View allAll Photos Tagged Simplify
©2012 Susan Ogden-All Rights Reserved
I hope you have a Happy Simple Sunday, sweet with relaxation, and if you do, please take a few extra moments for me, please! i will try, but i have both beans this from about 2pm this afternoon until 10 or 11pm....the kids have yet ANOTHER wedding to attend....somewhere down by the beach. Needless to say i will be a busy bee until they go to bed around 8pm. Will check in to see how many of you were able to catch a bit of rest in my name so i know how late i can stay up! Lileigh Grace is officially in her big girl bed, hopefully she will stay put!! Wish me luck!
Oh....this is a Cormorant on a post in the middle of Edwin B Forsyth Wildlife Preserve in Brigantine. i was in the mood to play a bit in Elements tonight....since i am waiting for a rack of ribs to be done in the oven for tomorrows dinner, for Kiera and her dad. I am not sure whether i will even have time to eat....so grazing is on my menu for tomorrow evening...or the ever popular bowl of cereal with fruit!
Splash Mountain
Frontierland
Magic Kingdom
Walt Disney World
I so wish I could paint, but the second best option is Photoshop and Topaz Simplify. Enjoy!
Photo taken during family vacation - June 2008.
Patterns are the Ebb & Flow top (I used the Ebb button front over the Simpify Your Life top with cut-on sleeve and sleeve cuffs. Lengthened/added a horizontal seam (front & back) and used the lower portion of the Ebb top, lengthened.
A photo from this past summer taken at The Inner Harbor and adjusted with the Topaz Simplify addin for PShop.. The more I work with this filter the more I like it!
What's for lunch?? maybe sushi!! ;-)
large here - farm4.static.flickr.com/3496/3193126188_1873d5b837_o.jpg
BEST SEEN LARGER I can see I'm going to get re-addicted (is that a proper word?) to buzzlite simplifier plug in for photoshop.
Shot with a Nikon D80 with the Nikon 18-135 zoom, and edited in Lightroom with the Topaz Simplify Plugin for the artsy look.
When you learn how to say yes to the things you want in your life and no to the things you don't want in your life – your life becomes simpler.
Using the Coming Home pattern from the book Simplify with Camille Roskelley. Fabric is Sorbet by Sentimental Studios for Moda.
Simplified map shows the railroads of the Tampa Bay area in 1915. The red line down the left side traces the route of the Orange Belt Railway to St. Petersburg from Pasco County via Tarpon Springs, which became part of the ACL in 1903.
In Tampa at the right, the ACL rail route is shown in red, making connections with Tampa Union Station, Port Tampa, and wharves along the harbor. The green line traces the SAL tracks that connect to Tampa Union Station and to wharves along the harbor. The purple line traces the path of the Tampa Northern railroad from wharves along the harbor north to Brooksville.
The blue lines trace the Tampa & Gulf Coast railroad routes to Clearwater and St. Petersburg, with a branch northward to Tarpon Springs. Another branch extends the Tampa & Gulf Coast railroad to Port Richey. The Tampa & Gulf Coast railroad used the line of the Tampa Northern railroad to reach Tampa, and trains of the Tampa & Gulf Coast and the Tampa Northern connected to Tampa Union Station along the SAL line. The SAL owned shares in both of these smaller railroad companies, and eventually absorbed them into the SAL system.
The Tampa & Gulf Coast railroad also built the Indian Beach spur to the Gulf Beaches, and the ACL had a spur track to Belleair's Belleview Hotel, just south of Clearwater. Adapted from Heritage Village map
直到來上海以後，有一天我才知道林夕原來是夢的意思。然後我一面在記憶中搜尋他填詞的歌曲，一面做了模糊的夢。夢裡面出現了夢卜，那到底是什麼？醒來的瞬間我就忘記了，只留下白色的散景。後來我才弄明白，原來那無關占卜或者巫術。是萝卜。
然後近來我開始後悔，一直不夠認真蒐集他的歌。
Big time traffic inside the tunnel due to hotel strike..temper flares everywhere...;-(
btw this is the famous ugly muni fight..check it out!!
Turpan (simplified Chinese: 吐鲁番; traditional Chinese: 吐魯番; pinyin: Tǔlǔfān; Uyghur: تۇرپان, ULY: Turpan, UYY: Turpan?), also known as Turfan or Tulufan, is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of 69,324 square kilometres and a population of 570,000 (2003).
HISTORY
Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis (with water provided by the karez canal system) and an important trade centre. It was historically located along the Silk Road, at which time it was adjacent to the kingdoms of Kroran and Yanqi. The name Turfan itself however was not used until the end of the Middle Ages - its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period. The center of the region has shifted a number of times, from Yar-Khoto (Jiaohe, 10 km to the west of modern Turpan) to Qocho (Gaochang, 30 km to the southeast of Turpan), and to Turpan itself. Historically, many settlements in the region have been given a number of different names, some of which refer to more than one place – Turpan/Turfan/Tulufan is one such example. (Others include Loulan/Kroran/Korla, Jushi/Gushi, Gaochang/Qocho/Karakhoja, Hezhou, and Jiaohe/Yarkhoto.)
The peoples of the Kingdoms of Nearer and Further Jushi (the Turpan Oasis and the region to the north of the mountains near modern Jimasa), were closely related. It was originally one kingdom called Gushi, which the Chinese conquered in 107 BC. It was subdivided into two kingdoms by the Chinese in 60 BC. During the Han era the city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence.
After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe (modern Yarghul 16 kilometres west of Turpan).
From 487 to 541 AD, Turpan was an independent Kingdom ruled by a Turkic tribe known to the Chinese as the Tiele. The Rouran Khaganate defeated the Tiele and subjugated Turpan, but soon afterwards the Rouran were destroyed by the Göktürks.
TANG CONQUEST
The Tang dynasty had reconquered the Tarim Basin by the 7th century AD. During the 7th, 8th, and early 9th centuries the Tibetan Empire, the Tang Chinese, and Turks fought to conquer the Tarim Basin. Sogdians and Chinese engaged in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule. The Sogdians were mostly Mazdaist at this time. Turpan, renamed Xizhou by the Tang after their armies conquered it in 640 AD, had a history of commerce and trade along the Silk Road already centuries old; it had many inns catering to merchants and other travelers, while numerous brothels are recorded in Kucha and Khotan. As a result of the Tang conquest, policies forcing minority group relocation and encouraging Han settlement led to Turpan's name in the Sogdian language becoming known as “Chinatown” or "Town of the Chinese".
In Astana, a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses; early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan. Twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, and a Chang'an native bought a girl age 11 for 40 silk bolts in 731 from a Sogdian merchant. Five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since the Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves.
The Tang dynasty became weakened considerably due to the An Lushan Rebellion, and the Tibetans took the opportunity to expand into Gansu and the Western Regions. The Tibetans took control of Turfan in 792.
7th or 8th century old dumplings and wontons were found in Turfan.
UYGHUR RULE
In 803, the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate seized Turfan from the Tibetans. The Uyghur Khaganate however was destroyed by the Kirghiz and its capital Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia sacked in 840. The defeat resulted in the mass movement of the Uyghurs out of Mongolia and their dispersal into Gansu and Central Asia, and many joined other Uyghurs already present in Turfan. In the early twentieth century, a collection of some 900 Christian manuscripts dating to the ninth to the twelfth centuries was found at a monastery site at Turfan.
The Uyghurs established a Kingdom in the Turpan region with its capital in Gaochang or Kara-Khoja. The kingdom was known as the Uyghuria Idikut state or Kara-Khoja Kingdom that lasted from 856 to 1389 AD. The Uyghurs were Manichaean but later converted to Buddhism and funded the construction the cave temples in the Bezeklik Caves. The Uyghurs formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. The Uyghur state later became a vassal state of the Kara-Khitans, and then as a vassal of the Mongol Empire. This Kingdom was led by the Idikuts, or Saint Spiritual Rulers. The last Idikut left Turpan area in 1284 for Kumul, then Gansu to seek protection of Yuan Dynasty, but local Uyghur Buddhist rulers still held power until the invasion by the Moghul Hizir Khoja in 1389. The conversion of the local Buddhist population to Islam was completed nevertheless only in the second half of the 15th century.
After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.
15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES
As late as 1420, the Timurid envoy Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh, who passed through Turpan on the way from Herat to Beijing, reported that many of the city's residents were "infidels". He visited a "very large and beautiful" temple with a statue of Shakyamuni; in one of the versions of his account it was also claimed that many Turpanians "worshipped the cross".The Moghul ruler of Turpan Yunus Khan, also known as Ḥājjī `Ali, (ruled 1462–1478) unified Moghulistan (roughly corresponding to today's Eastern Xinjiang) under his authority in 1472. Around that time, a conflict with the Ming China started over the issues of tribute trade: Turpanians benefited from sending "tribute missions" to China, which allowed them to receive valuable gifts from the Ming emperors and to do plenty of trading on the side; the Chinese, however, felt that receiving and entertaining these missions was just too expensive. (Muslim envoys to the early Ming China were impressed by the lavish reception offered to them along their route through China, from Suzhou to Beijing, such as described by Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh in 1420–1421.
Yunus Khan was irritated by the restrictions on the frequency and size of Turpanian missions (no more than one mission in 5 years, with no more than 10 members) imposed by the Ming government in 1465, and by the Ming's refusal to bestow sufficiently luxurious gifts on his envoys (1469). Accordingly, in 1473 he went to war against China, and succeeded in capturing Hami in 1473 from the Oirat Mongol Henshen and holding it for a while, until Ali was repulsed by the Ming Dynasty into Turfan. He reoccupied Hami after Ming left. Henshen's Mongols recaptured Hami twice in 1482 and 1483, but the son of Ali, Ahmad Alaq, reconquered it in 1493 and captured the Hami leader and the resident of China in Hami (Hami was a vassal state to Ming). In response, the Ming Dynasty imposed an economic blockade on Turfan and kicked out all the Uyghurs from Gansu. It became so harsh for Turfan that Ahmed left. Ahmed's son Mansur succeeded him and took over Hami in 1517. These conflicts were called the Ming Turpan Border Wars.
Several times, after occupying Hami, Mansur tried to attack China in 1524 with 20,000 men, but was beaten by Chinese forces. The Turpan kingdom under Mansur, in alliance with Oirat Mongols, tried to raid Suzhou in Gansu in 1528, but were severely defeated by Ming Chinese forces and suffered heavy casualties. The Chinese refused to lift the economic blockade and restrictions that had led to the battles, and continued restricting Turpan's tribute and trade with China. Turfan also annexed Hami.
19TH CENTURY
Francis Younghusband visited Turpan in 1887 on his overland journey from Beijing to India. He said it consisted of two walled towns, a Chinese one with a population of no more than 5,000 and, about 1.6 km to the west, a Turk town of "probably" 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. The town (presumably the "Turk town") had four gateways, one for each of the cardinal directions, of solid brickwork and massive wooden doors plated with iron and covered by a semicircular bastion. The well-kept walls were of mud and about 10.7 m tall and 6 to 9 m thick, with loopholes at the top. There was a level space about 14 m wide outside the main walls surrounded by a musketry wall about 2.4 m high, with a ditch around it some 3.7 m deep and 6 m wide. There were drumtowers over the gateways, small square towers at the corners and two small square bastions between the corners and the gateways, "two to each front." Wheat, cotton, poppies, melons and grapes were grown in the surrounding fields.
Turpan grapes impressed other travelers to the region as well. The 19th-century Russian explorer Grigory Grumm-Grzhimaylo, thought the local raisins may be "the best in the world", and noted the buildings of a "perfectly peculiar design" used for drying them called chunche.
SUBDEVISIONS
Turpan directly controls 1 district and 2 counties.
GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE
Turpan is located about 150 km southeast of Ürümqi, Xinjiang's capital, in a mountain basin, on the northern side of the Turpan Depression, at an elevation of 30 m above sea level. Outside of Turpan is a small volcanic cone, the Turfan volcano, that is said to have erupted in 1120 as described in the Song Dynasty.
Turpan has a harsh, drastic, cold desert climate (Köppen BWk), with very hot and long summers, and very cold but short winters, and brief spring and autumn in between. Annual precipitation is very low, amounting to only 15.7 millimetres. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −7.6 °C in January to 32.2 °C in July; the annual mean is 14.4 °C. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 48% in December to 75% in September, sunshine is abundant and the city receives 2,912 hours of bright sunshine annually. Temperature differences between summer and winter are oppressively large (over 50 °C). The warmest months often approach the stifling intensity of cities such as Phoenix or Las Vegas, while winters produce average lows that more closely resemble frigid Minneapolis.
Extremes have ranged from −28.9 °C to 48.1 °C, although a reading of 49.6 °C in July 1975 is regarded as dubious.
However, the very heat and dryness of the summer, when combined with the area's ancient system of irrigation, allows the countryside around Turpan to produce great quantities of high-quality fruit.
DEMOGRAPHY
According to the 2000 census, the city of Turpan had a population of 251,652 (population density 15.99 inh./km²).
TRANSPORT
Turpan is served by China National Highway 312. It is the junction for the Lanzhou-Xinjiang and the Southern Xinjiang Railways.
WIKIPEDIA
If you like my work, 'Like' me on Facebook www.facebook.com/hannah.galli.inner.i.art?ref=ts ... Thanks for the support
This was made from a bali pop that I got awhile back with the intentions of making something for my mom. She loves batiks and I have been wanting to make her a quilt made with them for awhile. Once I saw this pattern, I knew that this would be a perfect pattern to make those bright fabrics pop. The top is done and now it is being added to the needs to be quilted pile which is getting to big...
After a bit of experimentation with the Topaz Simplify filter, we get this result from this source image.
ODC- Wave for 9 November. I used Topaz Simplify 4 to change what was a black and white cushion pattern.
The vents for this dress, for which I used the lower portion of the pattern for the Ebb top w/ vents, are longer than the Ebb top vents.
Ermita Nsa. Sra da Rocha, Armacao de Pera.
Algarve portugués.
Please don't use this image without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Por favor, no uses esta imagen sin mi permiso explícito. Todos los derechos reservados.
* * * * * * * *
Reethi Beach, our first visit back to the Maldives since we dipped our toes into the water so to speak in 1996 to Thudufushi. After getting some more experience diving in the UK and on a couple of trips to Thailand I decided that warm water diving was for me, and there is no easier diving in the world than on the Maldives. The islands are usually quite small so after breakfast you just wander down to the Dive Centre, the staff will have put all your dive gear on the boat, all you have to do is turn up and go diving!
I would say Reethi Beach is at the budget end of Maldivian islands but as with most islands whatever level you are at it can be enough. Just being in the Maldives is enough, the whole vibe is just amazing. I guess the worst bit for us was the room, the tin roof was pretty noisy when it rained and there we had some scurrying furry creatures in the roof that can keep you awake at night. A good dive and snorkelling island though and there are a lot of repeaters here who love this place.....then again there are repeaters on every island!
I have started using a more impressionistic style to my photographs lately, I try to bring out the feeling of the place by varying the post processing effects that I use. To be honest I find it absolutely amazing what can be pulled from a pretty poor image these days by utilising current image manipulation techniques. The only slight problem is it takes time, something none of us have enough of, but I must say the final results are well worth the effort.
The thing we love the most about Maldives holidays is the mornings.....without a doubt the best time of the day. We are up at dawn for a run around the island and to see the sun come up. We usually have the whole island to ourselves at this time of day, it's just so calm and peaceful. Then it's into the bathwater temperature ocean for a snorkel before a well earned breakfast.....the best meal of the day.
The climate is perfect this time of year, you just have to put up with a few stray showers. For a chill out holiday the temperatures are absolutely perfect in the Maldives, around 30 degrees, day and night. The evenings are slightly balmy.....perfect for the tee shirt, shorts and the 'no news no shoes' uniform of the Maldives. Even the water is 30 degrees.....and it is the same 30 metres down, maybe dipping to 28 degrees on a cool day. This area of the world is just stunning, there is nowhere else like it. Absolute heaven!
* * * * * * * *
To view the rest of my Photography Collection click on Link below:
www.flickr.com/photos/nevillewootton/albums
* * * * * * * *
Photography & Equipment sponsored by my web business:
We are UK's leading Filter Specialists, selling online to the Plant, Agricultural, Commercial Vehicle and Marine Industries.
* * * * * * * *
PLEASE NOTE: I take Photographs purely as a hobby these days so am happy to share them with anyone who enjoys them or has a use for them. If you do use them an accreditation would be nice and if you benefit from them financially a donation to www.sightsavers.org would be really nice.
* * * * * * * *
This is a wider sleeve cuff than the original pattern. For this dress, I like the perpendicular stripe better than bias.
"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."
Model : Angela
Photographer : Taiping DSLR
Presented by : Kweong
Location : Taiping Lake Graden
Special thanks to AlanOng for the organisation and help up.