Still Waters

Today is my birthday. One of the traditions my family has on birthdays is to give everyone at the table a small present.  I think because my parents were raising three kids, it was a way of reducing the amount of jealousy and door slamming among the non-birthday kids after all that sugar and no presents. So in keeping with that tradition, I’m giving all of you a small present... Read More

Bring on the Cycling Dawn

  Tragedy, joy and all manner of experience befall the individual in the night, for what occurs under the purview of the moon can seldom be explained entire in the plain sight of the sun.  Is the night stronger?  Maybe the night isn’t stronger as much as we are weaker at night from being brought up to not fear the day.  Look at how we are taught…alleys are always... Read More

Underwater Diving

Well, after some time away I’ve started working on a few details on my mod for Arma2, Underwater Diving. I revised the diving computer and added and removed some features. It now times your dives, displays ambient water pressure, displays depth and records your maximum depth reached, indicates a dive ceiling where you need to wait to decompress (if needed), and it has oxygen... Read More

Amazing Women

LOOKING NOT FINDING Looking online for someone to date is like shopping for a car.  Too old, too young, wrong color, wrong features, looks like high-maintenance hotness, looks perfect but the seller won’t contact me back, etc.    The good thing about shopping online for someone to date is when you meet someone in person, the old trepidation is gone.  It’s like... Read More

ARC

Automatic Relationship Compensation (ARC).  I’ve discovered that I suffer from ARC after I bought my first car.  The concept is this: the more my romantic life suffers, the more money I spend on my car.  After three years of on and off with a girl I was dating, my car was pretty damn tricked out.  I even acquired the label, “tuner,” from some of my friends,... Read More

Sexahol

High school was a strange time of pre-internet sexlessness and adults warning me endlessly in varying filmstrips and interrupted lesson plans of the dangers of “Peer Pressure”. Peer Pressure (PP), I capitalize both letters intentionally, was something as strange and mysterious as any drug but with the added danger of leading to every other bad thing in life such as... Read More

Dust Bunnies Road Trip

One of the positive effects of my sister raising her four year old daughter with very little daily television and lots of books is that my niece has an insatiable appetite for stories.  She’s basically a story sponge and even if I were a fire hose of ideas, she’s still be there cranking with her surprisingly strong hands at the valve trying to get more out of me.... Read More

Glimpse

Don’t you just hate it when every time you go out to eat near the building where your ex works, you think you are going to see her, but you never do?  The only thing you can do every time you enter the outdoor seating area is quickly scan everyone’s face Terminator-style until you get the, “No Target,” return from your eyes and declare definitively, “OK,... Read More

Storm before the Calm

Chained to Paris, hearts around the world spin on the axis of promises made by fairy tales of Sleeping Beauties and Prince Charmings riding up on shimmering white stallions.  Promises create a firmament holding up the tears-soaked stars like a glass hydroelectric dam.  And then the comment, or the look the other way, or the cheat or the lie shatter the too-thin myth of security... Read More

Raven

Raven alight upon my ledge Tapping at frosted glass. Barely the handle is turned when you leap inside Transforming into the Night Beauty. You sing and I am yours. I woo you, love you, make you mine You wrap your wings around me and we fly together into the sky. I grasp you close, But my hold is too tight. Your feathers wilt. You call out to the blue sky. I see you at the window... Read More

You are now pregnant with oil

Listening to Moulin Rouge’s final scene on YouTube while editing pregnancy test photos is a great multitasking combination.  Earlier during the photo shoot, we didn’t have any urine to drop into the pregnancy test (thank goodness), so we used water which I am coloring yellow in very careful mouse moves.  I’m using Lightroom’s Adjustment Brush which is... Read More

Cycles

Life and death, war and peace, being together and living apart all cycle in the nature of the seasons.  Similarly, that pattern belies a deeper truth.  That is, that even though they repeat, things are different each time, with some progression, some regression, every time around.  In war, there may be an attack on a village which is light and militaristic so as to be directed... Read More

Photography Workflow

This may initially look complicated but this is the photography workflow that I currently use including the route from initial captured image, through ingestion and processing, distribution and eventually to archiving. INGESTION: Through Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, images are copied to a working internal hard drive on my PC.  During this “ingesting” stage, I set keywords,... Read More

My Version of Inception

Here are some faces that I drew the other day So, after typing my last post which was about the recent increase in surprises in my life, and after proofing and publishing it, SURPRISE!, only half of the post was published.  Everything I added after previewing the post was deleted forever.  That goes into the, “Bad Surprises,” category of course.  But the more I... Read More

Supplies!

I don’t squeeze my toothpaste tube up from the bottom the way everyone else does because I like there to be some surprises in my life.  Like, “Hey, there’s a whole ‘nother glob of extra toothpaste over here in this part!  Just when I thought I was running out!”  Unfortunately, the most recent surprises in my life aren’t as pleasant.  Recently... Read More