen June bugs flying around later that night. All trying to get into the television screen. Don't go to the light!!! Anyhow, we've re-named them "July Bugs".

School's Out for Summer!

What a busy week! Celebrations galore.

Sunday: Mags was awarded her gold award from Girl Scouts. Monday was their final Girl Scout get together. I think 11 out of the 14 received their gold award. They all were in the honors programs and were 3.6 or higher and for many of them, 4.0 and above. All of them college bound and a very impressive list of schools. I'm especially proud of them as I was able to be the girl scout leader for some back when they were daisies - in Kindergarten.

Thursday were the graduations: My youngest graduated middle school at 2pm and my oldest from high school at 4pm. It was a whirlwind day. A quick version: Deliver large wooden compasses, (painted this week - see below), clean house, drop mom, park car, run 6 blocks in heals, find saved seats, realize missed my kid being announced, my watch had stopped.... oops.

Find kid, race to car, drop mom & kid, park car, walk to stadium, hunt for hub & son, call cell--no answer 4 times, find hub, grad starts, wave of emotion as I see my baby walking in graduation cap all smiles.

Wow did eighteen years go by fast.

So did the day. Next? - Grad Night. Back to school 8pm.

PLAY BALL!

Photo shoot at Blair Field for a Long Beach State baseball game. Dirtbags vs Matadors. I love Long Beach. Born and raised there. Love the people - love the community. I can remember years ago driving into the OC for work and having to change my thought process. Now that I live there, I'm used to it. ((to some degree)) What is the difference? I would say that people are guarded within the stereotypical OC. I remember a woman in Newport referring to lower levels of society as "grocery store people". That made me disgusted. From then on I referred to myself as a grocery store person. I like grocery store people. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of wonderful people that live in the OC. Plenty. It's just the few ugly ones that bring it down. And obviously you know I mean ugly as in ugly on the inside. Beauty is as beauty does. It always floors me when I walk into an upscale shop and the sales clerk looks down to me. Really? Let's take away the reality that I don't have the money anyhow to purchase anything, who is working and who is "potentially" buying?

Oh don't get me started... Let's Play Ball!

Wilson High School has some great graffiti. Would love to shoot this from up above and have subjects laying all over it.

Natural Beauty

Natural Beauty in the OC is in!

This location is just up the street and lends to some lovely backgrounds.

There is so much beauty in this world- - just have to take your lens cap off.

Got Pipes?

There is something intriguing about all the pipes that makes me keep going back to this location. I am one of those that likes junk, I guess. These two are sisters. They are kind and gentle souls. Both very bright, articulate, and have the world at their fingertips.

"Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship."

- Margaret Mead

In my family, there are three sisters. I would say that we are very competitive with each other. I never knew I was, but now, it has really become a game. I know I will never be better than my sisters, but I love the challenge. (And it keeps them on their toes!)

Got an Itch?

How does one scratch an itch with hooves?

We were invited to a party held at the Rocking Horse Ranch in Huntington Beach. I knew where the equestrian area was, but this ranch was one I was not familiar with. However, give me animals and it's my kind of party!

A fabulous ranch party with wonderful people, great barbecue, fabulous hosts, staff, and residents. We were able to spend lots of time with the horses and were given a horse show with some of the owners horses. (Will post those on another day.) We realized that we knew the owners. Our kids were friends in pre-school and though they went to different schools later, we we would run in to them here and there. The owner said that it was because of us that he had the ranch. Wait, what? ??

We had invited them to Mag's fifth birthday party. We had pony rides. And it was at our party that his girls fell in love with horses. He had been raised on a ranch and seeing their love of horses made their own ranch a reality. (One of the daughters designed their logo.) So, again, he said it was because of us. In my usual flair, I asked where our piece of the pie was. lol Don't let me tell you where he said it was! :@)

This last photo is from the birthday party back in 1997.

These two lambies were only interested in the grass.

Blessings

This was and has been a very busy week! On Mother's Day my oldest came walking up to me with a tearful face and asked me to come into her room to look at something. I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. An email came through that stated her acceptance into college had been withdrawn due to a form not received. Oh my! I usually don't cry, but I was tired. I lost it. All I could do was to start making phone calls and send out a prayer request. I prayed specifically for compassion, understanding and if this college was where she was NOT supposed to be, for God to close the door. And to close it in an obvious way. I'm not the brightest bulb so I needed it to be an obvious closure. I began calling the college and being a Sunday, no one was there. I couldn't let it go so I called the library. When the automatic answering machine came to the part where it said, "If you are on a rotary phone, hang on and we'll connect you to an operator" I hung on. This is where I knew God had his hand on my shoulder. He is my rotary phone. A young woman answered and I quickly explained that I knew she couldn't do anything but I was in a panic and a mom who was about to be sick to her stomach. She was compassionate and understanding. I was blown away. A girl only a few years older than my own daughter was listening, understanding my fear, and gave me the best advise. She said, "You need to come in. Don't just call because they will have a lot of people calling. Best to come in person." So that was it. My hub and I made arrangements for the kids in the morning and off we left at 7AM.

Every person that we had any contact with that morning was compassionate and understanding. Even if they didn't know why we were at the school, their actions or reactions were both of those. At the end of our visit, the admissions person to whom we were speaking with handed me his business card. He said, "If you have any other problems or concerns, please call me direct."

At home my daughter asked if it was all taken care of and we told her that she would get an email letting her know the results. I did however tell her that the door gave me his business card so rest assured this is the place where God wants her to be.

Two days later she got the assurance. That morning we thanked God again. And we gave her the college sweatshirt that we had purchased the morning of our visit. Go Broncos! Go God!~

Mother's Day 2011

Yesterday I took this lovely young lady out for a photo shoot in a nearby field. She had 270 photos to choose from as a gift to her mother for mother's day. There were so many to pick from. She is not only beautiful, but she can give different looks in the camera from one to the next. There were some that if I hadn't taken the shot I would have thought it was a different day. We had fun and even more, had fun knowing that her mom would be completely surprised. Now that is fun!

Happy Mother's Day.

If it hadn't been for your mother, you wouldn't be reading this post.

And to my mom; if by chance you get on your computer this week,

I love you to the moon and back.

Spring Has Sprung!

This week has been very busy. Worked a wedding at the Strawberry Farms in Irvine. What a lovely venue for a wedding! It truly is a gorgeous place to get married at. Here is just one photo from it. I used this photo to create a bridal shower invitation for another client. She is giving a shower with the sunflower theme and in colors yellow, orange and green. I took this photo and tweaked it many different ways.

Below are two drafts of what I ended up with. I love taking photos and working them into pieces of art. These are 7x7 invitations that will have the envelope fold around them. I am using this top one as the invite for the shower as the bride to be is young, however, I really like the bottom one. How about you??

Check out more of my Strawberry Farm photos here:

http://sherricassaradesigns.blogspot.com/2011/05/strawberry-farms-wedding.html