Monthly Archives: November 2011

Shots

Posted by dkrashb on

A funny thing happens to me after the time change.  I don’t know when to stop working anymore.  I was doing pretty well at getting to a stopping place and wrapping up my work day at a reasonable hour for a while there.  But now, the sun sets while I’m still in the thick of my work day and is no longer a good clue that it’s time to start winding down.

Oddly, I no longer notice the sun setting even though I face a large set of windows while I work.  Usually, my first realization that the sun has set occurs when I need to use special characters on my keyboard–I look down to find them and realize it’s dark.  This leads to me turning on a light so I can see the keyboard and then all bets are off as to when I will next resurface to notice that it’s getting late.

But tonight, I am determined to do a little shooting.  I’ve been practicing shooting the moon now that it’s the main subject available by the time I’m done working.  I want to get at least a few minutes of shooting in.  When I walk out to the balcony to see if the moon is visible, I see a collection of cop cars about half a block away.  More keep arriving.  I’m surprised I haven’t noticed sooner–usually the screaming sirens catch my attention.

In fact, Pat and I have a joke that Chattanooga is a 3-emergency town.  Every day, sirens go screaming by the apartment at least 3 times.  Usually this happens while I am on a conference call.  Since I use VoIP calling that’s integral to the instant messaging application we use at work, I often lose the window for my call amongst the many things open on my PC and then struggle to locate the right window to mute my phone.  Unfortunately, the built-in mute button on my laptop doesn’t mute my microphone.

Chattanooga also seems to have a 6-cop minimum.  Whenever something happens, you can count the cops that go flying by and usually it’s 6.  Often, they go by silently, thankfully, so the screaming sirens are usually limited to the fire trucks.

As I look at the scene before me tonight, I see a pick-up truck and one man standing outside the truck talking to a cop.  Surrounding the pick up are about 8 cop cars with their lights on, four of which are in the street blocking both lanes of traffic.  Traffic is backing up on Cherokee Blvd, many cars giving up and making U-turns.

After a while, two cops come back and move their cars out of the flow of traffic, clearing one lane.  As I watch the traffic start to flow around the scene again, two more cop cars join the party.  A third drives by, but apparently decides there’s no place to park and keeps going.

I think back to the cops in Columbus.  We had an interesting mix.  There was our neighborhood liaison who was helpful and gave us tips about when to call the police, which number to use, and why we should never hesitate to report suspicious activities in the neighborhood (statistics on calls are used to determine how the police force is staffed–essentially, the squeaky wheel gets oiled.)  But, the actual cops who came to the scene were often surly, annoyed that you expected them to do something, or just observers there to watch.

There was an incident where a car was abandoned in front of our property (fortunately a side lot and not our house) and set on fire.  The exploding gas tank woke me and most the neighborhood.  When the cops arrived, they basically stood around watching the fire fighters do everything.  I don’t even recall them filling in any paperwork.  When the fire was out, there was no search for clues.  There was just waiting for a tow truck to come.  The only investigation that ever happened came from the insurance company.

Similarly, someone crashed a stolen Mustang into a utility pole also on our property.  Within an hour, a second one was crashed into our neighbor’s stone bridge up the road.  When the cops arrived and I told them what little we knew, they stood there and nodded like we were just swapping stories over coffee.  Again, they were just waiting for the tow truck to arrive.  I asked the cops on the scene if anyone was going to dust for prints or collect any evidence to attempt to find the person who stole the car.  They looked at me like I had 8 heads.  Apparently finding car thieves is outside the purview of the Columbus police department.

I suspect that the entire Chattanooga police department would be on you like glue if you committed a crime here.  After all, there are so many surveillance cameras in the city, it sometimes feels like Big Brother.  But if someone crashed a stolen car on our street here, they would be caught on film trying to exit the scene.  As I’ve gotten used to the notion that I’m on camera when I take a walk through the park, I’ve noticed less.  Given that I’m not one to commit crimes, I think I’ll take the tradeoff.  I like the idea that if you commit a crime, there’s a good chance you’ll get caught.

But tonight, I can’t help but wonder what this man has done that caused 11 cops to surround his truck.  Is it that he’s believed to be armed and dangerous?  I see no drawn weapons and all looks calm.  Maybe they are just a highly motivated police force and they all want to be on the scene and ready for action.

I decide to set up my camera and take a few shots of the scene before I start shooting the moon.  As I get my big lens set up and turn on the wireless remote, I have a sudden fear that one of the cops will see my lens or the red dot on my remote and think I’m setting up a high-powered rifle or something.

I take a few quick shots, but then turn my lens to the moon in the hope of avoiding the imagined scene of panicked cops taking cover and ordering me to drop my weapon that unfolds in my mind.  I pack up and go inside after only a few minutes, my imagination getting the best of me.  Perhaps If I were more familiar with what a high-powered rifle actually looked like I would be a little less worried.  But, the humor in worrying about getting shot over getting a shot makes me smile as I call it a night.

From Here to New Jersey

Posted by dkrashb on

There’s no food in the apartment and I’ve skipped breakfast.  A meeting cancelled, opening up just enough time in my calendar to run out and eat, which my growling stomach has turned into a top priority.  Pat comes home just in time to join me and I suggest we go try an Italian restaurant we spotted the other day while out walking.

We head down the street, taking the shortest route to the restaurant.  When we get there, we’re slightly confused.  There’s a door on the right that walks into what appears to be a large kitchen area with 3 women standing around in it.  Then there’s a door straight ahead that looks like it goes into a cookware store.  We go in the front door and look around.  Yes, it’s a cookware store.  The women come around and I ask if they serve food.  They do not.  They give us their schedule of cooking classes and demonstrations and tell us about a wine dinner coming up.

This is all grand, but my stomach is growling and the clock is ticking.  We thank them and head back down the street.  Since I have Italian in my head, I suggest we go a little further to an Italian restaurant we know is a restaurant.  We get there and the place is dark.  They don’t serve lunch.

We head back towards home, deciding we will stop at the Urbanspoon Diner we passed on the way.  We open the door and discover a tiny little place with very friendly waitresses.  We’re seated and handed menus and brought drinks.  Just about then, a family of 6 walks in.  The waitress makes a fuss over them, pulling together two tables of four and arranging chairs and learning that they are from New Jersey.

I’m not sure why she finds the fact that they’re from New Jersey so amazing, but it’s clear she feels the need to be extra nice.  We watch while she gets the family seated, introduces them to a couple of regulars on the other side of the family’s table, takes their drink orders, and brings out their drinks.  By this time, we are also watching the clock.

Fortunately, the waitress notices our angst and excuses herself from the New Jersey family and comes over to take our order.  I decide to try the pecan-crusted chicken, which she assures me I will like.  Pat picks the pork and beans, which she tells him is her favorite.  She then tells us that one of the rowers from the Head of the Hootch asked for her favorite this past weekend and she told the rower she couldn’t recommend it because the rower was about to get on a plane.  Pat and I laugh, but I silently hope Pat isn’t going to be home much of the afternoon.

In the meantime, the father from New Jersey has gone over to the regulars’ table and gotten into a loud discussion about Joe Paterno.  The couple seems to think that a guy from New Jersey has the inside scoop because he lives in closer proximity to Penn State than Chattanooga.  But when the NJ father says he doesn’t think Joe will resign, they argue vehemently.  They end up betting $5 that Joe will resign and the guy from NJ promises to come back and pay it if Joe does resign.

For me, this whole conversation is a news flash.  I realize that I haven’t seen or heard any news beyond updates from the Wall Street Journal that pop up on my phone, which I have mostly been dismissing unread, for weeks.  Between being overly busy at work and having a lot of things to do and see outside of work, I just haven’t had time or interest in keeping up.  So, I am completely taken by surprise that there could possibly be any kind of controversy around Penn State and Joe Paterno, who for as long as I can remember has been considered the most upright guy in college football.

Normally, I would google immediately, but our food arrives before I have time.  The food is hot, fast, really good, and extremely plentiful.  While I work on my chicken, the NJ father tastes his sweet tea.  The waitress asks how it is and he says, “That’s good!  Better than McDonald’s!”  I assume he’s making a joke, but his son says, “Really?” incredulously.  It occurs to me that McDonald’s may be the only place to get sweet tea in New Jersey–it’s the only place I’ve ever heard of having sweet tea in Ohio.

I eat every bite of my dinner-sized lunch.  Pat reminds me that in the South, lunch is dinner and dinner is supper.  While this could explain the portion sizes, I think they have the same menu at supper time, too.  In any case, I enjoy the food–the chicken is moist and tender and I haven’t had chicken in a really long time.

When we finish up, we have to get back quickly as I need to get on a conference call.  But Pat’s hamstring has been acting up again; he can’t walk too fast.  The long strides seem to be what irritates his muscle.  I suggest he take shorter strides faster, but he thinks this will look stupid.  I visualize Fred and Barney revving up their Flintstone cars and tend to agree.

We make it back just in time for me to join my call on time.  As I settle back into my office chair and perch the back of my head on the neck rest, I lean back, take a deep breath, and wish we were in Spain where we’d now have time to take a nap before returning to work.

As the call goes off on a topic not related to me, I think about the New Jersey family and wonder what they will be doing this afternoon.  I think about the last time I was in New Jersey–in the beginning of my career, it was a place I went every two weeks.  Now, I don’t think I’ve been there since 2006.  I think back to a weekend trip I took out there to see a girlfriend.  We took the train into Manhattan and spent the day wandering around and then the evening seeing Mama Mia on Broadway.  But, then, someone says my name and I am pulled back into the conversation and back into my chair in Chattanooga.

Good Dog

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Sunday.  No alarms, no where to be.  It’s just a nice relaxing Sunday.  Except one thing.  I feel like I was run over by a truck when I wake up.  Every muscle in my body, including all those little secret ones that I’m always surprised about when I realize I have them, is completely wrenched.  My neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my back hurts, my hips hurt, my legs hurt, and, yes, every cotton pickin’ toe hurts.  Even my ears feel strained.

When I get out of bed, I walk like a cowboy after a month on the trail.  It’s like my knees won’t bend and I have to rock my weight back and forth from foot to foot, swinging my legs from my hip to move forward.  This is what running down a hill with a glider on my back does to me.  Who knew it was such hard work?

I get the coffee going and then, while I wait for it to brew, I do some yoga.  I end up doing a lot of yoga, trying out virtually every restorative pose I can remember, trying to ease my body back into movement.  By the time I have spent an hour doing these gently relaxing poses, I am able to walk back to the coffee maker looking a little more like I have the joints of a human being than the joints of a barbie.

I take my cup of coffee back to the couch, but instead of sitting there, I choose my office chair instead.  I have a remarkable office chair.  For my entire career, I’ve had a bad habit of slouching down into my chair and resting my head on the back of the chair.  Given that I am tall, this requires scootching my rear end all the way to the front edge of my seat and then stretching out my legs to plant my position so I don’t drop off the edge and fall onto the floor.  From behind, people think I’m sleeping.

In any case, this posture has always left me with back pain and I could never figure out why I always slip into that position when I’m not paying attention.  Well, when I bought my own office chair, I figured out why.  It’s because my neck hurts.  All these years, what I really needed was a neck rest on my chair!  Now that I have said neck rest, it gives me a place to perch my head while I’m sitting straight up.  My office chair has eased my neck pain on more than one occasion, so I give it a try again today to see if putting the weight of my head on the rest and pushing back gently against it to stretch my neck helps.

While I do this, I work on processing photos.  I might as well do something productive while I’m sitting there.  Pat got up before me and is already on the couch nursing his sore muscles.  Although, he is in far better shape today than I am.  He stopped flying early because he wanted to protect himself from pulling his hamstring again, having just recovered from the last time.  So, he did half as many flights and launched on all of them, meaning he didn’t run all the way down the hill like those of us struggling to launch did.

I resent this about him.

After having plenty of time to relax and ease ourselves into our morning in our own ways, we decide we should ride to the market today.  While I hurt, I haven’t actually pulled or torn anything, I’m just sore.  And riding a bike gently and a short distance is a great way to get blood flowing to sore muscles and ease some of the pain.  I’m totally up for that.

We make our way across the Walnut St bridge cautiously–the crowd for the Head of the Hootch is back again today, although somewhat thinner now.  We are prepared to walk our bikes if the crowd gets too thick, but we make it across still in the saddle by riding slowly and watching out for darting pedestrians.  Fortunately, there aren’t any races going under the bridge as we cross, so the darting is minimal.

At the market, we stop to talk to Lou and Eddie, the honey and candle makers we’ve met at the market several times now.  Pat has a printout of some info about a trumpet Eddie wants to sell.  He goes through what he found with him and gives him the bad news that his trumpet is not likely to sell for a lot of money.

We move on to find lunch.  We didn’t realize how late it was getting when we left for the market and after our little ride there, we’re suddenly ravenous.  We find a hot dog stand in the back corner of the market.  It’s called Good Dog, which is a restaurant located about half a block from our apartment.  We’ve eaten there once and they serve the same mustard used in the Cleveland Indians stadium.

We each order a couple of dogs and while they cook, I get into a conversation with the owner.  They are from Akron, Ohio and the owner used to go to watch the Cleveland Indians with her grandparents.  She saw an article about how the mustard on the hot dogs there was part of what kept the Indians fans coming to the stadium even when the Indians had one of the worst records in baseball.  So, when they decided to open a restaurant that serves hot dogs, they decided to serve that mustard.

When our dogs are ready, we say our good-byes after getting directions on where to buy beer.  We didn’t realize they always sell beer at the market, not just during Oktoberfest, but there are only a couple of vendors rather than a bunch.  As we make our way towards the beer, we pause to take a bite of our dogs.  My teeth pierce the skin of the dog and juice squirts out a good 3 feet.  I laugh.  As I chew my mouthful, I’m impressed.  “Good dog!” I say.

We drink our beers and finish our dogs slowly, wandering around and checking out the vendors who are there today.  Some of the same photographers are there, including one that prints the photos on fabric so they look like a photo-painting.  I do not like this look.  As Pat says, “It should be on black velvet.”

We visit the produce vendors next and pick up some watercress, radishes, tarragon, and lettuce.  We’ve decided we’ll make my favorite salad with the first three ingredients, although we will have to supplement with a few items from the grocery store.

Having eaten, wandered, and purchased everything we could use, we decide to head on home.  The crowd on the Walnut St Bridge has grown slightly, but we’re still able to make it safely through without walking our bikes.  We get home, unload our groceries, and collapse on the couch.  Having loosened some of the kinks out of my body, I’m now completely ready for an afternoon nap.  Ahh.  It’s the life of a good dog.

Run Down

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Saturday morning and we are up even earlier than Friday. After rushing and arriving at the training hills late on Friday, last night I set the alarm for 5:30AM to give myself an extra half hour to get ready today. I also packed what I needed to bring the night before so that what I have to do this morning is less.

Now that the alarm is chiming in my ear, I am wishing I hadn’t set it so darn early. But, I get up and get moving. I am ready early. Really early. Like a half an hour early–the exact amount of time earlier that I set my alarm. This is called an over-correction in hang gliding lingo.

But, since I am ready to go, i find additional things to do with the extra time while Pat, who slept an hour longer than I did, finishes getting ready. I get the GPS set to the correct address today, for example, to ensure no repeat of yesterday’s fiasco. When Pat is ready, we gather up our bags of stuff and head down the hall.

We make it to the hills plenty early. The only instructor there is Mike. We’re pretty sure he lives there and that it’s impossible to arrive before him. He tells us to each get our own Falcon. This is a good start–we have realized that we get more flights in when we each have our own glider than when we share. On the other hand, I’m a bit nervous still about assembling my own glider, worried that I’ll miss some vital step. But, I get my glider together and perform the pre-flight check without any problems. As it turns out, Pat is going to share his glider with another student in his weight range. The two of them and I are ready to go at about the same time. We load up a glider and take turns driving to get both gliders up the hill.

I am excited about flying today. I feel like I’m finally getting this down and that I’m going to make big steps forward towards learning to land on my feet. When I take my first flight, I do take big steps forward, but only literally. I run down the hill with that glider on my back taking bigger and bigger steps as I go over the ridge and down the slope, but the glider doesn’t lift. I drag that sucker all the way down until it is going faster than I am and it flops me over onto my belly on the ground and drags me across the grass. This is exactly how my first several runs went when we were in ground school back in August. I am thrown.

Fortunately, the instructor, Lauren, is extremely observant and can tell me exactly what went wrong. Her first question to me is, “How was that?” I tell her I feel like I just went back to ground school. She asks me where was my target and I have the ah-ha moment that I had forgotten to pick one. She informs me that I was looking at the ground the entire time. A phrase from motorcycle safety school pops into my head, “if you look down, you go down.”

Feeling confident that I now know the root of the problem and that my next flight will take me back to where I was yesterday, I line up and pick a nice, high target and try again. I end up running even faster down that hill, but with the same net result. When Lauren and I have our next recap, I am pretty sure that this is not my fault. I ask if the glider is too small for me, if I’m hanging too high in the frame, I blame the hiking boots I’m wearing on the hill for the first time. Lauren breaks the news to me: she assures me that I was doing the exact same things wrong yesterday but that I could get away with it yesterday because I was in an over-sized glider and there was wind. Today, I am in the appropriately sized glider and the air is depressingly still. Nothing is going to get me into the air except me performing correctly.

I am determined. I run down that hill again and again. Ten times in a row I drag that glider down the hill and it drags me across the field. I am getting so frustrated I want to quit hang gliding for good. This is when Lauren suggests I change gliders. She says that while maybe it’s cheating a little to go to a bigger glider, there is something to be said for not being so frustrated we you learn. I decide to give it a try.

My next flight, I launch successfully. My joy in hang gliding is restored. The feeling of the glider picking me up off the hill and raising my feet off the ground instead of me racing it down the hill and losing makes me giddy.

Through out the morning, I am reflecting on my own learning. I realize that my brain went all the way back to no function during my first run–I had no recollection of what happened during the run. Then, I gradually started to become more aware of what happened in each flight, I started realizing, for example, after the fact that I’d taken my eyes off the target. However, I couldn’t prevent myself from making the same mistake over and over again. I’m a little depressed by this realization. I thought that I would start where I’d left off in terms of being more conscious during the launch and flight. I am reminded of when I used to do triathlons and how I expected my times to get better each race without accounting for differences in the wind, the course, the temperature. I suppose i have learned skills specific to a given set of conditions and not the more general skills that allow me to adjust.

While I recognize that I am a slow learner when it comes to physical activities, I really didn’t think I was this slow. In the ad for our lesson package, they claim that you will learn how to land on your feet and earn your beginner rating in the number of lessons included. Here we are, already into the next package and I’m still trying to learn how to launch. This does not make me happy, I question the wisdom of upgrading our lesson package again and of contemplating launching from the mountain.

But, now that I have launched, I want to make sure I leave with the feeling of being airborne in my head, so I fly two more times. I lift off without too much difficulty and end feeling like maybe I will eventually catch on after all. The one thing I know for sure is that I do not want to run down that hill ever again! I am already feeling how sore I am going to be–there is nothing that can make a person feel as run down as running a hang glider down a hill over and over again.

Head of the Hootch

Posted by dkrashb on

After a morning of hang gliding, we return to Chattanooga in time to check out the Head of the Hootch scene. The first thing about the Head of the Hootch is the sheer number of boats on the water. In spite of the fact that the river is closed to both recreational and commercial traffic for the regatta, and the fact that these boats are as sleek and trim as it gets, the river looks like it could not possibly have room for one more boat on it. As we walk over the Market St bridge to the aquarium, we have to stop and stare several times and gawk while we count the number of boats in a small space.

As we make our way across Market St bridge, the next thing that stands out is the number of people standing on the bridge. There are so many people jammed on the sidewalks on either side of the bridge at the South end that they are jumping off the sidewalks and onto the roadway to go around each other. When a close race goes under the bridge, people dart across between traffic to see how it comes out on the other side. This seems so dangerous that I wonder why they didn’t close Market St all together.

The third thing that catches our attention (oh, all right, so we could see this from our apartment before we left) is the number of tents lining the riverfront by the aquarium. There are market-style tents set up practically on top of each other. They line the street and spread out onto the grass between the road and the river. The road is closed and rowers walk in large groups, the teenagers oblivious to other pedestrians and not bothering to move out of the way when they occupy the entire sidewalk.

We make our way through the crowd looking somewhat like we need press passes. I have my tripod bag over my shoulder and Pat carries my camera bag over his. We walk down the steps next to the aquarium bridge to get under the street and out to the pier next to the fountain. I figure we’ll be able to get some good shots from under the bridge. Pat helps pick a setting by suggesting I shoot boats as they appear from behind the bridge support. These turn out ot be some of my favorite shots.

I’ve put my big lens on my camera and mounted it on my tripod. I stand behind the camera and discover that I can barely zoom out far enough to get half of an eight person boat from here. I contemplate changing lenses, but decide to stick with the 100-400mm for a while yet. I shoot the boats on the other side of the river. I zoom in and see how tight I can get from this far away. I’m pretty impressed with my lens. I’m feeling like I could pass as a professional with my lovely tripod and my nice big lens.

That’s about the time that the real professional (or wealthy want-to-be) shows up. He’s carrying what must be at least a 300mm f/2.8 lens, if not a 400mm or more. For those of you not familiar with camera lenses, we’re talking a $7,000 – 13,000 lens here. It has an enormous circumference and looks like it could gather enough light to shoot the stars at a high shutter speed. Suddenly, my big lens looks pitiful.

That’s the trouble about comparing your lenses to other people’s–someone always has a bigger lens. But when I look through my lens again at 100mm and just fit half a boat in the frame, I suddenly wonder what the heck the other guy is shooting. From here, I wonder if he can get more than one eye in the frame. I imagine some of the more dramatic sports shots I’ve ever seen and decide he can probably get some really great facial expressions. While I may have the same reach with my lens (or not, I can’t actually tell), I don’t have the same aperture opening. That means I have to have slower shutter speeds to get the same exposure that he can get by opening up his aperture wider. This allows him to freeze those rapidly moving facial expressions sharply in time when they would likely be blurred for me. I would love to see his shots.

I contemplate briefly walking over to him and asking him about his lens, but decide there’s no point in finding out what it is since I already have 2 lenses on my wish list that are in a far more practical price range. Plus, I don’t feel like embarrassing myself today by asking stupid questions. I would love to see the shots he’s getting, though. My main confusion is that he isn’t using a tripod. I wonder how he can hold that big lens without one. As I contemplate whether to talk to the photographer or not, Pat points out a large Swallow condominium complex built on the underside of a bridge structure. Their little mud huts hang, now abandoned, in a line, somehow making me think of a row of abandoned beach houses.

I turn my attention back to the boat races for a few minutes. Watching two boats neck and neck as they come to the finish line gets me excited. I am thrown back in time to my brief lessons in a learn to row class and the feeling of flying across the river in a 4-person boat when we all got into a good rhythm. I think about about how delicious it felt to kick the rears of the competing boat that day (especially when the average age of their boat was about 10 years younger than ours).

However, I don’t know who is competing against whom in this race. It makes it tough to follow or to decide whom to celebrate with. Boats just keep coming in. Then, I see the OSU women and then some OSU men. I’m somewhat excited that I recognize them by their paddles–the rowing class I took was held out of the OSU boathouse on the Scioto River in Columbus.

After shooting some more, we head to Thai Smile for lunch. I have my leftovers packed up and even think to ask for plasticware and napkins. I’m all ready for any homeless we encounter on the way home. However, it looks like all the homeless were shuttled off somewhere. All that are left on the Walnut St Bridge are a group of rowdy partiers who are having the time of their lives. We continue back across the river and go home with our leftovers still in tact.

A Very Blustery Day

Posted by dkrashb on

We are running late.  I hate that.  I got up at 6:00AM in the hope of not running late, but it seems I needed to get up a half hour earlier.  We are running around frantically trying to gather up the last of our gear, knowing that we are now barely going to make it to the training hills on time.  We remember our bottles of water at the last possible second, grab them, and finally get out the door.

I set up the GPS in a hurry while Pat starts driving in the general direction.  We’ve been there enough times that the GPS should just be a back up.  However, Pat zones out and starts listening to it only to wonder why it’s taking us the way it’s taking us long after we’ve missed the correct exit.  As it turns out, I picked the flight park office, up on top of the mountain at the mountain launch, instead of the training hills.  This will cost us another 10 minutes at least.

We keep going because now it will be further to turn around.  Pat takes corners like he’s driving the BMW instead of the mini-van.  I bite my lip to stifle a scream.  We turn off before we get to the mountain office, saving ourselves a few minutes at least.  Then, Pat takes on the dirt road back to the hills with a gusto that should really only be attempted in an all-terrain vehicle–the road is full of pot holes big enough to swallow a VW beetle.  We do make it, but we are late.

Dan, one of the instructors, advises us to set up a condor and share it.  We are nearing the end of our weekend package, so there’s no reason for us to fly falcons, I guess.

We follow instructions and soon have the condor assembled, pre-flight checked, and loaded onto a trailer for a tow up to the hill.

We fly like never before.  I get airborne so easily, I’m sure that I’m almost ready to start learning to land on my feet.  It’s a great feeling to fly over the grassy field.  Unfortunately, the wind picks up quickly.  By my second flight, I get blown around in a cross-wind after I launch.  Although this is not particularly scary to me, the instructor calls it.  She doesn’t like beginners to fly in gusting winds.  She says it’s too hard to tell what we’re doing vs what the wind is doing to make it useful to us, not to mention the potential dangers.

I am left with the high of having flown.  Plus, I am prepared to take our first written test, required to graduate to the big hill.  This is a new milestone for me–I’ve not previously cared if I ever graduate to the big hill.  In fact, I’d grown convinced that I never would.  But today, I am full of myself.  I flew!  Not only am I excited about graduating, but now I have the fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe I could launch off that mountain some day.

We go into town and grab lunch after putting away the glider.  Then we head up to the top of the mountain and sit outside in the van studying.  Pat hasn’t done the required reading yet, but I’ve now talked him into taking the written test, too.  I’m reading the book to him because he didn’t bring a pair of reading glasses.   We make it through the 4 chapters covered in the test and then head indoors.

I finish the test in about half the time Pat does.  I do not suffer from test anxiety and I try not to go back and second guess myself when I finish a test.  Pat, however, not only has major anxiety about tests, but he also is not particularly well prepared given that I read the chapters to him.  But, we both manage to pass.  This emboldens us further and causes us to decide to take the dramatic step of upgrading our package to an Eagle Package.  The Eagle Package includes 4 mountain launches.  I, however, have been assured that I do not have to go off the mountain if I change my mind.  We get the full tour of the facilities and the orientation that we didn’t get when we signed up for the introductory experience.  We even get to see the repair shop and the sewing shop next door.  It’s pretty cool.

But coolest of all, when we go outside, there are two pilots waiting for the wind to calm a bit so they can take off from the mountain.  Finally!  After so many trips up the mountain to watch this event that I’ve lost count, we will get to see a mountain launch!

Unfortunately, in my rush to get out the door today, I only brought my worst lens.  Although the 70-300mm focal range will be good and the lens is light enough that I can usually get away with hand holding it, it mis-behaves on me frequently.  I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact that I dropped it on a ceramic tile floor in Montana over a year ago and have yet to get it repaired.

As the first pilot sets up, I snap a few shots and then move down below the launch to try to get a good angle of the launch process.  The moment when he starts the launch is the moment my lens decides it doesn’t want to focus anymore.  And, of course, I have my camera set to not shoot if it’s not in focus.  I completely miss the launch.  Not only do I miss shooting it, but I miss seeing it because I’m so panicked over my camera.

I take a deep breath and fiddle with the camera until I get the lens focusing again.  I manage to accomplish this prior to the second pilot, Meg, launching.

The launch is every bit as exciting as I expected it to be, but much shorter.  The longest part is setting Meg up at the launch line with 3 people holding the wires of her glider to prevent her from blowing away prematurely.  Then, Meg, in her sock feet, calls, “Clear,” and takes 2 steps before she is airborne and tucking her colorful feet into her pod.  I stand in awe.

We watch the two of them soar back and forth along the ridge, gaining altitude from the wind rushing up the face of the mountain.  They look so pretty against the blue sky.  However, watching hang gliders after they’ve launched is not really all that exciting for me yet.  I suppose I don’t have enough knowledge to know what they’re doing up there enough to appreciate it.  In any case, we decide it’s time to call it a day for hang gliding and to head on back to Chattanooga in time to catch the Head of the Hootch.

Sunrise Spectre

Posted by dkrashb on

This morning, as I wait for Pat to get ready for our morning walk along the riverfront, I decide to take my camera.  After all, I missed some really great shots on our last walk and I hate that.  As I change the lens on my camera, I look out the window and see a large cloud hanging so low that it has to be fog rising off the river.

It’s lower than the roof of the 4-story building across the street and stretches in a long tube just over the trees along the river.  I call Pat to come look while I finish getting my camera ready.  Pat comes out and says, “It’s like the Smoke Monster!”  That is exactly what it looks like–the smoke monster in Lost.

By the time I can get a shot, it’s already shrinking.  I rush to get out the door hoping we can get down to the river and get another shot before it dissipates all together.  Pat is walking better today–his pulled hamstring is still somewhat touchy, but it’s healing.  We make it down to the river, but all that is left is a puff of cloud hanging over the water.

Although I’m disappointed that I missed the smoke monster at its peak, I’m happy that I’ve brought my camera with us this morning.  The sun is rising behind Veteran’s bridge and fog continues to swirl and rise off the surface of the water.  I play with getting different angles of the rising sun, but make a note to myself to do some reading on dealing with shooting directly into the sun–I can’t seem to avoid sun spots, even with my polarizer on.  But I love the effect of the sun backlighting the scenery anyway.

As we work our way along the riverfront with me shooting from various vantage points and Pat patiently waiting for me, we spot a hawk sitting on the paddle wheel of the Delta Queen.  The Delta Queen is an old riverboat that’s been converted into a permanently parked hotel.  It sits at anchor in front of Coolidge park and adds a nice touch to the riverfront scenery.

I, of course, did not bring a telephoto lens this morning, not wanting to have to do any lens changes while on a walk or have to carry my tripod.  I do not immediately recognize the hawk because it’s backlit.  I’m hoping to get a few shots good enough to blow up so I can identify it later.  With a 17-55mm lens and low light, that’s not going to be easy.  I snap as many shots as I can, trying to get as close as possible without spooking the hawk.

As we get closer and on the front-lit side of the bird, it appears to be a Red-tailed Hawk, but it doesn’t have a red tail.  Probably a young one, but I will double check when I get home.  Now that I am less worried about getting a shot good enough to ID the hawk, I go back to shooting landscape shots.  The hawk must like being the focus of my attention, because it flies up onto the Walnut St Bridge and perches in the sunlight for me.

About this time, a woman walks up and start asking me about my camera.  She is shooting with a point-and-shoot and carrying the smallest tripod I’ve ever seen that still has plenty of height.  She is a small person, so I suppose it might even be at eye level for her.  She also carries a larger tripod.  She tells me she’s shooting with her point and shoot this morning but that she has a Canon 7D in her bag.  She asks what I’m shooting with.  I feel embarrassed to tell her it’s a 40D for some reason.  She talks about the zoom in the point and shoot she’s using, which I guess is why she’s using it in lieu of carrying around multiple lenses, but I’m still confused as to why she would have a 7D and leave it in her bag.

This morning, I alternately yearn for a full size sensor that will allow me to include more of what I see before me and the full 400mm of my telephoto zoom lens on the smaller sensor of my current camera so I can shoot the hawk.

When I was at a photo workshop at the Tennessee Aquarium and asked one of the instructors for advice on selecting a focal length, she told me that it just depends on whether I like to be tight on my subjects or if I prefer a wider view.  She went on a bit of a diatribe about how some photographers preferred one look over the other.

I was completely perplexed by this.  In my mind, some scenes call for a wide angle and some call for a telephoto.  Isn’t that the whole point of having a selection of lenses in your bag?  Given that we were shooting wildlife in tanks, it seemed clear to me that getting up as close as possible on individuals would make the most dramatic images, but maybe that’s where others have a different opinion.

Another woman in the class started talking about how she never changes lenses and does’t even use a zoom lens.  She has one focal length and that’s what she works with.  I am reminded of a story I read where a photographer took a 35mm fixed focal length lens (on a 35mm film camera) on a trip and how it forced him to be very creative in his photography because the lens was so poorly suited for some of the things he wanted to shoot.

This is a constant battle for me–is the effort required to carry extra lenses and the risk of changing lenses worth the difference it makes in my shots?  Given that I tend to shoot very wide or very telephoto, I have to say yes.  After all, a shot of a hawk 100 yards away perched on the side of a bridge shot at 30mm makes the hawk a tiny surprise–the photo is all about the bridge.  A shot of a hawk 100 yards away at 400mm eliminates everything except the hawk–the photo is all about the hawk.  They aren’t comparable.

This morning, I point out the hawk to the lady with her point-and-shoot.  She doesn’t seem interested in the hawk.  This surprises me, too.  What kind of person isn’t interested in a hawk?  She tells me about going on some photography workshop with “real photographers” and how they are all using point-and-shoots, too.  Apparently justifying the use of a point-and-shoot is more important to her than shooting.  I am no longer following what she is saying.  The only parts I pick up are when she asks where we’re from two times and I tell her “just over there” with a vague gesture two times.  I gather she’s trying to identify our origin by our accent, but I’ve gotten to the point where I stop explaining that we recently moved here from Ohio.  We are, after all, from “just over there” now.

Eventually, she stops talking at me and goes off to shoot some more or leave, I’m not sure which having given up on our conversation about the time she took no interest in the hawk.  The peace of my morning was somehow disturbed by this strange little woman with her point-and-shoot.  I am left with the vague sensation of having been in a competition that I didn’t enter or participate in but somehow managed to lose anyway.  I find myself wondering if she is somehow related to the smoke monster.

I try to shake away the ghost of the little woman and return my focus to the rising sun, Pat, and our walk.  I set aside my camera for now, reach for Pat’s hand, take a deep breath, and just look.

To Clean or Not to Clean

Posted by dkrashb on

This week is a short week for me-I am taking Friday off because friends are coming for a visit for a long weekend.  This weekend is the Head of the Hootch regatta–apparently one of the biggest regattas around for rowers.

I’m getting email newsletters from Outdoor Chattanooga, the Tennessee Aquarium, two farmer’s markets, and a hiking organization and all of them are hyping the Head of the Hootch as a an event to see.  Given that we can practically see it from our living room, I think it will be hard for us to miss.  But, back to our visitors, one is a rower and will be racing on Saturday.

It’s a funny thing about taking a day off.  It means that every other day suddenly becomes both compressed and extended.  In preparation for taking off 1 day, I work more efficiently and with more intensity and I still end up working more than one day’s worth of extra hours in the four days that lead up to it.  Is that really how vacation days are supposed to work?

In any case, I’m looking forward to acting as tour guides for our friends when they come.  I have a vague itinerary in my head ranging from going up to Point Park to enjoy the view of the fall leaves and downtown Chattanooga to taking them on a River Gorge tour at the Tennessee Aquarium.  They have told us about two restaurants they want to go to, neither of which we’ve been to before, which is even more exciting.

We actually chose to move to Chattanooga because of this couple–they had come down before for the Head of the Hootch and really enjoyed the city.  When we told them we were thinking about moving to Tennessee, they were the ones who advised us to check out Chattanooga.  So, we will take turns playing tour guides.

I’m more or less ready for their visit, which is good. They are staying in a hotel, which is probably for the best given that our guest bed now consists of a queen sized air mattress placed on our living room floor.  If I were competing in a rowing race, I would want better sleeping conditions, too.

But, since I assume they will come to our apartment at some point in time, I do feel like I should clean up the place before they get here.  I haven’t really thought about when I am going to do this.  I’ve had a few vague thoughts that maybe it would be a good time to try a housekeeper, but upon reflection, I realized that I cannot have a housekeeper when I’m working from home.  Given that there are only two distinct rooms in our place (besides the bathroom) and my office is in the largest of the two, the noise of the housekeeper cleaning would disrupt work.

I miss having a housekeeper.  We had a great one at our house in Columbus.  Having her come every week was the perfect antidote to my natural tendency towards messiness.  I don’t know why, but I would rather throw my clothes on the floor at night than to take the time to put them in the laundry.  I’d rather put dirty dishes in the sink than to rinse them and put them in the dishwasher.  Someone once told me that this was just a form of prioritization.  Apparently, having a neat house is low on my priority list.

But having a housekeeper who came once a week forced the issue.  Since the housekeeper can’t clean if the floor is covered in dirty clothes, I was forced to pick up at least once a week, which is not enough time to accumulate an enormous mess.  And, the house gets cleaned regularly in addition to being neater.  I love having a clean house; I just don’t want to be the one who has to clean it.

But now, in our apartment, it seems ridiculous that I still don’t want to spend my time cleaning it.  I am happy to have a reason to have to clean it now–we still have piles of excess stuff lining the wall of the entry hallway that we haven’t figured out what to do with yet.  The whole place could really use a good scrub.

Unfortunately, I get an instant message from my friend telling me that she and her fiancé will not be coming after all.  As it turns out, two of her team mates have health issues that preclude them participating in the race.  Since the boat requires four rowers, my friend won’t be racing after all.

I’m bummed–I was really looking forward to having friends come to see us.  Pat and I discuss the change of events that night and decide to take advantage of my planned day off since I’ve already cleared my calendar and I need to use up my vacation days or lose them.  We decide we will go hang gliding on Friday with the thought that it will be less busy on a week day and we will get more flights in that way.

The next day, I call the flight park and schedule time on the training hills both Friday and Saturday.  That settled, I decide I will not worry about cleaning up the apartment and will focus on keeping up with work instead.  That gives me pretty much unlimited time to work, besides sleeping, eating, and working out.  I’m secretly relieved that I can continue to ignore the state of the apartment for a while longer yet.

I suppose if we had a place to put everything, I would be less overwhelmed by the prospect of cleaning.  But having to figure out what to do with a bunch of stuff that I’ve already tried to figure out what to do with at least a half a dozen times before makes the whole notion seem like way too much effort.

For a moment, I wonder if I could call that TV show that comes and puts your stuff in 3 piles:  keep, donate/sell, trash.  It feels like we’ve gotten rid of so much stuff in the process of downsizing that there wouldn’t be much left to deal with.  What we really need is someone to organize what’s left.  But, there’s no point in getting organized when we have temporary living accommodations, so I decide to look the other way instead.

When I turn away from the mess and look out the windows, I see the moon rising over our apartment.  I turn my attention to capturing the moon, which seems far more interesting than cleaning the apartment.

Halloween Moon

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s 5AM on Monday morning.  The horizon gives no sign that the sun will rise again today.  I have to remind myself that the sun isn’t rising until nearly 8AM these days.  I have not yet adjusted to the fact that daylight savings doesn’t end until November–although I wish it didn’t end at all, preferring the extra light at the end of the day.  I have three hours before Pat will be up and ready for our morning walk.  That means plenty of time to “putter.”

Although I am not a morning person (or maybe because), I like to have time alone in the morning to do the things that I never think about once my day starts.  Having been able to sleep until 6AM fairly regularly of late, I’ve lost about 2 hours of putter time, although the extra hours of sleep are welcome.  Today, after taking care of the most urgent work emails, I empty the dishwasher and refill it.  I scrub the counters, stove top, and sink, trying not to make so much noise that I wake Pat.  Then I take my laptop and sit outside, writing my blog, checking Facebook, doing the things that I think take 10 minutes each, but can erode hours on the clock before I realize it.

I watch the clock on my computer carefully today and stop myself when it gets to be 7:30AM.  I check in with Pat to see if he’s awake and if he wants to walk today.  Getting an affirmative, I finish my coffee and get myself cleaned up and dressed.  I am ready to walk out the door 10 minutes early.  I try to find something to do while Pat finishes his morning routine.  I make the mistake of logging into work’s instant messaging and answering more emails from my laptop.  Before long, Pat is waiting for me.

But, I tear myself away, taking my phone in case I can’t stand not checking email again, and we head out the door for a quick walk along the waterfront, our preferred way of starting the day.  The sun is just now easing it’s way over the hills to the North.  The first rays shoot across the Tennessee River at a steep angle.  The mist blowing around just above the water is so dense, it looks like a frozen tundra with snow blowing across it.  I try to get a shot of this with my iPhone, but the effect is lost.  Always a conundrum–to bring the camera or not to bring the camera–today I kick myself for being lazy.

We continue our walk and the mist breaks up gradually and disappears as if it’s melting in the increasing light.  The water reflects like a mirror, setting off the swirling remnants of mist perfectly.  I could stand and stare at the changing scene  forever, but I do have a day job and we haven’t had breakfast yet.

We take a turn at the Walnut St Bridge and head towards a local coffee shop that serves bagels with smoked salmon for breakfast.  It’s quick and healthy, although not cheap.  We sit inside, but at a table that faces the windows that overlook Coolidge Park.  It’s a view of trees, mostly, but it’s still nice.

We head back to the apartment via the shortest route, now, since it’s already 8:30 AM and the flow of incoming emails is getting difficult to keep up with from my phone.  We walk between the buildings to get back to Frazier St, following the footsteps of a toddler we had seen the other day.  He had run out from between the buildings towards the street.  We might not have noticed him except that his mother, still out of sight from our vantage point, screamed like someone getting stabbed in an effort to stop him in his tracked.  Her ploy worked–he froze in place.

We continue down the sidewalk past the shop with novelties in its window.  The Librarian Action Figure we laughed about a few weeks ago is long gone.  She, and all the other familiar objects, have been replaced with a halloween display.  We are reminded that in spite of all the weekend Halloween events, today is the actual day.  We discuss whether there will be any need for candy at our apartment.  Deciding that trick or treaters probably don’t wander up and down our busy street and, even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to get in our building after 6PM, we agree not to buy candy.

Part of me is happy about this descision–for 10 years we lived in a “haunted” ravine in Columbus where the only kids that came were teenagers trying to frighten one another.  Yet, for 10 years, I bought halloween candy “just in case.”  This led to many binges and regrets.  So, I am happy I will not be tempted by bags of candies hanging around the house.  At the same time, I am sorry that I will miss my fix this year and have nothing to gorge on.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays.  Between costumes and candy, what’s not to like?  Even as a young adult, I used to decorate my work area with extensive halloween decorations and take candy into the office for co-workers.  First I gave up costumes, going only to a 1/2 dozen costume parties in the past 20 years, and none in the last 10.  Then I gave up the decorations.  Now, it seems I have given up the candy, too.

A father with his son appears beside us at an intersection.  His son is wearing an eagle costume.  When the light turns green and the father gives the OK to cross, the son flaps his way across the street.  I smile, but I am struck by a sudden sense of loss.  While this boy looks forward to parading in his costume with his classmates and collecting gobs of candy, I look forward to getting through a few hundred emails.  Why is it that being an adult so often seems to suck all the imagination and sparkle out of life?

We return home with me suddenly craving mini Kit Kat bars.  At the end of the day, I watch out the windows to see if there are any trick-or-treaters in the streets.  My co-workers are begging off early because they have to go hand out candy, but I see not a single child in costume.  As the sun sets and the moon rises, I get out my camera and set aside my nostalgia for Halloween.  Tonight, I will focus on shooting the Halloween moon.

Cloudland Canyon

Posted by dkrashb on

Before we left this morning to watch the hang gliding, I did a little research on Cloudland Canyon, a park we keep passing signs for between going out to the hang gliding park and my bike trip to Chickamauga Battlefields a few weeks ago. I try to talk Pat into planning a hike there while we’re out that way when I see that it’s supposed to be one of the more scenic places to hike in the US. I find a short, 2-mile round trip trail and think I might have a shot at talking Pat into that one, but when I mention that it has about 1600 steps because it goes down to the base of a waterfall, he vetoes immediately. Unfortunately, the hamstring he pulled the last time we went hang gliding is still giving him troubles and he doesn’t want to risk pulling it again when we have our next hang gliding lesson scheduled next weekend.

However, after realizing there aren’t going to be any mountain launches today at the hang gliding park and seeing all that there is to see there today, we decide to make a detour to Cloudlands Canyon and walk out to whatever overlooks are convenient from the parking lot. I suggest that there may not be any, but Pat laughs at this. “We’re Americans. We always have to have a view accessible from the parking lot–think of all the people that won’t walk to see a view!” I have to agree. There are a lot of people who go to a lot of really beautiful places in this country without ever realizing that hiking to even more beautiful places is a possibility.

The park is a state park, it turns out. And it costs $5 to enter. I guess that’s the downsize of going to a park that’s listed as a top 10 destination. We drive in and find the first overlook. I decide to take my camera with me as the leaves are beautiful and the sun is getting lower in the sky, making for better lighting than my hang gliding shots earlier today. Pat takes my still-assembled tripod out of the back of the car and carries it over his shoulder. The legs are still extended and it hangs out far behind him.

As we cross through the grassy area on the path between the parking lot and the overlook, we pass amongst a group of teenagers playing a game of tag or something. They appear to be Mennonites or a more relaxed derivation–the girls all wear skirts with heavy stockings and have a cap covering their buns, but they have less of a uniform look than the Mennonites I’ve seen in the past. The boys could be mistaken for mainstream boys from their attire, although they don’t seem to be wearing anything with logos. They are so intent on their game that one of the boys nearly knocks his teeth out on my tripod–Pat moves it out of his way just in time.

We make it to the overlook without injuring anyone and I set up my gear. It’s an amazing view from here. I had no idea that Northern Georgia has such incredible terrain. The canyon is deep and rocky, but sill mostly tree covered. The fall colors are far brighter than I expected to see in Georgia as well. Unfortunately, the setting sun creates deep shadows that contrast sharply with the brightly lit parts of the canyon and I struggle to capture just how amazing this canyon looks with my camera. After doing my best, we return to the car and, once again, the same boy nearly knocks his forehead into the end of the tripod. I suggest to Pat we need one of those orange flags used when driving with something hanging out of the back of the car. He suggests that the boy just needs to start paying attention to where he’s going.

We drive further down and find another parking lot at the far end where we can walk to the next overlook. There are fewer people here and we make it to the overlook unimpeded. A couple stands at the railing of the overlook trying to take a picture of themselves. I help out by taking a shot of the two of them. They hand me their cell phone and I take a picture for them. It’s kind of funny to have someone hand you a cell phone and ask you to take their picture, but I guess it’s common enough these days that it won’t be funny much longer.

The view from this side is just as beautiful, although there are fewer red trees on the slope across from us. We can hear a waterfall in the background. Stairs continue down from the overlook and I wonder if this is the trailhead for the walk to the waterfall I’ve read about. However, we are not prepared to hike–I’m wearing a pair of Italian boots comfortable for walking around in, but not safe for steep descents to waterfalls–and I don’t even broach the subject with Pat. Instead, I enjoy finding different angles to experiment with and shoot away.

Before we leave, I decide to take advantage of having the tripod and set up a shot of the two of us. Using the delay on my shutter, I give myself 10 seconds to get from behind the camera to in front of it. It takes two tries and using some flash because we’re back lit, but it’s kind of fun to actually have a record of me having been there instead of only having shots of everyone else.

Next, we walk along a paved path that takes us up to one more overlook. Here, a family is trying to get a group picture and they’re taking turns shooting. When they see me, they ask if I can take a shot for them. The mother hands me the camera. I think it might be a Canon Rebel, but I’m not sure. It’s considerably smaller than my old 40D and the lens on it seems miniaturized somehow. In any case, they tell me it’s all set and I just have to push the button. I compose and shoot, but the family is backlit and the exposure is set for them, overexposing the entire picture. I show it to the daughter (who appears to own the camera) and she changes a few settings and hands it back to me. She really needs some fill flash to get a good shot, but I decide not to comment. I take the shot again and ask her to see if it’s OK for her. She likes it, so I move on to set up out of their way so I can shoot the canyon.

While I’m shooting, the father of the family apparently stepped in dog poop left behind by an earlier visitor. He leaves along with one daughter to go remove poop from his shoes. The remaining mess on the rocks stinks something awful. The mother and daughter remain and the daughter seems to be playing model while her mother shoots using the daughter’s camera. I’m a bit confused because the daughter has to keep setting up the shots that her mother takes, and from her comments, she seems to want to learn how to shoot. However, one of the reasons why I’m rarely in my own shots is because composing the shot is the part I like best about shooting. To me, the composition is the most important thing that a photographer can individualize. While I suppose that’s not strictly true, it’s the part I understand enough to individualize. In any case, it’s not something I like to hand off to someone else to do.

I work my way around the rail of the overlook, avoiding the dog poop in the process. As I am finishing up with my final round of shots, another man joins the group on the rock and starts up a conversation with the daughter and mother. When they leave, he starts talking to me. He asks me what my intentions are with my photography. While this seems like an impertinent question for a stranger to ask, Pat happens to have asked me the same question on the way over to the park. I inform the stranger of this as a response rather than answering his question. But he probes further. When I say my intention is to get better at it, he dismisses this as vague. Finally, I tell him that I publish some of my shots on my blog. This somehow satisfies him, but he won’t stop talking.

I make all the physical signs of wanting to leave possible. I remove my camera from the tripod and hang it around my neck, I compact my tripod into its smallest form. I stand there holding my equipment with a lean towards the stairs, indicating he should start moving. He stands there between me and the steps like a wall. I take a step forward and he simply turns like a weathervane to maintain eye contact. I am at a loss. I finally interrupt his diatribe about his father and say I need to move on before I lose the light. He follows us up the stairs, still talking. When we get to the top, I start to go right and the man goes right. Then Pat steps back and says, “Honey, the car is this way.” Fortunately, the man continues off the other way instead of changing his mind, but I have now lost the opportunity to go shoot from the last overlook. Oh well, I have more photos than I can process anyway and we will be back another day.

We drive home in the fading light and I get home in time to do a little more shooting from the balcony. It’s funny how once I get on a roll, I don’t want to stop. Maybe that’s where the expression “get on a roll” comes from–back when photographers used rolls of film?