Virginia Is For Families

It will be time soon for some Christmas photos.  And I have noticed that there have been a lot of search engine requests for last years photos this past week.

People are getting ready I guess.  They want to see Christmas photos even before Thanksgiving.  And one of the nice things about having a blog that is over one year old is that you can provide holiday photos prior to the holiday.

But I am still a little bit hung up about autumn leaves.  They are still desperately hanging on the trees and I feel for them.  They have lost their beauty.  And in a way I guess I identify with them in my old age.  Because I was (after all) such a beautiful youth.  Cough.

Youth is beauty.  I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.  Certainly it seems so when we take photos of our children and our grandchildren.

So I went for a walk over to the U a few weeks ago and took some photos.  But when I looked at them I was very discouraged.  Looking back I think it was the glare.  I usually forget to put the little hood on the end of the lens.

And what do you get when you forget to do that?  Trouble!   But sometimes you can go back after awhile and get a new perspective.  Your mood changes.  Maybe you felt rushed.  Maybe you were just disappointed and tired so you didn’t really try to dig down for the gold.

Maybe later you do the digging and see something shiny.  Maybe it’s gold.  Maybe it’s just bronze.  But it’s something worth saving.

So here they are.   Perhaps there is a high school student out there who will look at these some day and make a decision about going to this school.

Maybe he (or she) will look at the colorful leaves and feel good about being young and ready for adventure.

Never thinking about leaves that are drained of their color and ready to blow away in the icy winds of November.

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RANDOM POST

This is a photo from last year about this time. I took it at Maymont Park downtown and thought I would put it up again. Apologies to those who have already seen it. We are still waiting for some autumn color around here. The temperature is supposed to be mid 80’s this afternoon.

It’s a cheerful photo and one that reminds me why I enjoy photography so much.

And photography is important here. I’ve written a little about economics and politics lately but that’s not going to be a regular thing. I don’t know enough about it and it’s kind of depressing as well.

Poetry is important too. The Boss Poem is just a simple little thing and it is being viewed now over three hundred times per day. It’s not StumbleUpon either. It’s search engine traffic and people are apparently concerned about their relationship with their boss.

That’s not surprising. Job concerns have to be high on a great number of lists these days.

Lots of activities may be cut back. But we can all still blog can’t we? We can write prose and poetry. We can take photos and we can offer encouraging comments to each other.

Taking photos is a lot cheaper when you don’t have to develop film. And everyone already has a computer. Maybe dial ups will make a comeback though.

Maybe the photos should be smaller and fewer to the page.

I don’t know. But the weather is terrific and it’s relaxing to run out into nature somewhere and start looking for the beauty wherever she may be.

It’s a recipe for dealing with the emotions that accompany changing times. Document the changing foliage. Take photos of the clouds.

Update// Well this explains all the readers. . .

Boss’s Day (also known as Bosses Day or National Boss Day) is a secular holiday celebrated[citation needed] on October 16 in the United States. It has traditionally been a day for employees to thank their boss for being kind and fair throughout the year. The holiday has been the source of some controversy and criticism in the United States, where it is often mocked as a Hallmark Holiday. Recently, sites like Hallmark have recognized the holiday with a contemporary spin

from Wikipedia

I woke up last night and was shaking like a rag doll that had been left inside the freezer.   Somebody in this family does not like to turn on the heat as Autumn gets going.  Somebody likes to prop the window open with a fan and enjoy the night air.

So I woke up and thought it was a repeat of the flu shot I received in 1982 that was supposed to have dead flu virus in it but must have had some very active little buggers who were part of the funeral procession.  I will never forget that night as I found all the blankets in the house and crawled under them.   I was a single parent at that point so there were no other adults around.

“What’s the matter with daddy?”

Don’t worry kids.  Just remember to call someone if daddy stop shaking and turn ghostly white or stops breathing.

Last night was not that bad.  Once I got warm it became clear that I was not sick.  But I will be more careful in the future about falling asleep in our house in October BEFORE the heat is turned on.

I have an external hard drive and it’s not working.  I tried to format it like it was a memory stick with 4GB’s of space instead of 300 GB’s of space.  Apparently they don’t work the same.   Because now I have 300 GB’s of useless space.

I was going to put all my photos on this Toshiba HD so I could reformat my computer HD.   It has been acting strangely lately and this is the way I deal with computers that misbehave.

I execute their hard drives.   Because I can’t fix them.   It could be a software problem that is easily solved with four or five clicks.  Too bad.   Everything must go.  It’s a  super Saturday sale.

Except that I have no place to put the photos now.  The laptop is full and it needs to be executed too.

Oh well.  So I’m not making much blogging progress today.  I was zapped by the cold.  My computer was zapped by its owner.   And we are just sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Stunned into submission.  Monday is here and we ain’t got no traction.  But at least I don’t have the flu.  And somebody did turn on the heat after watching me shake, rattle and roll for a few minutes.

I’m so happy I could . . .

More writing

http://davidnotes.com/2008/07/05/talk-neighbors-daughter/

, originally uploaded by Davidlind.

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I went down to the James River last evening to try out the Nikon D40 that I purchased from Amazon a few days ago. It’s a smaller camera than the D70 (far less expensive too) and it has a superior LCD screen and setup options on the screen. Here is a photo I took with it. I also bought the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor Lens. It does take better photos further away than anything I have used in the past. And it has a stabilization process that makes things clearer. I sent the D70 back to Nikon as well so it was a productive day. Hopefully they can awaken it from its coma and send it home again.

I still love you Nikon D70 wherever you are. Get well soon.

We are heading back to Virginia Beach this weekend and I hope to take a few better photos after learning from my experiences last weekend. Of course you can never tell what you are going to get down there. Things may be completely different and it will have nothing to do with my learning curve.

My learning curve sometimes seems more like a speed bump in the road.

I hope nobody is grossed out my the video of Craig Ferguson’s dream. Let me know if it bothers you. I find him to be extremely funny and Beth thinks I have lost my mind once again.

Amazon ads are making an appearance. It’s curiosity. Would anyone actually use them to make a buying decision?

I am skeptical. But I love Amazon and personally try to keep them in business by running the UPS guy up and down the road with packages.

Everyone have a great weekend. It’s the best time of year with the cool, dry weather and the beautiful fall colors coming soon. Or maybe they have already come to you. Bernie?

I know that Jeff is happily snapping photos up there in New Hampshire. I was in upper NH once camping out. I swear a bear was watching me. It was pretty scary.

Something was watching. Do you ever feel like you are being watched? Halloween is coming! Time for some more stories about UFO’s!  Yikes.