Restaurant Bio in Paris

If you see the word bio on a restaurant in Paris, it's going to be organic and mostly vegetarian.

A couple of friends and I stumbled upon one of these restaurants today--Phyto Bar, Restaurant Bio.

I was so glad to to find a restaurant with a large selection of vegetables on the menu after passing so many restaurants where the focus was meat and potatoes.

The food at Phyto was delicious. The vegetables were fresh and lightly cooked.

And the special surprise were the healthy desserts, which consisted of fresh cooked fruit wrapped in a muffin like crust.

And everything was organic without with very little fat.

Making a Painting from a Photograph in Photoshop

Hello from Paris--Day 3

Right near the Trocadero subway stop is a neighborhood full of Art Nouveau architecture (organic style popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s).

I felt artful when I got back to my hotel so I changed the photograph to a painting.

You'd think you'd have to run the image through just one Photoshop filter, but that's not the case as you'll see below--

First I applied Edit>Transform>Skew to realign the image so it stands up and down (the vertical lines in the image stand 90 degrees from the x axis) instead of at an angle, which is the way it was originally shot. Then I applied the ink outlines filter and watercolors filter.

The picture at that point was too dark so then I adjusted the Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) by moving the center and right slider inward.

Last, the image didn't look detailed enough so I applied the Smart Sharpen Filter.

Inside the Subway Inside Paris 2

Hello from Paris! This is my second day here. I rode in the subway with my camera (a Sony DHC-H5 Cyber-shot) and caught the train zooming off from a station.

As you may have recalled if you're a faithful reader of my blog, I posted an explanation of the Paris subway system last October.

Today, I'm adding a map of the subway system.

I rode from Glaciere to the Trocadero. The Trocadero neighborhood is filled with museums and beautiful apartment buildings (more about that later).

Velib Bike Rental in Paris

Hello from Paris. The first thing I noticed since the last time I was here last year is the new Velib bike rental system. 

Riders take out a subscription (a fee paid by credit card right at the machine where the bike is). Subscriptions can be purchased by the day (1 euro), week (5 euros) or year (29 euros). 

After that, the bike rental is free for the first half hour and a couple more euros for subsequent 30-minute periods. 

I haven't used it yet, but plan to tomorrow.

Hope and Crosby

Bob Hope and Bing Crosby teamed up often-- on radio, on television and in movies. The two made On the Road to Singpore, the first of many "road" movies. There were seven of those from the 1940s to the 60s. The two played show business business men who were also shisters.

The movies were melodramtic and took place in exotic places. The films were successful because of the chemistry between Hope and Crosby.

The image above is a picture of a picture of Hope and Crosby recording a program on the radio. It was taken in a museum in Winslow, AZ.

Rialto, California and One Chemical

Rialto, California used to be a big citrus growing area.

You'd think a town like Rialto would be tiny. But it's not. There are 101,000 people living in this place that many have never heard of.

It's the town where I pick up the train to go to Union Station in L.A. and it's almost an hour away from my home in Palm Springs.

The big event there this past weekend was The Rialto Holiday On Ice, which was a fundraising reception to support Lindsay Davis, an ice skater who ranks 7th in National US Junior Figure Skating.

Rialto is located in San Bernardino County and is about 10 miles from the city of San Bernardino.

On Rialto's Web site, you can view streaming video of their city council meetings.

Oh, and Rialto has a big worry. There's perchlorate in the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin.

Perchlorate is the primary ingredient of solid rocket propellant, and it's in the tap water of the water supplies in many cities.

Here's what the EPA is doing about it: "EPA is currently undertaking efforts to help the Agency determine if regulation of perchlorate in drinking water would represent a meaningful opportunity for reducing risks to human health."

Hmmm

What is Creative Commons?

There's a great article posted on a blog today about creative commons.

Take a look at the little girl in the above picture. Then think about these questions.

1. Who owns the photo?
2. Who can use the photo?
3. Does Blogger (Google) have any interest in this photo?
4. What are the stipulations for use of this photo?
5. What would you have to do to protect the photo from others using it?

These are many questions that come to mind when you post a photo on blogger or on Flickr.

Flickr states: "Respect the copyright of others. This means don't steal photographs that other people have taken and pass them off as your own. (That’s what favorites are for.)"

What this implies is that you're free to link to other's photos but not free to borrow them if without linking back to his/her site/posting. But does this mean you should ask the person who took the photograph if you can use it? I say, absolutely!

Creative Commons sets guidelines for photographers to use with regard to the photos they post on the Internet.

"Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from 'All Rights Reserved' to 'Some Rights Reserved.'"

In other words they let you change the automatic* stipulation that any photographs you post are all-rights-reserved photos to other stipulations that you can choose from, "like some rights reserved."

*According to templetons.com, "all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not." This is known as the Berne Copyright Convention.

Moral of the Story: Read the fine print. Don't go posting on a site that lets them have your rights. And don't take others' photographs without asking!