... a collection of thoughts to end the month ...
... from the safety of the trees, even as he yelled, "you're going to fall through to your death," chad snapped a picture of me as i wandered across the frozen over carrabassett river ... i don't worry in these situations ... when we lived in alaska i fell through the ice into sub-freezing lake water ... my brother risked his life and saved me ... my theory is that the odds are against it happening twice in one lifetime, and, anyway, mike'll always be there to pull me out ...
... i headed out for a little wanderabout ... i hadn't gone but a few miles when all my energy dissipated and i knew the best thing i could do was return to the apartment, snuggle up wrapped in blankets on my futon, and watch an episode of "time team" ... before turning around i stopped at the dam in oakland to watch the ducks ...
... i took a little wander out to c.j.'s ... he's trying to learn to make coffee as i like it, which is to say a bit less than 90-weight ... he told me he's thinking of "getting done working for other people" ... my opinion is that a long time ago he earned that right, so i'm cheering ...
... in a little facebook chat discussing a picture in which john captured very clearly my not-as-dark-as-it-once-was hair, nancy cassella said she was "a believer that any man who can grow a nice beard should do so, regardless of color" ... i thought about it, then, with more than a tiny bit of digging, found this picture gerry menard took of me while we were climbing mount katadyn ...
... saturday john and chad and i drove over to freedom, new hampshire, to take down the pictures we've had on exhibit in the town library ... after finishing, with a bit of time on our hands before lunch, we decided to wander about taking pictures ... john yelled, "stop the car" ... he and i bailed out, i was lucky my camera was set properly ...
... proving my sense of direction still functions, i navigated us up to the "madison boulder," which new hampshire claims to be the "largest glacial erratic in new england" ... of course, as i've pointed out in the past, maine's "daggett rock" was larger until the late-1800s when some rowdy new hampshirites snuck over the border and broke it into three pieces so that their silly state could have something to brag about other than the "old man [who used to be] on the mountain" ...
... but, i must admit, it is a big rock ...
... dog joined us ... he's one of the canines rufus ran away with this summer ... i remembered ... i think he did, too ...
... i hadn't had much of a photographic eye all day, this was the first image where i started to feel like i knew how to take pictures ...
... just before we got back to the car i found a pair of sunglasses buried in a snowbank along the side of the trail ... i thought they were just some sort of cheap plastic no-name brand, but, after a quick bit of research on his smartphone, chad pronounced that they were actually rather expensive ... i'm not much for plastic lenses, so i gave them to adrien ... seeing this, how i'm looking almost cool, i'm thinking maybe i should've kept them ...
... we drove home route 11 ... stopping for red barn photography, i came across evidence that birds can change their minds ...
... we found a really cool water tower ... i waded through thigh deep snow to snap some pictures ... when i got home and put the images into photoshop, i discovered why i always try not to change lenses when it's cold outside ... this is the result, a very dirty with condensed water spots cmos sensor ...
... silly me ... anyhow, here's what it looked like after a good cleaning ...
... but, having been taken before i tidied up my camera, the blue sky in this image was filled with those spots ... i became frustrated trying to remove them, so i selected for the color of the sky, desaturated it a bit, then did five passes of a gaussian blur filter ... the result was something completely unanticipated ...
... this morning i was supposed to join eric and his daughter, addie, for a photography wanderabout ... she was sick, however, so we had to reschedule ... as if sensing i needed something to do, roger sent me a text asking if i could help him jump start his motor scooter ... seems he drove it to work last night so that he could mark off that he "rode in february," but this morning the below zero temperature was a bit much for the poor machine and it wouldn't start ... we waited until it had warmed up outside a tiny bit, then drove over and got it going ... from a horribly overexposed file (thanks to nikon, for somehow finding sense in removing the exposure dial lock from the d7000), here's roger cruising college avenue in 20° air ...
... yea, for sure a bit crazy, but he's once again earned my admiration ...
... goodbye, february ... this year i shall not miss you [having learned the ways of new england weather, that was said with fingers crossed] ...