Let the games begin

This summer I joined a kickball team and let me be the first to tell you, it is SOOOO much fun!! Really for most of the kickball community it is simply an opportunity to drink some beer, have some fun, and socialize with friends. However, our team has a little different mentality. Oh don’t get me wrong most of the team still has their fair share of beer, fun, and friends but we also have a large amount of competitive blood running through our veins.



Let me take a minute to introduce you to the cast of characters, and characters is certainly the correct word to use to describe my “Baller” team mates. I realize I am missing a few pictures, due to the rotation of kickers I was not able to get pictures of the kickers after me. I will keep updating as the games go on.

Aaron


Angela


Brandie & Shannon


Eddie & Malinda


Chris


Jeremy


Kelley


Lindsay & Jenifer


Michael


Shane


Our first game of summer league we won 7-0, it was a game filled with fun, sweat, old friends, more sweat, and maybe a beer or two thrown in for good measure.

Okay, I guess I should be a bit more specific when I say old friends, I really mean old boyfriends. Yes, when I showed up at the kickball field for my very first kickball game I headed over to our field and the first person I saw was my ex-boyfriend. At first it took my breath away I had after all not seen him in a good long while. However I was beyond elated when no feelings at all came flooding back into my soul. No feelings of a missed love, no feelings of great times had, no feelings of frustration or anger or anything in-between. I was once told the opposite of love is not hate it is indifference and that is exactly how I felt I was indifferent when seeing my ex. What a breath of fresh air that was.

I will pause for a moment and share a little secret………I was not jumping over the moon when he and his team mates stayed to watch the entire first portion of our game. But once I got out there kicked my first pitch I was golden and nothing around phased me. I was having fun ex-boyfriend and all.


I don't have any pictures to document our first win of the season, but Guinness Cup game 2 through the rest of the season will be documents right here on this blog weekly. Be ready for lots of wins, lots of stories, and more adventures than you can imagine having in a life time much less a day. Hold on to your socks strap in you are about to take a ride, hopefully full of enough laughter to make you cry.


Love,
JB

Chef's For the Cure

Susan G. Komen for the Cure in partnership with Cancer Treatment Centers of America held their 6th annual Chef’s for the Cure July 10, 2010.



This event was started by a CTCA’s Executive Chef Kenny Wagoner who like many of us had a close connection to breast cancer when his mother was diagnosed in 1997. Wagoner organized Chef’s for the Cure in 2005 as a benefit for Susan G. Komen for the Cure Tulsa Affiliate. Chef’s has grown year after year as Mr. Wagoner recruits well-known Tulsa area chefs to prepare a collection of gourmet cuisines.


Each chef had their own chef gear to wear.



And all chef stations had signs indicating the dish


There were chefs still preparing their yummy cuisines.......


and there was a lot of out of this world food.....


and food for all the carnivores!


There were cute couples enjoying the eveing.


Fun ice sculptures that provided yummy drinks.


Tables full of survivors from a company sponsor.


Tables full of extraordinary people and friends.


One of the highlights from the night came when the chefs had to sing for their supper. While guests sampled all the yummy food prepared by these extraordinary chefs they tipped the ones they liked the best. At the end of the night the top five chefs song for their supper which provided more donations.










Chef Wagoner won the "Sing for your Supper".

It was an amazing night had by all.....

For any of you that have not been a part of this event I highly recommend it, it was a great time for a great cause! The evening raised over $18,000 for our Affiliate, money that will be granted back out into our community to provide a vessel in order for others to learn about, fight, and overcome breast cancer.

The Fourth of July

What do you do when the Fourth of July is a very special day in your world? You celebrate is what you do!!!


You celebrate birthdays of very special people. Happy birthday daddy!!


You celebrate America’s birthday.


You celebrate with friends.




You celebrate with fireworks.


You celebrate with water and family.

You celebrate because after all the Fourth of July is the essence of summer and what better reason to celebrate than that.

Love,
JB

Assignment 4

This past week in photography class we learned about white balance.

White balance is a setting on digital cameras which allows the photographer to quickly neutralize the colorcasts that are generated by different lighting sources. The white balance settings I have on my camera are the following:

Auto WB-Automatically adjusts white balance for natural-looking color tones
Daylight-For shooting outdoors in sunny weather or night scenes
Shade-For shooting in shaded areas in sunny weather
Cloudy-For shooting in cloudy weather
Tungsten-For shooting under incandescent lighting
Fluorescent-For shooting under cool white fluorescent light
Flash-For shooting with the flash
Custom-Uses the settings obtained from the Custom setup

Our assignment for the week was to choose a subject indoors using incandescent lighting (lamp light).


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-800
Shutter-1/16th
WB-Tungsten (Incandescent)


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-800
Shutter-1/16th
WB-Daylight


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-800
Shutter-1/16th
WB-Florescent

Here are some shots of a light on the house, still working with white balance.


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-100
Shutter-1/60
WB-Auto


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-100
Shutter-1/60
WB-Daylight


Mode-Shutter Prioruty
ISO-100
Shutter-1/60
WB-Shade


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-100
Shutter-1/60
WB-Cloudy


Mode-Shutter Priority
ISO-100
Shutter-1/60
WB-Tungsten

I am off to expand my white balance knowledge.

Jen

An engagement.

My friend Jessica was beyond elated when her man Brandon popped the question, and I was honored to document their love through photography by taking their engagement pictures. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the early evening outing………

When you find this........

Because I am a vegetarian, because I am madly and deeply in love with anything that encompasses tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella, because it is summer, because I have a patio perfect for planting pots I chose to work on building myself a garden this summer. Now one may think this is an easy task but my friends I am here to tell you this sister’s green thumb has a slight tint of brown this year. I think it is the scorching Oklahoma heat that has turned my thumb and tomato plant brown…..yes I am positive that is what happened, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact I have never in all my life tried to grow anything. Despite the brown/burned leaves on my tomato plant, the dying flowers planted in the same pot, the shriveled up cilantro, my basil is thriving and I was beyond excited to see glistening in the early afternoon sunlight a beaming red ripe tomato.


A salad full of spinach, carrots, cucumbers, cheese, we CAN NOT leave cheese off my salads, eggs, and this vine ripe, super juicy, scrumptious tomato.

As I went to pull the tomato off the vine to add it to my salad I saw this………….


Yes, something took a bite out of my glowing finally ripe tomato.

I cried.

Then pulled the tomato off the vine through it in the garbage and am now waiting for the only other tomato on the plant to ripen. I have put a high tech shocking devise around my tomato plant so to avoid another disheartening discovery.

Love,
A disconcert gardener