tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79503363107419438572024-03-06T01:23:20.373-06:00The Tempest and the Teapottempest (ˈtɛmpɪst)
— n
1. literary chiefly a violent wind or storm
2. a violent commotion, uproar, or disturbance
— vb
3. poetic ( tr ) to agitate or disturb violently
[C13: from Old French tempeste, from Latin tempestās storm, from tempus time] Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-61446809042149003302014-12-13T19:01:00.001-06:002014-12-13T19:01:42.474-06:00Testing...testing...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUDIO!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">this is a test of the emergency blogging system…this is only a test…</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><span style="font-size: large;">Ahem…is this thing on?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Tempest and the Teapot is moving...we're going to WordPress. Come find more wanderings left of reality <a href="http://tempandtea.wordpress.com/">HERE.</a> </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-10312628468210693092014-12-11T23:24:00.001-06:002014-12-11T23:24:37.775-06:00Scorched Earth<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cGY3vHQjAZ93eZiAO4cAAzRIc7HsMsTaILebNLtFp1mIffI9cg2hq286Vp3UTDzqJ1fj8RvbrfgOuOm3KLVuXIYGill03zJ2ekwMN7li3b6QUGqX8fp3z5mXB6p2hVd44Y9g1goVgL_9/s1600/Scorched+Earth+Stovetop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cGY3vHQjAZ93eZiAO4cAAzRIc7HsMsTaILebNLtFp1mIffI9cg2hq286Vp3UTDzqJ1fj8RvbrfgOuOm3KLVuXIYGill03zJ2ekwMN7li3b6QUGqX8fp3z5mXB6p2hVd44Y9g1goVgL_9/s1600/Scorched+Earth+Stovetop.jpg" height="640" width="360" /></a></div>
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<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">One
thing I can say about cameras - I'm rarely without one. Another thing I
can say about cameras...I'm always pointing them at the strangest
things. This little shot tonight started its digital life as the
remains of a cheese soup boil-over burned to a crisp onto the stove-top.<a data-mce-href="https://tempandtea.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/scorched-earth-stovetop.jpg" href="https://tempandtea.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/scorched-earth-stovetop.jpg"><br /> </a></span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Yup...you
heard that right - I took a picture of a common household complaint -
the burned on mess of a pot of food that escaped the cooking vessel only
to sizzle to its doom on the hot surface below.</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><em>Stove cleaned after the photo shoot was done...priorities, dontchaknow...</em></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Photoshop
is a wonderful tool - it turned me into a right-handed artist...which
is saying something, seeing though I'm rather unapologetically left
handed in most everything else. Put a plain, ordinary pencil in my
right hand, and I'm about as gifted as bozo, the wonder bra...but a
mouse? Hello, imagery!</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I learned to use a mouse (the computer kind, not the squeaky kind) with my right hand.</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Why?</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Because
that's where the right-handers in my family put the darn thing. It
never occurred to me to move it to the dominant hand. By the time I got
all growed up and started working with computers for a living, instead
of out on a shop floor moving product from point 'A' to point 'B', using
the mouse with my right hand was well-ingrained, and a bit of a bonus -
I could take notes with my left hand while manipulating the mouse with
my right. So...when I started working in 'shop - the right hand FINALLY
got to be the artistic one.</span></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div data-mce-style="text-align: left;" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I think it's happy that way, and the left hasn't gotten jealous, so I'm good with it.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-73870112643948139622014-12-08T20:58:00.002-06:002014-12-08T21:00:07.811-06:00Flash! Friday Semi-Finalists<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmX8ulCEwynwbWUQ3EccqeKzt3K9WaPx7JCyjNzZDz7toQXkPFrxvcXmTgxEpt6sI4HDTjOegI7rSqkuR0bifKW7iw-wrW_n_dtnf3tipvfen-Z4AMfuz0d0bLsHu84cA5ZfhViChtWP3/s1600/round-2-prompt-didgeridoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmX8ulCEwynwbWUQ3EccqeKzt3K9WaPx7JCyjNzZDz7toQXkPFrxvcXmTgxEpt6sI4HDTjOegI7rSqkuR0bifKW7iw-wrW_n_dtnf3tipvfen-Z4AMfuz0d0bLsHu84cA5ZfhViChtWP3/s1600/round-2-prompt-didgeridoo.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Didgeridoo. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode"><span style="color: #ff6600;">CC2.0</span></a> photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/fanz/127012194/in/photolist-cdYiq-6fSK2m-6pj3aC-oY7tkX-PR1gp-6b81Ak-b9JZn4-4GGNw-disoub-ncSS9x-ckNaxS-8rLVSW-7kiJK-ka44-nm5b5G-5vaata-j6zAs3-5gTvsj-b3kAiH-7iwxtp-oY7tqg-cqRka-mMLyc1-mp5Uif-5ezc3s-oY7tqr-8AhCkH-8NDjPQ-6Qw3bR-4aCoT9-9vibHS-fHasxR-4Wosuq-2FNiGP-fA4kUe-a4Fk2L-5YizEA-moRvd4-9YbN8D-nBAqrE-6jDFfL-4xo1va-4VvGtP-bzpqzs-4ay8fT-6bkn3s-3MbhrP-8AkGsA-hvveN-9jRqUF"><span style="color: blue;">Francois de Halleux</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Got the news on Sunday that my post on <a href="https://flashfriday.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/flashversary-round-2-semifinalists/">Flash! Friday's</a> Anniversary contest actually impressed the judges enough to earn a spot in their semi-final round. HOLY CRAP!!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, in a frenzy of esoteric verbiage, compressed into the demands of time and schedule, I have crafted my next submission - based on the photo prompt above.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Curious, this is...for the first time in the history of this blog the leading photo is NOT my own work...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I breathe welcome to the photo, and offer up - my next Flash Fiction story... </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Synergy</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">239 words </span></b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Curious, this is. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Reality is tubular, cylindrical, a lone passageway knifing sharply down through infinity, terminating in brilliant illumination. Nooks and crannies; pockmarks, protuberances and extrusions ruffle the world in an unstructured, random riot of texture. This crinkly chaos is populated by myself and my brethren. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">They breathe welcome to me even as I do the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A moment ago, there was nothing - formless, shapeless, non-being oblivion. I was -we were- simply <i>not</i>. This wrinkled thoroughfare was empty and still. </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But now? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>I Am. We Are. </b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> </b>The first taste of awareness, existence, self. It is sweet. Potent. Electric. We tremble with its resonance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The world breathes welcome to us even as we do the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's exhalation whispers amongst the landscape, caressing the nodules and pleats -and us- in its journey downward. Exciting, the breath is, full of movement, direction, and intent. Wrapped in breath's embrace, some brethren go swirling down, down, down toward the dazzling terminus.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Curious, this is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is only expectation, possibility, the assumption of completion from those who <span class="text">pirouette</span> their way to infinity. We know without knowing how that this voyage is inevitable, absolute and final, but greater than us, the various parts. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is...the future. As formless and timeless as ourselves, yet gravid with potential and the promise of: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>NEXT.</b></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">We wait, poised and ready, for the next breath...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">To emerge...reborn... </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A saucy little tune from the bell of the wooden flute.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-81384504357525767172014-12-06T00:40:00.002-06:002014-12-06T00:42:02.211-06:00Flash! Friday's Flash-versary <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaD0l4vSfam3ENqDTLOK2alYvrbzxXbwoji1U8f70G3yCy6WDYK0ze1liAIkPhMhxCl-R3G5ASCyxzoeGGmKX76xM7KwSN45agbnrVb0_gDQ59lDJhgH5LIsB8dG5Gq5A-2tvYHCebhtw/s1600/Fire+and+shadow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaD0l4vSfam3ENqDTLOK2alYvrbzxXbwoji1U8f70G3yCy6WDYK0ze1liAIkPhMhxCl-R3G5ASCyxzoeGGmKX76xM7KwSN45agbnrVb0_gDQ59lDJhgH5LIsB8dG5Gq5A-2tvYHCebhtw/s1600/Fire+and+shadow.jpg" height="640" width="344" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Headed over to <a href="https://flashfriday.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Flash! Friday</a> again -it's a celebration of draconic proportions as they celebrate the turning of their own personal clock. 'Tis an anniversary! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Go...look...and post a story of your own if you're in to flash fiction - there's still time to contribute, and PLENTY to read. Below is my submission:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pyromaniac</span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">150 words</span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Flame.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Orange against black. Subtle licks of cerulean, scarlet, saffron and emerald flare into being to vanish in an instant later without a trace. Elongated fingers of incandescence stretch into the void to momentarily paint their essence onto the obsidian night sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Inferno.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It is alive with movement - sliding, shifting, waving, weaving - its hypnotic, primal dance both beautiful and terrible as it crafts a timeless, mesmerizing, elemental ballet of destruction.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Blaze.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The voice of combustion, a low, throaty growling howl of clean air transformed to sweltering luminescence, whispering secret desires into the ears of those who worship it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Immolation.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">They listen, comprehending the flare's song in that most primitive portion of the brain. They stare, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed, into the complex twisting leap and swirl of the living flame. They are powerless to resist the compelling demands of spark, ember, pyre.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Intentional.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Some men live to watch the world burn.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-69775667358772604672014-12-04T23:21:00.000-06:002014-12-04T23:21:14.920-06:00Micro Bookends - Flash Fiction<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKrSdJINfWqbpBAPizCEEze4V74EINb8ROVvh1FAEq1gKS1-DM39PGPje9AMejHR8yKw5OZq-JcnE3Xizv9cRwWvLhjQIP9oqmTEeniGLrnjEvXlJ5DDzs-8R8Q2oK_DHqZOJO35aRJ9q/s1600/SAM_0262.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyKrSdJINfWqbpBAPizCEEze4V74EINb8ROVvh1FAEq1gKS1-DM39PGPje9AMejHR8yKw5OZq-JcnE3Xizv9cRwWvLhjQIP9oqmTEeniGLrnjEvXlJ5DDzs-8R8Q2oK_DHqZOJO35aRJ9q/s1600/SAM_0262.JPG" height="420" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another Flash Fiction challenge accepted - and another website to follow!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.microbookends.com/2014/12/04/micro-bookends-1-09-sacred-micro-sound/#comments" target="_blank">Micro Bookends</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">These guys like things short. Really short: 90 - 110 words. You start and end the piece with the words provided, and incorporate the photo prompt in there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><a href="http://www.microbookends.com/2014/12/04/micro-bookends-1-09-sacred-micro-sound/#comments" target="_blank"></a></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This week the challenge is: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sacred {insert story here} Sound. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a quirky panorama of an airplane hangar for the photo prompt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have to admit - I spent some time bouncing ideas around in my head first focusing on the words. It wasn't until I stopped worrying about the beginning and ending words and started focusing on the type of photo - the panoramic style where the vertical lines 'curve' around the middle of the photo - that I had the thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">"How do other species 'see' the human world?"</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">After that - it almost wrote itself...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Enjoy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Bird Calling</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>105 words</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Sacred is the flight of the bird, to take wing upon sky and soar amongst cloud. Observe, oversee, monitor the heavy ones. Gaia watches through you."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When the sun rises, so does the ancient one, singing the morning call to send us on our tasks. The aerie fills with the cacophony of wing and song as my brethren take to the sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Today, I shall perch near the predator upright's wing enclave, where they house their funny hollow avians, to sing and observe until Gaia has her fill.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Birdsong," one pipes up, throwing a chunk of bread my way, "I never tire of the sound."</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-80070713612116106922014-11-24T21:39:00.000-06:002014-11-25T23:06:26.932-06:00Boomar'ang-ular' <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe40ulkW44Au23caBJCY7Uu1EN9dpBFnDLV4-avB6SYvpIcQishRO9NyIRMBKQWqN7vakjFg18RpMg8Gwqtz2ZlMaGWh3YS7ILbOHDEU9CfLlZI4iEMm9ZnaWzI2IedEd_Oo-XAYsEVDEe/s1600/aSAM_0807.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe40ulkW44Au23caBJCY7Uu1EN9dpBFnDLV4-avB6SYvpIcQishRO9NyIRMBKQWqN7vakjFg18RpMg8Gwqtz2ZlMaGWh3YS7ILbOHDEU9CfLlZI4iEMm9ZnaWzI2IedEd_Oo-XAYsEVDEe/s1600/aSAM_0807.JPG" height="640" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ceiling work is boomar'ang-ular'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hey...look at that. I can make my own words!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>When English simply does not have the correct one...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We do love to come up with our own words for new things. A decade ago, nobody knew what a selfie was - and yet now it's in the dictionary. This year's 'word of the year' <i>(you can't make stuff this bizarre up!) </i>is <a href="http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/11/oxford-dictionaries-word-year-vape/" target="_blank">Vape</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I vape, so I know how important that word has become to me - and the millions of others who have found these neat little gizmos. But, yea...with all the freaking out being done about it, the word of the year is a distinction I'd rather not have had, as it will undoubtedly throw more fuel on the fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But no politics here!!! <i>I pwomiced!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet another blog I've become familiar with is the <a href="http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/angular/" target="_blank">Daily Post. </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">On their menu is a wonderful buffet of ideas fit for the Queen Muse - they have a weekly challenge, a daily prompt, and a weekly photo challenge. They also allow the community to submit their inspirations and daily prompts of their own.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Most of these challenges allow the bloggers to ping-back to the Daily Post, instead of leaving a comment on their site, which should, through the magic of 'sharing,' bring views to the individual blogs.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Inspiration, AND a space to show off the blog? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabulous!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>A little too excited? Sorry...</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Although I'm enjoying my recent obsession with Flash Fiction - I do kind of hunger to sink my teeth into a good visual again...and this week's Photo Challenge at the Daily was a thick, juicy steak with plenty of room for various toppings and/or side dishes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Angular.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"> Not to put too fine a point on it, though this week, we</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"> challenge you to show us what “angular” means to you.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A single words packs such an inspirational punch...and, as it happens, I do have some rather angular shots...including this one - captured at the Eagles Ballroom in Milwaukee just this last weekend.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-2412751622682931472014-11-22T13:34:00.000-06:002014-12-01T08:01:19.827-06:00Inhospitable Wonderland<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHzZaqZB4dPpr7v92US0TOSIDrjH1Tg885A0NgeaepfXMEZTiQQUiDF9KGHnMBuJrcuFEvwgqik4NCTgEHro5pi1_S0nU6q3U4bB8EfC8Djgk2nH4caPEJyPf22mkdc6v_GpjYvcClXn19/s1600/Inhospitable+Wonderland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHzZaqZB4dPpr7v92US0TOSIDrjH1Tg885A0NgeaepfXMEZTiQQUiDF9KGHnMBuJrcuFEvwgqik4NCTgEHro5pi1_S0nU6q3U4bB8EfC8Djgk2nH4caPEJyPf22mkdc6v_GpjYvcClXn19/s1600/Inhospitable+Wonderland.jpg" height="320" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A while ago, I found a simple <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/115081270281446878134/posts/4P2tRK5kBXm" target="_blank">post</a> by a wonderful lady on Google+ - she took a shot of the front grill of her pot bellied stove with a warm and inviting fire burning merrily inside...jotted down a brief post about how it was time for more wood on the fire, and coffee to act as balance against the cold snowflakes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The image was a beautifully done contrast between the dark iron of the stove's door and the bright orange back-light of the fire - and through the slits in the door you could see the fire's dancing forms. The image evokes thoughts and feelings of warmth, solitude, and simplicity. I appreciate a lot of photography, but to be honest, very few things draw me as powerfully as these overly-darkened shots with bright highlights, as it's my favorite photographic style.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've got terabytes of dark shots in my own portfolio.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsBQBnH1N9ta9QrNXyt7IsChyphenhyphenohDhtJ5qXXwabAs6SyOWk1GYFjhWcKlA8QuW68-4SRJjpu3c4hELPcF3AyT81syhx4GYDGhwrAN3T_hPa6daBVDC_S9Z7e8mmxfhAohbOybwm1r7igBm/s1600/IMG_3313.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFsBQBnH1N9ta9QrNXyt7IsChyphenhyphenohDhtJ5qXXwabAs6SyOWk1GYFjhWcKlA8QuW68-4SRJjpu3c4hELPcF3AyT81syhx4GYDGhwrAN3T_hPa6daBVDC_S9Z7e8mmxfhAohbOybwm1r7igBm/s1600/IMG_3313.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I caught this shot on one of my last walks downtown of the year - obviously around Halloween. A week or so later, and we got the cold thing. Hibernation time!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRNsCxAM91pb6-KuL10mTOVF1CgHI84wwnzcYP1cLAKuBqH6VKTbJQ1TzFOY-be6XRlcYr_ZkxKZ1a6EMWEFCBw2Q68aXpoyj-kO7IhdqAD16AJtw-JuZy00LLK6rE54v6mrG-A-UOM0V/s1600/IMG_0282.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRNsCxAM91pb6-KuL10mTOVF1CgHI84wwnzcYP1cLAKuBqH6VKTbJQ1TzFOY-be6XRlcYr_ZkxKZ1a6EMWEFCBw2Q68aXpoyj-kO7IhdqAD16AJtw-JuZy00LLK6rE54v6mrG-A-UOM0V/s1600/IMG_0282.JPG" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Although - I do brave the cold thing every once in a while,when the need is there. I had a project buzzing in my head last winter for a glass etch/ photographic fusion, so I ran out, in the dark, in the cold (and yea..it was COLD that night - sub-zero temps with blustery winds) to catch some Christmas decorations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxo48BGG_VhJH4aGUA5r7TKQuiw-TqayYpPhwrG67Fn7kAgGsPofE1gx8X7nr_P-62onKek8Rv3N2G1UVpIBwBOt_7enG88qa0uEPrhZRDyBgIubkcun3CGp-5cHdthEEeQ9961Xso-4y/s1600/Finished+Tree+in+frame.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXxo48BGG_VhJH4aGUA5r7TKQuiw-TqayYpPhwrG67Fn7kAgGsPofE1gx8X7nr_P-62onKek8Rv3N2G1UVpIBwBOt_7enG88qa0uEPrhZRDyBgIubkcun3CGp-5cHdthEEeQ9961Xso-4y/s1600/Finished+Tree+in+frame.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's a shot of that finished project - the glass in the frame was etched to suggest the snow on the tree - and the lights were heavily saturated to bring them through the frost.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, I caught the shot of the cast-iron stove grill out of the corner of my eye (figuratively speaking) and before the coffee had kicked in (that's literal!), and saw something completely different than what she'd shot. So...of to 'shop I went in a hurry...to bring the idea to life...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The big picture at the top of this post is what I saw in my head.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>A good mental image is a terrible thing to waste...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And - to honor the other little bit of creativity that's currently sparking in my head - I'm going to pair this up with a bit of flash fiction:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Habitat for Humanity </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">157 words</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Bah! </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I lift my left hand in a classic, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">albeit extremely rude, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">very human, salute, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">giving the outside world, steel walls, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">and endless platitudes I'm fed on a daily basis </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">the full fury of my middle finger.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Life itself is the most precious gift we are given..</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">We prided ourselves on being masters of our environment. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Masters of space. Masters of time. Tamers of the universe.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>For as long as there is breath in my body... </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet our arrogance didn't grant us a single second </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">of additional grandstanding </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">when the visitor's weapons melted our sky.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>My duty to mankind is to document its downfall...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm tired of solitude. Sick of stale air. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Angered with the never-ending firestorm that rages </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">outside this tiny bubble of compatible environment </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm enclosed in.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>And for this...I am a lucky one...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I was one of the few they retained as museum pieces. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Specimens. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Oddities. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Pets.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> signed</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>human goldfish in a bowl...</i></span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-78207524553730163892014-11-17T22:26:00.000-06:002014-11-17T22:27:26.387-06:00Flash Fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-m_9Opb8zT56ZdKQ7N-mL2xjpTaMx7YexhGBXoQquItx8O-NImEChQ1pp-ddCSungS5EARYl1mXZyrqIOb7AzTcg_EPnD7EDAJDFfLZk6EfyxOTrGsec1lJ7f524rKsCufFYyaHL6gHDX/s1600/Flash+rose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-m_9Opb8zT56ZdKQ7N-mL2xjpTaMx7YexhGBXoQquItx8O-NImEChQ1pp-ddCSungS5EARYl1mXZyrqIOb7AzTcg_EPnD7EDAJDFfLZk6EfyxOTrGsec1lJ7f524rKsCufFYyaHL6gHDX/s1600/Flash+rose.jpg" height="640" width="410" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I had a 'bout of Origami creativity strike around 2 years ago - one thing I was absolutely obsessed over was making a paper rose. I started small and simple, with an iris and a crane, and progressed up through boxes, crabs, lotus flowers, neat little spinney toys, tessellations and other mathematical forms until I was ready to tackle the rose. I never did figure out how to properly 'close' the form's bottom end - but I took one of the better roses and stuck a light inside it. You can still see some of the printing from the inside bleeding through.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I did all different colors, too...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOeiBgcoMYEl2ug0Z7DUfZ2pFJapRtY1EGmOdOSDrD29v65fZmwK023jNv64b7ZO457Xvn0Po9DyachzbCafr9f8R5QwbFA4ygCjy8oPRbkBPech074uWaNYHvy4_V8zJDVJ9beCHReQmj/s1600/rose+lineup+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOeiBgcoMYEl2ug0Z7DUfZ2pFJapRtY1EGmOdOSDrD29v65fZmwK023jNv64b7ZO457Xvn0Po9DyachzbCafr9f8R5QwbFA4ygCjy8oPRbkBPech074uWaNYHvy4_V8zJDVJ9beCHReQmj/s1600/rose+lineup+copy.jpg" height="90" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It's such a flashy little flower, which brings me to the topic of the day - Flash Fiction.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Insert fanfare here...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'd never heard of this concept up until a few weeks ago, when I was, once again, searching the blog-o-sphere for that next creative spark. I give out a hearty hat-tip to Brandon and his blog: <a href="http://coolerbs.com/" target="post">Coolerbs Reviews</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Granted, reviews usually aren't my thing - but you did suggest a new book for the kindle that I've got lined up in my purchase queue. You also introduced me to this Flash Fiction thing. Many, MANY thanks for sharing your short fictions with the world...you've presented me with an ever-expanding assortment of new ideas to put my creativity to the test.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The concept of Flash Fiction is infuriatingly simple. The host site posts a picture, an idea, a specific starting/ending word, or any other variation that a mind can come up with. The participants then post a story with this theme in mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>That covers the fiction aspect...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Flash part comes in with a quick timeline for submissions (24-48 hour windows), and a small word count (I've seen 55-500 word counts). If you feel the need to more traditional flashing...please DON'T post any pictures, and have a friend's phone number memorized for bail money.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I can see my fingers quiver........in antici- </i><i>pation!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is a style of writing I can really get behind. I get to crystallize a single moment of time - flash frozen - for the reader's consumption. And, with weekly contests floating around the 'net, I have several sources of nourishment for my muse, giving her exactly what she needs to power my writing - that all illusive, yet vital as breathing, initial spark.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That, I've found, is the hardest part of the creative process - that initial thought, the tiny push that starts the rock rolling, to become the thunderous 'IDEA' that rolls along the neurons of my mind, stirring up the roadbed and leaving new pathways to explore in its wake. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>And in the beginning...there was a...monkey?</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's a flash fiction site I found on Friday: <a href="http://flashfriday.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Flash Friday.</a> They posted a picture of a monkey seated on the balcony of a (I assume) hotel room in a tropical location - you can see the expanse of aquamarine blue water and a cityscape behind the creature. The length of the story was 150 words (+/-10), and you had to squeeze in the name of an author.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Granted, I could go to the site and swipe the picture - but I want to allow click-backs to this wonderful, dragon-citing blog site - so go see it for yourself. And maybe...leave a story or two...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sadly, I found this site on Friday afternoon, and submissions had to be put in by Midnight. Life, Groceries, and the SQO happened Friday evening - <b>so</b> I couldn't finish up this first Flashy Fiction story until today. I simply couldNOT leave a quickie piece to languish half-done and unshared - so Enjoy!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>MonkeyBusiness - 146 words</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"There!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Where?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"The Balcony!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">She glares first out the window, then swings violent eyes to me, certain the declaration of not-to-be-seen things once again proves I'm insane. She storms from the room, anger trailing in her wake, snarling "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!" as I stretch a calming hand toward her shoulder. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The words are laced with all the fury of Pierre Boulle's first pen stroke, and the room shakes with the thunder of her slamming the door.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Forever, it has followed, silent shadow, tormentor and muse. The fecund stench of hot fruit announces his appearance, a drift of grey fur follows in the wake of his vanishing. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He mocks me,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">inspires me,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">denounces and fires me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wizened face,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">cold eyes, grimace </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">For me only, not the miss. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For to me </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">reality,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but alas she cannot see... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Monkey at my Back.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-58117846347288974462014-11-12T21:55:00.000-06:002014-11-12T21:55:18.606-06:00War Pigs........... in Space<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCIy8P5zV5A5UZRc53r69n8jpYzKq1qifr8EydzSFOI8Bqr0SquUaJ_w-BdBtni3UWhQx5zFRgKxiBegsPMRHMEhreGIRJsr3iNYIVxgYMb8ykH7ZKnO8ygV1PUWcsZFzfbo_Qh50n2KC/s1600/War+Pigs+in+Space+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCIy8P5zV5A5UZRc53r69n8jpYzKq1qifr8EydzSFOI8Bqr0SquUaJ_w-BdBtni3UWhQx5zFRgKxiBegsPMRHMEhreGIRJsr3iNYIVxgYMb8ykH7ZKnO8ygV1PUWcsZFzfbo_Qh50n2KC/s640/War+Pigs+in+Space+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Have I mentioned lately that my mind is...well, not completely twisted, but rather, unremorsefully bent? And that those bend patterns are subject to change at any random moment?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Today's little post is an example...I put out a blog post a while back remunerating on the Muppet Show's "Pigs in Space" segments, and the other day, I was at work with Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' cycling over and over in my mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Within the landscape of my mind, the two met, hit it off, married in a grandiose ceremony complete with a 10 piece polka band and 5 course dinner (and open bar, because, yea...free beer) before the love-child started to show - and today's picture is the offspring of that union.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>In my mind, earworms invade at their own risk...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've never before bothered to actually look up the lyrics to this old
'Sabbath song - but today, it was a research item who's time had come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiez2dKEFMBcxdYa1s_tvc1_7FvHKOzcsSwV3wx3coyiScIQBiZfFUgs9LXlxArcCf76GXoLjCVhgGPQPpX7DM_Bodr441MFRVII8g-KVwJ73znh7kHlSa1eEM8sVbqLR359F2MBpLsSoYd/s1600/Sabbath+war+pigs+words+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiez2dKEFMBcxdYa1s_tvc1_7FvHKOzcsSwV3wx3coyiScIQBiZfFUgs9LXlxArcCf76GXoLjCVhgGPQPpX7DM_Bodr441MFRVII8g-KVwJ73znh7kHlSa1eEM8sVbqLR359F2MBpLsSoYd/s640/Sabbath+war+pigs+words+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Given the number of 'military incursions' in process by various countries at any given time - I'd say the lyrics are just as profound now as they were when written. What is with us humans, anyway? Status - resources - ego - the cute little blonde chick at the bar - we fight over just about anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our bio-engineers should stop trying to re-invent the wheel in their never-ending tweaking of pharmacological formulae JUST enough to re-patent the results as <i>"New and Improved,"</i> and instead create a virus which increases empathy in humans. THAT would be a significant advance toward the betterment of all humankind...once the recipients recovered from the shock of being able to feel the emotional emanations of their fellows.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Granted, we'd have to go through the whole "freak out, get violent" first reaction humans generally respond with when faced with anything new - but hey...I'm thinking long term, BIG picture here!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>veering left of reality is not an easy road to travel...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For as long as music has been crafted by men and women, they have interjected their messages into the lyrical lines. It makes sense. Artists create what they feel. They anchor their creation with what they <i>know</i> as truth. Artists create to communicate with the world...or their own little part of it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of my first revelations of music having a message was back in the 80's, while lying on the grass in front of the house with my headphones and my Walkman, staring up at the wonderful early-summer clouds - letting Ozzy howl "Killer of Giants" in my ears. Guess he hadn't changed much from his 'Sabbath days, as the message was still extremely anti-war/anti-nuke. Finally, I was aware enough to actually <i>listen</i> to the words being sung.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Holy crap! A peace-message in an Ozzy song???</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I'm a little slow sometimes...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've spent a lot of time since that first eye-opening epiphany listening - REALLY listening - to aural art for the meaning behind the music and rhythm and beat and meter - sniffing out the actual story being presented. When DVD's first started hitting the shelves, I delighted in trying to find the Easter eggs hidden within. Viewing artwork in all its forms took on new dimensions as I studied backgrounds and borders, looking for little details hidden within the larger, complete 'work.' It was a endearing game of hide-and-seek, and I enjoyed participating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've presented myriad versions of 'hide the message' in my own creativity, as well - with small details understated within the artwork, deliberately crafting a story line to be vague enough to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions, carefully framing of a shot to suggest something entirely different. I'm still running through a stint of abstract photography, and loving every click.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRSKQOqdFo-NxjpK_p4qMq8zfhkQ3dqOYOtySLQLUhoeTzL5ImqfMrAOsqJz1582cenLiXe9RuPnYT_SlNA2xmIUpXV6bFcfA7O1vDMRHrdtzai2GLJJ7Rk66XZlqM7NS6TdXReGhUyVc/s1600/IMG_0137+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRSKQOqdFo-NxjpK_p4qMq8zfhkQ3dqOYOtySLQLUhoeTzL5ImqfMrAOsqJz1582cenLiXe9RuPnYT_SlNA2xmIUpXV6bFcfA7O1vDMRHrdtzai2GLJJ7Rk66XZlqM7NS6TdXReGhUyVc/s320/IMG_0137+(2).JPG" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This is one of my favorites - it's a shot of my living-room window in the depths of winter last year. The outer window was frosted over, so you couldn't see the building across the driveway with any detail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRI_rOnAXq-BcMK-GS7zvv5TbXjYY1CHNLns_9tW3RyzxCYt01KEEcB9RK_wJNdK1WgvTnLc5nROR9SjA0vchV69cJ46bDOlbuykYy-Qt23DIgjAowCDXRmu60bhUUFREEDfZS6HQgI4_/s1600/Rock+Inferno.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghRI_rOnAXq-BcMK-GS7zvv5TbXjYY1CHNLns_9tW3RyzxCYt01KEEcB9RK_wJNdK1WgvTnLc5nROR9SjA0vchV69cJ46bDOlbuykYy-Qt23DIgjAowCDXRmu60bhUUFREEDfZS6HQgI4_/s320/Rock+Inferno.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And another of my favorite abstracts - taken at a concert last winter. Very Dante's 'Inferno"-esque.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Which reminds me....</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>...back to them war pigs...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I know why this particular song was rattling around in my brain...long enough and loud enough to make me go look up the actual words being sung. This song is shouted, sang, screamed or otherwise intoned by an audience of frustrated with the world, slightly crazed and intoxicated fans whenever the band GWAR is setting up to perform...and I just bought tickets for their Milwaukee show the end of November, at The Rave.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4FQ2cdad-9cO2EorInVNyvKjzDPxH96MOmCYTz7xvaCpkORTLs-bCe4gOSTxHtLOLDLXmykaN2k9JkUHoOY_7GXNOFhP0zuoyjPJ8wXsYyTPFW8EdFsJP_JrrQLbT-0G7hdOEQ6DBixS/s1600/Stage+snapshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4FQ2cdad-9cO2EorInVNyvKjzDPxH96MOmCYTz7xvaCpkORTLs-bCe4gOSTxHtLOLDLXmykaN2k9JkUHoOY_7GXNOFhP0zuoyjPJ8wXsYyTPFW8EdFsJP_JrrQLbT-0G7hdOEQ6DBixS/s400/Stage+snapshot.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you're not a fan of extremely abrasive <i>/in your face!</i>/ mock everything 'establishment' performances, coated in a thick, slimy (and potentially explosive) film of blatant sexual provocation liberally laced with profanity, DON'T look up GWAR. Don't listen to their music, don't watch the videos, and most certainly DO NOT go to one of their concerts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>These guys are NOT Lawrence Welk or Hee-Haw...leave Grandma home...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">GWAR plays to the heavy metal aficionados, usually the angry and disenfranchised under-30 crowd - the music is fast, loud, and the only intelligible lyrics are strings of four-letter words. GWAR actually goes BEYOND traditional metal by serving up the popular icons of the day - and dismembering them for the viewing audience while spraying the screaming fans with gallons of fake blood...all while wearing extreme monster costumes which celebrate all things dark, male and phallic.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Relax - they use props, not people! </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My first show, GWAR took on God, Hitler and (as it was an election year) Romney vs. Obama. As I was in the general audience for this show - I was bathed in the (fake) blood of Christ and Obama - and I think Hitler got me a bit, too...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second show - GWAR did some very strange things to (and with) sex-starved aliens, and denounced the commercialism of the music industry. Can you guess what else 'sprayed' during this show?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofFEaYQ4W-OswDJsrCzcoVLvb8jzV83I1aKwDxG0SuNNJZeieuhj60zHG7FphdNrG2SWoID9c9-QaFkBb5IqSCMaNURGk6j2RQcs0eP8vyxhvNDDUsIAM2EPGDI8MmWKd1CO2CWgLUQ8x/s1600/Take+a+seat.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiofFEaYQ4W-OswDJsrCzcoVLvb8jzV83I1aKwDxG0SuNNJZeieuhj60zHG7FphdNrG2SWoID9c9-QaFkBb5IqSCMaNURGk6j2RQcs0eP8vyxhvNDDUsIAM2EPGDI8MmWKd1CO2CWgLUQ8x/s400/Take+a+seat.JPG" width="300" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This will be the third year in a row I've braved the crowds of metal fans to witness GWAR in it's fury. This year, I opted for balcony seating. Hopefully, I'll stay dry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I can't wait to see what they come up with.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-65227638357562036352014-11-08T23:14:00.000-06:002014-11-08T23:16:39.864-06:00Crystalline Clarity<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh08tjsLa27LqJuTPrbzDaH8LeLpmDC5wI_s6os_1Ih2MYfQx0oOqZw0J7HaXlXjP-0aifBu3Vcte812vh0Tz6Zvk7yGAr-qywbqADR0tcca1pRlJZkLRBeIXqGS9qTvsJF3eINE6ltq8DD/s1600/lapis+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh08tjsLa27LqJuTPrbzDaH8LeLpmDC5wI_s6os_1Ih2MYfQx0oOqZw0J7HaXlXjP-0aifBu3Vcte812vh0Tz6Zvk7yGAr-qywbqADR0tcca1pRlJZkLRBeIXqGS9qTvsJF3eINE6ltq8DD/s1600/lapis+2.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today, I turned to one of the several blogs I've started following, in search of inspiration that didn't have to do with the biennial national obsession of donkey vs. elephant.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>have I mentioned lately that I HATE politics?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I may have relieved myself of the constant badgering of political radio and TV ads by cutting my cable (years ago...) and listening to nothing but CD's in my car (again - years ago, and the only improvement since then is the introduction of the iPod) - but them sneaky bastards still found a way to pester me - through my daily mailbox!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Come to think of it - I'm none too fond of my mailbox, either - except when I've ordered something online and the tracking notice says "Out for Delivery," (THOSE days, I race home from work as fast as (the police) will let me, and almost rip the box off the wall in my haste to have goodies in my hot little hands.) My mailbox usually holds only advertising flyers, credit-card come-hither's, and bills. Most everyone nowadays communicates electronically - either by phone or email. Letter writing is a serious lost art.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My mother was one of the last hold-outs in this long-ago art form, but my older brother and his kids corrupted her when she moved in with them a few years ago. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">the SQO once set about delivering a long dissertation to me on why we have such a long and diverse history of advertising mail in this country, the reasons behind the initial legislation and price structures, paired with the problems we face with today's incarnation of the US Postal Service, and twisted it right back to that obsession with elephant vs. donkey - but I wasn't really paying attention - I was too busy with my paper-cutter at the time, turning all this paper-waste into confetti.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEUZBQhrv-Fb7hYDDbCBYGccg1LrZ7jRcGUTI9bG3j08mnaPYeJ1sM25ekOe3f0mjZstoKclm7D4gtLXSaqMK2JEJ4WxtpDPpdR0qh2kFmD4ZX764eTx6gvS0L28Hd6vRZISCDFDSwTQ9/s1600/snowflakes07.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEUZBQhrv-Fb7hYDDbCBYGccg1LrZ7jRcGUTI9bG3j08mnaPYeJ1sM25ekOe3f0mjZstoKclm7D4gtLXSaqMK2JEJ4WxtpDPpdR0qh2kFmD4ZX764eTx6gvS0L28Hd6vRZISCDFDSwTQ9/s1600/snowflakes07.gif" height="200" width="200" /></a><i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i> Junk mail make great snowflakes...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I found rich inspirational pickings in the blog-o-sphere with the help of Karen Lynn Sandoval again over at her blog: <a href="http://www.karenlsandoval.com/" target="post">Art Photographer | Life Blogger |</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was a little thing - more of an afterthought or casual mention in her writing - crystal healing. It was buried in a post about a reading marathon she partook of. She noted 2 books on the subject, and a inconveniently-timed shopping trip to find palm stones.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the time of her blog-posting, she had several palm stones on a sunny ledge in her home, soaking up the bright sunshine as she snapped a quick photo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've incorporated crystal methodology into my personal world/work views for decades. Like Karen, I was intrigued by a book I found - mine was in a New Age section in a local bookstore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;"> I have to laugh at the term <b><i>New Age</i></b>. Newer than what? Most of the practices</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> and/or methodologies discussed in the average New Age section of your local </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> bookstore are far older than a lot of things we call traditional - such as Christianity </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> and Western Medicine. Methinks someone got it backwards.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've done a lot of research since that first book on crystal healing, and a lot of experimentation. I befriended several stones which I whammied up when the need was intense, either for myself or someone close. Most of my stonework is cobbled together from:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">1) personal intuition </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">2) meditational communion with the stone</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">3) a LOT of visualization, and </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">4) rough research on the web/within books from 'experts' in the field who explain the metaphysical properties of each stone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSSU-79yDTItSHB2N1oWdq0qrAm0c1VFd66021y6K3BShZHx998poAI0g1pbH_2aMdSp8_P_O8AJrEPuddPqBkCjiXxVhxBrBOR7f7SPOJcEKFhwtRjpfAE_nZayQ6Qr2Gl95kGJc_ixb/s1600/Lapis+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSSU-79yDTItSHB2N1oWdq0qrAm0c1VFd66021y6K3BShZHx998poAI0g1pbH_2aMdSp8_P_O8AJrEPuddPqBkCjiXxVhxBrBOR7f7SPOJcEKFhwtRjpfAE_nZayQ6Qr2Gl95kGJc_ixb/s1600/Lapis+1.jpg" height="253" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My primary focal stone really surprised me, as I didn't consciously decide on it, didn't research it at all, and didn't seek it out. My lovely Lapis sought ME -touched me from across town- when my need was intense. I just had to be receptive to the call.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And that, my friends, is the story of the day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I do remember having a bad day. In fact, I recall having several bad days all glumped together like gum stuck in your hair. A sticky, messy, stringy, miserable stretch of time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't sleeping well. I wasn't eating well. I couldn't gel thoughts into cohesive structures for more than a few moments. Everything in the world was sharp and bright and deafening and edged - dragging across my nerve endings like a red-hot razor blade. I was over-reactive to everything - even the self-contained psyche of the cat.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, when I'm going through an episode such as this, Murphy rears his ugly head, and sends friends, family members, co-workers and close confidants to pummel me with their abrasive attentions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>These are the times I swear I would do well living in a cave...as long as it had central air...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sooo - everything was bright and cheerful on this particular Saturday late-spring morning...everything except me. I was too busy trying to still the whirling maelstrom going on inside my head. Operating purely on instinct, I was drawn to the tracks behind my house.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I needed solitude - and nicotine - and food - and caffeine - but mostly solitude.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The tracks behind my home were a seldom used railroad spur - little worry about trains, no worry about other people. I'd watched the tracks all fall and winter long - so I knew the trains were infrequent. I had never seen a walker. Exploring those tracks was something I had wanted to do, but had successfully avoided since I'd moved into my apartment. That pesky sweat thing...and winter, had kept me indoors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">After the slightly wobbly walk, balancing on the tracks themselves or crunching along on the rough gravel under-bed - I reached a quiet place. Off to the side of the tracks was a huge boulder, forcefully ripped from the Earth and cast aside to make way for technology. Brown and unassuming, it perched in the middle of a tangle of winter-weathered grasses. An indentation in the rock beckoned me to come sit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I made my way across the uneven landscape - introduced myself to the rock with a touch, clambered aboard, and settled myself into a comfortable sitting position.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Turned my face to the sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Offered the elements permission to have their way with me. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Sky.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Sun.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Wind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And listened.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The alone-ness was very comforting. Soothing on my nerves. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Did you know that there's noise in solitude? That even silence has a voice? Layers of sound piled one on top of another. You can dig your awareness down to the lower layers - it's tricky, but my instinct said this was the right time to do so.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The top-most layer of noise is human, of course - traffic, sirens, speech, music, construction, etc. We really are a noisy bunch - we attempt to drown out the natural noises of the Earth to prove our superiority over it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I'll leave THAT lecture for another day...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Under the cacophony of human sound are noises more in tune with the natural - the wind, the trees and grasses swaying, animals moving through the brush. The Earth has her angry tones, too - water roaring in full flood, fire raging in its rush to destroy, thunder shaking the sky - but these weren't in residence on this occasion. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Below this natural symphony is a dull, constant static we call white noise. Most of humanity can hear this layer subconsciously, and react to it on an instinctual level. Subjecting oneself to this static, even generated by artificial means, is very relaxing. Most humans can't go any deeper then the layer of white noise, or refuse to believe deeper levels exist within the realm of human hearing. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My instincts say they are wrong - it's time to go deeper.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The layer directly under the white noise exists for those who seek it. It's difficult to find, hard to attenuate yourself to, almost painful to experience. This deeper layer is slippery, evasive, cunning. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Sheesh - it's tough to explain this...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There really aren't words or concepts for this deeper layer of sound. In my experience, it's a sharp/soft/blend/mix of part/noise part/feeling part/pure/diluted contentment/playfulness/connection. It's turbulent and mellow and soothing and soporific and energizing all at the same time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, speaking of time - I've found it has no meaning once your awareness is within this deep level of sound.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's difficult to reach this level of awareness because you have to let all the surface and white noises wash over/through/above/around you while not listening for anything in particular, but everything in general.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Confused yet? Yea, me too. I don't know how to get you there - I just know I've landed/floated/ experienced there on a few, rare occasions, observing all 5 traditional senses blending together - at this level of awareness you can feel colors, taste sound, smell sunshine, and hear chaos - </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the layer where interconnections are formed. <b><i>EVERYTHING</i></b> is connected at this lower level.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I drifted, with no goal in mind other than to experience, for time outside of time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Something twigged my awareness. Connected.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>???</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I slid slightly upwards - on the border of the white noise and this underlayment - and understood direction.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">North. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>In reality...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And that's when the surface noise of the world - all the human stuff - abruptly crashed in on me - painfully snapping me back to the blunted awareness of 'reality.'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ouch...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe someday, someone out there with experience flitting in and out of this layer of awareness will come along and teach me how to gracefully move between the layers - until then, I'm stuck bungling my way through.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I stretched tight muscles...I'd been sitting long enough for my feet to fall asleep. It was only after I took inventory of my bruised psyche and pins & needles of restored blood-flow to my legs that I realized I could still feel that new twig - the new connection formed under the white noise. This new connection had stretched through the noise into 'reality,' and, while patient, was growing insistent.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I had to go north.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Soooo....grateful that I'd stuffed my wallet in my pocket, and my keys on my belt, I made my way back up the tracks to my car - and off I went.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Following the connection. Having direction - A call - A mission - A duty - this did wonders for the irritation I'd been going through. It was like a cold, soothing balm on abraded skin.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ahhh...Calgon, take me away!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The lead lead - to the mall.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>WHAT?????</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If there's one place on the face of this Earth that I despise with every fiber of my being, it's the mall. Any mall. It's filled with people! With ALL the crazy consumerism! And STUFF is more precious than anything else! And the icing on this cake is an emotional punch of lust/greed/envy/desire/want... Want... </span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> WANT!! </span> <b> </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> UGH!</b> </span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I'd sooner cut my own arm off.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes, trust comes hard to me. Here I am, sleep-deprived, hungry, un-showered, buzzing both physically and spiritually from a very hard empathic week, running completely on instinct, contemplating walking into a building FILLED with humans filled with consumerist impulses at a time when I was already overloaded.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Diagnosis? Completely. Barking. Mental.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But something was in there - something that reached through the various layers of noise and touched me. Connected with me. Trusts me to find it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I circled the mall parking lot - looking for a space, completely on instinct. Trusting that instinct. Feeling out where the call was closer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I walked in the door. Felt the emotional wash of a concentration of people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Pursue the call, or go home and sort all this out? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Trust the instinct...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Focusing on the call allowed me to walk through the surface emotional wash, much like I had when dropping through the noise layers. The call captured my consciousness, and as long as I held onto it (like a drowning person will cling to a rope) I found I could move through, or allow the surface wash to pass through/around me without an impact.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I felt myself slipping into chameleon mode. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A conveniently placed escalator raised me to the second floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Left.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Walking, barely there in 'reality' down the hallway. Sliding through the crowds, not touching, not feeling, not impacting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't think I've ever been this deep in chameleon mode...before or since. I probably could have bumped into someone and they wouldn't have noticed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Right.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Into a store selling Egyptian-themed carvings, glassware, jewelry, papyrus drawings, clothing, incense...stuff.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I remember, with clarity, flashes of things - snapshots of what I saw imprinted on my visual cortex/nasal passages/auditory canals/fingertips/taste buds.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Racks of pyramid-shaped paperweights.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A waist-high statue of Anubis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The rough edges of a papyrus-drawing of Cleopatra.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A glass-enclosed case of perfume bottles - bright swirls of red and green within the delicate glassware.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The glass case, smooth and cool to the touch. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A marble topped table, cross-hatched into a chess board. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Marble chess pieces strategically placed to emote a game in progress.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Eastern music wailing from the speakers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Shelves on the walls of books, statues, scarabs carved out of bone, stone, fused glasses.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Crossed swords suspended above the shelves, bright brass winking in the lights.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Nefertiti with her tall, blue crown.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A strong perfume smell of various cones and sticks of incense, thick on my tongue.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A hookah in the corner.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">King Tut's death mask.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Stop in front of the jewelry counter - cold steel and smooth glass. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Several elongated slices of Lapis Lazuli - smoothed, polished, drilled, ready to encase in a precious metal setting and wear.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I found you...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The shopkeeper removed the one I pointed to from it's soft fabric display, laid it in my hands.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>INSTANT release.</i> The tangle of other people's emotions dropped away, the white noise crescendo-ed into the sound of crashing surf, then faded to...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">silence. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A credit card swipe and a signature later, and my new partner would never leave me again.</span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnwQfhr4v6IlN4zPPNxbLLUh5IjVapfI-JSQOW5uG1oNLU6K54CkXxxnvVphetDQm2m23-7VpkDG6Je0IeNJ0_ADTw4kPvbDFDYmBUH7CPdq4-Mqt_Tg7wB_VZuMhoSbjrxbEaNevOa_2/s1600/Lapis+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnwQfhr4v6IlN4zPPNxbLLUh5IjVapfI-JSQOW5uG1oNLU6K54CkXxxnvVphetDQm2m23-7VpkDG6Je0IeNJ0_ADTw4kPvbDFDYmBUH7CPdq4-Mqt_Tg7wB_VZuMhoSbjrxbEaNevOa_2/s1600/Lapis+3.jpg" height="302" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-61806651857460758832014-10-29T09:52:00.000-05:002014-10-29T09:52:05.529-05:00Death by Bouncy Ball<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCq8BilfOgpVH4hrwd9hg58T-wvTxlA7SGoLYIgrLIO0LEX9o9zXtCtjwdExzkg6mSqm2oDPz4pijESlI9d4LSSDa8OALY5wPKDiqGF5L63SO79-iXTC3IHNWMd_P8EFSK2EBrPsAfeF-s/s1600/Resist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCq8BilfOgpVH4hrwd9hg58T-wvTxlA7SGoLYIgrLIO0LEX9o9zXtCtjwdExzkg6mSqm2oDPz4pijESlI9d4LSSDa8OALY5wPKDiqGF5L63SO79-iXTC3IHNWMd_P8EFSK2EBrPsAfeF-s/s1600/Resist.jpg" height="322" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just to clarify - I took this picture with my eyes closed...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"I swear, I didn't think THAT would happen!!!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yea, famous last words, usually intoned with a degree of awe, shock, and slurred due to the heavy drinking done beforehand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A variation of the first utterance would be "Whoa...whodathunkit???" depending on the amount of alcohol consumed, the length of time it took to consume it, the body-weight of the consumer and the amount of resistance they've built up over years of soaking their brain cells in beer. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If coma-by-beer is imminent, you may hear 'Whooooh! YEA!" along with a string of four-letter words interspersed by sounds that don't correspond to any known language. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Did I mention that Wisconsin takes its beer as seriously (if not more so) than its baked goods? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wisconsin was home to Miller, Old Milwaukee, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beers once upon a time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">We've got micro-breweries in half our cities. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We've a lot of small towns in this state that can only be pronounced when the tongue is slightly anesthetized, lest you risk biting said muscle when trying to twist it into the proper contortion to pronounce Oconomowoc, Manatowoc, Waukesha, Menomonie Falls, Sheboygan and Mukwonago.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Our pro-baseball team is called the Brewers, and they play at Miller Park (renamed for a HUGE pile of money when they rebuilt the stadium).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Another good (or bad, you decide...) alcohol-induced distinction Wisconsin held for years was the town of Watertown. For decades, this little town, population 20k-ish, had 'more bars per capita than any other city in the world.' I lived in Watertown for many years, and can confirm the title's accuracy. Even today, you can't go more than 2 blocks in any given direction without finding a drinking establishment in front of you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Safe to say, Wisconsinites are steeped in barley and hops from before we're born to after we've been put in the ground. You can hear the livers within the state collectively pickling on any given warm summer night after the bars close... but you have to <i>really</i> listen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>shhhhh...hear that?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The University of Wisconsin/Madison (UWM) was known for years as THE party campus in the US before some puritan college administrator got a wild hair up their ass and started demanding muscle to tamp down the shenanigans. I think it had something to do with proximity to the Capital Square, a bare mile east of, and a straight shot up State Street, away, and some busybody worrying about the 'public face' of higher education in the state.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe, they got drunk, and took a vow whilst dealing with the 'morning after' hangover.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I hate when that happens...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, I realize that at any college in the States, you will find, on any given Friday or Saturday night, a kegger party or two (dozen) as very-young adults, on their own for the first time in their lives, make the same bad decisions their parents did at the same age, and learn all about the consequences of those decisions. Sometimes, dubious herbal substances make appearances at these same gatherings.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>"higher" education at it's finest... </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At UWM - they didn't limit themselves to Friday and/or Saturday night. Keggers on campus were every hour, on the hour, 24/7/365, excluding summers where everyone went <i>home</i> to drink. You could set your watch by the sound of a new keg being tapped.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, a long time ago, on a campus far, far away (spacial/relative proximity irrelevant in story mode) there was a battle against those who frowned on hops, and those who celebrated the cold, gold, carbonated beverage-of-the-gods. They were called the Dry's, and the Wet's.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After years of vicious fighting, in which much beer was spilled, many tongues (and fingers) wagged furiously, many mind-altering substances tried and celebrated, and far too much moral outrage exhibited, the Wet's and the Dry's came to an uneasy settlement which caused the cessation of hostilities.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The daylight hours were dedicated to study and education. The nighttime hours were for recreational substances...and never the twain shall meet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In Wisconsin - beer IS a solution</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>(this tagline brought to you by the Chemistry Department at UWM)</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Every college campus has a street or avenue or park 'dedicated' to the college after-class scene - where the young-adults gather for social purposes. In Madison, this is State Street - the mile-long stretch of road linking the university campus to the Capital Square. It's filled with little shops offering food, drinks, snacks, books, religious icons (big or small, we offer 'em all...), decadent desserts, clothing, recreational glassware, and oddball boutique-y/artsy items unique to denizens who congregate nightly. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There are no 'chain' stores on State Street...the vibe is very intimate. Very organic. Very REAL. The entire stretch is steeped in a Bohemian energy generated when people withOUT wealth have to use their creativity and imaginations to entertain themselves, instead of buying their entertainment pre-packaged and mass-produced to create income streams for the few who can buy into the system. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I had the opportunity to walk the length and breadth of State the last weekend in September, to feel this intense vibe personally... properly chaperoned by two who have adopted (or is that the other way around?) the location. I have to say - that vibe alone is intoxicating... no beer necessary.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Oooooo - what you said!!!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I can't wait to go back, armed with more than my little iPod for a camera, to attempt to capture the flavor of this little pocket of free-spirit energy. As a whole, we humans really need to cherish these pockets, and figure out how to make them grow withOUT exploiting them for their 'income potential.'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But for now - I'll share the few photos I did manage to take with the iPod that are acceptable to the photographer within me.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXVHPBEGSa0GQ7VdmzWSSP6giHFQ6ld_XfNlKpfHlJZvUBoCQIqeSfvlRBv8-OztL6ueIJ4pc-MMSGr4GpR5sL_4rrx1xlGIjM0Xwm9MyfEw8cz-SamcYgYZyQbpIPXg9SeR5pkOmwfH0/s1600/IMG_1360.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNXVHPBEGSa0GQ7VdmzWSSP6giHFQ6ld_XfNlKpfHlJZvUBoCQIqeSfvlRBv8-OztL6ueIJ4pc-MMSGr4GpR5sL_4rrx1xlGIjM0Xwm9MyfEw8cz-SamcYgYZyQbpIPXg9SeR5pkOmwfH0/s1600/IMG_1360.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">I found this dragon-ship in a rock shop. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Does anyone else see the humor in the term 'Rock Shop?' or is it just me?</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This particular rock is a boat, carved from a single piece of jade. Only the $400 price tag kept me from immediately adopting this ship to sail home with me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Sadly, carving things out of rock are not part of my creativity package - I just have to be happy with looking, drooling, and photographing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoURL417SbkMPlvVaGZUYVTFp7Md3eYQ8r3tQw5ZZL1phAEReBmXxD5qZlcWl3by7RGWmIHjR3aQ3D6QBvMwFLe-N4yiZV7Qqgimrxpu4sPLsCBCkkrqZ9zbir7mS_TVc_gn78JmwWjN5/s1600/IMG_1362.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoURL417SbkMPlvVaGZUYVTFp7Md3eYQ8r3tQw5ZZL1phAEReBmXxD5qZlcWl3by7RGWmIHjR3aQ3D6QBvMwFLe-N4yiZV7Qqgimrxpu4sPLsCBCkkrqZ9zbir7mS_TVc_gn78JmwWjN5/s1600/IMG_1362.JPG" height="240" width="320" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another jade carving in the rock shop - a TEA set. How could I NOT snap a photo of this one??</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I may be back to the rock shop to capture more images of this one, and incorporate them into the blog. Stay tuned!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJRQ93dfKfq7t9s9oW8QO4kaS9saBj7qYF7_uaWg9K0-S7I7hbHXOx_T34lHL8-eqgdw9-0EClzeyUOsMCaZCYIlYKNUcSgn1nTyLBj4grly12lxm2VoEbdnRx0-1X_q67xtiNHFVTkYa/s1600/IMG_1363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsJRQ93dfKfq7t9s9oW8QO4kaS9saBj7qYF7_uaWg9K0-S7I7hbHXOx_T34lHL8-eqgdw9-0EClzeyUOsMCaZCYIlYKNUcSgn1nTyLBj4grly12lxm2VoEbdnRx0-1X_q67xtiNHFVTkYa/s1600/IMG_1363.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here would be the resident water feature on the square. I've found 'wealth' delights in adding artistic water pieces any time they want to impress the masses. Any time I find such an object, I make it a habit to introduce myself to the water spirits of the place. So, I played with the water for a bit - shook hands with the resident spirit, as it were - and snapped a couple of quickies after thanking the water for contributing to the vibration of the area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRIgQ1QavXCMaTlPYgVdLysANCLnrIzRHwpJQVQEEqbDJ_Vr3zqpDXkU9gpbx_MR5fPqihMlNIu84Ah3kSs2LAb-G_HnjWOxU9MkHtocY0qVqC2TzbGanvcBeaADnW4pRptb4thy3__2w/s1600/IMG_1372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRIgQ1QavXCMaTlPYgVdLysANCLnrIzRHwpJQVQEEqbDJ_Vr3zqpDXkU9gpbx_MR5fPqihMlNIu84Ah3kSs2LAb-G_HnjWOxU9MkHtocY0qVqC2TzbGanvcBeaADnW4pRptb4thy3__2w/s1600/IMG_1372.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I WANTED to capture the Capital dome backlit by the sunset, but the scene wouldn't cooperate with me - the angles were wrong no matter where I stopped to frame the shot. This was the best shot I could get of the dome and one of the statues lining the square.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ-LrZ_WsVs0TKJfFuQeNiEB-stVLL2_tyNvsD_Vcj4-pJq4_RFPl7NGWgp9pbr6aTJv5P8pxGcTA-M5e5g6_JBBTHtJZSGJZvSqKkdIPE6Xby2kKpATu29yvXUS4oIjFzSUvSf7GO99-/s1600/IMG_1378.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJ-LrZ_WsVs0TKJfFuQeNiEB-stVLL2_tyNvsD_Vcj4-pJq4_RFPl7NGWgp9pbr6aTJv5P8pxGcTA-M5e5g6_JBBTHtJZSGJZvSqKkdIPE6Xby2kKpATu29yvXUS4oIjFzSUvSf7GO99-/s1600/IMG_1378.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Someone parked a few circus wagons at the junction of State Street and the Square - this one was one of my favorites with the heavy gilding making the carved figures pop against the rich blue wood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPa2UNMloScgeLB7daFlEIfXdAt7HohncIa5suRWOxy2y-I_agM_5DdY4I6NDr6GO3F4ULct44ecfuRe4rsIAz6Es3kps6dnV0dyQQ0YyBmM8Qk4NQnkfRJeNWmrwU8XHCOcGAyf4KzwcH/s1600/IMG_1383.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPa2UNMloScgeLB7daFlEIfXdAt7HohncIa5suRWOxy2y-I_agM_5DdY4I6NDr6GO3F4ULct44ecfuRe4rsIAz6Es3kps6dnV0dyQQ0YyBmM8Qk4NQnkfRJeNWmrwU8XHCOcGAyf4KzwcH/s1600/IMG_1383.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">My kids took me to this little, hole-in-the-wall pizza place for a respite against all the walking we were doing. This place sold pizza by the slice. Not impressive-sounding? The slices were HUGE. They hung off the edges of a regular dinner plate. I couldn't finish my single slice of Ham and Pineapple.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And the toppings? More varieties than I could count. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I captured myself in this shot - I'm in the left (appropriate, no?) corner of the mirror.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM66HRkKNNaKYmFyTBr8QlwOHHmpfCxoqMRrxSIADGFmo6MKJLUJnKue2CuX6_g0VdTwxRkSke1wY4nc_-IVh3ntoeq3DUMV6F_hW2bxgQBiQ8-2oMxzBNKzfPtyTXhrhgY5lrEyKHsUD9/s1600/IMG_1394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM66HRkKNNaKYmFyTBr8QlwOHHmpfCxoqMRrxSIADGFmo6MKJLUJnKue2CuX6_g0VdTwxRkSke1wY4nc_-IVh3ntoeq3DUMV6F_hW2bxgQBiQ8-2oMxzBNKzfPtyTXhrhgY5lrEyKHsUD9/s1600/IMG_1394.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I love to decorate with light - so did some of the shops on State Street. These 2 pictures show one window-decoration where the shop-owners showed off some of their very-impressive light fixtures. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1nJqvRY0WxxI6JGnZDHBRxtpFRAMe_2-AAZKVsF7cAwk8RjPM5I4VKzSGkUkM4ZED2yaizMusdLbH7Tq_M3RGcguKc1ztGMPyV8U37pnIrIbcOnXFaPFpOTaSn9cPidQ3B_J_Ze59kma/s1600/IMG_1396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm1nJqvRY0WxxI6JGnZDHBRxtpFRAMe_2-AAZKVsF7cAwk8RjPM5I4VKzSGkUkM4ZED2yaizMusdLbH7Tq_M3RGcguKc1ztGMPyV8U37pnIrIbcOnXFaPFpOTaSn9cPidQ3B_J_Ze59kma/s1600/IMG_1396.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I really, really, REALLY want this one!!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JkpjO5EsWL3DOlOTCAvmolSo3nd-EutvFeVRDJThSRWdhI4MBOFPFIUSoM2DuDsHnfTWX9q_Ln-EKo54AOO9jPiAn2eJQCB5AuGkLkMp_U6cAp5EQeguCF1lZDxF5ILfMAPuW8OjBLRf/s1600/IMG_1398.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JkpjO5EsWL3DOlOTCAvmolSo3nd-EutvFeVRDJThSRWdhI4MBOFPFIUSoM2DuDsHnfTWX9q_Ln-EKo54AOO9jPiAn2eJQCB5AuGkLkMp_U6cAp5EQeguCF1lZDxF5ILfMAPuW8OjBLRf/s1600/IMG_1398.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I love the mix of old-world and high-tech blended together around the Capital square. You can see this mix all up and down State Street.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-uGU53Ep8In08wx1I6InAwvWLoxq9-syddWF9smCd9z8DNllTxq5L7t0x0bhg666C8Z6YxpCUELGuVlRkDHU2Ur8-awcWPGVBa0d_vjn7SnpFqSODFQDYuyvn2RXKd9GTBZfNt6BpqY1/s1600/IMG_1402.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC-uGU53Ep8In08wx1I6InAwvWLoxq9-syddWF9smCd9z8DNllTxq5L7t0x0bhg666C8Z6YxpCUELGuVlRkDHU2Ur8-awcWPGVBa0d_vjn7SnpFqSODFQDYuyvn2RXKd9GTBZfNt6BpqY1/s1600/IMG_1402.JPG" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> Part of what makes this particular photo 'work' is the mix: it's both over- and under-exposed in the same shot. I actually stood in the middle of a side street to capture this one - with the kids watching for cars coming up behind me. I had JUST enough time to frame, shoot, and move out of the way of the car racing to catch the green light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"But wait!" you cry, angered at your computer screen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>WHERE DOES THE BOUNCY BALL COME IN???</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Oh....that...</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I bought one recently, when visiting a little hot-dog shack with my youngest son. He originally snorted and rolled his eyes in true teen fashion, disbelief radiating from every pore that his MOTHER would go to such lengths to embarrass him by purchasing a toy crafted for children - not the young-adult he's aspiring to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once we got through the posturing, the teen image maintained and the illusion strengthened, we bounced the thing back and forth in the parking lot - enjoying ourselves with this simple sphere of rubber. The amusement was had for the bargain-price of three quarters fed to a glass and aluminum machine and a simple twist of a handle.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The ant, unfortunately, suffered a painful and rather surprising end as the ball crushed him to a tiny moist spot on the pavement.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lUNFmtK7U9qFA8k4Xg_fVFx8GXQAXSFZR-5kBHCFKdpbHyBpt8kLcxstCkGRO0H7fJxtHLETXLecN5li98r1xZg3BFqua7cfxYPzfi3dvBPLqaqkL55DoZwF5rpqAuEd9YM_ghZ6jOFD/s1600/Squish+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-lUNFmtK7U9qFA8k4Xg_fVFx8GXQAXSFZR-5kBHCFKdpbHyBpt8kLcxstCkGRO0H7fJxtHLETXLecN5li98r1xZg3BFqua7cfxYPzfi3dvBPLqaqkL55DoZwF5rpqAuEd9YM_ghZ6jOFD/s1600/Squish+copy.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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GOTCHA</div>
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<i>This has been another 'slightly to the Left of Reality' brain wandering...</i><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-70554446001357475442014-10-23T19:00:00.000-05:002014-10-23T19:01:53.933-05:00"They" Suggest...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUVXvZ9xYRQp_K4T6cUyUyf_uTG5n_0A8dDBM-ya2zvxhMoRJ_LOSMzaJErUzvMb6qMAGctH2MrTbGkDd0GLe_BGYLdbDa6pSN_KpmvEiu2BRZNgwVMnIryDwFx9_L_IbvD86kIrYZKej/s1600/They+Building.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUVXvZ9xYRQp_K4T6cUyUyf_uTG5n_0A8dDBM-ya2zvxhMoRJ_LOSMzaJErUzvMb6qMAGctH2MrTbGkDd0GLe_BGYLdbDa6pSN_KpmvEiu2BRZNgwVMnIryDwFx9_L_IbvD86kIrYZKej/s1600/They+Building.jpg" height="640" width="568" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Who is this 'They,' anyways?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihQfpWfRzU20mS5xwi5gGFeDc7QdeEMRHZD7CgrifYtYvV27Ehjey9T6wLe3mIIFgN6RFPvK029rrueOqkKDfiHAnuNHDsdWajh7zKd2qH3L4qT9W6iJv-ZXxX9vxDdvuXRpDUjNZIDJxV/s1600/No+Collage+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihQfpWfRzU20mS5xwi5gGFeDc7QdeEMRHZD7CgrifYtYvV27Ehjey9T6wLe3mIIFgN6RFPvK029rrueOqkKDfiHAnuNHDsdWajh7zKd2qH3L4qT9W6iJv-ZXxX9vxDdvuXRpDUjNZIDJxV/s1600/No+Collage+copy.jpg" height="640" width="169" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you that sugar is bad for you. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you that tobacco will kill you.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you that you must brush your teeth 3 minutes 2 times a day.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you that taxes are good.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"They"</span> </b>tell you that illegal drugs are bad.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you that (insert something here) <i>ad nauseam</i> <i>ad infinitum.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you not to think for yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Personally, I think <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> should live their own lives, and stop telling 'Them' how to live theirs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b> </b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> say that to get your blog read, you must have </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> 1) followers and </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> 2) regularly scheduled content. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Well, duh.</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I guess one of <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They's"</b></span> public guises has to be the ever-so-quirky and much-quoted Mr. Obvious. Without followers, a blog has about as much chance of being read as discovering the secrets of the universe in the symbol used by a long-dead hunter in the Amazonian river basin used to keep track of his stores of anaconda piss.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Useful stuff, anaconda piss. <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b> </span>say it can cure cancer, but only if aged to perfection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I think I'll pass...thanks.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> also suggest ways to get those followers that have little to do with actually connecting with people who will regularly read your blog, and everything to do with directing more attention "Their" way. I actually found a guy selling his 'blog coach' services the other day.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmr5CyE3tvpqccP-1LRkyLR3k_JLreWEzLVHYLBE95K4hliIEgAVB-QiZcRWEr41Vtt7KLG0TQORuCRYcpwzWH5YL1T4QwF8l5S6KezStjtySp7xDOJec58RYDol_eyYz6Zvq1i9kTA-Ic/s1600/Advert+come+on+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmr5CyE3tvpqccP-1LRkyLR3k_JLreWEzLVHYLBE95K4hliIEgAVB-QiZcRWEr41Vtt7KLG0TQORuCRYcpwzWH5YL1T4QwF8l5S6KezStjtySp7xDOJec58RYDol_eyYz6Zvq1i9kTA-Ic/s1600/Advert+come+on+copy.jpg" height="91" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>ad content may be slightly modified...</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the double-edged swords of the wider Anonymous Web is anyone can manufacture 'expert' status with enough chutzpah, clever typing skills, and a passing affinity for Google-fu. Having the anonymity of instantaneous electronic communication allows the worst trolls, wackos and attention-whores to successfully masquerade as an expert in just about anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And even if you DO find a genuine expert in a subject which interests you, they've so successfully removed themselves from the bulk of humanity to focus on that subject that they oftentimes suffer from extreme tunnel-vision, and are worse than the aforementioned trolls, wackos, and attention-whores.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> tell you to pay no attention to the person typing out this blog...she's a Satanic <b>thinker</b>, for God's Sake!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> are right about the regularly scheduled content thing, though. From my own personal experience, if I don't see frequent new material on the blogs on my follow list, they fall to the bottom of my list and out of my daily curiousity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So, with an eye to the horizon,</span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoK5ajXJyCAC5lJfclCMde34NimxS78nyiXr_jh3zIaOEthFikcmd5RZ8kdvwyISwFgdg9gJXW4Go4tcOX70uWkO6aGwbBpTod2LYD2m2cNdZJPZ38FhWHr1PBc0xlVKM_1Iky9RFJuAj/s1600/Horizon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoK5ajXJyCAC5lJfclCMde34NimxS78nyiXr_jh3zIaOEthFikcmd5RZ8kdvwyISwFgdg9gJXW4Go4tcOX70uWkO6aGwbBpTod2LYD2m2cNdZJPZ38FhWHr1PBc0xlVKM_1Iky9RFJuAj/s1600/Horizon.jpg" height="128" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I shall endeavor to place more</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>slightly to the left of reality</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">musings in my blogging. <i> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Just whatever is on my mind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Are <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"They"</b></span> sure "They're" are ready for this?</span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-38342717424630636042014-10-18T11:11:00.000-05:002014-10-30T10:24:43.857-05:00WHAT is Mightier than the Pen???<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_aO7BgVWvvWmY85ZXhF6Af2a8GNu9y-BRVlz5a3EDSSFqNcsDxLoacMCJBH1w9XZNbdF41ROgwrZyjMkV8j9t9fZjIBYGHBVAWgypvPABN2hz3QiBpTLl_DAqg3nb-ZLq_5oOLFCBEcP/s1600/Pen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl_aO7BgVWvvWmY85ZXhF6Af2a8GNu9y-BRVlz5a3EDSSFqNcsDxLoacMCJBH1w9XZNbdF41ROgwrZyjMkV8j9t9fZjIBYGHBVAWgypvPABN2hz3QiBpTLl_DAqg3nb-ZLq_5oOLFCBEcP/s1600/Pen.jpg" height="352" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's amazing what you can find when you start typing in strange requests of Google. Today, I found a gem in a pen refill.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I work in an office. While working, I use a pen...frequently. Useful things, pens...as they are handy for jotting down notes, doodling, scratching hard-to-reach-places, pointing at things, and a host of other spur-of-the-moment things you need that slender object in your hand to do. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Xguc5eSNjLebIRA9u8D8nsu6cLtnjZUNnQ-kcnZ37fi6BMsExj5kiy-TjCxyq4aKVCt2vL-ZvXVHKhyphenhyphenZTZMLqXjPoTGniAbnas3IjDzOLxPr0r7lt-hWvEDUXIo7UukacOKdS5sPuHv9/s1600/Pen+Close.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Xguc5eSNjLebIRA9u8D8nsu6cLtnjZUNnQ-kcnZ37fi6BMsExj5kiy-TjCxyq4aKVCt2vL-ZvXVHKhyphenhyphenZTZMLqXjPoTGniAbnas3IjDzOLxPr0r7lt-hWvEDUXIo7UukacOKdS5sPuHv9/s1600/Pen+Close.jpg" height="82" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> I have a favorite pen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Within everyone's lives, they acquire 'favorite' things - stuff that they use or gaze upon on a daily basis. It's hardwired into our brains to recognize things we come into contact with repeatedly, and to attach a feeling of familiarity to them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With that said - I'm attached to this favorite pen of mine. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This particular pen was received as a freebie from a marketing company years ago, pre-branded with the company's name on its shiny red barrel. It was addressed to the owner of my company, who preferred the cheap plastic ones he could chew on - so I acquired it in his stead. Funny enough...about a week after the pen (and the included marketing come-on) arrived at the office, I received a call from the marketing company wanting to know how "He was enjoying his free pen."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Dontcha just love salesmen?</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well...I enjoy my lovely little pen M-F, 9 to 5, excluding Holidays and Vacation time - it has a nice feel and weight to it that you don't get from your cheaper disposables, and continue to buy the replacement ink cartridges for it. Alas...the name of the marketing company and salesman who called those many years ago has been lost in the darkest corners of my memory. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I still have the pen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Would you believe - - I've chased co-workers across the office for my pen? Quite unconsciously, a borrower will occasionally attempt to become a thief - especially at the beginning of the work day before the coffee has kicked in. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNfJvmc0WhCaZWB_2UW2M3j_LhxTDt0MK98sF2NawGFG6kxfXNHHscOwL8msTJ5rhAGrQDXM56x482nwddG0mRyTGy5zrbGBmZIAkp_p-98B1i_B1hBBcSunfK8IhPC7k0OfUbP8t4w-r/s1600/Pen+close+barrell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUNfJvmc0WhCaZWB_2UW2M3j_LhxTDt0MK98sF2NawGFG6kxfXNHHscOwL8msTJ5rhAGrQDXM56x482nwddG0mRyTGy5zrbGBmZIAkp_p-98B1i_B1hBBcSunfK8IhPC7k0OfUbP8t4w-r/s1600/Pen+close+barrell.jpg" height="217" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">After 7 or 8 years of superb service, my pen has become quite unique amongst pens (the 'I've been front line on several wars' finish is very unique) so it's easy to single out from the plethora of cheap disposable Bic ballpoints inhabiting my co-worker's desks, even when I don't catch the thief in the act.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well - the refill ran out of ink today. Yea, it happens. It just shouldn't have happened so soon based on my normal usage. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwptcaSZVoHG55GxRzxbnmt-K1c6heL5oKTqqCOrseS61EhWQmS5kwM5e9qKCFDbqi2hOj16ygkKXuEwa5jIY2QevYjEC5yX6ej8r1Lkwl8q3s9PchJo0aceWs6Bwx0tavYrcgDHxANhbf/s1600/Pen+Google.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwptcaSZVoHG55GxRzxbnmt-K1c6heL5oKTqqCOrseS61EhWQmS5kwM5e9qKCFDbqi2hOj16ygkKXuEwa5jIY2QevYjEC5yX6ej8r1Lkwl8q3s9PchJo0aceWs6Bwx0tavYrcgDHxANhbf/s1600/Pen+Google.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Soooo - frustrated with my brand of ink refill - into Google I go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">THE first thing to show up? <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Save-$200-in-2-minutes-and-have-the-worlds-best-wr/" target="_blank">This gem</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrUpxDTfQsIefZj1ThWMzTHQdpYHqksSXr0NeHSuWvWHUAiyGPTh3m36S5AJo-gg-4YiV0riy_HSAndN27Z8kY3m5ChrvUZuo-3p1PUY-igX2ZV-dVdwPHlCOX3-f2sDkQpKkyl9QpGva/s1600/Pen+Refill+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOrUpxDTfQsIefZj1ThWMzTHQdpYHqksSXr0NeHSuWvWHUAiyGPTh3m36S5AJo-gg-4YiV0riy_HSAndN27Z8kY3m5ChrvUZuo-3p1PUY-igX2ZV-dVdwPHlCOX3-f2sDkQpKkyl9QpGva/s1600/Pen+Refill+copy.jpg" height="146" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I haven't had this good a giggle in a while. The level of snark - NINJA.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'll be giggling all the way to Office Depot to find a new refill.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>sorry instructables...it won't be a Mont Blanc.</i></span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-61918938363398129172014-10-05T09:27:00.000-05:002014-10-05T09:27:25.889-05:00Oh....What a Tangled Web we Weave...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA6aOz5xO1YY_8fyYyzqvN6DRMOl7xofvbLYKbRb0ofdnHUtMn248IA-PoZJVOk1uvmzd7VKaEAxFkjT496AgiQzL3R445YpNWCwFTbckr5yNQKCHz-WtPwVDlYHzxwh51cbBVnqZxMGRY/s1600/Zentangled+Teapot+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA6aOz5xO1YY_8fyYyzqvN6DRMOl7xofvbLYKbRb0ofdnHUtMn248IA-PoZJVOk1uvmzd7VKaEAxFkjT496AgiQzL3R445YpNWCwFTbckr5yNQKCHz-WtPwVDlYHzxwh51cbBVnqZxMGRY/s1600/Zentangled+Teapot+copy.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">October. Harvest season. The time when the plants have completed their life-cycle, and are preparing to die or go dormant for the long winter sleep. The squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents tear madly about from tree to ground, location to location, in a last frantic burst of gathering nuts and seeds to sustain themselves in the long, cold months just ahead. The trees shift from summer green to the reds, oranges, yellows and browns of the Autumn palette - and are filled with birds preparing to migrate to warmer climates. (smart freaking birds, if you ask me...) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Empathically, this is my worst season, even as I peak with creativity (how can I not, with all the activity and color around me?) I keenly feel the shift in the Earth from growth to sleep. I want to join with this cycle. I want to sleep all winter, too...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Damn this whole 'human' thing!</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The calendar culminates the Harvest Season with All Hallow's Eve - Halloween. As with every other holiday in the States, we've turned this one into a commercial orgy of "buy, buy, buy!!!!!" - but this season is also paired with "scare, scare, scare!!!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">People spend a ton of money on Halloween - on candy, costumes & decorations. Parties are planned and thrown, new recipes are researched and experimented with, pranks are schemed up and instigated. Movies are rated for their fright-factor, and the blood (simulated, or course) flows both on the screen and on the watchers. Sometimes other, more genuine bodily fluids make public appearances, as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ewwww. </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At one time, the neighbors who lived on the first level of the home I was sharing were REAL Halloween nuts. It was their favorite holiday, and they decorated like fiends. They had tombstones in the front yard, hanging heads in the backyard, cobwebs in the hallways, coffins and zombies and witches and skeletons and anything else you can think of scattered about the house and grounds.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCEGQUzUtp8LFxkKkx4sumJCR3aK-14A6C8SaGT8IksyyR0r1IASgf148n_jPn224AEYvG1VFupbUWxr2k9RvWX9fak-qrNcCMsG0tPBBKNqEH6kGIQzYKn9S_TcUA5Zz-dBcI8Iim21FE/s1600/witch+in+tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCEGQUzUtp8LFxkKkx4sumJCR3aK-14A6C8SaGT8IksyyR0r1IASgf148n_jPn224AEYvG1VFupbUWxr2k9RvWX9fak-qrNcCMsG0tPBBKNqEH6kGIQzYKn9S_TcUA5Zz-dBcI8Iim21FE/s1600/witch+in+tree.jpg" height="200" width="178" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">They even had the flat witch on her broom stuck to a tree, which never fails to elicit a chuckle from me... </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The also threw one hell of a party...costumes mandatory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I was coming home from a night out with the SQO the night of their party. By the time I was coming up the street, their party was in full swing - the alcohol was flowing, the music was rocking, the party-goers all over the house and grounds. As I turned into the driveway, my headlights illuminated a pair of men dressed in dark blue spandex body suits with bright yellow boots, matching letters on their chests, masks covering their eyes, elbow-length gloves, and coordinating 'undies' in the crotch region - superheros who had left their capes at home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, in the uncertain light from the street and my sudden illumination from the headlights - all that got bright was the yellow portions of their costumes. My first and immediate thought - 'Are they wearing diapers?????'</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thanks to the Halloween deities that my windows were closed, because I couldn't help but blurt that one out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Halloween - It's one hell of a holiday - especially with shenanigans like these.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The teapot and I are celebrating Halloween this year with a web Zentangle design. This is one of the most complex things I have done with 'shop to date. It involved a layer mask and a distortion file, and a couple of alternate filters to give it the look it ended up with. I'm quite pleased, even if it really doesn't invoke 'scary,' suggest the harvest season, or pretend to be a diaper. It's a web, and webs are significant to the Halloween spirit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The pebble I picked up recently (see Zen and the art of Photography) turned out to be a VERY fertile seed. I've started creating Zentangles on my computer. Not traditional, as I use electronic means instead of doing it the old fashioned way, putting ink to paper, so I've obviously forged back into my field of weeds to blaze my own trail in this artform.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3gcEe2QSjU_GxTdkgYNjnxVe1nbFKXzEeWgenpB-vGL4QQi1ZxY3D-tM-MDwW77mtWCNPKiLyb54-r414aCKVlr5JSwzlWIuAjnSUBC9kCOG5jkw8tK-2cHg5uwLEB-E_UftHwq5BMRd/s1600/Webliike+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3gcEe2QSjU_GxTdkgYNjnxVe1nbFKXzEeWgenpB-vGL4QQi1ZxY3D-tM-MDwW77mtWCNPKiLyb54-r414aCKVlr5JSwzlWIuAjnSUBC9kCOG5jkw8tK-2cHg5uwLEB-E_UftHwq5BMRd/s1600/Webliike+copy.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the web design all flat - before I distorted it to fit around the teapot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe94qOb2KDJI7g27KXnrc1xd_v5koXVRtGYU5icPvdLT-nhRMBMFOeYubqlhbhCBZvYU18rZCBNqsgOOjHfijikek6TW__RqzVUBx1HQqZTdvNRcVtyXX56HpioyxAYYR03QsKRZT53kzk/s1600/Triangles+fuzzy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe94qOb2KDJI7g27KXnrc1xd_v5koXVRtGYU5icPvdLT-nhRMBMFOeYubqlhbhCBZvYU18rZCBNqsgOOjHfijikek6TW__RqzVUBx1HQqZTdvNRcVtyXX56HpioyxAYYR03QsKRZT53kzk/s1600/Triangles+fuzzy.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> These next 2 are actually the same grid and the same patterning within the grid lines. On the left is the straight grid, and I gave it a fuzzed texture - it almost looks like carpet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The one below has a twirl and some additional filters added to it for a decidedly darker look.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHAUlAD38JCSXLzLE4cIycgTGLC7R1NqufisHgOvULxoTBPMSI0TLDHSCtqauBdESF_lda06j_vofDvIRZHKlSU7918eA8Yih0PCkjzk6kyGtGLxMe4cKhKqXS4cTAnNYwvnv92fOU2zs/s1600/Triangles+twirled+blacklit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHAUlAD38JCSXLzLE4cIycgTGLC7R1NqufisHgOvULxoTBPMSI0TLDHSCtqauBdESF_lda06j_vofDvIRZHKlSU7918eA8Yih0PCkjzk6kyGtGLxMe4cKhKqXS4cTAnNYwvnv92fOU2zs/s1600/Triangles+twirled+blacklit.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But wait! I was talking about Halloween!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For me, Halloween stopped being an "Oh my GAWD! I can't WAIT!' holiday when I decided, in my 13 year old, teenaged brain, that it was too much work to design a costume, figure out how to/actually go through the work to/ craft said same, and then to walk around the neighborhood at night to beg for sugar. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">See, I didn't get to just run down to the store with the parental units and pick out something ready-made. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If I wanted a costume, the entire blueprint had to come out of my head. I had to come up with the concept - what I wanted it to look like, how it was going to be constructed, what materials I'd need, was I going to be able to breathe and see and walk in it, etc. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The whole shebang had to be <b><i>crafted. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't that we were poor, or my parents were uncaring or unavailable. They were always ready, willing and able to lend assistance (one year, my mom sewed me a green jumpsuit because I wanted to be a martian) and they bought the supplies I'd need (the robot was a fun year - I got to save boxes and old coffee cans, and use tools, wire, and spray paint!). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">They were teaching me to think, and design, and explore the ordinary things around me with a creative perspective. This pile of ordinary STUFF could be transformed into something unique and special with a bit of ingenuity and work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">They turned me into the creative machine I am today.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They did good.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-24447718845555503072014-10-01T23:03:00.001-05:002014-10-01T23:06:47.446-05:00Zen and the art of Photography<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNtw1Uw_raJ8JRF-jrKNgdCka936fdhBP7sGCf9tnZ7u7iwUNYhMSLc8LaV725uWUENkF08bagNGFG8OXFN7RIqHbncnMfs7xkXbceePmXjNSup-Hb28wFiej2u5X8ubjrKMMvq704Oddc/s1600/A+Zen+Frog+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNtw1Uw_raJ8JRF-jrKNgdCka936fdhBP7sGCf9tnZ7u7iwUNYhMSLc8LaV725uWUENkF08bagNGFG8OXFN7RIqHbncnMfs7xkXbceePmXjNSup-Hb28wFiej2u5X8ubjrKMMvq704Oddc/s1600/A+Zen+Frog+2.jpg" height="614" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I found this adorable frog sitting in a yoga pose in my SQO's sister's back yard this spring. He was just contemplating life in a classic yoga pose, arms resting on legs in lotus position, fingers touching to create a circle, surveying the backyard and springtime in Wisconsin. Then I came along with my camera and 'shop skills, and introduced him to the finer points of tea consumption. I hear he is now up to 8 cuppa day of Earl Grey, sun-warmed and liberally laced with honey to attract flies. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: purple;"><i>I've received a bill for the added grocery expense...sometimes photography can be expensive in weird ways.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But, I'll do just about anything for a Zen fix.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My workplace has been on a wellness kick since they reviewed the insurance costs last year. We got the typical posters on the lunch-room board for 'how to eat healthy,' 'how to sleep healthy,' 'how to quit smoking,' etc., which are pretty typical fare in Corporate America: easy to find, pre-chewed, and ready to regurgitate on command.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is where a lot of Corporate America stops, rubber-stamping their wellness campaigns and patting themselves on the back for a job well done. All surface, and no real substance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A more honest sign would have 'This PSA brought to you by the Health Nazi's who believe they know more about your body then you do.'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: purple;"><i>**warning** political content detected! Subject change NAOW!</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My company's HR department likes to think outside the box, and aren't afraid to put in the work to do so.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In January, we were all invited to 'walk to warmth.' Pedometers were offered free of charge, and the participants counted their steps. Once a week, we reported our steps, which were then totaled together, our combined efforts mapped out in miles, and our progress to a destination charted. Each week, we'd get a rundown of how far the group had walked, where we now were in geographical terms, and a little bit of history about the location we had made it to.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We made it from Wisconsin to Pasadena, FL, in a little more than 2 weeks (we have some people who walk a LOT). Since then, we've wandered around the US, occasionally crossing our path, and are finally heading home. Boy, are my imaginary feet sore.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I can't say that the Walk to Warmth campaign got me to walk MORE, but it did give me a baseline on just how much activity I'm (sadly) not getting.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I love to travel - metaphysically, at least.</i> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A new wellness initiative they have been working on, and just introduced, was the discounted membership rates at one of our local gyms.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>YES!</b></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I raced to the place and plunked my monies down. Not, as you should realize by now, to go sweat on their wall-o-torture equipment (the dreaded elliptical, treadmill, free-weights, etc...) but because this particular gym has a <i><b>pool.</b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I absolutely LOVE swimming laps. I don't go fast, I'm not in it for the energetic splashing or beating the clock or any of the other 'macho' crap that people attempt to get out of their workouts. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I drift. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> I glide. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> I create as few ripples as possible.</i> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I silently flow from one edge of the pool to the other, back and forth, pacing the pool, as it were, much as a person paces the waiting room of the hospital when their significant other is in the operating theatre.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Except I don't have the stress and anxiety of the hospital-pacer. My pacing is freedom.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I synchronize my muscles and my breath in a repetitive cycle, my mind is free to wander. I have times when I think of financial, household, personal, or other concerns that are eating my mind. I have times when I compose a new story line, or trip down the fantastical rabbit-hole to somewhere I haven't been before. Sometimes, I brew up a hot cup of tea for a new blog post... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I also have times when the mind simply goes dormant, quiet, an impartial participant/observer of each clear moment of NOW as it happens, there but separate from the automatic body-motions as I glide, stroke, glide, stroke, glide my way through the water. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is my Zen. Achieving thought through no-thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure there are other, more knowledgeable blogs and articles out there on how to 'properly' achieve Zen, who would scathingly lambaste my attempts as a milquetoast attempt with NO foundation in their granite-set rulebook, but I really don't care. When I swim slow laps, the body goes on autopilot, the mind crystallizes into the now, and Zen becomes my reality. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">See...I don't wish to travel on an already established road, either metaphysically or in, for lack of a better term, reality. I choose not to follow rote instructions, diagrams or beliefs. I have studied, and incorporated, bits and pieces from the 'establishments' into my life journey, finding that each has a piece of the ultimate answer (hint...it's not 42) but have lost the way by dictating the minute, day-to-day actions as one-size-fits-all.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Step off the path, put down the holy book, and stop with the rote formulae handed to you by others as a 'go directly to enlightenment' card. These are human trappings, and if you focus on them, you limit yourself. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, if you see a figure in your metaphysical journey, making their slow way across an ungroomed field of weeds, stop for a contemplative moment and let me join you for a spell. I can't guarantee we'll walk the rest of the road together, but, for a time, we can experience things in concert.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Thank you for reading the 'slightly to the left of normal' ramblings...</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Let's get back to all things Zen. My cursory, slightly mad exploration of the 'net turned up an interesting blog. <a href="http://www.karenlsandoval.com/" target="post">Art Photographer | Life Blogger |</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A special nod to the author of this blog - Karen Lynn Sandoval - for documenting your journey for all to see. I came across your path, and found it absorbing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Karen does many things...including an art form called Zentangle.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I do remember reading up on Zentangles quite a while ago, and my initial, brief scanning of the quickly available data available on the web gave me a completely WRONG idea on what the art encompasses. I thought one simply put pen to paper and drew abstract shapes until a piece of art emerged, following the unconscious design of the creator.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yea - I was completely wrong. About the only thing I got right was the pen to paper bit.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Zentangle follows a very precise set of rules. The area in which you work has to be 3.5x3.5 inches. The paper has to be white, unadorned, handmade or commercially available is the artist's choice, but the less occlusions or texture on the paper the better. The true tangle is devoid of color - only black and white...and no pencils allowed. Mistakes are incorporated into your design. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Create a border first, freehand, so you don't go outside the lines (remember "the lines are our friends?). Then start with a 'string' (a few lines drawn within the border) where you will attach your tangles. You then begin applying your patterns.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And the patterns of Zentangle? - they are many, varied, and precise. People study these patterns. People teach these patterns. There are books and videos and schools for these patterns.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You create your tangle with single-minded focus on the pattern you are choosing, blotting out all other considerations and concerns while you put pen to paper. This encompasses the wonder of Zen - concentration and mindfulness on the moment, crystallizing your attention on the now, instead of the everywhen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Have I said lately that Zen is a beautiful thing?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I may just have to take the essence of tangling, and put my own spin on it. I stepped onto Karen's well-traveled path, picked up a stone, and now contemplate what to do with the pebble in my pocket. I can hear it nattering in my metaphysical ear even now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">With my love of all things 'shop - I can't wait to see what I come up with. </span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-62229301440688580542014-09-20T11:48:00.001-05:002014-09-20T13:30:05.734-05:00What was that again?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8iawJGtYUvrYJDn4mtxcBJ2usSCPtwCgKacaGGoO-uMUlxx-6uRuB_BWsHJDRODRZE64MSPocGRwGSNMF03OpxsAc2VbafXjkD0st5gUrImwOldmJy1Kchx_7ml1KZfem-IArT2EvbzY/s1600/A+bottle+and+hands+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8iawJGtYUvrYJDn4mtxcBJ2usSCPtwCgKacaGGoO-uMUlxx-6uRuB_BWsHJDRODRZE64MSPocGRwGSNMF03OpxsAc2VbafXjkD0st5gUrImwOldmJy1Kchx_7ml1KZfem-IArT2EvbzY/s1600/A+bottle+and+hands+copy.jpg" height="640" width="344" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Did you ever have a really great idea? I'm talking an earth-moving, soul-shaking, supreme-being-like epiphany - something that rocked your entire worldview and was certain to establish the next evoloution in human nature?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ever put such an idea off as 'I've GOT to record this!...but (insert real life situation here) comes first' resulting in going on about your life until the hot idea gets buried in the back of the deep freeze of your mind, to wallow in a slow-death of freezer burn, never to emerge into the warmth of the kitchen again?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yea...me too. </span><span style="font-size: large;">All. The. Time. </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure there are millions of unrealized ideas that once struck me, but I've misplaced in the everyday drudgery of earning enough currency to keep me and mine's carbon-based meat containers fed, clothed, sheltered, medicated, educated and entertained.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I do have a story to share with you today, however. It's an old story, and it comes with another story to explain the story. So get all comfy, kids, and settle down into your blankets and pillows and jammies...because it's story hour.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Although if it takes you an hour to read this post - I may need to reevaluate my excessive use of esoteric verbiage and relegate myself to straightforward vernacular henceforth.</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I had a dream. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yea, it's been done before...but in this case...it's accurate.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't a 'change the world,' M.L.K. type of dream - it was one of those with disturbing, heart-pounding imagery liberally laced with dream-logic. I tend to have a lot of those. Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I'm happier just forgetting them, letting the dream logic fade out like fog on a sunny morning.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This particular dream was determined to stick around without my writing it out, and in defiance of the then-brutal schedule I had running my life.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">See - at the time I was working a very demanding 12 hour shift at a manufacturing plant - 6pm to 6am. It was a mythological-beast of a job (think...Kraken, Minotaur, Dragon, etc...big, demanding, and ready to eat you in one bite for crossing that imaginary line) - half the day spent on a dirty, dusty, noisy factory floor, standing the entire time - cutting big sheets of labels into finished packets of labels, and sorting for flaws as one went through the stacks. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">If this sounds mind-numbingly boring, then I'm describing it right.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But once you learned the job well, you could set yourself on auto-pilot, which allowed for conversations with co-workers (if you could hear them over the shriek of the machinery) or time to let your mind wander aimlessly on whatever subject had caught your fancy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I fleshed out a couple of good book ideas on that shop floor, hundreds of short stories, had countless conversations with myself, and somehow managed to save the world a dozen times over between picking bad labels out of the good ones.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So, back to this dream that I had... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">That sucker was branded into my brain. It demanded more than simple acknowledgement, it arrogantly commanded delivery out of my head to paper (or its electronic substitute). It absolutely refused to be silent, to be patient, to wait for the opportune time to become more than an idea. It was a spoiled brat, throwing a defiant temper-tantrum in the face of the Draconian Job which was interfering with its creative birthing process.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I listened to the incessant whining of this spoiled-brat idea all throughout my work shift, trying to quell the ever-more shrill demands for attention as the night wore on. At about the midpoint of my workday, I started spinning the story in my head as I moved product from point A to point B. I wrote brief notes on my breaks, so I could put the everything together once I had time to sit at the word processor. I knew this one would be a short story - a single, crystallized slice of time - but I was getting excited to put it to paper.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There was only one large problem with typing the story out. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It was the middle of the work week - which meant another 12 hour shift after only 12 hours off . 12 hours to: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Eat. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Sleep. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Bathe. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Dress. P</span><span style="font-size: large;">rep for work. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Family interaction. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Travel to/from work.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Unwinding from the work day by putting an idea to paper was not in the schedule - it wasn't going to BE in the schedule until the work-week was done. Time between shifts was Premium, Ocean-Front, Deluxe 8 bedroom Mansion Temporal-Real-Estate. Unwinding between shifts was <b>sleep</b>...there wasn't spare time for anything else.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So I sat the little spoiled-brat idea down in a virtual chair, and explained the situation. I pointed out the real-life, paper notes I had written out. It received some attention, and tomorrow, after work, was 'us' time until it was properly constructed. I think I even gave it an imaginary hug and wiped away some pretend tears.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Grudgingly, spoiled-brat idea acquiesced to real-life situation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So...I had a little breakfast. Spent some time with the fam. Hopped in the shower. Proceeded to the bedroom to catch some Zzzzz's.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Spoiled-brat idea whimpered in my mind as I composed myself for sleep.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It whistled a bawdy show-tune off-key, while bouncing a fake ball off the supposed walls of my mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I rolled around in bed - shushing spoiled-brat idea, reinforcing the need for sleep. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It lit a bonfire, fanned the flames in my head.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I rolled around some more.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And some more. I think that's when the keg was tapped, and the rock music started thumping out of the speaker stacks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The idea would not settle down enough for me to sleep.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"ENOUGH!" I mentally berated my over-active imagination.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I got up, took a couple of sleeping tablets and went back to bed to let them hit. It was the Pharmacological equivalent of a quick spanking and "Go to your room!" banishment to spoiled-brat partying idea.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It responded by turning UP the music, breaking out the hard liquor and 'shrooms, and inviting the metalheads over to the crib for a 'Wicked Disaster of a Random Fiesta!'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Attention: NOW. No time for sleep, no time for dreams, no time for restoring the body - "you can sleep when you're dead, dammit!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<i>There are times when I really dislike the creative voices.</i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I finally got out of bed at 2. I was supposed to be up by 4, so I figured even if I COULD get to sleep, a bare 2 hours of rest to go work a 12 hour shift wasn't the best idea in the world - especially when you work in a factory using really big and wickedly sharp knives, dies and spinning cutty things powered with 2 TONS of hydraulic pressure.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't about to flirt with amputation...</span><span style="font-size: large;">So I called in an absence to work, and allowed the birthing-labors of spoiled-brat idea to proceed.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Society of this time will say that sleep deprivation is not a good reason to miss a day of work - but that's an issue I'm not going to address in this posting. Maybe later, we'll discuss the finer points of this country's obsession/problem with trading labor for survival and all subsequent judgements - but not today.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The story itself took around a half-hour to write. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A half hour. 30 minutes. 1800 seconds. A good power-nap is quoted at 20 minutes. You can cook a frozen pizza in 15, let tea steep in the cup for 6-8 minutes, and remember to brush your teeth for 3 full minutes 2 times a day.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">30 freaking minutes - when I wasted 5 whole hours rolling around in my damn bed. Why, WHy, WHY?!?!?! didn't I just write the blasted thing before I went to bed???</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Hindsight - it's always 20/20 vision...and I still regularly mentally kick myself in the can for it.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But the story was worth it - let me know if you agree...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">PRISON OF THE MIND</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
pound against the rainbow hued glass walls of my prison beyond the
point of pain, slamming my fists against the unyielding surface until
even my arms grow numb. I scream and beg and plead for mercy until I am
too hoarse to send even a whisper up the funnel shaped ceiling. A
torrent of tears flood from my eyes as I curl up on the bowl shaped
floor. I cry myself to sleep, exhausted both physically and mentally.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
awake oddly refreshed, and suppress the wave of insanity that demands I
continue the cycle, pounding, screaming and crying until I am no longer
me, but some shapeless mass of cringing emotions and nerves ready to be
shaped by the malevolent presence that would free me.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">No. Not free me. Freedom is now beyond my grasp, forever lost to me. Unless. . . .</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I MUST ESCAPE!!!</span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
throw myself bodily against my prison wall, beginning the cycle anew.
My mind splinters into fragments of feelings. Rage, pain, terror, panic
all compete with my rational being for the ultimate control. Control.
What a tremendous joke. I have no control left. That, too, was stolen
from me by my captor.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
feel my hands. The pain gains control of the shattered fragments of my
mind. I focus on nothing but the red hue of my pain. It is a living
thing, sucking my soul, this pain. A dry croak rips from my throat,
demanding attention. Water. I must have water.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
stop pounding for a second, feeling this sensation of having a dry
throat. This feeling, too, seems to be a living thing, capturing my
attention. Without pause, there is a glass in my hand. I can feel the
moisture of condensation on the outside of the glass; it feels cool and
soothing on my sore skin. The water feels good against my dry lips, my
raw throat. The glass is empty, and I hurl it against the wall. The
glass shatters against the prison wall, the shards spreading against the
unyielding collage of colors like water across tile. Before they hit
the floor, they are gone.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">It
felt good, that bit of control. The act of violence snaps the fragments
of my mind to a whole. Yes. For a while, I am free of the madness that
stretches its fingers towards me. I can think, I can remember. I
remember why I am here.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">An
innocent day. An ancient bottle, stuck on the top shelf of an equally
ancient shop, in a tumbledown shack of a curio shop in India. The
beautiful swirl of colors glinting in the dusty sunlight. My longing to
have the antique in my hands. The wide, blackened teeth smile of the
wizened shopkeeper as he takes it from the shelf. The old glass
stopper, made of the same myriad color glass, flaring out from the neck
of the bottle then tapering to a delicate point. Tight, the stopper,
hard to remove. Inside the bottle the scrap of ancient parchment. Giddy
with curiosity, translating the words. Blackness and light. Here.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">A
fire ignites behind my eyes as the rage builds. Remember the words!
Those words trapped me here, those words changed my world, and those
words changed my being. Those words so violated me, those hateful words.
I need to remember them, to scream them out!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I
feel the need to splatter myself against the walls of glass to end this
existence, but I cannot. I traded my freedom for the dream, the unreal.
With those spoken words I imprisoned myself.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #351c75;">I am the genie in the bottle. </span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br /></blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-78883393186551472182014-08-20T21:49:00.001-05:002014-09-05T16:20:03.454-05:00Morphology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2QH83oqIp0Z6VCEUeWzpXGlLcUzThjw_lRwasRmUxDW-t8MNB0lY6qTRdXc5hhhhwIC7IOQfHLGtx10TED7Gub_2gxjzn6BG_0XLf81WsXFwhpqzyk9pcjp9kWnzDnZHmNSioT6-VTa9/s1600/Bowed-head+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL2QH83oqIp0Z6VCEUeWzpXGlLcUzThjw_lRwasRmUxDW-t8MNB0lY6qTRdXc5hhhhwIC7IOQfHLGtx10TED7Gub_2gxjzn6BG_0XLf81WsXFwhpqzyk9pcjp9kWnzDnZHmNSioT6-VTa9/s1600/Bowed-head+copy.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You ever notice when you start a new project, it goes in a different direction than the one you intended when you started it? I started this blog in April, and it's fast-tracked itself into an entirely new being in 4 short months.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>They grow up so fast...</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My initial idea for this blog was rather simple. Take teapot for walks. Put teapot in interesting locations, photograph same. I had intended this to grow into having strangers hold teapot with interesting backgrounds and/or odd positions for visual impact, distributing cards for the blog as an invitation to see what I've been up to... Kind of a "Come to the blog to check out your own picture, come back to see others" concept that would drive internet traffic to my project. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Eventually, this was to morph into Hands Across Wisconsin, aNOTHER blog, where I would focus strictly on hands. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Hands are the way we explore our world. We touch. We feel. When we shop, we want to stroke a potential purchase, to experience the tactile reality of the object in concert with the visual, aural, and/or aromatic sensory inputs. We further reach out with our hands to manipulate the objects around us to better input visual stimuli or create new stimuli to the persons around us. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We use our hands every day in more ways than we can count...from the moment we wake in the morning to composing ourselves to sleep at night...our hands are in constant use. They are THE primary way we interact with the world. And these interactions are so commonplace, we don't even realize we're using them half the time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "This is a hands-on project..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "Hand me that cup, would ya?..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "He's a very handy person..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "I know this place like the back of my hand..." </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "She's all thumbs..."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These, and more, are phrases I want to explore with my camera. There's a whole other world of interpretation out there just by cataloging what we do with our hands, and I want to capture it. This little blog is the prelude to that study.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>And then the reality sinks in..........</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">My brilliant "life-of-a-blog" plan got shelved rather quickly. I took the teapot out for a walk once. </span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>>>>ONCE<<<</b></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We had a good day on my Riverwalk, and it posed in its perky way in the foreground of the waterfall. It was a wonderful spring day, others were out for a breath of (finally!) warm air, and I got some glances, but no approaches. Everyone was content to let me do my thing.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I could feel the attention, though. And that attention was WAY outside my comfort zone.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I like to go in what I call chameleon mode when I'm out and about - nobody notices me until I WANT to be noticed. And it's easy enough to do - nobody really watches the short, round, self-contained woman in rather plain clothing out on the fringes when there are so many other, far more interesting things to focus on. There are days when it's a reach outside my comfort zone to pull out the camera and start capturing images - that, in itself, draws attention.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'm a ninja-wallflower - an observer, a spectator, a watcher, a recorder. And that guise is a very comfortable aspect to wear. I should know - I rarely take it off.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So - approaching random strangers with a teapot and a camera - it just screams "Look at ME!!!!!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not my cuppa. So much for the grand concept.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To find interesting situations to put the teapot in that didn't involve jumping head-first into the aforementioned attention pit - I went immediately to plan B: researching disaster stuff. Fires, floods, tornadoes, volcanoes and weird weather were duly researched online, and 'shop utilized to settle the teapot within the frame. (I will NEVER forget Perch-nado!) Found a couple of interesting things to do with that - the stories of Pele, the Waterspout, the Beethoven post to name a couple...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0uwf3JdHzccwzyUueQznP3MaGCGAue2kwH5PDfF_R-gAZpz_-YuEzWJOXbCSNVcX7-Q5XgHxXYkEZLvARVIwdS-lSc9K_Fj5adu-CtNKEE0uBMAT-wjKPrSOXxugvfdoNZ6Wy1fHoXxE/s1600/Volcano+in+window+seat+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq0uwf3JdHzccwzyUueQznP3MaGCGAue2kwH5PDfF_R-gAZpz_-YuEzWJOXbCSNVcX7-Q5XgHxXYkEZLvARVIwdS-lSc9K_Fj5adu-CtNKEE0uBMAT-wjKPrSOXxugvfdoNZ6Wy1fHoXxE/s1600/Volcano+in+window+seat+copy.jpg" height="320" width="319" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I also crafted this shot (featuring just the teacup on the seat cushion) which was originally intended for the Pele post, but because there's snow on the mountain and I was featuring Hawaiian myths, I went a different direction. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Plan B rolled smoothly into Emergency Concept Plan A once I realized it is far too depressing to see what we humans are doing to this planet, and what this planet is doing to us humans in retaliation (unless you see it the other way around). I'm not here to point fingers at who fired the first shot or drew first blood (such as it is when trying to anthropomorphize the ball of rock we live on) - I'm just observing that we humans are awfully short-sighted in how we're ruining the only thing in the known universe that can support the whole of our race.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Only after the last tree has
been cut down... </span></i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i> Only after the last river has been poisoned... </i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i> Only after the
last fish has been caught... </i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i> Only then will you find that money can not be eaten.
</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i> ~ Cree Indian Prophecy</i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br />
This has to be one of my favorite quotes because it's dead on. We forget about those things that allow us to maintain our carbon-based meat containers, and instead, focus on acquiring as many little green squares of paper as we can. Which is unusual, because the little green squares of paper are happy just the way they are.<br />
<br />
Christianity looks for a person to herald in the end of days - their representative of pure evil in human form (which is a bit arrogant of humanity, if you ask me...) but I figure they're way off. We're not looking for a human to usher in the end of our existence...we should be looking for some<i>thing </i>that influences us in destructive ways.<br />
<br />
</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b>Money</b> is the Anti-Christ - our new God.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Whoa...where did that come from? Morphology demonstrated in a single blog post.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This blog keeps evolving to suit the mood of its author. I really never know what I'm going to write next, or what I'm going to capture in my lens. Sometimes, the story lends itself in the photo I work, sometimes, its the other way around. It's kind of exciting, waiting for the inspiration to strike, and an almost physical need to put it together once it does.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I can't wait to see what pops up next.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-77403819318182577662014-07-24T19:44:00.001-05:002014-10-05T11:09:48.981-05:00Weapons of Mass Distortion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihvbSM4ZllQgFYo_yHgF4GesLtVBrDH2bSghpVIU86F0SRD-Fi1aBB8MTkpjYBXMwd7U8T5de3lsQfesbcelcXcA46JRs7yWq4C-8cwId0C1YlaEvzkPAw9f0_816WSJcbV3HbJNhDM-Gk/s1600/Weapons+of+Mass+Distortion+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihvbSM4ZllQgFYo_yHgF4GesLtVBrDH2bSghpVIU86F0SRD-Fi1aBB8MTkpjYBXMwd7U8T5de3lsQfesbcelcXcA46JRs7yWq4C-8cwId0C1YlaEvzkPAw9f0_816WSJcbV3HbJNhDM-Gk/s1600/Weapons+of+Mass+Distortion+copy.jpg" height="640" width="451" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Brave little teacup. Sad little teacup. Silly little teacup. You thought that jumping out of my bag onto a concrete surface would save you from going in front of the camera again? Not a CHANCE, buster!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've never been one to let a bad-luck situation grind me down. I usually pick up the pieces and re-purpose them. One thing I've learned in my time on this growing ball of rock is if you dwell on the negative, that's what you get in return...more negative. I'd rather attract the positive by taking a bad situation and finding the good in it. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm just a ray of sunshine, ain't I? With altruism like this, I may have to turn in my National Sarcasm Society Membership card...AND the matching tie-tack!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>cold, dead hands, anyone?</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've held onto the shattered remains of my teacup for around a month, and finally dug them out of the travel bag to put them to good use. It's so tough viewing the remains of a deceased loved one. Not to say I won't eventually toss the chunks the next time I de-clutter, but, really, anything can be interesting when captured in JUUUUUST the right way in front of the camera lens.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Once upon a time, in an apartment far, far away (OK, not that far...only 12 miles, but I'm setting the mood here) I had a comedy/tragedy mask combo hanging on my wall. Composed of ceramic with a high-gloss glaze, Comedy was white, Tragedy was black. The two masks were rather austere - no additional decorations, paint, or details - just the bare, shiny faces with empty eye sockets and open mouths. A trio of twisted ribbons were tied at either side of each face, creating a loop in the back to catch a nail strategically hammered into the wall. There was extra ribbon on each side left to dangle - the only 'frill' to the pieces. On the surface, they were pretty standard fare. I found them hanging from the wall of an antique shop, at a reasonable price, so I adopted them and brought them home.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They were happy little masks, full of positive energy, and brightened up my living space with their contrasting white and black features. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have the same weakness for masks (comedy/tragedy, Mardi-Gras, Carnivàle, etc.) that I have for stemware. Anything unusually embellished, uniquely-shaped, or charged with happy energy catches my eye. I find glass/ceramic/porcelain/pottery is a good medium for holding ethereal energies, and even if they are never charged by a practitioner of the artes, can retain the artistic vibes given off by their creator within the creative process.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I even went so far as to create some of my own masks back in the day, when I was enduring a 'bout of clay creativity liberally blended with Star Trek Geek-dom. I made masks with Klingon, Cardassian, and Ferengi features. Decked out with hair (when appropriate) and painted tattoos, they were quite the stunning collection. I hope they brighten the rooms of whomever owns them now, as I've lost touch with my creations.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What? Have you forgotten that I'm slightly to the left of 'normal?'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well... to return to the story... I have 2 ceramic masks hanging from the wall in an apartment far, far away, complete with dangly ribbon things on either side of the faces. I also have a cat. Cats like dangly things. Mine in particular finds dangly things absolutely irresistible. Cats have a perverse need to bat at dangly things...although, with my cat, batting at dangly things is <i><b>why</b></i> he's breathing and converting food to waste products and fur. It's his purpose in this life. Cats also have claws to hook onto the aforementioned dangly things, and sufficient mass to pull them from their secure perch on the wall. Can everyone do the math, here?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I woke one morning to see the black tragedy mask in pieces on the floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> <i>*sob*</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, the tragic irony in this little story is thick enough to warrant its own zip code (plus FOUR!)...but everyone knows, if you live with glass things with dangly bits and a cat, broken glass things and slightly-chewed dangly bits are going to appear...<span class="st"><i>C'est la vie</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6cPyzz-rClK5oZIaI7KEAmefKrYtUBoy8wZMIM1AHotVwoI2U3W9wRCavhufFFvMQi2f-yBPLWFvZ4CeqJf-E2Xrqmdjo_X6z-IUg8iDG63Kk4Z1Z8KS2yoSBbzDELVaNwCvXKghKRSJ/s1600/DSCI0130-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr6cPyzz-rClK5oZIaI7KEAmefKrYtUBoy8wZMIM1AHotVwoI2U3W9wRCavhufFFvMQi2f-yBPLWFvZ4CeqJf-E2Xrqmdjo_X6z-IUg8iDG63Kk4Z1Z8KS2yoSBbzDELVaNwCvXKghKRSJ/s1600/DSCI0130-1.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a> I put the remains away, intent on some day gluing the pieces back
together. When inspiration hit a few months later, I dug them out to run a series of
shots, operating under the assumption that anything can be made interesting when framed in the right perspective. Some of the shots in that series proved my assumption correct. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfeCv-_GVG0Tv-a7CmmvSl8JElvjAPlh6TX061ORb31Grr1XNB8MD2lsFn_2gHs8wvFIs7wrfIYrHL291hJD0j-MQhNgXYPWMNYp0A5G6qYfMdyTMNO2DyYlxMlvTdaZIsq4AcRFyDjog/s1600/DSCI0141.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGfeCv-_GVG0Tv-a7CmmvSl8JElvjAPlh6TX061ORb31Grr1XNB8MD2lsFn_2gHs8wvFIs7wrfIYrHL291hJD0j-MQhNgXYPWMNYp0A5G6qYfMdyTMNO2DyYlxMlvTdaZIsq4AcRFyDjog/s1600/DSCI0141.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a>I shared my favorites on Facebook, tucking the series away on a file in my computer, and stowing the physical remains back in their cubby.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tempus Fugit - time flies - many moons later...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The SQO's band finally had enough music properly performed, mixed and recorded to put out their second album. We settled, after much debate, on an album title of Regeneration as the best fit for the album, due to the bassist being new, and both him and the SQO being HUGE Dr. Who fans. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Of course, the debate in this case consisted of a ton of different titles being tossed about by all 4 band mates and my occasional suggestion, and everyone had to agree on the one that fit the best.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Creativity by Committee is sometimes a long, arduous process.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The SQO and I browsed through my files in search of suitable graphics. The candle/mask series was a natural, as the imagery additionally suggested this rebirth or regeneration, the resilience of not letting a setback stop you, and the emergence of something happy and perfect from the shattered remains of a tragedy. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Two of the candle/mask series shots ended up as the interior cover and the back cover of the new album.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The shot that made it to the front
cover, after I gave the boys in the band 2 dozen different cover
configurations to choose from (Creativity by Committee, take II), was 4 cell-phone shots of the guys taken at their first show as this new-lineup - again, the intent behind the image was what sold all the members of the band. All I had to do for
the front cover was put the pieces together with some text to tie it
together.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifVZir4Nwn5bRDwiqgyN-1XEth7kzZol2nKW-lWYdPfSsfKbTBG38MY1_J41bwymGaZ4yf8DxGQHdC2IbB9ls-dVdYOvDmdi3hl-vYD0LI7p8XysqBywJicU9IBh8BNSg-swDjdDKk2Nen/s1600/Elegy+Cover+-+back2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifVZir4Nwn5bRDwiqgyN-1XEth7kzZol2nKW-lWYdPfSsfKbTBG38MY1_J41bwymGaZ4yf8DxGQHdC2IbB9ls-dVdYOvDmdi3hl-vYD0LI7p8XysqBywJicU9IBh8BNSg-swDjdDKk2Nen/s1600/Elegy+Cover+-+back2.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8JSDIDjcJ4878L-SNTCG2JpMQTq-mshiBO-EDHSioI8_xES8dx_4CHLwqvy2GLBuU6fJwgniV5zAoPhavJ_-iOSi0kJ2yDXJ53BW7kwGpW3POeW7NnaoRLhqg-e0KJKTJvzSTuzKcnKvD/s1600/Elegycover+Regeneration_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8JSDIDjcJ4878L-SNTCG2JpMQTq-mshiBO-EDHSioI8_xES8dx_4CHLwqvy2GLBuU6fJwgniV5zAoPhavJ_-iOSi0kJ2yDXJ53BW7kwGpW3POeW7NnaoRLhqg-e0KJKTJvzSTuzKcnKvD/s1600/Elegycover+Regeneration_edited-1.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjE87718NtaRDiIVr3UIPU0KBtc07h1aeVLsezu8sss-oUG2GHEM9uOgwZuuOw84Qh8tTXRoghIRO-lCATslmc27r2TwEyHqE6yx57MobjRPY7jxAM89jO4bc4XmoYyas3dReGIu320Xn1/s1600/Elegy+Cover-interior-final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjE87718NtaRDiIVr3UIPU0KBtc07h1aeVLsezu8sss-oUG2GHEM9uOgwZuuOw84Qh8tTXRoghIRO-lCATslmc27r2TwEyHqE6yx57MobjRPY7jxAM89jO4bc4XmoYyas3dReGIu320Xn1/s1600/Elegy+Cover-interior-final.jpg" height="188" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I just want to mention here...the candle/mask series was taken with a cheap little point & shoot camera, and edited with the free photo-editing program offered on Photobucket. The front cover was taken from the boy's cell phones - which also don't have the greatest resolution or megapixels. Just to be clear, here - you don't need a bunch of expensive <b>stuff </b>to capture images and turn them into a fantastic project - all you need is determination, drive, and vision.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So the next time that someone tries to sell you some expensive lens, or you run out to have the 'latest and greatest' DSLR body to take FANTASTIC pictures - remember - the gear only captures the images...your inner creative visions are what make them great.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And what happened to the Tragedy Mask? He now has company - the Teacup has moved in with him. Someday, perhaps, the glue will join the party.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-35749825045179215332014-07-19T20:03:00.000-05:002014-10-05T11:16:52.298-05:00Brrrrrr............<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Strange, that I would have a blog post with such a chill-inducing title in the middle of one of the two hottest months of the year - but I have my reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We have two of the oddest methods for raising money in this state - called the Polar Bear Plunge and Freezin' for a Reason. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I still hear of these events, and immediately think - <b>These guys are nuts!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The two charity drives are legendary, annual events in Wisconsin. Both have ordinary people (ordinary....but not exactly SANE) jumping into large bodies of water in the middle of winter...without an impending threat of bodily harm if they don't comply.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Yup...I said it - they do this voluntarily, and ON PURPOSE!</i> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's a mad attempt to convince the people in this state with money AND sense to donate generously to the cause of the jumpee's choice. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The scary part - it works.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The leap is traditionally accompanied by a crowd of well-wishers cheering on the participants while bundled up to the eyebrows and sipping steaming cups of hot chocolate liberally laced with alcohol and marshmallows. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And cookies. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As an aside, here - there is always an appearance of something baked and sweet anytime there are more than 4 people gathered together up here. Cookies. Cakes. Sweet Breads. Muffins. Donuts. Bagels stuffed and/or topped with fruits and/or sweet goo. We do them all. We take our pastries seriously in this state.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> I can handle an obsession with bakery goods (the proof is in my waistband) but the whole jumping into Lake Michigan in the dead of winter in Wisconsin? I don't think I've ever been THAT bored - even when the winchill drops to negative double digits and I'm terrified of freezing to the sidewalk.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'd rather make a dozen chocolate, chocolate covered raspberry cheesecakes with burnt-sugar glaze and chocolate chips. From scratch.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCT1j9VW19nF2XhpdX83kpE3bZ8lpyBcrNmuFr1gd5lqKMFNSk8zVTYh9BwhQuuw_Gi5AvbP_JsudzVLEmArh0MG-4FcLHwNhmmexE2IEmP9wr0DUIJHYY8vN55ODxF8ESA9xLWjX0In83/s1600/A+Water+Flung.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCT1j9VW19nF2XhpdX83kpE3bZ8lpyBcrNmuFr1gd5lqKMFNSk8zVTYh9BwhQuuw_Gi5AvbP_JsudzVLEmArh0MG-4FcLHwNhmmexE2IEmP9wr0DUIJHYY8vN55ODxF8ESA9xLWjX0In83/s1600/A+Water+Flung.jpg" height="173" width="320" /></a>There's a new 'thing' making its way across the interwebz - the Ice Water Challenge. Just another way for someone to do something mildly foolish in front of a camera all in the name of a good cause. This challenge is simple: Video record someone pouring a bucket of ice water over your head and plaster it all over the social 'net. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Like all charitable challenges - there's a request for any and all who see the show to donate generously to the cause of the soon-to-be iced person's choice.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This one ends with callouts - you get to name five of your friends (seriously...I like to think I treat my freinds better than this...) to repeat said challenge in the name of THEIR favorite charity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And thus is born the newest orgy of 'Hey, look at me doing something not too bright!' videos posted on social forums across the globe. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some people get quite creative in their dousing. I saw a guy yell out "Go Big, or Go Home," before loading a large skid mover's bucket with the required ice and water. He got REAL wet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A bunch of firemen used a fire hose (no ice, but that's a LOT of water pressure!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One guy lined the back of his pickup truck with plastic sheeting, filled with ice water, and belly-flopped in.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, of course, you've got the random costumed dunkers - Batman, Ironman, Spiderman, Superman. You'll notice, there are no superWOMEN doing this...our superpowers must be brains.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>present company excluded, of course...</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I laughed when this one guy got three buckets dumped on him - the third aimed square at the crotch. (I'll say again...<i>friends like this...</i>) He started pulling his clothing away from his body yelling 'Oh shit!' Deliberately pulled the waistband of his shorts and pointedly looked down still yelling "oh, Shit!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You know what they say about cold water and men, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Well, now that we have the backstory, details, and research laid out - you can guess where this is going, right? I got called out. I guess I need a new circle of friends.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I really, REALLY wanted to ignore the whole thing, as the only thing making anyone do this is pure and simple peer pressure - and just get on with more important things in my life, like photography and 'shop and the great teacup replacement adventure, but then I had a thought: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The still shots of a large volume of water and ice being flung could be something worth capturing on the camera.</i> </span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Proving once again that I'm more than just a bit weird, more than just a bit obsessed with water and my camera, and that I REALLY need to learn to ignore thoughts like these.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Soooo - 5 gallon container - check. Off to the local Walmart I went, and I can use the container afterwards to store stuff, or donate to Goodwill if I'm feeling the need to de-clutter.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Ice cubes - check. I don't feel the need to keep 50 or so trays of frozen water in my little freezer, but ice is easy to procure in this country. a 5# bag of frozen, semi-uniform cubes is under $2. Consumerism at it's finest!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Cronies - check. I can't run the video, the still-cam and fling water at myself BY myself, unless I've got a couple of clones handy or have suddenly developed telekinesis. (In case you're wondering, the answer is 'no' on both...) Lucky for me, my son, DIL(2B) and SQO were available and willing to help. Strange, the amount of perverse pleasure they enjoyed at the idea - but I'll ruminate over that later...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Set up was easy - give the video to my DIL(2B), give the bucket to the SQO, set up the still cam on the tripod and set to sport mode (just push down the button and WHAPWHAPWHAPWHAP - the shutter will continue to fire off until you let up on the button) and yea...let's do this.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In three............two.............one.... </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1kBBusfm1az411TMSnGcYpYU5A33E2WpodrqJgG_ANNkeM6bcVRnbgZ1Rc3UhIQ7B3PVN_8mdoHzKILcSUfqCEWiDmmmRRzI5l4Kkz7Cy-Il-mO4TDVSQO_HTpTmrB3onNQUxPFs-bwe/s1600/IMG_2617.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii1kBBusfm1az411TMSnGcYpYU5A33E2WpodrqJgG_ANNkeM6bcVRnbgZ1Rc3UhIQ7B3PVN_8mdoHzKILcSUfqCEWiDmmmRRzI5l4Kkz7Cy-Il-mO4TDVSQO_HTpTmrB3onNQUxPFs-bwe/s1600/IMG_2617.JPG" height="425" width="640" /></a></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">That'll teach me to get on the wrong end of my camera lens.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-8641940379581441312014-07-06T22:44:00.000-05:002014-10-05T11:24:20.165-05:00Summertime, summertime, sum sum sum SUMMERTIME<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3iKxCertDjgoQYRgETQyVdUpZBKm2xBV17EVwOMTqV5LXvbUPPgj0WJRQ8fZ8vsjA6nvSRHCaUhMndnSPbQCtvpSgSsenOVjAgsoPwcJcBP1i1iaAi3cUh7AmLmk9oTH0Fi9WGKLGOOj4/s1600/Frozen+Lemonaid+Lake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3iKxCertDjgoQYRgETQyVdUpZBKm2xBV17EVwOMTqV5LXvbUPPgj0WJRQ8fZ8vsjA6nvSRHCaUhMndnSPbQCtvpSgSsenOVjAgsoPwcJcBP1i1iaAi3cUh7AmLmk9oTH0Fi9WGKLGOOj4/s1600/Frozen+Lemonaid+Lake.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ahhh - what better way to enjoy summer than with an icy cold, sweet and bite-y frozen adult beverage? Complete with all the trimmings.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As the teacup is a shattered mess, and the teapot is, at this very moment, cowering in a darkened corner wracked with grief...my martini glass has bravely stepped up to the plate to star in this next blog post.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This was another Goodwill find - there is a slight chip on the edge, but I couldn't let that deter me from snagging this beauty. I only found out after it made its way home with me that this martini glass was a promotional piece for Grey Goose Vodka - and prices range from 10-15 bucks on eBay to $200 for a set of 2 on Amazon. Crazy what people will pay for something deemed 'collectable.' I think I spent two bucks on mine.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Never one to leave a surface plain when I'm in artistic mode, I dug through the net for a bit of learning, got some supplies, and dressed the glass up by etching a pattern into the bowl. I think the crazy branches go well with the pewter vine stem. Unfortunately, with all the cold, sweet, lemony stuff currently occupying the bowl, you can't see the etching. I'll have to show off the etch work when I'm finished with my treat.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is a strange summer for Wisconsin. Usually by this time, we've all closed our windows and doors, cranked the A/C, and are bitterly complaining about the heat and humidity. Traditionally, we have high 80's moving in to low 90's, and the humidity is so heavy you can practically backstroke in the air. Then the heat wave comes, we reach triple digits, and start reminiscing about how wonderful winter is with -30 windchill. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Oh, what I wouldn't do for a cold breeze right now!" murmurs a portly woman industriously fanning her florid flesh with a copy of Vogue. "Its hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk!"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, yes...this happens pretty much every year. Someone goes out and cracks an egg on the sidewalk, the road, the roof, the hood of someone's car, etc., and watches the poor embryonic chicken sizzle to its doom. Sometimes, there are toast points involved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> <span style="font-size: small;">Mmmmm...toast points. </span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But this summer has been fabulous. We've had maybe one day of higher humidity, but it hasn't been all that hot. The weatherman will tell us it's because of having such a long and cold winter that lake Michigan froze soooooooo deep and is still soooooooooo cold, it's having an effect on the temperatures. Well, I can attest to the water of lake Michigan being REAL cold, as I found out when I dipped my toes in on the 13th...but I'd say, just like all weather predictions, he's got a 50% chance of being right on the reason behind our wonderful summer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We're made it through the 4th of July Holiday weekend - America's independence day. How do we celebrate this auspicious event? Like every major holiday in this country, it's gone commercial. We go to a carnival, consume WAY too many foods that are freakishly bad for us (ahem...deep fried Snicker's, anyone?), drink a lot of overpriced alcohol, get on metal contraptions that spin us 'till we're dizzy enough to puke (after the booze and the deep-fried candy bars, this is probably a good thing, in retrospect) and spend a ton of money we may or may not have in reserve on cheap junk or cheaper entertainment.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Oh...and for the finale of this holiday...<b>we blow stuff up!!!! </b></span> <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> <span style="font-size: small;">Can you tell I like this part?</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I got 'volunteered' into more photo projects. I happened to tell the guy who runs the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/WisconsinVapers/" target="_blank">Wisconsin Vapers Group</a> on Facebook that the artwork on the SQO's band page was all my work. His eyes lit up, he started to pant (well, it COULD have been the hot sun we were sitting in), and I believe I saw a bit of drool... I knew I'd just announced an exploitable talent - and that I'd just volunteered for several favors. Yea...I'm a sucker - but making Facebook banners is FUN.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">A little aside on the whole 'vapers' thing - I am one. I have been for better than 5 years. By vaper, I mean I consume nicotine, not by igniting a carbon-based leaf product on fire and inhaling the results of that combustion into my lungs, but by using an electronic gizmo called a Personal Vaporizer (PV). You may have heard them mentioned in the news by a different name: they're called E-cigarettes, E-cigs, ENDS, E-hookahs, E-pipes, E-pens, vape pens, and just about any other E-name someone with half a brain could come up with. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">They're really a neat idea - which, of course, sets a lot of tongues wagging and got a lot of busy-bodies all up in arms...you'd think we were running naked in the streets from the overblown reactions! I'm going to stay away from the politics surrounding my little gizmo, however, because I promised myself I would NOT get political in this blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So let's get back to the blowing stuff up bit. Firework displays are set off in pretty much every town in Wisconsin around the 4th. Yes, there are some tiny towns who gang together to throw their celebrations, but we've got cars and everything - even in the middle of nowhere - so nobody misses out on their chance to watch the skies light up with multi-colored balls of fire and sparks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">It is very 'Murican! to blow stuff up. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've seen good displays, I've seen bad ones. My favorite had to be when I was a teen - they floated a barge out in the middle of Clear Lake in Iowa, and shot the fireworks off that! Imagine thousands of people gathered on the shorelines, some with small fires on private property to keep them nasty mosquitoes away, some on the boat launches in the sodium-lights, some on bridges, some in the lake park - the lake was <i>surrounded</i> by humans - most of them with some source of illumination. Imagine further, if you will, boats on the water, their dim running lights a thousand additional points of light glimmering in the still water. Then the stately barge (ok, I'm waxing poetic, here, by calling it stately...) chugging it's way to the middle of the lake. Watching the other boaters open a path and then close ranks behind the barge was a show in itself, with the promise of more to come...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is NOTHING to compare to being on a boat in the middle of a darkened lake watching fireworks in the sky mirrored in the water. It was a light show like no other!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I always flinch, now, BEFORE I hear the boom of the firework exploding, because being close enough to see the barge meant we were directly UNDER the pyrotechnic, and thus the sound wave reached us FAST. Standing on solid ground, in a crowd, with the technicians a couple of hundred yards away is safer, yes, but somehow less satisfying.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've watched the Rhythm and Booms show in Madison a couple of times (they're a national group who go all across the country) which is timed to music, but it still isn't as phenomenal as those small-town, lake country displays ON the lake...which I will probably never see again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the wake of our country's almost fanatical drive to protect the idiots from themselves, we've attempted to sterilize every aspect of life in this country that 'could' conceivably hurt someone, so I'm certain that the firework display on the lake has been deemed too dangerous to spectators, and moved to a safer locale. A shame, if you ask me, to see the display go the way of the dinosaur.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My worst firework show had to have been one of the last ones I watched in Watertown. Not because the pyrotechnics were bad, but because of the accident. One of the mortars exploded in the canister, on the ground. It was an ugly ball of light, not pretty and spread out across the sky. The crowd saw the light first, then heard/felt the shockwave, then felt the wash of heat from the explosion.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When you blow stuff up, even when you're a professional pyromaniac, sometimes accidents happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">After the blast, the show was momentarily stalled as the technicians rechecked their setup, before resuming the dazzling light show for the crowd's consumption.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I wonder how many other people will recant this story to their children, their friends, their families, as they watch the rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting in air to celebrate the country's liberation from an oppressive government?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Happy Birthday, America!</span><br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-19775332584373405242014-06-15T19:33:00.000-05:002014-06-15T19:33:09.039-05:00The HoneyMoon's over (Lake Michigan)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoblsU7x8BQvkh3y-WyKzUtMz43BAPLY9iwtXZdR_K5JV42_XtsRaqcaoE99QskLykeUD-P80AsuV9KKqhg2yAvFuODX25qqAWbsLgKGZOmG3z1ywHYRydjQ-ifGk0RNun8G9I00EnzIn5/s1600/A+Teacup+HoneyMoon+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoblsU7x8BQvkh3y-WyKzUtMz43BAPLY9iwtXZdR_K5JV42_XtsRaqcaoE99QskLykeUD-P80AsuV9KKqhg2yAvFuODX25qqAWbsLgKGZOmG3z1ywHYRydjQ-ifGk0RNun8G9I00EnzIn5/s1600/A+Teacup+HoneyMoon+copy.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
This Friday, June 13th, 2014 - there was a rare event. A full moon
rising on Friday the 13th. What made this moonrise even rarer was the
coloration - a warm, amber-honey color was predicted for this rising.
Thus, the Honey Moon.<br />
<br />
So, risking all the horrors of
Friday the 13th - and when you're carrying a DSLR camera to the
beach/lakefront that's a LOT of money to be daring the bad-luck fairy to
look away from - the mythos of the full moon causing madness (ok...so
I'm already crazy and didn't need to worry too much about that one) and
my Squidnificant Other's (SQO's) being bored, I dragged him into the car
and off we went.<br />
<br />
Once we got to the lake, I realized I
had forgotten all about the whole 'cooler by the lake' thing, and was
only wearing a light top with no sleeves. Well... Artists always
suffer for their work. My Turn!!!<br />
<br />
We arrived a bit early - sunset was in full swing, but the moon hadn't come up yet. So, as I had some time to kill, I set up on my beach for some sunset shots.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCv44OeAuBeX6RT1AmR6l-4LtUrKUW-g_8x7lGYaDBa2vCmTvJ43IEVgykAfW46WgL4GgSetBCRQMEvv9JvFWGNJQlc1RcCfyx7SFjrGI_LhEtR2abjdEnKgeplxweaoR9ucEix0ht-pDd/s1600/a+Sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCv44OeAuBeX6RT1AmR6l-4LtUrKUW-g_8x7lGYaDBa2vCmTvJ43IEVgykAfW46WgL4GgSetBCRQMEvv9JvFWGNJQlc1RcCfyx7SFjrGI_LhEtR2abjdEnKgeplxweaoR9ucEix0ht-pDd/s1600/a+Sunset.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a></div>
I wasn't disappointed - Mother Nature delivered a very purple sunset...<br />
<br />
My
beach on the Lake (and just to be clear, here, if I've gone to a
location for shots 3x or more, it officially, at least in my mind,
becomes 'mine.' My Beach, my Riverwalk, my Fountain, etc...)<br />
runs roughly northwest to southeast, so I can get both sunset and moonrise on the same location. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I foresee a foray out to my beach in my future...one VERY early morning.. to catch a sunrise.<br />
<br />
As
we made our way up the concrete causeway to the round observatory
extending into the Lake, I found - people. Not many, just a few, people
-as crazy as I am- with cameras extended toward the horizon to catch
the Honey Moon rising. Once again proving that I'm not the only nut-job
in this state, but amongst a small, eccentric minority of slightly
insane nature-lovers. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1WB0vmZDTKApufZU1UbvfqXM4BHeopaf-Nfy5VAHcXjOAsIstQTge6i4zulBZUS-6db2XMIzdKSXwf4Jsv32S6IWnI-B9HCwX3Fwmzx8zXmTMD5HR81xjGGy1AxXcvsMP9NgKh5oHm3N/s1600/A+WE+Energies.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1WB0vmZDTKApufZU1UbvfqXM4BHeopaf-Nfy5VAHcXjOAsIstQTge6i4zulBZUS-6db2XMIzdKSXwf4Jsv32S6IWnI-B9HCwX3Fwmzx8zXmTMD5HR81xjGGy1AxXcvsMP9NgKh5oHm3N/s1600/A+WE+Energies.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
I
snapped away. Moonrise was well in progress, the color was fantastic,
and the camera was singing in electronic joy. Once I took my attention
off the moon - I noticed the power plant further up the shoreline.
Beautiful, the way the reflections hit the water. <br />
Say what you
will about the cost of utilities these days, but I'll forgive them my
high-heat bill last winter for them putting out this spectacular light
show on the shore. But only last winter's bills. This winter, they're
on their own.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ta1GxVG2JSQAHqFf5nkGlZtws99SdemFHwp7OTqmH-N-U_Pv1y_F33cWY1IA0U_hkhH0myH_Px6MFdZVv3QiQFSPHbsLPrk8jKeVNqKH7gDRTo_b9jTtgJak95Ov3-ELmHbY8fVXDRHJ/s1600/A+Dave+holding+the+moon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ta1GxVG2JSQAHqFf5nkGlZtws99SdemFHwp7OTqmH-N-U_Pv1y_F33cWY1IA0U_hkhH0myH_Px6MFdZVv3QiQFSPHbsLPrk8jKeVNqKH7gDRTo_b9jTtgJak95Ov3-ELmHbY8fVXDRHJ/s1600/A+Dave+holding+the+moon.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
Now, I know I've mentioned that the SQO is a musician. As a performer, he's a
natural in front of the camera. I've lost count of the number of
projects he's appeared in - he's always a willing vict...er...volunteer
for whatever insane idea I have involving my camera. <br />
<br />
I'd come
across a number of forced perspective photos on the web - and naturally,
the 'what the hell' just burst out of me in the throes of the moonrise
(who am I to question the strange ideas blooming under the light of the
full moon?) <br />
Several moments of 'just a bit to the right, now raise your
hand JUUUUUUST a bit more, back to the left a hair, turn your head a
little more, lower your chin, NOPE, too much, lower your hand a fraction
of an inch,' produced this ducky little shot. <br />
<br />
And,
as an aside - He was certainly more attentive to the Lakeshore
temperature than I was - June, and he's sensibly dressed in a leather
jacket, hat, and scarf, while I'm doing the whole 'Freezin' for a
Reason' thing.<br />
<br />
Overall, the shoot went well - but I
couldn't tempt the wicked fates of Friday the 13th by getting great
shots without paying the price for my success - even with being under
dressed, freezing my bunz off, and succumbing to the influences of the
light of the crazy-generating moon. (where do you think the term
'lunatic' comes from?)<br />
<br />
Finally, there were no more
good shots to be had. As the moon rose higher in the sky, the amber hue
faded away, until only the standard white moon filled the sky. Quite
pleased with my shots, I quickly packed things up...because by this time
I was shaking more than a bit, I believe I started acquiring a lovely
shade of blue, and the mosquitoes were undaunted by the brisk night air
(in Wisconsin, the mosquitoes grow fur to combat the weather!). <br />
<br />
The
DSLR came off the tripod and into its bag - close and clip. The Canon
with the mega-zoom got looped around my neck. The tripod was folded,
but the legs were still extended. The teacup had its own little bag to
stay secure in, along with a smallish brass chalice I'd picked up at
Goodwill (seriously, folks, if you're ever looking for awesome photo
props that won't break the bank - go to your local Goodwill, St. Vincent
de Paul, or any other resale shop in your area), and they were both
nestled inside.<br />
<br />
We made haste to the car - up the concrete sidewalk toward shelter and warmth, when I heard it.<br />
<br />
A metallic tink. Followed by the breaking of glass.<br />
<br />
<br />
I
had forgotten to zip the bag with the teacup. Both it, and the chalice,
launched from the bag in a misguided attempt to break for freedom. My
poor, brave, foolish little teacup. I guess the pressures of stardom were too much for it. It must have been depressed to never be pressed into service as a container for a hot bath of Earl Grey, surrounded with happy, crunchy bikkies on the side. It ended its life of photographic supermodel-dom on the concrete walkway for the observatory on Bender Beach on
the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXLR9di-to24Fm4XsK0iYjK-0ufsAHw2LZ_J5LLpREcpNZa5S4mUrhIp16r_d8CFPhurSI4270d4bfoairhG6D0gyn0mFMZcFNrGixfJKanmHBtLR_nx7AH0u7P3FUsxb2f3941OgNhWA/s1600/a+nother+teacup.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFXLR9di-to24Fm4XsK0iYjK-0ufsAHw2LZ_J5LLpREcpNZa5S4mUrhIp16r_d8CFPhurSI4270d4bfoairhG6D0gyn0mFMZcFNrGixfJKanmHBtLR_nx7AH0u7P3FUsxb2f3941OgNhWA/s1600/a+nother+teacup.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Rest in Pieces, little buddy. Friday the 13th took you from me, and the Honey Moon is now over... Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-7517825716300180582014-06-04T21:10:00.000-05:002014-06-04T21:10:05.928-05:00Drip, drip, drip...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9kueCDkewXtxu0s9xcdC_qjsc20pLaGD2g8ev7iKkY9cD5KYBtZjVq6DJyGSGNJ4GtZ3BwrukundYnMd7z7goEdibhb_NAIaMqn49_z-wq8nn2rYH_OY-D4l5KZSDYMaTu8U8CWoiv5QE/s1600/A+Drop+5+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9kueCDkewXtxu0s9xcdC_qjsc20pLaGD2g8ev7iKkY9cD5KYBtZjVq6DJyGSGNJ4GtZ3BwrukundYnMd7z7goEdibhb_NAIaMqn49_z-wq8nn2rYH_OY-D4l5KZSDYMaTu8U8CWoiv5QE/s1600/A+Drop+5+copy.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a></div>
<br />
Above all else, a hobby represents fun! If it's not fun, it's not a hobby...its drudgery. I do spend some time on the 'net checking out what others have come up with - and this one has been ticking around in my head for quite some time. It was pushed forward in the creative queue quite by accident.<br /><br />
<br />
My obsession with water continues. This weekend I was handed an opportunity by the Squidnificant Other (my boyfriend's 'stage name' has been Dr. Squid forever...) by a quirky set of coincidences... <br />
<br />
We spend some time together during the week - separated by band practices, work, and about 12 miles. Weekends we spend more time together, when life doesn't interfere. Sooooo....<br />
<br />
Saturday night. We cuddled, we watched a movie, we browsed the web, we did the things that couples do. I finally ran out of oomph around 2am, and curled up in bed, while he stayed up to check a few things. Make some snarky remarks and/or thoughtful dissertations on Facebook. Send out a few emails to the band on rehearsal schedules. Do a bit more research on something that catches his eye on the web. <br />
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You have to realize my S.Q.O. is a fully-functional night person - he works well and has knife-sharp clarity once the clock reaches those early AM hours, and distainfully disregards that the world's standard is sleep at this time. Honestly, he'd be a natural at a 3rd shift job - it's his preferred time of the day...but he tries to keep closer hours to mine, which mirror the old 9-5er job and a sleep schedule to match. What can I say...love makes you do strange things sometimes...like me staying up until 2am and him fighting his own internal clock.<br />
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I'm not sure what caused it, as I was in the bedroom lost in dreams...but he ended up with a wild craving for jelly. Bread. A schmear of peanut butter. And one simply does not ignore the after-midnight munchies.<br />
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Sooo - bread. Check. Next to the microwave.<br />
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Peanut butter. Check. In the cupboard, 2nd shelf, to the left, behind the honey.<br />
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Knife. Plate. Check and check. IT'S SAMMICH TIME!<br />
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Jelly. In the fridge, on the door, middle shelf, about in the middle of the door. EWWWWW!<br />
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<br />
<br />
I have to interject here, quite apologetically, that sometimes, I forget that certain contents in my refrigerator exist, and science projects happen. One day, I hope to evolve a new lifeform that will, in its gratitude from being released from the refrigerator, fix Wisconsin's weather to be 72.5 degrees and sunny year round, with light rain overnight, except on holidays and scheduled camping/photo trips.<br />
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So - frustrated and thwarted (and a little bit disgusted) he ends the life of my little biological colony with extremely hot water and dish soap, and then leaves the jar in the sink filled with water to soak out the overly sticky remnants. <br />
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I'm sure he found something companionable to snack on to satiate the midnight-munchies...but he didn't let me in on the ingredients in his snack-a-palooza.<br />
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<br />
When I got up in the morning, I saw the evidence of the thwarted sandwich. It was sad, really - the peanut butter jar, bread, plate and knife were all poised and ready on the counter, patiently waiting for the jelly to join the sammich party. I feel so bad that they all got stood up.<br />
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And then I saw the jar in the sink. Filled with water and under the spout - which has a slow drip (I gotta keep reminding myself to ask the building superintendent to fix that...) and it struck me...catching a water drop in motion has been on my bucket list (I just HAD to...you realize that....) for a long time. Hello, opportunity!<br />
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I snapped off a series - blurry....blech. Missed the drip...fooey! Shutter speed too slow...indistinct image. Too high...darkness.<br />
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I ran through a lot of variations on settings - always remembering my exposure triangle, until I got one that froze the water in mid-splash. You can see that the drips above the splash are still a bit indistinct, but I got very, very close to what I wanted.<br />
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I see another 'bout of learning on the web for how to correctly frame, light, focus and capture a drop in the throws of the splash - but for a first attempt, I'd say not too bad...<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-88569459486020525882014-05-26T10:04:00.000-05:002014-05-26T10:04:40.832-05:00Water Spout!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3gUHSd-59Sr37ngoaHlxG1vAq8GheJCqQMltl6el__zuOhzjpoA1O2F_zZF3EAy6zBEPAVybrMWckY9Dn1aIgbNGriKnLIZD1x_BpGigIN7kmPq0LLf6QsuHRUz5YcIXpU9L2dNrVkOO/s1600/water+spout+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3gUHSd-59Sr37ngoaHlxG1vAq8GheJCqQMltl6el__zuOhzjpoA1O2F_zZF3EAy6zBEPAVybrMWckY9Dn1aIgbNGriKnLIZD1x_BpGigIN7kmPq0LLf6QsuHRUz5YcIXpU9L2dNrVkOO/s1600/water+spout+copy.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #20124d;"><i>Water Spout</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><span data-dobid="hdw">wa·ter·spout</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><span class="lr_dct_ph">ˈwôtərˌspout,'</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>noun</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>noun: <b>water-spout</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i>a rotating column of water and spray formed by a whirlwind occurring over the sea or other body of water.</i></span></div>
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A tornado...terrifying by itself. But put that swirling tempest of wind over water, and it turns into something beautiful and terrible and fascinating all rolled into one column of water doing what water is NOT supposed to do - defy gravity.<br />
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As you probably know already (but just in case...) I live very near Lake Michigan. Not -I'll just open my front door and fall in- close, but a short drive away close. It's one of the biggest puddles of fresh water in the world.<br />
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I was just browsing the 'net, here, looking for ideas for the Tempest, and I came across an article from last September - we had quite the storm swirling around the lake, and it kicked up multiple water spouts over MY end of Lake Michigan.<br />
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Whoa...how cool and/or terrifying is that - not just one, but two....TWO... the terrible two's, the dynamic duo, it takes two to tango, tea for two (imagine me cackling madly while rubbing my hands together)....TWO enormous columns of water being sucked up into the sky!<br />
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How could I resist a little Photoshop magic?<br />
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Reading the comments left behind by people who actually saw the story the day it was energized by the net...I'm both struck by the humor and sullied by the vitriol.<br />
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My favorite quotes? "PERCH-nado!" (gotta love short and simple...) and "Good thing they don't have sharks in Lake Michigan (stealing the other guy's thunder, yes, but in a roundabout way - kudos for the laff...) My least favorite, albeit still publishable? "Just welcoming Michelle O to Watertown." </div>
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Ugggg...not EVERYTHING revolves around politics, people. Certainly not a natural event - and most certainly NOT this blog. This is all about photography, and Photoshop, and humor and the observations of one slightly-less-than-normal Wisconsinite (that'd be me, just to make it clear).<br />
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I only wish I'd been in the vicinity, and aware it was happening, instead of reviewing cell-phone shots and old news accounts 6 months later. I'd have braved being sucked up into the sky WITH the water for a photographic opportunity like that. <br />
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Guess I have to settle for being good instead of being lucky, eh?<br />
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Personally, I find water to be glorious. I think most people do - after all, we've got poets composing thousands of pages all waxing poetic (well, duh...they're poets...they do that) on the beauty and mystery of this life-giving fluid. We've got writers putting people in situations on, above, and within the water. Photographers take endless shots of the temperament and moods of the seas, rivers, and even the occasional mud-puddle (which reminds me...I did a series of reflections...but later, later).<br />
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We personify water in all its moods - the rough-running river is furious as it strains against its banks. The placid pond was still and contemplative as it reflected the light of the harvest moon. Wisps of steam curled around my toes as I lifted them from the welcoming embrace of my bathwater.</div>
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Frozen, water still fascinates. Take an ice cube of distilled water (so you don't have all the cloudy mineral stuff...) and time-lapse it melting...or go find a video of someone else doing this on YouTube. It's soooo cool (ahem...rim-shot, please?) because its something so normal we don't pay attention to it...unless said ice cube is watering down our drink.</div>
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Frozen water also brings out the child in all of us - we skate on it, we cut holes in it to fish on top of it, or slip a cube down our older-sister's shirt to listen to her shriek (did I ever apologize for that?).</div>
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Heated, water is no less amazing. It's soothing, comforting, wrapping us in warm arms. Heat it more, and it turns to steam, which we use for cleaning and generating energy.</div>
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Water is the most complex molecule on the planet, and we, as humans, are obsessed with it. Could have something to do with 60% of us being composed of it?<br />
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<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>We are all children of the water. </b><span style="font-size: small;">Maybe it's time we all remembered that.</span><b><br /></b></span><br />
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I simply could NOT resist this shot. Officer Mike Madsen of the Kenosha Police department has photo credit on the shot of the dual water spouts (I did find this image both with his name on the bottom, and without - I chose the without version, but I give credit where it's due whenever possible...) and I'll take the credit for that pesky little teapot not being able to resist adding itself to the shot...</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-48425606915742215842014-05-21T19:48:00.003-05:002014-05-21T19:48:59.646-05:00Pigs in Spaaaaaaaaaaace!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qxBwIIA9RHbj7ZXjeXUEoJTZ9rQBOJTLvDJi_qCONIfb38AUYIFDYtZjujj_hzpR25mRAspiFGbhmMJVSX18-5xvfu07a2MlF6s0KWl1PBQd2M6EQi2GCVP2yXlvn0TJnLULqr2NWJaZ/s1600/Pigs+in+space.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qxBwIIA9RHbj7ZXjeXUEoJTZ9rQBOJTLvDJi_qCONIfb38AUYIFDYtZjujj_hzpR25mRAspiFGbhmMJVSX18-5xvfu07a2MlF6s0KWl1PBQd2M6EQi2GCVP2yXlvn0TJnLULqr2NWJaZ/s1600/Pigs+in+space.jpg" height="512" width="640" /></a></div>
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Everyone (well, ok, not EVERYONE...but close enough) remember the Muppet Show from childhood, and a little skit that ran in a host of episodes called Pigs in Space.<br />
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Remember...how it was. Ahhhhh...the 'memory fade...'<br />
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Miss Piggy. Captian Link. Dr. Strangepork. Galavanting about the galaxy aboard the Swinetrek.<br />
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Looking over the wiki article on it, there were 32 episodes, had a host of merchandise to go with it, and reappeared in the albums, comics and books created after the original Muppet Show was off the air. They even played a couple of skits for the crew of the Colombia space shuttle. Art, invading real life - you GOTTA love it!<br />
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Did anyone not love the Muppets? Everyone has their favorites...everyone remembers select bits from the shows.<br />
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My favorite Muppet? How can I choose just one???<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_B2kD0IEtye71PFfd_PHI2lGnsbgDy3Yj0qHDR-GUwInPishjK4AyoW9sa2ZjkdwxcgOEHUayqTQpu7Kx14GT1Equ_6K8ozdvEL5MkQnjBN2nP7ELYLLymvZEDSLPIVvUiUERYcTZZbct/s1600/Sweedish+Chef.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_B2kD0IEtye71PFfd_PHI2lGnsbgDy3Yj0qHDR-GUwInPishjK4AyoW9sa2ZjkdwxcgOEHUayqTQpu7Kx14GT1Equ_6K8ozdvEL5MkQnjBN2nP7ELYLLymvZEDSLPIVvUiUERYcTZZbct/s1600/Sweedish+Chef.jpg" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></div>
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<b> <span style="color: white;"> <span style="font-size: large;">I loved the Swedish Chef, </span></span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ1L1FHcCtgWb4ofXB6oE1enDGrNYgrm0qpG1DGmjJYiIviB2dXrPXlU0fZEcjLgLFAPWEaw3CiflADWDGlQEW1Ap7PSMQQxmFVstiytruN3zzgwJStxA6UZq6MXof7UchXXvjC40w40Ug/s1600/animal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ1L1FHcCtgWb4ofXB6oE1enDGrNYgrm0qpG1DGmjJYiIviB2dXrPXlU0fZEcjLgLFAPWEaw3CiflADWDGlQEW1Ap7PSMQQxmFVstiytruN3zzgwJStxA6UZq6MXof7UchXXvjC40w40Ug/s1600/animal.jpg" height="200" width="183" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Xtv2TM-cOf1MYXYVdMLrwB2xCRukyuWs96R8UMkYfH-F8EPc3uV0Z4LokhpeUGNIzR5fpNwda9azbvEGmelKNpPOYhrsQLDvybOHYraACSNSA8bK6dtBcGhWpig-JsGpWavBUDTLtH4c/s1600/Beeker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0Xtv2TM-cOf1MYXYVdMLrwB2xCRukyuWs96R8UMkYfH-F8EPc3uV0Z4LokhpeUGNIzR5fpNwda9azbvEGmelKNpPOYhrsQLDvybOHYraACSNSA8bK6dtBcGhWpig-JsGpWavBUDTLtH4c/s1600/Beeker.jpg" height="125" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">but I also loved Beaker and Animal. </span></b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnHT4Eo0xlMLy3acZakYpILo6n_2XHMdnh1KmCMTFArWjNnwja2AoDjkzHG7SVaW1Wf0NYpjwCrJd1txTU5h_-0rrJcbUS9yfed8umxr6fAykHlS1sI7vK3qllclu-ZL1lGpRdLrjS2jp/s1600/fozie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnHT4Eo0xlMLy3acZakYpILo6n_2XHMdnh1KmCMTFArWjNnwja2AoDjkzHG7SVaW1Wf0NYpjwCrJd1txTU5h_-0rrJcbUS9yfed8umxr6fAykHlS1sI7vK3qllclu-ZL1lGpRdLrjS2jp/s1600/fozie.jpg" height="190" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: white;"><b>Fozzy tried to hard, and Gonzo was...well, Gonzo. </b></span> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7zs4vGoWU2LFZNBATM6dhqWC_9p_IOxX3_SaXnpgTsXuVVKFg5X2lDJV0hE7eV86iHKNN3B3RzgsSdNe3BGHPSdzBbkt58dj111xqoLj2dB45pS9pDILiEVSa8E-Y8dyl-v-TxBYOvnqQ/s1600/gonzo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7zs4vGoWU2LFZNBATM6dhqWC_9p_IOxX3_SaXnpgTsXuVVKFg5X2lDJV0hE7eV86iHKNN3B3RzgsSdNe3BGHPSdzBbkt58dj111xqoLj2dB45pS9pDILiEVSa8E-Y8dyl-v-TxBYOvnqQ/s1600/gonzo.jpg" height="178" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBuqHUpLDguKA_jbGVk6v2eW0nIpd95Bk3lP3dU8PD_SgdDfLBGP9aeOgmkqWmv2HjlASLGImh2Pf1b-A-5COCtmiDlcScXFoBctIWdLeOE42zPOSM358nfoU1Duvdy-f9tPn1GgMbwBA/s1600/piggy+and+kermit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBuqHUpLDguKA_jbGVk6v2eW0nIpd95Bk3lP3dU8PD_SgdDfLBGP9aeOgmkqWmv2HjlASLGImh2Pf1b-A-5COCtmiDlcScXFoBctIWdLeOE42zPOSM358nfoU1Duvdy-f9tPn1GgMbwBA/s1600/piggy+and+kermit.jpg" height="320" width="228" /></a><br />
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<b> <span style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: large;">Piggy was obsessed with all things Piggy, and
Kermit just wanted to run a good show - and get people to understand it
ain't easy being green.</span></span></b><br />
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There's this photoshop tutorial site I sometimes visit - last month, they had a tutorial on how to make your own planet. <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/02/08/how-to-make-a-photo-planet-from-an-old-baking-tray/">Photoshop Tutorial </a></span><br />
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How can I possibly resist making my own planets?<br />
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<i>**Please read the following sentence in a loud, booming, God-like voice**</i> <br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> I shall call this place Heisen Berg! </span></b><br />
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(is my Breaking Bad Fanboi status showing???)<br />
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So that's where the planet came from on the picture today - and in honor of those valliant Pigs in Space, bravely facing the Chopped Liver monster, swill-shortages, Snako-waves, Dumbo-rays and Dearth Nadir, I found a cute little stuffed pig to float in front.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7950336310741943857.post-5627359878402536582014-05-15T19:33:00.000-05:002014-05-15T19:33:21.509-05:00The Stories of Pele<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNKhhtVFQpxGSNcR9ihj-KNTo2CCeFTBpU7UIspcJOhSogt59wl6Gp5DIN3ClsFHDVjeSUkTUk4UJ_bqJYGxsUSJUk-72TWs8h4HNT0f-mUxsmd6AgfHEBJnqq1K5q5jZ5L0n9FT61X5I/s1600/Volcano+in+window+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKNKhhtVFQpxGSNcR9ihj-KNTo2CCeFTBpU7UIspcJOhSogt59wl6Gp5DIN3ClsFHDVjeSUkTUk4UJ_bqJYGxsUSJUk-72TWs8h4HNT0f-mUxsmd6AgfHEBJnqq1K5q5jZ5L0n9FT61X5I/s1600/Volcano+in+window+copy.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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A Tempestuous event if ever there was one - a volcano in the throes of eruption. I had to delve into the 'net today to find some stories of Volcanic Gods. Hawaii's Goddess Pele - Mistress of Fire - still gets mentions. She's even been credited with a curse on the lava rocks and/or sand taken from her beaches. There's a website and address out there on the 'net that people can share their stories of bad luck and send back that which they have taken from this capricious Goddess.<br />
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Described as "She-Who-Shapes-The-Sacred-Land"
in ancient Hawaiian chants, the volcano goddess, Pele,
was known for her passionate and volatile nature (well, she is the Goddess of Volcanoes, after all...) It is said she lives in the craters of the Big
Island's Kilauea Volcano, and has been sending flaming floes of lava down the mountain to add more land to her island since
1983.<br />
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Pele was among the first voyagers
to sail to Hawaii, pursued by her angry
older sister, Na-maka-o-kaha'i, Goddess of water and the sea, because Pele had seduced
her husband. As an aside, seriously, guys...you do NOT want to trifle with the Goddess of Fire - you irritate her and POOF! CRACKLE! CHARCOAL BRIQUETTE! Talk about a woman who's a serious hot mess!<br />
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Pele landed first on Kaua'i, but every
time she thrust her o'o (digging stick) into the earth
to dig a fire pit for her home, Na-maka-o-kaha'i would flood her out. Pele moved
down the chain of islands in order of their geological
formation, eventually landing on the Big Island's Mauna
Loa.<br />
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Na-maka-o-kaha'i simply could not send the ocean's waves
high enough on Mauna Loa to drown Pele's fires, so Pele at last had a home. Here, she welcomed
her brothers, who still manifest... Kane-hekili as thunder, Ka-poho-i-kahi-ola
as explosions, Ke-ua-a-kepo in showers of fire, and
Ke-o-ahi-kama-kaua in spears of lava that escape from
fissures during eruptions. Her other brother, Ka-moho-ali'i, king of
the sharks,is said to hold the water of life and ability to bring back the dead, and has a special cliff that is sacred to him.<br />
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Legends about Pele, her rivals and her lovers are plentiful.
Most of the lovers she took were not lucky enough to
escape with their lives when she hurled molten lava
at them, trapping them in odd misshapen pillars of rock
that dot volcanic fields to this day. <br />
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One lover who proved a match for Pele was Kamapua'a,
a pig-demi-god who hid the bristles that grew down his back
by wearing a cape. He and Pele were
at odds from the beginning; she covered the land with
barren lava, he brought torrents of rain to extinguish
her fires and called the wild boars to dig up the land,
softening it so seeds could grow.<br />
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Pele and Kamapua'a raged against each other until her
brothers begged her to give in, as they feared Kamapua'a's
storms would soak all the fire sticks and kill Pele's
power to restore fire. In Puna, at a place called Ka-lua-o-Pele,
where the land still shows marks of a titanic battle, legend says Kamapua'a finally caught
and ravaged Pele. The two remained tempestuous lovers until a child was born, then Kamapua'a sailed
away and Pele was free to once again pursue and punish lovers at her whim.<br />
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To this day, tales of Pele's power and peculiarities
continue. Whispered encounters with Pele include those
of drivers who pick up an old woman dressed all in white
accompanied by a little dog on roads in Kilauea National
Park, only to look in the mirror to find the back seat
empty. Pele's face has mysteriously appeared in photographs
of fiery eruptions, and most people who live in the
islands-whether Christian, Buddhist, Shinto, or other-speak
respectfully of the ancient goddess. After all, she
has destroyed more than 100 structures on the Big Island
since 1983, and perhaps even more awesome than that,
she has added more than 70 acres of land to the island's
southeastern coastline.<br />
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How does Pele like her tea? I'm guessing she likes it hot, black, and sweet, with no cream or lemon.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01958512111256028520noreply@blogger.com0