When my flash went off while taking this photo, I thought: a good candidate for Sepia Scenes. I had to neutralize those red eyes anyway, so while I was in Photoshop, I made the photo sepia (or maybe you could call this brown?).

I then added a bit of color back in by deleting the parts from one layer that I wanted colored. The colored layer underneath then showed.

Here’s the original, yucky, red-eyed shot. I took out the door at left by using the clone stamp.

Just came back from a child-friendly New Year’s party… we toasted 2009 at Greenwich Time, which I now know is 7 pm our time, EST. Do you think my daughter (she’s 6) will go to bed at a reasonable hour?

For more sepia photos, visit Sepia Scenes.

When I first heard about Twitter, as in “you gotta try this”, I signed up and then had no idea what to do. Why would I be interested in following Guy Kawasaki?

One of the bloggers I read said she was on Twitter. So I followed her. As she mostly posts her blog posts there, I didn’t have much reason to check in very often. A little while later Juggling Frogs posted this list:Twit List

And then I had a fun reason to check into Twitter, just to see who of my blogger buddies was online Tweeting something or another.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the terrorist attack in Mumbai that I found a real use for Twitter. One could follow what was happening in Mumbai before or at the same time as the news offices. And get reports from real people, not just whom the media chose to interview.

•   •   •

So I will use the war in Gaza as an example of how one might use Twitter to get information and also to give one’s own viewpoint (and attract followers).

Step One: Sign up and pick a username. If you are a blogger, you may want to use whatever name you associate with your blog. You should also get an identifying user pic (I use my little froggy), because you might stand out a bit more if you have a good picture. You can poke around on Twitter to see what others are using to get some ideas. It doesn’t have to be a photograph of yourself; just something that looks good tiny.

Step Two: Find some people to follow. If you are interested in the news on the Gaza war, you may want to follow these Twitterers:
QassamCount
Muqata
israelconsulate
fromIsrael

One way of finding someone is typing this in your browser: http://twitter.com/muqata
You then get to Muqata’s Twitter page and you can click the “Follow” button.

Step Three: You can find others twittering about Israel by using search.twitter.com. If you type http://search.twitter.com/search?q=israel into your browser, you can find lots of others Tweeting about Israel. You don’t have to follow someone to read their tweets (unless they have them protected).

Step Four: Write some Tweets. Tweets need to be 140 characters or less. It takes getting used to, but you can learn to shorten “you” to “u”, for example. If you want to Tweet a URL, just paste it into your tweet.

Step Five: Get others to follow you. You can’t force anyone to follow you. But if you provide Tweets with valuable information (valuable is relative, we all have different ideas about what’s valuable!), others might find you and decide to follow you. You will probably also find that if you follow others, they might follow you back. No guarantees.

Step Six: Reply to someone. Did someone Tweet something of interest? You can reply publicly by typing an @ sign in front of their username and then write your Tweet. Like this:
@Muqata Thank you for joining Twitter and providing us with updates on Israel.

 

I’m leoraw if you want to follow me on Twitter.

 

Questions? Comments? Ideas about how to improve this post? Ideas about how to use Twitter? All welcome.

A simply written intro to Twitter
Previous post about Twitter Toys

Several bloggers recently wrote some great posts about books they are reading, have read, would like to read:

• Hellibrarian: All Harry, All the Time
• Ilana-Davita: Different Options
• SuperRaizy: What I’m Reading
• Westbankmama: Like Mother Like Daughter (at least in one area)
• Baila: Three Books, Three Reviews
• Mother in Israel: Through the Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong

I recently finished Natan (Antatoly) Sharansky’s Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. Sharansky, born in the Ukraine, was involved in Jewish refusenik activities until his arrest in 1977, when he was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. He was released in 1986 at which time he rejoined his wife in Israel and became involved in Israeli politics. In the book he talks about his years in confinement and how felt fortunate to be able to read the classics while in prison. He found he identified with some of the tragic Greek heroes. The book is quite pro-America and gives a good burst of what is great about America. I found the contrast between his talk at Rutgers several years ago and his talks in Europe a bit scary: when he spoke at Rutgers, he got a pie thrown his face (my husband was actually at that lecture). He then assumed he would have an unsupportive audience, but the Rutgers audience proved to be welcoming (mostly). On the other hand, at a European university he was surprised by the hostile questions he received.

I was reading a biography of Bach to my daughter this morning, because we are now both fans of the Brandenburg Concertos.

I took out a book on the Flu of 1918 and started reading that last night (and the 1918 flu is in the news: Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic). I also started reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, because my son has been reading this series (the series is called The Wheel of Time). It is a fat, fat, fat book, and I don’t know if it will hold my interest long enough for me to read the whole thing.

What’s new on the book scene for you? Anything you would like to read, have read, would recommend for a child?

When the weather gets warm after getting cold, pretty puddles result. I took this photo in Donaldson Park on December 23.

For more watery posts, visit Watery Wednesday.

A photo I took this summer while on our trip in Israel. But the photo needs some explanation.

Unlike in the U.S. where we have friendly Canada to the north and Mexico in the south, Israel is surrounded by unfriendly neighbors. The Jordanian border on the east is the quietest, and some Israelis have even been traveling there. But what you see here is a Hizbullah flag (circled in purple), very close to an Israeli guard station (circled in orange). Just two years ago the North was the scene of an ugly war. My friend who lives in Ma’alot lived in a bomb shelter for a while, but then she and the younger members of her family went down to Beit Shemesh in the center of the country for the remainder of the war.

Now the war is in the South… Hamas, which was elected by the people of Gaza, has chosen to spend the millions it receives in aid to stock weapons and attack southern Israel. While Hizbullah was created by Iran, Hamas now receives much of its weaponry and funding from Iran.

This isn’t supposed to be a political blog, so I won’t be telling who to vote for in the next election. But as I can’t seem to concentrate on what I was thinking of writing about (I thought about writing about how to get my daughter to pick her jacket up from the floor, see what a contrast?).

So I leave you with some links:

• War written by the Sandman, an anesthesiologist in Israel
• Israeli News Ricki’s mom strays from her usual topic of her daughter Ricki, a spunky 14-year-old with Down Syndrome.
• Video: Do You Know How People Live in Sderot from Carl in Jerusalem
• Understanding the Geographical Perspective of Israel (Westbankmama explains how close together everything is in tiny Israel)
• Conflict In Gaza: Primary Sources (Daniel Saunders quotes the Hamas Covenant, which makes it clear Hamas is against Jews, as opposed to saying ‘Zionists’)
• Jack is continuing with his Gaza Round Up: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (many, many more links…)
• A blog by some youth in Ashkelon, under fire (Hebrew)

And then one more pic, so you can enjoy the lush greenery outside the winery:

My World is a meme played by people all over the planet. For more information and to see other places and wonders, visit My World.

This is how Donaldson Park, a large county park on the edge of Highland Park, looked on December 23.

Here’s a similar view taken on December 17.

This is what I saw back on December 12.

Here we are on December 23 again. The park is empty now, except for those birds and an occasionally jogger or walker. But during the warmer months it is alive with ball players, kids in the playground, tennis players, picnickers, people admiring ducks and dogs (there is a little caged dog park). In the past year much construction has been going on in the park so only parts of it are usable. I previously photographed the edge of the park that borders on the river; in that photo, the foliage is at its peak.