Not feeling very creative lately

I need some sort of wake up call, or muse, or daydream starter, or . . . hmmm, maybe a mini-vacation. I need some sort of impetus to get my brain re-started because it's in a state of atrophy sitting at this desk all day.

I seldom find my camera in my hands. I hate that. I mean, I love photography, but I never do it!

Actually, never isn't quite correct. Just very little.

I got a phone call last night - on the way home from an evening meeting and dropping off my oldest son with his Granparents - saying that my wife was going to sleep and I would find all the clothes I needed for the next day someplace other than our bedroom. She wasn't being mean about it, she just happens to be a light sleeper and I'm a very large impediment to that. Thus, I was in no hurry to get home.

I detoured to the campus of my alma mater in hopes of re-kindling some of the creativity that flowed through my brain during the 4 years I crammed into 5 to get a degree.

I'm not certain it worked, because I'm still in the dumps, but at least I took a few pictures.

Just after I got the tripod setup and shot a couple of test shots a group of people walked by and asked if I was "getting any good shots?" My answer is still, "It's too early to tell."

Uncles, computer issues, and old cars

I got a call today from an uncle with whom I spend far too little time. He's widowed (I was with him and his wife as she passed away) and lonely and he has little to do with his time. I've always known him by his nickname - one he earned at his very first job - "scoop"ing ice cream.

Several years ago, he & I went computer shopping. He has no desire to get online or learn any new technology. The man had his wireless phone company shut down his voice mail because he didn't want to be bothered by it. He did get rid of his home phone because he can talk when he wants and to whom he wants (as long as nobody's number changes and they don't tell him or physically put the new number in his cell phone - like I had to update my cell # in his phone today because he called my Dad to get my cell #). He simply needed something to do.

He plays golf. He plays 2-3 times per week at the same course he's been playing for over 40 years. He shoots less than his age.

Of course, he plays golf on his computer as well. Tiger Woods '06 to be precise. When he can get it to work.

That was today's phone call. So, 30 minutes to town from the office over (a slightly extended) lunch to figure out why it wouldn't work. I get these calls 3-4 times a year, and today is the first time I was able to just drop what I was doing and go over there. It was a very short visit, by his standards. It was certainly shorter than I wanted, but it was immediate - something very rare in my ability to visit him.

The computer's fixed. The games all work again. It took about 10 minutes. He can play golf from the comfort of his spare bedroom when it's 96* and walking the golf course would be a very unwise use of his time.

He also has this affinity for 50's era automobiles. Notice, I did not say "cars". My maternal grandfather refused to drive a "car". Fords, Chevrolets, and Dodges were "cars". His Chrysler and his DeSoto were Automobiles. My uncle seems to share a similar taste, although his automobiles would be snubbed by Grandpa as mere cars. These cars are #1 and #4 in his constantly changing collection. The '52 Chevy and the '63 Ford Falcon convertible have moved on to other homes. He currently has a '51 Chevy and a '53 Ford. Both of them are black. Beautiful automobiles. Very fine Automobiles, especially by today's middle class mentality.

No, they don't have leather seats or integrated navigation systems (well, one does have a compass, but it's aftermarket). He lamented to me that there are only two AM stations he can get in the Ford. I don't think the Chevy has a radio. What they do have is style. They have great curves (for a vehicle). They have a certain verve about them that today's vehicles don't seem to, unless said modern vehicle has a 6-figure price tag and is made in either Italy or Germany.

So, I had a good, albeit too short visit with my dear uncle.

The office is having troubles getting e-mails through the filters. Seems that nobody outside our office can get through to us via that wonderful mode of communication. Right now, I don't think most people realize it. When they do, the phones will be uncontrollable. Me, I wish I'd taken a longer lunch. We could've dug up an ice cream joint and spent another hour or 4 hanging out.

My New Addiction

I'm a goner.

I am so sunk.

My 14 yr. old son called me from a yard sale Saturday morning to wake me to an entirely new world of addiction. He brought me full-tilt into this world and I am in a whole new barrel of trouble.

I spent 2 hrs last night hidden from my family; slinking around the workshop; trying to figure out how to explain this to my wife when she starts to notice.

I then spent another 3 hrs working on stuff to help make this addiction work better for me.

I've fallen into woodturning.

Used lathe; turning tools that need sharpening, honing, polishing; new sharpening stones and guides; increased power bills; piles of wood shavings on the workshop floor; a burning desire to pore over every pile of wood I see from now to forever; an even bigger burning desire to spend a whole bunch of money buying up new toys, er, I mean, tools that, of course I need; these are all symptoms of my new-found addiction.

My son will likely never get to use the lathe.

That's not true. He's home a lot more than I am during the daytime.

Somebody needs to rescue me now before I hit rock bottom.

Table Talk

While prepping for dinner tonight, I discovered that my wife's 94 yr old grandmother must've lost her sense of smell. I thought it was only something ER people did, but apparently it goes away with age. My wife's finally looking forward to something about growing old.

She has the most sensitive nose of anyone I've ever met. I really think she could sniff out drugs or explosives or other such dangerous stuff if she tried hard enough.

While we were sitting at the dinner table this evening, talk turned back to the family's discovery about great grandma. She had a necrotic possum carcass under her house.

It's July. In South Carolina.

She couldn't smell it.

Of course, since I spent 5 years in the ER, anything's fair game for dinner conversation. My wife is a long-time veteran of the ER. Her best friend ate lunch with her and some other nursing students once in college. She vowed to never repeat that mistake. ER people can talk about necrotic tissue, bodily discharges, blood, guts, wounds, death, dying, and all sorts of other otherwise taboo dinner conversation while eating - and enjoying the food, mind you.

Our youngest son didn't appreciate our discussion this evening. He ate about half his burger before suddenly becoming "full" - not normal. He had to point out to us that the dinner-table conversation really wasn't very appropriate.

Something tells me he'll never become a physician or a nurse.

His brother could care less.

Who's joshin' who here

Every wonder who's responsible for propagating things like this?

Yum!

We went berry picking last Friday - mainly to gather in the taste of my wife's childhood, black raspberries. Of course, since there were red raspberries just beginning to ripen . . . well, the kids couldn't resist (and we didn't try to stop them).

Queen's Berry Farm, in Brevard, NC is a really cool place and not just because of the berries. We picked rhubarb and onions and could've stuck around all day just chatting and snapping pictures of the flowers, barn, signs, berries, and butterflies and a really cool beetle.





I think it's time for a Saturday trip to Highway 11 with some 5-gallon buckets to pick blackberries.

Our very own blueberry crop just started in earnest yesterday. I came home to find a freshly picked gallon on the table inside the door.

Independence Day

Independence Day just doesn't do that much for me. OK, so it gives me a day off work this year (and most year's, but not all) to spend with my family. That's quite wonderful.

Don't get me wrong. I am very appreciative for the freedom that is afforded to me by the sacrifice of others. My Dad and paternal Grandfather and many other family members have served or do serve in the armed forces. I hold their service in high esteem. I appreciate the fact that I have never had to serve.

I will always disagree with the aged Marine Corps League representative at my uncle's funeral who said, "He will meet us at the pearly gates saying, 'Semper Fi'!" I felt sorry for him because he obviously held the Marine Corps in higher esteem than does God.

Here are some quotes and musings that give an idea of what I tend to look for around this time of the year . . .

"War is not a way of life, an interminable series of hit-and-run raids for the sake of vendetta and tribal honor, in societies built on blood and discord. War is awful, to be waged only as a last resort, and with terrific intensity, to elicit a desired outcome in the shortest possible time."

copyright http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806u/medal-of-honor

" War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill

"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." - C. S. Lewis

This one's my all-time favorite musical statement about how American Believers should respond to the world around us . . . it was performed by a now-dead guy, Rich Mullins.

LAND OF MY SOJOURN

And the coal trucks come a-runnin'
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin'
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin'
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you'll come to love it
And how you'll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I'll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city's best answer

And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

In the land of my sojourn
And I will sing His song
In the land of my sojourn



Copyright 1993 - Edward Grant, Inc., Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing

Do you know . . .

It is nigh about impossible to find a real ice cream shop around Columbia, SC if you're not from around there. I'm certain there's a BR-31, or a DQ, or a TCBY around there somewhere if you know where to look.

I didn't. So we explored.

There is a Zesto in Chapin. Here's a map.

Makes for a fun time watching kids eat chocolate-dipped soft-serve cones. Especially when the boys get the medium cones instead of the small ones.

Congaree Butterfly Count - 2008

The NABA sponsors yearly butterfly counts around this time of year; something we discovered last year, just in the nick of time. So, Saturday was our 2nd annual trip to the Congaree National Park's Butterfly Count. I took all the kids this time.

We counted 38 species in the morning walks and I got pics of some butterflies I have not seen previously - Zebra Swallowtail (pictured top) and Carolina Satyr (pictured below the ZS) for two of them.

Butterflies are my daughter's passion. She was the "expert" for our walking group - and at 9 yrs old, she impressed everyone (including me). As we walked into one meadow, she started naming species faster than anyone else could even find them.

The afternoon walk was stormed out. The clouds rolled in along with wind and driving rain and hail. Not a good environment for butterfly counters . . . or the butterflies.

44 years

Well, Spain did it. They beat the Germans and I was watching the whole thing.

44 years. It was a very, very, very long time. Good for them.

But you know what?

My Cardinals won yesterday :) Now, they're only 2.5 games behind the Cubs (my youngest son is beginning to get worried). Which means this weekend should be a fun time around the house, what with the series starting Friday in St. Louis.