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Here Comes the Moon Again

Posted by dkrashb on

After a long morning of shooting at the Lookout Mountain Flight Park training hills, Tisen and I went shopping.  First, we went to Target to stock up on exciting supplies like Q-tips and shaving cream.

After waiting for me, Tisen got to do his own shopping–we took a stroll through PetsMart.  Tisen discovered a table loaded with cats hoping to be adopted.  One cat in particular really didn’t think Tisen should be there.  I guided Tisen quickly on by and back to the salon.

In the back, Tisen got a quick pedicure–they use a dremel, leaving his claws short and smooth.

Since Tisen doesn’t like treats, he got to pick out a new toy.  He chose a small beaver squeaky toy, so now Mr. Beaver has a Baby Beaver.  Tisen proudly carried Baby Beaver around the store with the large tags hanging out of his mouth.  People were highly amused.

After getting Baby Beaver out of Tisen’s mouth long enough to pay for him, we visited the good folks at the McKamey Animal Center, where Tisen’s life was saved.  At least a dozen staff members came out to visit him.  They all commented on how fat he is.  Considering he has gained about 25 pounds since he was originally rescued, I guess he does look fat by comparison.

He enjoyed being treated like a superstar.  The staff comments on his confidence and how happy he seems.  I smile proudly, slightly choked up as I always am when I think about how close this boy came to dying.

When we return home, Tisen cannot take a nap fast enough.  I spend some time working on photos while he rests, but soon, I join him on the couch.

After dinner, I prepared for a second chance to shoot the almost-full-moon.  Having learned a few things from my many attempts to shoot moonrise and set, I set up early, and found something well enough lit in the vicinity of where the moon will rise and focus on it ahead of time.  The biggest challenge of focusing at moonrise is that there is so little light when just a tiny bit of the moon starts to show that I can’t use live view and I have a hard time seeing in my view finder.

At least this time I was mentally prepared for the process and reminded myself to take a breath and relax.  I got way more shots of the moon rising than usual thanks to clouds that kept the moon looking interesting when it is well above the horizon.

As I review my images, I realize that for once, the success of my photos is limited by the capability of my equipment.  This might be a new achievement for me–I didn’t make any major mistakes but my camera couldn’t deliver the goods.  I’m disappointed by the noisy images.  I guess I’d better go see if the price of that new camera has started dropping yet . . .

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Seeing Eagles and Shooting Soccer

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s our second day visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew in Indianapolis.  We are at a lull in the day where each of us has found our own way to entertain ourselves.  I am working on photos.  Paul is doing something related to work.  Megan has gone for a run.  Scott is off somewhere.  We have a few hours before we will reconvene to go to the next soccer game.  Pat is the only one devoid of entertainment.  He wants to do something fun and he wants someone to do it with.

I ponder this for a while.  While Pat used to do things on his own quite often, they typically involved having a workshop and building something.  It’s not the kind of interest that you take with you when visiting others or even relocating temporarily.  His tools are being used by a friend instead of in storage, but they remain in Columbus.  It dawns on my why he wants to go back to Columbus so frequently.

In the meantime, my brother gets up and finds some sort of game for the two of them to go outside and play.  It looks like Jai Lai, which I would have never heard of except that we had a restaurant in Columbus when I was a child named “The Jai Lai,” so we all learned what it was.  Since Paul has taken care of entertaining Pat, I return to my photos.  Sorting through the shots from yesterdays soccer game is a challenge.  I actually had many decent shots (given that my goal was to shoot my nephew), but they mostly look the same.  I missed the crucial moment many, many times.  For example, when my nephew scored, I couldn’t get my lens turned fast enough and ended up with shots of the grass.  I have a new respect for sports photographers.  But now, I have hundreds of similar shots that really should be discarded because they are dull.

Pat suddenly returns to the room I’m working in all excited.  He tells me that he and Paul have seen an eagle diving into their neighbor’s yard and that I should come outside.  While I’m somewhat skeptical that they saw a Bald Eagle diving out of the sky in the middle of their suburban neighborhood, there have been eagles nesting by their neighborhood lake, so this is not as far fetched as it would have been even 5 years ago.  The only part that is at all surprising to me is that a Bald Eagle would choose to hunt rodents when there is a lake full of fish just a block away.  I make a mental note to google Bald Eagle eating habits later.

When I step outside, I am surprised by the bright sunshine.  While the weather was improving yesterday, it’s downright perfect now.  I suddenly regret that we didn’t decide to go for a short hike before the soccer game.  Instead, we walk the streets of my brother’s neighborhood looking for an eagle eating something.  We never spot that eagle.  Pat doesn’t take nearly as much interest in birds as I do, but he is interested in birds of prey.  So, when he tells me the bird they saw was much bigger than a Red-tailed Hawk, I tend to believe him.  But, now it’s getting close to time to leave, so we return to the house to get ready to go.

When we get to the soccer fields, I haul out my big lens again on it’s monopod.  As Pat and I settle in at the sidelines, a father sits next to us and says, “Are you with the Indianapolis Star?”  He points at my camera.  I assume that the Star is the local paper.  I laugh but before I can say anything, Pat jokes that we’re from the Chattanoogan some-name-he-made-up and that this game is getting big coverage.  The guy laughs mightily at that–this is a co-ed recreational soccer league–and says, oh, yeah, big, big game!

As I practice zeroing in on my nephew as he plays goalie (making my job much easier) the first half of the game, I periodically pause and look around.  It’s an interesting shift when I am thinking only about shooting a subject and I’m looking through a telephoto at that subject, and then I suddenly look outside the lens and allow the full scene to enter my consciousness.  It’s a good analogy for tunnel vision, I guess, which is, of course, an analogy for narrow thinking.

I think about one of my least favorite corporate expressions that’s being overused these days:  “Laser Focused.”  Remaining “laser focused” allows me to shoot my nephew without getting distracted by the pretty leaves across the field, the crooked lines drawn on the field, or even the ball.  But failing to look around causes me to miss all of those things, including who’s actually winning the game.  I experiment with looking for other things to shoot when the ball is at the other end of the field.  This creates an interesting tension between keeping an eye on the ball so that I know when my nephew is likely to be back in action and peering down that telephoto lens at some other subject, when I’m most likely to miss what’s going on in the game.

Then, Pat points out a big bird circling over the woods across the field.  I had seen it and dismissed it as a vulture because of its size.  Now, as I look again, I realize that it is not a vulture, but I can’t tell what it is.  It’s too far away and I don’t have my binoculars with me.  We watch it circling and then it suddenly tucks it’s wings into a shape you would expect to see on a military fighter plane and dives towards the earth at break-neck speed.  Pat sees a white head and is convinced we’ve seen another Bald Eagle.  I’m less convinced.  I didn’t see a white head (although it could have been a juvenile) and I’m still not confident that eagles commonly hunt on land.  I make a second note to google eagle eating habits.  However, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a hawk that big or one that dove like that.

I hope that it was a Bald Eagle.  I remember the first time I saw one in the wild.  It was 1992 and I was on a trip to the East coast of Maine.  At that time, I’m not sure if there were any places closer to Columbus, OH where you could see a Bald Eagle in the wild than the East Coast of Maine?  DDT destroyed the population.  It’s unbelievable to me that I was able to drive 15 minutes from our home in Columbus to a metro park to watch a nesting pair of Bald Eagles for the past two years and that my brother has a pair nesting in his neighborhood.  It’s one of those stories of hope that makes me think it’s possible to correct the damage that we’ve done and restore some sort of balance to the ecosystems we depend on.

But returning to the game, I get to practice panning (a lot) when my nephew plays defense in the second half.  Turns out, panning it pretty difficult when you’re following a subject that is unpredictable.  I also get to use an autofocus setting that I don’t use often–it keeps refocusing as your subject moves.  It’s a little tricky to get used to, but a couple of my shots come out reasonably clear (out of about 100).  I definitely need more practice!  It’s funny that I’ve been trying to learn this hobby for about 7 years now, but I’ve been so sporadic that it’s like I have to start over each bout of shooting–I even have to get the manual for my camera out and relearn what’s what periodically.  Oh well, at least it’s a hobby that’s likely to last a lifetime.

After watching my nephew’s team win their second game of the end-of-the-season tournament, we all head home.  We pack up the van and we take two cars to dinner.  We eat at an Indian restaurant that’s on the way out of town for us and not far for everyone else.  Pat and I will drive to Columbus straight from dinner.  I am dubious about eating Indian–I like Indian, but it doesn’t always like me–but I order something mild.  As we say our goodbyes, I am suddenly sorry to be leaving.  For a moment, I ponder what it would be like to have a close-knit family that lives within a couple blocks of one another and walks in and out on a daily basis.  Then, we get into the van and go on our way.

It’s Official

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s time.  I must get a Tennessee driver’s license and plate today.  I am officially 1 day late doing this since Tennessee law requires new residents to get their Tennessee license and plates within 30 days of arriving.  In this age of online everything, it’s extremely difficult to get the required documentation to prove that you’re a resident, but I managed to come up with two pieces of acceptable evidence–our lease agreement and a printed statement from the bank.

This is the 4th time I’ve tried to get my license.  The first three tries, the lines were too long.  Pat went ahead and took care of his two days ago, so now we have a plan as to how to get this annoying necessity taken care of.  First, Pat took care of my emissions test for me earlier in the week.  Second, we arrive at the Drivers’ Services Center at 8:10AM, 20 minutes before they open, in the hope of being first in line.  This did not work out so well–there are already 9 people ahead of us.  We stand in the parking lot and watch the other people in line.  3rd in line is a woman with graying hair sitting on a stool outside the door.  At about 8:25, a man in a sports jacket and dress pants arrives and greets her.  She has been holding a place in line for him.

At 8:33AM, someone finally opens the door.  We all file in with the faces of people being sent away to prison.  We line up along the wall, forming a square around the room.  We celebrate by exchanging silent, happy looks each time a person ahead of us is rejected for not having the right paper work or being in the wrong place–one less person to wait behind when we get to phase 2.  But, I feel bad for the graying woman who must have gotten here before 8AM–the man she was waiting for is being relocated here from Mexico by VW.  Apparently he didn’t read the memo, because he’s there without the necessary proof of residency.  The woman asks him to check his brief case twice to make sure he doesn’t have some document in there that would meet the requirement, but he doesn’t.  She says sweetly, “Oh well, we’ll just go to the bank and come right back” in a subtle Southern drawl.  But I know what she’s thinking, “You dumb &*#!  I waited here for your for over a half an hour so you wouldn’t have to stand in line and you can’t even show up with the &*#^%$@ documents I told you to bring!”  Well, that’s what I would have been thinking anyway.  🙂

When we get to the window, the woman checks my documents, makes copies of them, and hands me a form and a number and tells me to go sit in the next room until my number is called.  I am prepared for this since Pat went through it two days earlier.  We sit down and I fill out my form.  It’s now 9:00AM.  I pull out my MiFi hot spot and work laptop and get online and start to work.  It takes until 10AM before my number is called–partly due to a faulty license printer.  By this time, I have finished a presentation I needed to get done before vacation, answered a dozen or so emails, responded to multiple instant messages, and caught up on several administrative tasks.  I wonder if I could work from this waiting room every day–I get so much done here!

I walk up and hand the woman my form and other documents.  She keys in all the information I’ve written down on the paper.  As I watch, I wonder why we couldn’t do that from the web.  I ask her if my motorcycle endorsement will transfer and she says “Yes” and circles an “M” on the form without looking at my driver’s license to see if I actually have a motorcycle endorsement or not.  Just then, a man walks in carrying a helmet and asks about taking his motorcycle endorsement test.  Confirming he has an appointment, she tells him she’ll be with him in just a minute.  She finishes up with me and sends me over to wait to have my picture taken.

I stand there remembering my own motorcycle endorsement test.  I don’t remember all of it, but I remember the three hardest parts:  A slalom through tightly spaced cones at less than 20 MPH, a surprise swerve, and, the killer of those on big bikes, a U-turn at slow speed inside a tight box painted on the pavement.  There were 10 people in the group that took the test that day.  3 of us passed:  a woman on a 50 cc scooter, a man on a 750 who was taking the test for the third time, and me on my little 250 Kawasaki.  I seriously considered staying after and renting out my bike when I saw the next group full of 750s and bigger.

The woman who will take my picture is almost ready and she asks me to sit in the chair.  Before she can take my picture, the woman who took my paperwork comes over and I hear her ask the photographer woman, “I’ve got someone here for a motorcycle test.  What do I do?”  The other woman replies, “Just have him ride up the block a little ways, turn around, and come back.”  I find myself wondering how motorcycle death rates compare between Tennessee and Ohio.

After I passed my test that day so many years ago, on my ride back home, I was almost run over 3x.  I was happy I knew how to swerve unexpectedly, gear down quickly, and to always have an alternate plan for escape from such situations.  By the time I got home, I was also happy that I’d made the decision to trade in my Kawasaki for a 1340 Harley Dyna low rider.  Although it was a few more weeks before I got my Harley, when I finally did, the noise and size kept me in drivers’ sights far more frequently than when I was on the Kaw.  However, the Kaw was a life saver for the endorsement test–I never would have passed with the rake angle on the low rider.  I couldn’t turn that thing around on a 2-lane road, let alone inside the box required by the state of Ohio.  Sigh.  Those were the days!

The woman at the Drivers’ Service Center hands me my new Tennessee Driver’s license.  I look it over.  It’s not as colorful as my old Ohio license, but I can’t compare side-by-side because they took my Ohio license from me.  Although I’ve lived in other places for a few months at a time in the past, I’ve never become a resident of another state before.  I am suddenly struck by the officialness of having a driver’s license and it being from another state.  I guess I am a Tennessian–or whatever we’re called.  After putting away my new license, I gather up my things and Pat and I walk outside.  Pat drives me to transfer my title and get my new license plate (there’s only a rear plate in Tennessee), which, amazingly takes less than 10 minutes.  As he rushes me back to my home office for my next conference call, I suddenly realize that I haven’t driven a car in Chattanooga once yet.  Oh well, at least I can if I need to!

 

Killing a Sunday

Posted by dkrashb on

After seeing my sister-in-law off and taking a nap, I talk Pat into walking over to the Aquarium.  We had just been there the day before, but we learned that we could buy an annual membership and they would apply the cost of our tickets if we bought a membership soon.  I also wanted to go back to shoot since I’d gone without my camera.  However, I couldn’t talk Pat into walking through again and waiting for me to take pictures.  We walked back over the Walnut St bridge around 1PM.  It’s about 95 degrees and with the sun high in the sky, not even the wind off the river feels cool.  We walk slowly in the heat, but with a focus and determination to get to our destination that precludes standing around on the bridge lolly-gagging.

At the aquarium, we are credited for all three of the tickets we bought yesterday and the annual membership costs only $10 additional.  I feel like I just won the lottery.  I try to talk Pat into taking the Tennessee River gorge boat tour or going to an IMAX movie since we now get a discount as aquarium members, but he’s not up for either.  I see him wavering on the movie and, realizing that he doesn’t like the whole 3D thing, suggest we go to the regular movie theater down the street instead.  We decide to see Crazy Stupid Love, but it isn’t playing until 4:30 and it’s now not quite 2PM.

We walk across the street to the Blue Water Grill and have brunch.  They are serving mimosas and bloody mary’s.  I opt for a mimosa and order the grand marnier brulee french toast.  In the background, a trio of jazz musicians play random assortments of sounds.  I am not a big jazz fan.  I like music I can catch, pick up, and run with.  Jazz always seems to run away from me instead.  I quickly tire of chasing it.  Fortunately, the trio takes a break about 10 minutes after we arrive.

I await my french toast with anticipation.  The first time I had creme brulee french toast was only a couple of years ago when we were out in Oregon visiting my father and his wife.  The four of us were taking a trip to the coast and I was obsessed with Urbanspoon when it came time to eat.  I found serveral amazing restaurants that way, but the breakfast place on the way to the coast was the best.  I can’t remember what town we were near, but Dad was suggesting we stop at McDonald’s for breakfast when I found a family-owned place in a tiny town along the way on my iPhone app.  We stopped and the restaurant was located in a former house old enough to be historical, but with simple decor that maximized space for patrons.  That was, hands down, the best breakfast I ever had.  The french toast was truly brulee with the sugar candied to a crunch on the outside and the egg batter still slightly soft underneath without being soggy.  This memory is dangerous.  Once you’ve had the best of something, you just can’t ever eat it again without being disappointed.  Today, I am disappointed.  The french toast is not brulee at all.  It is simply soaked in something overly sweet to the point of mushiness and fried.  Perhaps the cook here doesn’t know what brulee means.  I get down half of the toast before giving up.  I do not like soggy bread, so this seems like torture.  I don’t know why I eat it.  I suppose it’s because of the eager waitress who recommended it.  I don’t want to hurt her feelings.  About the time I feel like I will gag if I eat another bite, the jazz group comes out of remission.

We had planned to take our time and hang out at the Blue Water Grill since we had 2 1/2 hours to kill before our movie.  But we end up moving along after an hour, done with jazz and done with french toast.

It’s even hotter out when we return outdoors.  We decide to walk around the corner to check out the Ecotour place we’d passed on our way to the aquarium.  We learned that that was where we could rent paddleboards if we wanted to take on the river.  They also offer yoga classes on the paddleboards.  The owner shows us a slideshow of a yoga class.  I am not really sure I want to try yoga on a paddleboard.  I cannot imagine trying to breathe into a balancing half moon while worrying about falling into the river.  The good news is that they have just added 2 kayaks to their vehicle list.  We have been looking for opportunities to go kayaking, but had missed out on the the last kayaking tour of the year with Outdoor Chattanooga and discovered that Rock/Creek doesn’t rent kayaks although they do have a couple that can be demoed.  We’re happy to know that there is another option.  However, since we don’t have time to go kayaking now, we head back down the street to see what we can find.

We walk Broad St South, with our backs to the river, hoping to discover something new.  We walk past many shops and an interesting rib place with a live music venue, but we are painfully full and sluggish in the hot sun.  We find it difficult to take enough interest to even notice what we are passing.  We quickly reach a dead part of town–no one is around.  The stark contrast to the riverfront makes us feel suddenly vulnerable.  We turn back and head back towards the busy part of town, seeking shade whenever possible.

We end up in the theatre at 4PM, tickets in hand, sitting in the lobby because they aren’t seating our movie yet.  It’s cold in the lobby, which feels good when we first stepped in, but after 20 minutes of waiting, I’m getting goose bumps.  In the theatre, the hallway feels like a refrigerator and I am alarmed that I will be so cold I won’t be able to stay through the movie.  Fortunately, once we get inside our screen room, the temperature rises to something tolerable as long as I cuddle up to Pat as much as possible.  In spite of liking the movie, being cold, and having had a nap in the morning, I still nod off during the movie.  It’s a problem.  I get so little sleep that I cannot stay awake through a movie or in a car, particularly not in the afternoon when I’ve been out in the sun.  At least I miss only a few small parts of the movie and it isn’t so disjointed that I can’t follow along.  It’s the first movie I can remember that looks at long-term relationships in both a loving and funny way.  I really enjoyed it and Steve Carell was somehow better than his stereotyped character while still being the same guy.

After the movie, we walk on home.  The sun is getting lower once again.  The intensity of the heat has abated and we walk slowly over the bridge not because we are suffering but because we are enjoying the breeze and the view.  When we get home, even though we drank a giant Coke at the theater, I am ready for another nap.  I think about all the things I should do, but then I remember that the thing I’ve done the least of lately is sleep.  I decide to give in and allow myself to doze off on the couch for the second time in one day.

Just a few things

Posted by dkrashb on

There is nothing like moving to make you think about things.  And I mean that in the most literal of ways.  I pick up each thing I own, examine it, think about the last time I used it,  think about whether that thing is worth the trouble of packing, lifting, carrying, and placing back in my life at the next location.  When I add into the mix a reduction of space by 1/2, I scrutinize even more carefully.  Is this thing worth my time and energy?  Where will I put it in my new place?  Is this something I will be able to find and use?  Is it something I will replace if I don’t have it?  I never cease to be amazed at the number of things that have found a place in my home that have turned out to be a drain on my energy.

Having purchased our last house from my father, we inherited all the things that he didn’t want in his life anymore.  This included things from four grandparents, my mother, and my aunt–the leavings from their lives that I felt like I should be emotionally attached to.  But none of those things were them. Detaching objects from people was a mandatory step in reducing our burden when moving from our house last year.  Now, we have reduced our space again by half, requiring yet another reduction.

Digital photography is a great tool for dealing with balancing emotional attachment and physical space.  Pictures of the things that represented something important take up only virtual space.  This method, suggested by my brother, has allowed me to unload things I don’t know what to do with ranging from trophies to family heirlooms.  Take a picture, sell or donate the item, move on.  Interestingly, I don’t find myself looking at the pictures of these objects when I want to remember the people and experiences that went with them; I just remember.

Harder for me is balancing reduction and waste.  I hate getting rid of an object that I spent money on that I don’t feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of yet. Likewise, I hate to get rid of something I might use.  Clothes are hard for this reason.  I seem to always end up with items I consider expensive that hang in my closet far more than on my body.  I decided that I should get my wardrobe down to 7 outfits for each season.  Then, I won’t need much space and I will save time deciding what to wear.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t been too practical.  I have a wardrobe for work, hanging out, going out, working out, biking, hiking, skiing, and yoga.  I have highly technical clothing for virtually every weather possibility.  These are practical clothes that I use to death, but it’s a slow death.  Now that I work from home, my work clothes will be needed about as often as my ski pants.  Being prepared and being a nomad don’t seem to fit well together.

I think about a book I once read called Your Money or Your Life.  It talked a lot about the concept of “enoughness.”  The stats show that there is an optimal state of wealth, and it’s not what we think of as wealth.  Once you have food, shelter, and clothing, your happiness maximizes at some minimal level of comfort beyond that point and then the stress of maintaining things causes your happiness to decline.  The trick is that there is no formula for determining what your personal level of eoughness is.  I, for one, cannot imagine life without my iPad or iPhone.  Yet, was I less happy before they existed?  It’s a slippery slope.  I introduce something new into my life and it takes hold, becomes part of what I do each day, and I cannot imagine giving it up.  Yet there is a cost to all of these things–even those that don’t require a data plan.  Clothes have to be cleaned, put away, decided upon.  Pictures have to be arranged, hung, dusted.  Collectibles have to be maintained, safe-guarded, cared-for.

I wonder if I should start a website where people can trade homes not for vacations, but for cleaning out the clutter?  If someone else came into my home and made the decision for me about what I needed to keep and what I could live without, wouldn’t it be easier for them to decide?  In the meantime, I struggle to find places for the debris of my life that I cannot part with, but don’t have a place for.  I wonder how we’ll reduce what we have to a set of things that we can take with us and how much comfort I am willing to give up in exchange for more space, time, and energy to do what I enjoy?

Getting Started

Posted by dkrashb on

After struggling to enjoy our mostly mainstream life, the stress and boredom got to us. In 2000, I was working for a company that kicked off the implosion of the telecom industry and realized that depending on a corporate job for a living was not a sure bet. For the next 5 years, I was in a constant state of wondering if my job was going away. This motivated us to systematically eliminate debt, reduce our expenses, build our savings, and think about how we could live without my corporate job. In particular, we wanted to live on the road and really experience North America. RVs are nice, but we’re environmentalists and we couldn’t justify the gas. We imagined a life of living in an area for a few weeks either in a tent or in a cheap hotel and driving on–touring from our Honda mini-van.

However, I haven’t been without some form of income since I was 9 years old and I find I care a lot about my career. As such, living without my corporate job was just a bit too scary of a leap for me; I couldn’t imagine where my identity would come from with no career. But, since the situation I was in really wasn’t a career either, my first step was to find a different job with a growing company that was less depressing than the dying company I was at. This I accomplished at the beginning of 2006.

At the time, we still thought I would have to leave the corporate world all together to live on the road. As we continued to plan for that, we waited for the right time to sell our house. While 2006 would have been a great time to sell in the market, we had 2 English Mastiffs and renting really wasn’t an option. We were content to enjoy our dogs and worry about selling later. Sadly, we lost one in 2008 and the other in 2009. While losing our canine kids was a horrible loss, it did free us up to pursue our plans. Unfortunately, the housing market was in the toilet. However, we managed to sell our house in 2010 during a recovery period. Simultaneously, the company I worked for was being purchased by a much larger corporation. We decided to rent a house and wait things out once more.

As it turned out, the new company has a much more friendly attitude towards working remotely. As a result, we’ve revised our plan to include me keeping my career while we move around. We’re not sure what that means yet, but we decided to start by establishing residency in a state with less tax burden than the one we were in. We now find ourselves with a 6-month lease on a really cool apartment in Chattanooga, TN. So, expect more entries on life from Chattanooga for the next 6 months.

Dianne