Experimenting with a new Video host

Everyone knows "Youtube"is for video! If you are interested in having multiple views so you can boast about how popular your video is then Youtube is the place to be. I recently heard about Wistia and decided to check it out. This is a video hosting site primarily for people who have web pages that promote products but there is a special offer that interests the hobby videomaker and that is to have a free account so videos can be linked to Facebook and Blogs.
I took some snippets of video at a recent event and edited them together - and making the snippets even shorter - just to try things out for myself.
I doubt if you will be too enamoured by the music - by being close to the large speakers I have very distorted sound - plus the sound from Korea and from Japan is very different to Western music.

I am happy with the quality of the video that I am getting from Wistia - uploaded from my MacPro as a Quicktime movie and converted by Wistia. I hope you find the video interesting. The Gold Coast, which is 75klm South of Brisbane is home to people who originated in many different countries. Approximately 33% are from places other than Australia so we have a very rich mix of cultures. Wonderful!

Sunshine and more sunshine

When the skies are blue and the batteries are charged, I cannot resist going outside and capturing a photo or two. Sorting through the stuff I had pulled out of the garden near the steps at the entrance to my home I found four Daylilies that were tangled among the native "iris" plants so I had to replant those and water them in before I could start snapping! It wont be long before my garden has recovered from my brutality and is filled with leaves once again! I scattered some of the sedum around - it is a ground cover that is very attractive - it doesn't flower. (I think it is called Sedum! That's what I have been calling it!)
Looking around to see the source of a very strange bird call I couldn't help but notice the flower head of the Alexander Palm.

All kinds of birds enjoy eating the fruits of the palm tree. The bees come in first and are almost deafening with their buzzing around the tiny flowers. (slight exaggeration!) Then the small berries are formed, these are a light creamy colour and they must be delicious because honey eaters as well as fruit eaters come and sample them. There is a greenish coloured bird, about the size of a pigeon, that has red eyes and a shortish tail, which is called a Fig Bird and it is very partial to these berries.
But the noise I was following was today coming from the Calliandra - I call it the pom pom tree! The noise was from the Little Wattle Bird.

The Little Wattle Bird is very territorial and very domineering - it will not allow any other bird to come to this tree. I find it quite entertaining watching as the Blue Cheeked Honeyeaters or the Mickey Miners or whatever visiting birds zip in an out of the many thin branches trying to keep out of the way of the squawking Little Wattle Bird. The Wattle bird usually wins the day and the visitors leave empty beaked!

Although this bird is called a Little Wattle Bird, in my opinion is doesn't have a wattle (Droopy skin on the sides of the head - think of turkey) But I have seen other wattle birds that DO have wattles. Perhaps on the Little Wattle Bird the wattles are there but very small!
Both these photos were taken with the 18-55mm lens - I always seem to have the wrong lens on!
AJ

On the water

It was such a beautiful day today that I loaded my camera into the car and headed off in the direction of "The Spit" which is a narrow neck of land stretching out into the Pacific Ocean and on which is located the Southport Yacht Club, the prawn fleet, Seaworld and a couple of very expensive hotels.
My main purpose was to take photographs of flags in different situation - this is one of the topics for this month for the Visions Group. Since there was a strong breeze blowing any flags I found were flipping around at a great rate of knots! I needed a very high shutter speed to get them!
I am not going to share the flags with you, instead I am going to show you a few shots I took while looking for them.

Oops! A flag slipped in! The buildings in the background are Southport. Usually when high rise buildings are shown on the Gold Coast they are of the ones in Surfers Paradise. Southport is a suburb adjacent to and north of Surfers Paradise. Southport is considered to be the CBD of the Gold Coast while Surfers Paradise is the tourism hub. There are not as many tall buildings in Southport as there are in Surfers Paradise - but no doubt that will change over the years!

Here is a different way to explore the Gold Coast. I have caught one of the Helitours just leaving from its floating pontoon with a well dressed passenger in the front seat. The tall building at the back is a shopping centre and office block. Three floors of the Australia Fair building are shopping centre and four are car parking. The Australia Fair (Scarborough Fair originally) was first opened in 1983 and is still a vibrant and popular place to shop.

It was so pleasant rambling around the Marina along the Quay that I was often tempted to take photographs - on a sunny day like this the place looks magnificent! Of course, the large and luxurious water craft along this main walkway are on display to be sold. Several different marine brokers have strings of beautiful boats moored here.

I would love to know more about this iron boat. It sits solidly on the water beside smaller bouncy, white luxury craft and has no pretence at beauty. What is the purpose of the projection at the front? I wonder. There was no one I could ask, just a couple of other people passing the time like me and they knew even less than I did!
AJ

A holiday at "Coffs"

Colin and I will be staying in Coffs Harbour for seven days. On our arrival to this popular tourist town we just had to call into the most famous place in this region - the Big Banana! We had promised to bring back a souvenir for each of the children so we just had to call in so we could get something!

Colin was my willing subject for a shot of the landmark - All I had to do was tell him where to stand!

We could not leave without sampling a banana - this is the premiere banana growing area in NSW - so we ordered a banana split - and yum! It was good! Large and sweet and delicious and almost too much for any one person to eat on their own - but we had one each and we left ..... nothing!

A visit to the Information centre was our next call. There we met Dave who didn't actually know as much about the region as I did but he was entertaining and he took a real shine to us! I had been on the 'net and made a list of all the places that sounded interesting and although Dave had not been to half of the places at least he was able to show us on the main map where the little towns were that I asked about. He was a lovely fellow! He even suggested a restaurant where we could celebrate our anniversary!

Armed with a few maps and booklets we booked into our accommodation. We had forgotten that there was an hour's time difference so had to put the clocks forward and after putting in the key for the Wireless connection I then made the evening meal. The connection is so poor in our room that I have had to walk 50 metres or more to the games room where I am at the moment. Unfortunately there is no spare power point so I have to run on batteries! But the Internet is FREE so I am very lucky!

A picture taken in the smart lounge room of our two bedroom unit. The place looks as if it has been recently refurbished, it is very attractive and new.

All this post is being written on a tiny little 10 inch laptop and I feel that I can happily take it with me when I go to New Zealand next month and manage. I had a feeling I would need to take my regular laptop (17inch) if this one was not up to the task of uploading pictures and writing in the blog.

I am not sure which direction we shall be going tomorrow, I shall have to look at the booklets and make a decision - Aren't I lucky, I get to choose!

AJ