Exciting Times!

Good times   I was taking out the trash, which contained a broken plate, earlier… and nine stitches later, here I am   A weekend just isn’t a weekend without a trip to the emergency room.

 

Making Time For Those Things That Are Important to You

Two months is quite a long time for nothing to come out of my brain. . . I believe that it is in large part to the fact that my brain has been logjammed with work and concerns of work and whatnot.  130 hours every 2 weeks is just a lot of stuff to think about.  I have taken precisely 0 images for myself personally in the past two months.  I mention this as way of explanation of my lack of new material as well as vainly hoping that it will somehow spur myself into action seeing as how fall is coming. . . the trees are beginning to chage a little here.  A few of the over-achievers, perhaps. . . of which I am relatively certain I am not one.  Enough of this, though- -

Laurie and I finally took a little time out last night to do some things that we like doing. . . or at least try to.  Par for the course lately, it seems, the trivia was not functional during our dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings… which was the deciding factor in our attendance for the evening.  We did, however, both enjoy scorching our tongues out of our faces with obscenely hot wing sauces. . . afterwards, we went over to the RagTag Cinema downtown to have a couple of drinks.  We decided to take in the 10:45 showing of Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a delightfully tasty Woody Allen movie starring Scarlett Johansen and Penelope Cruz, among others.  It is well worth your effort if you are somewhere that you can find it.  The RagTag screens a lot of non-mainstream type movies. . . Sundance Festival type films, old silent films with new musical interpretations. . . cool stuff.  Check the link above, as I’m relatively certain their site can do a better job of describing what they’re about than I can do.  What I do know is that there is a movie called Transiberian that looks fun. . it opens Thursday, so I hope we’ll be returning soon

What does that have to do with anything much, you might ask?  It’s rather simple, you see. . . the movie (without giving out too much of the action) involves a little Bohemian flavor. . . and it reminds me of a lot that I lose track of personally sometimes.  The whole Bohemian/artistic scene has a draw to me, and it’s an interesting exploration for me to find out exactly why.  I think that as much as anything, there is something to take from it regarding the appreciation of life as well as trying to keep things uncomplicated, relatively speaking.  I’m not sure. . . it’s a nice thing to be on the road of self-discovery, such as it is at this point in my life… I merely hope that I can stay on it.  Anyway, hopefully I will be able to get out and get some images to put up soon, now that I’ve lost all 5 of my regular viewers

Namaste.

 

Sleepless in Minneapolis

I spent the entire last week in Minneapolis at training and national meetings. . . It was a long time to be gone.  Met a lot of people who are more talented and more powerful than myself.  I like to take some time out when I go up there to take some photos for myself.  This particular time I didn’t do quite as much of this as I normally would have, but the corollary to that is that I met far more people than I ever had before.  It was a pretty day when I did go out.  There are several beautiful churches in the downtown and I managed to get a couple of decent shots of them:

I also kind of got struck by the interesting lines and how they played together… forms of skyscrapers, fountains, etc.  Here are a couple of those:

And lastly for today, near the symphony hall, there are a number of fountains and an outdoor seating area.  There was a woman sitting by herself, and I played around with some different compositions and focus areas, and this is what I ended up with

More to come!

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (The Fourth of Four, Posted With Reservation of Right To Post A Fifth of Four)

I am currently sitting in the airport in neither Dallas nor Fort Worth, yet named for both. . . oddly.  Anyway, since I am very smart, I am passing the time (which I have resigned myself to having to pass, with a change of flight unlikely to happen) with a rented laptop.  This is not necessarily the smart part.  You see, in the DFW airport, you can rent a laptop such as this one for $6.95 an hour.  Alternatively, you can pay $.25 per minute at a number of convenient locations.  See?  Smart.  You just have to have the time (say…. seven hours) and the wherewithall (for instance checking three different terminals to find a rentable, charged laptop) to take advantage of the situation.  At any rate, with very little to do besides count seconds, I decide to share these moments of my life with you, the anonymous web public, most of whom I probably know on a personal level. 

OK– Johnson’s Shut-Ins. 

If you’ve not ever been there, you really should go… it’s a blast!  If you follow the link, you can read some information about the misfortunate recent past of the park.  We were fortunate to visit the day after the park re-opened to the public and again two days after that, as I spent most of the time on the first visit swimming the shut-ins rather than photographing the shut-ins.  Even if you have nothing else to do, combining the Johnson’s Shut-Ins with Elephant Rocks makes it well worth the travel to the Arcadia Valley area, in my estimation.  Anyway… just in case you don’t follow the link, here is a cliffs notes version of the recent park history that I alluded to.  In 2005 the reservoir at a nearby hydro-electric plant (run by Ameren UE, if you’re interested) burst, pouring a great many gallons of water flooding through the park in a very short ammount of time.  The devestation was pretty brutal despite the short duration.  Fast forward, and it’s 3 years later and the park is re-opened.  (See?  I can be brief.) 

We went back to the Shut-Ins on the same day as we went to the Elephant Rocks, so I don’t likely need to reiterate what a beautiful day it was that day or how awesome the sky was.  I did my best to take full advantage.  Given my proclivity to losing my footing, especially as rivers and water are concerned, I took a chance and dove in with my camera tightly around my neck.  Rather more waded, but you get the point.  The following are the results:

 

Being close to park closing, having had our fill of water and sun, not to mention having filled my CF card, we began to head back to the car, and ultimately home. . . but not before I was struck by an image that caused me to dump a rather pedestrian shot (so I felt) that I had finished on and replace it with the following, the final image from my serial travelogue of my summer vacation. 

 

Right.  So here is what you have to look forward to in the days following my trip to Minneapolis.  Fourth of July.  Minneapolis.  The rest of your life.  No one gets out alive . . . enjoy!

 

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (the Third of a serial, likely to last two more posts)

Following a non-chronological trip to enjoy the company of my family on our Independence Day, the pool belonging to Laurie’s best friend’s mom and the pool belonging to Laurie’s grandmother (not to mention a particularly vigorous visit with her family during which I acquired a plate that spontaneously generated deviled eggs…), we finally made our way to one of the main points of our trip to the southeast of Missouri. Elephant Rocks State Park lies merely 2 miles north of Ironton. Yes, we did take advantage of this proximity to have one last go at Baylee Jo’s BBQ. . . but that is not the point. Elephant Rocks State Park, in its pre-State Park days was home to a rather large granite quarry that provided high quality home furnishings as well as granite used to pave the unique cobbles that you can find in downtown St. Louis (roughly an hour or so north of Ironton, by modern estimation). There are a couple of quarry ponds that can be seen, watery remnants of it the operations that have since moved away from the immediate area of the park. The portions of the park that were not quarried have left huge reddish rock formations that have weathered of the years to remind some of the overly baggy and wrinkled skin of an Elephant. . . hence the name.

Fortunately, despite the unfortunate state of the weather while we slept, and particularly on this day, the temperature was moderate and the skies beautiful. Excellent luck for the large number of people picnicking around the park and climbing about on the rocks, and even better luck for myself.

The park houses a mile-long trail that circuits around the largest of the rock formations, with a small off-shoot path that takes you back to the (rather substantial) remains of the engine house. Remaining from the late 1800s, this building is where they serviced train engines that were in the area for the purpose of removing large bits of quarried gravel, seeing as how it would have been difficult to carry the rocks off the site, and besides, it’s against regulations to remove rocks from the park. The trail around the park was well paved, a little less so heading back to the engine house. . . which must be why not many people noticed the trodden grass path that led off from the front corner of the engine house. Actually, Laurie and I were the only people who noticed or were curious enough to wonder where it went. Following a fairly short stretch of this pathway, another presented itself as the initial pass seemed to head off and become less appealing to those wearing shorts and open-toed shoes. Here we found a smaller quarry pond than the one that we would end up seeing at the end of the main trail, but a pretty one nonetheless.

As we began to get more serious with our ambition to get out on the rocks and climb a bit, which is sometimes not as simple a task as it may sound, we came to a fabulous area in which my camera almost was glued to my eyes. Large rock formations and perfect skies presented themselves in such a manner that even a Photographer of Very Little Brain such as myself could scarcely make hash of it. Very nearly every image that I took away from that particular section of Elephant Rocks that day was fit to post for public consumption, which verges on the amazing if you know me. Among my favorites were images from a particularly long stretch of rock in which weather had carved out little craters that had become mini-ponds with the rain from the previous nights. . . not all inconveniences are bad.

My other favorites from the day follow. . . I suppose one to be fairly mundane in its construction, but the second reminds me of an art poster that I have seen in the past and which is buried so far in my forgotten section of my mind I doubt I’ll dig it out. If it reminds you of the same thing, maybe you can let me know!

And so, with time dwindling before we were to leave for home, we left the Elephant Rocks for a second spin at Johnson’s Shut-Ins, this time with my camera in hand. Stay tuned!

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Part 2

Excellent.  So– when we last saw our heroes, they had set up camp at Deer Creek Campground in Lesterville.  In a weird flash-forward, we reached the Iron County Courthouse and Baylee Jo’s Barbecue. . . and now we return to your normal chronology. 

Early the morning following establishment of base camp, a fire (meager) was started for the purpose of a hearty campfire breakfast.  Bacon and eggs were cooked and consumed, and the first main destination beckoned.  Taum Sauk State Park houses the highest point in Missouri as well as the tallest wet-weather waterfall in Mina Sauk Falls among other claims to fame.  With no specific destination within the park, we decided to head for said falls, as it had rained quite a bit over the previous couple of days– hoping that it would be reaping the benefit of such weather.  The first omen of what was to come should have been the fact that you were requested to sign in at the trail head, just in case you fall in or something.  Hike hike hike, 300 vertical feet down is good.  There were a couple of nice places to take pictures on the way, which was nice:

And finally we’re there.  Not too much water there, really… so a bunch of effort for not much reward… or rather not the particular reward that we had in mind.  It was very pretty up there, though, to be sure.  We soaked up the atmosphere and wandered around a little bit, grabbed some photos and headed back to the car. . . for our first lunch at Baylee Jo’s BBQ as referenced in the previous post.  Here are the images from the "low point" of the Taum Sauk hike.

We barely survived the re-ascent to the trail head. . . it was not quite as gentle as the descent. . .  but we persevered and made it back up.  We actually ended up at a higher altitude than where we started, making it all the way to the certified highest point in Missouri!    muy excellente!  Here endeth the second portion of my Summer Vacation report.  Stay tuned for details of Part III.

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (A Story in Four Parts) (At Least)

It came down to crunch time.  If I didn’t get time off last week and this week, then I was going to run out of weeks in which to have any time off… so we packed up the truck PT Cruiser and moved to Beverly Lesterville.  Hills, that is. Most of that is true.  After we had battened down the appropriate hatches at the house (preventative measures, primarily, to ensure that the cats did not negatively affect the structural integrity of the house), we headed southeast, the significance of which I mentioned in the Prequel to this post.

As the title of this process suggests, there are going to be several more posts related to this trip.  The main reason for this is the shear volume of photos that I have yet to sort through.  I got them on the hard drive and all, and even organized them into folders, but as I was looking through them, I feel like it may just take a while because I’m pretty happy with the quality of the unprocessed photos.  Instead of being a daunting task to find something that is of decent enough quality to put out there in public, it is finally the reverse!

<song>“Oh, Happy day!”</song>

I recognized as I was sorting the folders that the one that I am covering today is the smallest, hence the reason it gets to go first.  Well… also the fact that it’s as good a place as any to start.  We stayed at the Deer Creek Campground in Lesterville, which you can find here:  http://www.deercreekcg.com, which was pretty nice, if a little pricey.  They do have an in-ground pool, sand volleyball a very nice bathhouse, but it cost us $22 a night for the two of us on a non-electric campsite.  They also have very nice fiberglass canoes if you choose to float with them ($37 per for a 7 mile float), but unless you do a healthy dose of river playing or drinking, you will end up waiting a while for pickup… while persons who came off the river after you leave for their various other destinations.  In all fairness, they do tell you when they will pick up, but on the day with rain threatening and no further than it was from the campground, I probably would’ve sent someone to determine if there was anyone done early. . . but that’s just me.  Minor gripes, really.  Don’t float the Black River on a Saturday, however.  We had a harder time missing inner-tubes and rafts from the numerous put-ins on the route than we did negotiating the in-river obstacles.  Like I said, overall a nice campground and a good experience, if a little pricey if you’re on a budget like we are.  For some reason I felt compelled to take a picture of our campsite.  Having no other good place to put it, I insert it now.

Our main destinations were in (or through) Iron County and this gave us cause to drive through Arcadia and Ironton and Pilot Knob several times over the various trips to our favorite state parks.  During exploration, we came across the Iron County Courthouse in Ironton.  On the lawn of the courthouse stand a couple of Civil War-era cannon and a monument to the Battle of Pilot Knob.  For those of you who are into the history thing, here is a link through which you can read some historical accounts of the battle written by the major figures from both sides of the battle in report to their superiors east of the Mississippi River.  http://www.civilwarhome.com/pilotknob.htm.  Images at 11.  Or now.

The last stop on our first leg of My Summer Vacation Report is at our newly-anointed favorite restaurant in the Arcadia Valley.  It had opened in the years since we were down there for the bat project, and sits in the parking lot of the motel in which we stayed. . . none of which is really germane.  And the award goes to. . . <drum roll>

Baylee Jo’s BBQ in Ironton, Missouri.  Home of cherry smoked barbecue and yummy goodness.  We ate several meals there over the course of four days, and it was pretty well worth it.  Good BBQ and home-made sauces… worth trying out if you make it down that way.  Here are a couple of images so that you know when you find it:

And I leave you with a picture of Laurie after having our last meal (for this trip) at Baylee Jo’s:

Tune in tomorrow for our further adventures in Iron County.  Same bat time, same bat channel blog, different day.  Good Night, and Good Luck.

 

Time off rocks

Laurie and I had the weekend off together this past Thursday through Sunday, and so we grabbed it and took it   We finally made it back to a place to which we had intended to return for quite a long time — the Arcadia Valley in southeastern Missouri.  We had spent several weeks there a number of years ago when we were working on a bat research project team, and frankly along with Eureka Springs, the Buffalo River wilderness and Petit Jean State Park the area is firmly within my list of most beautiful places that I’ve been.  We camped at Deer Creek Campground in Lesterville and save for the end-of-days storm on Friday night, things were really pretty nice.  I’ll elaborate a little bit later and begin posting some of the images that I took on the trip, which I’ll begin working up this afternoon.  Also upcoming:  Fourth of July festivities and summer meeting in Minneapolis, two of my favorite photographic opportunities.  The Arcadia Valley was just what I needed ahead of the next couple of weeks.  I think my muse must’ve taken the vacation well before I did, but I found her, I think

 

A Whore of kittens

We were speculating what you called a social group of kittens. . . and more specifically . . . our social group of kittens, and we decided that we have a “whore” of kittens.  If you know our kittens, then you understand this.  At any rate, I hadn’t posted any photos of the cats lately, so here is a round, oldest to youngest

This is of course Kyla Jean. . . now the old lady of the whore.

Dharma. . . who has been getting her come-uppance for having been the bitch of the whore for the past several months.

This is Surya.  He is the brains of the whore. . . and I think he’s going to eventually end up being the Alpha.

And Savitar… or Savi (Sah-vee) as we call him most of the time. . . the supermodel of the whore.

And there you have it   Goodnightnow.

 

Twilight Festival the second and some unsolicited thoughts

It’s been a while. . . but there is one person out there that is checking in several times a day, it appears, so I reward thee with some of my awesomeness. Actually I haven’t been feeling very awesome lately about my photography. I’ve been considering a protracted break like I used to take during summers when I was playing my trombone as much as I should have. Usually after taking such a break, there was a marked improvement when I picked it back up, albeit a dip in the strength of my chops. When I’m shooting, it feels like there is this tremendous weight and pressure, almost certainly self-generated, but present nonetheless. I also feel like my eye has gone suddenly blind. Where components such as composition and framing used to come to me quite naturally, it seems like some Tower of Babel has gone off in my head and laid waste utterly to all of these items that used to have a good time hanging out together in my brain. Frame after frame after frame, and I don’t feel like each successive frame is getting better than the previous.

Frustrating.

I do have a number of images stockpiled that could help to tide us all over, and I could even post some of the things that bounce around in the recesses of my brain that I don’t usually let out… who knows. In the meantime, here are a couple of images from the second of the Twilight Festivals of June this year. I don’t know if I am not enjoying them quite as much as previously or whether they’re a little slower than, say, last August, but it is what it is. I took a tonne of images (that would be a metric ton for those of you playing at home…) and picked out a couple of the “best and brightest” as it were, although I find severe issues with both of the images to follow. We are our own worst critic, yes? Without further ado, here are some images:

On an unrelated note, did you hear in the news lately that it has been contended in the UK that the term “Brain Storming” should no longer be used on account of it could be insulting to epileptics? They are suggesting alternatives such as “thought showers” and other half-assed attempts at saying exactly the same thing… check it out here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2162568/Council-bans-brainstorming.html

Obliquely, this is why I have added tag clouds to my layout and called them “Thought shower”. There you have it. If you’re not watching any of the Euro 2008 soccer championships, do yourself a favor and catch at least one match over the next week. It’s worth it.