Posts Tagged ‘travel’

Shuttle Free to the DBG

Thursday, February 19th, 2009



Shuttle Free to the DBG

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

Did you know that APS has partnered with DBG (Desert Botanical Garden) to provide a free shuttle between the Valley Metro Light Rail station at Priest / Washington and the Desert Botanical Garden? I just found out a couple of weeks ago, and I’m riding it to the garden for the first time today.* This is a great convenience that I hope many people will take advantage of.

You can catch the shuttle by the gazebo in the parking lot of the little food court at the NE corner of Priest & Washington. It runs every 15 minutes from 9 AM to 7 PM.

*I sent this to my blog via Flickr in real time, but it didn’t upload. I guess it was interrupted by several incoming phone calls and it timed out. So I’m uploading it now to get the word out about the free shuttle.


The Laughing Singer

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008



The Laughing Singer

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

I sang a cappella in the chapel (redundant, I know)! :-D I’m laughing because I had just posed like an opera singer with my mouth open and my hands out and then cracked up because I embarrassed myself. There’s an interesting story behind this. A woman in our tour group asked me if I wanted her to take my photo with the chapel behind me because I had just sung in it. How did that come to be? Well, it all began when I saw our tourguide in the restaurant where we all stopped for lunch. He was sitting by himself at a table and I walked up and said, “Ah… tutto sole?” (meaning, “Aw… all alone?” in Italian). He asked me how I knew Italian, and I told him from musical terminology and opera. He asked if I were a singer, and I said yes. Then he told me we were going to be going into a chapel that was designed to be acoustically perfect, and he asked if I would be willing to sing a line or two so everyone could hear. I said sure. I was thinking I would sing the first few lines of “Que Gelida Manina” until we got to the church and I realized that a song from La Boheme would not be appropriate. I racked my brain for something spiritual to sing, and I recalled a short solo I had sung in my senior year at the School of Creative & Performing Arts: the “Benedictus” phrase from Hans Schubert’s “Mass in G.” For those of you who don’t know it, the phrase is “Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini” which is Latin for “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” I sang it and everyone was pleased. Several people came up to me to thank me personally. I was just glad that the pleasure I had in singing was not selfish, but was considered a gift to others, which is ideal. So, this was a perfectly spontaneous photo to commemorate a wonderfully fortuitous occasion.

(Taken by a fellow tourist in the courtyard by the side of the Cathedral of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, with the chapel in the background.)


Library –> Geotagged with the G1!

Friday, October 24th, 2008



Library –>

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

Why buy books when you can borrow? I love my public library!

I took this photo on my new T-Mobile G1 with Google. It automatically geotagged it before I emailed it to Flickr. For those who are wondering how to geotag photos with the G1, I’ll explain– and then you’ll see how easy it is!

When you go to the Camera app, hit the Menu button before you take a shot. Select Settings, and then select “Store location in pictures.” This setting will stick until you change it again.

For even greater accuracy; i.e. to pin your location down to Street level, go to the Home screen and pull up Apps; then select the Settings icon. Then select Security & location. Then select Enable GPS satellites and make sure it’s checked. Deselecting it will conserve battery power, but only when you’re using Maps or an app that uses Maps, such as Camera if you selected “Store location in pictures.” You can always deselect it if you want to save battery power and/or don’t care for pinpoint accuracy.

I love how effortless it is to take and share geotagged photos with the G1, and I am fully satisfied with its accuracy. My husband and I are going to the Mediterranean for two weeks, and while we’re there, I will take geotagged photos with the G1 in Airplane mode (because the GPS works even when wireless services are turned off), and when I find free WiFi hotspots, I’ll moblog them to our family website, smithersgreene.net

And when we get back home, I can’t wait to borrow another great book from the library!