Scattered Thoughts . . .

Yesterday, I attempted to shoot some photos out in the backyard but afterward I realized that my health was worse than I thought it was and it was interfering with getting crisp shots. I wasn't thinking clearly and my hands were shaky so most of my shots were terrible.  This morning, I am actually feeling even worse than yesterday... far worse, actually... but I decided to head outside anyway with my old camera in an attempt to correct the problems I had yesterday with motion blurring most of my shots.   What can I say? It was nagging at the perfectionist in me!  This old Olympus camera is a tough camera to shoot well  ( absurdly difficult... every time I pick up one of my Olympus cameras, I curse myself for buying any of them... I despise Olympus so much that it makes me sick to my stomach)   but, as I said, I wanted a challenge and I wanted to overcome that challenge. Here are a few photos from this morning's challenge...

The temperature was hovering around 90 degrees today and that is far too hot for my health. The nights have been beautiful with temperatures in the upper 40s to low 50s but it looks like this week will be a hot one when the sun is up! I had a fairly productive morning while it was still cool. I finished up another step in one of my model railroading projects. Then I decided to head outside with a camera in hand. I had decided to play with one of my oldest digital cameras... an Olympus digital SLR camera with a crisp, colorful, and contrasty Kodak sensor. Unfortunately, I needed to dig out a battery for it and that little bit of activity not only wore me down a little but it also raised my body temperature. At this point of the day, the temperature outdoors was in the upper 80s which isn't too good for me without extra medications... and I had not taken any extra medications... and now I raised my body temperature and wore myself out a little bit too. This is not a good combinat

This morning, I started gluing the grab irons on the O scale narrow gauge hoppers that I am converting and detailing. As usual, this is not working out the way I expected. Getting the Crazy Glue Gel into the tiny holes is a sloppy task even while using a toothpick. The glue is bunching up and I am leaving spiderweb-like glue trails between all parts. It seems to be taking forever to dry too. I expected this to require me to work quickly before the glue set with the grab irons solidly in place. It is not working that way. It turns out to be a bit messy and it is not holding quickly. I stopped after adding the grab irons to just one of the four hoppers. I decided it would be best to wait to see if the glue will indeed set up well enough to hold these tiny grab irons in place. I don't want to do all four hoppers this way only to find out it won't work.  In addition to seeing how well the glue holds after allowing some extra drying time, I also want to see how

One of my cousins, Kathy, recently posted a photo of having morning coffee while relaxing on the edge of a river. Her photo immediately reminded me of many years of morning coffee at my own home on a river quite a few years ago before my health took a serious nosedive.  Thinking about this old home also reminded me of all the visitors I had coming and going... all the weekend parties... all my friends' kayaks and canoes that resided in my yard all summer... and it reminded me of all the friends who still talk about my old house on the river whenever I bump into them. We had some really great times at that house! View from the firepit in the backyard. Seeing Kathy's photo encouraged me to dig out some old photos of this house to share here. For the most part, these are really lousy photos but they are good enough to see some of the memorable parts of this property and to remind me of some really nice times.  I wish I had better and more photos to share but this was a