Serendipity

Yesterday morning, I was reading my forum where we talk about a live safari in South Africa... as we do when times are slow, we branch out into other topics of discussion- depending on who is "on" and where  our interests lie.  "Lily", a lady from Canada, posted a link to the National Geographic's new Birding page on their website.  As birds are also an interest of mine, I took a look at her link. 

This is "Lily's" posting:  "A national geographic page with so many amazing bird pics --- hope it works
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/bird-photos?source=email_photo".  Interesting, so I kept looking at the website until I clicked on this link: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/ and about fell out of my chair!  THAT WAS MY PHOTO ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS' WEBSITE!!  The Mandarin drake (multi colored duck) was taken at the San Diego Zoo on our very first visit to the zoo. 

I was shocked. I was flabbergasted. I was tickled. I was now running on 100% adreneline! It took me a few minutes to recall that I had indeed downloaded that photo to the website in a photo contest (which I have no idea if I won or not... but doubt it) a couple of months ago... and promptly forgot about it! I only downloaded the one photo.  I guess by the National Geographic using my photograph on their website justifies my original thought that it was a decent photograph!

My first call was to my Dad... who wasn't home. He was at work and it about killed me to have to wait another couple of hours to tell him about it! So, in the meantime, I told everyone else! Buzz kill. Out of everyone I know, only one other person seemed to be as happy, excited and in general as "blown away" as I was. From my family, I got 1 email from my brother- I emailed all immediate family members with email; texted my sister that doesn't have email.  From FB, I got congrats from several High School friends I haven't seen in decades, and 1 congrats from my "ex" sister-in-law.

When I did talk to my Dad, he was genuienly happy for me, but was more worried about my having a photo credit than the fact that were using my photo on their website.  Yes, not as great an honor as having your photograph actually IN the National Geographic, but being used on their website wasn't shabby either!

Later in the day, I got a couple of emails from "Lily" explaining how she found the link to begin with.  Seems she is signed up to get an email copy of their "Inside National Geographic" newsletter and they used the photo on the newsletter.  She was so taken by the photo, that she sent it to her daughter. After posting the link in our forum, that was how she found out it was my photograph. 

Serendipity.  Yes, I like that! 

Reconnecting

I've been on Facebook for a couple of years now. It's been great reconnecting with friends from High School and grade school.  Mostly, they are the same people I went to school with my entire school career as I lived in the same house for all those years.  As a matter of fact, my parents still live there!

But catching up with kids from the old neighborhood and the school yard brings back many memories that I haven't thought about in years. Some of these memories are funny, some not so funny. Some of the neighborhood kids I'm reconnecting with now were younger than me when we all lived in the old neighborhood and other than knowing that they were "so and so's little brother/sister", I didn't really know them very well. 

By being friends on Facebook with them, I'm learning to know them in a whole new way... and sometimes it falls in line with my memories of them, and sometimes, it just blows those memories right out of the water!  One that I am thinking of right now has got a huge sense of humor and from what I can tell, we could/would be very good friends in real time.  Things in her life haven't gone the way she expected, but she's weathered it all and has come out the other side of all her problems very stable, loving, and kept her sense of humor alive.

We have a lot of the same interests, a lot of the same experiences, have visited the same locations, share the same type of outlook on life and have close ties with our families.  I do look forward to meeting her again when we move back home and I hope that we can become the friends that age and circumstance didn't let us have when we were younger.

It's Been A While

As far as I know, I have no followers on this blog, but it is sometimes therapeutic to just write to get it out. Not that much has been happening around here. I've been out with my camera a couple of times. The most recent outing was to the Santa Anita Race Track. What fun that was! I read about Santa Anita back when I was in 5th grade when I read the book, "Seabiscuit". It sounded so magical back then.  And it was!

We took the underground tunnel out to the infield when we first went inside, so my first view of the stadium stands was from the infield. It was awesome! Of course I saw it from the outside in the parking lot, but I didn't get to see the track until we got to the infield.

I took photos of almost everything, including the vintage MG Midget cars that they had on display at the end of the infield.  Then I was asked to leave because it was a private party! The tweed driving caps, the tweed jackets and the ladies all dressed in period dresses should have given it away... me in my jeans and sweatshirt sort stood out!  The lady that asked me to leave was rather nice, if not snooty about it.  I just told her I wasn't aware that it was a private party and that nobody had said anything when I came thru the gate. Oh well!  The horses were much more enjoyable!

After about the fifth race, I realized where I needed to be in order to get some decent photos. Heading that way, I was very pleased with the resulting photos. 

I am looking forward to the next season of racing.  Next weekend is the final race weekend for the season. At least I made it there this year!