In the Spotlight: Map It Okinawa Dude -- Motion GIF

Off the Beaten Path

 

 

Today, we went to accomplish a sort of Mission Impossible thing.

And, I'm fairly certain, we gotterdun.

Just a few more details, need to be worked out and, you'll see the whole story.

Completely exhausted from watching these guys, this will be a quick blog post.

Map It Dude takes folks off the paved roads to see things most travelers wouldn't notice.

Without him and, another one of my partners today would not have been a success.

More about that, in an upcoming Then and Now photo shoot.

Meanwhile checkout Map It Okinawa !

3 Minutes of Blue Skies Shining on Me

Not especially high tech, at computer stuff, I tried something new today.

There was a huge (6000x4000 pixel) photo of a bridge in blue skies, I was saving.

It had a speck of dust, up in this blue portion of sky.

There are all sorts of Adobe programs that can be used to remove dust.

And, I own a bunch of them but, never tried dust removal on any of my photos.

Dust on a camera sensor or, a spot on a lens, shouldn't be there, in the first place.

So, whenever, I see a spot on one of my images, I just throw it away.

And, go figure out where it came from.  Then, fix the problem.

This Was a Special Photo

 

 

 

It was high time, I taught my self, how to do digital spot removal.

So, I did some online research and read my Dummies book.

Then, opened the photo with my Adobe Elements.

Thinking, I knew what I was doing, removing the dust, here's what happened:

The bridge disappeared along with the dust !

Everything (eventually) turned out alright and I gotterdun.

But, can't show you the image, just yet, because it's going to be in a contest.

Anyhow, the incident reminded me of this tune.

There's no sense, letting some good old blue skies go to waste.

Enjoy the Willie Nelson song and music. 

Jumping Over Mt Katsuu: How We Gotterdun

She Really Didn't Jump That High

The pretty girl didn't have to jump over 400 meters in the air to compose this photo.

I took it while waiting for the Katsuyama Shikuwasa Flower Festival Festival to Kick off.

Most girls would look at you like you were crazy if you asked them to try this.

Say something like, "Nene, how about a picture of you jumping over that mountain?"

Well, she did seem to act like she was confronting a lunatic, at first.

But, thanks to the Zuckerberganator, the gal recognized RyukyuMike from Facebook.

So, she took a minute of her time to listen to my plan.

 We borrowed two folding chairs from the set-up in front of the stage.

They were strategically placed so she just had to jump-up a tad while I shot the photos.

That's how we gotterdun.

Travel Agent Academy Round Three

What a way to spend a Saturday morning.

It started off with some sunshine so, the dogs got an early walk on the beach.

The weather took a turn for the worse by the time I got to the office.

So, there wouldn't be any excursions in to the wilderness today.

There are still plenty of goat fight and wildlife photos waiting development.

But, I decided to take a peek at the Travel Agent Academy, instead.

They already certified me as a Japan and Asia Specialist.

Cruise Lines International Association had something, just right, for me.

For round three, I went and took the tests to become a Cruise Specialist.

Gotterdun !

Million Views Contest: How We Gotterdun

As promised we drew the winner's name in true redneck style.

These photos by RyukyuRusty, will show you how we gotterdun.

The Million Views Giveaway blog and Facebook pages were printed.

Each contestant, who made a legitimate entry, had their name snipped out of the page.

Lucky for us, nobody was using the pool table.  This was a serious operation.

 To be fair and square about it, the criminals trying to enter twice, had to be eliminated.

But, they only got eliminated, once.  So, they still had a chance to win.

 The pretty girl, who wants to be a model, did some practice poses.

That was while I was doing the paperwork.

We had to arm wrestle a few times because that's what rednecks do when they aren't playing pool.

She won every match, easily.  That was so I could buy the beers.

Next, we folded-up all the contest entries so they all looked the same size.

They were placed in this guy's hat.  I stepped out of the scene, to keep things honest.

That's my hand, over there, and I'm telling the model, "Reach in and pick one winner".

We had to hurry and get this contest over before everyone was falling-down drunk.

There she went.  She pulled a winner's name out of the hat.

She held the thing up in the air just like she was a professional model all her life !

There's  more to how we gotterdun.  Even a photo of me wearing my tux.  But, I gotta run.

To be continued.....

Rice Harvest Dry and Put Away, I Hope

Another Super Typhoon Blowing Around Out There !

 

Looking at WundreGroundWeather's Five Day Forecast Map

We may be in for another real wet weekend.

Super Typhoon Jelawat might run right over Okinawa, or soak the place real good. 

Here's what I'm gonna do.  Post another link for the weather.

And, hope they are wrong, this time.
Click for weather forecast

The rice should have been dried out and put away a long time ago.

Just in case, I think I better go down to Igei and make sure they gotterdun.

Zanpa Point Lighthouse at Sunset (Photo) Okinawa, Japan

Gotterdun!  It took some planning, a little luck with the weather and great timing with the seasalt ice cream parlor but, on the 18th of June, 2011 at 7:24PM this photo was captured with the PENTAX K5.

It was a good thing Ryukyu Rusty and I got over on the west coast of Okinawa early in the day and did some investigating.  THE ICE CREAM PLACE CLOSES AT 7PM !

You wouldn't want to see me after spending the whole day in the blistering sun, waiting for a chance to snap this photo and dreaming about Seasalt Vanilla Ice Cream if the joint closed before I got there.

The position of the setting sun had us fooled.  We thought it would have set more to the left in the scene but, we don't live on that side of the island.  I guess that makes us Pacific islanders.

There are about 40 frames of this sunset in my collection now and I'm not sure what Rusty totaled-up for the day.  He did snag a great silhouette shot of a fisherman casting his line over the cliffs with the setting sun and lighthouse in the background.
He is headed for the cover of National Geographic Magazine one of these days.  Wait and see !

Just last week I posted a photo of ZANPAMISAKI LIGHTHOUSE viewed in early morning light and promised I'd get a sunset photo of the place, maybe even eat some of that seasalt ice cream.

Well folks, it looks like we gotterdun !

Fireworks, Crackers and Beer at the Gallery Last Night

It was open to the public but we didn't advertise so, you had to be in-the-know, otherwise, you could consider yourself uninvited.  Anyways, we had fireworks, crackers and beer at Mike's Ryukyu Gallery last night.  We had a pretty good idea that the half million views was going to happen.

So, we took a few photos to show everybody how we gotterdun, in true Redneck Style.

The first thing, in case there's ever any doubt about us knowing what we're doing, was to document this event with photos.  Not really sure what day of the week it ever is, I threw a fireworks photo on the blog.  Then, the blog told me it was Friday, June 10, 2011. They know the date, wherever they print the thing.

Next, I thought it'd be nice if everyone could see what time it was in Japan while this event took place.  That clock, leaning up against my redneck cooling tower is showing you Japan Standard Time (JST) and it's 11:21PM Friday night June 10, 2011.

Ryukyu Rusty had to take pictures because I was getting ready to set off the fireworks. 

That yellow contraption in my hands, the Japanese call a cracker. 

I was watching the view meter, ready to pull the string.  Fireworks liven things up, always.

It's not easy shooting a camera in a gallery because of the horrible lighting, especially when everyone is drinking beer. Rusty had to use camera flash. 

You can see that I don't usually wear those girly boots you saw the other day. 

At this point, the dang meter already hit 500,001 and I pulled the string.  The cracker thing made a real loud BANG but, nothing flew out of it.  I was expecting red, yellow, blue and green streamers to fly all over the place.  Nothing came out of the damn thing but noise, BANG !

I  looked up in the sky, just in case the beer had slowed down my eyeball reflexes, but there wasn't a streamer in sight.  So, I popped another one.  The same thing happened, no streamers.

They developed some new kind of tree-saving fireworks, I guess.  These crackers come with only noise and no streamers.  What kind of redneck do they think I am, anyhow? 

Next time, I'll buy sparklers, I guess and if they don't look like fireworks, to me, I'll start making my own. 

I ain't stupid, ya know.

We celebrated with a few more beers, put my redneck cooling tower, cameras and computer away and cleaned up the mess we didn't make.  We had to get home and grab some sleep.  This morning Ryukyu Rusty, Ryukyu Mike and Doc were hopping on a boat to shoot some photos on another Okinawa island called Minna Jima.  You'll hear about that excursion later.

Right now, I just want to thank everybody who helped this blog hit the half million views mark.

Next week I'll be sifting through my mail to see who guessed closest to the date we gotterdun and mailing them their choice of photos.

Then, after I get caught up on developing this weekends shots, we'll see what kind of celebrating to do besides fireworks, crackers and beer in the event this madness continues on to the million views mark.

Cheers,
Mike