Feeding My Passion

My laptop can’t gracefully handle the large RAW files the D200 makes and I’m not willing to go back to JPEG as long as I have it, so yesterday I moved all my photos to a more powerful desktop computer. So I didn’t make a picture yesterday. So I’m sorry. So?

I’ll double up sometime this week.

Tonight I’m cooking stir-fried bok choy and shrimp and tofu pad thai for a dinner party. Last night my mother made the bases for chocolate ice cream and Barbara Tropp’s ginger ice cream, plus Tropp’s dark chocolate ice cream sauce. We’ll be eating well tonight! But first I must make photos!

Update 2/23

Epilogue: Ok, so after I got all of my photos posted here, I needed to prep for dinner since I was asked to cook for a weekly dinner thing my parents host. Because the prep took longer than I had expected, I missed my chance yesterday to make my daily picture. Now I’ve got catch up 2 days! I’m not worried that I won’t make the days up before 10 March (which is 30 days from my beginning on 8 February), I’m just a little disappointed in myself for letting it happen.

Forward!

Every non-rainy Saturday, there’s a big market at the Merced County Fairgrounds with vendors that sell everything from socks and bootlegged Spanish- and Hmong-language videos, to cherimoya, dried chilies, fresh exotic roots to aid digestion, and elote, roasted corn-on-the-cob you can dip in butter and sprinkle with chili powder and parmesan cheese.

A produce vendor cuts open and displays a melon for a potential customer.

Bonus:

My uncle Tad teaches the newest member of my family, Kylee, how to play the shell game.

Amanda Bowers helps package customers’ orders on her bakery’s first day open.

Let’s start with a photo I didn’t make. Here I am standing on the bank of the Merced River just east of Mid Pines. It was a glorious day!

Some red lichen on shale along a little hiking trail. Sorry for the rhyme, I don’t do it all the time.

Wild California poppies along a hiking trail above the Merced River.

Early afternoon in Ahwahnee dining room in the famous Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.

Nice view of Yosemite Valley.

Subcontractor Walt McLean installs ceiling tile while Amanda Bowers sweeps up before the health inspector arrives 2 days before opening her bakery, “Sweet Temptations,” in downtown Merced, Cal.

Nick Miller, an attacker on the UC Merced lacrosse team, practices scoring. The team has two more home games this season.