One thing is for sure and this isn't it

Jumbo shrimp. Sensible politician. Electric engine.

          Oxymorons all. But they don’t compare to the stuff on our driveway today. That most oxymoronic of items is all over the neighborhood as this is written. It’s on roofs, cars, the streets, trees and bushes. You can see it on our patio and it is blowing like dust across town.

          It is dry snow.

          Snow starts out as water. It gets mixed up in the atmosphere and changes, sometimes, to ice. It falls toward the ground and changes consistency again to become snow. If it loses its water content on its glide path to the earth, it wouldn’t be anything. It might become humidity, I guess.

          What snow can’t be is dry.

Dry ice is man-made and costs money to purchase. It does not fall from the sky and, even more importantly, it is not sitting in my driveway today. There is no correlation between dry snow and dry ice.

I’ve heard of dry eyes and dry rot. I’ve heard of and even appreciate dry humor. Then there’s dry land (from the movie Waterworld), dry heat and dry counties.

But dry snow?

It’s weird. You go to the market and come outside to find your car has been dusted. You take a deep breath blow the stuff off the windshield or simply start the car and drive away. This powdery white stuff that isn’t even cold to the touch just blows right off. If only washing the car was always that easy.

So what to do about the driveway? I’ve decided to buy a dry mop and clean up the mess that way.

Well, the ideas have dried up, so I’ll stop. Thanks for reading.

2013: The year of the Gettysburg calendar

          It isn’t too late to buy a copy of my 2013 Gettysburg battlefield calendar for your office, kitchen, dining room, hallway and garage. I encourage you to visit the calendar on eBay. I have dropped the price due to a lack of popular demand and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the lower price.

          Don’t worry that you might order too many. I have plenty in stock.



Here is a dramatic, sunset image from my 2013 calendar.

          My first visit to Gettysburg was a life-changer. I walked from the Lewis Armistead marker to the Virginia Memorial, which is the reverse of Pickett’s charge, and then walked back. I knew nothing about the battle at the time and I remember telling my wife Amy that I then understood what the Confederates did but I had no idea how or why they did it.

          Since that initial visit, I’ve been back to Gettysburg six times for roughly 36 total days and I have read a great deal about the battle. I still haven’t seen the entire battlefield but I have managed to photograph most of what I’ve seen. I try to focus on specific areas each day I’m there but, somehow, I end up on Little Round Top almost every day.

          My next goal is to climb Culp’s Hill, but I’ll need a hiking partner for that job. The Hill is steep in places and I’d feel safer if I wasn’t alone. I’ll have to make the climb with my camera gear and that’s a lot of weight to carry on a hill climb, so there is a need to be careful.



Here is an historic view from my 2013 Gettysburg calendar.

          I have also photographed areas of the Chickamauga National Military Park and I have visited the site of the first battle of Bull Run.

          Photographers love National Military Parks. Many shooters capture dramatic images of statues and memorials at sunset or sunrise. I’ve done that, too, and some of those images are among the 14 shots I selected for my calendar.

          The real challenge for me is to capture history in a pleasing image. My calendar includes the view from Little Round Top and the ambush site on the cavalry field. I want the viewer to see where history happened in a way that helps understand what happened.

          If nothing else, go visit my add on eBay. My calendar is feeling a bit lonely.
 

          Thanks for reading.

Thoughts from the cheap seats of life

          A few thoughts from notes collected while moving through life at a moderately modern pace…

          While trying to get acclimated to a new computer, equipped with the new Windows 8 program, I tried to get Skype working on the new machine. Skype worked great on the old computer.

          It turns out the only contact you can’t make on Skype is with Skype itself. Skype does not allow customer support via telephone and does not answer the questions I asked via the questions forum.

          A communications network which does not communicate.

          I recall thinking how cold a 45-degree night was when I lived in Southern California.

          Three months in Ohio, the months of October, November and December, have changed that opinion.
          Live and learn.

          The new underwater images of the wreck of a Civil War-era Navy ship near Galveston, Texas might give naval historians terrific new information regarding the advance of ocean-bound technology.

          The ship, the Hatteras, was downed by a Confederate raider after the battle of Galveston. Some of the images reportedly show one of the holes inflicted by the guns of the Confederate ship during their battle.
          The Hatteras was a steam-powered paddlewheeler and much of the engine room is visible in the new 3-D images. The video crew used high-definition sonar to record the images. The story I’ve seen in the media said most of the crew was taken off the Hatteras but two sailors died aboard the Hatteras.
          The ship has been under water for 150 years and was more revealed by recently shifting sands moved by recent storms. Every once in a while, the shifting sands of time give us a glimpse of history.

          One of the best books about the Civil War is the autobiographical Company Aytch, or a SIDE SHOW of the BIG SHOW. Sam R. Watkins was a Confederate soldier. His book describes his view of the war, including the battle of Chickamauga.

          Watkins was a member of Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment during the war.
          Watkins does not spend time with discussions of sweeping army movements. He describes a foot-soldier’s view some generals. Generals Braxton Bragg and Joe Johnston, among others, get ink in the Watkins book. Those thoughts make the book especially important to anyone interested in the war and the era.
          One idea Watkins makes very clear his opinion of the Confederate government’s decision to change one-year Confederate States Army volunteer soldiers into three-year conscripts. Watkins had a very negative attitude about that decision.

          The woman who does the voiceover for the recent Nationwide Insurance television commercials sounds a great deal like actress Julia Roberts to me.

          Sportscaster Brent Musberger has gotten a lot of attention recently, but not for his announcing. Musberger has been among the most prominent network sports play-by-play announcers for many years but Vern Lundquist is a much better announcer, in my opinion. So is Jim Nantz.

       
          Thanks for reading.

Photography: It's an inside job

 

A white and gray day.

     

The various shades of white show the lines of the shingles, the grassy
areas and the trees in contrast with the even, flat street and driveways.

     We had a brief spat of snow this afternoon so, being the intrepid photographer I am, I hauled out my Sony Cyber-shot 5.0 Megapixel camera and recorded the event. Then I turned to my trusty Flip video camera and made a short film about the event.

          All while standing in front of the window upstairs in our condo. Read on.

        

Here you can see faint tracks where cars have driven by. Compare this with the next image, where the
sun has popped out less than five minutes after this shot was taken.

  It was cold out there. Real cold. I mean, intrepid is one thing. Stupid is something else again. I wasn’t about to go outside into that mess.




A few minutes can make a wonderful difference, as these last
two images show. Same camera, location and view.

          The first images you see here are the standard snow storm in the front yard stuff. I used Photoshop to ramp up the contrast and sharpen the features. The images face the west, which is where the storm came from, and you feel the grayness of the moment.

          A few minutes after I captured those images, the snow stopped and the sun flashed out for a while. That second event is the subject of the next set of images.

          Snow is not much fun to walk in and no fun at all to slip on, but it can make for a fun image. Fun, that is, as long as you’re inside the nice, warm condo.

          Thanks for reading.

NFL conference title predictions

          My predictions for the NFL divisional playoffs round could have been better. Actually, they weren’t too good at all.

          That in mind, here are my predictions for the conference championship round:

          The Patriots will beat the Ravens in the AFC. This is an easy pick, with the Pats playing at home. I think the quick pace of the New England offense will be too hard for the Baltimore defense to keep up with and I believe the Patriot defense will slow the Ravens’ offense enough for New England to post too many points to overcome.

          The NFC game is a tougher pick for me. The 49ers are playing very well right now, really rolling. But it is hard for me to pick against a home team in a conference title game. The pick here is Atlanta in a good football game. I believe Atlanta’s offensive line will protect the Falcons’ quarterback well enough for their outstanding wide receivers to get loose and have a big game.

 

          Thanks for reading.

The 2013 Gettysburg calendar on sale now

                I have published a calendar for 2013 with images from the Gettysburg battlefield.

          The calendar can be found on eBay. Search for “2013 calendar with 14 photographs of the Gettysburg battlefield.”

          I’ve had a lot of help with the project and I am grateful to everyone who, in one way or another, helped me get this done. The calendar was printed by Custom Printing of Oxnard, California. My friends there helped me avoid some classic production errors.

          My son, Sean, helped get the images right. He and my daughter, Regan, jokingly gave me a compass so I wouldn’t get lost on some Civil War battlefield, which I’ve done.

          My wife Amy has been extraordinarily supportive. I am not the world’s most fun guy when I get to Gettysburg because I am very focused on completing my to-do list. My to-do list seldom includes anything other than the battlefield when we are in Gettysburg.

          I hope you all like calendars.

 

          Thanks for reading.

This weekend's NFL winners will be...

Just for fun...

My NFL picks for the weekend are the Broncos over the Ravens, the Packers over the 49ers (I'm on shaky ground there, not too sure), the Falcons over the Seahawks and the Patriots over the Texans.

Only time will tell. What are your picks?

Thanks for reading.