Archive for the ‘photography’ Tag
I feel so blessed today. In less than two weeks I survived the Storm of the Century and then almost immediately I survived that asteroid that just missed us. I’m a bit of a science nerd and will read anything remotely related to NASA or space travel. I was certainly intrigued when the announcement was made a few weeks ago that an object of this size would do the closest fly-by of the earth ever recorded.
I know just enough about our government and it’s propaganda arm to be a little concerned and skeptical when they say there was no chance of a collision. In my opinion if they were aware that a collision was imminent they wouldn’t tell us anyway. Anarchy and panic would certainly occur if that kind of an announcement were ever made.
So I sat patiently before my TV watching the asteroid live and in black and white as it zoomed on by almost directly over Indonesia. The NASA channel in it’s continuously boring fashion with absolutely no sound and with unrecognizable pictures did nothing to put my mind at ease. After the meteor strikes over Russia the previous day I wasn’t completely convinced we had nothing to worry about.
I suppose the day will arrive eventually when a huge one will hit us and I pray it’s thousands of years from now when technology will hopefully make it a non-problem. I’m not sure about many things but I’m reasonably confident that it will occur someday. I sure hope I’m not around to see it.
Enough about the damn asteroid. How about hearing some completely boring and useless information about my returning again to my remodeling project. I finally reframed the new opening that will eventually lead into my bedroom and I left the drywall intact to keep the dirt and dust from filling the rest of the house. One more bit of framing on the closet and I’ll be ready to begin hanging dry wall. I’ve been taking my time with this damn project but I’m still ahead of the schedule I set for myself. I just wish working with drywall wasn’t so messy. I spend more time cleaning up than actually constructing anything.
I also spent a couple of hours going through a few hundred photographs taken during the last snow storm. Some of them are very cool especially those showing my better-half on her maiden voyage with that big red snow thrower. I caught that look of sheer panic on her face as she began and later the big smile on her face as she conquered her fears and really started enjoying herself. Pretty damn cool if I do say so myself. I used the first photo as my new screensaver because it makes me smile every time I see it.
We’re having visitors tonight with one of them being the new grand child. Eat dinner, a few games of Hearts, and some quality time with the little guy. Not too bad at all.
Finally a day without snow or sleet or rain. I really wish good old Mother Nature could make up her mind on these things. Maine has always been known for unpredictable weather but in recent years it’s been a little stranger than normal. The snow has finally stopped, the sun is shining, and the temperature has dropped into the teens. A perfect winter day for taking photographs and walking in the woods.
I loaded my snow shoes and camera into the car and away I went. I did a two mile walk through the woods along the Scarborough Marsh. It’s an eleven hundred acre marsh bordering on the ocean and it’s surrounded by woods and a large variety of wildlife. Today the wildlife was scarce because of the deep snow but there were still plenty of tracks of many of the smaller animals who don’t weigh enough to sink into the snow.
I was able to take quite a few photos and I think some of them are really decent. Unfortunately it was cold enough that my camera became a little sluggish and I was forced to keep it inside my clothing to keep it warm and operational. The wind chill is around eight degrees but the good thing is a hard crust is forming on the snow. By tomorrow I won’t be needing any clunky snowshoes to get around.
I did find a few of the stupider ducks who must have forgotten to go south for the winter. There were about twenty of them huddled along the shore in the freezing water having a meeting to elect a new navigator. The one they have must be a moron.
I did catch a quick look at my nemeses, the big fat barn owl I’ve been trying to get photos of forever. He’s always around but never sitting still or close enough for me to a good shot. I keep telling myself, be patient, and I’ve been telling myself that for almost two years. He’s either extremely lucky or just a lot smarter than I am.
The cold finally began getting to me and I retreated back to my car. It just felt so damn good to get out into the woods without worrying about hunters mistaking me for a cow or some other animal. I did see quite a few deer tracks but noting fresh. I’d love nothing better than a nice clear picture on a nice clear day of a deer standing alone in the snow. I’m sure to see a few before the winter ends and hopefully I’ll get lucky soon. Who knows.
I’m back home now and thawing out a little. I need to take a quick shower and then answer a few emails before dinner. My better-half’s been craving chicken wings for days and she’d better be using my wing sauce in her preparations or there’ll be hell to pay.
All in all a pretty good day. I got out of the house for a few hours, walked in the woods, got some fresh air, and took a nice collection of photos. I’ll take this kind of day any time.
Well, my day in the kitchen is over and I’m sitting here labeling approximately 12 quarts of my new salsa recipe. After all of the adjustments were made to the recipe it turned out much better than I anticipated. After it cooled I was able to sample it with some nice and crispy yellow corn chips. I have a grading scale I use when making salsa and I rated this one a 4. That’s means after eating four teaspoons of the salsa the back of my head begins to sweat. This stuff is smoking hot and at the same time filled with great flavor.
I’m sending a pint of the finished product to work with my better-half tomorrow. I often use her fellow employees to test and taste my cooking efforts and their feedback is usually pretty accurate. It really helps me in refining my recipes. This batch is officially called Roasted Corn w/Black Bean & Currants. In another few months the flavor and heat should improve dramatically after sitting in the jar and make for a really great addition to any of my better-half’s Mexican food meals. Mission accomplished.
Now that my cooking job is over I can return to my Harry Potter reading assignment. I finished book #6 late last night and it was the absolute best one so far. I’m already one chapter into #7 and it looks like it will be even better than the last. What a pleasant surprise. I’m going to be very sad to see this story end because after seven books the characters are becoming like old friends. Another series for my eclectic book collection. I suppose I’ll be up late reading again tonight and hopefully get a decent nights sleep after that.
The weather here in Maine is very cold with approximately one and a half feet of snow still on the ground. I’d love to get into the woods but I’m waiting for a warmer day (around 30 degrees) before venturing out. I’m a fanatic about getting great Winter pictures but I’m not crazy. Patience is supposed to be a virtue so I’ll remain virtuous for a few more days.
Happy New Year everyone. My best laid plans for our New Years celebration was only semi-successful. We had a few friends over early in the evening for drinks and few yucks. They had children at home looking to celebrate the New Year and needed to be there to supervise, so they left a little early. It was nice for a couple of hours to kick back and relax with some friendly faces. The get-together broke up early and my better-half immediately reheated the Chinese food she’d obtained earlier in the day and as always it was yummy and really filling.
I never planned on staying awake for the standard TV celebrations but my better-half insisted she was going to bring the New Year in properly by watching the ball drop with her favorite male fantasy figure, Ryan Seacrest. I retired to the bedroom to continue my readings on Harry Potter. I just finished book #6 and I was really getting excited about finishing the final volume over the next week or so. The story has slowly evolved from a kid’s story into a rather interesting novel. I’m glad I decided to hang in there and read them all.
It was 10:00 pm and I was really getting into the book when my half asleep better-half stumbled into the room, jumped into bed, and mumbled something about waking up just before midnight. I knew she was just kidding herself but I played along. It was lights out at 10:30 and no one woke up for the ball drop (sorry Ryan). We both slept straight through the night and wished each other a happy New Year around eight the next morning. I don’t care what anyone says, it was an excellent way to celebrate the end of 2012.
After a nice breakfast of twice reheated Chinese food with an egg on top we grabbed our cameras and hit the road. We had quite a lot of snow on the roads but we decided to explore some of the more rural areas looking for those elusive Kodak moments. It was cold and crisp and some of the snow scenes we shot were spectacular. Horse farms with horses in the snow, giant pine trees nearly bent over with the snow on their branches. This was the perfect way to spend a New Years Day.
After fifty or sixty miles and over a hundred photos later we returned home to get warm and to prepare a luscious pork roast dinner with sides of sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. We ended the day snuggled up on the couch watching a movie and looking at the days photo’s. Pretty damn nice if I do say so myself.
I can only hope that all of you enjoyed your day half as much as we enjoyed ours. Bring on 2013.
Patience is a virtue. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve been told that by family members and friends alike. I guess the reason I’ve heard it so often was that I lacked any patience whatsoever in years past. I was an overachieving, goal oriented, pain in the ass workaholic. For most of my career I worked six days a week and three or four of those days were spent in airplanes flying around the country. So not only was I impatient but I also had a white-knuckle fear of flying which made me more than a little irritable. Not many people knew of my flying phobia and I never made anyone aware of it until much later in my life. For years I was on the go constantly and when I made a request I was a major-league pain-in-the-ass about making sure it was honored. That included associates that worked for me, the people that worked with me, and any service personnel paid to do a specific job.
After twenty years I left the “rat race” and spent the next seven years working for the State of Maine in a job that was hectic but not crazy. During that seven years I was able to dial it back a little and tried to be a little more patient with friends and family. I still had my moments but I felt like I was getting it under control. Out of the blue I began to suffer from severe headaches and fits of rage. Being the paranoid person that I am I found a doctor who ran a normal battery of tests to determine what my issues were. Come to find out I had been suffering from seriously high blood pressure for a number of years and was verging on real problems. The doctor directed me to find a hobby or two to help calm me down. The medication I was immediately given calmed me down in a big way. After so many years of high blood pressure I had a tough time adapting to being so calm. I felt like I was high all the time but I was assured by the doctor that would pass as I became accustomed to the medication. He was right and after a time I leveled out.
Now to find a hobby. I’d been a winemaker for years but not recently. Winemaking forces you to become patient, like it or not. Mix the ingredients together, put in the yeast, and you’re then required to wait up to three or four months to see the final product. During that time you have to baby that wine if you want a satisfactory batch. It actually helped me a great deal. I had been a half-assed photographer for years and returned to it gladly. Nothing is more calming than communing with Mother Nature and hoping against hope to be in the right place at the right time to get that Kodak moment wildlife shot.
Yesterday was a sunny and reasonably warm Fall day here in Maine. I spent two hours sitting with my back against a tree out in the middle of nowhere attempting to get a photograph of either a bear cub or a barn owl. Three years ago I stumbled into a isolated area and sitting in a tree about 5 feet away from me was that owl. He’d been sleeping and when I walked up he became frightened and flew away. He only flew a few feet before landing in a nearby tree. I took approximately 20 photographs of him in that tree from all angles. They were some of the best pictures I’d taken up until that time. I’ve been returning to that area for years now and have seen him flying above me but never again had him sitting in a tree. I’m now patient enough to eventually be successful.
The bear is pretty much the same story. I happened to be walking through a wooded area and I heard a rustling about 30 feet up a nearby tree. I looked up and sitting in that tree with just the top of his head sticking up from behind the leaves was a baby bear. I snapped one photograph and he ducked back into the leaf cover. Being the careful person that I am I knew where there was a bear cub there was also a mother some where nearby. I backed off immediately because I had no way to defend myself if she showed up. I’ve returned dozens of times trying to find that young bear and possibly get a decent photograph or two. Now that I’m patient person I may eventually find them but even if I don’t I’ve still succeeded.
What’s the moral of this story? You decide.
Well, as I mentioned earlier today I finally was able to spend some quiet and interesting time in a nearby wildlife sanctuary. It was a beautiful sunny day and I seemed to be totally alone in over eighty acres of woods and fields. You should understand that this sanctuary is located adjacent to the Scarborough River and it’s 1100 acre fresh water marsh. It’s really a beautiful place to spend time. I made my way to the river bank where I sat in the trees observing no less than a thousand birds slowly circling the marsh. I can only assume they’re gathering for their migration south but it was really something to see. I attempted to get a few photos but they were too far away and I didn’t have my telephoto lens with me. It’s things like this that have a real calming effect on me and actually made my day.
As I worked my way back to my car I walked into an open field and found myself surrounded by at least fifty wild turkeys. I stood perfectly still as they wandered all around me. If I had moved the least little bit they would have been gone in a flash but I managed a few shots as they left the area. It’s been quite the year for wild turkeys here in Maine. I’ve seen hundreds in the last few weeks and even had a dozen in my back yard for a time a week or so ago.
It’s that time of the year in Maine when walking in the woods can become a life threatening experience. It’s like being in a war zone except many of the soldiers are under the influence of alcoholic beverages. I don’t want to be the headline in the papers: Man Shot by Hunters, Mistaken For a Cow, so I’ll be staying home until hunting season is over.
I’m making my special chili tomorrow for a group of my better-half’s friends and family and I need a few habanero peppers to spice things up a bit. A quick stop at Hannaford Foods and then back home.
The radio tells me Sandy is making her way up the coast and will be here in a day or so. Sixty mph winds should make for an interesting night or two. Thank God for our generator.
I’m looking forward to movie nite with my better-half. We were recently introduced to a BBC program made for TV that is an updated remake of Sherlock Holmes. You should know I’ve been obsessed with Sherlock Holmes for years and I’ve read everything ever written about him. I stumbled on the DVD at a local store and now I must find the second season. It’s absolutely addicting. We can kick back and relax for a while before sleep.
Tomorrow is another day.
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