Here are two more instrumental shots from last weekend’s 2011 National Polka Festival from Ennis Texas. You can also see the NPF gallery on Flickr. These are two of my favorite shots of the weekend, one being the corner edge of a steel guitar. These were both taken handheld from about 20 feet away from both instruments, while they were being played. If you are interested in the EXIF data on the images just head over to the Flickr gallery.
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I am still going through all the different shots from last weekend but pulled this shot out of my Father-in-Law that I just love. I hadn’t seen a news paper in so long that I had to pull out my camera. I love the mix of old and new this shot portrays. To see more shots from the weekend you can go to the Flickr gallery or you can see Deborah’s blog post as well. I will be adding more to my Flickr gallery as I can get them sorted out, but today the photo of the day is my Father-in-Law David reading the newspaper.
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So we made it to Dallas, just a quick 12-13 hour drive and we arrived. The trip was pleasantly uneventful and after dinner I was thrilled our hosts wanted to stop at their favorite skyline view so I could take some photos. I love photographing traffic at night, it has a unique motion all it’s own, but being here in Dallas standing over the I-30 bridge with a large tripod looked conspicuous to someone driving by and it only took about 10 minutes before the Dallas Police Department showed up. For once the police didn’t make me pack it up and go home, instead she just wanted to know how much my camera cost? The three above were my favorite of that shoot. At dinner tonight I found out I am going to get to go to the PGA Byron Nelson Championship, so hopefully I will get my first decent PGA Tour shots while I’m there, after that it’s Polka time.
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This will be the first of my daily postings for this blog journal. My goal is to publish a quick blurb of each day as it goes by, for at least a year or so, and then be able to look back at the year and see what I did or didn’t get accomplished. This of course is something that we do on blogs, but today I have created a new category called journal specifically to write some of the daily happenings in and around my life.
a Long Time Coming Home From Dallas
Today was the first day back at the house after being gone, for what seemed like forever, and it was a very busy day. Deborah and I have been in Dallas to stay with her mom in the hospital. It was probably one of the hardest weeks both of us have had in a while and we left after the funeral / memorial service for her mom was over. We will both miss her mom greatly and she has meant a great deal to both of us over our life time. I am going to create a journal, called My Life in Europe, of her memoirs from her life in France and Germany as a way for me to remember her life.
Most of today was spent trying to catch up with various things after being gone for 10 days. Hordes of email to go through and time to make another to-do list for the day. First priority for me today was to finish some work for a client that I had to put off while we were in Dallas. Work completed, it was time to pick up the dog, Blazer, at the vet, get the mail, get some of the basic needed supplies at Wal-Mart and head back home. On my way out, our book supplier called to tell me that had an unexpected two truck loads of books and they needed to drop them off at the house. Just in time, since we have finally removed some of the boxes from the house. They were delivered while I was running around in town. Two to three pallets of books, enough to fill the entire living room. Deb had to bring them all in from the driveway since it was about to rain, she got her exercise in for the day.
Time for Orders and Music
The mail had a large assortment of CD’s I had traded and ordered before we left. This was nice and I have a good bit of new music to go through over the week. Delivered today was:
- Johnny Cash – The Essential 1955-1983 Box Set
- Phil Keaggy – 220
- Billy Joel – All My Life
- Harry Chapin – The Gold Medal Collection
- The Mamas & the Papas – California Dreamin
- Mark Knopfler – Golden Heart
- Vanessa Carlton – Be not Nobody
- The Church – Starfish
- Moody Blues – The Best of the Moody Blues
- Yes – The Big Generator
- Collective Soul – Blender
- Nirvana – Nevermind
Quite a mix and collection for the week. Usually I add a few to the collection each week but this week was a bonanza of music. I did decide while in Dallas that I needed to start archiving my images in a more direct way, along with slides and old photos from my extended family, so I picked up an Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner. No time to unpack but when I can get to it I will enjoy getting, what I am sure is thousands upon thousands of images, into a digital format.
I managed to get in a little guitar practice today, not much, but enough for me to remember the three chords I was trying to learn before we left. Took a small but nice walk in the cold rain. Only did 3 laps (about 2 miles) but it was nice to get back into my routine of walking each day. I was able to walk back and see what the logging of the trees looked like. This started while we were gone and is continuing, what seems like in our back yard.
Last but not least I was able to get all the orders printed, no small task with about 70 book orders waiting for our return. All in all a very busy day. Tomorrow will be another busy day, and a trip into town for work and dinner.
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This is the first post in a daily journal I hope to update each day, even if just a little blurb, about the days happenings. This type of posting, more closely resembles a journal, was inspired by the memory of my mother in-law, Georgia Christal. I am creating a blog with the journals she created long before blogs ever existed, I hope I can keep up with her. During a span of 3 years when she lived over seas in Europe, she wrote daily about what happened each day, and looking at it almost 10 years later, I can see what an amazing piece of work this turned out to be. I will make an attempt to write a daily post in this particular blog (I have several others), of just the normal routine of things.
Some days it may be a sentence, some paragraphs, but my goal is to write something in the blog each day. I have been a photographer for more than 10 years now, and one of the hardest things to do in photography is to actually get off your butt and go shoot something. I think it is the same with blogs or journals, you just have to get off your butt and do it.
When I look back at the images I was able to create because I took the time to go out and shoot, I am amazed, and glad I did make the effort.
Is a Blog a Blog or is it a Journal
All you bloggers out there, do you keep a daily journal, or is that really what you consider your blog to be? This blog has been active and alive in various forms for years now, and when I look back at the various entries, I see a journal of what was important enough, at the time, to actually put down in a post. My blog has been many things to me, a scrapbook, a blog, a journal, a business tool, soapbox, but that is just it, it can be whatever you want it to be. Today as I start writing daily entries of what went on in my day I will use it as a journal or diary of sorts, but I am sure down the road, it will grow into something more. What about your blog? What is the prime use or purpose you have for even having a blog… do you know or have you even thought about it yet?
In Dallas For No Good Reason
So what is going on right now. Well the photo below was taken yesterday of my mother-in-law’s memorial service, so we happen to be in Dallas for her service. One of the hardest weeks Deborah and I have gone through in a while but we are now on our way back home, finally. I took many photos (on my iphone) that few days while we were in the hospital, mainly because all you have to do is sit and wait. In the future I think I will do a much longer post about this week, but for now, here are a few images from those few days.
The photo in the middle is the most telling to me. I had nothing in the way of a camera to use for about the week we were in and out of the hospital other than my iphone, and I think it did an incredible job. In total I probably took a few hundred photos with my phone, many of which tell the days and week better than these, but for a first journal entry, this is what we did yesterday and the few days before. The idea of a “journal” actually came to me from Georgia. She kept two journals while they lived in France and Germany which I am chronicling in My Life in Europe. There will be better entries than this, I promise.
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Today I planned to launch a new weekly post category that would give my readers a sense of where we are and what we are up to. We travel (or try to) quite a bit (or use to) and I wanted to be able to share photos and fun stuff about our trips.
Where Are We Wednesday – February 02, 2008
Interesting how life takes over and changes even the best laid plans. It turns out that I am posting this from my mother’s hospital room. Yesterday, my mother had surgery to remove potentially cancerous cells from the wall of her brain (basically results form her last surgery when she had a brain tumor removed). The surgery went very well and she is now in the room, just as talkative as ever. She will be going home tomorrow and we will be heading back to Alabama on Friday. As I mentioned above, this is her second such surgery (and hopefully the last) over the last two years. The first came about when she and her husband were in Colorado and she flew back to Dallas. This time she will have to go through chemotherapy and radiation once she heals from her surgery.
There are no photos to share this time, just relief and thanks to all those who have sent their wishes and have been praying for her. Next Wednesday, we will be somewhere else, hopefully more relaxing and enjoyable. How about anyone else who has traveled or is traveling on Wednesday. Doesn’t have to be something on this exact Wednesday, just let me know something exciting you did on “this” Wednesday, whenever and where ever you are on that day.
