Editing with Curves

While writing all of these vacation recaps, I continually found myself frustrated by the color quality of my photos.

"Why isn't the ocean bluer in this picture!?!? It was so BLUE in real life!" I would wail to no one in particular.

So, I pulled out my Photoshop CS4 book, and I started researching color correcting. Great scott! I should have learned this years ago!!!

Here is the very first picture that I color corrected (in it's original version):

Pretty, right???

But that's not what it LOOKED like!!! It was soooo much brighter, sooo much bluer, so much more everything!  So with a few slight adjustments using curves I was able to recreate colors much truer to what they actually looked like.  Here is the edited photo:

That's more like it! Do you see the difference? Scroll back up and look at the original again.  Now the edit. Do you agree that it looks better? Do you believe me when I say that the second image is what it REALLY looked like?!?

Here's one more example, before editing and after.

The edits are definitely subtle, which makes sense, considering that they weren't bad pictures in the original form.  Basically I just tried to remove that whitish-colored "film" that seemed to make all of the original photos look bland and washed out.  I like to think that I was successful, but do you agree?  In the color-corrected version, I feel like the strip of aqua blue water that is located where the sky meets the water really "pops" more than it did in the original.

I'm going to need to start spending more time on editing my photos before posting them, especially ones that I know how particularly beautiful colors which are being washed out by light. It's time consuming, so not all photos are going to get edited, but I think that the small improvement is enough to make it worth it for some of the better pictures.

And finally, a question for any other blogger/blogspot users - Do you know how to layout pictures side-by-side? I couldn't seem to figure that out.

Topes Y Cenotes - Tulum, Mexico, Part 6 - Dreams Tulum Beaches

On our second full day, DH was still feeling weary from the day before, but was definitely ready to start feeling better.  Although I had tons of plans for the week, we decided to play it safe and just spend the day at the resort to see how things went with the upset belly.

We started with breakfast at the buffet.  Isn't this great presentation? Too bad I accidentally put honey on the french toast instead of syrup.  I HATE honey.

 After breakfast, we decided to take a morning stroll on the beach.  It was still before 9 a.m. - after all, we went to bed at like 8:30 p.m. the night before.  The beach was beautiful.  One of the reasons that I chose this resort over all of the others closer to Cancun is that it was a more secluded location and I had read that it was an amazing place for long walks on the beach.

 Early morning swimmers

Of course, long walks were not in our near future, since we needed to stay near the resort "just in case," but we did take a decent walk and it really was beautiful.

There were some sections of the water (above) where there were a ton of large rocks.  In these areas, the waters hit the rocks and didn't roll up on the beach like they do in other areas not blocked by rocks, and in these rocky waterline areas the sand wasn't a coarse mixture of shells and stone instead of the soft fine sand elsewhere on the beach.

What the sand looked like in some areas

Snails in shells clinging to rocks

We came across a palm tree close to the shoreline that had dropped some coconuts.  I was hoping to find a brand new, fresh coconut that I could crack open, but after all of the hard work to pry it open, it was already hollow inside.  Oh well, I was still excited.

DH took the picture below, and he entitled it "Gulf Oil Spill."  For the record, no, there was no oil affecting any of the beaches in Mexico.  Because of the currents in the gulf, the oil is pretty much affecting only US coastlines, plus, we were even further south than Cancun.

I could have walked on the beach all day. It was beautiful and breezy and cool and because there were no other resorts or houses or people nearby, it felt so private and untouched by man.  But the sun was now starting to shine and we hadn't put on any sunscreen since the beach walk was impromptu.  Plus, DH felt a rumbling in his belly, so we headed back.

After applying copious amounts of sunscreen, we claimed some chairs by the pool.  We were only there for a short while though when DH decided that he needed to go back to the room.  He said that he would come back and so I stayed behind at the pool.

I'm not sure if time just passed really slowly for me because I was alone, or if DH really was gone that long, but it felt like he was gone for an eternity.  I started getting concerned and so I packed up all of our stuff and headed back to the room.  On the way, I ran into him returning from the room, but he still didn't feel great.   We knew that the resort had some sort of on-site doctor, so we walked around trying to find it.  After walking around in the back section of the resort, where the convention center, spa, Explorer's (children's club) and gym were all located (obviously we didn't go back to this section very often), we found the doctor's office, only to find that he closed at 3 p.m.  It was literally like, 3:05 p.m., and we tried the door, but it was locked.

It was at this point that we decided to seek out the resorts gift shop, since I had heard that there was a little pharmacy on location (overpriced, but when you're sick on vacation, you'll pay anything, right?)  DH was feeling more nauseous than anything, so we purchased something called "Vomisin" on the recommendation of the woman working behind the counter.  We paid about $100 pesos and went back to the room to relax.

This is sort of when I really started becoming selfish.  I felt like I was slowly watching my vacation slip away as it was already day 3, and we really hadn't done anything other than lay around.  We hadn't stayed out for a single evening of drinking and fun and we hadn't met anyone else because we were spending so much time in our room.  I tried not to say anything, but my mood made it obvious.  I did feel really bad for DH - no one wants to be sick on vacation!  But at the same time I wanted to cry as I realized that this might be the way we spend the rest of our vacation.  I wished that there was at least one other person with us so that I could hang out with them instead of sitting in the room waiting for DH to feel better.  Yes, that's right, I wanted to be able to abandon him in the room so that he could do his thing and I could do mine. His thing being sick.  Again, I know it was selfish, but at the time, after months and months of planning for and dreaming about this trip, this was NOT how I had imagined spending it.

After a couple of hours in the room, he was able to pull himself together enough to go to dinner.  We decided to try to French restaurant, called Bordeaux.  This was the only adults only restaurant on the resort, and it was definitely a cute little place.  We got there right when it opened, so we were seated immediately, and this was my favorite place to eat the entire week.

Dinner took a long time, and I think it was after 8 by the time we left.  This was Mexican fiesta night and there were a lot of vendors with stands set up, selling souvenirs and jewelery.  The buffet was also set up outside, in front of the stage section of the plaza where a Mexican themed show was about to start.  DH started to feel sick again, so he got a cappuccino at the coffee shop, while I ordered a strawberry daiquiri at the bar.

Turns out that like myself, DH is not a huge fan of real cappuccino, and prefers what I call "gas station cappuccino" over the real stuff.

As a huge fan of Mexican food, I wanted to see they had on the Mexican Fiesta buffet.  I ate two amazing tacos - one was a bean taco and the other was a potato taco - as well as a few other tasty Mexican treats.  Yes, that's right, I ate two dinners this night.  DH just sat with me since he was not able to eat a second meal.  We watched some of the Mexican Fiesta show, but he was really starting to hurt, so we called it a night once again. 

Coming Up...
Will DH's sickness continue to affect him for the entire vacation? Will they EVER get to leave the resort?  And what about staying out past 9 p.m. some night???  Stayed tuned!

Garden Update - End of July edition

I know, I know... it's August, not the end of July.  But so much has happened with the garden in the past few weeks that I can barely even describe it, and all of these pictures are from the end of July.. When I go up there, it's so overwhelming that I stand there looking around and shaking my head for a solid 10 minutes before I feel prepared to jump in and start doing some work.


It looks something like this:

Overwhelming, right?

The beans are coming in like crazy.

The tomato plants are so laden with tomatoes that the stems are bending from the weight, and some are even breaking.  Yes, they are in tomato cages.  They grew out of them, that's how large these plants are.

The basil looks good but is being knocked over by the fall tomato branches.

The peppers, likewise, are being knocked over by the enormous broccoli plants, which I really should just pull out of the ground, since the broccoli didn't really happen this year.

And the cucumbers... oh my, the cucumbers.  I don't even know where to begin with these plants.  They are growing like crazy, up the fence, and straight into the yard.  They are vining out to the potato plants and wrapping their slimy little legs around them.  I've put up supplementary fences to encourage them to vine onto things OTHER than plants, but it's not really working.  They're just too big.  And amazing.

Look at these beauties.

I am most excited about the cucumbers this year because last year the cucumber plants did not do very well.  The plants were yellow and straggly and the cucumbers looked more like oversized bouncy balls than fresh produce.  I've got so much to say about the tomatoes that I'm going to save those for their own post.  But know that I have been struggling to give away all of the cucumbers this year.  It's amazing.

I think my thumb is finally green!! Woot woot!

(P.S. Vacation posts resume tomorrow!)

The Bachelorette

Ok, so I know that most people probably hate this show and that there are only a handful of people who probably watch it.  If you hate it, I'm sorry, and you should probably just skip this post.

But I thought this season was really touching for a number of reasons and I wanted to give Ali (the bachelorette, for those of you still reading who aren't at all familiar with the show) some credit for the way that she rose above contestants from previous seasons.  (Contestants is probably not the right word but it's all I can come up.)

Chris and Roberto (Photo from ABC.com.)

1. She showed true compassion
The first time I really felt like she was compassionate was when there were only 5 guys left and she had already decided to let Craig R go.  Instead of having a cocktail party and letting him think that he had a chance, she asked to cancel the cocktail party and just let Craig know that he wasn't the one.  It was sad - I really liked him! - but I loved that even though those weren't the rules of the show, she changed them so that she could feel ok how she "broke up" with some of these guys. 

2. She had her heart broken, and we got to see that
When Frank left the show to go home to his ex-girlfriend, she bawled her eyes out.  Frank was a front-runner for her and she really did have feelings for him.  When he just left her like that

3. She seemed like a real person
Although her make-up was always flawless, we got to see a lot of other flaws in her, that made her seem more human.  Her hair wasn't always perfectly manicured.  She had tan lines from her bathing suit.  She had a pimple on her chin in the finale!  You never see that in these shows, and those weird little things made me like her more.

4. She wasn't afraid to get pissed on TV
After she talked with Justin's girlfriend, and Chris (the host) was like, "Where do you want go from here?" she basically said that she wanted to go down to the room and confront Justin, and that's just what she did. You could tell that the camera people weren't even 100% prepared for it. 

5. She showed even more compassion than before
Once she was down to the final 2, she knew that she would be breaking someones heart.  I think that Ali truly liked Chris L, and he was my personal favorite as well, but she was clearly in love with Roberto and that had been clear for some time.  As she said, her and Chris were more friends than anything else, although I think he truly loved her.  I hate, hate hate hate hate the usual finales of these shows, where they basically make both guys think that they have a chance to get with the girl, and they both have to get down on one knee to propose, only to be told no.  Is that not a guy's worst nightmare???
She didn't want him to go through that, and refused to put him through that at all.  So instead of going on her final date with Chris, she went to his room and told him that she was in love with Roberto and that she was going to chose him the next day.  Did it suck for Chris to hear that? Absolutely.  But did it save him from the shame, embarrassment, and heartbreak of dragging him along for another two days only for her to turn down his engagement ring in the end? Absolutely.
I loved that Ali went against the usual "rules" of the show - which say that the final two guys hopefully propose and she says yes to the one that she wants - and eliminated the person that she wasn't in love with right off the bat.  The morning that she went to Chris L's room to tell him this, it's another scenario when you can almost tell that the camera people weren't ready for it.  The lighting was horrible, the shots were pretty bad, and she wasn't dressed up or done up or anything to suggest that they were expecting this to happen.

So, after watching this and loving the way that she handled everything, I have to ask myself - Did the Bachelorette's from previous season's really love both guys at the end?  Because that's what they always suggested.  "Oh my god, they're both so great and amazing and I just can't decide!" and then at the last minute, she picks one and "it was meant to be!"

Photo from aceshowbiz.com

I know that if I had been the bachelorette it would have been really clear to me which guy/guys I had feelings for, and it would be hard for me to act like I was interested in them all.  You would definitely have stronger feelings for one over the other, right??!?! Even if they were both amazing, there would always be one that like better.  But every season they act like it's such a hard decision. Ali didn't fake it.  She just said, "I'm in love with Roberto, I'm going to do things my own way."

Amen, Ali! I have so much respect for her, and could on and on and on, but I'll just leave it at that. I think that all of the guys and many of the viewers would say that they really respected the way that she handled things.

In closing, I would like to add that I do think that this is one relationship that is going to last. They seem to genuinely love each other and I think that the way Ali approached things is going to lead to greater success.

Great season overall. I am NOT sure if I'm going to watch it though - seems a little too trashy even for my tastes.

Topes Y Cenotes, Tulum, Mexico Part 5 - Lazy

Day 2 (first full day) of vacation we had one goal in mind - be incredibly lazy.  Although I had a whole list of places to go and things that I wanted to do, I also knew that DH needed to unwind after an incredibly gruelling summer of rental property renovation.  The first thing we did was request a room change, because our air-conditioning was not cooling the room properly, but after that was taken care of, we hit the beach.

This day was dedicated to 3 things - drinking, reading, and sunning.

I did all three of those things quite successfully.  My favorite activity combined all three of those things - standing in the pool, reading a book, all while sipping a drink.  I got many compliments from passersby on my mad skills whenever I would start walking around the pool, reading with my book the air, drinking in my right hand.  They were impressed that the book wasn't soaking wet.  What can I say?  I'm apparently more talented than them.

It was also on this day that we encountered the first of what would be many iguanas.  I loved the iguanas.  I wish I could take one home.  We like to buy an ornament from each vacation destination that we visit for our Christmas tree, and I had decided that I wanted to find an iguana ornament.  It turns out that the locals don't enjoy the iguanas nearly as much as I do, since we had the hardest time finding anything in the iguana form, let alone something that could serve as an ornament.  We finally settled on a key chain that looked slightly more like a lizard than an iguana, but it will do.

I took this picture when I still thought that getting to see an iguana might be a novel thing

This was also the day that DH's stomach issues began.  We don't know exactly what caused it, but on this particular day we ate at the buffet for breakfast, and then he had a hamburger and hot dog from the pool side grill for lunch.  I ate half a hot dog because I was full from strawberry daquiries, although I regretted that decision later in the day.  Then we went for a late lunch at the Sea Side grill where I ate a club sandwich and DH had the flank steak sandwich.  He thinks that this sandwich may have caused his troubles, since it had onions on it and he thinks that onions are the root of his problem.  He didn't eat enough onions during the course of the week to convince me though, so I'm still saying it was the dairy.

Anyway, we went back to room so that he could be sick for awhile.  I was ready for a break out of the sun anyway, so it was a welcome break and while he spent time in the bathroom, I spent time on our hammock.

It was super comfortable

My view from the hammock - I was more than a little drunk at this point

So after a nap, it was evening and I got ready for dinner and DH writhed on the bed in pain.  I read my book for a bit, sat outside on the balcony, trying to kill time until he felt well enough to go with me.  I was starving by this point.  Remember? No lunch for me.  He didn't think he could make it.  But, there was no way that I was going to dinner at a fancy resort by myself, so when he found a moment when he didn't think he was going to die, we rushed to the buffet and he sat in agony while I stuffed my face as quickly as I could.  I have no idea what the entertainment was that night.  There was no way that we were going to be going to it. So, needless to say, we were off to bed after that, and I was praying that tomorrow DH would be feeling better.

Topes Y Cenotes - Tulum, Mexico, Part 4 - Dreams!

Can you believe that I'm already on part 4 and we haven't even arrived at the resort yet?  Man, I am one wordy lady....

So after about an hour and a half or so of driving on the Mexican interstates, we started seeing signs for Dreams Tulum.

Woo hoo!!!

We had to take a "retorno" - basically a center lane that allows you to make a u-turn every couple of miles or so.  It's incredibly efficient - it totally eliminates the need for on-ramps and off-ramps in both directions.  If your destination is on the left, instead of having an off-ramp and an underpass which allows drivers to turn either left or right, you simply turn around at the first available retorno and then take the one exit for your destination.

The entrance

The driveway

The driveway leading to the Dreams lobby is a pretty, cobblestone drive that has a walking trail along it.  We never used the walking trail, but it looked pretty.  One time driving out though we did see a coatimundi cross the road!! We didn't know what it was at the time, but now I can confirm that it was a coatimundi.  It's like a Mexican raccoon.  Check out this site for more information on coatimundis.

 The picture makes it look cute, but the one we saw seemed pretty ugly (from http://www.pet-spot.com/blog/?p=191)

Anyway, we pulled up at the front door and a bell boy immediately opened our doors. They unloaded our luggage and gave us a luggage ticket and opened the doors to the lobby.  The Dreams Tulum lobby is beautiful - it's enormous with marble floors and it's very luxurious - couches, a concierge desk, a tours desk, a bar, and more.  The weird thing about their lobby is that it is totally under-utilized because of it's location on the resort - it's not really near anything other than guest rooms.  This was really different from the lobby at the Breezes resort in Jamaica, where the lobby bar was open the longest of all of the bars and the lobby in general was a central meeting place where everyone walked through all the time.

So we were handed glasses of champagne and offered cool towels (which we declined, not really our thing). I sipped my champagne while we checked in - DH quickly chugged his.  He was ready for a drink.  Check-in was a breeze (I had recently read a comment on Trip Advisor about how check-in for the author took over an hour and they said that the front desk staff were incredibly rude - we experienced none of that), and we went back out front to meet the bell boy, equipped with a resort map (the place is huge compared to other resorts we've been at!)

We were escorted to our room, which was located on the second floor in the "deluxe garden view" section of the resort, which - as I mentioned in this post - is really quite a distance away from the main gathering places of the resort.  But as I also mentioned in that post, it was the least expensive room type, so you get what you pay for.  See my Room Review post for more specifics on the room!

 Actually this is a picture of our second room, but it's identical to the first

Anyway, at this point the rest of the day was more or less a blur.  We were sooo tired, and we had only checked in around 5:45 so it was already almost time for dinner.  DH ordered room service to tide him over for a late dinner, since I wanted to hit the pool!!!

That's right! I made my OWN Bud Light Lime!

There were two pools, the "activities" pool and the "quiet" pool.  Sort of silly names, since the quiet pool wasn't really that quiet, since there were often kids in it and you could hear all of the sounds from the activities pool, which was right next to it.  But we didn't mind.  I simply preferred the "quiet" pool because of it's dark blue color.  The other pool was that light aqua color that so many pools are, and it made it seem dirty and less cool to me.  So we spent most of our time in the quiet pool.

After my swim we decided to check out the Mexican restaurant, El Patio.  I've already written a brief review of El Patio, and honestly, we didn't really enjoy it.  It was weird... we were in Mexico and there wasn't a single burrito or fajita or anything that remotely resembled "Mexican" food on the menu!  I totally get that Mexican food goes beyond the Tex Mex-style mexican food that Americans generally think of when they think of Mexican food, but the stuff on this menu seemed like regular American meat dishes with chips and salsa as an appetizer.

I ordered some chicken dish and DH had "ribs," but it was like, one rib - totally not enough food for him.  I was really hoping for some authentic Mexican food and was very disappointed - not a great way to start off the food experience of the trip.  This was also the only time that we really had to wait for a table for dinner.  We arrived around 8:30, and apparently 8 p.m. is one of their busiest times for dinner at all of the restaurants, so you usually have to wait if you go between 8 and 9.  They told us about 20 minutes, so we got a drink and sat down and our buzzer went off about 10 minutes later.

Yum!

This was also the evening that we met the couple that we would later refer to as "Facebook Friends."  Facebook Friends were a young, fun looking couple that we decided we wanted to be friends with.  Their name comes from the fact that DH wished he had his Droid so that he could simply ask them through social media if they wanted to be friends or not.  But friendship with Facebook Friends was not to be - we encountered them constantly, and we always said hi and made small conversation, but usually DH was on the verge of dying from his intestinal disorder, so we were always sort of in a hurry to get back to the room.  And since he was always dying and we were never out later than 9 p.m. on any given evening except for one, we never ran into them at the bars.  Oh well...

That night we watched the tail end of the Fire Show.  The Fire Show was the one show that I read was "not to be missed." However, we missed most of it because we weren't seated at El Patio until close to 9 and the show started at 9.  From the music and flashing lights that we could see over the hedges of El Patio, it definitely looked cool.  I'm not sure what we missed, but here are a few clips of what we did get to see.  Sorry for the poor video quality - these were taken on my little point and shoot camera.

Very, very awesome.  This happened on a Sunday night, and I think their shows rotate on a weekly basis, so if you're there on a Sunday, definitely check it out!

Shortly after that we headed to bed - we were exhausted and as much as I wanted to stay up and hang out, we needed sleep more than anything.  If only I had known that this would be only one of two nights that DH felt well the entire week!

Topes Y Cenotes - Tulum, Mexico, Part 3 - Topes!

The topes get their own post, because they're something that we marveled over and talked about every time we were in our vehicle.

Ok, so imagine with me here...

Imagine that you are driving down I79 south, towards Pittsburgh.  Imagine that you are traveling at about 65 miles per hour, because... well, because that's all the faster your car will go without feeling like it's going to shake apart.  You're on a major four lane highway, two lanes in both directions, with a divider in the middle.  You're cruising along, enjoying all of the scenery, when suddenly you see this sign...

Source - Reflaction

Topes.  (This particular sign is missing the S, but you can see where it used to be.)

Topes are the worst part about driving in Mexico.  If you're lucky, you'll be warned with the sign that you see above, but sometimes there isn't a sign. That's when it gets really exciting.

The first time we encountered a tope we were traveling around 100 kph (equates to about 60 mph.)

Holy shit!  Those topes rocked our world.  Our poor little Atos by Dodge by Hyundai didn't even know what to think and the shaking got even worse after that.  We suddenly deeply regretted not spending the extra money on the car insurance.  We were pretty sure that we just killed our cars shocks, and possibly the alignment.

So yeah, if you can get back to your little daydream from above...

Imagine that Interstate 79 had enormous, killer speed bumps all along it.  Remember, this is FOUR LANE HIGHWAY!!! With randomly placed speed bumps... that force ALL traffic to come to a COMPLETE STOP. And they're not just any speedbumps, they're rock-your-world-like-crazy speedbumps.

Most of them look like this.

But some of them are all metal. Some are covered in plastic. (See the pictures above? There are metal topes in the upper right hand corner, and the rest are plastic, or rather, probably metal covered in plastic.)

Sometimes you'll see a topes sign but then it's just an enormous concrete speed bump.  It's always exciting.  Sometimes, if you're lucky - and going slow enough to notice - there will be some topes missing in the line so you can navigate your vehicle through these gaps and you cheer with excitement! Yay! We showed THOSE topes who's boss!  (An example of such a gap is also available in the picture above.)

Topes ahead!!!

When they're wet, the tiny 13 inch tires on your Atos by Dodge by Hyundai will literally just slide off of them, sending your steering wheel into a tizzy and adding a whole new element of excitement to your driving experience.

Sometimes, there are even topes stations where you might encounter two or three sets of them in a row, and often there are police officers manning the station, watching you pass.  Sometimes the only way that you know a tope is ahead is by the flashing lights of a police vehicle, so you automatically slow down.

If you're really lucky, you might even get to see a topes graveyard off to the side where hundreds of discarded topes (although many of them look better than the ones on the road) lay discarded in a pile.  Or maybe they're just spares.  Who knows?

Sometimes you'll see a sign warning you of topes ahead and so you immediately slow down in anticipation but then you never encounter one.  HA! Tricked you!  It's like they're mocking you....

Topes are an amazing way to control speed - through total and utter fear of completely destroying the shocks and alignment on your vehicle.  We hated them, but upon reflection they did add an element of excitement to our driving - it was almost like navigating obstacles in a video game, only it was real life.  And while they give me great fodder for writing about, I pray to god that the United States never decides to adopt the "topes system" of speed control.

If that happens, I may look into moving to Canada.