Scattered Thoughts . . .

While the new bedroom is clean, I thought I should probably shoot a few photos... This new double bed sure does cover a lot of that beautiful new wood floor! I converted the bedroom door to a Dutch door... first, I marked where I needed additional hinges... I removed it from its hinges... I cut the door in half... since this is a hollow core door, I had to fill the now open ends with solid wood... added a little shelf to the lower half... added some decorative trim to match the rest of the house... painted it Colonial Red (a primer plus three top coats)... routed out for the new hinges... installed the new hinges... hung the new door... added Dutch door hardware to lock the bottom half to the top half... and, it is beautiful... This bedroom is the future location of my hobby room which will be mostly model railroading stuff with a workbench/desk. The room has been designed in an old train station style with quite a few train station details.  One such detail is the door to

A month or so ago, I wrote about seeing loons sporting different colored plumage. I saw loons with a band of deep green on their necks... I saw loons with a band of deep blue on their necks... I saw loons with a black band on their necks. That left me wondering and searching for a reason. I was initially wondering if this was a sign of maturity... adolescence... breeding... or nesting. It turns out it was none of the above. I've found that the appearance of green or blue or purplish bands on some loons is simply due variables such as the angle of the light, wet or dry feathers, and the color temperature of the light. For example, near dusk or near sunrise, the color temperature is a very warm orange or yellow yet the color temperature at high noon is a much colder blue. When you combine these varying lighting scenarios with the angle to wet feathers, you can see different colors.   Even when you hold a clean, fresh bird feather in your hand, you can oftentimes see a changing

Adam will be arriving for a relatively short visit from somewhere on the opposite side of our planet in the next few days so it has been a very busy couple of weeks around the house.  As the regular readers of this blog already know, we moved our master bedroom to Adam's old bedroom when he left for the Air Force. I tore that bedroom apart... aired it out for months... and rebuilt it completely to include a rebuilt closet, rebuilt shelving and desk, new flooring and a new wood plank ceiling. This bedroom has been exceptionally comfortable for Sheila and me! This heavy laminate wood flooring has a vapor barrier already adhered to the bottom of each plank so we were able to install this directly on top of the subflooring. The original, long term plan was to turn our old bedroom into a room for me to keep all my models... mostly trains... and to create a space which would be better suited for building and working on models rather than our kitchen table. This project, however

Kenzie was walking around sort of like an agitated Marty McFly and Doc Brown... pacing back and forth... away from me and then toward me... she was even talking to herself and using her hands. I have no idea what was running through her head nor to whom she was talking but I thought it would be a good time to try to get a photo of her from a distance. She was a bit animated and making funny faces as she was doing this pacing back and forth so I thought it would be a good idea to try to capture a photo. I had one of my wildlife setups in my hand at the time so it was not really the ideal camera for this but I thought I could capture a decent shot anyway.  Kenzie walked away from me... I lifted my camera to my face, set focus for where she would be located when she turned to walk back toward me... she turned... funny face... click ...  She sort of looks like she is snarling at me... perhaps this is her Clint Eastwood face... or, as Joey Tribbiani would say, "her smell-the-fart

Sheila has been good at grabbing one of my cameras whenever I'm out on the sailboat. She's gotten some good shots of Lukey and me sailing as well as good shots of me sailing solo.  There was one particular day which was a very frustrating day.  It looked like a good day for sailing with the rough chop and stiff wind and I did have some really nice and exciting runs but the wind turned out to be a major disappointment after a few wild and wet runs. I didn't notice the problem with the wind until I lost all wind... I sat there in calm water all of a sudden... then, I looked more closely at the direction of the chop all around me... to my left, the chop was headed toward me... ahead of me, the chop was headed toward me... to my right, the chop was headed toward me... and here I sat in calm water. The wind all around me was blowing hard in very different directions.  When the wind blows hard it is usually a good thing for sailing but when it is coming at you from three di

While I wait for some paint to dry so I can apply another coat of paint, I thought I would write a little bit about some photos I shot recently. I was out on our dock one morning and I noticed this tiny wake about one hundred yards away... I grabbed the camera that had the longest lens mounted on it...  zoomed... I quickly confirmed it was a beaver. I was hoping to get a tail slap and a big splash but that never came. He just swam around for a little while and then quietly slipped underwater. I just wish he was a little closer to the house so I could have gotten a slightly better shot.... It was early one morning... one of those rare mornings at the lake with no fog and no clouds... over in a darkened corner to the left of our house, about one hundred yards away, I noticed a loon. He was alone and just paddling around in the dark shadows of early morning. I kept my camera focused on him... it was too dark for a shot though... a black and white loon in black shadows would have ma

I haven't written anything in about a week and a half because I've had some exceptionally lousy health and, more recently, I've been busy working on the house and out in the yard during my good health. Working on the house only happened after taking a few weeks off because of spinal problems. I managed to have a productive and busy weekend but I didn't get to touch a single thing that has been on my long 'to-do list'.   On Saturday afternoon, we had a broken water supply pipe due to repeated stress. The pipe just broke completely in two! The water was shooting out of the broken pipe like a garden hose with a nozzle on it! Water was everywhere! Our vanity was filled with water, soaking everything in the vanity. The flooring was soaked. On the positive side, the adjoining bedroom is a construction zone so no finished materials were damaged. The problem was gaining quick and easy access at a time when we needed to move quickly to minimize damage. The wate

Although these two photos look like things may have gotten a bit out of hand and some anger prevailed, that wasn't the case.  In the splashing photo, the kids were playing and laughing... I really have no idea what Kenzie was thinking when she had that scowl on her face in the other photo though. I don't remember anything of significance happening... regardless, in these two photos, Kenzie appears to have a bit of an attitude...

I'm always looking at the light and hoping to find interesting light as it contrasts with shadow, texture, and patterns. I constantly see the scenes in front of me framed as a photo composition in my head. I don't put the camera to my eye until I see a composition in my head which I find interesting. One evening, a pair of loons visited while the sun was setting. The sun was a bright orange and it was behind this pair of loons. The scene was actually quite blinding but I was able to see something interesting... I was just barely able to see the silhouette of one of the loons... just enough to be able to focus on the loon... all around this loon, the water was shimmering and reflecting the warm orange glow of the setting sun...  The moment I depressed the shutter release, I knew that this would be an interesting photograph... a different photograph... I like it!

About a week ago, I was headed out the door to try to catch a decent sunset. As I approached the door, I began to hear the familiar sound of a distant helicopter... fortunately, I had a medium length telephoto lens mounted on this camera body so I just picked up the pace and continued out the door to see if I could spot him in the sky... I got lucky... I even managed to capture the blinking strobe on the tail as well as some interesting color in the sky!