Saturday, May 30, 2009

Goodbye Nana

Said goodbye to my grandmother last week. She had a long and full life but I wish I could have seen her just one more time. Nana is grandmother in Italian by the way.

Angelina Testasecca Simõn

ANGELINA
TESTASECCA
SIMÓN, 92


LAKELAND - Mrs. Angelina Testasecca Simõn, age 92 died of natural causes, May 22, 2009.
Mrs. Simõn was born in Ybor City, Florida on January 5, 1917. After graduating in 1935, she married Julian Simõn and moved to Lakeland, Fl. They owned and operated Garcia's Restaurant in downtown Lakeland for 32 years. They also established and operated Simõn's Nursery, along with family members, for over 60 years. She was a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church for many years. Mrs. Simõn's greatest pleasure was preparing extraordinary meals for family, friends and casual drop-ins. Mrs. Simõn was predeceased by parents, Carmelo and Nila Testasecca; sister Carmalina Testasecca Caruso; brothers, Amedeo Testasecca, Joe Testasecca and Jack Testasecca. She is survived by her daughter, Catherine Simõn Crowson; son Julian Raymond Simõn and wife Sondra Sumner Simõn; grandchildren Angelique Crowson Ward, John W. Crowson III and wife Nancy Stanley Crowson, all of Lakeland, Fl. and Sabrina Simõn and husband, Paul John Meyer of Huntsville, AL; great grandchildren, Paul Ward, Hagen Ward and Daniel Thornton, all of Lakeland, Fl. Funeral services will be held at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 10:00 AM. Burial to follow at Oak Hill Burial Park.
The Family asks in lieu of flowers, donations be made in her memory to Good Shepherd Hospice, 115 South Missouri Avenue, Lakeland, FL. 33815.
Heath Funeral Chapel.

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

A Caving We Will Go!

So I think I just set my personal record for caving in a one month time span - measured from grotto meeting to grotto meeting. Been so busy printing and caving haven't had time to tell you all about it until now. So when the question is asked tomorrow night at out grotto meeting - "Who's been caving?" I'm going to have to bust out a flippin list to remember all of them!!

1. Crossings with Stephanie and Nathan on 4.2.09

photo by Nathan Williams
We went during a serious storm - while we were there - water stared pouring from all sorts of wild places... this shot is cool because you can see all the little water streams...CF-SIT.

photo by Nathan Williams
Another great shot by Nathan - Steph and the haystack were lie with 3 firings of a Lumedyne strobe as an in-camera mutli-exposure

2. Buggy Top with the Huntsville grotto on 4.4.09 (first time trying out my new Pentax in cave!)


3. Blevin's Gap with Nathan on 4.8.09

This is Nathan looking through the squeeze to get down to the lower level. Yeah - that'd be an 8-1/2 inch gap there.

photo by Nathan Williams
And I don't normally post photos of me - but I actually really like this one - and anyway this is part of the gorgeous pool of water on the lower level.

4. Jess Elliot with Angela, Andy, Al, and a bunch of other nice folks from the Dogwood City Grotto 4.11.09

Angela hanging out in a cool portion of Jess. I used two CF-SIT lights for this shot - one on the side and then the other next to me.

5. Hooper's Well with Nathan and Stephanie on 4.14.09 (Steph's 1st pit)

So this is most definitely the wackiest shot I've taken so far, I climbed up the rope about 20 feet, Nathan set up a slaved flash to sidelight Stephanie and himself and then got on the opposite rope. I had my camera set to bulb in one hand, a manual flash in the other, lens cap dangling out of my mouth.... and then I started spinning and twirling...bleaugh. Steph even sat on the rope to keep me from spinning but I still did..ended up attaching my QAS to the other rope and standing in my foot loops to stop spinning for a few moments... finally got one with enough light and without my boots or kneepads in the frame... really like the angle down the rope on this one.

6. Limrock Blowing with Danielle, Stephanie and Nathan on 4.16.09

A bit of Dynamic CF-SIT on the downstream side.

7. Limrock Blowing with Peri, Michelle and Tommy on 4.18.09

Multiple photo composition of Michelle here - because I was working with only flashes - but I like the way it ended up.

Someone made the comment on Flickr that this looked like the caving mafia.... I'm going to go with it - the caving mafia -Don Michelle, Don Tommy and Don Peri

8. Blevin's Gap with Stephanie and Nathan on 4.23.09

Nathan and Steph after 30 different alignments of flashes and "a little to the lefts"... "no, an inch to your rights"

9. Iron Hoop with Michelle, Tommy, Nathan, Angela, Andy, Stephanie, Josh, Colin and Randy on 4.26.09 (topped out at 11-1/2 hours on this one!)

A very happy Stephanie in Iron Hoop. (And by the way instant mashed potatoes are incredibly yummy as a hot in-cave food..... mmmmm....taters! But do watch out - they can be rather hot.)

Check out Colin's photos of the trip.


And then go to the Realms Flickr for all the cool 3-D photos that Nathan took with both of our cameras - bring your red/cyan glasses with ya!! And be seriously prepared to be AMAZED!!!

10. Neversink with Nathan and Stephanie on 4.28.09

This would be the dead rat we found at the bottom of the pit... ewww.

11. Blevin's Gap (yes, again) with Buddy, Joe (their first pit), Don and Nathan for the premiere of SIT 2.0 in-cave (which was very cool and a great success!) on 4.30.09

Here's Joe - man he was so cool - had no problems at all!

12. Stephen's Gap with Stephanie, Danielle, Casey and Nathan (and Fred + 1 later on) on 5.2.09 for Paul and I's first anniversary. (Paul was sick which totally sucked - so he didn't get to go - he let me go anyway) He is feeling MUCH better now and on the road to recovery - albeit a bit spacey from the codine laced cough syrup.

Nathan, Steph, Danielle and Casey ready to hike up to SG.

Man oh man was there a lot of water - and it was simply gorgeous. Here's a little behind the scenes shot I took per Nathan's request. I think this was a 6 second exposure using all natural light.
And then here's a 3 photo panorama of the main waterfalls.

I took some other photos on some hikes and out and about and such - be sure and check them out on my flickr.

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