Cow Parade...Coming Soon!

Before I left San Diego, I spent a day (in different segments) with my mom going around La Jolla taking photos of the Cow Parade Art Exhibit. You can read more about it here (http://www.cowparadelajolla.com/).

It's something that's taken places in other cities before, but it's new to San Diego (the exhibit runs from March 15 through June 15). Basically, 40 local artists got blank white cow statues that they were able to alter to fit their vision. Each cow is sponsored by a local business as well. At the end of the exhibition, the cows will be auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charity. I have a few favorites, but nowhere to put them, so I won't be bidding, but I enjoyed photographing the ones I was able to get to this time around :-)

I took a ton of photos, and this week is insanely busy for me, but I'm posting to say I will have them up hopefully sometime this weekend! Stay tuned for my Cow Photography Parade...

Ranch of the Dancing Wolves Photos

Here are some photos I took on Memorial Day at my Uncle's Ranch, which he and my aunt call The Ranch of the Dancing Wolves, on Palomar Mountain. He passed away back in December, and my aunt invited friends, students, and relatives to the Ranch for a memorial to him. It was held in one of his favorite spots, among the Oak Trees.

R2D2 Mailboxes!

Can you believe it's the 30 year anniversary of the first Star Wars movie? Wow, I'm getting old.

To celebrate the anniversary, the USPS is doing some cool things including issuing commemorative stamps, selling prepaid (of course!) Express Mail envelopes, and replacing some of the usual mailboxes with R2D2 mailboxes.

I haven't had much time to take photos recently. My hard drive is so full, I don't have much room for them on my computer anyway! After hearing about the R2D2 mailboxes, though, I just couldn't resist.

There are only 3 in the San Diego area and all are in busy areas, but I was able to get some photos without getting run over. The only down side is all the gunk in the background. Anyway, below are my photos from the Downtown mailbox and one of the Mission Valley ones.

I had more room to move at the Downtown location, but there were a lot of people walking by and then there was the homeless man camped out right across from it. Some of the Mission Valley shots are a bit distorted because I had to use my wide angle lens to avoid getting run over:P The lighting wasn't quite what I hoped for, but I had to work around my insane schedule.

Downtown

Mission Valley

For information on locations of an R2D2 mailbox near you, you can check out these sites:

Article with Original List of Cities (San Diego isn't on this list, so who knows how accurate it is...)
Frappr Map with Actual Sightings
Other News Article
USPS Jedi Master Site

Photo Memorial

I haven't really talked about it much, but my uncle passed away just over a week ago. He had throat cancer back when I was in college, but beat it (with some lingering non-cancer related health issues due to the radiation that wiped out the cancer). It came back with a vengence just recently and the doctors couldn't do much.

Anyway, I'm posting some photos I took around campus at San Diego State as a tribute. He was a professor there and just recently retired (just before I started teaching there!)

A Few Balboa Park Photos

I haven't really taken the time to go and seriously take photos out at Balboa Park. It's a place where a lot of people take photos; maybe that's why...I like to be a bit more unique:)

Anyway, I went to a craft fair with my mom a few months ago and took a couple of photos I thought I'd share. Most didn't turn out so well since it was the wrong time of day (it was too bright) and there were too many people around walking in and out of the shots.

I posted my last grades tonight and I just have to drop some stuff off tomorrow at school and then I will officially be on break! Of course, I still have things to do to prepare for next semester, but I won't be teaching daily...

More posts soon:)