Day 42, The Wand

The Wand, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

Christmas Eve was great! Christmas Day was great! Sophie would like to remind everyone that the magic is in the wand. She really had a great Christmas. This year she really got it. She is the perfect age now, three and a half. As she said, "I like Santa now!" The magic was in watching her and her sisters and cousins just glow. It was really great watching the older ones get it, that they had to be a part and work to make others happy. It is something to watch your kids grow up and like how they are coming out. To see them get to a point where they make good choices and then enjoy the outcome.

Maybe the magic was in the wand....

And now, a mea culpa, I really checked out of the blog. I did not quit shooting, I just did not post anything. I was down from the internet for a few days, and this led to 'I'll catch up', which led to, 'Later,' which led to 'I don't have time.' Now, I am really behind. So, I will use the great editing skills that an author gets, and post up. I will catch back up over the next few days with multiple posts, then I will take down the mea culpa.

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	46 mm
ISO Speed:	400
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV

Day 24, Christmas Lights, Mission Inn, Riverside

Day 24, Christmas Lights, Mission Inn, Riverside, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

The downtown area of Riverside is dominated by the Mission Inn. When I was in High School, it was mostly abandoned and the city was looking for anyone to take it over. They put up some great financing help to get it going again.

Over the last 10 years, the downtown has come back. The center of this comeback has been the Mission Inn. It really is a unique place. There is a boatload of history and art there. Well, at least by west coast standards. We don't really have many 200 year old buildings or great revolutionary war stories. Until about 80 years ago, this was nothing but scrub and rancheros. The citrus boom really put this on the course to being somewhere. Most of California has a similar history.

Every year now, the big lights that the Mission Inn does are really better and better. If you need to visit Southern California, and you want to stay somewhere that is not just another hotel, stay a night here, you won't be disappointed. I can't tell the difference anymore between Marriott and Hilton. When I travel for work, few places have any quality of their own. That is what is probably unique to the Mission Inn, it really is a place of its own.

Thanks for looking, as always, below are the shots that I did not choose to run with as well as the EXIF data for the lead image.

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Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	5 sec (5)
Aperture:	f/29
Focal Length:	31 mm
ISO Speed:	800
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV

Day 23, Christmas Lights, Down Town, Riverside

Christmas Lights, Down Town, Riverside, originally uploaded by solostandfound.

Every Year the downtown area of Riverside gets a Christmas shot due to and around the Mission Inn.  It is one of my favorite places here in Riverside. In fact, I asked my wife to marry me at a fountain just inside the Mission Inn. There is a restaurant there now, so it is not so quiet and removed as it was. I had a dinner meeting to attend across the street, so I brought my camera to start taking pictures around the area.   I will be post for the next few days some of the shots from there.

One of my favorite restaurants is in the Mission Inn, Duane's.  The steaks there have rivaled anything I have had at any other major steak house in the country, and I have been to a few.  They have this great painting of Roosevelt and the Rough Riders in Cuba.  By great, I mean huge.  It is a captivating piece as well.  In fact, the art in the Mission Inn is really great.  More on that on later posts.

I could not take the picture that I really wanted to take, there was a big event at the Mission Inn and I could not get access to the area that I wanted to shoot, so I worked a little around the outside. The sun was down, but the sky still had a great effect to it and the California Christmas Trees were lit up.

Thanks for looking, as always, below are the shots that I did not choose to run with as well as the EXIF data for the lead image.

A few notes on the shots that I did not choose for the image of the day.  I like the window shopper shot since these are all longer shots and he was still. The arched walkway is cool to stroll through, but tough to shoot since there are about four restaurants here and the service entrance to the Mission Inn. People moving through a long exposure can come out really cool. However when there is so little light, like this walkway, the exposure gets so long that you can not tell that they are people walking through the shot. Hence I shot it without people.

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Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	4 sec (4)
Aperture:	f/9
Focal Length:	18 mm
ISO Speed:	800
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV