I ‘follow’ my own blog (someone has to) if for no other reason than to be able to see what others see when it launches to the net. Sort of a quality control procedure I suppose. I rarely find anything wrong although with a little help from my old business associate Andrew in Australia I did learn that I had the settings for photo display set incorrectly and that anytime I posted a pic from my iPhone it was displaying in a very tiny pixel framework. It had nothing to do with the iPhone, which delivers excellent quality with its camera, but with my ignorance. After I got over the mental rant against WordPress and set about to research the issue I was able to make the necessary corrections. Then I had to mentally apologize to WordPress. Strange things rattle ’round inside my head at times – an alternate reality that hopefully will never see the light of day. Perhaps some of you can identify with that. Oh, and thank you Andrew! And just so you know I have been looking into making another trip downunder if I can figure out how to fit a month or so into my budget. Might finally have to get serious about my connection with CouchSurfing and AirBnB.
Something I did notice all too often when I checked my site was the inclusion of an ad at the bottom that WP claimed was necessary to help offset the expense of providing free siting. I did not like it but wasn’t disgruntled enough to fork over the extra dough to make it go away. Then I noticed I was getting all those links you see connected with various places like HuffPost and OutsideMagazine with the come-on titles and scantily clad models. I have nothing against scantily clad models mind you – but just not on my site.
So, I gave in last night and upgraded to the Big Kahuna package, which is why you’ll be receiving this from richardbegone.com instead of from richardbegone.wordpress.com. Hopefully this will not disappoint those of you who might have been dropping in for the prurient trimmings that will no longer be availble. As consolation I will try to occasionally find a model or two of my own whose images can be offered up. Problem with me there is I rarely shoot anything (other than dogs) that either breathes or moves. And dead models are of little interest to anyone outside a mortuary. We’ll see. I’m going on a photo-walk tomorrow in downtown LA; maybe something interesting will pop-up.
This will be my second Google+ Photographers’ ‘walk’. The last was in San Francisco on the 14th April. I don’t think I posted anything from that walk here on the blog other than an iPhone shot of Rodeo Beach on the Marin Headlands and an errant Street Car on Polk.
I’ll make up for that now.
The start of the walk at Marina and Scott about 1400 hours:
The walk leaders, Dave Powell (r) and Chris Cabot: Dave was visiting from Tokyo where he lives and works. Chris works locally for Google.
Some of the folk who joined in for the event:
“Accidental” Models along the way:
The Post-walk Camera Throw at the pizza place:
And last but far from least from my perspective my finally being able to get a couple of decent night shots of the Golden Gate Bridge – to add to the gazillion other shots that have been made but with my prints on the image.
And then it was over:
Ok, not quite. I loved this dog-chases-ball series so I’m tacking it on:
RichardBeGone 
I am very excited to hear you are finally think of visiting Oz. You are always welcome to our spare bedroom, if you hurry there may also be a car (trying to sell the old one with little luck so far).
Andrew
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Andrew you’re too kind but I’ll certainly take you up on the accommodations. I suspect (hope) the car will be gone by the time I think I can get there in the Dec ’13 Jan ’14 timeframe. Anyway, I’d have to take lessons for driving on the Aussie (wrong) side of the road. I have to research this particular journey. I have a habit of dawdling round on many of my trips assuming whatever I miss I’ll get the next time. This is one of those trips for which there might not be a next time – OMG! I actually need a plan!
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I, too, am trying to find a way to do an extended stay in the land down under and here is what I am looking into: house sitting. Theres lot of sites on the web and this seems to be very popular in Oz. Just an idea. Now if the plane fare wasn’t so high…..
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You know Teri I had a friend from Virginia do a variation on this last year. In his case it was a house swap with some people in Perth who wanted to spend time in Washington, DC and its environs. They arranged to swap houses and cars no less. My friend and his wife were on the road for six months all told but spent two of those months in Oz. As it turned out the people they had made the arrangements with could not make the trip. Fortunately they had some local rental property – and a spare car! – and honored the deal anyway.
There’s probably some program that works. I’m researching and will eventually repot what I found and what I plan to do. December – January looks like a good period. Of course last year I was going to spend Dec-Jan in Baja and never made it. Became too enthralled with LA. Perhaps by the end f this year the novelty will have wore thinner.
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I was in Brisbane/Canberra & Sydney in November. The weather was nice for most of it (just a bit of rain at the end). December-January would be full on summer and hot! Of course it would depend on where you are going in Oz. Really for me finding a place to stay isn’t the biggest issue because I have friends and family there it is the getting around once I am in country. Learning to drive on the left side of the road would definitely be a challenge. It took me a while to get used to being a passenger. I kept feeling like we were going the wrong way. Hee,hee. My issue though and if I want to go bad enough, I will work through it.
Right now I am looking forward to retirement (June 8). I will be heading for Virginia to visit friends and then who knows where. There is so much to see in this country. Hopefully it will work out for me to do traveling (and house sitting) around the U.S.
So you really like L.A? I’ve only been there once, and it was so big and busy. But I can’t judge a place by one visit. Maybe I need to give it another chance. One thing I can so for sure is that the International Airport there is anything but easy and friendly! I flew back through Dallas and had a much more pleasant experience.
Sorry for going on so long. The flood gates just opened when I started typing. Be well, Richard Harrison!
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