Scattered Thoughts . . .

Sheila and I started our weekend (last weekend) by doing some Christmas shopping on Saturday morning.  Then we headed to lunch at The Longhorn restaurant.  We sat at the bar, had a few drinks and appetizers, and then ate lunch while we watched a Florida Gators basketball game.  It was a nice morning and afternoon!   We headed back to Waterbury in mid-afternoon because Lukey and Kenzie were marching in a parade after dark.   This parade was Waterbury's 10th annual "River of Light" parade.  The parade started 10 years ago as a one-time art project for the local primary school.  The community loved the idea so, over the years, this parade of light has grown and become a large annual community event.  As a matter of fact, we overheard surprised and excited tourists who were staying in Waterbury express their delight at learning of this rather unusual annual community event so I'd say this is a successful tourist event as well as a community event. For the event thi

A new photography product arrived on my doorstep the other day.  I was eager to test it and play with it for a bit.  I have to say that my initial testing was rather painless, quite easy and fun! Let me point out that many of the photographic prints hanging in our house are actual lab processed prints developed in chemicals the same way that prints were produced from film back when I was a child decades ago.  I learned photography when I was a child   shooting film  and I processed my own photos in a darkroom...  well, sometimes and I sometimes sent them out for processing and printing.  I learned photography using cameras with no automatic focus, no automatic exposure, no automatic prints and I knew my way around a darkroom as well as how to effectively handle an all-manual camera.  In my opinion, these types of darkroom lab prints are far superior to modern inkjet prints.  Truth be told, I feel that typical home photo "printers" are a rather poor medium for showcasing

I continue to have cognitive difficulties and overwhelming fatigue due to my mild-TBI.  I whacked my head on a low 2x4 brace while building our new trash shed back in early June of this year.  I briefly grayed-out...  knees buckled as I fell toward the ground...  then came to seeing stars in my vision.  Then, I whacked my head about half a dozen more times in the summer months while working around the house... same area of my head too! This fatigue I am experiencing is both cognitive and physical.  I often forget about this injury but I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out why I've been so completely exhausted lately...  why I can't even write...  why I have no energy to even talk. I struggle with overwhelming fatigue with my primary illness too but I usually have other symptoms accompany the fatigue.  These other symptoms are clearly related to my primary illness so I don't question the overwhelming fatigue at those times.  Lately, I am struggling with on

Our visit earlier in the day to The Palace of Fine Arts was beautiful and, honestly, I could have spent another few hours there just shooting photos of the gardens, architecture and wildlife.  I am drawn to classic architecture and this architecture is classic, immense and not something you see often on this continent.  Additionally, there was plenty of wildlife to capture in images all day long as well.   The environment, as a whole, was peaceful and comfortable while the weather was sunny and beautiful especially since we were still mostly accustomed to the snowy, wintry weather we had departed just a week earlier.  Unfortunately, our time in San Francisco was very limited since this was just one city of many we visited during our long cross-country journey by rail.  We had a lot to fit into two short weeks so there was no lingering to be done during any of our sightseeing excursions.  Before long, we needed to get going.  We had one more thing planned for our day after walking a