About a year ago, it seemed I was traveling to California every other weekend to see my wife (née fiancé), whether by car or plane. But my gosh, was air travel ever preferable. I am reminded that in California, public restrooms have been considered a massive luxury since the pandemic started, so it made the electric driving miles tantamount to medieval torture as I stopped for 20-30 minutes every 200 miles.
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Thursday, January 20, 2022
Friday, January 14, 2022
Blue Heron
[Originally published March 30, 2012]
He seemed amicable enough. I would take two steps, he would shuffle a few to the left. His gaze never left mine, and when he flew, he never gained more than a few yards' advantage.It almost seemed a game; the heron daring me to try again before taking flight. People stopped and stared at my vain attempts at closer shots. Ultimately, I chose to halt what could have been a real annoyance to this poor bird.
Doesn't make him any less beautiful. And my pops thinks he was just a baby, too. He seemed big enough to me.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Stop the car
I spend a lot of time in my car, if I'm honest. I drive to work, children's schools, church, work errands, and personal stuff. I love road trips, preferring them to flighty excursions across the country. And while the majority of miles on my car are from my 54 mile round trip to work five days a week, I count numerous journeys to California, Utah, and local AZ hotspots amongst the nearly 67,000 miles on my 2019 car.
Outside of El Paso, TX...a monsoon squall crashes into the desert |
So, I see beauty. I experience a visual embellishment in the world each day, but I am usually going 55+ MPH. Rarely do I stop. I feel a constant tug to keep moving toward the next appointment, class, destination, etc. But each time I pass something by, I feel remiss. And I do understand the notion of living in the moment, thereby granting mindfulness and gratitude for the immediacy of life. But I nevertheless have a longstanding and conflicting love of photography that simply demands that moments of beauty be preserved.
Preserved, and if I am honest, shared for others to see. I think I have a little bit to contribute to this crazy world. To that end, I've made a promise to myself to stop my car just a little more often. It's a matter of slowing down a tiny bit. I took a look in the mirror today and saw an abundance of gray staring back at me. It seem that, in a momentary blink, two decades have rushed past me, leaving little imprint to immediate recollection.
It is said that one way to slow time is to constantly learn. It feels immensely rewarding to be learning and creating again.
Tuesday, January 04, 2022
The magical world of non-destructive edits
iPhone 6 Plus ~ 4.15mm ~ ƒ/2.2 |
So I decided to take a quick journey on my iPhone today, utilizing the [Search] function built into the Photos app. (Side note: Try it. Seriously. Search for anything; flowers, mountains, a person, a color, etc. My library is over 27,000 pictures strong. What I find with search is staggering)
Anyway, back to what I was doing. A quick search popped up this glorious shot of a jutted rock in Newport, CA. But sadly, it didn't look like this first image with rocky details and creamy morning sand.
Shot w/Hipstamatic ~ badly |
Saturday, January 01, 2022
A rose by any other name...
What a ride. This season was absolutely bonkers from start to finish. Losing to BYU was the worst blow, maybe even worse than tonight's narrow loss to Ohio State.
You have to hand it to OSU for their ability to make adjustments after halftime. I was never quite comfortable with our lead, even when we seemed firmly in control. But in retrospect...were we ever in control? It seemed like the nerves kept us in check. Even when our specialties shown through, we weren't able to get off our heels.
It sure would have been nice to ring in the new year with a Rose Bowl victory to cap this otherwise outstanding season.
Next season, boys. Next season.
Friday, December 24, 2021
Just a few meandering thoughts on this Christmas Eve
Take a moment to breath it all in; they're only this young once. I'm not saying the magic won't be there in the coming years, but time has a confounding way of transforming it so as to make it nearly unrecognizable.
I hope that this Christmas season brought you what you desperately needed. If your heart is broken, may it find comfort. If you are feeling desperately disconnected from humanity, start with you. Figure out how to get your head to talk to your heart again, and from there, you may find that the tools you need are already with you.
Merry Christmas, y'all.
Tuesday, December 14, 2021
What is this, 2002?
It's been a while. A fairly long decade, in fact.
Which brings to me to what makes starting again so difficult...there's simply no conceivable way to summarize what's happened over the past 3,650 days. What's more, I haven't much of a penchant for reliving the past whether in deed or, in this project's objective, word.
So we'll start fresh, right here, right now. Keeping it simple with the same domain I've had since the year 2000. Dumped all of the old blog posts (all 415 of them) into the archive, and maybe...just maybe...some of them will resurface in the coming weeks, months, and years.
Suffice it to say that I am grateful for new starts, creative energies, and noise cancelling headphones. And not necessarily in that order.