Warhol

Jb is taking a Photoshop class in school. Her assignment this weekend is to take a photo of herself, and use Photoshop to replicate her photo into a "painting" by a famous artist. She was assigned Andy Warhol.  I decided I wanted to play, too, so had her walk me through the various steps. It turns out this was a bit of a project as EACH layer must be mapped and recolored for each image. It took us pretty much ALL day! But I am super pleased with our results, and I had the greatest time having her teach me some new Photoshop techniques.

The original photograph

Andy Warhol's painting I was trying to copy.

This is the first image map I made. By image map, I mean there is an individual layer for the skin, hair, eyes, lips, shadows and background colors.

From here, I had to recolor each layer, multiple times. Here is my finished product. 

What ya think?

Clarke Taylor Memorial

Losing a loved one is always hard. I didn't know my Uncle Clarke very well, In fact, there were a lot of things written in his obituary that I didn't know about him. I didn't know that his knick-name was Corkie. I did know that he loved Moab and his family, and that he a sense of humor as dry as the Moab sand, a Taylor family trait. I know that my Mom and Dad did a great job under sad circumstances in helping to find the venue and helping Mia and Jason to plan his memorial, and I am proud of them and their efforts.  I enjoyed seeing some of my Aunts/Uncles/Cousins again, and for those that were not able to attend, I shot a few pictures. A special thanks to Aunt Peggy for "holding my hand" as we took pictures of the casket together. Clarke would have laughed at us, and we were glad he didn't sit up and holler "boo," though we wouldn't have been all that surprised if he had.
God Bless you Corkie, See ya on the flip-side.
For more photos, click here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tlcbull/sets/72157647464415729/

Salt Lake City Comicon 2014

For more photos, click here

Then/Now

Then:




Now:

Where's the rest?

I have received a few comments lately about not posting a ton of Japanese photos on Facebook, or here, or otherwise. Where's the rest of the photos? I was asked this yet again on Saturday, and decided I'd better explain why I have not posted more images.... and why I'm not going to post anymore here, or there, or anywhere.
JB and I came home from Japan, and after staying two weeks with our Japanese Hosts, it was our turn to show them around Utah and surrounding areas for two weeks. We went to Yellowstone, and Jackson, and Park City, and Salt Lake. We had a marvelous time, made a lot of memories and of course I took a ton of photos. We dropped our Japanese guests off at the airport on August 14, came home to a fairly neglected house, garden, and dog. Fatdog's nails hadn't been trimmed for quite some time, so the morning of the 15th I took her to Petsmart for her pedicure. She has had her nails trimmed there since she was a pup, and usually by the same lady (we will call her DM) who trimmed Rosie's nails, and any way we have known this woman for going on 6 years. So I asked DM how her summer was going, and she proceeded to tell me how her 15 year old daughter who had been diagnosed with a mental health disorder a few years ago had decided it's OK to stop her medication, had attempted suicide, had been in and out of treatment for the last 5 weeks, had racked up over $40K in hospital/mental health facility bills in the last 2 weeks, and she has no idea how she's going to pay it because she is the primary worker in her family and her main source of income is working part time as a groomer at Petsmart. She also told me her daughter began attacking family members and she had to call the police to have her daughter arrested, and so forth. After about 20 minutes of  listening to a heart felt, emotion filled scouring of her soul, she tearfully asked if I did anything fun over the summer. I didn't know how to answer. I stammered something about hanging out with a few friends, and quickly changed the subject. It just seemed like bragging to say "Ummm, yeah, my 14 year old, beautiful, healthy daughter and I took off traveling the world and eating great food and just had the trip of a lifetime for the last month, and it was OK because my husband has a really great job so the process of saving money for a year to afford the cost wasn't that big of a deal, and now my awesome, brilliant, kid is starting school at one of the most prestigious high schools in the state..."
Anyway, the experience completely sucked the wind from my sails, and I have no desire to post anymore pictures of my travels. I do however still back them up to Flickr. So, if you really want to see them, you can find them here:
Photos of Japanese Adventure: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tlcbull/sets/72157646112037901/
Photos of American Adventure: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tlcbull/sets/72157646477359110/

And if you have any prayers available, DM and her family could certainly use them.

About the "facilities"

One thing we quickly learned in Japan, was that the restrooms are very different from those in America. For starters, the toilet is seldom in the same room as where you bathe. The toilet room is called the "toilet" and the "bathroom" is where you take a bath. Very logical. The toilets themselves, however, were a bit of a mystery to us. In Nobu's home, the toilet looked like this....

Fairly straight forward, right? But to flush it, you used the electric switch mounted on the wall.

You would push one of the top buttons for light use, and the other top button for heavier use. Then you could choose multiple washing cycles, which would spray some water onto your backside in different locations, and you could adjust the temperature and intensity of the spray. The reddish button turned the spray of choice off when you were finished.

A small hand sink for washing up, but not to be used for brushing your teeth, because tooth washing was reserved for the larger sink downstairs in the bathroom, where you wash.

Sometimes in public restrooms, the controls for flushing the toilet were on an arm rest of the toilet. Many of the facilities in the public bathrooms would create an electronic flushing noise when you entered the stall. My guess was this is used to prevent anyone from hearing you go about your business. On one occasion we found a toilet where you could choose from 3 different songs to play while you were doing your thing.

Sometimes the flushing was done with a button on the wall, sometimes it was a light that you held your hand over, and on one rare occasion, it took me about 5 minutes of searching through the stall to discover an actual handle on the side of the toilet tank that flushed just like one in the U.S. 

As for this....

Nope. Didn't even try. A person's gotta know their limits.

It's good luck or it'snot.

Another moment of triumph. ..To understand this fully you need to know I have a terrible fear of tight spaces. Today Nobu took us to see one of the world's largest Buddha shrines. Inside there is a large pillar with a hole carved into representing the nose hole of the Buddha. To climb through the hole is good luck.  I decided I would give it a try but was beginning to freak out as I watched people wriggling through. I about decided not to even try.  But in the spirit of "No regrets" I was able to force away the fear, took a deep breath and dove in. My fear must have been apparent because once I got through,  everyone waiting in line applauded my efforts.  Rei (Nobu's eldest daughter) was even approached by a random stranger who asked her if I was married. HA!

JB exits the nose hole