I’ve been continuing my photo shoots to document various aspects of rural life in Kansas and spotted this sign in a yard in Peabody on Saturday. I don’t really know why, but it just made me smile. More from last week’s shoot to come…
Category Archives: humor
Googling myself
From time to time I make a point of googling around to see if I spot any unlicensed photo uses or even licensed uses that I just hadn’t seen reported yet. This time I turned up something even more interesting:
I found this photo, provided by a Sharon McClure, on a Ripley County, Indiana geneaology site. You can learn so much by googling yourself. In this case, I’ve learned that, not only will I die in 1872, but I will also invent a time machine. Or at least own one… or borrow one for a day. Why I’ll visit 19th century Ripley County is a still a mystery. I guess I’ll just have to wait for those details to unfold.
I also did find a couple of interesting photo uses. My shot of the lighthouse in Grand Haven, Michigan turned up on the CNBC site, and this one from Kalamazoo appears on Forbes.com. Congrats to Grand Haven/Holland for being named one of America’s happiest cities and to Kalamazoo for being named one of the best cities for doing business. And thanks for providing me a little business along the way.
Now, off to start googling for time machine plans…
Elephant Conservation Center
It’s happened to all of us. We take the family elephant down to the river to wash off the accumulated sludge of winter from her undercarriage and, next thing you know, a water fight breaks out. Afterall, you’re sitting on the world’s greatest water pistol, right?
Day three in Thailand and it’s a visit to the Elephant Conservation Center at Lampang.
South Dakotasaur
Well… it was a pretty grey trip to the Black Hills. It was either raining or about to rain for four straight days. I still hold to my previous statement that the area is beautiful even in bad weather but, when you’re selling stock to travel publishers, most people like to see sunshine. Oh well. I did get some shots that I like that I’ll post here soon but I’m starting off with the dino sculpture that I ran across on Saturday while driving the length of South Dakota — just as the skies were beginning to break.
Wouldn’t you know it. Blue skies for the drive home.
Feline design?
Bear with me here… this is science.
Since we’ve moved into the new house, I’ve been noticing some interesting behavior in one of our cats, Nacho. This funky area rug used to be in the office so the cats have never seen it before. Now that we’ve reintegrated the office into the house, it has found its way into the new living room. Mostly the cats pay no attention — they have plenty of other new things to explore — but a few days ago I found Nacho sitting exactly in the center of the black circle (seen in the bottom left here). Thought nothing of it. A day or so later, there he was again. Smack dab in the circle. Now I’m finding his toys left in the other circles on the rug (as seen above, top right). Is he placing them there purposefully? I think I’m going to start logging my findings in case this turns out to be some major discovery.
See? Even while I was taking the photo above, he comes over and sits on his black circle. He’s a little off center this time but we’ll give him a break since I was distracting him.
There’s definitely something going on here. This cat seems to have some sort of design sense that forces him to place his toys — and his butt — within a composition. I’ll keep you posted on my findings as I am sure you are as amazed as I am.
Oh, and that yellow arc at the bottom of the second photo? It drives him NUTS!. He attacks it like his life is in the balance.
Maybe he’s just strange…
Stating the obvious
Sign spotted today in the window of a restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I don’t know what else to say.
Anyone for ice skating?
Dear city water workers,
I don’t want to tell you how to do your job — and I’m sure that you gave this a lot of thought — but… when the overnight lows are predicted to be 20 degrees below freezing do you really think that it’s the best evening to open the fire hydrant in my yard and let it gush for a few hours? I’m just sayin’.
Oh, and if you see the phone company guys, tell them I LOVE what they were doing with the underground lines last Fall. They will come back in the Spring to fix the massive holes they dug, right? Again… just sayin’. Might make mowing fun come Summer.
Your loyal tax-paying customer.
Odds and ends…
It’s been a busy week with not much time for blogging but I thought I’d add a few links to things that I’ve seen in the last few days that are of interest to the frequent traveler…
• United Airlines is starting a new policy of charging for a second checked bag.
• There was this news that the TSA was insisting that all electronic devices be removed from bags when going through security. Then this clarification on the TSA’s blog. Who knew the TSA had a blog?
• A possible answer to that portable computing device I’ve been wanting? (can you take a possum carcass as carry-on? Would that count as your one personal item?)
Korea, batteries & kinnearing
I’m still tinkering away at my new website. Today I’ve added the first gallery to the images section. I chose to start with a gallery of photos I took in South Korea and will be adding others soon. This one is a multimedia slideshow but others will be more traditional image galleries so that there will be something for every bandwidth. I’ll let you know as others go online but I imagine this will be an ongoing process.
A couple of other items of interest: First, there are new regulations going into effect today for those flying with lithium batteries. There is some information about this on the TSA site. Also this information on SafeTravel.dot.gov. The basics seem to be that you can’t pack spare lithium batteries in your checked luggage anymore. You can still have them in your carry-on luggage as long as they are packed correctly and meet the other lithium content requirements. More joy at the airport. I guess I’ll no longer be cutting down on the weight of my carry-on by checking my batteries.
And lastly, this item from the New York Times’ site on the buzz words of 2007. It seems a couple of new photography-related words cropped up this year. My favorite? Kinnear:
kinnear v.
To take a candid photograph surreptitiously, especially by holding the camera low and out of the line of sight. Coined in August by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee of the Yarn Harlot blog when she attempted to take a photograph during an encounter with the actor Greg Kinnear at an airport.
I do that all the time (just not of Greg Kinnear). Now I know what to call it.
New year… new blog
Here it is, almost 2008. Just down to hours, really. Almost time to crack open the bubbly. I know… that’s not REAL bubbly — it’s a lovely bottle of Rat Bastard soda that I enjoyed a couple of months ago at Pops on Route 66 in Arcadia, Oklahoma.
And what better way to start the new year than with a brand new blog? Bear with me while I work the bugs out of this thing and my new website. Lots of work to do yet. I’ll try to keep the mess to a minimum.
Enjoy New Year’s Eve, everyone. Drive safely or don’t drive at all. I’ll see you back here in 2008!