Category Archives: PHOTOS

Canada 2010 – Day 3

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“Brisk” would be the word for today.

I woke up precisely at 7:00 (I have no idea why), and knew immediately that the outside temperature was fairly cool.  As it _MG_3675turned out, it was in the low 50s, and it stayed in the 50s all day.  The boathouse this morning was wrapped in a thick fog bank, making the islands in the lake pretty much invisible.

Not to be deterred, I made my way to the lake and splashed in for a bath – which wasn’t at all bad.  The water temperature was quite a bit higher than the air, and it was really sort of interesting to be swimming around without being able to see more than a couple of feet in any direction.

Had a bagel for breakfast, exchanged pleasantries with everyone _MG_3682 else, and then set out in search of cemeteries at about 10:30.  Rather than going through town, I headed in the opposite direction (south) and found a small cemetery about 6 miles down the road, in the Midlothian region – I’m not sure if that’s an actual town or not.  Spent some time there, then headed east down a dirt road and quickly found another graveyard, which I photographed for another 30 minutes or so.

Not knowing what else to do, I continued east and eventually ended up in Burke’s Falls – the “big city” (of about 2000) near Magnetawan.  From there, I continued east to Sundridge, then looped back to the west and ended up on the outskirts of Parry IMG_3651 Sound (the *real* big city in the area) before heading back towards camp.  Found one more cemetery on the was back to town, then took a short sidetrip through Ahmic Harbour.  Eventually made it back to the camp at about 3:00 this afternoon.

I failed to mention that during all of this circular driving, the weather was gorgeous.  The temperature was always between 55 and 60, but the skies were a brilliant blue, the sun was shining, and it was very comfortable.  Back at the camp, however, it remained cloudy and drizzly and it felt very chilly.  For the first time since I arrived, I was not comfortable wearing shorts and had to put on a pair of jeans._MG_3683

I did some reading, then watched as Dad, “T” and Don made intricate plans and replans in their attempt to re-attach the flagpole to the dock.  The last I heard of the plan was that they needed to go to town (tomorrow) for 24 two-inch screws, a hex driver, and I don’t know what else.  My idea was, I thought, quite a bit simpler: drill a hole in the dock.

I took a walk while they continued to refine their plans, and ended up missing a call from Betsy.  Called her back 90 minutes later and had a nice chat, then headed up to the main cabin to eat.

Dinner, created by Don and Julie Peddy, consisted of fresh corn on the cob, tomato and cucumber salad, steak, and venison that Don shot in North Carolina sometime last spring.  To call it amazing would be to undersell it – and considering that I hadn’t eaten since the bagel, I thought I did a great job of stopping myself at two helpings._MG_3705

After dinner, the seven of us chowed down on brownies (baked this afternoon by Cy) and ice cream in honor of “T”’s 68th birthday.  His presents included a new Magnetawan sweatshirt and a bag of almond M&M’s – I didn’t get him anything, as I had no idea that it was his birthday.

The evening’s entertainment came in the form of a spirited game of _MG_3717Mexican Train (dominoes), which was won by, I think, Julie Peddy.

The party broke up at 10:30 (funny – when I first started spending my summer vacations at Ahmic, we’d play cards until 1:30 AM every night), and I made my way down to the dock for my evening pitch- black dip in the lake, which was quite nice in spite of the remaining chill in the air.  The water temperature is still holding at 72…I don’t know how long that’s going to last if we don’t get some sun soon.

TWD  

Unsatisfied

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The entry that I wrote yesterday (posted earlier today) was quite unsatisfying for me, so I think I’ll blast out another one now.  I still have more pictures to post anyway.
I guess I’ll file this one under “miscellaneous,” as I have no ideaI got bored while camping and took this long-exposure of myself blowing on the fire. what I’m going to say, what type of order I’ll try to impose on that which isn’t said, or how long I’ll sit here typing while having nothing to say.

Good thing nobody’s reading, eh?

There’s a news story on right now about a physician here in Atlanta and the sign he’s posted on his office door: “If you voted for Obama, seek urological care elsewhere.”  What a tool.  I hope half of his patients take a leak on his waiting room floor.

Sorry.  Got a bit sidetracked there.

I went to bed early last night, still trying to fight off this sinus thing in the best way that I know how: sleeping through it.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending up your outlook), retiring early means rising early; and I was awake and bored at about 5:30 this morning.  Playing around on the rocks at High Falls, GA. I'm really bad at taking shots with an extended depth-of-field, but I'm learning. Bored enough, in fact, that I started playing around with a little AutoTune app that I’ve got on my phone.  For those of you who aren’t totally hip, cool, musical, gangsta-type people, AutoTune is a program that was developed to take musical input and “tune” it to the right pitch.  It does this by digitizing the incoming analog signal (ie, a voice) and attempting to put each bit of it on a perfect pitch.  This results in some really weird-sounding cyborg stuff, and rappers (and Cher) think it’s the coolest thing ever.

So I autotuned my cats.  They were talking to me and I recorded them.  It was fun.  Things were good.

Then I played it back, and Boo, who is as short-tempered as she is short-haired, completely freaked out and attacked Bo, who is the archetypical scaredy-cat.  The two of them had a rousing row, which progressed from my bed to the upstairs landing to downstairs to behind the washer to the living room.  Eventually, Bo hid under my legs and Boo went off to sulk somewhere.   This was two hours ago, but Bo is still hiding under my legs and the two of them are hissing at each other like demons whenever Boo makes an appearance in the room.The moon over my campsite at High Falls, GA.
My rehearsal this morning kicks off in about two hours and I’m about 30 minutes away from the venue.  I’m just sayin’.

After the rehearsal, I need to go over to Jenny’s place to finalize my tax returns and all that good stuff.  I’m not sure exactly what she needs for me to do, but I’m not going to complain.  Who else here can say that their ex-wife does their taxes for free every year? 

Rereading that question begs another: What kind of an idiot gets his ex-wife to do his taxes?

The rest of the day seems to be free and I really don’t know what to do with it.  The garden idea is still out there, but I think it’s supposed to rain in Duluth today.  Macon’s forecast is clear and sunny (hot, actually), so there’s a possibility that I’ll drive down there and hang out at a cemetery or look at the cherry blossoms downtown. 
Dianne is apparently cooking something.
I signed on to buy a third of a boat last night.  Really.  Two of the other tubists in the GBB found a boat being sold for $750.  Apparently, it floats.  And floaty boats make for the best tuba fishing trips.  I believe that’s an old Roman expression.

The tuba that I tried to buy a few weeks ago is now in Valdosta, I believe, being play-tested by one of Betsy’s students.  As expected, the owner went back to the middleman after the eBay auction ended and told him that he’d take my $4500 offer.  The middleman told him that I’d lowered my offer because of the eBay thing.  So now we’ll see if the kid in Valdosta wants to offer more.  If not, I think I’ll offer $4000.  If he doesn’t want it, I’m leaning towards buying a new M&M brand horn, which is basically a Chinese knock-off of some other horn and the reviews are sketchy.  Some folks really like it, others hate it.  But the price (around $2500) is right.  Since I’m really just a hobbyist, I don’t see a big problem with playing a horn that’s not top-of-the-line.  I’d just like to have a full-sized tuba along with my 3/4.Took this shot of Hollie during our long rehearsal and really like the way it came out.
Saw an ad on Craig’s List today for a Besson Eb that looks interesting.  I’m not sure, but I think it’s the same horn that I’m playing in the GBB.  Not convinced that I need an Eb, but it’d be nice to own my own instead of using the band’s.

While camping last weekend, I finished a couple of books.  Ghosts of Georgia is a complete yawner, full of poorly-written stories about alleged ghosts around the state.  Confederates in the Attic, however, a tome that Chris gave me for Christmas, is a delightful (if somewhat depressing) tale of a journalist’s journey to various civil war sites and the people that he encountered in his travels.
 
Get over it, rebs.  You lost.A couple of Furman dudes try to tackle an Auburn dude. Told you there'd be a bunch of random photos in this post.

I was at home Thursday night, just about to go to bed, when the power went out.  A normal person would have gone to sleep at that point.  I, however, couldn’t.  It was very hot and I couldn’t turn on a fan, so I went outside to sit on the deck for a while.  The raccoon that lives in my back yard apparently thought that this was a fascinating turn of events and scared the crap out of me about three times by just appearing next to me for no reason.  I winged a baseball at him (missed) and he retreated to a large pine tree to watch me from there.

Not relishing the thought of him jumping on my head, I went back inside, lit the lantern that I hadn’t yet put away from my camping trip, and read for a while (Gone With the Wind – can you believe I’ve never read it?) before eventually crashing. 

Something smells dead in my garage.  Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Diving turtle - High Falls, GA
Okay.  I’ve now babbled on for a few hundred words without really saying anything, and I feel much better about myself.  I think I’ll find some random pictures to scatter throughout this mess, publish it, and go get ready for my rehearsal. 

Y’all have a nice weekend, ya hear?

TWD

Back to the Woods

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Spring has arrived in Georgia with a vengeance and summer is banging on the windows.  My head is about to explode from the Railroad tracks, Macon, GA approximately 8 trillion tons of allergens that fly up my nose every morning, and I think I’ve gotten third-degree burns on my back from sitting in the oven that I call “my car’s interior” during my afternoon commutes this week.

It’s amazing.  Two weeks ago, it was snowing.  This week, the temperature has nearly reached 85 three times – for all I know, it will break that mark today.  I’m scared to leave the office.  God, I hate hot weather.

The concert that I mentioned in my previous post went off quite well.  In fact, I got a recording of it from the band director with instructions to digitize it and makeOld power plant, High Falls, GA it available for other band people to download from our website.  I guess I should do that, huh? 

Oops.

Anyway, it went well.  There were the usual fracks and ensemble problems, but there were also some extraordinarily musical moments.  Not to be cocky, but I think we’re going to dominate at the championships in a couple of weeks.

High Falls, GA Those are in Raleigh, NC, by the way.  Go to NABBA.org for more information.

Not much of interest has happened since the concert.  I’ve had a couple of lessons, eaten a few dinners, briefly lost my temper, picked up a massive head cold, and went camping.

“Camping” would be somewhat of an exaggeration, although it is, technically, what I did.  I went to High Falls State Park, near Jackson, GA, last Friday morning and stayed until Sunday morning.  The park is more of a motor park than a campground (I was the only person there with a tent), and includes power, water, showers…evenFooling around with macro photography - High Falls, GA a washer and dryer.
 If I were thinking about just getting away from the city for a week or so, it’d be sort of a nice place (though not even close to being my first choice), but for a weekend “camping” trip, it was a bit over the top.

There were some pretty things there, however.  The two primary trails, one along the river and the other through a patch of woods, are Turtles at High Falls, GAboth well-maintained and have some pretty scenery.   And the weather was absolutely beautiful, which was a pleasant surprise  (it was even a wee bit chilly at night).

Have a rehearsal in the morning and an Easter gig Sunday.  Not sure what else I’ll do this weekend, but I hope it doesn’t rain.  Maybe I’ll put in a garden.
Footbridge, High Falls, GA TWD