Category Archives: ramblings

Election night

road

I’ve been off the grid for awhile so let’s catch up…

I spent Tuesday night (election night) in a great little log cabin in northwest Arkansas. This was my driveway. Yes, there was a TV. No there was not an antenna or cable — just a DVD player. Happily, there was a wifi network at the nearby lodge so I spent some time down there, watching returns and downloading email. One of the emails I received was an application for a visa for an upcoming trip to China.

Backing up a little further… I had received an invitation to a press trip in China on Friday and was asked to provide some information. I emailed that off and waited for the visa application to be sent to me. Sunday, I left for Arkansas but I took my passport along — just in case I needed to reference my passport number while I was away. Lucky I did, because I needed to send my passport to LA along with the application. I also needed to send a passport-style photo. A photo that I did not possess. This was Tuesday night. The package needed to be in LA on Thursday.

Thanks to a PR person I was traveling with, I was able to get directions off of his GPS to the nearest Post Office in Harrison, AR, where I could get a passport photo taken. I figured I could mail the package from there, too. I had already picked up an overnight envelope and postage when I was in Fayetteville earlier on Tuesday.

But wait… I also have to print out the application that I had received by email so that I could fill it out and include it in my package. Again the PR folks came to the rescue, arranging for me to gain access to the lodge’s office early the next morning to use their printer. Sweet.

The next morning I printed the document and excused myself from the press trip to make a run east, over to Harrison. It was fortunate that I had driven on this trip and not flown as I had my own car. Once at the Post Office, I had my photo taken and assembled the rest of the package. As the postal worker filled out his paperwork, he said, “Okay. This is guaranteed to arrive by 3:00 on Saturday.”

Saturday?

Turns out Harrison doesn’t have an airport so their “overnight” packages have to be driven to Little Rock. Time for plan B. Where’s the nearest Post Office that CAN deliver a package overnight? Fayetteville. The same Post Office where I had purchased the postage. Well west of my beginning point on Wednesday morning.

A call to my press group to let them know what was up and it was off to Fayetteville. I dropped off the package and headed back east to catch up with my tour. I finally arrived at Eureka Springs around 1:45, fifteen minutes before the next item on the itinerary and about 7 hours after leaving the cabin that morning. Whew!

And the trip to China? It begins next Saturday. Just seven days away now.

And I forgot to mention that I did manage to hear the election results on an AM oldies station in the cabin Wednesday morning. Obama’s win was announced right after they played a Carpenters’ song.

For sale

exterior

For the last week or two, my daily routine has started around 3:00 am with office work, a 30 minute drive to the old house after sunrise, and painting and scrubbing the place until dark. Drive home, check emails, put out any fires that flared up during the day, and collapse into a coma-like state under a cat or two. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Yesterday we met with our realtor and signed the papers to officially put the house on the market. This was our first house, one that we’ve owned for more than 20 years. We’ve done a lot to it in that time. When we first saw it, it was carpeted in green shag and covered in shiny panelling with pink-painted trim. Acoustical tile was tacked to every ceiling — and some walls.

It’s been a great house for us but it’s time to move on. Now it’s some other family’s turn to make it their own. The house is 110 years old now and I feel we’ve left it with a good chance at 100 more.

parlor

entry

tin ceiling

mantle

Feline design?

Bear with me here… this is science.

rug

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.

Nacho on the rugSee? 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…

Moving: phase one

parking garage

As of this past weekend, the office has officially been moved to its new home in Lawrence, Kansas. The house move will follow in a few weeks so we’ll be commuting in the interim.

There are lots of shots that I always intended to take in Topeka but never got around to them. For instance, I have an open invitation to photograph the State Capitol from a downtown dweller’s rooftop penthouse but there has always been some form of construction in the way and the time was never right. Other shots have withered away because I just never made the time for them. Sad. It seems it’s hardest for me to capture what is nearest to me.

On my last day of officing downtown, I had a quick shoot in the 700 block of Kansas Avenue. As I walked back to the office afterward, I made the time to go to the rooftop of a newly built parking garage that I had been wanting to scout for unusual skyline views. I found some interesting angles on the Capitol and this view of a lone car on an adjacent parking deck also caught my eye. I’m not sure why but it felt like it somehow fit the feeling of my last day in the city.

Situation update

constructionAgain, my apologies for the limited posts and all of the other ways that I’m neglecting my friends and family. Progress is moving along at the new house but it’s taking a lot of our time right now. Along with the work that we’re doing to ready the old house for the market and the “real work” that we have to fit in to pay for all of this, let’s just say it’s been busy. Real busy.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. We may be starting to move in by the first of August. Don’t worry, change of address cards will be in the mail shortly. Oh dang! I have to get those made, too!!!

Painting the outside of the old house today. Since the ladder has to rest inside the neighbor’s fence, let’s hope they keep the dog inside…

Bear with me. Normality (such as it is) will return soon. Oh — and I almost forgot. Yes, I am excited about the new Nikon D700. I barely caught the news of it in all this chaos but what I’ve seen so far looks great.

Self-serving horn tootin’

Native American dancers, Cortez, CO

It’s been another busy week but one filled with good news. Not least of which was that the above photo of Native American dancers at the Cortez Cultural Center in Colorado earned me the “Photographer of the Year” award from the Central States Chapter of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). Thanks, folks!

All good news on the new house front as well. The inspections haven’t turned up any horrifying secrets and we are scheduled to close next week. Various contractors have already been lined up to meet us at the house soon after. We only have a week to get some bids going before we head for Michigan for a week of shooting and story research. I’ll be home for one day after that before catching another plane to South Carolina where I will be giving a presentation on digital photography workflow and image management. Hopefully, by the time I’m back from that trip, we’ll be ready to get things moving on the new house in hopes of moving in later this summer.

Crunch time

View from Mt. Magazine

Sorry for my absence this week but it’s been hectic to say the least. I’ll (hopefully) appease you with another weather shot from our stay on Mt. Magazine in Arkansas last weekend.

While we were away, the sellers lowered the price on the house we had had our eye on. We already knew about the lower price and were supposed to take another look inside as soon as we got back in town but now the whole world (okay, maybe an overstatement) knew about it and we were worried that someone would put in an offer before we had the chance.

Anyway, long-story-short, we got home and saw the house again on Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon we were putting in an offer and by Wednesday we had ourselves a deal. Things still hinge on the results of a few inspections — Friday’s sewer scoping was lots of fun — but it’s looking good. It’s great news but it has made a busy week even busier.

Still haven’t had a chance to even look through the Arkansas shoot yet. Once I do, I’ll post a few more here.

Memorable meals, part 2

Me as a monk Yesterday I wrote about the amazing kalbi dinner I’d had in South Korea two years ago to the day. Today, I’ll once again go back two years to the next evening when I participated in the Beomeosa Templestay program.

In the morning we had traveled to Busan and, after spending a couple of hours exploring their amazing fish market, headed over to the Beomeosa Temple where we would spend the next 20 or so hours living among — and learning about the daily life of — Korean buddhist monks. The first task was to dress the part. Here I am after donning the provided gear (the t-shirt and socks were mine).

Believe it or not, a short Powerpoint presentation came next that explained a bit about what we would be experiencing during Templestay. Soon after it was time for Balwoo Gongyang, the communal Buddhist meal service. We were each provided a stack of bowls wrapped in white cloth and we were led in single file through the temple grounds to the dining hall.

Temple dinner Balwoo Gongyang is no simple event. The entire process was described to us in detail by a young monk. He began by getting us properly arranged and sitting on the floor in four rows. Once we were arranged, it was time to arrange our bowls and other utensils that we had brought with us. There were four bowls and they each needed to be placed in a certain position in front of us and each had a specific purpose. The nested bowls were removed one by one using the thumbs only and placed in their correct spot without making a sound.

I’ll skip ahead here because dinner took several hours due to the lengthy description of each step. I’ll just say that you were to take less food than you needed to be full, you were to eat everything you took, the bowls were rinsed one into the other in a specific sequence, scrubbed with a radish slice which you then ate, and the wash water was then poured into a large pot that was circulated around the room. If there was any food particles remaining in the water when everyone had finished, the water would be divided among all of us to drink. The idea was to teach young monks (and in this case, us) not to waste. And, believe me, we didn’t waste.

Temple crafts

After the meal, we had a surreal arts & crafts session with the monks and made paper lotus lanterns out of paper cups and candles. It was dark by now and we went outside where our candles were lit (my lantern immediately burst into flames and was destroyed entirely) and we paraded through the temple grounds passing a variety of huge golden buddhas in small buildings along the way.

Back inside we had a lengthy tea ceremony with teachings on buddhist philosophy and we were finally led off to our communal rooms for the night where we slept on the heated wood floors just as the monks.

While the meal was not memorable in the same way as the kalbi feast of the day before, this was definitely one experience I will never forget.

Lantern walk

Memorable meals, part 1

Kalbi cooking

Today has been a catch-up day. I’ve prepped over 500 images from recent trips for submitting to my stock agency and compiled over 1200 photos to send in to the US Copyright office as part of my ongoing effort to keep my registrations current. Add to that the installation of various system and software updates and it’s just been one of those mind-numbing days that have to be endured.

While shuffling around all of these image files, I made a realization. I just happened to notice some photos that were dated exactly two years ago today from a trip I made to South Korea. Two years ago today, I had one of the best meals of my life. Happily, I had recorded it with my little Panasonic LX-1 — see the image above.

By March 30, 2006, we had been in Korea for 5 days and had eaten about every kind of dried and/or processed fish (and various sea-dwelling invertebrates), sprouts, leaves, and the always-present kimchi that you can imagine. Kimchi, I would say, is an acquired taste and our stay in Korea was not long enough for me to develop a full appreciation. By the time we reached this point in our trip I was ready for something a little more substantial.

We arrived in Daegu after a morning of Buddhist temple touring and walked into an all-too-familiar looking dining room in a small restaurant on an unassuming side street. Pale grass-cloth wallpaper, low tables with inset charcoal burners, and a hardwood floor with pillows in place of dining chairs. The tables were covered in small bowls of side dishes that included various sprouts, mushrooms, processed fish, pickled things, and — of course — kimchi. Pretty much the setup we’d come to expect by this point.

What came next was unexpected — at least to me. We were having a very special local Kalbi, or barbecue pork, marinated in herbs and spices. The meat was dropped onto the hot grills at the center of each table and the aroma began to hint at what was in store. The result was — as best as I can describe it — the best bacon you’ve ever tasted in your life. Thick, meaty chunks of herb-marinated bacon.

I’ll stop here because to describe it any further would be cruel. I’ll post part two of “memorable meals” tomorrow. It will describe the dinner I had the very next day. And it couldn’t have been more of a contrast…

Anyone for ice skating?

fire hydrant

runoff from open hydrantDear 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.