I Could Contract a Severe Case of Idolatry…

My iMac 24 Just Arrived…

Birth…

Five puppies (two girls and three boys) were born to our Shih-Tzu this morning. Our next ten fourteen weeks will be very busy.  We’ve taken many photographs.

Our Studio/Travel Trailer…

We’re still working on our trailer, time is short so progress is slow. Also, most available cash is designated to adoption expenses, which also slows down the progress. We are happy with our progress however; and happy with the results. Our electrical system is largely in place, our cabinets are in place and our icebox is in process. The icebox is a home-built item, I used one cabinet sink base as a sort of framework in which to create a built-in ice chest with three inches of urethane insulation and a hinged lid made of the same material as the counter-top.

It tows wonderfully, alas at 11-12mpg, and I’ve not terribly missed sway control and equalization.  I prefer back roads to interstates, county roads to US highways.  In the photograph it is sitting in our driveway loaded up and ready to depart on a camping/canoeing trip last Fall.

Our first trip this year will be to Chappell Nebraska for a 50th anniversary party for Laurie’s parents.  We compared the cost of towing this at 11mpg and $3/gal for gas with driving our Escort out and staying in a motel; it was pretty much a draw.  Factor in $70+ motel rooms, the general lack of cleanliness and dog unfriendliness and this thing makes more and more sense.  We like being able to stop anywhere at anytime for a snack or a break.  I don’t like the ‘tightness’ of city driving while towing, but I’m becoming more and more accustomed to driving something so long and heavy.  I’m sure that over the years I’ll beef up our truck a bit; probably with some air suspension bags in the rear and the aforementioned equalization system, but ‘as-is’ it’s a pretty good rig.

This spring/summer I hope to finish up the bathroom; it’ll be using a composting toilet so as not to create ‘black water’ nor the subsequent need to store and dump the same.  We’ll have a ‘grey water’ holding tank that will match the 18 gal capacity of our fresh water tank.  I’m insulating the tanks and all of the plumbing will be inside the living area as to extend our cold camping capacity as much as possible.  Our Futon/Couch is mostly framed, we’ve ordered and are waiting for a queen sized futon mattress.

An Artist…

…by M.B. Goffstein; read by Nigel Goodwin on Dick Staub’s The Kindling’s Muse.

An Artist is like God, but small.
He can’t see out of God’s creation,
For it includes him.
With the seas divided,
All the animals named, and the sun and moon and stars
Set in their tracks, an artist spends his life
Not only wondering,
But wanting to work like God
With what he can command: his paints.
He tries to copy God’s creations.
He tries to shape beauty with his hand.
He tries to make order out of nature.
He tries to paint the thoughts and feelings in his mind.
An artist is like God
As God created him.
Small, strong, and with limited days,
His gift of breath is spent
Over his paintbox.
Choosing and brushing his colors,
He tries to make paint sing.

In Defense of Broad Strokes…

My wife (posting below) related a lot of detail about the adoptive process…the nuts and bolts of it…the discerner and learner of which she is an awesome example. I don’t know how we’d have accomplished all of the necessary steps without her concrete/sequential approach to ‘working the problem’.

I’m different. Deeply different.

There’s this big long trying process we’ve been immersed in that from my point of view is a hopeless minefield of forms, signatures and procedures. Laurie swims her way through it, I drown. I’m at my best shouting encouragement from the shoreline.

My ‘broad strokes’ are the ones that transport me as quickly as possible across the pond to get me to the moment that I receive a small bundle of daughterhood into my arms. I live for that moment…I’m still a wannabe father…I crave a fatherly reality.

We are preparing for our annual Christmas party at work, both this party and next year’s will pass before I’m able to travel to China to meet the little girl that God is in the process of choosing for me to father. It seems so very long…yet when I look back at the last five years of my life it seems to have passed so quickly. I don’t understand but there seems to be two sorts of time; the time that won’t pass quickly enough and the time that slips so quickly through our fingers that we hardly note it’s passing.  I’ve no clue how both sorts can exist in the same universe.

The Stuff of Dreams…

I grew up riding motorcycles. When I was fairly young my father somehow acquired a mini-bike made by the same manufacturer of our lawnmower and edger, my impression is that these aquisitions were made through his work. I think I was about six or eight years old and I don’t hardly remember riding it because we lived in a city and we’d have to go somewhere in the country to ride it; but I looked at it and dreamed.

When I was around ten my father’s professional life fell apart, but somehow there was enough money for us to spend time as a family camping and riding motorcycles. At one time all three of us, my mom, dad and I all had a bike, but I think my mom decided that reading books beat out riding motorcycles – I don’t remember her riding much. My dad bought himself a Yamaha DT-250 and got me a Honda CT70; I would rather have had a Yamaha Mini-Enduro because it looked just like his bike and had a clutch, but we got the Honda, which looked like the bike in the picture only blue, and I rode the heck out of it. I remember standing around at the motorcyle dealer looking at the various bikes while my dad bought mine; I remember seeing this big one with a weird engine that had the cylinders (I knew quite a bit about engines for my age) sticking out of the sides looking all functional and powerful. I pointed it out to my dad and he offhandedly said that it was a BMW which was made in Germany and Germans (like my dad and me) are good engineers…

Our Trailer Project…

For some years we searched for a used trailer to camp in. Both Laurie and I love exploring the out-of-doors and of course we will forever need a base to operate out of for our photographic excursions. We never were able to find something that we were willing to part with $10K in order to own…we realized that Travel Trailers and other RVs were not made to last more than a few years. Many that we found in dealer’s lots had water damage, roof damage and structural damage. We also observed that the floorplans really sucked…

This is Cow Food…

This is a photograph of an alfalfa flower cluster. I’ve always been amazed that something so common…a common crop, could be so beautiful, however it doesn’t look at all tasty to me.

This photograph was created on a beautiful day, cool and frustratingly windy so I used a Wimberley Plamp to hold the flower sprig and shot from a tripod.

I was hoping to have a simple, green background and shot against a grassy hillside. My Nikon D70 was used with RAW capture, shot through my 50mm Sigma Macro. RAW processing was with Raw Shooter Essentials, further processing with Photoshop Elements.

Showy Orchid…

The flower to the left is a Showy Orchid, it is a native of Minnesota Woods but quite rare. We saw our first in our woods last year, this year we have hundreds hiding under logs in wet, shady areas. The blossom is about three-quarters of an inch in height, less than one-half wide. I spent some time on the forest floor with this one a couple of weeks ago.

Lighting is tough on the forest floor. It’s very diffuse and quite dark. This image shows some grain as I was pushing things to ISO 800 or so. Slow shutter speeds are a must as a fairly tight aperture is needed to maintain enough depth-of-field with a macro lens to bring the entire flower into focus. Sometimes, as in this photograph, I add a bit of low-powered flash from my on-camera unit. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D70 equipped with a 50mm Sigma Macro. As there is not room for a tripod under the camera when shooting from ground level I use the Pod under my camera, a sort of beanbag with a screw-in tripod fitting that attaches it to the base of the camera.

Slip Slidin’ Away…

We had sort of a sucky storm blow through, it actually warmed from about 28 to 34 from mid-afternoon through the evening. What this means is major ice. We went to Super Wal-Mart for our monthly grocery shopping (about 40 miles away), and then to another town to drop off some photographs for an exhibit.

Driving was a bit hectic, but no big deal. It was the walking that was dangerous, in fact it was downright comedic. When I slid out of my truck at Wally World my feet hit the ground and kept on sliding. My butt hit the threshold of the door, the truck’s running board and finally the hard, cold ground.

After shopping we dropped our photos off at East Otter Tail County Museum, a cool Episcopal church built in the 1870’s, Laurie stepped off the grass at the side of the street onto the sidewalk, she went down right on her back and bottom, almost hitting her head. (Some disabled individuals who are prone to falling wear bicycle helmets, we may need to consider a similar strategy.)

We (carefully!) moved the photos and were invited for a personal tour of the museum, Laurie and the curator went inside and I said I’d follow after closing up the back of the truck. They locked the door after they went in and didn’t hear my knocking so I started to go around the side of the church to knock on a side window thinking they’d hear me better. I started to step off the side of the step and there I went again, my butt hitting the top step, second step and ground; flailing my arms wildly the whole time.

It’s very frustrating to have such a basic, everyday function like walking become so compromised.

We drove home, unloaded our groceries and sat painfully on the couch and watched a stupid movie.

This morning I ache.