The End of the Hair Project

I am extremely late with this post. You, dear reader, have my apologies.

As you will recall from previous posts, my 02008 New Year's Resolution was to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

With just one week left in the year, my resolve to keep my hair uncut was still intact. However, my attention was brought to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, with its 8 inch requirement (which was better for me than Locks of Love's 10 inches). Well, I finally reached 8 inches in June!

Here are the May 2, 02009 photos:


Three days after those photos were taken, Beth could live with my long hair no longer. She decided it was haircut day, and she gave me my shearing. The next day, I stopped in for a visit to my barber for a bit of a cleaning up. These photos show the results:


Now I feel very much less like a total doofus!

Last week, I received a letter of thanks from Beautiful Lengths. So I know that my hair reached its destination. Mission accomplished!

02009 New Year's Resolution #19: Be More Prepared

I was driving home today after visiting Beth on her lunch break, when suddenly I saw this bird flying out there ahead of me. It was a jet black bird with an alarming red spot. My first thought was "red winged black bird". I was then immediately and simultaneously struck by two adjustments: 1) Way too big! and 2) The red spot is in the wrong place.

Soon I realised that I was behind a spectacular woodpecker. The red spot was its head. Before I overtook it, it veered to the left and perched on the side of a tree. There was my confirmation: A gorgeous woodpecker, indeed!

Alas, I did not have my camera with me.

So, when I arrived home, I grabbed my tripod and my camera, which already had my longest lens on it, and I drove back out in hopes of getting a shot of the bird. I parked about 1/8 mile down the road and started walking back to where the bird had landed. The bird was gone, of course.

I stood around for a little while and listened for the telltale pecking. I heard it off in the woods, and I started heading in that general direction. But I soon realised that the sound was coming from farther away than I was really prepared to go. I stood there in the woods for a while, listening and observing, hoping that the bird might come closer. No luck there, but I did spot something in the woods that I thought would make an interesting composition. So I set up my tripod, focused the lens, turned the camera on and went to take the shot. It was then that I remembered that my battery was cradled in its charger, safely back at home. "Curses! Foiled again!"

Well, this leads to my nineteenth New Year's Resolution of 02009:

I resolve to try to be better prepared for spontaneity!

That's it. Pretty simple. Sorry if you were hoping for something more substantial.

In the meantime, here are a couple of recent photos. I've mostly been posting photos recently to Facebook. These have already appeared there. But I understand that not all of my readers are on Facebook, so I'm posting these for those. Enjoy!

02009 New Year's Resolution #17: Support the Arts

I suppose in some sense, one could argue (if one were so inclined) that my photography constitutes a sort of ongoing art project. I would not.

Likewise, I suppose my monthly documenting of my hair's growth could be described as a sort of art project. I would not describe it so.

One might (as a stretch) claim that my t-shirt designs from last summer (none of which sold, sadly enough) could be considered a sort of an art project. Again, I would make no such claim.

Instead, I would assert that I haven't really made any efforts in terms of starting an art project in a very, very long time. This is sad, as I used to think I might try to make a profession of art. Pessimism, lack of self-confidence, laziness, the need to pay the bills...all of these things ended up putting the goal of producing something artistic on the back burner.

I intend to finally get around to changing that, at least a little. Presenting my seventeenth New Year's Resolution of 02009:

I resolve to undertake some sort of new art project.

I'll now describe my current dream project. [Note: I very much doubt that this is what I'll end up starting. Something tells me that it's more likely to be something much less involved, less ambitious, more modest. Perhaps a series of oil pastel or charcoal drawings.]

I would call this current dream project "The Domicile Project". I would like to either build or repurpose an old library card catalog. In it, I would catalog everything in our house, filing it all in alphabetical order, cross-referencing everything by country of origin, name, description, color, ingredients, etc. Each card would include the appropriate "home" location for the item described. So, by necessity, I would come up with a system which assigned a code to each shelf, each drawer, each cabinet, each room, etc. And that code would act as my personal Dewey Decimal System.

Each card would include a printed photograph of the item in question, but the description would be written by hand. Each card would have on its back a place for from and to addresses, and a rectangle for a postage stamp. Visitors to the installation (assuming someone would be willing to exhibit the project) would be encouraged to browse through the catalog and would further be encouraged to find a favorite card and take it with them as a souvenir, and also to take one to send as a postcard to a friend or loved one. The original hand written cards that had been removed would periodically be replaced by computer-printed facsimile cards (without the postcard formatting on the back). The facsimile cards would be somehow clearly marked as copies, with a watermark or a cancellation line through the face or perhaps a hole in the middle. Visitors would be discouraged from taking these, and encouraged instead to try to find a suitable original, until all such originals had been distributed.

And in case you're wondering, I am not obsessively well-organized. To some degree, I think just the opposite is true: that I am obsessively disorganized — at least as regards my personal stuff. But something about the potential for this exercise appeals very deeply to me. Perhaps it's a connection with the outmoded furniture. (I have recently come to understand that card catalogs are largely a thing of the past and that there's a whole generation of folks who don't know what they are.) Perhaps it's the alphabetization aspect. (While I am not organizationally minded, I am profoundly entranced by the invention of alphabetical order and its application.) Perhaps it's the idea of freezing a moment in time. (At some point, the cataloging would be complete. I expect that the final day of cataloging would necessarily involve going through the kitchen to document the perishables.)

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A general note on the nature of my New Year's Resolutions: In case this was unclear, and in case anyone was wondering, I think it's worth mentioning that I do not necessarily intend to perform all of my 02009 New Year's Resolutions during the calendar year of 02009. Instead, I intend to give myself one year from whatever date I make each resolution. If I end up making my last Resolution on December 31st, it would be unfair to expect it to be completed by midnight that night.

April Hair Photos

Happy April Fool's Day!

As you will recall from previous posts, my 02008 New Year's Resolution was to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

With just one week left in the year, my resolve to keep my hair uncut was still intact. However, my attention was brought to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, with its 8 inch requirement (which is better for me than Locks of Love's 10 inches). I am eager to get rid of the mess on my head. So, I switched allegiance.

Here are the April 1, 02009 photos:


I did end up getting a slight trim on Monday, after Beth told me that I had split ends. This may set me back a bit, but not as much as I expected. I think I may still be on pace for a May or June shearing. I'm really looking forward to it.

A New Photograph

One of my New Year's Resolutions this year involves trying to produce five photographs that fill me with unjustifiable pride. Here's my first. I shot this on Thursday.

I rarely title my photographs, but in this case I've made an exception. The title of the photograph: Concerning the Transience of Rainbows.

The rainbows reference has to do with the two arched trees that are central in the image. I don't know why, but up here in New Hampshire there are lots of these thin trees that have bent over into beautiful arcs. I noticed this particular pair a while ago. On Thursday I decided to trek out into the snow and shoot them from the opposite direction. I love how they parallel each other.

I'm truly proud of this shot, so that's 1/5 of the way to fulfilling this particular resolution.

March Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my 02008 New Year's Resolution was to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

With just one week left in the year, my resolve to keep my hair uncut was still intact. However, my attention was brought to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, with its 8 inch requirement (which is better for me than Locks of Love's 10 inches). I am eager to get rid of the mess on my head. So, I switched allegiance.

Here are the March 2, 02009 photos:


I'm still desperately hoping to be able to get this all chopped off no later than May, although I'm just not certain that it will all have hit that 8 inch minimum by then.

02009 New Year's Resolution #12: Shoot to Kill

A few years ago, Beth got me a fancy Canon digital SLR and some lenses for it. For some reason, she saw me as having the potential to be a pretty good photographer. Well, I really enjoy using my camera, but I tend to be pretty lazy about actually getting it out and shooting. As a result, I don't really take nearly as many photographs as I probably ought to. The downside of that is that the number of especially good images that I produce tends to be pretty small.

For my twelfth New Year's Resolution of 02009, I'm aiming to work on that. (Modestly.)

I resolve to try to produce at least 5 photographs, in the next year, of which I am unjustifiably proud.

Unjustifiable pride is really my only measuring stick. I never have a clue as to whether my pictures are genuinely good or not. All I know is whether I am proud of them. If so, I consider them a success, even if nobody else sees them as worth the effort.

Five in a year may not seem like a lot, but that would be a pretty darned good year for me, photographically.

February Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my 02008 New Year's Resolution was to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

With just one week left in the year, my resolve to keep my hair uncut was still intact. However, my attention was brought to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, with its 8 inch requirement (which is better for me than Locks of Love's 10 inches). I am eager to get rid of the mess on my head. So, I switched allegiance.

Here are the February 2, 02009 photos:


There should be just a few more of the self portraits before this series reaches its conclusion. I fear that my hair growth may have slowed its pace. Nonetheless, I'm still desperately hoping to be able to get this all chopped off no later than May.

02009 New Year's Resolution #10: Allow You To Steal My Soul

Long, long ago, I used to pay little to no attention to the cameras that were out in the world, stalking unwary souls.

Then one day I came to believe that there was no good reason why my image should be captured for posterity, and I began to shy away from cameras. My strong preference, for quite a lot of years, was to avoid being photographed. When film was in, I was convinced that there were better uses for it than to freeze my ugly mug in time. So, not including surveillance photographs, it's probably true that over the course of the last two decades, more photographs of my hand were taken than were clean shots of my face (as I made a habit of thrusting my hand up in front of my face whenever someone pointed a lens my way for a "candid" shot).

Well, it's a new age. Film is dead and pixels are free. And in my advanced age, I have come to realize that I possess very few photographs of the people who have meant something to me during my life, and suddenly I can appreciate why someone might want to collect images of their loved ones. Jogging the memory of good times, for example.

Do I think there's any particularly strong reason why possessing my image would hold any appeal for someone else? Not really. However, I've had an epiphany: It's really not up to me to determine the value of such things. One man's trash is another man's treasure. So, in response to this epiphany, here's my tenth New Year's Resolution of 02009:

I resolve to stop putting up resistance to having my face photographed.

From now on, if you want to shoot me, all you have to do is to track me down and have a camera ready. I'm no longer going to make efforts to block the sight lines between your camera lens and my face. I don't know whether this will make anyone any happier or not. I kind of doubt it. But if it does, great! I'm a big fan of the idea of increasing the amount of happiness in the world.

January Hair Photos

Welcome to 02009!

Well, I made it through all of 02008 without [much] breaking my New Year's Resolution. Sadly, a full year was not enough time to hit the target!

As you will recall from previous posts, my 02008 New Year's Resolution was to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

With just one week left in the year, my resolve to keep my hair uncut was still intact. However, my attention was brought to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program, which has an 8 inch requirement, rather than a 10 inch requirement. I've made no secret of my eagerness to get rid of the mess on my head. So, I have switched allegiance. I have no qualms about this, for at least two reasons:

• In my view, women with cancer are at least as deserving as are children with alopecia.
• I have heard that Locks of Love charges the kids for the wigs. Pantene, on the other hand, gives the wigs away.

Here are the January 2, 02009 photos:

Now it's time to come up with my New Year's Resolutions for 02009. (Yes, there will be more than one. Keep watching this space for details.)

And Happy New Year!

December Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

Here are the December 9, 02008 photos. During November, I passed the one-year mark since my last haircut. Sometimes I feel as if my hair is actually starting to look better, almost as if it's a style rather than just a mess. But really, that's all self-delusion. The truth is: It's a mess. But at least now I can mostly keep it out of my eyes. So in that sense, it's improving.

As a best-case scenario, I may be on pace for meeting the 10-inch minimum by May of 02009. I'm really not sure that I can manage to last that long. Time will tell.

Worst...Hair...Ever! (A double shot)

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

Here are the October 6, 02008 photos, followed by the November 5, 02008 photos. My apologies for posting them so late. And my apologies for how horrifying they are.

September Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

Last week, my hair started really annoying me because it keeps getting into my eyes. Grrrrr...

Anyway, here are the September 2, 02008 photos. My apologies for posting them so late.

For those few of you who will get the reference, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror a couple of days ago while I was wearing a baseball cap. Suddenly, I'm thinking of dressing up as a member of the Baseball Furies for Halloween.

Welcome to the Seventies (August Hair Photos)

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

I'm officially one of the long-haired freaky people now.



I had been getting very pessimistic about managing to get to the 10 inch minimum. I was especially worried that for the hair at the front of my head to just get long enough to reach the back of my head to join the pony tail, it would have to get to at least 13 or 14 inches! That just is not going to happen.

But I recently took another look at the Locks of Love web site and discovered this little gem:

Hair that is shaved off and not in a ponytail or braid is not usable. If shaving your head, first divide hair into multiple ponytails to cut off.

There's my salvation! Instead of having to gather all of my hair into a single pony tail, I can separate it into multiple pony tails. This gives me new hope of actually seeing this thing through.

I figure my hair is at about 5 inches now. I'm hoping that puts me on pace for getting it cut sometime in the summer of 02009. If I'm really lucky, I might be able to get it done in the late spring. That's still a very long way to go, but I think it's within reason.

My Career in Spelling Bees — Part 2 of Recollection of Childhood — and other things

I can't begin to tell you why I have been thinking of this recently, just that I have.

I remember in third grade, we had a classroom spelling bee, which I won. My winning word was "government". I remember pausing after the "R", considering whether the "N" belonged or not. It did not occur to me to ask for a repeated pronunciation or for alternate pronunciations, and it occurred to me that when I had heard the word spoken, it was most often the pronunciation in which the "N" is dropped — which is a legitimate alternate pronunciation in the dictionaries I consulted this morning before starting this blog entry. I opted to throw in the mysterious "N", and I won the bee. Surely my finest moment in this life.

Presumably, winning the classroom spelling bee would have qualified me to go on to compete against all of the other classroom champions in a school-wide bee. However, I have absolutely no recollection of any such thing. I would be almost willing to bet that it did not happen. Almost, but not quite.

Skip forward a year. No longer attending Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg, MD. Fourth grade was spent at Peter W. Crump Elementary School in Montgomery, AL. This time, no recollection whatsoever of a classroom bee. (Again, me almost willing to bet that there was none.) But I do recall going to the auditorium for an all-grades bee. I believe participation was strictly voluntary, and I think it was after the school day had ended — but I wouldn't testify to or bet on that.

My first and only word: "eavesdrop".

I blew it.

However, that's not the interesting part of the story from my perspective, now. The interesting part is that, at the time, the word "eavesdrop" held absolutely no meaning for me. As far as I knew (as far as I know), that was the very first occasion on which I had ever heard the word. How strange is it that I could have gotten to age nine, living in American society, living in a house with an older sister, and managed to never hear the admonition (aimed at either myself or at someone else), "don't eavesdrop"?

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I've mentioned my horrible memory in previous posts. (My last "Recollection of Childhood" post garnered a comment, by an anonymous poster, that sounded vaguely like an insult. That poster called me "Captain Lou". That, of course, was an homage to "Captain Lou Albano", professional wrestler and professional wrestling manager extraordinaire. [Note: I think it's fair to say that I resembled Lou Albano in no way whatsoever, except that we shared a first name.] As if to illustrate my point (and, actually, the point of said anonymous poster) about my horrible memory, I do remember having been called "Captain Lou" by someone in my adolescence, but I can't recall who. Eric, maybe?

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In other news, Google has yet again re-indexed and the end result is that a copyright infringing web site is now receiving the traffic that should be sent my way for folks seeking my bleeding heart flower photograph:

This upsets me, and I have now sent two e-mails to the administrator of the offending site. Unfortunately, there seems to be absolutely no way to contact Google directly to get them to make adjustments to protect copyright owners from having their traffic diverted to scofflaws. Harumph. Anyway, I've just posted it again, in hopes of getting Google to re-index, thereby bringing the traffic back to me. And in case anyone is interested in buying the image on a t-shirt or mouse pad, such things are available at Cafe Press.

July Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

To my eye, the July pics (shot on July 1, 02008:) don't seem drastically different from the June pics. However, I have to live with this stuff on my head, and I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that my hair has, in fact, continued to grow. Anyway, here are the July photographs:

The Hair Continues Growing

It occurs to me that people who stumble upon these hair picture posts might not know what they're all about if I don't explain them with each new posting. So, for those of you who don't know, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

In just a few short months, my relationship with my hair has gone past the stage of bargaining and past the stage of forced submission. It's now at the stage where I wash it and dry it and brush it once a day to ensure that it doesn't get knotted. Beyond that, I am now allowing it to do as it sees fit. It's a big mess and it keeps getting bigger. Recently I looked in the mirror and was reminded of Andre the Giant in his heyday. Soon, I expect I will look like I ought to be on the cover of an MC5 album. Anyway, here are the June pics, shot on June 3, 02008:

May Hair Photos, Late

Here are the hair photos I shot on May 2. Sorry they're so late to be posted. I have been terribly busy, and I have been having and trying to fix some technical issues on the blog. This partially has to do with my porting of the host, and partially (I think) with a glitch in Blogger's software. Anyway, here are the photos. Enjoy. (And I aim to get the June photos up much closer to the start of the month.)

A Walk in the Woods

I went into the town forest this afternoon, because it was such a spectacular day and I wanted to get out there and enjoy the weather. It was an interesting experience for several reasons.

First, I noticed lots of scat. I assume it's deer scat, but I'm no expert. This was interesting to me primarily because I have an established history of not noticing scat in the woods. So to notice so very many piles of it today was unusual.


I suppose it might be moose scat, but I doubt it. It's rare to see a moose in this neck of the woods. I think they mostly only come down this far south when they're forced to (by flooding, for example).

I spent most of my hike climbing. I ascended over 400 vertical feet, covering a distance of just about 0.7 miles. That's pretty steep, especially when you do as I did and pretty much just aim up, instead of aiming for the most convenient paths. I saw several frisbee golf holes as I was hiking today. I had either not known or forgotten that there is a frisbee golf course up there. Nice to know. Maybe we'll go frisbee golfing one of these days. I think we still have our discs somewhere.

When I got to the top of the hill, I heard this odd mewling noise coming from some pine trees. I first figured that there must be some sort of baby bird up there calling for food. Then I started to think that wasn't right, as I couldn't see a nest and there didn't seem to be a mama bird anywhere in sight. So I started to consider other options. It was definitely not the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. However, it did turn out to be an interesting result of the wind hitting the trees. What I discovered after some observation was that branches of two of the trees were touching each other, and as the trees swayed, one branch was "playing" the other like a bow playing a violin string.

I had started out thinking that this was not mosquito season. Why I though that is something for which I have no explanation. I sure was wrong! There are lots of mosquitoes, they are quite large and very thirsty, and they seem to think I am quite tasty. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the wildlife I saw today was in the form of mosquitoes.


So, now I get to hope I didn't catch the Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) that seems to have been popular among the mosquitoes here in New Hampshire in recent years.

April Hair Pics

Apologies for my tardiness in posting this. I've been keeping very busy and I've been burdened by a persistent cold which has lasted all month, so far. These photos are being posted well behind schedule, but they were actually taken right on schedule (April 2). I was feeling genuinely sick on that day, so I didn't make any effort to focus the camera well or ensure proper exposure.

That does not explain the change in hair style.

What does explain the change in hair style is that sometime in March I came to the realisation that when it is long, my hair will not submit to my will. So instead of slathering in the goop to try to keep it down, I decided instead to allow it to do what it will. So basically I just towel dry and shake now. It's a different look. More wild. But somehow, I think it's a bit less ridiculous than what happens when I brush my hair.

On with the photos:



Enjoy!

Watching Hair Grow

As I mentioned in a previous post, my New Year's Resolution for 02008 is as follows:

To at least make a valiant attempt at resisting the urge to cut my hair, with the eventual goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

In the last month, my hair has definitely crossed over into the silly range. I think it's hovering on the ridiculous precipice, but I don't think it's quite crossed over. Certainly, it will have done so a month from now.

Here are the March 2, 02008 photos:



The last time I shaved was on February 1. That has nothing to do with the resolution. It has more to do with its being winter, and my having gotten through the itchy time, which is what usually keeps me from not shaving. I fully expect to shave by the end of this month. That will, of course, serve to amplify the difference between the March and April photos.

Cornish-Windsor Bridge (A New Photograph)

I went out yesterday for a little bit of photography. Here's a photograph of the Cornish-Windsor Bridge. [I guess Vermonters call it the Windsor-Cornish Bridge, which actually has a nicer ring to my ear, but since I'm living in New Hampshire, I'll call it "Cornish-Windsor".]

What you see is the Connecticut River, not nearly frozen over, but covered with a lot of floating ice. The long horizontal thing is the bridge: the longest wooden bridge in the U.S. and the longest two-span covered bridge in the world. There's snow on the roof. In the background, I believe that's Mt. Ascutney (VT), but I could be wrong about that. I have no idea of what mountain it would be if it's not Ascutney, though.

As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged.

New Year's Resolution, 02008

Cracking a nut is not really an art, and therefore no one would ever dare to call together an audience and crack nuts in front of them in order to entertain them. If he does it anyway and he succeeds in his intention, then it can certainly not be a matter of nut-cracking alone. Or it is a matter of nut-cracking, but it becomes clear that we have ignored this art because we have mastered it too completely and this new nutcracker shows us its true nature for the first time, in which case it might even be useful for the effect if he were even less skilled at nut-cracking than most of us.

-Franz Kafka, as translated by Kevin Blahut
from the story Josephine, the Singer
or
The Mouse People

I made a New Year's Resolution this year, and I actually did it at the start of the year. (I made last year's resolution in June.) My resolution for 02008:

To at least make a valiant attempt at resisting the urge to cut my hair, with the eventual goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

The last time I got a haircut was in November, so my hair has already grown longer than I'm accustomed to. The last time it was long enough (or close, anyway) to meet Locks of Love's 10-inch minimum length was in August of 01990. I moved onto the Penn campus, got my student ID photo taken (now that's a funny picture!), waited until the first Saturday morning, walked to the nearest barber shop, and got a respectable hair cut. If I recall correctly, I even had the barber give me a shave. Since that day, my hair has not been significantly longer than it is now.

I am aiming to shoot a series of self-portraits on or near the first of the month, each month until I either crack under the pressure (Beth has already started pointing and laughing) or succeed in achieving my goal.

Here are the February 1, 02008 photos:

A Photo of Autumn! (just a few months late)

Well, this past autumn was absolutely spectacular here in New Hampshire! (By far, the best we've seen since moving here.) However, I was largely lazy about taking my camera out to shoot it. Mostly, I just gazed in wonder, without any thought of my camera. I did take a few shots, though, and I think this one is the most interesting:

This shot was taken at night, using a compact fluorescent light source. As always, I welcome any feedback.

Hanging On For Dear Life (A New Photograph)

I came home the other day and the sun was setting and there was a very bizarre light out there. I decided to wander out to the flower garden that's in our side yard. I don't go out there very often, which means that when I do go out there, I'm almost always pleasantly surprised by what I find. All summer long, something is blooming, and I never know what it will be. There were some flowers out there this time that were obviously past their prime, and I just found this shot to be irresistible:

That last petal was just holding on for dear life. It was this incredibly vivid color, contrasting with this bizarre hub which used to contain so very many petals and had become so very barren. I think it's lovely. Let me know what you think of it.

Some Insect Photography

Today I spent a couple of hours in my kayak on Willard Pond in Antrim, NH. This was my second visit to this particular pond. It's not very large, but there's an island towards the east end. To the east of the island, there's a field (for lack of a better term) of these aquatic purple flowers. Being no botanist, I don't know what kind of flower they are. What I do know is that the bumblebees seem to love them. So there I sat, surrounded by hundreds or thousands of bumblebees (none of which made any effort to cause me any harm--way too busy going about their pollination activities), probably a few dozen dragonflies, a pretty good number of damselflies and a few lovely butterflies. I had brought my camera with my longest lens, which I set to Macro mode and fired off a bunch of shots. I think I got a few good ones, some of which I'll share here. I hope you enjoy!

I also got to see a couple of fish jumping out of the water. If I had to guess, I'd probably guess perch. But it would be a wild guess. Anyway, they were quick, and of course I didn't get any shots of them.

Back for more, finally

Okay. So it's been well over a month since I've posted anything here. Very sad. Here's my list of excuses:

1) I was saddened to see the drastic drop-off of traffic to the site, once Google did whatever it was that resulted in the majority of my photographs no longer bringing search engine users here. I still have no idea what happened or why. I know that several people on the web have placed links to my bleeding heart flower photograph elsewhere. But given that they've not copied the photograph to other locations, and instead just left the photo on my server and used a link to display it elsewhere, I'm baffled as to why Google would treat those sites as the home of the image, rather than treating this site as the home of the image.

I suppose I could stamp my URL across all of my photographs, but frankly I don't like that sort of thing.

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UPDATE (July 17, 02008): Well, it happened again a couple of days ago: a sudden drop-off in traffic to my blog as a result of Google's sending traffic to another site that's using my bleeding heart flower photo. I sent an e-mail to the administrator of the other site. In the e-mail, I requested some simple courtesies (being given credit for the photo, for one), given that I am the copyright holder. In the meantime, Google seems to have done something to adjust itself. However, at the moment, it's sending people to a subpage of my blog where the image in question isn't actually visible. Odd! Anyway, if you appreciate this photograph, you might be interested in knowing that I've made it available on my newly re-launched online store both on a t-shirt and on a mouse pad (with somewhat different crops).

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2) Also related to that, I've been less interested in posting my photography here since all those photographs disappeared from Google. Maybe they're still searchable, but I just don't know what search terms to use to find them. Frankly, I'm really disappointed in Google, and I'm wondering why they can't get their image search to be anywhere near as useful as their text search. And I'm pretty disgusted about the way they've chosen to make it impossible to provide feedback to them or to get meaningful information from them about how to get their image search to behave as one would hope.

3) I've been thinking a lot about political issues recently. I've been trying to avoid letting this become a political blog. Or, more accurately, I had been trying to avoid letting this become a political blog. After wrestling with this issue, I've finally come to the conclusion that I should no longer make an effort in that direction. So as of today, I've come to accept the premise that if political thought is what's occupying my mind, then I might as well allow political thought to be what occupies my blog.

4) Time seems to have escaped me. More accurately, I've found more compelling ways to occupy my time than by sitting at a computer and typing. I got to do the photography for some friends' wedding. (Congratulations, Christina and Jimmy!) Beth started a new job that allowed her to be home during the evenings rather than working during the evenings. So we've been able to spend more time together, which has been really nice. She just left that new job yesterday. (It wasn't the right fit.) She'll be going back to work where she had been working (where she enjoyed the job, but was dissatisfied with the schedule), but it looks very much like her schedule there will be better, and so we'll still be able to spend our evenings together. Hooray! One door opened up and then another door opened up. This is better than that business about closing a door and opening a window.

Anyway, I'm back, and again I hope to post something new on a fairly regular basis.

Moose — some vacation photos

We took a vacation last week to a different part of our lovely state. We saw several moose, a fox, a couple of tom turkeys, and I spotted our first-ever live, non-captive porcupine. I only got photos of moose.

Corbin Covered Bridge, Newport, NH — a photo

Here's my "picture postcard" view of the covered bridge that's just down the road from our home.

Winter Thorns — a new photograph

I'm going back to wintertime for this photograph. It's not quite as good as I would like, but I think it's interesting enough.

Crocuses — a new photograph

Here's one of those shots from a couple of days ago. Beth has identified the flower variety as crocus. We have white ones and purple ones in bloom at the moment. I really like that they're on such short stems. Staying so close to the ground, I think they seem a perfect flower to "peek" out from all of the winter deadness, early in the spring season (relatively speaking). It's a nice contrast, I think.

Spring Thaw — a new photograph

The daffodils in the back yard started opening a couple of days ago, and today I noticed some other flowers (species unknown to me, of course) on the front lawn. I've taken some shots of them, but before I start posting the flowery bits, I figured I might as well post a shot from a few weeks ago: melting ice on a calm stretch of a local waterway. I've actually done more color experimentation on this one than I normally like to do. I happen to like this version best:

I killed the color and then enriched the black with a little hint of blue. If you'd like to see an alternate version, with the color actually punched up pretty significantly from how it was shot, click here.

Critiques, as always, are welcome. Let me know which version you prefer...and whether you think either is any good or whether they're both just awful.

Another Photo I'm Proud Of

I'm also pretty proud of this photo:

This is the New Hampshire state amphibian, the spotted newt (Notophthalmus viridescens).

Maybe My Favorite Photo

Of all the photographs I've ever taken, this one very well might be my favorite:

For some reason, it just strikes me as being particulary gorgeous, albeit pretty limited in its color range. I hope you like it. As always, comments are welcome--pro or con.

Another Keiko Photo available

In case anyone wants to see a fifth photo of Keiko, one has been featured on today's installment of the Bird A Day Blog. Thanks, Bird A Day!

New Blogging Strategy, Newton Baby Picture, Two Reviews

I know that I haven't been the most regular blogger. I would like to do something about that. I doubt that I'll get to the point where I'm posting something new on a daily basis. But I would like to post something new at least a few times a week. So, I've devised a new strategy.

While I certainly don't want to turn this into a photo blog, I have come to realise that my photography is what's getting me more hits than anything else. (Why doesn't my dictionary project seem to capture anyone's attention? I don't know. I've found it absolutely fascinating!)

So what I'm going to start doing is posting photographs more regularly, particularly when I don't have anything else to contribute for a few days. Some of these will be old photos that I haven't previously posted, but that I happen to like a lot. Some will be new photos. For today, an old picture of Newton, from when he was still a little baby, 4 1/3 years ago.

Strategy shift number 2:

For the book store, I sometimes make staff recommendations. Instead of just telling our merchandising supervisor, "I like this", I generally provide a brief review. It's almost certain to be a positive review. (Why recommend something I don't like?) But it's a review nonetheless. I figure I might as well make dual-use of these reviews. So I think that in addition to posting more photographs, I'll also start occasionally posting these reviews. Surely I won't always post both on the same day, but as today is the launch of my new blogging strategy, I figure I'll make it a super-bonus day. In fact, I'm going to give you two reviews today!

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The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. Having loved the movie for over a decade and a half, I finally got around to reading the book and was surprised to find that I loved it just as much. The two are different, but they very much share the same spirit and I find that they can happily coexist in my mind as two parts of the same beautiful dream.

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The Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner. So far, the only thing that dates this movie is the antiquated video game played by Fred Savage in the framing story. Eventually, the line "When I was your age, television was called books" will date it as well (as the word "television" drops out of common parlance). Beyond that, this is one for the ages…a timeless classic. This is undoubtedly of the most quotable movies ever made. I'm convinced it's also one of the most flawless. And it's suitable for the entire family.

Pictures of Keiko

My sister requested that I post some pictures of our bird, Keiko. So here he is:

He's a blue headed pionus. Actually quite pretty. He's camera shy, though. I took over 70 shots and ended up with only about 20 that I thought were any good. From those, I chose to post these four.

Blithering

1) I discovered the other day that the car dictionary does not include another of my favorite words: Luddite. Beth was unfamiliar with this word. (She claimed it was a fake word, just as I claimed that bumf was a fake word when she first introduced me to it. I have since come to greatly appreciate it.)

2) Part of me wonders whether I should provide definitions for the words in question here in my blog. More of me thinks: (a) You're reading this blog on the internet, where information is always available to you. You can find it yourself with a few mouse clicks and keystrokes. (b) Maybe if you don't know any of my test words, you'll check your own dictionary (or dictionaries, if you have multiple). Maybe you'll get your own ire up if you discover that the dictionary you've trusted for years is really quite inadequate. I'll admit that there may be nothing terribly outrageous about a dictionary's editors choosing to omit anhedonia. On the other hand, I can't bring myself to justify the omission of pariah from any dictionary that doesn't have "Children's" or "First" in its title.

3) Nobody's commented about the new look of my blog. I changed the background color and the header graphic so that The Repeal of Gravity Blog no longer looks like the thousands of other blogs that started with the same Blogger template as I chose. I wonder what you think of the new look. Please comment. In fact, I like getting comments about anything I post. So please comment.

4) Part of the reason why I started this blog is just for personal amusement. Part of it, however, was to try to increase the number of hits to my Official Campaign Web Site. Frankly, regardless of how that site's hit counts are doing, I'd really like to see the hit counts increase on the blog. I try to make it interesting. I try to write well and to spell correctly. I try to provide interesting photographs. What am I doing wrong? How can I find a larger (interested) audience (given that I have no budget with which to pay for advertising)? I know I tend to get wordy when I get rolling, but I would think that would be counterbalanced by the infrequency of my posts. Advice, anyone? Maybe the way to go is to put out a call to other bloggers: Link to my blog and send me an e-mail saying that you've done so, and I will add a link back to your blog. Could I do this in good conscience? I suppose it would require some sort of disclaimer: This offer only good if I'm not in some way opposed to or inappropriately disturbed by your blog. Oh, what the heck? Why not? The offer (with disclaimer) is hereby made!

5) As mentioned earlier, it seems that many of my recent visitors have been coming from Google's image search showing my bleeding heart photo. The photos I posted on November 23, however, still don't show up in Google's image search. They all have alt text behind the scenes. (For example, the first , third and fourth all have "Zion formation" as their alt text. but searching Google's image search for that phrase (using quotation marks) only results in one hit. And it's someone else's photo.) Does anybody have any good advice as to how to get those images into Google's image search database? I happen to think that all of those pictures are of an equally good quality as my bleeding heart photo. Perhaps getting them into Google would serve to bring in more gawkers. Gawkers are good! Welcome gawkers!

6) I didn't have my word list with me last Sunday, but I flipped through another dictionary on my lunch break. I have high hopes for this one: The New Oxford American Dictionary. In fact, I also plan to check it out tomorrow to start on a new secret project, inspired by my current research project. (One of the perks, which I rarely use, of working for a book store is that I'm allowed to use it as a lending library for any hardback or trade paperback that we have multiple copies of in stock. I should really take better advantage of this perk, but I have tons of books I already own that I just don't have time to read. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's literally tons. Very sad!)

Ants!

Our friends Kuki and Gary were kind enough to get us an interesting jelly-based ant farm as a gift. We ordered harvester ants to occupy it. They arrived earlier in the week. I believe we have 14 survivors from the journey, and they've started tunneling. Fascinating little beasts, really. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Some Photography (and Happy Thanksgiving!)

It seems that quite a large percentage of the hits that my blog has been getting recently have come from people who found my bleeding heart photograph in Google and apparently wanted to see a larger version. Well, for all you photo nuts out there, I've decided to post a few more of my favorite shots from the last several months. Enjoy!

The plants are from our garden, the waves are from a pond in New Hampshire, and the rock formations are from the Zion area of Utah.

I'm no botanist, so I don't know the identity of any of the plants. If you can identify any of them for me, I'd appreciate it.

Note: If you're interested in using these images for your own purposes, please ask permission first. I'll probably be very happy to grant it and I'll certainly appreciate the courtesy. And keep in mind that I do have the originals, so if you want higher resolution, I can provide it. Whereas, if you just swipe it from the web, you'll have a maximum of 431 pixels in width to work with. Also, some of these are cropped, so the originals might contain additional image area that may be of interest to you.

All I'm likely to want in return (depending on the application, of course) is a photo credit and maybe a web link.

A Family of Loons

Yesterday, Beth was working and I was not. After I joined her for her lunch break, I swiped her car, loaded it up with my kayak and gear, and went out to Grafton Pond. I spent about an hour and a quarter on the water. As I was heading back to shore, I came across a family of two adult loons and one baby:

My photographic skills are not quite brilliant, but I'm happy enough with these shots that I'm willing to share them.

I believe these are the first loons I've ever seen in the wild. Awfully pretty birds, they are.

Bleeding Heart Flower Photo

Here's a photo of a flower that's growing on our lawn. I've been mowing around it instead of chopping it down. It stands alone. When I first saw it, I assumed it was some sort of orchid. It seems I must have been wrong about that. It's apparently something called a bleeding heart, for obvious reasons, I think. Beautiful, no?

Kayaking, Part 2

As "promised" in my previous kayaking post, here's a picture of our (Beth's) Mini loaded up for a kayaking trip. Pretty silly looking, eh?

Well, we went out again today, this time to McDaniels Marsh. This body of water covers well over twice the area of Grafton Pond, although it's extremely shallow. I remembered to take a GPS unit this time. We paddled together to about 1.25 miles away from where we parked before Beth decided to stop for a rest while allowing me to go on for a while alone. I got to what I believe was pretty much the far end of the marsh, at 1.65 miles from the car.

We saw a painted turtle, some small fishes, and a few ducks. I also spotted a couple of amphibians (newts or salamanders, I'm guessing), a kingfisher, and a healthy looking snapping turtle.

When we got back to shore I flipped my boat to try draining it, and (much to my surprise) discovered that there were about a dozen (maybe more) leeches attached to the hull! Which leads to my question of the day: Does anyone out there have advice for the best way to humanely remove a leech from a kayak's belly?

I'm really quite bewildered as to why they would have attached there in the first place. Surely, they didn't find it loaded with any tasty juices!

The best approach I was able to come up with for removing them was the "grab and pull" technique. This was fairly easy in the case of the smaller ones, but the larger ones really had quite a good grip on the boat and weren't too keen on letting go. I have nothing against the leeches (although I really don't want to transport them around the state) and I have no desire to cause them any harm. I can't help but think that the amount of squeezing I had to do to maintain my grip must have been uncomfortable, if not downright damaging, to the poor creatures. Perhaps I'm underestimating just how hardy they really are. They certainly turned out to be less squishable than they look!

After getting my hull cleaned, We flipped Beth's kayak and found leeches there, as well. She had fewer of them, which I'd tend to attribute less to the color difference in the boats than to my having gone farther into the marsh than she went.