Time to Head Home

Greg and I filled the last few hours of time with a visit to Cahokia.

Here, on the top of the main mound, it looks like Greg is more than ready to head home. So am I.

The Arch

The Arch wasn't falling down, but Greg indulged me in a bit of whimsy anyway.

How can you resist various compositions with the Arch?

Class

I managed to combine a need to document the next university for Greg with my fascination for places where people sit but which are currently unoccupied.

Penultimate Flight

Greg and I were both tiring as we headed to the last school on our list.

We'd managed to escape from TWO snowstorms without incident. We spent a long time waiting in the airport, then took off for our last stop close to dusk.

The plane was only half full, a nice treat, and so I shifted to a window seat and watched as we raced over the landscape.

President's Day

Some cretin decided to play George Washington for Presidents day, and cut this perfectly nice tree down with his trusty hatchet.

Besides the obvious pointless nature of this wanton destruction, this moron showed the world that he had absolutely no idea of how to cut down a tree. He just walked around and around the trunk, whacking out chips of wood, until he was finally able to push the tree over.

It's hard to imagine that there's anything worse than a thoughtless vandal. I'd suggest, though, that an incompetent thoughtless vandal qualifies.

I was hoping that I'd find bloodstains on the ground from where this pathetic waste of human potential managed to whack off some part of his body. I was disappointed.

Paths

Different schools have different ideas of how paths should work.

At the first school we visited, an alumnus had created an endowment to lay paths. He just insisted that the paths be placed wherever people had worn tracks into the grass, so that the paths seemed not very well planned, until you noticed that there was always a path right where you wanted to walk.

At this place, the paths were laid out according to some Pythagorean/Cartesian plan that looked wonderful but probably didn't help much, until they added little branch paths where the people actually ended up walking.

There's a lesson, there. In the end, people are going to ignore the 'keep off the grass' signs, and walk where they want. You can either put the pavement where it will get used, or you can resist human nature and put paths where no one will walk on them. There's no point, because in the end, the people will win and you'll end up paving where they walk.

Another school

Again, we've moved on to another college.

By now, Greg and I are old hands at evaluating places. Bulletin boards, it turns out, are a sort of weird condensate of everything that's happening on campus. Five minutes in front of a bulletin board will tell you more about the place than two hours reading the Fisk guide.

Waiting

Greg was off interviewing/being interviewed by the admisssions guy. Along with al the other parents, I was waiting.

What was waiting like? About like this - empty styrofoam cups, paper cups, and people so tired they took off their shoes for a moment's respite.

Note that the cups are on a silver tray, though. It needs polishing, but the admissions office was in the middle of a huge renovation.

The Dome

Here's another little gem, this time the dome in the science building.

The curves, circles, and the lovely way the light flowed in through the dome, reminded me of some of the things I've seen in Shaker villages.

Snow and another college

Yesterday, Greg and I moved on to the next college. Greg spent the night in a dorm with his cousin Erin, and I was on my own.

When I awoke, and opened the hotel room door, this is what I saw.

On the Right Track

At our first visit, they had this very nice indoor running track.

I took a lot of photos to help Greg later when he's trying to make college choices.

This image, though, I made for me. I just loved the runner/jogger emerging from the bright light, and the curve in the track right at my feet, the shadow of the railing echoing the lines of the railing, and the criss-cross pattern of the bracing on the wall.

I love these little gems, tucked into the stream of mundane things that make up each day. It would have been nicer if the runner had been in the center lane, but you take what you can get.

College Visits

Greg and I headed off on a whirlwind week-long trip to visit a variety of college campuses.

I chose to interpret the 'no electronic devices, or the captain will come out and defenestrate you instantly' warning to not include digital cameras, and snapped this photo of Greg (already absorbed in his book), and me (looking somewhat tired and confused already) as the plane took off. The friendly flight attendant watched the entire process with bemused interest. No captain appeared. I didn't bother to explain to anyone that the camera probably radiated strongly at all the wrong radio frequencies.

I had to force the smile, which is why it looks, well, forced. I don't like flying, not because I worry about crashes but because you're trapped in an aluminum tube with 180 strangers, most of whom probably have some dread illness. To confirm my worst fears, the woman behind us on this flight coughed all the way from Seattle to Philly, in this terrible wracking way that suggested that she was suffering from the end stages of consumption.

Isn't it time for a civilized mode of travel, like high speed trains?

New Work

One of my jobs for today was to make progress processing the backlog of exposed film.

Processing film is a curious task - it requires strict attention to detail but is mind-numbingly boring.

Each run of film is one half hour of utter boredom, punctuated at the very end by a burst of excitment when I pull the film out of the drum and take that first look at the negatives.

Even the process of judging the negatives is fraught with peril. It turns out the pair on the left, which look blank and boring in this photo, are actually a very exciting scene of a tree silhouetted in the fog, with the sun shining through the fog and appearing as a bright disk.

The ones on the right, which look exciting in this photo, are actually a disappointment although I was quite excited when I made the exposure.

Photography, like life, is like that.

Crescent Waxing

This evening, just as I was headed back to the house, I spotted the new moon rising over the house and trees.

As I set up to take the photo (complete with tripod) Kodak got very upset - he was inside the house, and spotted the focus assist light for the camera, and I guess concluded I was some Uber-Cougar-Vampire-Beast that Posed A Great Threat. He was pretty upset, even after Paula let him out and he came over and found it was me.

So someone dressed as a UPS delivery guy could come and haul away all our posessions and he'd be happy and expect a cookie, and but if you've got an autofocus camera, he's got you covered, at least at night.

Good dog, Kodak. I love ya.

Show

I have a show opening in the middle of March. I'm trying to sort out which images I want to show, and get final prints made.

Here's the work wall with some of the candidates. The duplicated print at the bottom is the one I was working on today. The print on the left is the newest version. I think it's improved over what I started with this morning, although I really need to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow morning before I decide if I'm on the right track or not.

I thought the show needed to be hung in the first week of March, but then found out I had an extra two weeks. This works out nicely since now I've got the momentum to get the show done early, and a little extra time to handle glitches. (Glitches like "Where the heck are those frames, darn it? I ordered them last week and they promised I'd have them by Tuesday!")

Clear and Foggy

There's some sort of karmic balance mechanism at work, I guess. If it's cloudy and rainy overnight, we get a morning that might be clear, might be cloudy, might be rainy, but we don't get the valley filled to the brim with fog.

On the other hand, if it's one of those clear, crisp nights where when I look straight up I see twenty million stars and am reminded of my own small place in the universe at the same time I feel invigorated, alive, and clear-minded - the next morning, I awake in a foggy funk, and the valley is filled solid with fog so dense you could cut it into cubes and sell it as dirty ice.

Last night was a night of a hundred million points of light - what the skygazers call a night of 'good seeing'. That meant that this morning I awoke incapable of linear thought, and so Paula and I braved the fog filled valley to vist My Favorite Starbucks, where my order of a latte and a Top Pot donut was cheerfully filled, and the latte was just right.

After breakfast, Paula headed off on a junket, and I dawdled in the parking lot long enough for two photos. The first is what was left of the overnight frost on the roof rack rail of the Subaru - weird needle like crystals that looked like little diamonds. Diamonds might be forever, but these didn't last long enough to make it back to the house.

And the second is the street light in the parking lot. I was struck by how much the street light reminded of of a fairly famous image by Edward Weston - Palm at Cuernvaca, I think the conventional title is. Call this one "Street Light in Carnation, WA (after E. Weston)" if you are feeling like I might be making art history, here.

It's going to be a nice day, today

This morning, it was surprisingly cold. Yesterday's rain had ended, the sky had cleared overnight, and the temperature dropped dramatically. The gravel courtyard had the plastic feeling that says the gravel was not quite frozen into a solid mass, but it wasn't just wet, either.

The fog was nice, too. I like the way the studio looks in the fog, so I wanted a photo. I had to chip the ice off the car door handle to get into the car and get the camera. The rubber door seals make a weird noise when the door opens and they're coated with ice like that.

Kodak thinks this whole 'photos of the studio in the morning' thing is seriously goofy, because it interferes with his morning ritual of earning a treat by going into the studio, climbing the stairs to the landing, then sitting, then coming down the stairs, trotting around the work table in the middle of the workroom, and then sitting up and barking once. It's a lot of work for a Blue Dog Cheese Flavored Biscuit, which Kodak thinks makes the biscuit taste even better.

But anyway, that's why he's sitting there, giving me The Look.

University of Puget Sound

Greg and I went down to Tacoma to visit the University of Puget Sound. Greg had a chance to attend a lecture (an Economics course, which he found fascinating) and then talk with an admissions counselor.

While he was doing that, I wandered off to the local Starbucks for a pick me up latte, which (as always) was not done quite the way they do it at the Starbucks in Carnation and thus was just a little less than perfectly satisfying.

After that, I sat in the car and waited and read the newspaper. The newspaper was depressing, but the light was really nice. I took this photo by just pointing the camera out the driver's side window.

Nice campus.

Kodak Waits Patiently

I don't even remember taking this photo, but when I sucked the images off the card and into the computer, there it was. Kodak's in that 'waiting patiently for someone to notice that I'm waiting patiently and decide I deserve some tasty treat' mode.

In the morning, and in the evening, Kodak likes to be with us in the kitchen, because that's where we are, of course. Unlike our previous dog, Huck, he's never learned the knack of moving around to avoid getting tangled up with people, so we're constantly bumping him and asking him to move.

It's all part of life with a dog, along with the big rolling furballs that end up under the dining table.

If I could just get him to wipe his feet before coming in, it would help. He seems resistant to the notion.

Yet Another Sunset

We've been getting weather fronts rolling through every day or so.

It makes for very changeable weather, impossible to predict. As I was driving home, just coming up the hill, it was raining just hard enough for me to switch the windshield wipers off 'intermittent' and on to 'slow'. But then it stopped raining, and cleared a bit, and we got this glorious sunset. As I walked into the mud room, I could hear Greg and Paula in the kitchen, exclaiming "Oh, wow! Check out the sunset!"

My timing was perfect. The only fly in the ointment was that I had to dash back out to grab the camera from the car.

The Community Nerve Center

This window at the entrance of the Post Office serves as the nerve center for the town. Want everyone to see something? Post it there.

We get everything. Just a few weeks ago, there was a plea from a schoolgirl who had lost her mother's digital camera, and needed it back quickly so she could complete her school project.

On the left, we have an announcement of the Valentine's dinner, sponsored by the American Legion Post #199, at the Senior Center here in town. You can choose steak, chicken, or salmon (I'd pick salmon). You can also choose rice or potato. Veggies, dessert, and beverages, all included for $13 a person.

Next over, superimposed with my reflection, is the announcement for the Memorial service for Gordon L. Johnson, at Flintoff's Funeral Home, way down in Issaquah. The family suggests memorial donations to Medic One, our ambulance service here in King County.

And on the right, we learn that some senior citizen has lost Rosie, a gray Cockatiel with orange "cheeks". Those with avian phobia are reassured that Rosie is very friendly.

I like the post office. Every time I go in, I see the reflection of that nice Douglas Fir on the other side of the parking lot.

Ready to Go

Before I headed out with the large format gear for a morning of photography, I snapped this photo of the gear in the back of the Subaru.

It's sunny and warm, but the chains are still loose in the wayback. It's just a few days ago, now, that I needed them to get up the hill.

I don't know who controls the weather but sometimes I think they're asleep at the switch. Then they wake up, and realize that they've been napping and things have gone to hell - poof! We get warm, sunny weather.

The green duffel has my rain gear in it. On top is the new Windblog neck gaiter, for when it's windy. The white ammo cans are full of film. You can't carry too much film in the car. The grey thing is my photo vest, with various useful bits of stuff (like a focusing loupe, and reading glasses to look at the ground glass) tied to it. When I put it on, it's really convenient, but I'm sure I look like even more of a doofus than I usually do.

Economic Boom (ok, muffled thump)

Some time ago, the St. Vincent De Paul thrift store here in Carnation closed. The town's just too small to keep it afloat, I guess. The size of the town and the opening of new businesses is limited because there are no sewers, and the increasingly tight environmental regulations basically forbid new septic systems in town. So the town is just getting choked off.

This little shop used to be a bike shop. It had erratic hours, catered to the weekend influx of urban bikers out to tour the countryside. I kept meaning to stop in and buy fenders for my bike, but somehow never got around to it. And then it was gone, with just the awning to remind us of what was there.

And now, it's another thrift store. That's good, we need one. I hope it stays in business.

Just after I took this photo, two teenagers dropped off a big, brown Barcalounger. That's where I live - no sewers, and people are selling off their Barcaloungers. The sewers are coming - construction on the treatment plant starts soon. So we'll have sewers, and new growth, and jobs for folks.

That's a good thing, but it's not without costs, too. With the coming economic boom, we'll have more people, growth - good things, sure, but with impacts I'm not looking forward to.