Abandoned textile manufacturing plant
I feel decent today in that I am not continuously tired. The past week has been a burden, even for me as used as I have become to the discomfort from RA. I am still tender in places and my joints and fingers are swollen but the soreness that was over all my body has subsided to the point of being tolerable. I still cannot cut my food, but I can hold a fork without dropping it, and that is a huge improvement. I did not sleep well last night, but it was an betterment over what I had been doing. Typing is a problem, but I am addicted to writing and it helps take my mind off my real and imagined woes; writing is my comfort zone. I was able to comment some photos on Megashot this morning, but quickly ran out of steam; all the mouse clicking got to me. Maybe the shots will kick in and in another week or two I can get back to a bit of my normal treachery and malfeasance.
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I don’t know whom President Obama will choose for his new top economic adviser. I do know that the out-going Lawrence Summers was either not very good at his job or was not listened to, probably a combination of both. My personal choice for the job would be Mark Sevigny, a person whom has absolutely no background in big politics or in national and international economic matters. What he does have is a workingman’s commonsense approach as to what is wrong, why it went wrong, and how it can begin to be fixed and that in itself is is most uncommon in Washington, D.C. governmental circles. He is also cut from the same fabric as was Harry S Truman in his “the buck stops here” philosophy. Of course, I would count on him in seeking advice from his real and virtual friends when he felt he needed it, friends who would not mind moving to D.C. to live for a couple of years and have decent paying jobs as his own personal advisers. The sacrifices of the common man and woman; it is our American strength. I took the liberty of sending Mark’s blog address to the White House because I don’t know his home address and phone number, but I’m sure he may be hearing the oft repeated words in times of national crisis “Greetings from the President of the United States of America … you are drafted into service of your country. Please report to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. to discuss this important matter. After crawling through the slime of Congressional committees and two weeks of expenses paid cleansing in American Samoa, you shall report to me, your President, and help get me out of this freaking mess!
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Tuesday again?! Seems like we are having a lot of them lately.
Loose Laces 
I wish you felt much better. I know that your fingers are swollen and sore, but please don’t stop writing, because it’s good for you ( of course not too much of writing).
I like your note about Mark. 🙂
I also wonder how you got this deep green background in you photo. V. interesting shot, my friend.
xo
Thanks, Jola. I am feeling better today; I was beginning to wonder if I ever would feel decent again. Mark could get us all jobs in D.C.; you could be a translator in the State Department or the Polish Embassy. The sky in the photo was completely blown (white). I have a software accessory for my editing program that makes pretty good clouds and in any color; I use it a lot, especially in my older digital photos where I didn’t use exposure compensation in the camera. 🙂 Thanks, my friend.
Ken — you can’t have such black thoughts. Your last shot works after a long break. It will much better soon.
Yes, it would be good to work in Polish Embassy. 🙂
I like you explain us all these difficult editing things.
xoxoxo
I do feel much better; I suppose a lot of my black thoughts had to do with Christmas; Christmas just isn’t my best time of year anymore.
If you were in Polish diplomat service, you would not have to worry about the visa, although you are correct about them; they should not be singling out Poland for punishment.
As for the editing lessons, it would be much better done in person or at least with videos. There are many tutoring videos on the net and Cyrus (with Maggie’s great help) has a bunch of his on Megashot. You can view them without being a Megashot member. However, here goes on this photo:
I took the editor pick tool, set it to four pixels of feathering, and selected all the areas I wanted to put clouds into. I selected the main part of the sky first, then I held down the ctrl key while I selected the smaller white spaces. I then clicked on my plugins and chose the cloud filter which has many controls and a preview window. I messed with the sliders until I got the cloud type I wanted, chose it, clicked ok, and the filter did the rest. All I had to do then was deselect the sky by right clicking on a non-selected part of the photo, and then I raised the saturation of all the colors by using a slider control that increased color depth. I had to do a bit extra on the windows because they had a blue reflection in them and I wanted a green one like the sky. For that, I selected them and used my color-changer tool. 🙂
Thanks, Jola.
I am ready, willing, and able to take on the mission. The press conferences would be something to behold. I think maybe I could start them off with a song of the day.
Do you think the fisrt song should be Roger Waters or Volbeat?
I have cabinet positions for you all.
The picture is great.
Either would make a good first song, but A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight should be your official theme song and this band would be mighty fine at your inaugural ball.
I would never get through Senate approval as Cabinet head; there should be something in Hawaii I could attend that includes a nice salary.
We can do this!
Thanks, Mark
Yes, the picture is great. I like your editing, my friend. Thanks for the clarification. 🙂