Regular Life

From the darker end of the bridge (1-second exposure, freehand).
(click any image to enlarge and sharpen)

After my work was done on Thursday, I tried to make it to Clarkson Covered Bridge before sunset. Tucked in a valley, its surroundings go dark before the sun completes its dip below the horizon. Built in 1904 and restored in 1975, the bridge reaches 270 feet (82m) across the expanse above Crooked Creek.

The opposite end of the bridge faced a valley between hillsides, but still I had to set my camera on a rock wall to get anything sharp enough to share. That presented a problem, because rock walls are considerably less portable than tripods.

One of my pictures provided a perfect opportunity for playing around a bit. I’m pleased with the results. The before/after illustrates fairly clearly what I did.

continue reading…

You ever see a sign or a bumper sticker you wish you could show someone else? Well, with this thing called the Internet, and handy little devices called digital cameras, we can share with the entire world. Sure, the entire world might not be tuning in every day, and that’s fine. Nobody expects that kind of saturation.

But if even just a few people see these pictures and laugh, snort, or smile a little, then my Internet work for the day is done. If they make up their own captions or ad slogans, then we’re really talking.

continue reading…

(click to enlarge and sharpen)

See other Wordless Wednesday participants:
http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

Update after comments: I was sitting in a car waiting for a co-worker to run inside our hotel and ask directions to a local restaurant. So, to answer your questions, yes, this is a reflection in a hotel window, and yes, I snapped it (with my trusty little Canon A560).

Just a few of the 100 new items to be added to the “2007 copyright version of the best-selling Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition”*:

Bollywood
crunk
DVR
flex-cuff
ginormous
gray literature
hardscape
IED
microgreen
perfect storm
RPG
smackdown
snowboardcross
speed dating
sudoku
telenovela
viewshed

Before looking up any of these, I wondered, “What the hell is ‘gray literature?’ Do Canadians call it ‘grey literature?’”

continue reading…

(click to enlarge and sharpen)
Four-year-old Benjamin hangs on atop a mass of various cousins on Thanksgiving.

See if you can follow this. The one completely face-down with gray pants is Benjamin’s first cousin, only son of the Charles who comments here. He’s five weeks younger than Benjamin. The kid on the bottom, second son of my first cousin J, is seven years old. Holding up this writhing mass of humanity is my first cousin’s only son, a college sophomore. His young back held firm under all the weight, but his svelte form provided few holds for the climbing kiddies. The boys were fresh off a wrestling session with my larger, considerably stronger cousin, J (mentioned above).

This is in large part what Thanksgiving is all about. We’ve all gone outside several times to explore my parents’ property, finding all manner of interesting things for the boys to play on. They climbed into a flat-bottom boat still on its trailer, where they played pirates. There were two little girls at Thanksgiving, but the one who joined us wasn’t quite big enough to hoist herself aboard. In our family, my generation has its fair share of tomboys, so it’s only natural to believe that tradition will continue.

It was a great day filled with food and family.

How was your Thursday (whether it was Thanksgiving or not?)

(click any image to enlarge and sharpen)

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at:
http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

At first, I didn’t like the idea of a “Dirty Santa” or “White Elephant” gift exchange for Christmas. The thought counts, I reasoned, and a lack of a specific target renders a gift heartless. The event is commercialized enough already without this new wrinkle.

I admit, with the recent reconciliation of my mom’s side with my dad’s (you knew they re-married after more than 20 years residing in Splitsville, right?), picking a gift for every person would be daunting for those on the fringes.

Even the name-drawing process, which we used for several years, didn’t solve this. How was my father’s niece, who was long estranged from her recently deceased father and therefore barely knew any of us, supposed to know what to buy for my mother’s nephew? Should I feel bad for dreading drawing the name of my cousin whose family lives on the West coast and has been absent from eight of the past 10 Christmases, but who remain in the drawing?

Oh, I know, socks. Yep. Everyboy needs socks. I began to see why a different approach might better serve both the giver and the recipient. Unless everybody involved is fairly familiar and knows what the others might truly need or want, gift giving turns into a crap shoot. Only a small core group says, “Thanks, it’s great!” and really means it.

Our family had two choices:

continue reading…

A random audience member at a Beatles tribute band concert.
(click to enlarge, or here for a detail of the tattoo)

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether I could endure a real tattoo. Unlike this guy, the only tattoo I got was accidental.

I was a new kid in a school district that stuffed its 850 seventh graders into one building and called it good. My previous district didn’t have that many children K-12, so it was an adjustment.

Between classes I tried my best to meander through the teeming adolescents without bumping into anyone. Well, except maybe Amy Green. That might have been rather pleasant. But I digress.

continue reading…

Living near a big city, where events previously prohibitively distant are right next door, has allowed my inner geek to bloom. Depending on the circumstances, that could be a good or a bad thing. Out here on the Internet, however, I’m letting it flap in the breeze.

I want to share what I did Tuesday night, but first, a little background.

There’s a movie coming in 2008 that casts Winona Ryder as a mother. Okay. Fine. I can picture that. She’s not the teenager from Beetlejuice anymore. Her son will be played by Zachary Quinto, known to many as Sylar in a little mega-hit called “Heroes.” Erica Bana (The Hulk, Troy) will play the villain.

Add to this Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hott Fuzz), John Cho (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle), and veteran Bruce Greenwood (Double Jeopardy, National Treasure: Book of Secrets); stir in a few young, good-looking rising stars and this sounds like a movie everybody could like.

Lame recipe language aside, I’m excited about the cast.

The writers, producer, and director have me concerned. But, given the material’s long, rich history and the well-known characters, I can’t imagine a writer with even a modicum of experience screwing it up.

Scratch that. I can imagine it. I’m just hopeful that it won’t happen.

What movie could this be, you might ask?

continue reading…