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SOAR has been going on the past few days at SOU. Wednesday featured a series of musical performances on the lawn in front of Britt Hall. One was this ensemble entitled, “The Horn: From the Forest to the Concert Hall.” We received a lesson in the evolution of the horn, from the one on the left to the modern horns to the right.
Today’s photo is from the annual Earth Day celebration/festival held at ScienceWorks in Ashland last month. These Earth Day kids were watching a taiko drumming performance.
Yours truly showing the kids a thing or two (not really) at the BMX track near the dog park in Ashland.
There is a saying that “many roads lead to the top of Mt. Fuji,” but the same is also true for Mt. Ashland. Here is one such road. This one begins by going down for a few dozen yards, but it is all uphill from there.
There is a bit of controversy over where exactly the “Pear Capital of the World” is. Kelseyville, California call themselves the Pear Capital of the World, but they don’t grow nearly as many pears as the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon. Plus, Harry & David (famous for pears) is located in Medford, not Kelseyville.
I took today’s photo on the last day of April, when the pear blossoms were at their peak, in a field with thousands of pear trees located in Talent or Phoenix (or somewhere in between the two). For some, unknown reason the annual Pear Blossom Parade and Run takes place in early April, before the pear blossoms and usually before decent weather.
There aren’t many pear orchards right in Ashland, but we have a pear tree in our backyard that just finished blossoming. We are now past the cherry blossoms, pear blossoms, and daffodils. Now, in mid-May, we are getting the dogwood blossoms.
A couple weeks ago a new sign appeared on the SOU campus right about where I took this photo. The path that cuts through the middle of campus (what some university’s call “the quad”) has been dubbed “Raider Way.” Raider is the school mascot (SOU Raiders).
Upon closer inspection you can find out how far it is to the library, the dorms, the HEC in Medford, and a few other places.
SOU has partnerships with Dankook University in Korea and Guanajuato University in Mexico. I have taught in Guanajuato and hope to teach at Dankook next summer.
Churchill Hall on the Southern Oregon University campus looks best in early May I think. These ornamental cherry blossoms (I think?) literally weigh these trees down.
I headed down to Ashland Creek in Lithia Park this past weekend to try to find the scene I mentioned previously. I couldn’t really remember what it looked like by the time I got there, but I did find some good spots. The sky was overcast so I didn’t bring my tripod, thinking the conditions wouldn’t be ideal. I took several shots (including today’s photo) with longer shutter speeds to get the silky water effect, but without a tripod most of them didn’t come out great.
Yesterday I decided to try again with my tripod. The weather was better (sunny), but it turns out that for the longer shutter speeds sun is not your friend. I left the shutter open for 1/2 second (hand held) for today’s pic (with overcast skies), but that is far too long when the water is in the sun. I did find some shady spots, photographs of which I will show you in the future. Next time I want to try really poor lighting with a tripod and longer shutter speeds (like a full second) to see what kind of results can be achieved.
Last night Robert Wynia of Floater put on an absolutely magical performance (for me anyway) at Johnny B’s in Medford. He performed at the same place back in March.
This time I was familiar with his new CD, Iron By Water. I don’t know if the familiarity with the new material was it, or if there was just some pixie dust in the air, but I was spellbound.
I decided to try out my son’s Panasonic HDC-SDX1 (1080p HD Camcorder). While it was easy to use, lightweight, and I had a perfect view of the entire performance (recording over a dozen songs and only skipping three from the entire set), the results aren’t what I was expecting. Things looked great in the viewfinder and the sound was good at the venue, but the videos aren’t very clear and the sound is not always good. I’m disappointed as I thought the camcorder would do much better than my TZ10, which is what I used last time in similar conditions. It turns out the TZ10 can take better video, at least in a poor lighting environment.
Floater returns to the Rogue Valley next Friday night. They are playing in Grants Pass. Perhaps I’ll try my Nikon D7000 then and see if I don’t have better luck.
Since the quality isn’t where it should be, I’ll post just one of the videos. You can find the rest on youtube. This is “Cast Aside” off the new solo CD. It reminds me somewhat of Pink Floyd.
I went for a little bike ride yesterday on the Bear Creek Greenway. Someone is in the process of building a BMX track at the Ashland end of the bike path near the Ashland Dog Park.
A couple of boys were admiring my new (to me, it’s actually used) lefty fork Cannondale so I started chatting with them. I took a few pictures of the boys on the BMX track and sent the pics to them via email after they texted me their email addresses. They were quite happy with the photos.
