Macro Monday: Beschorneria yuccoides (Mexican False Red Yucca)

Macro Monday for 9-7-09 http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/

When Ed proposed Macro photos, I have not attempted taking these photos. At the same time, my daughter D suggested I take them. I started experimenting, and wasn't very successful.

The Bird of Paradise was quite satisfactory.

This flower I took looked like a giant aloe. Sorry I don't know it's name. I will post more photos showing the entire plant.

Update: 14 sept: I found the name, it is Beschorneria yuccoides or a false Mexician Yucca.

lophophora.blogspot.com and http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/html/P4186126.html

It is so satisfying solving this.

Sunday Stills: Rule of the thirds

http://sundaystills.wordpress.com/Sunday Stills, the next challenge: Rule of thirds
Posted in Sunday Stills Challenge of the Week, the next challenge with tags Sunday Stills Challenge on August 31, 2009 by Ed

As any good photographer can tell you the subject, unless macro should be in the top or bottom third of your viewfinder or the right or left third. so this weeks challenge is to use the rule of thirds. Any subject will do, just make sure it is either in the top or bottom or left or right of the picture.

Example: if shooting the sky have the horizon at the bottom of the pic, if shooting a horse pic have it off to the right or left with a pasture filling the screen. It just takes practice since we all tend to center the subject.

Have a great week…Ed

This is a great advice, I did not know this, I find that if I had taken photos of the sky, I have accidentally followed the one thirds rule. Well,almost. Thank you Ed, next time I am out taking photos, I will remember this rule.

Muslim Head dress

http://annkschin.blogspot.com/2009/01/muslim-dress.html

When I wrote the article I posted in January, the controversy happened in USA. Should people of a minority group wear clothes that make them stick up like a sore thumb?

I grew up in Sarawak which became part of Malaysia. Malaysia protrays herself as a moderate muslim country. Most Malay Muslim ladies wear a head dress, which cover the head but exposes the face. Occasionally I see burqas, which has a slit for the eyes. The rest of the body is fully covered.

I have had Muslim students who come in a head dress. I also have mothers who come to school to pick up their kids in burqas. Many of these women have come to live in New Zealand.

How people dress is a personal choice. Should we impose our beliefs on them? I am an ethnic Chinese. My people, my great grand dad left China about one hundred years ago. Bearly two generations have passed, my mum stopped wearing Chinese clothes. I have been asked why I don't wear Chinese clothes. Well, besdes not having a sexy body to wear the sexy Chinese Chiong Sum or Chee Pau, it never occured to me to wear a Chinese dress. On special occasions, I had worn a fusion of my Chinese heritage and a Sarong, the dress of the Borneo, the place I was born. During my last trip tp Borneo, I bought a very nice Borneo top to wear on very special occasion. While I have been a New Zealander for two decades, I am also a daughter of Borneo.

Recently, we have a case where a muslim woman was asked to remove her head dress when she went to court to watch her brother. It caused a lot of talk back. Most people think she shouldn't have been allowed to wear her head dress. But this is what happened later:

Muslim's barring a mistake, says judge
4:00AM Friday Sep 04, 2009

Yasmeen Ali
Related links:
Muslim woman furious at courtroom ban

New Zealand courts do not discriminate against Muslims, says Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson.

Yasmeen Ali was barred from entering a Hastings District Court courtroom on Wednesday by Judge Geoff Rea because she refused to take off her headscarf.

She had gone to court to support her brother, also a Muslim, who was being sentenced on an assault charge.

Judge Johnson said the judge had barred Ms Ali as a result of a misunderstanding and the public could be reassured judges were sensitive to Bill of Rights provisions against discrimination.

"The judge's information was that she was protesting against the court, which had just previously required the removal of her brother from the courtroom."

Judges had the power to remove people from their courtrooms for being disruptive or showing disrespect, Judge Johnson said.

"In this case, the judge freely admits he was mistaken about what the woman was doing, and she would not have been barred from the court simply because of her Muslim head-dress."



Judge Rea had earlier asked Ms Ali's brother Carlos Manuel Brooking, 22, to remove his "hat", which he did.

But Brooking was reluctant to remove the smaller garment underneath and walked out of court. He later apologised.

Ms Ali was stopped from re-entering the court after the incident and was told Judge Rea had ordered that she not be allowed in wearing the scarf.

- NZPA

Crabs

http://crisfieldnews.blogspot.com/

I was walking past a suburb of Singapore, near to Nanyang Community Centre, on my way to NTU, to where I lived for 16 years. I was going to attend a party my girl friends gave for me. What do I see, something I promised for Patty.

Crabs are a favourite seafood of the Singaporeons. They like them as chilli crabs, buttered crabs, and black peppered crabs. The best ones are imported from Sri Lankas.

I took some chilli crabs cooked in a Singapore restaurant at East Coast Seafood park on the last evening I was in Singapore, all the way to Sarawak via Brunei. It was worthed the effort, the crabs were well received.

You can't bring in food to New Zealand, otherwise, I would bring in some crabs.

My students from Fiji tells me that the crabs from Fiji are the best. They say the crabs are very big, but the meat is tender and succulent.

My best crab story is the enormous crab my aunt T bought when she took me to Fisherman's wharf in San Francisco in 1977. The crab was even bigger than a Chinese soup bowl. This may be why I left my heart in San Francisco.

Crabs do not like me. I helped my neighbours catch tiny crabs in the swamp near to the house when I was a teen ager. We kids were doing for fun. The tiny crabs pinced us, but we were unfazed. We harvested them for our neighbours, and they pickled them. They gave us a couple to eat with our porridge. My grand dad said we were stupid, we spend a whole morning working for the neighbours, and they give us just a couple. Besides, we caught even the grand children of these crabs and soon, there will be no more.

On another occasion, when I was cleaning and preparing crabs, one of them pinced me so hard that I screamed. Even after my brother-in-law cut off the pincer, it still gripped me harder. This incident did not deter me from eating crabs.

In New Zealand, I see only the flower crabs, these do not have much flesh and I don't bother to buy them, as there is so much work involved in preparing crabs. But come Summer, I will go to Australia. There are plenty of crabs there.

Friday shootout: Doors and windows

ASSIGNMENT - SEPT. FOURTH
DOORS & WINDOWS
Assignment by: Kerri

http://mytownshootout.blogspot.com/

I decided not to post the normal doors and windows. Instead, these photos were taken during my recent trip to Borneo where I went to the Mulu Caves. From New Zealand, Sam and I flew by air bus to Brunei. Then we flew a smaller plane to Singapore, and back again to Brunei. We flew from Miri by Fokker Friendship to Mulu.

In Mulu, we stayed at the Royal Mulu resort, and were treated like royalty. We also visited by out board boats some very poor huts where doors and windows had no shutters.

These days, you normally use the aero bridge to board the plane. It is a pleasant change for a 13 year old to be actually going into the plane. When I was young in Borneo, we flew by Fokker friendship. When my Dad celebrated his 80th birthday, the family returned for a reunion. Most of us flew 737 and used the aero bridge. My brother Henry specially travelled by Fokker Friendship so his young children actually got the experience of entering the plane.

Auckland University Annual Appeal

http://www.alumni.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=200033

Two envelopes were in the letter box when I came home from work. I don't normally get any mail via the snail mail. They were both from the Auckland University. One was for me and one for the water engineer.

I opened mine and it was the annual appeal from the new Dean of Arts. The water engineer opened his and noticed that mine was for $100, and his was for $250 and wonder why the discrepancy. I said his was addressed to Dr. Chin. A Dr. Chin most likely earns more than just a Mrs. Chin and therefore will donate more.

The University’s 2009 Annual Appeal was sent to 73,000 alumni at the end of August to encourage them to join with fellow alumni in supporting scholarships, research projects and other initiatives.

Like last year, the appeal is faculty-specific and, in the case of NICAI, this time it is also department-specific. It highlights the importance of scholarships, interesting projects and activities and the impact that the generosity of donors is making, supported by quotes from scholarship recipients. Alumni are reminded that even a modest gift is meaningful, particularly when added to similar gifts from other alumni, and that donations in New Zealand now attract a 33% rebate.

This is the Old Arts Building where I had many of my lectures.

Ear Nursing Service

In my Sunday Stills on Sounds, I wrote about my student who is deaf and has hearing aids, but sadly she doesn't wear them all the time. On alternate Wednesdays, she has a Senior Resource Teacher of the Deaf Susan Skarsholt who comes to her.

This morning, I saw this colourful bus and it attracted the attention of my friends as well. So busy body me, I took these photos and more busy body me, I talked to her.

She is Margaret and she is a Ear Nurse with her colourful Mobile Ear Clinic. She goes to lower decile schools and assesses and assists in the management of ear conditions. She uses a special microscope to look into the childrens' ear.

Good job or Ka Pai to the people who thought of this non threatening bus.
Ka Pai to Margaret for being so obliging, friendly and informative. I am sure she is a very good nurse.