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Palm tree
by Effie in the desert 23 Dec '16

23 Dec '16

I sent my Christmas greeting to Mary, the railroad Museum person. Yesterday she reminded me that I didn't have to go far to find a palm tree. :)

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Re: [UTS] TTC 2016 -- only two weekends left!
by Todd Andrews 17 Dec '16

17 Dec '16

Hi Effie, The pictures I took ended up 1.5mb to 2.5 mb each so I'll have to send them > in multiple messages. I have no idea why sometimes they come out big and > other times small. I don't know enough about the phone to do things > intentionally to make them different. > I can help with the file sizes but first I need some info about your phone. Could you go into settings and look for an option, usually in the bottom left (you may have to scroll down), called 'About phone'. There are four pieces of info to look for: - Android or OS version - model number - build number - software version (your phone may not have this) On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 8:04 AM, Effie in the desert <wadesert(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > > At Todd's request - there will be a series of emails with photos of my > decorating efforts at the railroad museum. Mary put up only 9 trees this > year and I decorated 8 of them. There are a couple (maybe 3) of flat trees > in one of the rooms. I didn't do those so I don't have pictures of them - > nor do I know how many she ended up doing. > > > Flat trees you ask? How can a tree be flat? Only Mary knows. ;) Not > really. > > > Flat trees were her solution to decorating one of the rooms with three > train layouts in it where the guys with the two big sets complained that > the trees were in their way when setting on top of their space. The flat > trees are branches made into a tree shape that hang flat against a wall. > They have lights and ornaments on them just like any other tree except it > has no depth. It really is quite ingenious. > > > The pictures I took ended up 1.5mb to 2.5 mb each so I'll have to send > them in multiple messages. I have no idea why sometimes they come out big > and other times small. I don't know enough about the phone to do things > intentionally to make them different. > > > First with this email are three photos - one which isn't a tree but was > part of my job. The other two are the bird tree which is the one I didn't > decorate. A friend of mine did, however, donate the birds that are on it. > They don't show up well in the pictures so one is trying to do a closer > view of the red cardinals that are embedded in the branches. > > The third photo with this message is one of the two cabinets full of china > I cleaned and silver that I polished. The picture of the other cabinet > didn't turn out. It was mostly china. > > ------------------------------ > *From:* UTS <uts-bounces(a)starmanet.com> on behalf of Todd Andrews < > taa(a)pobox.com> > *Sent:* Saturday, December 10, 2016 3:16 AM > *To:* Under the Stars > *Subject:* [UTS] TTC 2016 -- only two weekends left! > > > Hi Effie, > > Is it too late for you to take photos of the trees this year? > > _______________________________________________ > UTS mailing list > UTS(a)starmanet.com > http://starmanet.com/mailman/listinfo/uts_starmanet.com > >

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Re: [UTS] Ag museum video
by Effie in the desert 14 Dec '16

14 Dec '16

Enjoying the kids huh - I suppose I do sometimes. But there are just as many times when I want to wring their little necks. I can get very testy when they don't listen. I have no patience and I don't buy the "they are just kids and don't know better". Well, teach them better!!!! If I'm talking and kids are talking I simply stop. Eventually someone, usually a teacher, understands I'm not going to go on until the kids get quiet. If it's really bad, I'll address the miscreant and invite them to address the class since they obviously have more to say than I do. I doubt that video cost that much, but I'm sure it was significant. ________________________________ From: Chuck S <chucksim(a)mindspring.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 11:54 PM To: starmanet(a)starmanet.com; 'Effie in the desert'; 'Bruce Jividen' Subject: FW: [UTS] Ag museum video Resending. My messages to UTS seem to be bouncing back. Something about having to have my sender email whitelisted. Maybe Todd can figure it out. From: Chuck S [mailto:chucksim@mindspring.com] Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 11:42 PM To: 'Under the Stars' Subject: RE: [UTS] Ag museum video Clearly professionally done. Back when I commissioned something like this for recruiting at colleges, it cost $25K. That includes several meetings with the client, writing and rewriting a script, shooting over several days, voice over narration with a hired speaker, professional lighting where appropriate, and extensive editing. That was many years ago. Today, who knows. Effie looks like she is enjoying teaching all those kids. Must be a terrific feeling to volunteer for something with so much personal satisfaction. Like Todd, I am impressed with the size and scope of the museum. Todd, can you recall approximately when your grandfather worked in Orlando? Pre-Disney? Walt started secretly buying farmland around 1967, and it wasn’t until much later that word got out. Wonder if your grandfather had any inkling. Or was he building during the boom years of the early 70’s? If you know of a development he worked on, I’d be happy to go and take some pictures for you. Sadly, Walt had passed before Disney World opened. Chuck From: UTS [mailto:uts-bounces@starmanet.com] On Behalf Of Effie in the desert Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 8:40 PM To: Under the Stars Subject: Re: [UTS] Ag museum video LOL re: "old guy". I had to watch it to see who it was. Pat doesn't turn 80 until January. Among our volunteers that puts him in "middle age". Depending upon who you talk to the museum is either 15 or 17 acres, but once you're over 10 acres does it really matter? ;) There are lots of duplication of some of the equipment. In the early years they took everything they were given and it wasn't a good idea because now they are out of space. Legally, they can't get rid of anything. The nostalgia of "my grandfather - father - I - etc had..." is part of why we have repeat visitors. Not to mention you can't see it all in one trip. We were all impressed with the production quality. This is the second time they've tried to get something like this done. The first one wasn't that great. I'm not sure how much they had to pay for this but I know it was covered by a grant. ________________________________ From: UTS <uts-bounces(a)starmanet.com<mailto:uts-bounces@starmanet.com>> on behalf of Todd Andrews <starman(a)pobox.com<mailto:starman@pobox.com>> Sent: Monday, December 12, 2016 7:26 PM To: Under the Stars Subject: Re: [UTS] Ag museum video Wow, excellent production quality! Thanks for sharing this. I counted three times where you are visible. Close to the end is an old guy in traditional overalls working on a tractor... wearing a bluetooth earpiece. :D I enjoyed this, a lot. I recognized several pieces of equipment my grandfather Andrew used to have for his potato farming. He was also quite a carpenter, including building homes near Orlando and I-don't-know-where-else. He was also a fire-and-brimstone preacher who was very intimidating, to put it rather mildly. What is most surprising to me is how huge the facility is. I had envisioned something between the size of the Chamber of Commerce and the railway museum, not something that has to be filmed thousands of feet in the air to get it all in one camera shot. On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Effie in the desert <wadesert(a)hotmail.com<mailto:wadesert@hotmail.com>> wrote: I didn't film this video; I didn't edit this video; I didn't narrate this video; I didn't upload this video to YouTube. Unbeknownst to me, I did get "caught" in the filming of it so you'll see me in a couple places if you look quickly. I did link the video to the Ag Museum website. That turned out to be easy. If you're interested at all in what the Ag museum is all about, scroll completely to the bottom of the web page to find that link. http://centralwaagmuseum.org/about-cwam/ _______________________________________________ UTS mailing list UTS(a)starmanet.com<mailto:UTS@starmanet.com> http://starmanet.com/mailman/listinfo/uts_starmanet.com

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Trees 7
by Effie in the desert 14 Dec '16

14 Dec '16

These photos are two more views of the Ag museum tree taken from the front. In the first you can see the red bow at the top and several of the round hand-made ornaments I made. They also didn't have anything to use as a tree skirt so I brought the red blanket that's under the tree. Behind the red bow on top you can see the green toy tractor. The second of these two photos is a close up of some of my ornaments. They are little "pillows" that represent the 12 Days of Christmas. I put them on the tree in order from top to bottom. All I had to do to make them was cut out the circles from a fabric, sew them onto a backing (odd # on green, and even # on red fabric), then turn them and stuff them with quilt batting. I did also sew the name of the "day" on the back side.

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Totally useless babble
by Effie in the desert 13 Dec '16

13 Dec '16

I wanted to tell someone about this, but there is no one, so I'm bothering you guys. Ignore me if you want. I usually watch Criminal minds on CBS but a recent episode had an extra reason for doing so. The producers set the cases in cities all over the country. This one was a about a murder in Yakima Washington. That alone wouldn't be noteworthy or worth writing about, but the accuracy and care the producers used was outstanding. Some of the things they did that were completely accurate: The story was about a prostitute who'd been kidnapped. The mention of "Most arrests for prostitution happen on N. 1st Street." Very true. City names where some of the murdered girls (turned out to be double digits number of victims) were from were local real cities, and were pronounced correctly. An aerial view of "Yakima" showed areas that clearly looked like orchards and fields. Mention of a Federal Correctional Facility at Seatac - is a real place. They did use a fictitious name for the creek where the victims had been buried which is understandable. The look of the area, however, where they filmed it was DEAD ON accurate. While I suspect this was somewhere near Los Angeles, it looked exactly like rural parts of Yakima county. Most important - to me - was their use in multiple shots of the rounded, bare ridges that define this area. The trees along the creek looked like the kinds you would see here - not an evergreen in site!! The ridges, both seen close up near the creek, behind houses and in the distance as they sped down a highway, could have been Ahtanum or Yakima Ridge. When the girl was running through the corn field, and yes we grow lots of corn around here, it could have been anywhere in the lower Yakima Valley with Toppenish Ridge, or Rattlesnake hills in the background. Like I said, I'm assuming this was filmed in California and just as important as what they put in, is what they left out. No palm trees popping up in the background either. The one time there might have been a palm in the picture, it was blurred enough it was impossible to tell. The one time I saw leaves on a tree clearly it looked exactly like the ones I have in my front yard. There was mention of the Green River killer, and while that's over a 100 miles from here, it's the case that made the news that many people would associate with Washington. It's not uncommon for this show to mention real national heinous crimes that fit into their story-line. It would have been weird if they hadn't mentioned Green River. When talking about the background of potential bad guys, or victims they had them be owners of a farm supply store; raiser of horses and grain-fed beef; apple orchard (that went out of business); and farmer that raised corn. All things very much from around here. The only thing better would have been if they'd used a hop grower ;) The bad guy killed himself by going into a silo, opening the hatch and suffocating himself in corn. A very "farm" type of demise. I found it very refreshing that they took the time to get it right. I assume that they do this same kind of careful research all the time, so other episodes set in other locales are just as accurate. Many years ago I watched an episode of X-Files ostensibly set in eastern Washington. They used real road numbers from the area but they didn't intersect even though the agents sat at the "intersection". But more galling were the thick evergreen trees though which they were driving in eastern Washington. Wet, green, thick evergreens in the middle of a desert! Of course X-Files was primarily filmed near Vancouver BC so their options for getting it right were limited. I didn't usually watch X-Files so that made that one doubly disappointing.

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Re: [UTS] Ag museum video
by Todd Andrews 13 Dec '16

13 Dec '16

Wow, excellent production quality! Thanks for sharing this. I counted three times where you are visible. Close to the end is an old guy in traditional overalls working on a tractor... wearing a bluetooth earpiece. :D I enjoyed this, a lot. I recognized several pieces of equipment my grandfather Andrew used to have for his potato farming. He was also quite a carpenter, including building homes near Orlando and I-don't-know-where-else. He was also a fire-and-brimstone preacher who was very intimidating, to put it rather mildly. What is most surprising to me is how *huge* the facility is. I had envisioned something between the size of the Chamber of Commerce and the railway museum, not something that has to be filmed thousands of feet in the air to get it all in one camera shot. On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 3:37 PM, Effie in the desert <wadesert(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > I didn't film this video; I didn't edit this video; I didn't narrate this > video; I didn't upload this video to YouTube. Unbeknownst to me, I did get > "caught" in the filming of it so you'll see me in a couple places if you > look quickly. > > > I did link the video to the Ag Museum website. That turned out to be easy. > > > If you're interested at all in what the Ag museum is all about, scroll > completely to the bottom of the web page to find that link. > > > http://centralwaagmuseum.org/about-cwam/ > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > UTS mailing list > UTS(a)starmanet.com > http://starmanet.com/mailman/listinfo/uts_starmanet.com > >

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Ag museum video
by Effie in the desert 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

I didn't film this video; I didn't edit this video; I didn't narrate this video; I didn't upload this video to YouTube. Unbeknownst to me, I did get "caught" in the filming of it so you'll see me in a couple places if you look quickly. I did link the video to the Ag Museum website. That turned out to be easy. If you're interested at all in what the Ag museum is all about, scroll completely to the bottom of the web page to find that link. http://centralwaagmuseum.org/about-cwam/

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Flat trees
by Effie in the desert 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

These two pictures are not ones I decorated but since I previously mentioned the flat trees Mary made at the railroad Museum I thought I'd send photos of them.

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Trees 6a
by Effie in the desert 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

Drat - I meant to mention this in the last message. There was no tree topper in the box of museum ornaments. I had nothing at home that would work. I have an angel but it was too tall to fit between the top of the tree and ceiling. The other I had at home was too small of an opening for the "branch" that would have to fit in it. This tree is not the one they used in previous years. Perhaps that's why it's so much bigger than the amount of ornaments they have. That doesn't explain why there's no topper. In the prior email I sent a close-up photo of the top of the tree. The museum administrator found a toy tractor he said to use up there. I found some more and used a second, though it's hard to see. There's great rivalry among the museum guys about what kind of tractor is best. These are green John Deere & red Case tractors. Christmas colors at least. I did also put a red bow up at the top that I would have used alone if Paul hadn't brought out the toys.

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Trees 6
by Effie in the desert 12 Dec '16

12 Dec '16

There will be two emails (because of photo size) that are the Christmas tree I did at the Agricultural museum. There weren't very many ornaments in the box I was given to decorate this very large tree. It meant I really had no choices to make nor design to think about. I simply put them all on the tree. I did bring about 15 plain colored balls from home that looked a lot like some of the ones in their box. I also brought a dozen hand made ones I sewed many years ago. I don't have many ornaments left at home as I got rid of most of them. Most of the ones I have left I keep for sentimental value and would never put them up on a tree at another location. One of those boxes are the ornaments my mother bought for the first Christmas she & father had. It was the year before I was born.

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