Vaccines work by introducing a weakened form of the germ to your body, so that the immune system can learn to recognize it. Your body then builds its defenses so it’s prepared to fight off a real attack later in life. And no, vaccines do not cause autism. They neither give you peanut allergy.
I am not finding ACDsee easy to use, but it works. It makes things that used to be easy harder, but makes other things that were impossible, not only possible, but easy.
I wish I could take the best piece of each of my graphics programs and put them together into one package! I suppose that’s just a dream, but wouldn’t it be nice if the best of the best could be packaged into a single application? Why should it be merely a dream?
Things that work really well in ACDsee:
1 – Organization. It took time, but all 101,000+ photographs got cataloged today. It cataloged pictures I didn’t know I had. All my missing photographs from 2003 through 2011 showed up. After that, it organized everything into dated folders making it far easier to find pictures. It took about an hour to catalog everything.
2 – Light. It has an array of lighting tools including the elusive “fill light.” The lighting function is sensitive and there are many ways to use it, many kinds of filters. I’ve barely touched on them yet.
3 – Other repair and exposure tools are highly effective. Clumsy to use, probably because they are so different than Photoshop. I’m hoping they will feel less awkward with time.
Things that don’t work so well in ACDsee:
1 – No simple leveling function.
2 – Really complicated menus and not much online explanation of where to find a particular function. They have a lot of material on their website, but online help would be a huge help.
3 – Terrible batch naming function. They need to fix it! It’s like Photoshop was 25 years ago.
4 – Please, please simplify the cropping tool!
All that being said, these pictures were processed using only ACDsee and installed Topaz filters. They took a long time to create, but I have to assume it will get easier with practice.
In all the years of challenges I have never given you the theme WAY, so I thought it was about time I included it in Thursday’s Special photo challenge. No other special reason than that. I will check the entries next Wednesday so take your time posting and let’s hope you will find the right way 😉
If you are talking to Garry and I, it’s not a random question. We are permanently lost. Whether we are on the way to Boston, or on the way to another town in the valley … we are lost, oh lost.
On the Mass Pike …
While we were getting lost, I took pictures. We can get almost anywhere. The problem isn’t getting almost there. It’s getting exactly there, to the specific building and department.
Reducing stress requires mind and body relaxing together. Mental relaxation is probably harder for most people — for good reason. Most of us think all the time. More than 50,000 thoughts flash through your mind every day. Buddhists call this mindless internal monologue “Chatter” or “Monkey Mind”.
Photo credit: Huffington Post
Most “chatter” is negative. Brooding on the past, self-criticism, worries, to-do lists, and so on. This stuff has a powerful effect on your body and psyche.
A thought is reality to your body.
Worrying releases the same destructive hormones that would be released if the worried-about event were really happening. The goal of all relaxation techniques is to anchor your mind in the present, to shut out anxiety and negative thoughts, most of which are locked into the past or future.
An intense focus on “now”, including how you are breathing, can override “Chatter.” It will give your mind a mini vacation, a brief, therapeutic — and probably much-needed — break.
Abdominal breathing is a form of meditation. It can help alleviate symptoms of ADD, reduce fidgeting and short attention span.
When you’re in a stressed breathing pattern, you can shift to abdominal breathing. This will pretty much instantly reduce tension, focus your mind, and increase your energy level. It do the same thing to your mind if you feel yourself going into a particularly toxic session of “Monkey Mind” negativity.
VISUALIZATION
Start taking slow, steady abdominal breaths until you feel your body relax. You can start a counting exercise as you breathe. Or you can go directly into a mini visualization, as follows:
Imagine, with each inhalation, you’re breathing peace, calm, and well-being in to every part of your body. With each exhalation, imagine you’re blowing the tension and negativity out.
Try saying “peace in” each time you inhale — and “tension out” each time you exhale.
Picture a giant wave of relaxation and tranquility pouring over you with each breath you take, soaking through your body from the top down as you complete inhaling and exhaling.
Feel the tension melt away from the muscles in your head and neck. Then feel it flow down your shoulders, arms, torso — finally your pelvis, legs and feet.
When a wave has saturated your body with relaxation, visualize another coming in with your next breath. You can add color and light to each wave — your favorite color or a bright light.
When you feel loose and mellow, refocus on your breath, then gradually transition back to your day.
It turns out that the process of learning stress control techniques can ease tension and anxiety.
Research shows that feeling helpless creates as much — or more — physiological damage as would the thing or event you fear. Feeling in control reduces stress. All by itself. If you know you can do something to help yourself cope, you won’t feel overwhelmed or helpless. Stress will have less control over you.
An old but still relevant example is an Air Force study made during World War II. The study showed that co-pilots suffered from more stress during combat missions than pilots. Pilots were in control of the plane; co-pilots were not.
It’s reassuring to know that one of the reasons mind-body techniques work is that they enhance your sense of control over yourself — and therefore your life.
Circles and squares in squares. What could be simpler? Seeking squares and circles — inside squares, of course! From BeckyB!
Usually, I find antique cars at car shows. There are quite a few car shows — antique car shows especially — in this area. A surprisingly large number of people have restored old cars and they have barns, so they are easy to keep through the long winter.
This one, though, showed up in the parking lot at Hannaford and I could not resist taking pictures of it. The own came out and give me a little extra history, too.
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