SB158 Steele Loves You

sb158 @ 2009-11-24T17:35:00

2009-11-24T23:35:17Z

To all my Friends and Family...Happy Thanksgiving!!

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump.
May your potatoes and gravy have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious and your pies take the prize.
May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Veteran's Day Thank You

2009-11-11T21:34:06Z

My grandfather fought in WWI. My dad and father-in-law fought during WWII, one Army, one Navy. An uncle was career Air Force. Hubby helped keep the Russians on their side of the line during the 70s. His brother was a Marine. A cousin's husband was career Navy. My son served in Korea, very close to the DMZ. And now my nephew is in Afghanistan, keeping the terrorists from being able to score another 9-11, or something even worse.
So, yea, I know what Veteran's Day is about. We owe you more than we could ever repay, and I just want to say thanks. Little enough, I know, but heartfelt. God bless and keep all of you.

New Bones Wallpaper

2009-07-10T00:20:48Z

I know I haven't been around much lately. Between my Dad's passing, making my garden, and visiting my daughter and grandsons in Colorado Springs for 3 weeks, I've been kinda busy. Also had to learn Wordpress so I could make my garden journal, then do all the art for that. The fanart muse just kinda went on an extended vacation, I guess, until...

About a week or so ago, I had Kenny Chesney's song "You Save Me" stuck in my head. For days, snippets just kept popping into my head. Couldn't get rid of it, even when I listened to it several times. Was watching some old Bones shows on my computer, and the muse just whacked me upside the head with a BIG cast iron skillet...Thus, this wallpaper was born.

I'd seen this tut and thought the style would work for what I was trying to convey.

Click the thumb to download the wallpaper

You can watch Kenny's video here on CMT's site. If you want a Divx version (BIG file-166 mb), you can download it here.

So let me know what you think. Feel free to use, just don't claim it's yours.

Explaining My Absence

2009-05-13T06:48:50Z

I know I haven't been around much since my Dad passed. My apologies, but I've been busy with making a garden - and a garden blog. Just when the work is mostly done but for the maintenance, I'm off to Colorado Springs for a couple weeks. My eldest daughter is graduating (with Honors, no less) with her Associates Degree in education. Her husband left her a couple years ago for some bimbo, so she's been raising her two boys with minimal support when he feels like sending it, working, and going to college. I couldn't be more proud of her for trying to make it on her own, and succeeding - so far.

It isn't the best time to be leaving a garden, but being there for her and seeing my grandsons after way too many years is probably just about the only thing that would get me going.

Besides, it will be nice to go someplace where they have decent, normal weather instead of near 100 degrees every da*m day, when it's only May, not July or August.The heat's been killing me, but I had to get the garden stuff I would have spread out over a few weeks done immediately, so I could leave.

I have been reading and looking, but too tired from being out in the heat to comment or post. Took some time to get over Dad's passing, too. It wasn't a surprise, but I still miss him quite a bit. I decided to do the garden thing to sort of carry on his legacy, in part. Used to garden alot, but let it go when it started to get too painful, and then living here, too hot. I guess the garden, and the garden blog, have been a kind of therapy to help me get over Dad's passing.

Anyway, if you're into gardening and interested, the blog is here. I'll be leaving Thursday, and get back June 5th or 6th. My daughter has no internet at home - can't afford it - but she does have a laptop with a wireless card. I'll check in if I can, but meanwhile...

see y'all later.

Sad news

2009-01-05T22:08:36Z

My dad passed on Dec 27. At least we were all there to say goodbye. It's been hectic since then, as you might imagine. I'll be going home on Jan 9.

Going to be MIA for a while

2008-12-24T04:39:18Z

My dad has been in and out of hospital since October. He had to go back in yesterday, and it doesn't look good that he'll get out this time. Am flying up to NJ on Friday, so I will be pretty much MIA for a while. My sister has a computer, but don't know how much time I'll have to use it.

Anyway. I'll be checking in when I can, but meanwhile...

sb158 @ 2008-12-16T01:39:00

2008-12-16T07:40:14Z

Just saying...

Merry Merry All.

Animation Shop Tut

2008-11-07T07:39:33Z

Someone asked how to make this effect in Animation Shop. Since I wondered, too, I gave it a try. Here's my version:

This is the first tut I've ever written, so I hope it helps. I'm assuming some familiarity with PaintShop Pro 9, so I'm not going into detail about tools and methods. Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I forgot to take screencaps until it was too late. Still, it ought to be easy enough to follow. If not, I'll be happy to try and answer any questions you might have.

So I started with this cap from my Remington Steele dvd:

First thing to do is clean up the cap. To do this, I used a plugin called NeatImage. You can find it here. You can use the default settings, or play with it, whatever works best with your image. Then use your square selection tool to find the area of the cap you want to keep. I ended up with this: After coloring, I ended up with this:

One of the questions was how to get the coloring. First I duplicated the layer, then used AAA Multifilter to sharpen and adjust the highlights, midtone, and shadows, as well as the saturation. Since the interest was in the blues, I tried to adjust accordingly. After adjusting I set the layer to screen and adjusted the opacity.

I duplicated that layer, then used Fotomatic BW-Plus to desaturate. You can pick whichever settings work best for your image. Then set it on softlight, and adjust the opacity as needed. Then do a color balance adjustment layer, a levels adjustment layer, and lastly, a curves layer, trying to bring out the blues. Then copy merged, and paste as a new layer.

Now make a new layer, set to soft light, and put it just below the top layer. Use the color picker to find a nice light blue in your image, and flood fill. Put the top layer on overlay, soft light, or whatever works. Then play with the opacity of the soft light layer until you get something that brings out the blues but doesn't mess up the other colors. Once that's done, you can start thinking about your animation.

First thing to do is save the corrected image, so you don't lose it if you screw up. Then copy merged, and paste as a new image. Close the original now. Now on to the animation. The example is on a black background, so make a new layer, floodfill black, and send it to the bottom. Then resize the cap layer to about 50%, or whatever works for your image. Use the unsharp mask to sharpen gently. Move the cap to center bottom, or wherever you want it. Set some guides in case you inadvertantly move it and need to put it back.

It appears the animation starts with the cap rotated slightly right of center, like at about a 2 o'clock position, and mostly visible.

So, I'll duplicate the cap layer, hide the original, and use the rotate tool to move the copy.

Make sure All Layers is UNCHECKED. I went with 25 degrees, but you can use your own setting.

Then use the unsharp mask to gently sharpen, as you should always do when you rotate. Okay, now the fade. I think the easiest way is to make a hide all mask, then use a round brush to paint a white circle over the cap. It may take some experimentation with size and brush hardness, but you should be able to get something that hides the edges, but leaves most of the cap visible. I used a hardness of 85. Merge group and hide the layer.

Okay, now duplicate the original layer, move it to the top, and rotate it, say, 10 degrees right and sharpen.

Next, I made the brush a few pixels smaller and lowered the softness to 55, then painted my white circle with the brush center in exactly the same place on the cap as the first one. You can use a guide or just pick a spot on your icon and use the same spot for all layers. This made the visible area smaller, but still with the fuzzy edges. Merge group and hide again.

So, next layer. Duplicate the original again and move it to the top. This one won't require rotating, so just do the mask like before, but adjust the brush again. Then merge group and hide.

Duplicate the original, bring to top, but this time rotate it 10 degrees left and sharpen. Then make your mask, adjust your brush, and do the white circle again. Merge group and hide.

Last one, I think. Duplicate, bring to top, and rotate 25 degrees left, then sharpen. Do the mask thing again, adjusting the brush hardness. Merge group and hide again.

Okay, that part's done, but for the animation, so let's do the text. I always make vector text, but that's up to you.

I unhid one layer, so I could see where to put the text. Once your text is done, hide all the layers but the text and the bottom black layer. Then merge visible so the text is on the bottom layer, too.

Make the first icon layer visible. If you have alot of extra space, draw a square selection around the part you want to keep and crop to selection. This cuts down on file size.

Once you have that done, resize the image to icon size. Make sure resize all layers is checked.

Then use the unsharp mask on all the layers.

Hide all layers except the bottom layer and the first icon layer. Copy merged and launch Animation Shop. Right click on the white space and paste as new animation.

Then go back to PSP. Hide the first icon layer and make the next one visible, then copy merged again. Go back to Animation Shop, right click on the title bar of the animation and choose paste after current frame.

Continue this way until you copy all the icon layers. Then hide all the layers but the bottom one. Copy the bottom layer and paste it after the last animation frame.

Now adjust the frame rates. Select all frames, then control click on the last frame to deselect it. Right click on the animation and click on frame properties. I experimented and decided a duration of 17 looked best. Then deselect those frames and select the last frame. I used a duration of 50 for that frame.

When you're satisfied, optimize and save.
And finally...it's done! It should look something like this:

sb158 @ 2008-09-29T15:18:00

2008-09-29T20:35:30Z

This is a test to see if my images from my web page post here like from Photobucket or something. Wanted to play with a tut I found, so made a wallpaper from the latest Bones episode. Not real happy with it, but, oh well. Putting the preview behind a cut, so as not to spoil any fans who haven't seen it yet.

Have a look, tell me what you think.

Web Page done

2008-09-26T03:31:28Z

I'm really nervous about doing this, but my webpage - yea, the one I've been laboring over forever - is finally ready to go public. Not done, but done enough to invite visitors. Home page is http://www.squirtbug.com/

You can visit my wallpapers and other art here. The videos are here. If you go look, leave a comment in my blog...

Still got stuff to do, so I'll still be scarce a while.

Here we go again...Ike

2008-09-10T18:12:36Z

Still busy working on my website, got several pages done, but several more to go, too. In between hurricanes, I mean. This time, it's Ike and he's really scary. Current forecasts have him going just north of Corpus Christi, which is 109 miles north of where I live. If he decides to come closer, we may be under mandatory evacuation orders. If so, we'll go to my son's house in Austin. If not, we'll likely go to my brother-in-law's again. Sigh...so not looking forward to three days without power, which, loosely translated, means hot and muggy hell without computers (or TV) again. At least Ike's waiting until after Bones...Just occurred to me that, if we all get our own personal hell if we're bad, mine has to be hot and muggy weather for all eternity. That is enough to scare me into behaving, believe me!

Anyway, if I disappear, and anybody happens to notice, that's why. If that sucker hits any closer to us, the Rio Grande Valley will likely just become another big beach on the Gulf Coast...not gonna be much else left...

Writer's Block: You and A Fictional Character of Your Choice

2008-08-27T20:43:55Z

Remington Steele, aka Pierce Brosnan. Maybe he'd get desperate enough to forget all about Laura Holt and fulfill all my fantasies.

Still Alive

2008-08-19T06:38:13Z

Just been busy (obsessed?) with my webpage. HTML and Css are not as easy as you'd think. Especially not when you have no clue what you're really doing. But it is getting there, so I have hope that it'll be done some day! Meanwhile, I'll be back to read, look at art, and comment eventually! Later...

Headaches and apologies

2008-08-09T07:37:17Z

I knew I'd be giving myself headaches. My home page is coming along nicely, except when I try to look at it in the Firefox browser. Neither the background color nor the background image will show up in Firefox. Very annoying. Everything works great in IE7, and the code validates, so that isn't it. Okay, enough of the griping, on to the apologies.

I haven't been keeping up with my reading and commenting here, cuz I've been busy driving myself insane with the web page. Can't guarantee it's gonna get much better any time soon, unless I get completely burned out and need a break. I'm still here, just otherwise occupied at the moment. Still love ya, though!

Oh boy! Now what?

2008-08-03T22:26:15Z

Hubby has been threatening to buy me a website for a long time, and he finally did it. I'm thrilled, I think...but totally overwhelmed. I have no idea what to do next. I understand basic html and have an editor...but no idea where to go next. Guess I'll be busy giving myself headaches while I try to figure all this out.

Sigh.

Proud of myself

2008-08-01T22:01:27Z

Y'all know I'm pretty much in love with Amanda Tapping, AKA Sam Carter and Helen Magnus, right? So I cut the title clip from Sanctuary, intending to make an animated gif and use it as a desktop wallpaper. Except, it looked really ugly, no matter how many times and ways I tried. So then I remembered that, with Windows XP, you can use an html page as a desktop...
So i tried making a flash thingy from the title, but couldn't get that to work, either. Probably just dumbness on my part...
So I found an FLV player you can embed in a webpage, and tried that instead...Finally! Success! Now my desktop has a constantly running video of the Sanctuary title, soon to be followed by Stargate, Bones, Remington Steele, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
Is that cool, or what? If anybody else wants to try it, let me know, and I'll point you in the right direction. I'd love to send the code, but it wouldn't work unless you have the same files in the same place on your drive as mine...but it can be edited to suit!

Hurricane Summary

2008-07-30T23:28:44Z

I don't know how long we were without power, but I had put everything in our 3 cu ft freezer, figuring it'd stay better that way. We left Tuesday nite, and got home Saturday afternoon. By then we had power, Internet, and TV. Nothing in the freezer had melted or defrosted. BUT, the AC compressor didn't work, apparently because it got flooded. I left a message for the manager, and by Monday afternoon, that was fixed, too. Had to throw out some stuff in the fridge, but, all in all, no big deal. We were very lucky, all things considered.
Oh boy, Hubby just came in with steam coming out of his ears. On Thursday, when there was still tons of water all over the road, his b*t*h of a boss made him drive through it all to go to McAllen to work on an install. The truck wasn't running right after that, so today he took it in for service. It's gonna cost us anywhere between 600 and 800 dollars to get it fixed and rent a car in the interim. He complained to her boss, who told him that's why he gets a car allowance. He is so not a happy camper. He shoulda known they were gonna screw him one way or another, but they don't realize he's not gonna take it any more.
We had Internet on Sunday and Monday, but Tuesday morning it was gone. It finally came back on about 5 PM today, so we're reconnected.

Anyway, I'm back, for now!

Hurricane

2008-07-22T21:14:29Z

This will likely be my last post for a while. The storm isn't supposed to be too bad, but we could be without electricity for a while. We're packing up to go to my brother-in-law's house tonight, it's safer than ours. So, I'll let you know when I'm back, but probably not till n ext week some time.
Thanks for the good wishes...keep the good thoughts coming! Gonna need 'em.

Hurricane warning

2008-07-22T04:46:29Z

Well, thrills. We're gonna get hurricaned on. Hopefully not too bad. It'll be an experience my grandson will never forget. It'll be like, hey, remember the time I went to Grandma's and got hurricaned on? Not the first time he flew in an airplane, or the first fish he caught, or any of the other firsts, just "My First Hurricane." I'm just hoping the dumb thing blows over and goes away in time for us to take him to San Antonio and put him on his plane home on Friday.

SG1 Video

2008-07-19T07:33:50Z

Made this video for a video challenge, for which (she says, blushing) I actually won First Place. Can't get over that, but it sure did make me smile. Anyway, it's a tribute to the amazing and gorgeous Sam Carter, whom I miss very badly. Hope you like.

Got another one!

2008-07-08T08:25:49Z

Y'all know I like the Fox show "Bones," right? I've already converted my son and his fiancee to the fandom, and now I've snagged my grandson, too. It's been raining here, and he's bored, so I suggested watching the first episode of Bones to see if he'd like it.
It was the start of a Bones marathon...LOL...we're partway through the first season, and I imagine we'll finish the whole series while he's here. If we run out of Bones, we can always do Stargate or Star Trek...yea, he likes those too! I wonder if it's genetic? LOL...
It's been fun so far, but, in the almost 3 years since I've seen him, he sure has grown. He's almost 13, with all the smart-ass the age entails. But he's still a sweet kid and I'm enjoying the visit immensely.

SG1 Video for LJ Challenge

2008-07-07T21:50:24Z

For some reason I can't get video to embed in the place it's supposed to, so I'm doing it here.

YAY!

2008-06-12T05:07:11Z

Still MIA, still fighting that dumb video, but slowly starting to win...LOL. I'm just real happy because my daughter in Florida found a really cheap airfare, and we bought my eldest grandson a ticket. We have to go all the way to San Antonio...4 hr. drive...to get him, and return him, but he'll be here the July 4th - 25th. I am so excited. I miss the little buggers...

Still Here!

2008-06-05T18:30:02Z

I know, I know...MIA again. Up to my U-NO-WHAT in video stuff again. Even with the extra week, don't know if I'll be done by Friday's deadline. For the Bones video, I had all 3 seasons on my hard drive, so clip-making is easier.
For this one, I have to convert clips from various DVD's and get the rest off my DVR. That takes alot of time I could be using to make my vid, but...that's life.
Anyway, back to it...
I'll be along with my reading, looking, and commenting eventually. I miss my son.

Just stuff

2008-05-31T21:16:09Z

My son and his fiancee left this morning to move to Austin. Gonna miss 'em...alot...but there's no way they could have any real future down here in this little armpit of TX. I worry, but I'm sure they'll be fine.
And I found out why my video programs have been giving me fits. Had to fight to get last week's video done, and I nearly threw the computer out the window trying to do this week's. At this point, I'd say chances are slim to none I'll get it done in time. Apparently the type of DVD drive Hubby bought me only works well in a limited number of machines, one of which is not mine. So been out playing in the computer store for a while.
After we eat lunch, I'll be off for a while while he fixes it. Yes, guys are good for some things, at least this one...he's really good at pickle jars, too!