Rather Alarming News

Post inspired by a photo of the Sigma Telephoto 200-500mm F2/8 lens.

The British Royal birthday suit scandal has been in the news of late.  The latest news has the German/Danish gossip magazine Seg og Hor playing a game of will they or won’t they publish bottomless photos of the Duchess as she sunbathed with her husband, Prince William.

What Kate and William are going through is not new news. In the late nineties, Aftonbladet – a Swedish gossip magazine printed photos of the Danish Crown Jewels during a summer holiday at a private chateau in the south of France. I don’t believe it was the same chateau featured in the Will and Kate photo session.

 I really don’t care why royalty feel the need to get their kit off during a summer holiday at a private chateau in the south of France and I don’t need to see photo evidence of this activity.  Who cares. They share the same anatomical features as the rest of humanity.

Two things alarm me with the Birthday Suit scandal:

1. The photos were taken from at least a half mile away in a underpopulated area. It’s one thing to see the paparazzi snapping photos while you sunbath, quite another when they are so far away from sight. What if that was a high powered rifle, instead of a camera lens?  This is a real security concern for any public figure.  The royal family is in the process of  suing publishers who print the photos, but to what end?  Sending such a message in the age of digital photography is almost a moot point.

2. Of all the royalty, Will and Kate should have the most highly tuned radar for PDA (public displays of affection). Diana’s famous battles with intrusive press and Kate’s lawsuits against the press while she was dating William should have forged between them a strong working strategy against intrusive photos.  The take home message for both of them – nowhere outside is secluded and private. An exception might be Germany in the near future.

In other alarming news, thousands of Germans demonstrate for a permanent wealth tax on people’s wealth. Imagine how quickly ‘wealthy’ people in Germany will relocate elsewhere. This mass migration could open up great swaths of land for young royals to holiday and sunbath in the nude with no intrusive photos.

What are your thoughts on the age of digital photography and privacy?

Chasing 26.2 Update

An update in the chasing 26.2 saga:

The upcoming Philly marathon became  real today as I crossed a distance milestone. 16 miles is the furthest I’ve ran and the day could not have been more perfect.

Also, I’m still dealing with the vagaries of each distance training run. Last week was what I considered an easy 10 miles that turned into ten miles of pure misery. IT band issues have been plaguing me since Sept 14th and last Saturday’s training run was painful. Today, the issue was completely manageable and I felt strong the entire distance and would not have complained if I tacked on a couple more miles. Arghh…I’m just not good at predicting how well a run will go but at least I’m keeping up with the weekly and weekend mileage.

In other news, apparently the Triathlon bug has bit – I signed up for early registration for the 2013 Virgin Active London Triathlon.

 Basically, marathon training is my part time job 🙂

Treat Her Right – The Commitments

Snark Factor Tonight!

Listen live to the Snark Factor every Wednesday night at 1opm EST on FTR Radio where I will be joining Fingers Malloy, Irish Duke to bring news bites at the top of the hour followed by sparkling chats with invited guests. If you are a fan of my blog, you’ll know that I have an eclectic taste in news of the day.

On tap tonight:

Men who purr…

*goosebumps*

Bloggers Who Matter

 

One of the lasting benefits of attending a Blissdom conference is the people you meet. I’ve was very fortunate to meet Beth, a remarkable woman and blogger at the Blissdom newbie ice breaker.  Experience has taught me the importance of surrounding yourself with people of character, talent and a good heart.  Beth has these qualities in spades and I’m so glad

I am delighted to share Beth’s blog with my readers – you can find her online at Masterpiece – created to love people and bring glory to God.   Stop over and say Hello, you will find her blog is truly a Masterpiece.

Welcome back to blogging, Beth. I look forward to following your journey.

Almond Milk and You – Chic, Sexy and Delicious

As readers may know, I’m currently immersed in training for the Philadelphia 2012 Marathon. An important aspect of training is building better eating habits. One such habit is replacing dairy milk with almond milk – preferably Silk Pure Almond Milk. As I write this post, I’m sipping on Starbucks Salt and Caramel chocolate milk mix with Silk Vanilla almond milk. Seriously, I think I’m in love.

Many have asked how do you milk an almond? Quite simple actually – almonds are blended with water to create Almond Milk. This makes a great base for flavors to be added such as vanilla or chocolate.

I’ve discovered almond milk has far more cosmopolitan uses than marathon training. The video below shows how almond milk is used in creating a signature cocktail called ‘Colorado Blossom’.

Chic, sexy and delicious. What more could you want in almond milk?

Pinterest Recipe Meets the Real World – Southwestern Stuffed Peppers

Hey, it’s Sunday and time for another edition of Pinterest Recipe meets the real world!   The recipe chosen for this post: Southwestern Stuffed Peppers.

I’ve curated a rather large collection of tasty recipes on a Pinterest Board simply labeled ‘Food and Drink‘. While it is interesting to build this board, I wanted to be confident that the contents of the board were items that could be made offline, in the real world. The only way to be sure was to recreate the recipes at home.

The pin clicks through to the blog SimplyLoveFood.com where the author shared her recipe for this dish.

Source: go.redirectingat.com via Tania on Pinterest

 

It is quite easy to make and a favorite go to recipe when my garden grown peppers are ready to be harvested. However, when I prepared this recipe, my peppers were not quite ready, so I substituted them with store bought organic peppers.

Here is my real world version of the same recipe:

• 3 medium to large sized peppers.
• One half pound lean ground beef (or turkey).
• One half cup Brown Rice or Basmati Rice.
• Olive oil to coat the peppers.
• One half cup chopped sweet onion (or any onion lurking in your refrigerator)
• 1 Tbsp Taco seasoning – store bought.
• One half jar Southwest style Salsa – mild.
• One half cup frozen or fresh corn.
• 1 can of black beans (15 oz), drained.
• One half cup shredded sharp cheese for topping.
• Sour cream for topping.
• Cilantro for for topping.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is preheating, cook rice according to package directions. If  you don’t have directions, here is basic rice cooking instruction:

Rinse rice before cooking; add 1 and 1/2 cups of water to every 1 cup of rice; bring the uncovered rice and water to a boil; reduce heat to medium partially cover with lid to allow steam to escape; as water evaporates, it will leave ‘craters’ in the rice; reduce heat to low when ‘craters’ appear and simmer the covered rice for 10 minutes. 

Set cooked rice aside.

In a non stick pan, brown the lean ground beef or turkey.

In a large mixing bowl, add the cooked rice, browned beef or turkey, taco seasoning, 3/4 of a jar of salsa, black beans, corn, and chopped onion. Mix ingredients to an even consistency. This is your pepper stuffing mixture.

Slice peppers into halves, remove seeds and excess pepper. Quickly rinse the peppers to remove all seeds, pat dry. Coat peppers with olive oil, spoon heaping amounts of stuffing mixture into the pepper cavity.

Arrange peppers in baking dish, sprinkle shredded sharp cheese on top of the peppers before placing in oven.

Bake peppers for 45 mins. Add additional shredded cheese and reserved salsa when you remove the stuffed peppers from the oven. Don’t forget to wear oven mitts!

Prior to serving, top the baked peppers with a dollop of sour cream and some cilantro.

Enjoy!

 

Peppers, Filling, and finished product

Yes, I intentionally left out salt. The dish has enough flavor that salt is not needed.  For a vegetarian twist, remove the meat and switch the rice with Quinoa.

As you can see, Pinterest can be a great source for meal inspirations and ideas that are actually workable in the real world.  So what are you waiting for? Join Pinterest and follow my Food and Drink board for more Pinterest to Real Life tested recipes.

Light’s Out in One Week at Longwood Garden

One week left to take in the spectacular “Light” installations designed by Bruce Munro. I would strongly suggest rearranging your schedule to accommodate a visit. I make a point to visit this garden often, as evidenced by my Flickr photo feed.  The bar is set high within this exquisite garden and for this exhibit to surpass it is quite the feat.  I’m not kidding, I had tears well up the first time I viewed this exhibit.  It is far more beautiful than what I captured on camera. It is an exhibit you have to see in person.

Longwood Garden on their website describes the exhibition:

Experience Longwood Gardens in a whole new Lightthrough the evocative and imaginative art of Bruce Munro, British artist and light designer.

Never before seen in the United States, this debut exhibition illuminates the gardens with large-scale, site-specific light installations.

Wander through a field of light reminiscent of flowers, discover a meadow of glowing towers changing hues, and delight in a shower of cascading raindrops fashioned from delicate lights as you are immersed in a new and truly unique garden experience. Both indoors and outdoors, by day and by night, Light will change the way you see gardens.

For those who cannot visit,  I offer these photos I took during several trips to view this installation. As I mentioned earlier in this post, my photos frustrate me as I don’t believe I’ve adequately captured the essence of this exhibit. However, for your perusal, are a few that give you a taste of this remarkable exhibit.

Speed of Sound – Coldplay

Whoops, better late than never! Looks like someone forgot to predate this post. Friday’s music selection is from Coldplay. XY is a great album and fabulous background music for writing blog posts or photo editing.

Tonight on the Snark Factor!

Listen live to the Snark Factor every Wednesday night at 1opm EST on FTR Radio where I will be joining Fingers Malloy, Irish Duke to bring news bites at the top of the hour followed by sparkling chats with invited guests. If you are a fan of my blog, you’ll know that I have an eclectic taste in news of the day.

On tap tonight:

 Oh My God…Sec of State Hilary Clinton must resign. Murdered American Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens knew he was named on an al-queda hit list.   Cairo was a distraction, the Libyan Ambassador was the target. The success of this premeditated attack spurred on the other Islamic countries. This wave of murder and violence had nothing to do with a YouTube video and everything to do with a ‘kill list’ target – Ambassador Stevens.

Even worse – an ex-Gitmo detainee was involved in the Consulate attack.

In other news…

The 2012 Philadelphia Rock and Roll Half Marathon was a great success!

Oh, this is just creepy.  I have to agree with the comments on this article