You know you spend too much time at the computer when . . .

Your google reader bloglist looks like this . . .

A Spattering of blogs - some serious, some farcical, some inane, some just plain cool . . .

Cheating Death - ER related - 'cause I was an adrenalin junky for 5 years working in the local trauma center as a crisis/trauma/bereavement counselor.

ER Nursey

LPN with an M16

Tales from the ER and Beyond -

The LawDog Files

The Mad Parson - mad, as in insane, but timely and thought-provoking

today's lessons - the first blog I ever found, discovered through a David Wilcox connection - imagine that! It hit a chord because of the family-oriented, homeschool, just-plain-life-on-display nature of it.

Cattails: Adventures of a Very Bad Cat - sometimes, but not on Thursdays. Working in an ER, for 5 years, I had enough TMI every day that ends in "y"

Daily Portion - love the "world class dabbler" designation - I can so relate! I also keep up with her flickr page daily

Dekor Beton - my friends in Istanbul with whom I worked for nearly 3 years in the decorative concrete business - Istanbul is a great city and the folks who run the business are just wonderful people.

EarthChick - OK, so it's her knitting blog, and I certainly don't knit, and she doesn't post that often, so I usually just catch up via her flickr page

DeathChic - cause I have a sense of the macabre - I blame in on the ER

Christ is Deeper Still - cause it's well worth reading

Edwin Leap - ER MD who writes for the local paper

Euangelion - another worth reading

internetmonk.com I browse this one mostly.

The Paragon School of Shooting - Sporting Clays tips

Pioneer Woman - discovered through a photo blog (listed below) and discovered cool photos and some homeschool stuff

Teleios Ministry - some friends of mine from work have traveled to Tanzania to work with an orphanage over there.

The Kapics - college friend who now has triplets!!!! I absolutely can't imagine.





THE Flyfishing STUFF:

Fishing with Marcus

Bent Rod Media

Jubal Mountain

Catch Magazine - working for the actual online mag is my current dream job! Catch Magazine

R&R Fly Fishing

Felt Soul Media - discovered him through moldychum.com somehow - not that I keep up with moldychum anymore

52 Trout

Modern Hillbilly - Married to Very Bad Cat

Perspicacious Words



PHOTOGRAPHY!!! - the really big category

Amy Martin Photography - SE regional photographer

Cheyenne Schultz - Charlotte, NC-based photographer

Mayfield Photography - SE regional photographer

Ruth Rackley Photography - Clinton, SC-based photographer

Professional Photographers of South Carolina - one day I'll actual be a member and make the meetings.

The Beautiful Mess - Charlotte, NC-based photographer

Lightroomers - I read alot about Adobe Lightroom because I use it at the office and at home

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips - what a mouthful for a blog

Ask the Photographer

Chase Jarvis - this guy absolutely rocks - from photography to videography to just plain cool & creative.

Confessions of a Photographer - Bert Stephani - one of the founding members of LIME (link later)

Digital ProTalk - Cincinnati, OH-based photographer

Erin Browne Photography

Inside Lightroom

Go Boda - because I want one of these systems

FlashFlavor - Matt Adcock & his wife Sol Tamargo shoot some fantastic destination & Trash the Dress stuff - amazing work!!!!

Maring Photography

Lighting Mods

Lightroom News - yes, another Lightroom blog

Paul Souders Photography

Creative Pro

Photography Tips & Lessons

Photoshop Insider - Scott Kelby - the progenitor of the Worldwide Photowalk - happening this year on July 18th - when I hope to be on a butterfly count in Aiken, SC

PocketWizard's - because I really want these, even though I currently use two different remote systems

Ed Pingol - San Francisco-based photographer who does just amazing work. I have no desire to be a wedding photographer, but his use of off-camera flash is fantastic!

Squeeze the LIME - European group of photographers who put out some really fun, instructive posts for photographers.

Vincent LaForet - if you have time (or can even remotely consider MAKING time), check out his videos on SmugMug - the guy creates the coolest stuff. Of course, he has all the good toys, er tools. Yeah. Tools. That's what I meant to type.

Photowalk Pro

Strobist - the guy responsible for about 98% of the above photographic blog findings on my part and a true instructor when it comes to lighting.

If I've missed yours, send me the link and I'll add it, too.

Why not, I only have 19 posts left to catch up on from today.

So, what're you reading?

Children reading

I thoroughly enjoy seeing all three of my kids bringing their day to a close by picking up a book and reading. As I type, I'm the only one in the house not currently engrossed in some tome that broadens the mind and captivates the imagination.

We started reading to the kids long before they were aware of it. I'm not certain any of them were read to in utero but certainly not long after they were sleeping soundly in their cribs.

I need to find my book very soon as well.

Weeding

I love 67* evenings with a gently blowing breeze keeping the bloodsuckers at bay and damp ground from Spring rains.

It makes weeding easier.

And we have a lot of weeding needing accomplished. Five acres with several 40+ yr old flower beds in great need of revitalization; a blueberry patch in desperate need of more mulch; a field eaten up with dandelions - OH THE DANDELIONS! I've spent two entire days and several 5 gallon sprayers full of nasty herbicide spot spraying only to have them come back again with a vengeance (I swear they are being planted by my neighbor's and their children)!

The very welcome rains halted progress on my daughter's butterfly garden (Stage 1). It's 24' x 7' at the fenceline between the front yard and the (apparently, very) future blueberry orchard. So this evening we were hard at work with the cultivators, shovels, mattock, and bare hands. I love the feel of dirt seeping into my pores and getting lodged under my fingernails. I always find some small particle still clinging to the underside of them the next day while I'm on hold at the office.

The boys were busy trenching a border and cutting the back yard. I still don't understand my youngest son's aversion to cutting the grass - I mean, he even has a self-propelled "push" mower. Of course, this was his year to use the lawn tractor until he & his older brother revived the family tradition of killing anything with a "small" engine. Two motors in two years, so I'm making them sweat a little while I bide my time finding a lawn tractor or three that I don't care if they destroy or ride into the pond on a dare.

I got a phone call from a friend searching for some electronic equipment that may or may not be stashed away somewhere in the dungeon we call a basement at the church. So, I started weeding the front yard. It's not as though I could swing a mattock and talk on the phone at the same time, so I just started pulling weeds. Grassy weeds, sedges, broadleafs (dandelions are my archnemesis with this yard - see rant above), and anything else that isn't St. Augustine or Bermuda grass.

And I discovered something.

It takes no thought whatsoever.

My hands just know the difference between turfgrass and weeds. I can weed the yard with my eyes closed. Or my brain concentrating on where the heck we stashed the speakers, mixing board, mics and wiring for the PA system that hasn't been used for about 10 yrs at church.

I can weed the yard even when it's dark and my mind has wandered and wondered over all sorts of other subjects and the kids are getting ready for bed, and the dogs are out of the pond (chocolate lab is the prime troublemaker - youngest son's dog and my wife's archnemesis!).

I can weed the yard while I contemplate when and how to repair the roof(s) on the workshop, the garage, and the stable; while I ponder if I have any Maker's Mark still in my fishing flask (no, damnit!); while I wonder if my wife is still watching baseball or if she'll come looking for me and declare me as crazy as the day she married me; and any other number of things that scamper through my thoughts.

I think I should spend more time just sitting in the front yard yanking handfuls of problematic little things out of my life more often.

I think I will.

So, if you happen to be riding out through the South Carolina countryside some Springtime evening and see a little bucolic scene with some foolish looking fella ripping things out of his yard by the handful, with his eyes wide closed and a great big grin on his face, you'll know it's me.

Springtime Fridays

I think at least half the world takes Friday afternoons off work, especially in the Springtime, and especially around my neck of the woods.

The fields are full of purple, blue, yellow, white flowers surround by green everywhere.



The fish are biting.



The birds are singing.

The phones aren't ringing. At least here at the office. And every first business day of the month, we're kicked out of our computer system to close the books on the previous one.

The new shop isn't ready for me to go take pics.

I have no permanent place to setup all this new photographic gear, which is driving me crazy sitting in my office floor.

It's like putting an alcoholic in a liquor store with $6K in his pocket and saying, "You can look, but you can't touch."

I usually go run a few errands on Wednesday afternoons - Lowe's to pick up odds-n-ends for the shop; the sign store to pick up any orders we have ready; this place or that. Just something to break up the week, but it needs to be done.

We don't have any meetings scheduled for this Friday, so . . .


I think I'll take the afternoon off and "run errands".

Today's the day!!!!

Guess what has arrived!!!!

I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

And you can't cheat and look at the picture below.

Now, watch it rain all weekend and I will have to sit in the house and drool, um, I mean, clean the thing all weekend.

At least the wife is out of town. She hates the smell of solvents and light machine oil in the house. She thinks they should be relegated to the garage or the workshop. I, personally, think light machine oil would make a great black tie affair cologne.

I could market that, and a few others to a select crowd of men and make enough to pay off the house and go fishing for a few days.

Or buy a few more rounds for break-in.


But then again, I like the smell of diesel fuel.

Hopefully, I'll post some pics of my own before the weekend is out.