More Color Shots

The past two days have been absolutely delightful. The comfort index when you add the humidity and the dew point together and the number is below 115, then you are in absolute delight territory. Yesterday, the total was 102. I went out yesterday because I thought that I had heard the weather service say rain today, but after checking again, the next two days will be good before the killing wind and cold rain take down a lot of the leaves this weekend.

So, probably, if I feel well enough to get out before my trip to the vampire on Thursday so that the cardio plumber can have his lab reports on time and the cardio electrician can check my battery while there, I just might go looking for some holiday decorations, too. The guys who hang lights have been working for a month or more already in the Park Cities and North Dallas. Personally, I'm happy with TXU telling me that I am 56% more economical than the average home of like characteristics. I have long known that Edison bills are a scam anyway. I carefully watch my useage and compete with TXU for prize money at the end of the month. The prize, a lower electric bill and I keep the money!!  It comes to mind that my billing cycle this December is for 34 days. Five days longer than the past two months. Why on earth do the electric utilities extend their billing cycle in the one month when people with families are trying to live, put food on the table and buy their kids Christmas gifts? It makes no logical sense at all. You cannot even justify that regardless of how you try. It's just plain greed and arrogance. The Public Utilities Commission will generally site with the utility in a case like that.

I recall in the primary elections someone asking me how I would vote this year. Frankly, I let them know that if you are an incumbent, you would not be getting my vote. Then, in early voting, I'm coming out of the polling place and a young candidate walks up to me right at the polling limit that is designed for separation of candidates and voters going into the polling place and says, "Hi, wanna take a picture with me?" I said, "NO". The young candidate then said, "Why not?"  I replied, "Because I don't like you." It must have been the first time that the guy ever got a direct answer to anything because it was obvious that my answer had shook him to the core. Quickly, he regained some equalizing sense long enough to put his foot in his mouth more solid by saying to me, "Don't you like my brown skin?" For him to go there with me was not only a validation of why I didn't like him, but a clear view of where his arrogance and center of perception was focused for me to not like him in the first place. Long ago, my parents taught me that when you make a little incision on the skin, we all look alike inside and the only thing that separates us generally, is what we do with our brains and how we treat our fellow humans and animals. It is really a simple thing to master. Hate is an evil tool and far to many people have used that tool in the past and are using that same tool today.

So, some of you are wondering how I went from comfort zone readings to utility scams to a young political candidate who immediately sees people by race rather than as human beings. It really is not that far off base. Weather comes and goes. It changes when seasons change because of the sun's angle on our planet and holidays are when the scam artist come out. The elections come spring and fall for the most part if some special election does not gets slid into the works along the way. But, all-in-all, we are like an old 8-track that just keeps playing over and over. I've come to realize that there is probably a few more dimensions in the universe than the know about and that a parallel universe is not so far fetched when you stop to really examine nature close up. Photography does that in a way. It allows you to see things, but it also allows you to see things differently in a different light (pardon the pun).

Thinking as I walk sometimes, I wonder how I got so old so fast. It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in a senior history class in high school when the news started coming in over the PA system in the class rooms without comment about the JFK's death. That was 53 years ago last week.

 I  also remember Neville, the most exciting college professor that I ever had. He had made a career out of doing translations on the works of Shelley. When he went back to his London flat during the summers, he would write to me. He had the most amazing cards that he used. They were copies of actual paintings that hung in his families country estates. I had a collect of them that I cherished. They were lost to a divorce. But, most of all, they taught me, like my parents, about people and that made a very successful life for me. So in my mind when I am out creating imagery, there will be more than one vision going on in my head. Neville's cards, mom and dad, a more youthful me and then I spot an image that for me, will bring all those things together. There has actually been a more subtle change in my work this past year and overall, I am very happy with what has been produced.

Those who follow my work from a artist viewpoint notice. What more can I ever wish for than for someone to admire my imagery and actually "get it". Now, that is a WOW factor. Here are a few more WOW factors from yesterday and the day before.

Don't forget to click on the image to enlarge all three.

What must he be thinking?

Reminds me of a sandy beach along the Grand Strand.

Iraj is a photographer from Houston. I could not resist. We all had a good laugh later.

 There will be more posted yet, today.

Downy On Wing, But This One Is a Woodpecker

Village names in the United Kingdom are unusual to us but to a Brit, it makes logical sense. Not perfect, but logical sense. My friends, Pauline and Tim, Mo-T, and Madeleine have tried to explain some of the meanings of the villages with interesting names.While Pauline and Tim and Mo-T live in the Cotswold's, Tim was from South Hampton and Madeline lived in Poweys, Wales.

 Most of the time it is a river (e.g., Stratford-upon-Avon) or an area that is known by the locals for something made or found in the region. Neville maintained a flat in London for years and when the semester or later-on, quarters  ended in May, he would go back across the pond for the summer. He traveled and would write during the summers. He was very versed in such things about the Brits way of life and would share it freely.  Of all my college professors, Neville was one you just could not get enough.  If it wasn't his writings, it was how he became so interested in American Jazz, or how to select a quality brandy. His list of friends in Parliament or with the Crown was well documented, but it was his way of explaining things that captivated me about him. To this day, I think about a lecture or his accent of certain words.  His Christmas Cards came yearly, usually of paintings that hung in one of his uncle's or family homes. I think about them, too. Sadly, they were lost in a divorce years ago and remembering the art work is now lost today.

Friday, while sitting at a picnic table, my thoughts were on why one of the boat clubs do not project out the restoration of the 'in-place' Marine  Flag Pole standing a few feet from me. Most people do not even know that there is a Marine Flag Pole at  White Rock. One time in the past, that question was put to a couple of  Corinth Boat Club members. Both of the members were totally unaware that it even existed.  With the sailing clubs present and the rowing clubs gaining momentum, it is a cause to imagine why one of the clubs are not being the keeper of such a key marine feature already standing idle in ghostly fashion on East Lawther.

The Marine Flag Pole as it stands currently.

One of the two Downy Woodpeckers. The other one was higher up in a adjacent tree.

Gazing at the pole, there was a lot of pecking going on above my head. Looking up, it didn't take long to see not one, but two, Downy Woodpeckers busy at work pecking on branches and limbs. After about sixty shots, it was on to Dryfuss Club to shoot the dried reed beds. The reeds are ready for picking and if you have ever driven 17A between Charleston, South Carolina and Myrtle Beach, you have seen the fantastic roadside sheds were women weave some of the best baskets ever made. The reeds at White Rock are the same type of reeds found along the inter coastal waterways before they mix with the marsh tidal floods of salt water.  So, it's not Downy on Wing in England, nor is it part of the coastal Grand Strand, but the little downy woodpecker deserve a look.