If the story is over this chapter my last, let it be my best one, let it be my own.
Get it together so we can embed and do custom html if you want us happy. I have photobucket codes, picturetrail and YouTube codes and they show up, some halfway, no way, just the code, or not at all. My greatest joy is creating my own personal style. I copied my about page from my.opera ICU109 blog and it came out as not complete. If you want us here, don’t expect so much change from us. I am old, disabled, don’t like change, it makes me cranky.
Hi, I’m Kathy, originally from the MyOpera profiles ICU109 and flapper1. You all know me from there; if you are new, welcome. I do a little digital graphic compositing and upload family pics/albums as well.
I have 2 sons and 2 daughters, all grown with families and wonderful careers, all happy, healthy and productive. I am very proud of them.
The theme song for this site is, If The Story Is Over…reflected in my blog name….let it be my own. TIMO KOTIPELTO and the band STRATOVARIUS plays this glorious song from their new album, NEMISIS. It is indeed beautiful. My opera blog /ICU109 features the Stratovarius song FOREVER that hooked me a few years ago from one of my Opera friends’ sites from VietNam who had a zing player playing FOREVER..I was indeed mesmerized by the beautiful voice and the music behind.
I started graphics by learning to modify MySpace, learning a little CSS code, and since I am and always have been somewhat of an image “junkie,” when I retired a few years ago I designed a couple websites with Freewebs, now Webs.com, and a lot of MySpace sites, different themes, for the look of them, not for the social silliness. They are all still there, have been somewhat modified with makeovers by MySpace. So nearly 5 years ago I started teaching myself layers with free Paint.NET, which I still use on occasion. I now can work with Adobe Photoshop CC which I am steadily learning. I hope to take classes. I also use Corel PaintShop Pro x4 Ultimate, DP Animation, Jasc Animation 3, and myriads of other graphic programs. Animated gifs I have just begun to play with, and have posted some. Love online animators like Lunapic and PictureTrail. Easy and effective. I am now doing misted tubes with PSP.
I am a retired ICU/Post Open Heart RN, worked about 17 years with very very sick patients, saw and experienced way too much heartache and tragedy. Burned me right out. My little pics I make help me to keep my head on straight, concentrate and focus for more that 2 minutes on 1 thing.
I have interest in other things such as quantum mechanics and paleoanthropology, marine archeology, the physiology of human evolution and the psychology of ancient civilizations and the way consciousness developed (see Julian Jaynes theory of the breakdown of the bicameral mind). I feel like I want to know everything there ever was and is to know and so little time left in which to do it. I love to take pictures too, but hard to get in the right frame of mind to get out.
Examples of what I do are posted as videos on my YouTube channel icu109 and on http://www.pictify.com/user/icu109. Be nice if my slideshows from PictureTrail.com would embed here. Another minus for this blog.
Since Opera blogs close in March and all my work since 2010 is posted on http://www.my.opera.com/ICU109 and since holiday season of 2012 on my.opera.com/flapper1 in the album sections, I started posting my work the past year or so, on http://www.picasa.com/user/icu109 which is most complete with all credits etc for each creation posted as well. My old work I am making into videos and will subsequently uploads to my YouTube channel, icu109. The work is degrading digitally after a couple years I noticed as I have stored and moved my creations from laptop to laptop and to SSD, so the stuff really looks crappy. I will see if I download each individual one from Opera albums before it closes if that will improve the quality, but it still won’t improve the talent since I had just started and knew nothing of antialiasing and drop shadows and a ton of other stuff, plus I was working on Paint.NET and not Photoshop. I have a LOT to learn yet but have better quality images to use and a better eye now.
This type animation I’m trying to learn.
oh btw…skem9 is back online!! yay!!!
I am reading now about ancient civilizations, and the books are very enlightening. ie, how man invented religion which was then spread around by the Romans to control their people then conquer even more. and the atrocities in the name of religion, what zealots will do just for blood lust and call it crusades is beyond me. Seems like they’d have something to do at home. Garden, love their families, talk to the neighbours, you know, normal stuff. assholes. I was brought up to mind my own business and keep my nose out of others’ business. Everybody should be that way unless somebody needs help. period. just MOHO.
Snap Yo Fingers, Do yo step, you can do it all by yose’f yemme see you do it…! Lil John
Another example of what I would like to learn how to do this glitter graphic.
Fiddling with graphics. Just at home. Just for my relaxation and stress reduction and therapy for my scatterbrain. I can concentrate on a picture I’m making for quite awhile. These 2 pics, not mine, are examples of what I am TRYING to accomplish. Need help, can’t look up tutorials cuz I don’t know how to describe effect. I think more I look at them that it has to do with the noise filter you apply, a different intensity to each frame, then combine 2 or 3 in Jasc animation, or on one of the online services or for godsake since I pay every damned month for photoshop, in CC… OR Corel PSPx4 which I bought. Just need to get to it. May have just talked myself into figuring it out. I think, actually, Jasc3 Wizard is easiest after you assemble your images, noise and sparkle wise, however many, 2, 3, 4, all different but very closely similar otherwise they jump too much, keep images small; you can use photoshop CC or what not to do them in layers and flatten them…then run them through the Jasc3 wizard. OK. By George, I think she’s got it (Rex Harrison from guess what movie).
ok… compared to my examples, artists unknown but wish they’d magically appear and walk me through this crap… I just did a few simple small animations, not happy with them particularly but getting the gist of the Jasc, so to speak:
she SO needs antialiasing. I did some, apparently not enough.
Not TOO bad, but used others’ images…NOW need to utilize my own “tags” or little whatever they call them, make them, find them in my albums, whatever, and try Jasc on them. CAN’T be too big, supposedly the file size is important so may make my own from scratch with some poser figures I have etc…keep me off the streets.
Originally, liked what I read about Opera software. Hated IE, still have objections to using it. Firefox I only use if I need a website background to steal, straight up, as it is the only browser that has “show background” in the right click menu, well the newer versions I believe have read this as I just redownloaded new FF and don’t see it ; HOWEVER WARNING WARNING WILL ROBINSON (Lost in Space – robot) Firefox may be SPYWARE – THEY TOOK OVER MY SEARCH ENGINE, HOMEPAGE AND OTHER RANDOM STUFF SO WATCH OUT. I stayed loyally with Opera because of my blog sites ICU109 and flapper1, and the world I can visit with them thru my many friends in over 90 countries on my original blog, http://www.my.opera.com/ICU109, and because I have a place for my creations and memories I enjoy sharing. I am ICU109, as well as flapper1 here on my Opera. Also I am icu109 on YouTube, have made a few home movies. http:www.Pictify.com/user/icu109; started putting stuff there. I like the interface. I have Opera browser because I love it. My Opera opened up the world to me – made me a more diverse person. I love music now I’d never heard before, artists from other cultures so rich and talented, languages that I can’t understand words but understand the heart and souls of the artists and singers and dancers, thank you all so much for opening these up to me.
Thank Opera for taking My.Opera Blog away from us, it was one of my major joys in life. Now we are all scattered to the 4 winds. Hope some find a home here and make it our own. Hope the staff can look at My.Opera before March and adopt some of the user interface we loved.
FYI Vivaldi, priest (the Red priest so called due to his red hair) taught students at a catholic school – music and instuments; the book “Vivaldis’ Virgins” I read a couple years ago. His violin compositions were so difficult and fast paced not many could play them. He really died in obscurity, I think in the 1700s and wasn’t really brought to fame till early 1900s. He along with Mozart are my favorite classical composers. OK!
NOW:
fast fact section:
At the movies I like to see:
I do not go out. I watch online. I like action movies. Popcorn, soda pop & PirateBay. Oh Yeah. My bad.
last movies seen:
Had a Twilight day and watched ALL 5 movies in 1 day. I am SO Bella’d OUT. Then I watched the Underworld series. Topook past 2 days to watch Robert DeNero in Once Upon a Time in America…an almost 4 hour epic. Excellent. Harry Potter series awaits.
Music I listen to:
STRATOVARIUS ! Timo Kotipelto as vocalist and the band that blows me away!!!!! “If The Story is Over” new song new album called Nemesis is OUT now! And a rediscovered love of mine from the 90s, Dwight Yoakam, Damn. He still hot. Always Cryan’ Shames, 60s Chicago Band. WLS & WSAQ Chicago-land! Toad 4evah!!!
Best album right now:
Forever since High School late 60s:
Cryan’ Shames: Synthesis and Scratch in the Sky$
Strato’s new Nemesis is superb currently.
Favorite author:
Julian Jaynes, Graham Hancock, Carl Sagan, Homer, Victor Hugo, Solzhenitsyn, Haruki Murakami…FINISHed 1Q84 awhile back.
Last book read:
RE-reading Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. Love you Graham!!!! I Keep buying it cuz I loan my copies out and never get them back. This is the 3rd copy. JUST bought his and Robert Bauvals’ TALISMAN book. Looks yummy. and in that order was Carl Sagans’ Demon Haunted World, started on that a bit too. Read the Hobbit in like 2 days recently; need to get to the trilogy since I’ve seen the flicks.
Best game right now:
I don’t play games… except Angry Birds on my HTC Evo 4G phone. Love FF vs XIII for the graphics, story, characters and music, though. It is being revamped into FF XV right now and I understand Lightening will be making another appearance. I still believe in love between Noct and Stella. Movie anyone???
Favorite sports team:
Tigers baseball, Indianapolis Colts football (they will always be the Baltimore Colts to me with Johnny Unitas as quarterback….sigh.)
I’m passionate about:
NOT getting in other peoples’ business and about people leaving my business alone.
I wish I could:
crush persecution and animal / bird / child abuse and neglect. You want abuse? You’ll get a whole can of whupass if I catch you harming a bird. So watch what you step in. I’m Irish and that’s spelled ATTITUDE, DUDE.
Favorite travel destination:
IF I felt well enough emo’ly to get out: tropical. rain forest. birds. lots of bug spray and one of those new binocular-cameras. AND see the Aegean Sea before I die. So what am I doing in Michigan? Born and raised in NW Indiana, always been by the Great Lakes; moved to Michigan in 76. Well, probably moving to UTAH this next year. My daughter and her hubby have jobs waiting at U of U so I’ll go along so I can take classes. Photoshop etc.
If I won 1 million dollars, I would:
since I already have a cleaning service, I’d like a personal maid since I can’t seem to even sort my clothes, though I AM working on it…. AND pay all my kids’ and my siblings bills fo’evah.
If I were a super hero I would:
rescue each and every animal and bird, child and elder being abused and or neglected.
On my vacation I:
what’s a vacation? I’m on permanent vacation. I do what I want. I’m on my laptop, on my bed, photoshopping, reading or watching a movie or video. I do go out in my yard and take pictures of plants up close or of my birds and dog. Or down by the Black River. Or over by where the St. Clair River comes out of Lake Huron – The Blue Water Bridges are pretty photogenic. The first span was finished I think in the 30s. It has a twin that was torn down here in the US back I believe in the 90s. Did a blog on it awhile back. We now have 2 spans, the 2nd is cool, different design but right next to and complimenting the first span, it was completed in the 90s and we went up when it opened and could walk on it. That was cool. A ways down BTW to the water….. and the new span goes one way – the old the other, from Port Huron, Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario. New span has cool Indigo lights on it you can see from quite a ways away. ok, nuff.
Fashion I rather not see again:
Western fringed jackets and cowboy hats/boots on anybody except Dwight Yoakam. Sweatshirts with cutesey pictures on them especially ones with sewn on collars; turtlenecks and “mock” turtlenecks; DENIM JUMPERS; leisure suits.
My worst purchase ever:
My stupid cheap peacock blue camera , which is like a year old. I need to get used to it STILL. I got it because I like the blue color. lol. There is a Nikon I want, over 300USD. Cough it up. My phone cam is ok. What is the best camera you can have? The one you have with you moron.
I want my coffee..:
decaf, a bit of sugar, double creamer. or perhaps double or triple chocolate milk. I pour everything in milk. You have to pour the milk FIRST in order to slowly add a bit of soda for flavour. On ice. OJ with diet Sprite. on ICE.
Food I like:
Dairy. Occasional plain meat. Fish. Fried in butter with breadcrumbs and spicing. NO processed or fast food. Fresh fruit and veg. – Occasional Choc Chip Cookies…and CHOCOLATE donuts, well, the world just doesn’t spin without those.
I don’t like:
pasta. eat very little starchy stuff like bread..yuck – unless it is hard on the outside and soft in the center ( that’s what SHE said). Desserts don’t make me feel too good. caffeine makes me sicker. Have to take exception for the chocolate and FEW cookies and donuts.
Software I use:
Photoshop CC mostly; Corel Paintshop Pro x4 Ultimate. DP Animation. Jasc Animation Shop 3; PaintDotNet.
Hardware I use:
Gateway quad core with 17″ screen and Windows 8.1. Still have 2 others: HP laptop and Compaq laptop. Both with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS. I have 2 SDDs, 3gb total, for storage. WD and Toshiba brands.
Pets – since there was no place allotted on my.opera about pets, per se, here is a list of my stupid pets. Dog. Panda Bear born in June 2012, half Shih-Tzu, half fox (Jack Russell) terrier or terror as the case may be; birds, which include Pepper my Grey, Ko-Ko, my Amazon (yellow nape male asshole but my best friend), Beau my German Roller male canary bless his little heart, Niki and Sky my quaker brats. That’s it. Need parakeets, and cockatiels. Fo real. Need help cleaning the cages if I have more though, damn this old body with the arthitis. Have a general caretaker who is craaaazy. Lives in the back section of the house. Does nothing but make messes. Occasionally shops for me. Occasionally cooks pretty good. Helps during my rare meltdowns. Can’t fix nuthin’. Takes 3 of him to change a lightbulb IF you actually HAVE a new bulb and coach him thru it and IF he ain’t irritable which is near never. Once in awhile brings me chocolate and sweet tea. He ok. Gotta watch our Viet Vets; govt ain’t doin crap for ’em.
ok that is my modified about page from my ICU109 from my.opera blog, my original one started in 09.
now go start your own.
