Scattered Thoughts . . .

This has been a rather brutal week with miserable health. Today, however, is actually a bit agonizing.  I don't know how to describe it any differently.... agonizing.  I'm exhausted... so fatigued that it would easily classify as overwhelming fatigue. I've had mononucleosis three times in my life... anyone who has experienced mononucleosis, knows how overbearing the fatigue can be for months upon months... this fatigue I am experiencing this week is well beyond anything I've ever experienced before including the times I've had mononucleosis.  Trying to accomplish even the smallest of tasks is agonizing... including writing/typing here... this is taking too much out of me and I can't even think straight. I'll try to write more about this later...

Last night was... brutal.  The lousy health started to hit me while I was cooking dinner... country fried steak, pan roasted potatoes, country gravy and a big pan of fried okra. With four burners on the stove going at once, it was far too hot for me.  Heat is a major trigger for me. Warmer environments for anything longer than a few minutes will trigger my Systemic Mastocytosis episodes. These episodes can simply be painfully debilitating with only a few symptoms and/or they can include life threatening symptoms such as anaphylaxis. After cooking dinner, I couldn't even eat... I was nauseated beyond belief... and, generally, felt quite lousy. I knew my body was crashing but, apparently, I was not thinking clearly which is another symptom... diminished cognitive reasoning. I should have taken some emergency medications at this point but didn't think of it at the time. By the time we finished dinner, my nausea was still constant but I was experiencing worsening waves of n

It would be absurdly silly to complain about awaking to some snow falling out of the sky this morning after a winter of rain and mud so I'm not complaining at all... It definitely looks nicer out there this morning than yesterday morning... fresh snow covering dead leaves, mud, dead grass, more mud, and bare trees.... I suppose getting the boats ready for the lake is on hold for now... I usually cover the grill but this snowfall caught me by surprise. At least I hadn't already opened up the bedroom wall to install a window alcove yet.  I actually have some things to accomplish indoors... including finding the paint brushes I put away after renovating our bedroom in December so that I can paint this other bedroom...

I had a productive Sunday... The weather was beautiful and I was feeling fairly well. As I've mentioned many times before, the weather and my health must cooperate in order to have a productive day. Today, they cooperated so it was a productive day. The down side is that my spine is in miserable condition after working on this project today. I'm in constant pain... at about a seven on the ten point pain scale while at rest... but spiking to a nine or ten whenever I attempt to walk. The pain is so bad it stops me dead in my tracks and drops me to my knees, doubled over. There is no doubt that my spine is intensely inflamed but I hope I can quickly find a way to diminish this brutal pain. (While I was cleaning up and putting tools away that were scattered across the backyard, I resorted to using one of my long cabinet clamps as a cane because I definitely needed help standing on my own two feet.) Putting my health aside, I managed to build and install three shelving cabinet

Whenever I post some photos here of songbirds, ducks, loons, any wildlife as well as the moon, I know that few will understand the distances involved. I also know that few will understand many of the terms I use pertaining to these lenses.  After capturing some images of the moon last night, I thought it would be a good idea to get a couple of comparison images to show here. In this first image we see a fairly wide view... the red arrow is pointing to an insulator on a utility pole which is just peaking above the rooftops.... Just barely visible above this rooftop is an insulator on top of a distant utility pole... For the second image, I shot a photo using my longest lens... a 600mm lens...  of course, I understand that saying a focal length of such-and-such "mm" means nothing to most people which is why I am posting this comparison for everyone to see. These comparison photos help to picture the difference between focal length in millimeters. What may be mor

I had another lousy health day yesterday so I didn't do much around the house. My spine was so inflamed that I could hardly walk so I put all the home renovations on hold for a day while the inflammation subsided. Today, I'm feeling considerably better but I'm waiting for the rain to stop. While I was camped out in the living room on the couch yesterday, I decided to refresh my memory on effectively using two of my camera bodies that I use for super-long telephoto. I practiced getting some steady shots and reminding myself of the best settings for each camera body under specific conditions.  Both of these cameras have tiny viewfinders so viewing my subjects while wearing glasses is difficult and frustrating. As a result, I really do not enjoy using either of these camera bodies. I'd love to get a newer body with a much larger viewfinder but it simply is not in my budget just yet. I'll need to use these bodies again for yet another summer season.  I practiced u

I had another productive morning today which puts me on a pretty unusual streak. The weather is about to get lousy for a little bit so I can take a short break until it clears up since I have no room indoors to be cutting big pieces of lumber.  A piece of pine spread across the two foundation pilings... stone pathway is now extended to this new window alcove too. This morning I went outside with the intention of backfilling the dug out foundation and then quickly moving on to some carpentry indoors. Backfilling was done in a matter of minutes so I continued grading the area... then decided to continue with hard landscaping around the area. I expanded our stone pathway to where this new window alcove will be located. Then I placed some sod strips alongside the new stone... cleaned up the adjacent flower beds... did a little bit of raking... and now it is looking nice and clean out there. The two foundation pilings are slightly low (on purpose). I'll rest the outside end of

After overdoing it yesterday on home renovations, I only worked on the house a short while today. We have the grandkids here today so I'll spend the rest of the day playing with them. Yesterday, when I was digging the foundation for the little three window alcove, I realized that the septic tank is in the way by a few inches. So, last night, I came up with some new plans with new dimensions. Now I can cantilever this small alcove out beyond the two pilings holding up this alcove.  After digging the foundation deep enough, I dropped in some pre-made footings... then glued the concrete pilings on top of these footings once the depth and dimensions were correct.  I'll wait a day or two before backfilling.  This bedroom renovation project is coming along nicely but slowly. As long as I accomplish something almost every day, I should be okay.  

For days, we had planned to head to Lowes and Home Depot on Thursday night. We need some building supplies so I can begin renovating another bedroom. This particular renovation project was down fairly low on my "to-do" list but was recently moved to the top. I bumped five or six other projects so I could start renovating this bedroom. Heading up toward Burlington on Thursday night fit into our schedules without having to change anything and the weather was forecast to be beautiful. The building supplies would be on the roof of the car, exposed to the weather, so we need good weather for this particular purpose. Actually, for an activity such as this one, we need good weather to coincide with good health. Last night, some miserable health changed everything. My health had been teetering on that fine line between "okay" and "poor" all week. In hindsight, I should have been more aggressive at adding extra medications to my daily medications. I did add som

Currently, I am in the final stages of being chosen for a long term research study for Sony. As some of you may already know, I am a big fan of Sony electronics. In particular, I feel Sony is the world leader when it comes to digital imaging and televisions. As such, I have a Sony Bravia television mounted on our living room wall which we find stunningly crisp, vibrant and realistically colorful. I am also slowly swapping my photography gear to all Sony as well because I find Sony's cameras and lenses leaps and bounds ahead of all other manufacturers' cameras.  Sony has always been a leader in the television world going all the way back to the popular Sony Trinitron televisions in the late 1960s. In my opinion, Sony still leads the way with their televisions. The truth is, when it comes to imaging in general, Sony is leading the way.  I've been slowly swapping out my photography gear, piece by piece, and purchasing photography gear in Sony's new mirrorless e-mo