BUDGET FLIGHTS TO EUROPE

The Life of Birds

The definitive series on the most colorful, popular and perfectly adapted creatures on earth, The Life of Birds traverses the globe, covering 42 countries and examining over 300 different species. Calling upon the immense skills of many of the world's top wildlife cameramen and women, and pushing filming technology to the limits, new behavior is brought to the screen in staggering detail. Infra-red cameras find oilbirds deep in pitch black caves. Ultra slow motion film unravels the complexities of bird flight and ultraviolet cameras reveal the world from a bird's point of view.

Like the albatross glimpsed in the beginning of this 10-part, 5-volume series, The Life of Birds quickly takes flight. Sir David Attenborough hosts this unprecedented and extraordinary global look at the magnificent and often curious winged species with which we share our planet. Like the best wildlife shows, The Life of Birds offers a fresh and accessible view of creatures we may take for granted (didn't Alfred Hitchcock warn us about that?). The focus of this series is not on the different bird species, but on bird behavior. Remarkable and awe-inspiring footage preserves the wide range of tools and techniques with which birds fly, hunt for food, attract a mate, hatch their chicks, and defend themselves against predators.
Each volume contains two episodes. Series titles include: "To Fly or Not to Fly?," "The Mastery of Flight," "The Insatiable Appetite," "Meat Eaters," "Fishing for a Living," Signals and Songs," "Finding Partners" (the inevitable mating episode), "The Demands of the Egg," "The Problems of Parenthood," and "The Limits of Endurance." One comedic diversion while watching this series is the Pythonesque (as in Monty) way in which Attenborough pops up in the most remote, most exotic locales. At one point, night-vision cameras capture the rare sight of the nocturnal kiwi as it forages for food on a New Zealand beach. The camera pans to reveal scant paces away our guide shining a flashlight on the nonplussed bird. Attenborough is also the creator of the classic natural-science series The Trials of Life, The Living Planet, and Life on Earth, all of which are also available on video. --Donald Liebenson

This picture is intended to portray a definition of the word "Flight". The photo contains outer space orientated images to accommodate the definition (which can be found in the quotation marks"). It is simply made, however still seems busy due to the shuttle launch background. I believe this gave it a perfect medium.

First, I started with a plain white canvas with the correct width and length, in landscape. Then I covered the whole plain white background with a shuttle launch photo found online. I played with the hue and saturation a bit, but stayed close to the original colors. Then, I added the word "FLIGHT" in the top left corner, using a font I believe sticks out strongly. I made this orange, then used the "Warp Text" option to bulge the word out and upward in the center. Then on the opposite side of the photo I added the definition in orange, and the same font. Next, the astronaut was added. I used the "Quick Selection" tool to make him free floating from his previous background (The eraser tool was used to smooth out some of the edges afterward.) The astronaut photo was placed in the bottom right corner, making the astronaut seeming to be "peeking" out from the bottom. after that, the same process was used for the Earth image that was added next. I used the "Quick Selection" tool and "Magic Wand" to crop it from it's previous background, the moved it to the bottom left corner. The edges were smoothed out by selecting again with the "Quick Selection" tool and brought the selection size down a few pixels, then applied it to crop the circumference down a bit. This automatically smoothed out the edges, making it nice and round; finishing the photo.

I am very satisfied with my work; it's easy on the eyes, the colors seem to flow together well, and it was fun and simple to make.
I like it =]

- Trevor Suttorp
2.24.09 B8

I realize online seat request isn't a new thing but I still find it really cool. Those are some seat requests for flights I have (with lufthansa/singapore airlines and air new zealand). I like the air new zealand site much better, it's got a slick modern UI (btw, looking at the source code, both sites use a mixture of jsp and asp.net).

Anyway dear friends, this is the last photo I'm going to upload until February. Tomorrow I'm leaving for a month in New Zealand (with two days in Singapore) and I've no intentions of getting online during that period.

A good happy new year to all of you!
(and if you're in the u.s or Europe - try not to freeze until I get back).

When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a pious desert guide, to lead the search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner’s office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened.
He quickly realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner’s office who is bold enough to bare her face and to work in public. Their partnership challenges Nayir, as he confronts his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs. Fast-paced and utterly transporting, Finding Nouf is a riveting literary mystery that offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there.