Virginia Is For Families

Is it time to head for the beach? I think so.

Click on the music and then the photo thumbnail for a slide show presentation. Feel free to fiddle with the number of seconds each photo is shown. I would set it to coincide with the music but don’t think the process allows one to do this. Or it requires skills beyond my reach at the moment. Suggested slide duration: 8 seconds.

Play – Feel The Breeze

Feel The Breeze

I guess this post pretty much sums up this blog at the moment. We have just reached the two year mark this week and I can’t think of a better way to recognize the moment than to do something like this. I have enjoyed the journey very much and feel that this type of post is a culmination of the things I have learned about blogging and photography to date.

I’m still riding the wave in any case. Where will it lead next? Well it would be nice to figure out how to merge music and photos in a video without losing some of the photo quality. And it might be interesting to merge photos and poetry in some way.

It would also be nice to solve some of the technical problems this blog has been having for the past two years. But let’s not be too optimistic. These photos were taken last year but never edited. Some may seem familiar but they are different perspectives on familiar subjects. Hopefully I will be heading to the beach soon to take some more!

Once they solve the technical issues surrounding our building! In other words. . . finish putting the new skin on the building (see post last April about our adventure way up high with plastic over the windows). Unfortunately the same issues that are affecting the economy and housing everywhere are present here.

It’s time to hit the beach again and we are just about ready. The repairs on the building are (hopefully) coming along and we no longer have to worry about seagulls flying through our bedroom while we are trying to sleep. Here’s one of Roy Orbison’s classic homages to women who make the landscape so much more attractive than it otherwise might be.

Where would be be without them? Depressed for sure!

Play Oh, Pretty Woman

20 Oh, Pretty Woman

Click on the music and then the photo  for a slide show experience. And don’t hesitate to play with the photo timing feature.

We spent today outdoors and with nature.  Here are some photos from our visit to the Virginia Aquarium.  They have a lovely spot near the estuary where you can watch the birds fly back and forth.

It’s a very peaceful place  and I spent about an hour standing there and watching our feathered friends.  But one of two things happened at regular intervals.

Children would wander by and start a ruckus or fighter jets would appear overhead as they did their practice runs.

But you can’t have everything.  Here are the pics.  Birds are as beautiful as flowers in their own way and I enjoy photographing them very much.  They demonstrate once again that nature’s artistry is not limited to stationary objects.

Nature loves to take her show on the road.

Click on the photos to enlarge

[Show as slideshow]

 

We arrived at the beach yesterday and were amazed to see our building covered in green drapes!  It’s undergoing a facelift and there is scaffolding over much of it.  See the photos for a better idea of the situation.

Beth pointed out to me that you can stand in a room and look at a wall socket and see. . .

Daylight!

Nice.  And the “windows” are covered with plastic.  Fortunately it only got down to forty something last night and there wasn’t much wind up here.  But who knows what it will do tonight!  My lovely wife keeps telling me it’s an adventure.

And we did have a very nice day after the rain cleared out.  We walked the boardwalk and went out to dinner.  Then we got under the blankets and watched Carolina dismantle Michigan State in the NCAA basketball finale.   Congrats to our ACC!

I woke up at six this morning and headed for the beach to take some photos.  It was pretty cold but that didn’t prevent a couple of surfers from heading out into the surf with their wet suits and gloves.

I found a perch and took a few photos of the birds,  our denuded building and the US Corps of Engineers dredging Rudee’s Inlet.  Lots of maintenance going on as the beach folk prepare for another vacation season.

Hopefully somebody will arrive once it is all completed.

Click on the photos to enlarge

[Show as slideshow]