The World's Largest Easter Egg or Pysanka in Vegreville, Canada

Since this coming weekend is the Ukrainian Easter weekend I am going to take this opportunity to tell you about the largest Easter egg in the world. Few years ago me and my husband took a long weekend trip to Alberta, Canada. We drove through few places, worth visiting if you in Canada - Banff and Jasper National Parks. Then one day we went to visit the largest Easter egg in the world situated along the Trans Canada Yellowhead Highway in Vegreville, Canada. Since it is the Ukrainian Easter egg, it is also called Pysanka. Vegreville, a small town, nothing really interesting except this biggest egg. Let me tell you, simple facts about this Pysanka: height 31.6 feet with support [and I am only 5.4], made of aluminum metal sheet shapes, is hollow, the egg shell alone weighs 2000 lb, and is also able to turn in the wind like a weather vane. Very impressive design, unique construction and excellent result. All this construction done back in 1974. One might say, oh that is nothing. But you know this Pysanka is one big 3D puzzle, and it wasn't that easy to assemble, especially making egg-like shape which is already complicated geometry to start with. The Pysanka design was developed using newly developed computer programs, yes back in 1970s [1974], and is made of 524 star patterns, 2206 equilateral triangles, 3512 visible facets, 6978 nuts and bolts, and 177 internal struts. Thumbs up to Professor Ronald Resch, a computer scientist from the University of Utah for this design. Excellent work I have to say, and another reason for those outside of Canada to visit CANADA.
Also, few months ago I had this poll on my blog to guess my nationality. The results, not a big pool of numbers though, were 9 votes for Polish, 7 votes for Ukrainian, 1 vote for Italian, 1 vote for Japanese, and 9 votes for Canadian. Well each of your guesses had some truth in it, and this may be a good time to tell you more about me then, and the reason why I chose Polish, Ukrainian, Italian, Japanese and Canadian nationalities in my poll. To start, I was born in a beautiful country called Poland, live there for 14 years. However, by blood I am Ukrainian, never been in Ukraine yet. All I know when after the war borders were changed, all Ukrainians were welcome to stay, so my grandparents did. I also have to tell you that somewhere in the blood line I have small Polish blood in me. The only connection to Italian I have is I am married to my husband who is Italian, born in Canada. Okay now you may ask, where the Japanese comes from. I thought add this for fun, because once working for Japanese trading company as a receptionist, all callers thought I was Japanese until they met me in person. Still don't know how, but then must have been this Polish-Ukrainian accent I have. Finally, right now and for many years now I am Canadian citizen, and since Canada is bilingual, many think that I am French, again must be this Ukrainian-Polish accent I still have.'No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.' ~Proverb

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A Bit of Knowledge: Home Decor - Cropping and Sizing Photos for Printing

Today 6 inches of snow and more coming. I am giving up, spring got to show up eventually. Well Easter is around the corner and I got to do some Easter cards, and then Easter baking. Yes, I been baking stuff for 2 months now - I am in training but so far so good, or should I say great - and chocolate is my main ingredient. Unfortunately, I will have to change the topic and talk about photography. I would like to give you few tips on cropping, sizing and printing images for gifts, or for just general framing.
Cropping Images. There is nothing wrong with cropping images, especially when you want your print to be square format, as we all know that camera's take rectangular photos. Cropping is also good when you want to extract one object, or remove unnecessary information.

Sizing & Printing Images. For developing standard North American 4x6", 5x7" and 8x10", I set cropping tool to any of the three sizes at the resolution of 200 dpi. If you require square image, you still have to develop them on the standard formats, unless your lab specializes in printing square images. Its simple, first crop image, for example to 5x5" at 200 dpi. Create another file with 5x7" at 200 dpi. Then take 5x5" and place onto 5x7", and save as jpg file. Then once printed, all you have to do is cut the blank side(s), and you are done. The following is example from raw digital photo to framed photos on the wall.

STEP 1: Image cropped to 5x5" at resolution of 200 dpi. For fun I adjusted to three color schemes as you will see on the final result.
STEP 2: Image placed on 5x7" standard format. Another short way is to take the 5x5" image and re-crop to 5x7" by stretching to 7" in height. STEP 3: Get photo frame with matting that has three openings 4x4", and frame the three images. NOTE: I am only giving you quick guideline. Each software has different way of doing things, but I am sure that cropping and resizing images terminology is still the same. In addition I don't like to waste space, so usually on the blank side 'cut this end', I usually place another image or I place my blog address and name.

'There is no one giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps.' ~ by Peter A. Cohen

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