Since it's almost Friday, I thought I'd take you on a little journey to some of the places I've lived over the years. I'm using Google Maps' Street View so you get a first hand shot of how it looks today (well, recently, at least). Each place will show the city followed by the year in which I first lived there:

(some places are not shown, b/c they're not on street view, including the past few places I've lived)

Auburn, AL 1976:


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Anniston, AL 1978:


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Auburn, AL 1985:


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Birmingham, AL 1987:


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Anniston, AL 1988:


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Birmingham, AL 1989:


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Auburn, AL 1995:


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Birmingham, AL 1998: (also where a friend had a wreck)


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Birmingham, AL 1999:


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Birmingham, AL 2000:


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Auburn, AL 2001:


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Washington, D.C. 2002:


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I took time during lunch to touch up an old, faded photograph of Mary Grace's immediate family + her aunt and grandmother. It was taken several months before Mary Grace was born:



Here is the original:



You can see that most of the photo has faded except the edges, as they were hidden behind the frame over the years.

I started by making a feathered selection around the faded area. I adjusted the levels, manually corrected the color balance in the shadows/midrange/highlights, adjusted the levels again and then did some minor touch up with the spot healing tool.

The result isn't perfect, but good enough. :)

It's much easier work when the original hasn't been in the sun:

With the voting ritual coming up, here's a very funny, yet sad & true clip. Enjoy!

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(yes, that's Mary Grace at the end of the video!)

Miriam receives more gifts than the rest of us and it comes as no surprise to us when she's given a book or two.

What did surprise us was the last page of this Miffy book:



Some parents complain that it's inappropriate. Our response was along the lines of "can you believe they put that in there?" followed by laughter whenever we saw the book or explained to someone what's in it.

On a side note, we took Miriam & Elias on their first visit to Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus a couple of weekends ago. Neither one of them were particularly excited, though Miriam did show some interest in the animals, including the Bengal Tigers who were "displaying their natural behaviors to patrons":



I love the swat at the beginning of the video. I found myself almost wishing to see something tragic happen just to change the pace of things. Maybe next time.

david