New Iberia

I've spent the past week in and about New Iberia, Louisiana.  It's a nice little town, passionate about itself and very protective of it's own.

Here's a few shots I've taken over the week.

Shotgun row houses in New Iberia

As I stood on the banks of a pond near Jefferson Island, I thought how lucky the birds were to have me taking their pictures with a camera.  Had I been John James Audubon, I'd have simply blown them out of the sky with a shotgun and then proceeded to record their image on canvas and paper.

Jefferson Island Roseate Spoonbill

Jefferson Island White Ibis

Jefferson Island Cattle Egret

A stern warning

Life goes on

For the past couple of weeks, I have been plagued with laptop problems.  Twice, I've taken it to some supposed geek of sorts complaining it would not turn on.  Once, I laid it up on the counter while telling my woes, then pushed the off/on button as we watched it come on immediately.  Another geek let me leave it at his place only to call me back in an hour telling me nothing was wrong with it.  He was not shy about billing me $25 for his diagnosis.  It has gotten progressively worse.

Being the suspicious anti-geek that I am, managed to back up the old laptop on an external drive before it got on another fit of non performance and turned belly up. It appears dead for sure.

Laptops (from my experience) have an age like dogs.  Some say that dogs have 1/7 the lifetime of a human so if that is correct, the average lifespan of a Dell laptop should be relatively 25 to one.  That made my machine the human equivalent to 82 years.

I realize I am not a computer guru and really don't understand the gut works of the laptop but I'm not a complete idiot either, so I went online and bought another Dell at what I thought was a bargain price.  Once I opened it I realized how many settings and programs I had accumulated and went about customizing the new one.  I was so indulged in getting the new computer up and running that even my wife made snarky remarks about my passion.

Now, it appears I need to find a fitting and proper burial place for the Dell Inspiron 1545 before the Geek Squad comes and have me charged with computer abuse.  The SPCA would have you arrested if you failed to take care of your horse and seek medical assistance if it developed a tumor.  It's not a far stretch to think there must be a violation somewhere out there in geekdom.

Honestly, I de-fragged it a couple of times and had some decent (free) virus protection.  I promise.

Summer's Here Already

Summer seems to have arrived already and it's not happy!   At least in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I've been working for the past week and will be through June 10.

I"m naturally drawn to water and moving water in particular but the south has been in near drought conditions for the past few months and many streams that normally are flowing, now are reduced to a trickle.

This morning, I trekked up a hilly trail at Lake Catherine State Park just south of  Hot Springs where the heat had already gotten to the low nineties by 9:00 AM.  By the time I found the falls (or what's left of them) the combination of the hills, temperature and my way out of shape condition had me huffing, puffing and sweating.

Wading in the pool below the falls was a refreshment I shared with a some adults, a dozen kids and a Golden Labrador Retriever who had taken the short and not so rugged trail.

It was a good to get out, clear the cobwebs from my mind and get in some much needed exercise. 

After my Mom's family reunion, hopefully I will be able to get home a few days and exercise Old Boudreaux as well.

Still dry so far.

The east side of the Mississippi River in Louisiana is still dry at this point.  Not being at home, I'm constantly thinking about Louisiana every time I turn on the TV in the hotel room.  My wife says there are sand boils on or near the levee on River Road just south of LSU but she's confident that they will not rupture.  My heart goes out to the folks north of us and on the west side near the Atchafalaya.

Here's a link to compelling photos of the flood from up in Mississippi down into Louisiana. (click here)  

Some of my favorite photos

Click here for a small representation of my favorite photos.

http://lenseyeflash.blogspot.com/

End Of The World Kit

Combined with growing up with frugal self sufficient parents or being trained in my early teens by a really wacky scout master, I've developed a penchant for self survival.  Beginning at the age of 13 our scout master in the Boy Scouts of America, troop 16 in Farmerville, LA, would take several of us off into the Bayou D'Arbonne or Bayou De Loutre on weekend trips into the woods armed with little more than a sleeping bag, hatchet, knife and a cigar box full of survival essentials.  I suppose these lessons of life have carried over to my advanced age.

In the past 10 years, I've traveled most of the 50 states and have been part of natural disasters ranging from hurricanes/tropical storms in Florida, landing in blizzards in Minnesota and Michigan, dodging tornadoes in Alabama and Tennessee and feeling the earth beneath my feet turn to jelly during an earthquake on Maui.

Each of these events often have one thing in common; loss of power and essential services.  So with this in mind, I have collected a few items I always carry in the trunk of the car.  Of course seasons and geography usually change what I have but for the most part my core End Of The World Kit remains the same.  It includes:

• A backpack with extra socks, underwear and a pack of beef jerky.
• Small first aid kit 
• Aspirin, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, anti-diarrheal tablets and Zycam
• Toothbrush with dental floss
• Hydrocortisone, anti-bacterial ointment and chapstick
• Halizone water purification tablets
• A magnesium fire starter with steel wool to catch sparks. Also a magnifying glass to start fires and to read small print.
• Folding pocket scissors, razor blades, multi-tool, screwdrivers, pliers, electrical tape and a Swiss Army Knife
• Disposable plastic gloves, 2 space blankets for heat, head net protection from insects and a lightweight disposable hooded poncho
• Needle and thread
• A compass, several hundred dollars cash, extra identification and a road atlas
• Depending on the season or the area, there will good walking shoes, caps, gloves and jacket.
• In the winter (places like North Dakota, Minnesota, etc.) I usually make sure I have plenty of water in the car with a couple those large 24 hour candles. ( You don't leave your car in a blizzard )

Can I survive indefinitely with this supply? No, but I have a better chance of waiting it out until help arrives or have the tools to break in (hey, it's survival) to where food, shelter and creature comforts exist.



Slightly related to all this paranoia, is how I leave a few things in the room during the night.  Usually, I will drop my room key, car keys, wallet, pocket knife and shoes by the hotel room door.  My reasons are that if a fire started during the night or other emergencies happen, I won't have to fumble around in the dark to find things to make a hasty departure.  Also, if I carry my electronic room key with me, I do not carry it in the sleeve they give me if my room number is written on it.  If you are robbed or it is stolen, you don't want the thief knowing where you are staying and beating you back to your room for other booty. It is worth mentioning, I usually try to not let my gas level get below a half tank just in case of wide spread power loss rendering electric gas pumps useless.

Call it how you like but that's how it works for me.

Bin Laden

Today, President Obama said that photos and videos showing a dead Osama Bin Laden would not be released.  Many pundits on both sides of the fence cranked up the political posturing and set forth a barrage of what could be a firestorm of conspiracy theories.  I personally could care less whether the photos emerge or not.

However, I do find certain things curious about the controversy.  Many who do not want the photos released seem to fear a Muslim backlash were the very ones demanding or applauding the release of photos from Abu Ghraib prison.  Most likely to serve as an embarrassment to the Bush administration.  Let's face it, radical Muslims will hate us regardless of the released photos and are hell bent on killing us long before a photo of any kind emerged.

On another note, Many who want the photos released say it will counter the conspiracy theories that have already begun to rise.  If that is true, there are photos and videos of the lunar landing, the Kennedy assassination and 9-11 itself that have had no effect in dispelling theories.  Apparently, the administration did not have a concise plan on the stories told and there seems to be conflicts on the time of the raid, whether Bin Laden was armed or was hiding behind women in his compound.  Naturally, every time a story changes, it only fans the flames of the conspiracy theorists. We can look forward to the next few months of nasty debates on this matter.

Whatever the outcome, some things probably are better off just not shown. The cell phone video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein was released but for the sake of human decency's sake should have never surfaced but like the gruesome photos of interment camps at the end of World War II, they will be part of history and serve to rally the sentiments of generations to come.

Storming In Tennessee

Last night, I was at the Wal-Mart store in Decherd, TN buying some office supplies when the store manager came dashing around exclaiming that a tornado was near and we should all huddle near the center of the store.  Sure enough, all the lights went out and folks were all crowded around in the clothing section listening to the rain and hail hit the thin roof. I began to text family and friends, letting them know of my predicament.  My wife texted back, saying to get away from the hardware and things that could become airborne if the roof tore off.  I responded that I was hunkered down with two fat gals between rows of women's underwear and asked if that was soft enough. I received no other response.

After about 30 minutes, I began to think that staying in a thin metal building with a thin roof might not be such a hot idea so I made an executive decision to seek shelter in my hotel (20 miles north) and bolted for the car.  Being mutilated with 100 complete strangers in a Wal-Mart store just wasn't what I thought the end would be like.

Within the first 10 minutes, I began to question my logic when water overflowing from the ditches caused me to hydroplane a few times. When the hail began, I also wondered if I would be responsible for the dings on the rental car but my decision was now in play.  I had to re-track once because of downed trees but got there in about 40 minutes. Once back to the hotel, I congratulated myself on the choice but recounted the possibilities if I had met a tornado on Tennessee highway 127.

While I thought that was pretty bad, I found out later that nearly two hundred people had lost their lives just south of me down in Alabama.  A friend from Birmingham sent me a message that he was all right and that he had spent the early evening huddled in his bathroom playing cards with Miss Biscuit (his cocker spaniel) but had lost the game.

It was truly a destructive event and pray for those who were not as fortunate as myself.

Easter

As I came out of the large auditorium with several hundred people, I found myself directly behind two young women dressed in mid thigh skirts and spiked heels. The shoes made clicking sounds on the concrete floor and the thin material swayed sensuously as they made their way through the crowd toward the outer doors. At the doors the outside light made their clothing almost translucent revealing their shape and form. That was Easter morning at a very large and popular church in Baton Rouge.

Not that I'm being judgmental on the attire or being speculative of the lives of the ladies but it did give me pause and reflect how things have changed over the past 60 years.  They were by no means the only ones caught up this display of  corporeal beguilement.
I remember as a young boy, Sunday services were held in a little one room church house with eight windows without screens, two back doors and a front door without the benefit of electricity or running water.  While it wasn't exactly written in stone, women and children generally sat on the left side and men on the right on home crafted wooden pews.  I don't think you could ever describe anything as "sensual" in anyone's appearance and the "Sunday" clothes were reserved for weddings, funerals and church. Music, depending on the congregation, could have been supplied by an out of tune piano, possibly a guitar and depending on the group, singing a capella.  Yes, to an eight year old it was boredom in the purest sense and tempered only by the sometime wasps that may fly in and out of the window.

Fast forward to 2011 where you may find, in some occasions, modesty has completely been thrown out the window and dress down is rule of thumb and if a man can ignore the tight jeans, short skirts and abbreviated tops, he is a better man than I. Music is complimented with a light show that could rival an Elton John national tour and if you can't hear the words you might believe you were at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Mixing boards and controls are of the highest state.

Somehow, I find myself lost in the transition and fight daily to make sense of the distractions and figure out where I am in all of this and wonder what is to become of us as people and how will God judge us on the perversion.

The Lesson of the Moon Pie

A couple of weeks ago, I rode into town seeing gas in the $3.49 range and within a week, I was seeing $3.63-3.66 all around me. That was a wake up call to the fact that we are INDEED being hit with inflation.

When Gas prices go up, we can expect it to effect everything else from the shoes on our feet to the food at the store because it's all delivered to the final destination by a truck and that truck uses gas.

Here's another way I've seen it sneak up on me.  After having a decent meal in a little mom and pop restaurant in Decherd, Tennessee today, I was riding back to the office when the urge for something sweet hit me so I popped into a little convenience store, looked around for something to satisfy the sweet tooth and grabbed an old standby favorite, a Moon Pie.  I've been eating those things all my life but it's been a while since I have gotten one.  Walking up to the counter, I'm thinking this thing could hit me for anywhere between 59 and 79¢. The guy at the counter didn't even blink when he said, "Uh dollah an' seb'm cents, please."  Wow, my 59¢ good ole Moon Pie, with tax, is now $1.07?

The government has been denying that there  is significant inflation by choosing different reporting and calculating criteria.  But when my Moon Pie takes a 50% jump in price, now that's inflation.

I'm wondering how long a short term certificate of deposit at the bank can last below 1% now with the government (digitally) printing money at a record clip?  Hang on to your hats folks, this thing could get nasty.

Warm Spring Day In Tennessee

While yesterday was less than wonderful with temperatures ranging from the high 30s to the low 50s with gray skies, today was a gorgeous day. 

This afternoon, I explored local things near my hotel. One being something called the Old Stone Fort which is really an Indian mound but that's another story.

I walked some trails along the Duck River, managing to only fall flat of my face only once without breaking me or my camera. The tragedy could have been sliding off a 25 foot cliff into the waters.  It didn't look that deep but it was probably pretty cold and I wasn't ready for a swim.


Wild flowers were coming out along the rivers edge causing bugs to be out as well. While lying on the ground taking close-up pictures of some flowers, I had the uneasy feeling I was being watched.  I snapped off a couple of frames, slowly go up and saw a couple of Geezers (that would be someone my age or older) looking at me as if I were some kind of (please be kind in the comment section) nut.  I got up and nodded to them as if I were doing something important and headed back up the trail.  I suppose they don't see people wallowing around on the ground eye level to a dandelion very often.

It was a nice day.  I think there's even a full moon out tonight.

30 years ago, April 10

It's hard to believe how fast 30 years passes.  Little did we know how the roads would twist and turn as we started this journey which had no map or destination.

Tennessee

In case you had not noticed, I'm working in middle Tennessee and staying in Manchester.  When I arrived a week ago today, the gas station across the street from the hotel had prices of $3.49.  I have seen them raise prices twice in the last week up to $3.62 and three cents higher at the next exit.

April Fools

I wear hats much of the time

..these days and standing in the grocery store in Lenoir, North Carolina, intently reading the label on a jar, I felt a light tug on my jacket and turned to see a small older woman with tight curls in her thin blond (Clairol) hair.  She had this weird little impish grin on her face as she asked me without any introduction, "Do you know what kind of man wears the biggest hat?"

As my mind whirled trying to figure out if this was an off color joke or maybe just being a busy body attempting to make a point, I finally decided to bite and ask, "No Ma'am, I sure don't."
She gives me this Goober Pyle smile and blurts out, "The man with the biggest head!"

"OK..," I'm thinking, "What's this all about?"  I gave a nervous little laugh as my eyes darted around looking for the TV cameras.  If I had any notoriety at all, I would be looking for an Ashton Kutcher Punk'd crew hanging out but this is in hard core Mayberry RFD territory and wasn't likely.

With no film crews visible, I then began looking for an escape route down one of the aisles in case she pulled an ice pick or Beretta from her purse but just before I took flight, she perked up and said, "Made you laugh, didn't I?"

I nervously chuckled, "Yes ma'am, you did."  They say some folks laugh when they don't know what else to say or do and I was still looking for an escape route.

Still smiling, she perked up again, blinked her eyes and told me "Bye!", as she ambled off down by the pasta.

This Mayberry thing is going to take a little more "getting used to."

Spring is bursting out all over

As the buds begin to pop open and little creatures come out to play in the sun, so do the denizens of Lenoir, North Carolina.  Warm temperatures and shiny days bring the best out in everyone.  Reminiscent of times 50 years ago, the spirit of Andy, Barney and the characters of Mayberry burst forth with innocence as you hear gospel singing in restaurants and warm greetings between the street sweeper and shop keepers addressing each other by their first names.

Almost script like, the mannerisms of this small town, where hosiery companies and furniture lords once prospered, takes you back to kinder and gentler times.  With deep fried southern accents all the norm, you almost want to believe it's all a hoax and somehow you've been caught up in some corny play or a glitch in a time machine but the charm is very real and I like to think the world is a better place for communities like this.


Perhaps, I'll be working here another few weeks but it will take much more time than that to grow an affinity for livermush (look it up) and Carolina styled barbecue. 

Super Moon

While in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend, I slipped out to take a shot at the Super Moon.  It's trajectory brings it closer to Earth than it has in 18 years.  Fear mongers were crawling out of the woodwork, predicting more earthquakes, tidal waves, and natural disasters bigger than Al Gore's global warming head.

I admit, the moon would have looked better had there been some other objects in the frame with it but there simply wasn't anything near me that would have worked.  Plus, I really needed something in the 1000 mm range to make it really work.

On a tripod, Nikon D60, 200 mm digital (equivalent to a 300 mm in film cameras), ISO 100, Aperture 5.6, shutter speed of 1/500 second.  Cropping was necessary.

In North Carolina

A couple of weeks ago, I said adieu to Sonoma, California wine country and headed east to North Carolina.

Being in North Carolina.  Pros: the food is down home and folks here do not have that much of accent.  Who am I kidding, they think I talk like a Yankee.  Cons: the hardwood vegetation hasn't developed it's green yet and it's hard to find something that isn't gray.

This has been the first weekend I've had free to roam so I spent most of it hiking through some of the parks along the Blue Ridge Parkway such as Linville Falls. Waterfalls, yep there are a few.  I've hiked so much, my bunions are complaining but it's been very nice.

The falls on the right were only .7 miles from the parking lot but the experience gave me an intimate knowledge of North Carolina's rock, mud and tree root system.

From the Blue Ridge Parkway

Near Linville Falls

I am a fan of Timothy Allen

If I could go back and change a few turns in my life, this is how (at least on the surface) I would have done it. 

In 1993, after receiving a degree in zoology at Leeds University, Timothy Allen spent 3 years traveling Indonesia before signing onto an aid convoy to Bosnia for a report while working toward another degree in photography.  Six months later, he dropped out of school and began working with the Sunday Telegraph.  Through a series of changes, he has worked all around the globe.

If you have 7½ minutes, entertain yourself with collection of some amazing photography.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12618167

 If you have even more time, here's a a lot more.

President's Day Weekend (or "Doing the City")

Instead of flying home for a quick turnaround, Darlene came to see me, arriving Wednesday night.  Years since she had once lived on Travis Airforce Base, she wanted to see how it had changed in 43 y......er...a few years ago.

Darlene doesn't travel well so it takes a day or so for her to catch up after flying.  With that, she pretty much laid up in the bed Thursday while I worked.  Friday turned out to be a wet and drizzling day so we pretty much went shopping, did a winery/olive tour and changed hotels.  Stopping off at the Jacuzzi Winery and Olive farms, we had fun tasting dipping oils and a moderate amount of wine tasting.

Saturday proved to not much better weather wise and eventually wound up in Old Sacramento for a nice dinner after the kind folks at Travis AFB deemed Darlene a threat to national security and wouldn't let us on the base.  Actually security, as you might imagine, is pretty strict these days and since we had no sponsor to vouch for us they told us to hit the road.

Sunday, we could see Mt Diablo from our hotel room in Suisun City so we did the city, the whole ball of wax....bridge, downtown, trolley cars, cheap camera shops, Ghiradelli, Fisherman's Wharf, Lomard and pretty much the whole nine yards.

It was Chinese New Year so we thought we'd see what that was all about.  Driving up Pacific, we see this guy in the middle of the street pointing at us and yelling something.  As we got a little closer, I rolled the window down, I found out he was a street person engaged in free enterprise.  "Mike", it seems, found street parking signs for people, held back cars while they parked and insinuated he would watch over the cars while we did China Town.  Unspoken, it was a GREAT idea to tip Mike so that the car would not be broken in to while we were out.  It was worth the five bucks.

Monday, Darlene and I had a great time traveling over to South Lake Tahoe.  The place recently had a huge snow and snow machines had left banks of the white stuff so deep we couldn't really get out and take pictures along the way.  However, we did get out near the lake and play around.

Putting her back on the plane Tuesday morning, I hated to see her go because we had such a great holiday weekend.





 
 
 

  

The Golden Gate Experience

Last weekend, I figured on going down to San Francisco and spend the day taking a few artsy pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge from places I had not been before.  Looking on the map, I found Baker Beach so after 30 minutes of trying to find a place to park, I bundled up my tripod and backpack full of camera and lenses and ambled off down the beach toward the bridge.

As soon as I got down to the water's edge, I put my pack down and changed the lens on my Nikon to a 18-55 kit zoom lens, the widest angle piece of glass I owned.  There were people walking up and down the beach, some with dogs, a couple of people pushing baby carriages with sand tires and the usual day at the beach folks. Complacent in my surroundings, I busied myself with camera settings and attaching the tripod.
 
These days, I purposely choose manual settings on my camera (control freak that I am), adjusting light, ISO, shutter speeds, etc. I fired off a few frames then dropped the camera down to see how they were looking and then I noticed....yep, right there in all his glory......a nekid man (we Southerners say it like that) sauntering down the beach.  I'm a big boy or old man, however you want to look at it, so I can take all that in stride very well.  Pondering the idea of a naked guy on the beach made me to look around and in doing so, I realized there probably were maybe a dozen or so folks in the same state of dress.  Off up against the hill there was a congregation of people of whom some seemed to be in the nude and as I approached the rocks nearer to the bridge, realized there were a couple more laid out on the rocks.

I thought I would like to climb out on the rocks where a couple of dozen people were for a different shot of the bridge. On my approach, I came face to face with an older man just sitting there wearing nothing but a hat, shades and a smile.  Young teen girls were passing in front of him undeterred.  Me? I'm thinking that I've discovered at least one source of lesbianism.  If I were a young female and came up on such a sight, I would either have to gouge my eyes out with a stick or I would be turned off of the idea of men forever.

On returning back to the hotel later that evening, I Googled "nude beach San Francisco" and found that there are several beaches like this in California and at least four in the Bay area.

Yep, I think I may have discovered a source of lesbianism.

Feeling Guilty...........um....almost

With all the horrid weather in sweeping across much of the country, I feel just a little guilty as I find myself wintering in northern California's Sonoma County,  Well....some...yeah, some.


I'm hearing stories about -27 °F in Oklahoma, waist deep snow in New York and hard freezes in Louisiana.  That's just terrible!

So, with all the weather friends and family are experiencing let me apologize for enjoying myself and let me feel dirty for having to drive through miles of vineyards and rolling hills on the way to work each day.

However, I feel like I've paid my dues.  It hasn't been that long that I've flown into blizzards in Detroit and let sleet bounce off my head in Grand Rapids but for the sake of those still fighting it, I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's it.  I'm sorry.  Can we all feel better now?

Me, the motorcyle "wrench"

In the motorcycle world, there are those who are fair weather riders.  Some won't ride when it's too hot, too cold, raining or the wind is blowing from the wrong direction.  Of these, I am not counted.  I ride, simply because I have the bike and do not want to be one of those people who have a Harley sitting in the garage gathering dust.  There are people out there who can tear down a motorcycle, put it back together then get on and ride it.  They're called Wrenches. 

I've rebuilt and replaced starters, fluid changes and way back in the day, replaced tires.  So when Boudreaux's rear tire had become pretty slick, I decided to do it myself.  I've done it before and shouldn't be that big of a deal, right? Heh!

Previously, I had bought a Metzeler rear tire and tube online and it had been sitting next in a corner since before Christmas.  Saturday morning I decided it was high time I mounted it, so I enlisted the aid of my brother-in-law, Gary, to oversee my project.  While he was on the way over, I jacked the bike up, removed the side bags and had almost removed the wheel before he got there.  With a little effort, we completely release the wheel from the frame and went about the task of taking the tire off the rim.  We were so proud of ourselves for having the old tire off the rim within 20 minutes and no skinned knuckles.

Now for mounting the new one.  I unpacked the tube to discover it was the wrong type and just would not work.  Rats!  It is a mail order tube I needed one right then so a trip into town to the Harley shop for a much more expensive one.

Once home, we went about the chore of mounting the new tire and tube.  Between the two of us, we fought that spoked rim all over the garage floor, the driveway and back again. We got the tire half way on and tried to stuff the tube in but it sounds much easier than done.  We even went inside to watch a YouTube video on the art and process of tire changing.  Somewhere in the process, I got the bright idea of lubricating the tire so it would slip in easier.  Well, it slipped in alright. Somehow we slipped the whole rim into the tire completely with both sides inside the tire lips.  Darlene encouraged us by asking how much I had saved by buying the tire online and doing it myself.

By now, we're both tired and disgusted.  It's now 4:30 PM and we've wasted four hours and not any closer to having it completed than we did just after taking it off the bike.  Completely dejected, we decided the best thing to do would be to take it to a shop, admit defeat and pay someone with the right equipment to do it for us.  Gary will undoubtedly take it to a shop for me, explain it's not his and belongs to his idiot brother-in-law and some time in the future Darlene will remind me about the incident when I decide to make my own repairs again.

Sometimes, you just need a professional to do things and not be a Renaissance man.  Admitted, I'm not much of a wrench.