Life – 33N / 105W

A New Direction …

After several years of inactivity here on the blog, I’m back. This lack of attention was not even for any good reason other than the normal distractions of life. You know how it is to get caught up in the daily chores and various projects; those times when you’re not truly busy but just doing busy work. Plus, like most of you who write, either in a journal, a blog, or your work I have writer’s doubt when I confront the “blank page”. As you’ve discovered, the cure for that is to simply start writing but that is easier said than done sometimes. Right?

In order to find inspiration, I’ve done a lot of reading, refreshed the look of this site, and changed the name to align with my other media sites. I also plan to change the nature of the content here, away from being photography-centric to more of a general interest platform. I’ll be keeping up with news and technology improvements to better reflect our rapidly changing world.

Also, after almost 20 years of an “almost” obsession with photography and digital cameras it’s become more of an afterthought, not even a hobby. Back then I always had a camera with me. Now it’s just my iPhone which is the only camera I own at the moment. But now I’m ready to get going again, and even caught myself browsing B&H Photo this morning.

Part of the new theme is the header image, just a sliver of the entire image, but still interesting, and it’s intriguing that it was generated by AI (Artificial Intelligence)! The detail, and the light and shadow are very well done. I normally prefer to use my own photos, but I had nothing that was even close to what I was looking for so I downloaded it from https://pixabay.com. Pixabay is an online image site that offers over 1500 free and royalty free images, and that is their mission, Free Images. There, I found a 4096 x 4096 pixel image that was almost exactly what I had in mind for the header and just needed cropping to the right shape and size.

Coming up next … a brief look at AI unknowns. Will they determine whether it turns out good or bad.?

Losing Sleep Over Daylight Savings

Tap – tap … tap – tap … Our little maltese, Sophie, is tapping on my shoulder telling me it’s time to get up. Noooooo … it can’t be, it’s only 5:15 am. It’s just that by her internal reckoning, it is (what used to be) 6:15 am and we’re late. 🙂

I really don’t like daylight savings time. Switching our clocks twice a year seems senseless to me … Spring Forward … Fall Back … no thanks. I’d rather just pick one time and stick with it. (May have to move to Arizona.)

Our little dogs, of course, have no concept of time and could care less what the clock says. However, what they do seem to have is an innate sense of when certain things are supposed to happen each day. For instance, they’re normally bugging me a few minutes before the time I normally feed them. So even though they can’t tell time and have no sense of it, Daylight Savings does affect them … or rather, it affects me.

We normally get up around 6 am, and if I happen to sleep in a little bit, Sophie (the little one) will be bugging me to wake up, get up, and take them outside. This year, since daylight savings ended, she’s been waking me an hour early at a little after 5am every day. Just a week ago, 5 am was 6 am and she doesn’t care what the clock says … she knows which part of the day it is regardless of what numbers the clock hands point to, and she lets me know it. I guess I just need to go to bed an hour earlier so I can get a full nights sleep, or maybe just a longer afternoon nap … yeah, that’s it. :-}

… A Long Road Home

In late 2017, I was driving from New Mexico to Oklahoma to visit my Dad, who at age 95 was in a nursing home, and having severe medical problems. Shortly after I started the trip I was notified that he had passed away. About an hour later, I was gifted this beautiful sunset which now serves as a poignant reminder of my Dad … of a life well-lived, and now free.

G.A.S. for an Automobile

What a beautiful car! Normally, I prefer trucks and Jeeps when it comes to my own vehicle, but this one definitely caught my eye. So I guess G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) can apply to things other than cameras.

A couple of days ago I took our car in for service, and while waiting to talk to the “service guy” I was parked right next to this. It’s hard to tell from the photo but the paint is a matte finish in dark gray, and then of course there’s the yellow trim … racing stripes down the side and on the hood. This is the Mercedes Benz V8 BiTurbo and it is a mean looking machine. Of course it will set you back close to $100,000! (Way beyond my budget.) 🙂

As soon as I finished getting my car checked in, I grabbed my Fuji X70 and snapped a few images concentrating mainly on the wheel detail. That gold brake caliper is so gorgeous I would hate to ever use the brakes and get it dirty. If you look closely, the silver part in the lower right is the disc which I was told is made of ceramic.

The beauty of this little X70 is that it fits easily into my jacket pocket, yet puts out those beautiful X-Trans images from its APS-C sensor. Once again I’ve shown myself that the best camera is the one you have with you. You never know when that next photo op will appear.

Respite

No doubt, life can be chaotic at times. Do you ever feel like a leaf in a wild whitewater river, being swept along utterly out of control? Just remember to look for a rock to cling to, a momentary respite from the maelstrom.

But life does go on, so catch your breath, rest a moment, and prepare for the next challenge that is sure to come. And think how boring it would be without these trials to test us.

I found this scene in a small public park in Buena Vista, Colorado.

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