Scattered Thoughts . . .

I made a bit more progress on the outdoor grill and kitchen area which allowed me to let out a small sigh of relief after a few weeks of alternating between poor weather and poor health.  I believe we have enough patio blocks for the small kitchen area that will be under a roof. This area is only about 42 square feet so I didn't really need a whole lot of blocks. They are heavy, however, so we had to buy them in about three batches because we've been transporting them in our small cars. As a result, we encountered a problem when Lowes restocked with a different shade of block than we had originally bought in the first batch. I had to settle for two shades of gray, but it will look fine when it is all put together.  Since we were transporting these patio blocks in our cars, we had to make multiple trips back and forth to Lowes. This was fairly easy to do... whenever we were up in the Burlington area running errands, we just stopped at Lowes also to pick up about 200 lbs of b

I love railroads, trains, even model trains... I think that has been abundantly clear to those who follow this blog. But really, what I find fascinating is any and all engineering which is also classified as art with character not just function. I love any engineering design which exudes so much character and details that it is an inspiring work of art. This includes trains, boats, aircraft, cars, homes, cottages, lodges, bridges, cityscapes, urban buildings... as well as old train stations. On our way to San Antonio, we had a layover at Chicago's beautiful Union Station (as well as an unscheduled overnight layover on the return trip). I captured many photos of the station and, I must say, some of these photos are as beautiful as this historic station so I felt I should share them here with my thoughts about the station. This huge train station in its current design opened in 1925... ninety years ago. In a time when many railroads are being dismantled, destroyed and sent to

While visiting San Antonio to attend Adam's graduation ceremony, we visited a number of well known places as well as a few lesser known places. One of these lesser known places was the Tower of the Americas.   We had previously spent a rainy day briskly walking the Riverwalk through downtown San Antonio. The Riverwalk can be a beautiful downtown area but when it is raining, that really puts a damper on sightseeing. When it is raining, you are focused on getting to your next destination... quickly... and staying as dry as possible. We were wet and a bit uncomfortable the day we walked (almost ran) the Riverwalk and I think I can safely say that none of us were looking forward to another day dodging rain outdoors. Most of our time in San Antonio was under cloudy skies with precipitation falling from those clouds. By the time our last day in San Antonio arrived, we were pretty tired of getting wet (and, admittedly, tired of all the walking) so we were hoping to visit a place wh

I honestly don't know how often I write about it, but it is time to write about it again even if I have written about it often.  Fatigue is something I struggle with every day, all day. The past week or so has been pretty lousy when it comes to the energy vs fatigue struggle so I thought it would be a good time to write about it. "Overwhelming fatigue" is a much more accurate term than simply saying "fatigue". Telling my doctors that I am "fatigued" doesn't even come close to describing this debilitating symptom. Just saying "fatigue" sounds silly... childish... minuscule... not worth mentioning... it seems like something a nap will cure. Even calling it "overwhelming fatigue" doesn't seem to cut it either but it is the best term I know. I've had mononucleosis three times in my life (thus far) and I have always said I would never wish that fatigue on anyone... not even on my worst enemy. This overwhelming fatigue th

Today, we finally saw some weather which is typical for May...  a high in the upper 70s to low 80s... sunny... basically, a really nice late spring day. Fortunately, my health was relatively stable today so I was able to take advantage of this nice weather and get a few things accomplished. Whenever a relatively good health day presents itself, I need to take advantage of it! These days are certainly rarer than poor health days. I cut the lawn for the first time this year today... and, wow, what a difference in how clean the yard looks! Although we had a rather snowy winter, this spring has been exceptionally dry so, while I was cutting the lawn today, I was in a constant cloud of dirt. The conditions reminded me of the driest of Augusts which is the usual period of the year when we have the driest of weather. This is quite unusual for May! Regardless of the dry weather, today was a beautiful day and I managed to have a very productive day. After cutting the lawn, I did some much

I've been writing a lot about wildlife photography and posting many examples of bird photography in my recent blog posts. I am also in the process of writing a piece with tips for this type of photography. Until I publish that piece, I thought I would write about the importance of one of the tips I offer in that piece... the art of post-processing that needs to go into your images after you capture those images. There is no doubt that today's cameras can produce some beautiful images right out of the camera. Dynamic ranges are getting better with each new generation of digital cameras, tonal qualities continue to improve, sharpness and clarity continue to improve but there are still things which are out of our control which must be tweaked while there may be other things requiring a significant amount of post-processing.  I, myself, will post images right out of the camera especially while we are traveling. That doesn't mean that an image would not benefit from even som