Royal Caribbean Cruisers -- How Are Things Where You Are? (was "Routine" ​ 😁 ​day in lockdown... how was yours?)

[Sunshine3601]

8 hours ago, lenquixote66 said:

Thanks,Maryann.She took her Driving Test yesterday morning.

Today ,she and her father are taking my 20 year old granddaughter back to college.My daughter has to stay with the dog.

 

Happy Sweet 16 Birthday and Congratulations for passing DL test to your GD.

How is your Granddog doing?

Edited August 16 by Sunshine3601

[Sunshine3601]

1 hour ago, DaniDanielle said:

 

IMG_2626.mov 8.31 MB · 2 downloads  

 

Soooo Cute

[Arzeena]

Thanks to the suggestion of  RobinMN, I watched all 3 christmas movies from "A Prince for Christmas" series.
@Sea Dog Greg you will also enjoy them.

[Sea Dog]

50 minutes ago, Arzeena said:

Thanks to the suggestion of  RobinMN, I watched all 3 christmas movies from "A Prince for Christmas" series.
@Sea Dog Greg you will also enjoy them.

 

I've seen them. Loved them.

[h20skibum]

As Summer of Fun 4 winds down, we held an early birthday celebration for our California grandson.  He turns 12 on the 25th, but will be flying home on Sunday after spending the summer with us, so we get to celebrate early. 

 

We had 24 family members show up for our cookout, and it was a perfect, sunny day for it. 

 

This year’s theme was Jurassic Park which was frightening. 
 

 

Once again, we had a bounce house rented for the day

 

 

My work was at the grill

 

 

I would have posted some of the delicious sides, but by the time I was done grilling the second grill full of steaks and chicken, many of them were gone. 
 

 

At least I was in time for pictures of the ice cream cake. 

 

And the cupcakes. 
 

 

Even some big kids had time for fun on the slide portion of the bounce house. 
 

 

The kids were just saying goodbye to the bounce house, and see you next year.  I think they have certain expectations now.  

 

Edited August 16 by h20skibum

[aussielozzie18]

What a great birthday party @h20skibum.  Happy 12th Birthday to your grandson.

[NHProud]

16 hours ago, brillohead said:

 

 

I went to Chicago on Tuesday with my son and his girlfriend.  We were in the food court at the Museum of Science and Industry and the lady next to us was photographing their food.  I could understand her doing that if her food looked like this, but it was a chicken sandwich, some fries, an a bowl of soup.  She even took the time to "stage" her chicken sandwich, peeling the bun back to show the lettuce and tomato on it....????

I can understand taking photos of something special (like the work of art ratatouille, or a birthday cake, or similar), but a plain old food court meal?  Some people just confuse me.

Every time I see your posts it makes me nostalgic for East Lansing, Michigan. The last time we were in Chicago was in 1968 and not involved with what happened. 

[brillohead]

9 minutes ago, NHProud said:

Every time I see your posts it makes me nostalgic for East Lansing, Michigan. The last time we were in Chicago was in 1968 and not involved with what happened. 

I'm only about an hour away from MSU... my son did a weeklong hockey summer camp there a little over a decade ago, and played at least one game at Munn Arena every season.  It's so funny to see 6yo kids playing in such a huge arena. 

[firefly333]

And we have light. Sun starting to come up over the horizon. I dont think I'll ever get tired of watching it come up. It's a bit different every morning. I know I need a better camera. Looks like a nice day but they are warning of rip tides. Ernesto is starting toward bermjda affecting our waters here too. Glad I picked sept instead of august to go to Bermuda. I think they got rerouted. I'd be sad to book a cruise to see Bermuda and then miss it. I have my fingers crossed.

 

One of the ladies in aerobics class is having all her balcony windows replaced. Yikes. Hers leaked when it rained. Boy do I feel like lady luck smiled on me. We didnt check windows during a rain but mine are air tight. True i could update some things but nothing here has to be done.

 

[Ocean Boy]

49 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

And we have light. Sun starting to come up over the horizon. I dont think I'll ever get tired of watching it come up. It's a bit different every morning. I know I need a better camera. Looks like a nice day but they are warning of rip tides. Ernesto is starting toward bermjda affecting our waters here too. Glad I picked sept instead of august to go to Bermuda. I think they got rerouted. I'd be sad to book a cruise to see Bermuda and then miss it. I have my fingers crossed.

 

One of the ladies in aerobics class is having all her balcony windows replaced. Yikes. Hers leaked when it rained. Boy do I feel like lady luck smiled on me. We didnt check windows during a rain but mine are air tight. True i could update some things but nothing here has to be done.

 

The cruise ships all pulled out of Bermuda early. They had a segment on the Today Show. I hope they don't get much damage.

[bobmacliberty]

24 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

And we have light. Sun starting to come up over the horizon. I dont think I'll ever get tired of watching it come up. It's a bit different every morning. I know I need a better camera. Looks like a nice day but they are warning of rip tides. Ernesto is starting toward bermjda affecting our waters here too. Glad I picked sept instead of august to go to Bermuda. I think they got rerouted. I'd be sad to book a cruise to see Bermuda and then miss it. I have my fingers crossed.

 

One of the ladies in aerobics class is having all her balcony windows replaced. Yikes. Hers leaked when it rained. Boy do I feel like lady luck smiled on me. We didnt check windows during a rain but mine are air tight. True i could update some things but nothing here has to be done.

 

You might not need a new camera. Do your windows open?  If so, open them up and take your sunrise pic without the windows and railing in the foreground. Just water, land, and sun. With no glass to shoot through, and no dark railing in the foreground (which will make the entire picture darker and lose some color in the sunrise), your camera phone should take a good photo. 
 

if you want to get fancy, it’s easy to adjust a photo after. On an iPhone, go to the Photos app and find the picture that you took. It should be right at the top. Then touch Edit in the upper right corner. Touching the Auto magic wand button in the bottom center should do a pretty good one touch set of adjustments to the exposure, colors, contrast, etc.  Or, touch filters at the bottom and see how different preset filters make your picture look. The vivid and vivid warm filters may work well for a sunrise pic. 

 

You can also manually tweak many settings. For sunrises (and sunsets), I like to crank up the saturation and/or vibrance settings. This makes the colors pop more. Switch back to adjust at the bottom. Slide your finger to the left on the Auto magic wand and you will move through different types of settings. When you get to the Saturation setting, use your finger to slide the scale below the buttons to see what increases or decreases to saturation do to the picture. Do the same with vibrance and even with exposure to an extent. You can even reduce contrast a little to give the picture a softer look. 
 

When you’re happy with any changes, click the Done button. You can’t really screw anything up. If you don’t like what you’ve done, click Cancel instead of Done and you’ll leave editing mode without making any changes. Even if you click Done, you can go back into Edit and then touch Revert. That will reset everything back to the way it was originally. Choose any pic already on your camera and start playing around. See how changes to the various settings impact different types of pictures.  I use Lightroom Mobile to tweak my photos, which is just a more powerful version of what the built in Photos app can do. I rarely post anything without doing at least a little tweaking. But that’s probably the perfectionist in me. If you have a Samsung phone (or any Android phone), you’ll have a photo editing app with similar capabilities. Someone else would need to give you guidance for that. 

[firefly333]

3 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

You might not need a new camera. Do your windows open?  If so, open them up and take your sunrise pic without the windows and railing in the foreground. Just water, land, and sun. With no glass to shoot through, and no dark railing in the foreground (which will make the entire picture darker and lose some color in the sunrise), your camera phone should take a good photo. 
 

if you want to get fancy, it’s easy to adjust a photo after. On an iPhone, go to the Photos app and find the picture that you took. It should be right at the top. Then touch Edit in the upper right corner. Touching the Auto magic wand button in the bottom center should do a pretty good one touch set of adjustments to the exposure, colors, contrast, etc.  Or, touch filters at the bottom and see how different preset filters make your picture look. The vivid and vivid warm filters may work well for a sunrise pic. 

 

You can also manually tweak many settings. For sunrises (and sunsets), I like to crank up the saturation and/or vibrance settings. This makes the colors pop more. Switch back to adjust at the bottom. Slide your finger to the left on the Auto magic wand and you will move through different types of settings. When you get to the Saturation setting, use your finger to slide the scale below the buttons to see what increases or decreases to saturation do to the picture. Do the same with vibrance and even with exposure to an extent. You can even reduce contrast a little to give the picture a softer look. 
 

When you’re happy with any changes, click the Done button. You can’t really screw anything up. If you don’t like what you’ve done, click Cancel instead of Done and you’ll leave editing mode without making any changes. Even if you click Done, you can go back into Edit and then touch Revert. That will reset everything back to the way it was originally. Choose any pic already on your camera and start playing around. See how changes to the various settings impact different types of pictures.  I use Lightroom Mobile to tweak my photos, which is just a more powerful version of what the built in Photos app can do. I rarely post anything without doing at least a little tweaking. But that’s probably the perfectionist in me. If you have a Samsung phone (or any Android phone), you’ll have a photo editing app with similar capabilities. Someone else would need to give you guidance for that. 

Yes I can open the windows but I have screens which make the pictures look wavy. So I'm shooting thru a window and a screen but just the screen isnt wonderful. The screens are fixed in place. I am on the 8th floor. There are bugs, no see ums here. The screens dont open, just the windows panes. 

 

Here is a picture just now thru the screen with the window pane slide open. Looks dark. The sun rising makes my pictures goofy. Too dark. Lighting never looks right in my pictures.

 

[dani negreanu]

8 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

What a great birthday party @h20skibum.  Happy 12th Birthday to your grandson.

 

Mark @h20skibum

 

Happy early birthday to your GDS. Really glad that your DD felt great during the cruise, and more cruises are in the making 😎

 

Marietta @DaniDanielle

 

And happy birthday to your DGD too 💐

[StanleyandGus]

2 hours ago, firefly333 said:

And we have light. Sun starting to come up over the horizon. I dont think I'll ever get tired of watching it come up. It's a bit different every morning. I know I need a better camera. Looks like a nice day but they are warning of rip tides. Ernesto is starting toward bermjda affecting our waters here too. Glad I picked sept instead of august to go to Bermuda. I think they got rerouted. I'd be sad to book a cruise to see Bermuda and then miss it. I have my fingers crossed.

 

One of the ladies in aerobics class is having all her balcony windows replaced. Yikes. Hers leaked when it rained. Boy do I feel like lady luck smiled on me. We didnt check windows during a rain but mine are air tight. True i could update some things but nothing here has to be done.

 

I’m glad you seem to be settling in well! Your condo has beautiful views.

[h20skibum]

1 hour ago, dani negreanu said:

 

Mark @h20skibum

 

Happy early birthday to your GDS. Really glad that your DD felt great during the cruise, and more cruises are in the making 😎

 

Marietta @DaniDanielle

 

And happy birthday to your DGD too 💐

Thank you Dani.  I have been thinking of you and your family.

 

The party never ended.  My daughter’s two spent the night, and they will be here all day while she is at school getting ready for the start of classes next week.  I think all our grandkids first day of school is Tuesday.

 

It seems like they start earlier every year.

[firefly333]

36 minutes ago, StanleyandGus said:

I’m glad you seem to be settling in well! Your condo has beautiful views.

I do enjoy seeing the water. The banana river which is what the river is called that is on the west side deep water side of cocoa beach. I'm looking across at cocoa beach where the beach is about 3 miles away. My pictures dont do it justice. 

[Ocean Boy]

2 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Yes I can open the windows but I have screens which make the pictures look wavy. So I'm shooting thru a window and a screen but just the screen isnt wonderful. The screens are fixed in place. I am on the 8th floor. There are bugs, no see ums here. The screens dont open, just the windows panes. 

 

Here is a picture just now thru the screen with the window pane slide open. Looks dark. The sun rising makes my pictures goofy. Too dark. Lighting never looks right in my pictures.

 

The picture looks dark because you are shooting an outside subject from an inside location. Your camera sensor can't accommodate the different lighting levels. Bright days are not as difficult to shoot as it is usually bright inside as well as outside so the camera sensor has a much easier time.

[DaniDanielle]

@h20skibumGreat Job on everything.  I would say your grandson enjoyed his birthday celebrations!

[helen haywood]

13 hours ago, Arzeena said:

Thanks to the suggestion of  RobinMN, I watched all 3 christmas movies from "A Prince for Christmas" series.

But have you started decorating yet?

[bobmacliberty]

2 hours ago, firefly333 said:

Yes I can open the windows but I have screens which make the pictures look wavy. So I'm shooting thru a window and a screen but just the screen isnt wonderful. The screens are fixed in place. I am on the 8th floor. There are bugs, no see ums here. The screens dont open, just the windows panes. 

 

Here is a picture just now thru the screen with the window pane slide open. Looks dark. The sun rising makes my pictures goofy. Too dark. Lighting never looks right in my pictures.

 

 

29 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

The picture looks dark because you are shooting an outside subject from an inside location. Your camera sensor can't accommodate the different lighting levels. Bright days are not as difficult to shoot as it is usually bright inside as well as outside so the camera sensor has a much easier time.

I agree with OB. Your camera is trying to find a happy medium between the very bright sun and the very dark condo/foreground. It ends up doing neither one well. The human eye is much better than a camera at seeing “dynamic range”…the big difference between dark and light areas. The camera can’t capture what your eyes can see. Modern cameras, including just about any phone camera, have a setting called high dynamic range, or HDR for short.  The camera takes multiple pictures back to back very quickly at different exposure levels. One picture may show the sky properly exposed but the foreground will be completely black. Another picture may show the foreground exposed well but the sky will be completely white (aka “blown out”). The HDR setting blends the best of several such different pictures together into a single picture. 
 

On an iPhone 13 or newer, HDR is used automatically whenever it’s needed in a high contrast shot with both very bright areas and very dark areas. It can’t be turned off. If you have between an iPhone Xs and an iPhone 12, it’s possible that HDR is turned off. If

you have one of these older models, go to Settings > Camera and see if Smart HDR is off. Anything older than an iPhone Xs won’t have HDR capability. 
 

Try getting very close to the screen so that none of your condo is in the picture…just the outside view is in the frame. Your camera then won’t have to worry about the darker interior and should be able to give you a better exterior exposure. That won’t help though with the screen being in the way. ☹️

[Sea Dog]

32 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

I agree with OB. Your camera is trying to find a happy medium between the very bright sun and the very dark condo/foreground. It ends up doing neither one well. The human eye is much better than a camera at seeing “dynamic range”…the big difference between dark and light areas. The camera can’t capture what your eyes can see. Modern cameras, including just about any phone camera, have a setting called high dynamic range, or HDR for short.  The camera takes multiple pictures back to back very quickly at different exposure levels. One picture may show the sky properly exposed but the foreground will be completely black. Another picture may show the foreground exposed well but the sky will be completely white (aka “blown out”). The HDR setting blends the best of several such different pictures together into a single picture. 
 

On an iPhone 13 or newer, HDR is used automatically whenever it’s needed in a high contrast shot with both very bright areas and very dark areas. It can’t be turned off. If you have between an iPhone Xs and an iPhone 12, it’s possible that HDR is turned off. If

you have one of these older models, go to Settings > Camera and see if Smart HDR is off. Anything older than an iPhone Xs won’t have HDR capability. 
 

Try getting very close to the screen so that none of your condo is in the picture…just the outside view is in the frame. Your camera then won’t have to worry about the darker interior and should be able to give you a better exterior exposure. That won’t help though with the screen being in the way. ☹️

Very well explained Bob!

[Arzeena]

1 hour ago, helen haywood said:

But have you started decorating yet?

Noooooooooo!
😁 Our dear Sea Dog has the gold medal for that! 😉 I just stop at "watching" the movies.

[Sea Dog]

16 minutes ago, Arzeena said:

Noooooooooo!
😁 Our dear Sea Dog has the gold medal for that! 😉 I just stop at "watching" the movies.

I am actually going to start early October since our cruise is on the 18th. I am re doing the lights on my animated trees so I got a lot of prep work to do on those. Since I am older and a little slower I would rather start early and take my time. Goal as in every year to have it all up the week of Thanksgiving.

[George C]

We were scheduled to try to take Loki to vet at 9am , Loki had other ideas , we were successful a little after 11. When we got Loki and Siam we were told they weighed 4lbs today 4 weeks later he weighed 6.2 pounds. They both have very healthy appetites . Here is poor Loki at vet, tomorrow they will be 5 months old , these will be big cats. Martini lunch today, Sunday we have vip seats for Christofer Cross who is one of our favorite performers.

 

[lenquixote66]

17 hours ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Happy Sweet 16 Birthday and Congratulations for passing DL test to your GD.

How is your Granddog doing?

Thanks,Debbie.My granddog has Laser Therapy once a week and in home PT 2 to 3 times a day.He will most likely be in a dog wheelchair.