Powells Valley PA

We took these pictures Sunday while fishing along Powell's Creek near where we live.




 

Life

Okay nothing deep, today.

For a few weeks, work was/has been very hectic. The past couple of days, more or less, "normal". As in, not too busy but not completely idle, either. I've had the time to write, but, not the heart.

My daughter's 8th birthday was Sunday, and she's been after me for weeks to take her fishing, so Sunday morning we got up, catching nothing, but having fun. I snapped some posed shots, then we fished along the bank of the creek for a while... and moved on... climbing over a log. After I turned back, I noticed she had stopped on the log to rest, and I snapped this one. She was, a little, annoyed with me for it, but it turned out to be the best picture of her I took Sunday.

Peters Mountain, Dauphin County PA

Okay, one more springtime shot. I won't promise it's my last, but.... Today we were coming over the mountain and I noticed the blue, blue sky. I wanted to try and capture it so at the bottom of the north side, we pulled off and looked back up the mountain, the way we had come, and I took a few shots. Here's one. If you follow this road up to the top of the mountain, you'll find the Appalachian Trail crossing it there.


 

Sunset

Last evening, I happened to look out my back door, and spotted this sky. I went to get the camera, and snapped this picture. I have many similar shots from the past few years, but every sunset is different, and special.

Each sunset marks the end of a day... but with the darkness following comes renewal, and when the new day emerges, it's fresh a new world that awaits us.


Taken 4/27/2006 

Springtime in Powell's Valley

 

My Workplace

Okay, I promise that, one of these days, I'll stop throwing pictures out here, and do some words instead. But a few people I know have wondered what it's like where I work. I would refer them to a prior post named "My Cube World" or something similar, if they want to know the day-to-day nitty gritty, but here's an outside view of the place, taken as I was leaving work one day last week.

 

The Musician

Recently my daughter had a "show" in our basement, and she wanted her brother to participate. He was reluctant, but finally got himself going.

It was pointed out to me that I have pictures of her on this site, but very few of him. And it IS true that she's easier to photograph, as he is at the age where he doesn't much appreciate it.

Anyhow, here's the musician himself... His instrument, by the way, is normally the saxophone, and he IS quite good at that. On this day, however, he was putting up with his sister's "show" and playing his part as a wandering minstrel, plucking his guitar.

 

Easter Part 2

So, she might have spent the night and morning ... not feeling so well, but... she was VERY excited by her Nestle Crunch bunny:

Okay, okay, so at that point, she wasn't allowed to eat it, (upset tummy, still), but later, she did nibble an ear and it was very good (even though she didn't share with me)....

So later, after finding eggs a couple of times.... She brought me two four leaf clovers she had found:

Like me, she has a talent for seeing "patterns" or rather, things that do not fit inside a pattern, which, when it comes down to it, is the essence of how to find a four leaf clover. Just look for one that doesn't fit in (i.e. not 3 leaves).

Or maybe, she's just lucky. 

Egg Hunt

 

Happy Easter

At 2am... okay 1:58 but who's counting?

Now, why in the world would I be up at this hour anyway?

Well, it's like this. About a half-hour ago, I came jerking up out of a solid slumber... (or was I in a dream and it just felt solid?? Not quite sure on that front) ...hearing my 7 year old doing things she shouldn't in the middle of the night.

So up i got and off did trot.

It seems that upset tummy she had before bed finally caught up with her... and there it was, lying on her bed. Next to her, under her, on top of her.

It's always been my job to get up with the kids at night. My radar goes off when it's time, and it's a duty I don't take lightly. It's one of the greatest benefits to parenthood (and no... I do not say that sarcastically). Sometimes, when a kid is sick for days at a time, it does get old... but it's been one of the times when a parent can bond with a kid like no other time. When you're sick and someone is there, to make you feel better, that's always a good thing!

There's nothing like leading a child to the bathroom to finish their barfing next to the throne, while you go clean up their bed. In this case, there was so much on the bed, I pulled bedding, pillows and all, up and tossed them in the tub. Then I laid a new blanket down, and another... and she already had an extra pillow, so I got her set up.

And then I went and checked on her. To find, indeed, that she really did lay back down in it. That is, it was not only on her face and body and neck, it was also well pressed into her hair.

So off we went to the other bathroom, and I turned the shower on, adjusted the temperature, and got her into it... washed her hair out... dried her off, got her in new bedshirt... and off to bed... till Round 2.

Now, Round 2 was nothing. She made it to the bathroom with no problem. There was only a little anyways. So I got her up and put her here in the easy chair with me. A few minutes later she was snoring, so I said, you ready to go to bed?

"Uh-huh..."

So off we went. About the time we got there, she says, "I think..." I could see it in her eyes, so, "C'mon"... and back to the bathroom again. This time, it was very short-lived. Only a retch or two and back to bed, with a trashcan alongside.

Experience tells me she's probably done now. But I am wide-awake for the moment. I thought I'd take this quiet moment to wish you the happiest of Easters, too... May yours be as full of spice and adventure as mine!

Spring is Springing

Yesterday, it was in the upper 70's. It was a beautiful day to go out and about. I went down to the park at lunchtime, and snapped a few photos. This one... shows things pretty well. Just the faintest bit of greens beginning to show, here and there, but still, many bare-branched trees mixed in, everywhere. Give it a month, and this photo will look nothing the same.

 

This picture, taken at the same park, shows a more advanced view of springtime.



I ended the day with a 4.5 mile walk with my seven year old daughter. When we left the house, there were a few brooding, low-hanging clouds, and ... I forgot my camera. We went on, as it was already past six, and by the time we were halfway, it started to rain softly. We sheltered for a few minutes under some fir trees alongside the road, and the shower did not last long.

Soon we topped the hill we had been climbing, and started down into an open area... and saw the rainbow, stretching from hill to hill, with our valley between, arching high over our heads, perfectly defined. And, as we walked, we began to see a double-rainbow, dimly but clearly visible above one end of the primary, and barely visible above the other end. At this point, we were still a mile and a half away from home, and camera, and by the time we had gone a little ways, the rainbows were already fading from view.

So no pictures, of that, but still, nice day, all in all.

Filling Icetrays with Honey

Disclaimer: Unless you want to be bored by a recollection of a personal bout with flu, you can stop reading now.

Last week is a blur now.

That is, I remember the highlights. Sunday, April 2nd, as the kids were heading to bed, I hopped in the car and drove a couple of hours up the road to perform a disaster recovery test for one of our customers.

What's that glazed and confused look for? Okay, a DR test, is where we take a customer who has a "critical" computer system - that must be up 24x7 (or very near to it) and pretend that a sprinkler went off above it (or the building burned up, or something).

They perform regular backups which are kept at some remote location, and when the disaster happens, they are recalled to a new computer center, and we recover their systems to that new system, and bring them back up. At any rate, I got to my room about 11:15 or so, and didn't quite fall asleep till maybe 1:30.

Then I woke up at 5:30 and started my day. That evening, I took a nap from 6:30 or so for maybe an hour, got up, had supper, returned to work, got back to my room at about 11:30 again, and was asleep around midnight. Then up at 6:30 and ... so on.

Only Tuesday, we had our 9am call, the customer was satisfied that everything was good to go, and sent us home. Only, you see, there's this project back here I've been working on, and a meeting a 1pm for that project, so I returned to work by 12:45, went to the meeting, and pretty much ended the day on schedule.

Wednesday, I came to work, but I was just beginning to feel the pain. I worked, and got a lot done, but... by Wednesday night, I bedded down with a huge headache. I shook it off, thinking, I'll sleep this off in no time.

A little after 12, I woke up. The headache was beginning to spread.

A little after 2, I woke up. I was burning up, curled into a ball, I stretched out, and the cold blankets made me shudder with chills. But back to sleep I went.

A little after 4, I woke up. Ditto the after 2 comments, except I got up and found some aspirin, and I was beginning to ache from head to toe.

After 6, when the house started stirring, I found some Tylenol, and dozed waiting for it to kick in. I don't think it ever did. I told my daughter, before her and Mom left, go get my phone, I don't think I am going to make it into work.

Next thing I knew, it was 10:45. I got my computer turned on, and promptly dozed back off again. When the new mail chime would sound, sometimes I'd rouse myself a little - and I honestly tried to complete a report that should have been done the day before, but..... somewhere around noon, I forced myself into the kitchen, fixed a sandwich and a glass of milk, kept taking Tylenol.

By 3:30, my son got home, I reminded him he had chores to do, and promptly I was sound asleep. And by 4:30, the phone rang. I cannot remember who, or why, but my son instantly gravitated to my side - "Can I play on the computer?" I reminded him, again, of his chores. "I did them." What about the bathroom in there? "I did it." I looked at him questioningly, and he said, "You were snoring."

So I stumbled into the office, and logged him on the computer, and crashed again.

I think, other than bathroom visits, that was pretty much my day. I hurt all day long, from head to toe. Friday, I took some Advil flu and headed to work, and got my numbers taken care of and sent to whom it needed to be sent, and talked to them on the phone and made sure they understood it.

And generally, plodded throughout the day. Friday night, I was exhausted, and crashed out. At 12:30 my daughter called from her sleepover asking for someone to come and pick her up, so up I got and fetched her.

Saturday - worse than Friday, but not quite as bad as Thursday. I had a cycle going Saturday morning. My wife had gone to work, my kids were downstairs playing games, quietly. And, I slept, in bits and pieces. I'd sleep, hard, for a few minutes, dream a crazy dream (the same one, every time), wake up with a start, sweating all over, stretch out, freezing with the chill of the blankets, roll over, and start again, 3 or 4 times an hour, from the wee hours, until the phone rang at about 10:30.

At that point, I rousted myself out of bed. I stumbled into the other part of the house, called the kids up, and collapsed in the easy chair, for a while. My wife got home in the afternoon, and took my daughter off to a scouting even a short time later, which left my son and I home alone. We started a movie, but I found I couldn't hang with it, so I went back and crawled into bed a little after 3 - telling him not to let me sleep past 5.

He called me at 5, and by 5:30 I got myself up out of bed, and when everyone got home, actually ate a meal for supper, and watched a movie, and by 10, was ready to collapse again. Sunday, I slept till 10, but it was a more restful sleep. I still woke up with a headache, but the body pain at least, was gone. I got up, and we all worked together on a breakfast. Biscuits, and chocolate gravy, and bacon and grits. I didn't eat a lot, but ... at least the appetite was there.

By suppertime, there wasn't much appetite, but I did eat a half cup of soup, then later, off to bed, and starting the week over now. This morning, up and out at normal time - with a big headache again, but none of the rest of the Nasties. The headaches could be from too much sleep - although come to think of it, last night I had a lot of trouble even getting to sleep. I woke up a couple of times, all tangled up in the sheets.

I think, once I did finally drift off, I must have tossed and turned a lot, because I'd wake up, with the sheet pulled up over my shoulder, wrapped around my fist underneath me. It took some degree of awakeness to figure out how to untangle myself from that mess.

But, anyhow, I seem to have survived the flu.

Onion Snow

onion snow
n. Chiefly Pennsylvania

A light snow in late spring, after onions have been planted.

I heard this term for the first time a few years ago, when I moved here to central Pennsylvania.

Today we had our 'onion snow'.... Or, I hope it was the onion snow. That is, the last blast of winter... We woke up to a nice coating of snow over everything, but by the time I had arrived at work, there was almost none left on the ground - as the ground was a bit too warm for it to stick.

Unfortunately, I was running very late, and didn't have the possession of my senses enough to grab my camera on the way out the door, so I have no proof of this event, but I am telling you truly, there were onions everywhere.

Catching up

So... I try to keep up with folk's blogs, but I tend to get behind... especially when I have been swamped at work, as in the past couple of weeks.

Anyhow, I was catching up... and stumbled across this... I have a 12 year old son, but I now have an insight into his future:

I am beginning to sense a pattern.

This sounds and looks like exactly the sort of thing Jeremy will someday be doing......

Spring has Sprung

This past week, it finally creeped up into the 60's and even on Friday as high as the 70's. Along about Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, I heard from my front porch the sound of frogs peeping and creaking.

I think spring has sprung, finally!

This first photo ... I stopped and had my son take it. It was nothing more than an attempt to capture the reddish hued buds on the trees .. a sure sign of impending springtime.



I went just a little farther down the road, and spotted this willow - the first true green that I've seen (not counting evergreens of course).



The farms around here have been tilling and spreading manure - and the air is ripe all around, but still... the weather's been beautiful and the fields are all turning green, except the ones that have been turned...



And after I took that shot, I looked back towards where I had come, and it seemed as if the sky were glowering over the church. No storms followed this sky, it was just a passing moment of the day.



For the first time since the fall, I was able to get the oil changed in our cars this afternoon, and a few other odds and ends of projects that needed to be done have at least been started. It's nice to be able to escape the confines of the indoors without having to wear a heavy jacket!

Only one problem with all of this......... Supposed to be back in the 40's by mid-week. Hopefully this too will pass quickly.

Driving to work Part 2

Amazingly enough, today, exactly one week after my first trip to town where I met up with the cows, I saw more. Or rather, I suspect they were the same two cows as I saw last Friday, but....

It appears they found some funny weeds or something, when they crossed that fence. Perhaps, the grass REALLY is greener on the other side.... At any rate, boy, they were messed up!

This picture says it all.

--------------------------------------

Actually, I was reading up on "freebie applications" on the internet, and there were comments that if you did not want to pay for the rather expensive Adobe Photoshop application to manipulate photographs, that the GIMP program does the job, for free.

I downloaded it, and was playing around with it. It's got a ton of options - more so than any other 'freebie' or "lite" graphics package I have played with - and to me, was a bit confusing in that respect. However, with a little playing around with it, I could begin to use some of the more advanced features.

And yes, they have documentation available for download - but documentation is for .. other people (grin). Actually, if I have time, I will download the documentation too, and see what I can learn. In the meantime, if anyone's interested in an interesting freebie graphics program, here's the link to this "open source" application.

http://www.gimp.org/windows/

There's a ton of other interesting freeware applications out there these days, including full anti-virus suites that do a bang up job (try AVG Free or Avast both free for home use, anti-spyware applications (including Microsoft's own new Windows Defender for XP), Microsoft-Office like packages such as OpenOffice.Org's OpenOffice.org package (yeah that was a play on words).

Another interesting program is "Google Earth". You can view satellite images (recorded in recent times - not real-time) of most of the world, and more heavily populated areas in fairly fine detail. Where I live, more rural, you can see the valley and the swaths of color where the cornfields and other crops and trees are grown, but in a city environ, like where my in-laws live in Baton Rouge, or my friend in Oklahoma City, you can see cars parked in the driveway of their house. Also, "famous regions" (i.e. Eiffel Tower in Paris, Grand Canyon in Arizona, etc) are shown in fairly good detail. The catch with Google Earth is that you really need to have a high-speed internet connection and fairly good graphics card to be able to get the benefit of the program.

Here's an "editor's pick" of 101 useful freeware applications: http://www.pcworld.com/52516

Many of these have corporate sponsorship, as it's deemed a way for companies to open doors to new customers. If you like the free product, maybe you'll tell your friends, and sooner or later someone will upgrade to a paid version. So, if you're interested in any of these products, Google them (or use yahoo search, or MSN search, etc) and enjoy.

That cow sure did.

Driving to work

Living in central Pennsylvania, I would never have thought that this would be a commonplace event. After all, Pennsylvania was always "up North" or "back East" or "Land of the Yankees" when I was growing up. That is, it was always a part of that big city that is the East Coast.

I even went so far as to say I'd "NEVER" move to a big city - then proved myself wrong by moving into three different state capitals, including Oklahoma City which is a pretty darn large city when you take in all the metro area, too. But I had always managed to stay south of the Mason Dixon line, and in the central time zone, till around 2000, when I moved up north.

So, now I live here. Sure, I live on a paved road, but across the road, right up the road, behind us are acres and acres and acres of corn and other things, like soybeans, and other stuff. Not very far - within sight of our house - is a pleasant pig farm (that is to say, a somewhat malodorous one when the wind is blowing wrong - but otherwise, not too bothersome).

And oftentimes, I take a shortcut to work that for a mile or so is gravel. I get off the paved road a little. And, on Friday, I went this way, and had to stop. There was something blocking my way. My camera had been in the truck overnight, and didn't have much charge left in its battery, but there was enough charge for one photo.

The Tree

I said in last night's post that sooner or later I'd learn how to take a picture of something besides sunsets. On the way into work this morning I spotted this tree. It's not the prettiest tree ever, but it DOES have a touch of character, I am thinking. I have one friend, more adopted big sister than friend, who is half-Druid in her heart, and she "gets" trees.

This one is for her.

 

Grocery Trip

Tonight, my son and I drove into town to get some groceries, and it happened to be along about sunset. I couldn't stop myself from pulling off, and snapping a few pictures. It's getting late enough in the year that I can no longer take a picture of my favorite subject, the Lutheran Church in Powell's Valley from the main road, and get the sunset behind it - the sun sets too far north now.

However, there's a side road that goes down past the cornfields... We pulled off, and climbed the rather steep bank to where there'll be acres and acres of corn in a few months, and took quite a few snapshots, while the church stood there and posed for us. Of all the pictures and different angles I took, I think I liked this picture just about the best.

My son said, it looked like I was taking pictures for the church - showing how God himself was shining his light down on the church and highlighting it for all to see.

After we left the church, and headed on toward town, I had one more occasion to pull off and take another couple of pictures. There's a farm, where we can buy fresh brown eggs pretty much anytime we want (which is what the sign in the middle-left of the picture says).




One of these years, I'll figure out how to use my camera for something other than the occasional sunset shot, but for now, that'll do. I suppose sunsets have always been my favorite natural thing to photograph, even since I was a teenager and won a blue ribbon in the county fair back home for a picture of a sunset, with a small cedar tree in the foreground. I had my flash on, and the bright green foliage, with the reds, oranges, yellows and purples of the sunset in the background - it has endured as one of my favorite all-time photos. Maybe, someday, I will scan it in and post it. But for now, this will do.

Good night.

Alien Cow Abduction

So the headline read:

Alien Cow Abduction.
Aliens are brittle and need milk. Please help them.

Actually, it wasn't a headline, but rather, an ad displayed in my Google Adsense code after my last post. I could not help but click the link - it was the first time I've laughed out loud in days. And, it was worth it, if you're into that sort of thing. Check it out.

Speaking of Adsense - this has been an 'experiment' of mine over the past year or so, and one of these days, I'll write a review of the service, and how it has or has not met up to its expectations, and why the heck it is that my site has this commercial aspect to it when I am writing for the joy of writing. Let's just say, that I won't get rich quick anytime soon, but if you feel like clicking on an ad, or performing a search using the searchbar at the top of the page, I may get a few cents added to my account.

I am by no means saying you should make your default search engine be the searchbar on my page (although it might make my year's worth of earning's top a dollar if enough people did... (last time I looked my balance was at about $.95, I think)).

Anyhow, I am getting away from my topic, which has something to do with flying cows and space aliens, I fear. If the link above doesn't work, go to

http://www.planetinneed.com

Enjoy!

Oscar the Grouch

No, not from Sesame Street...

Oscar, you see, is a cat.

For a long time he's lived in our neighborhood - a mostly outside cat, owned by neighbors (if it can be said that any cat is owned by humans. It might be better to say that he owns the neighbors). He was always particularly unfriendly, but liked to have handouts, and would, once in a long while, even let me touch him if I put a bowl of food under his nose. But normally, he'd bite and scratch and fight and try to get away if you attempted to pick him up or anything of the sort. He has been the ultimate "grouch".

He's lived here for a couple of years, and we've had that neighborly relationship, where he comes and goes, and sometimes we don't see him for days at a time. This past December, the first couple of weeks were bitterly cold, at least in the single digits, even if not in the negatives.

I was afraid for Oscar. His family would let him in, but he was NOT an indoor cat, and he'd be ready to go out again, soon. They'd let him out when the parents were at work and kids at school. At that point, my wife was not working, and so I let Oscar come into our house.

He made straight for the basement, and went and hid out there. Our litter box, for "Lucky" (the three-legged, one-eyed, tailless, mangy furball that normally lives here) was in the laundry room, upstairs, and the food, as well. So, we arranged a second litterbox for Oscar, and a bowl of food, and he was quite comfortable just 'hanging out' in the basement.

His family came back and got him, but a day or so later, he was back at our door, so I opened it and he went straight back to the basement. I had some projects to do down there along about then. It's a mostly unfinished basement, one big room, but it's divided by a huge set of bookshelves I have erected over the past couple of years, and one project involved shelving up a few hundred books (many of the kids' books, many of mine from over the years). And as I'd work down there, I'd murmur softly to Oscar, and gradually some of his fear went away.

One day, I put my hand under his belly, and lifted him up to a table. He didn't know how to take that, I think, but put up with it. And over the next couple of weeks, we'd do this again. One day, I carefully picked him up, and carried him to the top of the stairs, to the main floor, and by the time we got there, he was pawing to get down, but he did let me get him that far.

We also have a dog who lives indoors, a small Llaso named Molly. Molly is a fairly calm dog, but she tends to be too close when Oscar is around, so anytime I'd handle him with her around, he'd revert to his wildness... which is part of the reason why the top of the basement stairs seemed to be a "problem area" for him. But, still, we got there.

One evening, I brought him up to my bedroom, and put him up on the bed. Everyone else was away in the house, it was just Oscar and I. I stretched out and started talking to him... and he started purring. A little while later my wife bustled in, moments later followed by Molly and Lucky, and Oscar scooted.

Too loud, too busy, he couldn't hang with that. He was back in the basement in moments. But for 10 or 15 minutes, he had stayed... A few days later, we did this again. When the crowd crowded in, he lasted a little longer this time. And gradually, over the next few days and weeks, Oscar has gotten to where he'll hide, either in the basement, or the bedroom, and when I come home in the evening, he'll make his first appearance.

He'll come rub around my legs, and if I sit in my chair, he'll climb up on me and start his motor to running. A few months ago, I had no idea that he had such a pur-engine... but it's alive and well. And at night, when I lay down, if he's inside, he'll come climb up into bed beside me, and if I pay him the slightest attention, he'll start purring loudly... closing his eyes, kneading the blanket with his paws.. and if ever I've seen happiness and contentment, I see it in him.

One day, a week or so ago, I had opportunity to be home alone for a few hours. I had some work that I needed to get done, and so I sat in my easy chair, perched my work laptop in my lap, and went to work. A little while later, the old Grouch came in and jumped up beside me, and eventually curled up and went to sleep.

There's a comfort there. This world sometimes seems difficult and often I feel out of tune with my surroundings. It's nice to know, even when I doubt myself, that this creature that's been a loner for so long, sees in me the companion he has perhaps craved for a long time. It was a nice, peaceful day. My son was home, but the victim of a sleepover with too little sleep, so had gone to crash out for a few hours, so it was just me and Oscar... sitting there in companionable silence.

A pair of Grouches.

Cold Weather

So last week I started developing a cold. The weather was kinda nice, a little warm. But by the end of the week, I was sneezing, fit to be tied. Another guy who works here tossed a box of benadryl capsules over the partition, and I took one, and survived the day. Friday, I was a little better, but not so's you'd notice.

By Saturday I was on the uphill swing. It was in the 70's Saturday, and I sat out on the back porch, my feet propped up on a table, in my short sleeve shirt, soaking up the sunlight, working on some leftover work-work (not home-work or, I mean, not 'around-the-house work' but really work-related work (yes, I do occasionally do something while at work, and on occasions have been known to bring it home, too)).

Saturday night it cooled a little, might have even showered (I've slept since then) but Monday was another beautiful day. Monday night it rained, and yesterday was overcast, a bit, and chilly, in the 40's, and I took a picture on the way home (refer to the prior post). And last night... last night, or rather, this morning, it snowed. It was only a dusting, but still... snow, none-the-less.

And so I sit here, typing away, my throat is already feeling scratchy again from this latest round of changes to the weather patterns... I feel the head beginning to clog. Sooner or later, I am sure, I will end up having to share a sneeze with those around me (yes, I know how to cover). On the positive side, in amongst the dusting of snowflakes in the flowerbed this morning, was a crocus, just beginning to open up. Won't be long now, I am hoping, till warm weather is here to stay.

This "cold" weather stinks, whether it's 30's outside, or 80's... I am ready for some sense of stability and a few less sneezes and sniffles and scratchy throats. Luckily, for me, someone replenished the office candy jar this morning - and dumped in some sweet tarts. There are those of us who think that is the bestest medicine. If you gotta take pills, make em pink, purple, green, and yellow. (just gotta green, yellow, and pink, in that order).

Yas

Yet another sunset (Yas).
(Okay, a little while before sunset)
Powell's Valley, Pennsylvania.
March 14, 2006

 

Reading

When I was small, Mom would read to me and my brother, at naptime - if not every day, then at least, frequently. With my Mom, you could never tell what the tale would be.

It might have been a classic, from Robinson Crusoe to Around the World in 80 Days, a western by Zane Grey or Louis L'amour, a science fiction novel by Andre Norton. Okay, probably no romance, but there had to be limits somewhere. You see, she loved a good story. A well-written tale.

She didn't go for a lot of foul language or smut - but instead enjoyed tales written by authors who could entertain you without all the "extra" stuff that a lot of writers lean on to sell books. That's to say, if there was language or other - as long as it wasn't overdone - she'd accept it and move on (although we didn't get to hear it).

As an adult, I favor these books. That is to say, pretty much anything that's a good tale and is well written. My all-time favorite authors include Mark Twain and Louis L'amour (a couple of weeks ago I finished The Walking Drum again - one of my favorite all-time books), and sci-fi authors like Isaac Asimov (although, truth be told - he wrote much, much, much more than just sci-fi). One author I like - that my Mom does not care for - is Piers Anthony.

He isn't the traditional "clean" author. His tales do not typically dwell on "smut" - although I've read at least one short story that is nothing but - but there's still a fair dose of it in some of his books. I am currently starting book 3 of a 5 part series (that I read many years ago) called Bio of a Space Tyrant. The main character is Hope Hubris. He's a pretty decent guy.

I mean, he was responsible for the deaths of his parents, he allowed very bad things to happen to his sisters (including trading one into slavery). Oh yeah, back to his parents, he had very good reason to eat one of them (gruesome - but we must remember that sometimes things happen beyond our control - and what are we to do?). And he killed, personally, his beloved, his girlfriend, the one he was to marry the very next day - she was even in her wedding dress for rehearsal. All of this - before his 16th birthday.

Yet, Hope... really was a good guy. He really, really was. Despite what some folks may say about his actions. Or at least, that's my humble opinion. Of course, I am only starting the 3rd narrative in his autobiography - there'll be two more yet, once that's complete. So maybe I'll find some reason to change my opinion - but so far... so good.

It's interesting to me (if I try to be detached) that I can "like" this character despite all the things he has done. Many times in our lives, we are put into a position where there's no right answer, so we choose the left one. Hopefully, it's not the wrong one. But just because we may have to do things, does not necessarily mean that we're evil people. We are simply human.

Like Hope.

One of my guiding principles in life has been... "Where there's Life, there's Hope".

Hope survived... he lived through Hell... but he went on to make the world a better place. I hope that someday I will be judged for the seemingly few good things I did, not the glaringly bad things. I will make mistakes - I will make decisions that some regard as unfavorable - even terrible - but I will also never do things with cruel intent, no matter how it may seem at the time.

Hope Hubris made mistakes. Serious ones. Some of the things he did - he had to do. He had to make decisions - choose between evils - and persevere - and eventually his world "righted" itself and became a better place. It was not through inaction that this happened, but through his choosing to effect positive change on the world around him.

Where there's Life, there's Hope.

Aerodrome

The Langley Aerodrome A looked just like an airplane out of some Jules Verne-based futuristic movie. It was actually built, and they attempted to fly it - twice, before giving up. The last time it was attempted was just days before the Wright Bro's historic flight.

My 'panorama' shot, below, does not do this bird justice. It WAS a cool looking aircraft, with two sets of wings, fabric covered, and fabric covered propellers.

Air and Space Museum

This weekend, we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport outside of Washington D.C. I have already shared one picture from the trip - here are a couple more.

This first picture is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, with me underneath. I kinda have a headache now from picking it up with my head.

A back-side view of the Enterprise.

Some things from the "space toys" display.

And, there were a ton of different sorts of airplanes. I have one that I took several pics of that I need to merge together - like a panarama shot. But for now, I'll stick with a simple one, the Pepsi Cola plane.

 

First Blog

I've been doing this blog thing for a while now. In the beginning, I took a generic template, and gradually modified it to fit my own wants. For me, the basic template does most of what I want, so I don't get too crazy with modifications - however, some people end up doing away with the generic templates and completely create a layout from scratch. This article is geared more toward someone wishing to set up a blog for the first time.

A few of my annoyances were:

1. Templates

The generic templates usually have some sort of "Edit-me" link lists. Getting rid of these can be overwhelming if you aren't a "programmer" and/or do not know the basics of html editing (or, perhaps, do not know what html is).

After you login, and go to Blogger Dashboard, click "Change Settings", and choose the Template tab, it brings up a form full of strange text. Scroll down through it till you get to something like:

< href="http ://news.google.com/"> Google News < /a >
< href="http ://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=110"> Edit-Me < /a >

Simply change the text news.google.com to example.blogspot.com and Google News to Example, and the second (and third, etc) to whatever you want them to be or delete them all.

The end result might be:
Example
Another, sorta, blog site

Changing other settings, or adding other "code" into your template is easy enough. At first, it may appear overwhelming, but after a bit of playing around, you'll learn what does and does not work.

Just remember - when working with templates... Use the "Preview" button first. It may save you a lot of grief if you accidentally delete part of the page or something critical (yeah - been there, done that).

2. Spam comments

These annoyed me more than anything, when I first started. Having comments is great - but if left "wide open" you will find some posts get "spam" comments - that is, some generic message that says "Great job on your blogsite. Visit my page at www.iamtryingtosellthings.com (or whatever).

The simplest thing I have found to reduce them is to turn on "word verification". This may be found by going to the Blogger Dashboard, clicking on "change settings", then go to the sub heading of "Comments". There are several defaults here that you might wish to change, including the word verification.

Another nifty new option is the "moderation" feature. With this feature, all comments will be emailed to you for approval before being posted to your blog.

Besides the preventative measures above - if you do happen to get spam comments, or other offensive or inappropriate comments on your blog, you can delete them by viewing the comments, and clicking the little trash can icon at the bottom of the post. Note that you do have to be logged into blogger as the owner of the site to see the icon.

3. Visitors

How do I know who has been here to my site? There are no "built-in" tracking mechanisms for tracking visitors to your site, but there are a couple of good freebies out there that can give you good statistics, including the popular www.sitemeter.com (just go there and register - they'll provide you the code to paste into your template, or even push it into your site for you once you provide login credentials), or the lesser known www.statcounter.com (which has a lot of nice features, too, including invisible counters - seen only by you). There are a lot more providers out there, but those are a couple that I like.

To get a sample of what sort of data you might get with these, click here to see this page's detailed visitor information.

Smithsonian Dog Doo

We spent several hours Sunday at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. My son spotted this gem among the various displays, which included NASA's Space Shuttle Enterprise, the World War II airplane "Enola Gay" and many other interesting things.

Maybe, later, I will post some more "appropriate" pictures from the trip, but for now, this will have to do.


 

Sunset

A few days ago, on the way home from work, I stopped and snapped this picture, just down the road from my house.

Escape

I went and talked to a rock today. And a tree.

I drove up the gravel road through the state forest, up to the top of the mountain and a little ways down the other side. There's plenty of trails through there, and in one place, a picnic area. It was to this place I went. I parked, got out, and walked around a little, spotting a marked trail heading into the woods. It was a half-mile, it said.

I figured that'd do. I started walking off down the trail, stopping at the edge of a swollen stream. The recent rain has turned this trickle into quite a stream, and it followed several paths through the woods. There was quite a roar as it spilled over a fallen log.

I started along the creek, following the trail and realized I was just headed back to camp, so I turned back, and in doing so, spotted another, unmarked, trail, going on into the woods a little ways. This I followed, till I came to a tree that had fallen over the creek. I climbed onto this and walked over the log and across the creek, and found another trail there, this one marked.

I do not know where this trail would have led, but I did follow it for a ways, until I came to a couple of very large rocks, much larger than I, with the trail between them. A tree had fallen over the rocks - not a large one, but still, it was there. I climbed up and sat on one edge of rock, and.................

relaxed.

For the first time in years, I was totally alone in the woods, miles from another human being. Here, deep in the woods, I studied on things. First, as I sat quietly, my feet no longer rustling through the leaves, I noticed the wind. The tree tops were dancing back and forth, and there was a steady roar. Even without leaves on most trees - except the pines, there was still the moaning of the wind as it blew through the forest. Farther away, I could hear the water, still rushing over the log in the creek.

Closer to hand, I heard an occasional leaf rustling as some small animal scurried about. A cracking sound from a treetop where a broken branch dangled. Across from me, on the rock opposite, I studied the moss growing in large patches, a litchen here and there dotting a light green pad in the middle of the dark green forest of moss. An ant hurrying along on his business.

The old rotten trunk of a tree that had fallen, bridging the two rocks, was almost barkless now, and had a split a few inches from me, and there at the split, some beetle or other bug had burrowed a hole. There was a dampness in the air, a musty smell of old leaves left damp for long times.

I sat there and studied on things. There were no cars passing on the road, wherever it was. It was just me, and the trees, and the rocks, and God. In this February morning, when there should probably be snow on the ground, but instead is in the fifties, I looked down, and picked a tick off my blue jeans. I hate to destroy nature, but I've been taught my whole life that these things are parasites, and if you don't "take care" of them, they'll just continue to be parasites, spreading disease and weakening us. So I smashed it and wiped my hands off. And continued to absorb the sounds, the smell, the sights, and the feelings of the world around me, just me and God.

A little while later, I got up, and ... didn't want to continue that trail, because I knew I must sooner or later get back to civilization, so I started back - but wasn't quite ready to quit yet, so I found yet another trail, this one marked only by an occasional pink ribbon, and followed it on through the woods, parallel to the creek.

I was stopped suddenly by the sound of crying. It was more of a sob, and then it was gone, and then there again. I stood still, and listened ever so carefully. I could tell it was coming from above and ahead of me. As I carefully looked around, the trees swaying in the breeze, I spotted a dead tree, a few inches in diameter, that had fallen up against another taller, stronger, tree. And as the taller tree danced in the wind, the seemingly lifeless one leaned there, on it's shoulder. As the dancer swayed, the one resting on it's shoulder would sob.

It was kinda amazing. I am sure there's a little imagination involved in the telling, but it was what I saw. It was really just the bark of the two trees rubbing together, and the resulting sound was just like a sob, a cry. I told the cryer to go ahead and shed a few tears for me, because I am too proud to do for myself, and went along the trail, on my way.

A few minutes later, noticing that I was wandering farther and farther away from my parking spot, I turned back, but instead of following any trail, marked or unmarked, I just followed my instincts, and headed off through the woods. At one point, nearing the creek, I saw a scar on the trunk of an old oak tree. The scar was recent, by a few months, and you could see a groove in the freshly peeled bark where a bullet had grazed the edge of the tree.

Walking away from that, I saw a fallen log, with no bark, and, stepping on it to climb over, my foot slipped, and I fell. It wasn't so bad, really, not enough to knock the wind out of me, even. But, it was enough to make me remember to watch my step, to be a little more careful in the path I must follow.

I went on to the creek, and found a few places where I could cross the several tiny streams that now existed, since it was beyond it's banks. I crossed over without getting wet, and headed back to the road, and hiked back down to where my truck was parked, and headed home.

Super Boli Sunday

There's a restaurant here named "Your Place" - or is that "My Place"???

Anyhow, they serve pizza, stromboli, subs, etc. The billboard out front is shouting at passers by this week:

Super Boli Sunday - Buy one boli, get one free.

I just find some grim humor there somewhere. Not sure what's so funny about it. Maybe nothing is, perhaps it's just me.