Scattered Thoughts . . .

W e always have our first barbeque of the season on the weekend that falls around July 1st which happens to be my birthday.  This year, we had this barbeque on July 1st.  If anyone is wondering, I turned 61 years old this year.  Unfortunately, most days, I feel like I'm 81 and I have difficulty and a lot of pain trying to get around and I even look the part due to being hunched over and having difficulty standing.  Contrary to how I feel on these days, my birth certificate claims I am 61 years old this year.   We had a very dry spring to the point where everything in the yard was dying and turning brown but the past two weeks were filled with day after day of solid rain until the day before our scheduled barbeque.  The rain stopped just in time for me to mow the lawn, do some much needed landscaping and set up the backyard for our barbeque.  It was sunny, hot and humid with a bit of smoke from Canadian wildfires hanging in the air.  My health didn't fare so well and I ended up

A s I mentioned in a few previous blog entries, we did a bit of shopping with Lukey and Kenzie while they were staying with us last week.  This will be the blog entry with the photos of us shopping. Liza was in the hospital giving birth to Sophia and would be tied up with Sophia for a while when they arrived home so we felt it was best to get Lukey and Kenzie some things that they will need in the coming weeks so Liza wouldn't have to do it herself. Here, below, is the usual shot of us heading up to the Burlington area... We went to Dick's mostly because Kenzie needed running shoes specifically for running and Lukey needed sneakers.  Of course, we did some looking in some other departments too and, as a result, we found some life preservers for Lukey and Kenzie.  They outgrew their old ones.   Kenzie, the jumping string bean...  this is usually a pretty good sign that she is happy... We found some running shoes for Kenzie.  It was time consuming though and we sort of had to set

A few evenings ago, we visited the Waterbury train station with Lukey and Kenzie.  It was a day when I was not feeling all that well so I kept things simple in the hopes of an uneventful quick trip downtown.  I didn't bring a heavy camera bag.  I put some emergency medications in my pockets, I grabbed one camera body with one lens, and I grabbed a scanner so we could listen to the chatter on the radio as the Amtrak train approached and departed the station. Both Lukey and Kenzie were happy to be at the train station waiting for the train.  I think we all preferred to be getting on the train to head out-of-town but watching the train arrive and depart would be enough to create some smiling faces and some nice photos... The Amtrak Vermonter from Penn Station in Manhattan was running a little late this night so we had some down time.  There is a park across the street from the train station so the kids wanted to go over to the swings while we waited for the delayed Amtrak train to ar

W hile Lukey and Kenzie were visiting with us, we headed up to Burlington for an afternoon on the waterfront in the sun.  Our plan was to walk the waterfront from the Boathouse all the way up to North Beach and then back again.  It was a really beautiful day for this sort of walk but, unfortunately, my health was rather poor this particular day and by the time we reached the short distance to the Coast Guard Station, we had to turn around and find something else to do.  I was weak and generally feeling quite lousy.  We decided to head up to Church Street to have lunch instead. On the beginning of our walk, we walked up to Battery Park.  There is a long straight path to Battery Park that is lined with trees forming a nice canopy over the walkway.  When I first decided to start doing some infrared photography, I had this particular location in mind for a photo.  I wanted to see this tree-lined walkway and canopy in high contrast and with bright white leaves on the trees.  I like how thes