The Plight of the Purple Monkey

Posted by dkrashb on February 24, 2013

Purple Monkey after his vibratorectomy

The saga of Purple Monkey began last weekend. I had to run errands–we ran out of trash bags. This has never happened before. This is the one aspect of running a household that I’m usually on top of. It started with paranoia about running out of toilet paper, which goes back to a guy I dated when I was in college who was forever out of toilet paper. The outages led to improvisation that led to clogged toilets. Having a father who wrote a book about plumbing, this was sacrilege. In the end, I came away with a compulsion to stockpile toilet paper.

Soon, my compulsion expanded to include other household supplies. Trash bags, plastic wrap, toothpaste, dental floss, paper towels, hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, bath soap, and a variety of “daily needs” items are all well-stocked in my house.

My husband teases me that I think “we’re almost out” of toilet paper when we have less than 24 rolls in the house. When the toilet paper supply dwindles, I take stock of anything else running low, make a dash to Target, and buy in bulk. It’s a system that works for me.

The offending part

However, one of the side effects of having a housekeeper is that she takes the trash out and we rarely use more than one kitchen trash bag a week, so I never see the level of the trash bag supply anymore. I was caught completely off guard.

I made an emergency run to Target. Tisen went with me and waited patiently in the car. After, I took him into PetSmart to stock up on poop bags and, of course, let him pick out his own toy.

He chose Purple Monkey. At least, I thought it was a monkey. Whatever it is, as mentioned in yesterday’s blog, it has a bizarre vibrator inside of it that makes it jiggle. Tisen didn’t like the vibration, so, for the first time since we’ve had him, he chewed on a toy–he broke the vibrator inside. That wasn’t enough to satisfy him.

Purple Monkey’s trap door

Today, he decided the vibrator had to come out. He pulled at it until he got it lose from the fabric it was glued to. I finished the job for him, afraid he was going to hurt his teeth. Tisen seemed relieved.

Purple Monkey has a flap on his backside held shut with velcro. The flap was intended to allow for battery changes. As I examine this toy, I have to wonder if the designer had every seen a dog at play in his/her life. What dog would want a toy with a giant motor in it?

Tisen treats his toys more gently than any dog I’ve ever seen, yet even he couldn’t stand that stupid motor. It was made by Toys-R-Us Pets. I suspect it was considered a choking hazard for children so they relabeled as a pet toy, but maybe this is just my paranoia.

Tisen contentedly plays with his old friend, Jack, while I shoot Purple Monkey

Night Lights

Posted by dkrashb on February 23, 2013

The light on our Time Capsule reflected in the top of the cable box it sits on

Have you ever noticed how many tiny little lights there are glowing away in our homes these days? I had to banish all electronics (besides my iPhone, which is also my alarm clock) from our bedroom several years ago because of the lights.

The glowing apple is almost enough light to ready by

After struggling with sleep issues, I was educated on ways to improve my sleep environment. The first rule was to remove all light sources from the room, including my clock. I had no idea how bright our room was until we started removing the lights.

Room darkening blinds, the removal of all electronics, and closing the interior doors revealed we had a bright light on an alarm panel permanently mounted on the bedroom wall. I ended up using an old pair of biking shorts wrapped around the panel to cover the light (that was always a little awkward to explain on the rare occasions we showed our bedroom to a guest). When we turned off the last light as we went to bed, we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We both slept much better.

The only symbol I recognize is the power symbol. I have no idea what the other two lights on our cable box mean.

Once I was used to sleeping in a totally dark room, I became hyper-sensitive to lights in hotel rooms. I have to unplug alarm clocks and carefully position the light-blocking curtain, sometimes moving furniture to hold the curtain against the window to prevent light leakage.

Glow of a power button next to stray light coming through the vent

Once, at a conference in Vegas, my hotel room, a ridiculously large suite, had a sunken seating area. Because there were steps down to the seating area, lights were installed in the floor for safety. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn off. I’m sure the housekeeper wondered why I kept leaving a towel on the floor, but that was the only way I could get to sleep–cover the lights. I couldn’t seem to remember to pick it up in the morning.

Laptop lights are deceptively bright–a sleeping laptop in the room is enough light to keep me up

Tonight, looking around for a photographic subject after working past sunset, I noticed all the glowing lights in the office. I found myself wondering what they would look like in photographs.

Perhaps they would be more interesting in a wide angle shot of a totally dark room with all these little lights glowing like a constellation in color? It was fun to try shooting them, though. I try to remind myself it’s about the journey and not the destination. 🙂

Our own, tiny traffic light is actually the lights on a surge protector

Tisen was not very interested in my photographic experiment. He was more interested in playing with his newest toy. I was surprised he picked this toy when we stopped at PetSmart the other day. It doesn’t have a squeaker in it. This is usually a show-stopper when it comes to Tisen’s selection of toys.

This one has a strange vibrating device in it. When you squeeze its paw, it vibrates in a rather strange, R-rated sort of way. Tisen doesn’t like when it vibrates while he has it in his mouth. I finally realized he wasn’t playing with it, he was trying to get it to stop vibrating–permanently. He succeeded.

Tisen puts an end to the vibration in this toy

Blowing Smoke

Posted by dkrashb on February 22, 2013

The Market Street draw bridge remained down even though the Delta Queen implied she might want to pass

This morning, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful, if cold, day. (“Cold,” of course, is relative. The low was 42 F today. That’s not really cold, is it?) However, the sunny day turned into a gray and then rainy afternoon.

When Tisen and I took our evening walk, it was barely “spitting” (as my relatives used to call it) as we started down our usual route. By the time we made it to the river, it was spitting pretty darn hard. This caused me to rush Tisen through our walk. It didn’t take a lot of coaxing–Tisen is not fond of walking in the rain.

As we double-timed through the park, Tisen suddenly did a reverse maneuver, probably having caught the scent of another dog that he felt compelled to try to out-mark. In the process, he spun me around, causing me to look up in the increasing rain. I saw a surprising site. I saw a huge plume of dark smoke rising over the Market St bridge. My first thought was that a car on the bridge had exploded.

Smoke billows in the wind over the bridge

Perhaps it seems extreme to assume a car had exploded. However, having had the experience of being awakened in the middle of the night by the percussion of an exploding car a few years ago, exploding cars seem more probable to me than they once did.

That was quite a night. I ran outside in my pajamas and tried to get close enough to the burning car to see if anyone was inside who needed to be pulled out. But the fire was burning so hot, I had to step back while I was still many yards away. This turned out to be a good thing because the car kept having more (smaller) explosions as various tanks and tubes reached combustion temperatures.

The big boom was apparently the gas tank exploding. Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone inside. It was a car that someone had reported stolen that had been dumped and burned in front of our property (fortunately a wooded side lot and not in front of our house) back in Columbus. We always suspected some kind of insurance fraud, but I have no idea how it turned out.

View through Renaissance Park to the Market St Bridge

In any case, it wasn’t an exploding car today. Rather, it was a rare sight. It was smoke pouring out of the Delta Queen smoke stack from just behind the bridge. While it doesn’t make such a dramatic image against the gray sky, I had to run upstairs and get a shot for posterity’s sake. The Delta Queen was once a glorious river boat, but it’s been a stationary floating hotel for a lot of years now. I’m at a loss to explain why it would have stoked its fires when it never goes anywhere.

Whatever the reason they decided to light the fire in the Delta Queen, I’m glad no cars exploded. That would have been awfully messy up on the bridge.

Tisen attempts to smile for the camera

Lost Marbles

Posted by dkrashb on February 21, 2013

It almost looks like I succeeded, but the moving marble actually missed and passed behind the other marble

I failed to get two nickels to connect yesterday. I decided to revise my experiment and try with two marbles instead. Of course, if I ever owned any marbles, I lost them (yes, that’s a pun). However, I do have a glass vase with a bunch of glass beads in it to hold the flowers in place. These glass beads are reasonably round, so it seemed possible that I could park one and roll the other into it.

Disappearing marble–as the moving marble passes in front of the still marble, it’s so blurred, it’s a ghost

Picture this (another pun): One large camera with a substantial looking lens on the front of it sitting on a big tripod and placed up close to the kitchen counter, level with the counter top. One small, black glass bead sitting on said counter. Me, kneeling behind the camera, reaching up to the counter and rolling a second small, black glass bead towards the first. As soon as I release the rolling bead, I try to move my right hand back to the camera fast enough to hit the shutter at the moment the two beads connect.

This resulted in a lot of photos of the second bead rolling through the frame somewhere other than right when it hit the other bead. In fact, it would have been impossible to capture the moment when the two beads hit because they never did. I began to suspect the beads were imperfectly round. I’m sure it had nothing to do with my coordination.

The most common image I ended up with

Since it rapidly became clear that I couldn’t hit the bead and I was not going to magically spout any extra hands, I recruited the extra pair of hands in the form of my husband. It’s possible there are government grants available to study the length of time two adults can be amused by trying to collide two beads and get a picture of it. I should have applied before starting this exercise–I doubt I will get a second chance to run the experiment.

The two marbles actually collided in this shot, but I was a split second too late and the sitting marble blurred as it started to move

The one thing we did prove is if the lack of ability to make the two beads connect is related to coordination, my husband is only slightly more coordinated that I am. Since he usually has pretty good finesse when it comes to doing anything involving eye-hand coordination, I’m confident those beads really weren’t all that round.

One marble passing behind the other

On the rare occasions when he managed to get the two beads to connect, I missed the shot. I have about 40 images of one bead rolling into the frame on the right while the second sits patiently.

Marble passing in front of the other

It’s more fun to create 40 of these images than it is to look at them one after another. But, as I flip through the shots, a running narrative goes through my head “almost, almost, there it . . . oops . . . here it comes again, almost, oh shoot.” The one shot where it looks like I captured the moment the two beads were colliding, the rolling bead actually passed behind the still bead without touching it. But, I’ll take it.

The marble came hoping into the frame in this shot

Two Nickels

Posted by dkrashb on February 20, 2013

I was able to capture one nickel on edge, perfectly still

I noticed something interesting today. I noticed I didn’t feel quite so bored. Interestingly, this seems to correlate with a sunny day. Is it really that simple?

It was also a Tuesday. Tuesday is a kind of mad-dash in the morning because the housekeeper comes on Tuesday. This means, in addition to my normal morning routine that includes walking and feeding the dog, showering and getting myself groomed and dressed, we also ran around picking up and then I drove the dog to day care.

Guess what? There’s rush hour traffic in the morning! Even here. And, of course, Tisen didn’t want to get out of the car when we got to doggy daycare. He’s such a mama’s boy. I had to lift him off the back seat of the van and then hoist him down to the ground. It used to be a little easier–he seems to have picked up a few pounds of late.

Of course, once he got inside and one of his doggy friends showed up, he was all excited to be there. He happily pranced back to the play room with his new best friend after a few doggy handshakes (which is a polite way of describing how dogs actually greet and get to know one another).

Back at home, Tisen seems to feel the need to keep a friend handy at all times

That task completed, I raced back home for my first conference call of the day. And, of course, got stuck in traffic. Traffic was backed up a good quarter of a mile. It took an extra 5 minutes to drive the one mile between doggy daycare and our building. Yes, it’s somewhat laughable, but 5 extra minutes to go one mile is a bit annoying. Especially when you’re running out of time before your first conference call.

Tuesday morning also means I pack up my laptop and head down to the common area at the end of the hall where I can sit and work while someone else vacuums and scrubs back at home. (How I appreciate the folks who do those chores for me!) Since the common area is a large room in a corner of the building with lots of windows overlooking the riverfront, it’s a fantastic view.

This morning, there are other residents meeting in the room, so I must sit outside on the balcony so I can talk on my call without their voices interfering. This puts me outside in the sunshine.

Apparently I need only 2 things to shake me out of my doldrums: a slight change in my routine and sunshine. That’s not so hard.

So, now that I’ve spent nearly all of my 500 words, tonight, feeling a little more creative, I had this idea of capturing 2 nickels. I thought I would have one nickel sitting on edge, in sharp focus. The other nickel I would roll towards the other, the motion of the rolling nickel blurring it as it strikes the one sitting on edge.

Up close tails–the second nickel is out-of-frame, flopping over long before reaching the first

I’ll post that shot after I grow a couple more hands.

Boredom

Posted by dkrashb on February 19, 2013

Tisen too bored to move

I am bored. I wasn’t sure until today. Then, as I walked the dog around the same ⅔ mile loop in the same park for what must be close to the thousandth time today, it hit me. My world has gotten too small.

This seems somewhat ironic given that two weeks ago I was sitting in Madrid. Yet, I feel this overwhelming sense of the world closing in, growing smaller and not in a “it’s a small world after all” kind of way.

Even Tisen seems bored. He walks listlessly, aimlessly. Like he has no interest in walking the same old loop yet again, either. I wonder if part of his allergy issue is pure boredom. After all, I start to feel like pulling out my own hair with boredom, I just have better impulse control.

Tisen is not so lucky. He chews and licks and gives himself sores. Is self-inflicted pain more interesting than his life?

Tisen in his most bored pose

I try to think of the last time we went some place new (not work related). I am coming up blank. I try to think of the last time we revisited some of the places we love. It’s been months. I count back to the last time I went for a bike ride, a row, or a hike. I stop counting when I get to October.

I get out my camera and decide my bored dog is my most appropriate subject for my mood. Is boredom contagious? Did I catch it from him or did he catch it from me?

I have been reading a novel called “Gone Girl.” I spent a lot of time resting the past week, nursing a sinus infection. So, I’ve made enough progress to be pulled into the story and to want to know how it turns out. It’s not boring. Yet, when I stop reading, I feel only more distracted by my own sense of dullness. I guess real life is not as exciting as a novel.

But it’s a thriller of sorts. Not really the kind of book that makes you think “wow, I wish my life were like that.” In fact, quite the opposite.

Yet, I find myself longing for something to happen. Something new and exciting and energizing that makes we want to get up in the morning and jump out of bed, excited to take on a new day. At the same time, I try to think of something exciting to do and I come up blank. Even making simple decisions seems too challenging. I had to make myself dinner tonight. I couldn’t take an interest in it. I made myself a protein shake.

Tisen manages to turn his head

It seems I am the cause of my own boredom. Although, I have to cut myself a little slack–I was feeling awful the past week and not at all up to doing much of anything. But I’m growing impatient. How long until I get off my rear and make something happen?

Blind Star

Posted by dkrashb on February 18, 2013

Adjusted with brighter whites

Getting new blinds had an unintended consequence. I walked into the living room and discovered a new star in view. A giant street light across the way suddenly got a new look. Through the sheer fabric of the blind, the light burst into a star pattern.

It’s actually quite dramatic looking in person. However, it presented more of a photographic challenge than I expected. Through the lens, the beams of light spreading from the center light were more muted than with the naked eye. I tried shooting with the inside lights on to see if it helped. It just made the blind more apparent. I tried shooting with longer and shorter exposure times. Nothing seemed to make the light beams stand out the way they do in real life.

I tried many adjustments. Making the light brighter made the blind in the foreground brighter as well. If I were really industrious, I would try using Photoshop Elements to select only the light beams and lighten them individually, but I suspect I would end up with bright spots in the blinds since they stand in front of the beams.

Adjusted slightly darker

It’s somewhat ironic that the object that creates the effect I want to capture is also the object that stands in the way of capturing it.

This is much like life. Take having a job. Having an income is what allows us to do all the things we want to do in life since, let’s face it, it all costs money. But having a job also takes the vast majority of our time, leaving us with portions of weekends and a few weeks vacation in which to jam all of those things we enjoy doing.

Or look at having a home. We want a nice place to live where things are comfortable and maybe even aesthetically pleasing. Yet, having a home takes work that takes time away from enjoying the home as well as more time away from doing things away from home.

There are not too many things in life that aren’t a trade-off. I suppose it’s a reality that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. When we embarked on our little adventure over a year and a half ago, we envisioned having very little in the way of worldly goods. Just enough clothes for me to have something to wear to work events besides a few days worth of casual wear. A handful of dishes–just enough for one meal at a time. Our bikes. Our camping gear. The computer gear I need to work. My camera gear. And the open road.

We thought we were ready to give up on having a home at all. But, here we are, with new blinds, accumulating the trappings that not so long ago we were getting rid of. The truth is, I like the blinds. But, I find myself with mixed feelings. Are they a nice decorative touch or the final sign that we are not going anywhere?

Winter Bird Walk

Posted by dkrashb on February 17, 2013

A male cardinal looks remarkable brilliant–he seems to be ready for spring

I managed to crawl out of bed early enough to lead a bird walk at 9AM this morning. It was cold. Yesterday, it wasn’t. Yesterday, when I slept in until 8AM and stayed indoors all day, it was warm. Today, there were snow flurries blowing around by mid-afternoon.

Fortunately, it was clear and sunny for the bird walk this morning.

A small group of us met for a mid-winter bird walk. I kicked us off with a quick look and listen at a few birds I expected us to see who aren’t around for the spring and summer bird walks.

One of them is among my favorite birds. It’s the White-Throated Sparrow. This is a bird who is actually quite common in the winter months, but one that I personally failed to notice until I was in my 30’s. Many of us go through life believing there is only one kind of “sparrow” and not knowing that the sparrow we most frequently see is an invasive import from Europe. In reality, there are many native species of sparrows in the US. The white-throated and the white-crowned are my two favorites. There is a simple reason for this. They have bold black and white stripes on their heads, making them easy to identify compared to many of the other sparrows.

A white-throated sparrow picks through a pile of leaves

The White-throated sparrow also has a distinct and beautiful song that makes them an easy bird to learn by sound as well as sight. I won’t attempt to describe it, but it’s very high-pitched and clearly whistled. Canadians claim it’s singing “O Canada,” but I can’t say that’s what I hear.

A second bird I planned for us to see was the yellow-rumped warbler. These winter visitors are always a cheering sight with their bright-yellow rumps in the middle of winter. Unfortunately, the only one anyone saw today flew off before the rest of us got to see it.

We had a nice surprise when we spotted a swamp sparrow while watching some white-throated sparrows. It took us a while to realize what we were seeing. After all, it doesn’t have bright white stripes on its head to neatly narrow down the possibilities.

In lieu of a shot of the swamp sparrow, here is another shot of the white-throated sparrow

Meanwhile, the Song Sparrows flew in and out, singing all the while in the background. I hate to ignore the song sparrow–they are such great singers and they manage to keep it up year round. But, it’s hard not to see a song sparrow in the park, they are so prevalent.

My one regret on the bird walk is that I didn’t look closely enough at the lens on my camera when I grabbed it. I thought I had the 100-400mm lens on my camera when, in fact, I had the 70-200mm lens on it instead. This resulted in a lot of “where’s waldo” shots like this one:

Can you spot the bird?

The earlier images are heavily cropped to make it a little easier to spot the bird.

Spider Webs

Posted by dkrashb on February 16, 2013

One drop melded with the balcony rail

Sadly, I am out of photos from Madrid. I arrived there a week ago Sunday and came home a week ago Friday. During that time, I spent Sunday afternoon wandering around downtown and then was ever-after stuck in the hotel where the conference was held. I guess I could have taken some shots of the Madrid airport, but I was pretty beat by then.

So, time to move on to new subjects. When I returned home, I noticed a perfect little spiderweb on our balcony railing. Then, I spent the next five days laying around, working as much as I could, and trying to get over a sinus infection. So, it really should come as no surprise that by the time I got around to attempting to shoot that perfect little spider web, it wasn’t so perfect anymore.

In fact, it was pretty much in shreds.

I took a spray bottle out on the balcony and misted what was left of the spider web in the hope of getting some nice water droplets on it. Then, I set up my camera with a 100mm macro lens. I used a flashlight to try to get some soft, glow-y sunset-like light on the water droplets since none of the actual sunset light was coming my way. After all that, this is the best shot I got of the remains of the spider web:

One remnant of a once-perfect spider web

Not exactly what I was shooting for.

However, while I was trying to reposition to see if I could get something more interesting, I noticed the water droplets hanging off the bottom of the railing. I ended up having a lot of fun with those water droplets. I made a few attempts to catch one dripping, but didn’t have enough patience (I’ll use the fact that I’m still recovering as an excuse) to wait it out. After a few misses, I gave up on the dripping water shot. Maybe tomorrow.

In the process of shooting the clinging water drops, I noticed I got an interesting round orb in the background. This turned out to be an out-of-focus street light positioned far in the background. I kind of like it. So, I moved the tripod around a bit, trying to get the orb in a position I liked.

Water drops without flashlight

As seems to be par for the course, I didn’t come close to getting the shot I had in my head when I started, but I still had fun.

Same droplets but with the flashlight

I sometimes wonder what my neighbors would think if they saw me. Out on the balcony with a giant camera on a tripod, spraying the railing with a mister, and shining a flashlight on it. It would probably make me wonder what my neighbor was up to if I saw them doing something like that.

If I weren’t into photography myself, I would probably not be able to come up with a good answer. I might think they were trying to do a super-thorough cleaning job.

Over Googled

Posted by dkrashb on February 15, 2013

Distant Arch

Madrid is full of arches. Sometimes in surprising places. Buildings converge and converge again and just where it seems there should be a dead-end, there is an open arch leading into a square.

Sometimes a really big square.

Places that, if they existed in the US, would have 4-lane roads, lots of traffic, and would be surrounded by parking garages suddenly appear through a discrete arch in the midst of narrow pedestrian passageways. It gives the feeling of stumbling upon a well-kept secret.

This particular arch led to an extraordinary square that once again made me wish I’d looked up some kind of information about Madrid. Since I have the luxury of google to assist me now, I discovered it was the Plaza Mayor, one of the more famous plazas in Madrid that was originally constructed in the early 1600’s.

Discovering the arch opens into a huge plaza

It’s kind of interesting to have wandered around just seeing what we saw without knowing what it was we were looking at. I’m sure someone knew. They probably even told me. But, it’s nice to know that I made it to the Plaza Mayor while I was in Madrid. Kind of a second surprise to find out where I was! 🙂

The main sculpture in Plaza Mayor

That said, I find myself googling a bit too much to see if I can identify any of the other sites we walked by. Over-googling leads to regrets. It starts innocently enough. You wonder what that cool statue was you saw. You google something vague like “Madrid Square with Horse.” Along with the photos of the place you actually were, you see photos of places like Plaza Puerta del Sol, Plaza del Callao, and Plaza Espana. The list goes on. You look at the images and think, “Really?? I was minutes away from this incredible place and I didn’t get to see it!?? Really??!! I spent 18 hours getting from my house to the hotel in Madrid and I didn’t get to see any of this stuff!!??!”

I was perfectly content that I got to spend one afternoon wandering around Madrid taking in whatever was in front of me. Then, I over-googled and now I wish I would have done a little more research before the trip and made some sort of plan on how I was going to get to at least a few more of the incredible sites in the city’s center.

Sadly, it’s been nearly 15 years since I was last in Madrid. There’s no telling if I will ever be there again or not. You’d think I would think about these things before I went on a trip instead of after.

Another arch leads away from the plaza

When I was much younger, I wanted to take a summer off and backpack around Europe. There were rumors that people used to do that in college. I never took a summer off to do anything like that. Maybe I’ll take a summer off some day and make it to all the plazas in Madrid.

Archway towards the market

Market and outdoor diners through the arch

nomadicmainstream

Combining living on the road with a mainstream lifestyle

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