One of my favorite actors, Steve Buscemi will be back on the screen in January 2010 in Saint John of Las Vegas. The movie, directed by Hue Rhodes tells the story of John (played by Buscemi), a compulsive gambler, who flees Las Vegas after a streak of bad luck and hopes to start a normal job and life. Taking a basic position in an auto insurance company in Albuquerque, he tries to get ahead in the straight world, amid the ever-present temptations of scratch-off lotto tickets…

Looking forward to this one!

Hue’s big attraction is its imperial history. I also really enjoyed all the “green” space throughout the city.

Kinh Thanh (imperial city)

“Perfume River” – Not sure if that name is so suitable.

The inaugural Delhi outlet of Haagen Dazs opened with a “no Indians allowed” policy.

The sign on the door read, “Access restricted only to holders of international passports.” After a public hue and cry, the franchise operator (who is Indian) dropped the policy and claimed it had never existed.

Source:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/15/haagen-dasz-opens-no.html

If Santa really existed, he would bring me……..
The Audrey Bag, Coach $798

Reebok Easy Tones $99, Dicks Sporting Goods

Daisy, By Marc Jacobs Perfume $70-80, Sephora

“Hue” By Kelly Wearstler, Barnes and Noble

A little White Malti-poo, oh and the ability to not be allergic to it would be great.

I’d even take:

But these would be great too, Santa Baby

Eames Molded Plastic Rocker

or

-A cute new apron
-A mixer/food processor
-Anything with elephants on it
-Glittery ANYTHING.

There you have it. A Holiday wishlist, Create H style.

What’s on YOUR list? Let me know in the comments:)

An industrial building is pictured from afar upon dusk in eastern Singapore.

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Material description:

Light yellow and light green hue with a warm background, silver-gray trim for a large pale yellow flowers are very bright beautiful purple pink yellow flowers, green foliage and red yellow black and white is very beautiful butterfly reflects the material’s exquisite fashion. Is a very nice watch with a super material of designs

I was tagged to partake in Tripbase’s My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets phenomenon by Lauren of Lonely Girl Travels and Neha of Flying Suitcase. So I perused my memory for fantastic places and travel moments and here’s what I came up with:

1. A late afternoon motorcycle tour of Hue, Vietnam

Angkor Wat was the expected high moment of my 2008 Southeast Asia trip. But an unlikely afternoon in Hue was the unexpected high moment. After the drivers picked us up, it wasn’t long before we were out of the nondescript city center and zooming through tiny tree-lined alleys and paths on the outskirts.

Our drivers stopped in the middle of the woods. We loved it. But we weren’t quite there yet. We walked through the gates of one of the loveliest places I’ve ever seen, the Tu Hieu Temple. We took off in different directions and were brought together again by the wonderful sounds of gongs and singing. We had arrived at the perfect time to see the monks’ daily chanting.

Another stop was a cliff high above the Perfume River. We explored a former U.S. Military bunker near our lookout spot. Standing in a place so beautiful and tranquil, it was hard to imagine that it was a fairly recently a site of an ugly war. We hopped back on our bikes and zigzagged across a narrow path with flooded rice paddies on both sides. Motorcycle riding is thrilling in itself, but this took exhilaration to the next level.

Monks at the Temple

Overlooking the Perfume River

2. Cozinha Aberta, Lencois, Bahia, Brazil

After a long day of hiking in Chapada Diamantina, my friend and I went in search of Cozinha Aberta, a restaurant recommended in our guidebooks. We walked into what looked like someone’s home. It was beautiful and rustic with just a few tables and simple decorations. There was an open kitchen where we could see a woman making everything from scratch. Wanting something I hadn’t eaten yet in Brazil, I ordered coconut curry chicken. Lovely presented plates of food were brought to us. I took my first bite. My friend and I looked at each other with widen eyes. Our food was mind-blowingly good. It was unreal. I took my second bite. Amazingness confirmed.

The following night, we decided to go to the other Cozinha Aberta restaurant, just around the corner from the one we’d already been to. I couldn’t resist the handmade pasta I saw the cook rolling as we entered the restaurant. I ordered ravioli and was again treated to an incredible meal. It was the freshest pasta and marinara sauce I’ve ever had. In the food at Cozinha Aberta, we tasted massive quantities of love and care and passion. Three years later, I can still remember those tastes.

3. Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, Mt. Vernon, Washington

Last year, I made a last minute spring break trip to visit friends in Seattle. Since I was already in Seattle, my wanderlust led me further north to Vancouver. One of my Seattle friends had mentioned a tulip festival somewhere between Seattle and Vancouver. It was said to rival the famous tulip fields of Holland. I looked up the information and directions so I could make a stop there on my way to Canada.

Unfortunately, I arrived too early in the season. Mother Nature must have decided she wanted a bunch of late bloomers. But though there was not too much tulip viewing, my eyes were not disappointed. There were tons of daffodils with a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. I’d say I frolicked in fields of daffodils, but that would be a lie. But I did venture (against the rules, shh) into the flower rows to take a few awesome pictures.

Daffodil Field

Pada photosop terdapat fungsi “adjustment Layer” yang berkaitan dengan Hue/Saturation sehingga kita dapat menggeser semua warna menjadi warna lain dalam color space HSL/Hue, Saturation & Lightness (reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV ) hanya dengan mengubah nilai Hue warna tersebut.

——————————————————————————————

dibawah ini adalah ilustrasi gambar color space untuk HSL :

Hue  : menunjukkan sudut dari lingkaran warna primer yang dikenal oleh format HSL .

warna primer dari color space HSL antara lain : Merah, Kuning, Hijau, Cyan, Biru dan Magenta.

Saturation : menunjukkan jari-jari dari lingkaran warna yang menunjukkan level warna abu-abu terhadap warna

Lightness : menunjukkan tingkat cahaya pada warna mulai dari hitam menuju putih.

contoh :  untuk menunjukkan warna merah

Hue = 0 (derajat)

Sat = 1.0

Lightness = 0.5

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Untuk melakukan fungsi adjustment layer pada Hue/saturation yang terdapat pada photosop, kita harus mengetahui posisi (derajat pada lingkaran warna hue di HSL) dari masing-masing warna primer.  dibawah ini adalah batas-batas warna primer dengan tetangganya (nilai hue) :

Red :   outer : 315° – 45° /   inner : 345° – 15°
Yellow :   outer : 15° – 105° /   inner : 45° – 75°
Green :   outer : 75° – 165° /   inner : 105° – 135°
Cyan :   outer : 135° – 261° /   inner : 165° – 201°
Blue :   outer : 195° – 285° /   inner : 225° – 255°
Magenta :   outer : 225° – 345° /   inner : 285° – 315°

untuk melakukan editing Hue pada red channel pada sebuah image kita harus mengacu pada nilai hue 315° – 45° /   345° – 15°. kita dapat menggeser warna tersebut menjadi warna lain sesuka kita. misalkan warna merah pada image akan kita geser 180°.

yang perlu dilakukan adalah melakukan iterasi setiap pixel pada image dan menambahkan nilai hue-nya untuk pixel-pixel yang memenuhi kriteria nilai hue antara 315 – 45.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

C# secara default hanya mengenali format warna RGB dengan extention A (alpha) dengan class name Color (di namespace system.drawing).

untuk melakukan pengolahan citra pada format HSL    class color hanya memiliki fungsi :

getHue() = mengembalikan  nilai float hue dari warna tersebut (nilai output : 0 – 359 ).

getSaturation() = mengembalikan  nilai float saturation dari warna (nilai output : 0.0 – 1.0 ).

getBrightness() = mengembalikan  nilai float brightness/lightness dari warna (nilai output : 0.0 – 1.0 ).

namun tidak memiliki fungsi untuk melakukan perubahan nilai HSL.

terima kasih pada om google yang telah menemukan konversi & fungsi untuk mengubah warna RGB – HS http://www.bobpowell.net/RGBHSB.htm

dibawah ini adalah kode untuk menambahkan 180 nilai hue pada  red channel.

                Color c;
                Color newc;
                float h, s, l;
                add += 30;
                Bitmap newimage = (Bitmap) image.Clone();

                for (int i = 0; i < image.Width; i++)
                {
                    for (int j = 0; j < image.Height; j++)
                    {
                        c = image.GetPixel(i, j);
                        h = c.GetHue();
                        s = c.GetSaturation();
                        l = c.GetBrightness();
                        // filter red channel 315 - 360 / 0 - 45
                        if ((h > 315) && (h < 360) || (h >= 0) && (h < 45))
                        {
                            h += add;
                            if (h > 360) h -= 360;

                        }
                        h = h / 360;
                        newc = RGBHSL.SetHue(c, h);

                        newimage.SetPixel(i, j, newc);

                    }
                }

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Material description:

This is a very ornamental and visual impact of the fashion pattern material. A complex and very stylish with a dark green pattern similar to wild flowers and the green is a small petal pattern in terms of visual experience or the inner aspects of both a sense of history is both complex and highly ornamental design material. Especially the dark green patterns like the plants they like both undersea animals. So unpredictable feel. Is a complex and watch the history of design materials

Forty-eight relics from the Nguyen dynasty era donated by private collectors to the Hue Royal Fine Arts Museum are on display at the former royal capital’s An Dinh Palace.

Worship bronze statues  from the Nguyen dynasty era are on the display  (Photo: TTO)

The objects on show at the exhibition, organised by the museum, are mostly made of silver, brass, precious stones, porcelain, silk, wood and paper.

Among them are a pair of ivory tusks donated by a Vietnamese expatriate living in France, a tea set gifted by Doan Phuoc Thuan, a collector in the central coastal province of Phu Yen, and a collection of King Minh Mang’s poems written on paper donated by Frenchman Andre de Crozet.

A set of three life-size brass statues of Jesus’s mother Mary, donated by a Hue-based company, is among the most valuable relics on show.

At the time of the exhibition’s opening, Nguyen Huu Hoang donated a porcelain basin and plate, Le Gia donated a land register, and a group of collectors presented a pair of vermilion-lacquered gilded wood panels.

The exhibition will go on until the end of the year.

The Hue Royal Fine Arts Museum, run by the Hue Historical Relic Preservation Centre, houses a large collection of relics from the time of Vietnam’s last imperial dynasty, which ruled from 1820 to 1945.

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$1.25 Bún Bò Huế, HCM, Vietnam

$5.50 small (medium spicy)- Ca Mau, SJ

So the impossible has happened and you’re all phở’ed out but want a hot bowl of noodles. The other Vietnamese beef noodle soup you may see on the menu is Bún Bò Huế, rice noodles in beef broth from the central Vietnamese city of Huế (pronounced HWAY)– Vietnam’s former capital and considered its culinary capital. Like phở, beef bones (sometimes pork) are simmered in hot water for a long period of time to create a rich broth. The broth is often very red and spicy from an oil mixture made of peppery annatto seeds, chili powder, and other spices that is added toward the end. There’s also a distinct citrus flavor from lemongrass. The bún noodles are usually a thicker, round rice noodle the size of bean sprouts. Meats served with the Bún Bò Huế include beef shank, pig’s feet, dồi huyết (pork blood cubes), Huế style chả lụa (steamed pork), and if you’re lucky, the restaurant offers Ngau Pin, ox penis! Garnishes include banana blossom, bean sprouts, mint, Thai basil. Some use a heavy hand in the spicy oil mixture (including my family), which can be an unappetizing layer of red oil at the top of your bowl of noodles. For me the perfect soup spoonful is chewy noodles, tender beef shank, bean sprouts, herbs, and slightly spicy broth (yes, that’s a big mouthful).

Bún Bò Huế vendor, HCM, Vietnam

pork skin for bún bò huế

Bún Bò Huế was never one of my favorite dishes growing up so I would never order the dish in restaurants. But luckily on the last morning I was in Vietnam, I was able to try a bowl from a street vendor in an alley near my aunt’s house in the Thủ Đức district of HCM. That’s when I realized what an amazing broth was hidden underneath all that spice. In the big pot of the vendor’s broth I could see the bunches of lemongrass and pineapple which is used to tenderize the meat (my family’s recipe doesn’t use pineapple, but this technique was also featured in Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” Vietnam episode featuring the Lunch Lady). The pot also had a separate vessel for boiling rice noodles to order. The bowl didn’t have the beef shank I’m used to, just some pork skin, slices of beef, and chả lụa. But what blew me away was that broth and I’ve been searching for something similar in the Bay Area since I’ve been back. Myvan reports that when she was in Huế, it was actually difficult to find a bowl, but this could be because it is typically a “breakfast” dish that sells out early.

$7.99 small - Bun Bo Hue An Nam, SJ

Golden Star, SF

In San Jose, it’s not hard to find the dish at all. There are a handful of Bún Bò Huế restaurants which specialize in the dish. In recent years, a few Huế restaurants with other Central Vietnamese dishes have opened that feature the dish. A lot of the phở’ restaurants will have it, but I’d stick to the BBH shops. In SF, you’ll have to look a little harder to find it but surprisingly a lot of the Vietnamese restaurants do have it, including the phở shops. But if the phở’s no good, no way I’m trying the BBH there. And I don’t know how they do it, but I’ve had some delicious vegetarian (chay) versions of Bún Huế made with meatless broth and imitation beef.

Recommendations:

Ca Mau Restaurant (2847 S White Rd, SJ) – good broth, you can choose how spicy you want it so you don’t have the thick layer of red oil floating in your bowl, cheap (under $6 for small bowl)
Bun Bo Hue An Nam (740 Story Rd, SJ) – Ngau Pin served here! a little pricey ($8 small bowl)
Ngoc Mai Restaurant (547 Hyde St, SF) – clear but flavorful broth, not overly spicy
Golden Star Restaurant (11 Walter U Lum Pl, SF) – rich broth with very tender meat
Golden Era Vegetarian Restaurant (572 O’Farrell St, SF) – the vegan Bún Huế tastes meaty and is comparable to the versions I’ve had at Buddhist temples

        Beneath a Persian blue comforter patterned with scattered nosegays of mauve, magenta and dusky pink roses, Skye lay on her side in the darkening bedroom. Her eyes scanned the familiar room, moving from the walls, painted a light cornflower blue, to the framed reproductions of Degas’ Dancers at the Barre and Two Dancers, to her tea-green angora sweater, draped carefully over the back of a Victorian carved walnut side chair that had once belonged to Arden (who had needlepointed its seat with a spray of pale blush roses, English blue bells and Easter lilies on a powder blue ground when she was scarcely older than Skye was now). With a softened gaze, her eyes came to rest on one of the counterpane’s printed bouquets.  She watched it intently, without blinking, waiting to catch the precise moment when, in the half-light, distinct hues disappeared, leaving only values of grey: a world with no color, nothing but the play of shadow and light.  Losing herself in rapt anticipation, she forgot, for a moment or two, the strange, unyielding knur of hunger in her abdomen–like a soiled, damp dishcloth wrung out and left to dry into a stiff, twisted knot.

When I did the following still life painting I used  three of the seven basic elements of design and compostion: Value, Hue, and Texture.

Value is obvious in the three major divisions of a very light, a mid-value and darks.

Hue selection was based on the secondary triad: violet,orange and green. I wish I had created a variety of violet in the area which is now a very rich intense blue.

Texture was upper-most in my thinking. I really wanted textures to dominate over other elements. I got several textures but I don’t think they are enough to be a dominant element.

Focus in on three areas of texture:

The first is an area in which a piece of plastic wrap was laid on top of a wash of damp color and allowed to dry for about thirty minutes before removing the plastic wrap.

The second is an area built up of many layers of spattered dark paint. Several different hues were used.

The third is an area which was spattered with clear water in very fine droplets. I used an old tooth brush rubbed across the edge of a piece of window screen.

I could have made texture more dominant and allowed value to become secondary if I had used paint diluted with slightly more water, thus reducing the value contrast.

As it turned out I think “Value” is most dominant with “Hue” secondary and “Texture” the least dominant.

Visit Create Great Art for more ideas about texture.

When creating your own art keep things rather simple.  No need to try to incorporate all seven elements in one piece of work. Three of the seven elements are enough.

I call it “the Rule of 3s” because it comes up so often in designing  art.

But more about that later.

Arty 11-20-09

Ginger and the Happy Warrior

Halong Bay 

 I have traveled all night from Sapa by train arriving at 5am in Hanoi.  After a very early breakfast I waited until 8:30 for my 4 hour van ride to cruise for 3 days on Halong Bay, the magical land of mist and karst mountains.  We boarded a big wooden Junk that was surprisingly luxurious.  I will be cruising with 24 other tourists, none of them Americans.  Karst mountains are formations formed millions of years ago of limestone.  You can find them in other places in the world, in fact, I will be seeing them again in China.  These karst mountains, however, are located in the sea which makes them seem even more mysterious.   Many of these mountains contain caves inside and today we will explore the biggest one, the Surprising Cave, after which we will hop on a 2 man (or woman) kayak for a paddle through a tunnel to the inner core of another mountain.  I was sure my arms would fall off before I got back, but the young Australia woman who was paddling with me agreed that we had started and that we would finish. I am sending  you some photos of this remarkable scenery, but it is so very hard to capture the width and breadth of 3,000 of these craggy tree covered outcroppings floating on the green sea.  Have a look anyway or google Halong Bay and I am sure you will get some great video. Photos of Halong Bay

Hue and beyond

Arriving back in Hanoi, it was time to board the train again.  This time it was not the Victoria Express, but one of the oldest, hospital green, tiny, sleeping compartments I have traveled in.  I shared these deplorable conditions with a couple from Holland and a guy from New York.  Close, very close.  You didn’t want to drink much water, because that meant a trip to the bathroom…not a pretty thought.  I would be sending you photos of this narrow gauge wobbler, but I am without camera after an irreversible malfunction on Cat Ba Island.

Both the train and I have arrived in Hue and not a bad nights sleep.  First stop….the camera store.  New camera in hand I am off with my guide to explore the old French capital of Vietnam.  The citadel is the old quarters for the royal family which abdicated around 1945, or was that 1954.  I get so many dates in my head they sometimes get turned around.  Anyway…Uncle Ho took over from the monarchy.   

After a luxurious lunch I am off again for a drive over the steepest pass in Vietnam through Da Nang and on to Hoi An.  Let me give you some photos of my day.   Clikc here for more photos

Day 4 – Hue

We survived the 12 hour overnight train journey from Hanoi to Hue having seen only 3 cockroaches in the end. My music and a couple text exchanges  with friends keeping my spirits up along the way and reminding me the real world was still out there. The experience reinforced my dislike for overnight trains and reminded me I would NEVER take a train in India (ironically another train crash in Pakistan the same night-12 dead.) My active imagination playing up as we trundled through the jungle in the dark of night. We were glad to finally reach Hue the next morning at 8 am and even more glad our hotel rooms were ready so we could have a shower! Though we all felt we were ‘rocking’ (like when you get off a boat) for the next 24 hours.

There seems to be no clear response to the question, ‘what is the best season to visit Vietnam?’ The reason being the country has two monsoon seasons, and well, what was hot in the north a couple days  is now wet in the middle of the country!

We saw Hue in the rain-remnants of Typhoon Mirinae but were lucky to not get caught in any major downpours. We started the day with a walk to the famous market across the Perfume River bridge. Covered in rain slickers, we meandered through fruit and vegetable stalls, watched a whole pig being cut up in chunks, analyzed the different kinds of mangos we saw and marveled at the amount of rice and spices for sale. On our way back across the bridge we saw a woman cutting up pieces of chicken on the filthy street as she prepared her midday meal. Mmmmmmm. Nevertheless, the market was a fascinating  place as it is in every country and well worth the visit.

Afternoon trip to visit one of the seven king’s tombs in the region. This was the fourth king, he was very short in height and despite 150 wives was unable to have any children having suffered from mumps as a child. His sorrows aside, his ‘resting place’ was absolutely beautiful among the fir trees, frangipani, moated brick walls full of water lilies. A refreshing change from the big city of Hanoi. A pagoda stop closed the day as we learned this particular
pagoda had 7 layers-each representing a decade of the queen mother’s life.

We ended the day with fabulous massages- a mix of Thai, aromatherapy and some serious hand pummeling. 1 hour each for 9.50 USD or 6.00 EUR! Heaven!

Day 5 – Hue and Hoi An

This morning started with a visit to the Hue citadel constructed in 1904. Home of Vietnam’s largest flagpole, constructed on three ’layers’: heaven, the people and earth. Entering the main gate we walked to the ‘Forbidden Purple City’. Once a huge, elaborate maze of buildings and gardens much resembling the Forbidden City in Beijing, a lot of it has been destroyed be typhoons and war, with the Viet Cong most recently using it as a basecamp for guerilla attacks on American
camps nearby. Only 30% of the Forbidden City has been restored so far with the rest in progress. It was great they let us wander across the tattered grounds and through scaffolding to imagine what it was once like and see all their work to restore it. We watched several Vietnamese painstakingly sanding columns and re-varnishing intricate wooden shutters. There is no question this will be a tourist gem with the beauty and draw of the Forbidden City in Beijing one day. We were
glad to see it now ‘before’. Maybe one day we will see the ‘after’!

A four hour bus ride later through beautiful mountains, and past flooded rice fields, we visit an impressive marble temple high on “Marble Mountain” near Danang. (I couldn’t resist a marble jade bangle-my negotiation skills in top form) apparently if ‘I am tired, I must rub the bangle against my forehead and I will be tired no more’. Hey, why not…

4 pm

Arrival in typhoon drenched Hoi-An. The typhoon since gone but a lot of flooding in its wake. So much so, getting to our hotel was a challenge as our ‘bus’ minivan could not go across the bridge to the ’island’ we were staying on. This meant we were picked up and taken across the bridge individually by male hotel staff on none other than the famous motorbikes we have been so in awe of in this country! Yes, we have pictures to prove it, and it was FUN for the 3 minute ride as
we honked and beeped down the road and across the bridge dodging pedestrians! For once, it was fun to be on the OTHER side! As for our baggage? It arrived by rickshaw! Only in Vietnam!

Our hotel is nice! We even have a pool if it would stop raining. We have spent the evening drinking ‘ba ‘ba ba’ or 333 local beer with our travel comrades, managing to manoeuver  across locations between torrential downpours. We also checked the internet to read about this typhoon since we received a lot of questions from concerned parents on the other side of the world. Indeed, 40 people killed in this province just yesterday and another 12 missing. The rice paddies are completely flooded and the rivers and lakes  our brimming over. But as they say in Jamaica, ‘no problem man’. We are well, we are on high ground and in addition to hearing the wind whistle through our windows, and the outside gutter overflowing, we are getting quite used to power outages on this trip between Bali and Vietnam.

Advice item #10 from the guidebook: ‘Bring a flashlight’. Hmmm, yes. Fact: On this trip? my little flashlight has been more useful on this trip than sunblock!

Den seje sømandsstribede vinterhue fra Norse Projects er tilbage i Støy Munkholm.

Farverne på huens striber er hhv. sort og blå, så huen på billedet herover er altså ikke helt den samme, som den du kan finde i butikken… den er faktisk lige en tak federe

En hue fra Norse Projects er et varmt hit til den kommende vintersæson, hvor både  kvalitet og kækhed spiller fedt sammen, og huen er en oplagt løsning, hvis du er på jagt efter den helt rette adventsgave til kæresten derhjemme.