Tag Archives: Chattanooga Tennessee

Wishing for Winter

Posted by dkrashb on

This evening, I take Tisen out for his evening stroll.  We head across the street, dodging cars that refuse to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk with a green walk light.  This is a curious thing about Chattanooga.  No matter how much infrastructure they build to support pedestrians, the drivers still try to run them over.  I frequently end up stopped half way in the crosswalk waiting for the cars who are turning to realize they need to stop.

I usually give up and try to dive in front of a car where there is enough room for them to stop and the driver appears to be at least paying attention to what’s directly in front of them.  It’s a little dangerous, but after several weeks of this, I’ve found a few more drivers are watching for pedestrians and yielding.  Sometimes it just takes an accidental death to get traffic problems resolved.  🙂

Having made it safely across the street, we make our way down the sidewalk.  Tisen spots a strange mix-breed dog coming towards us, about 50 yards away.  Tisen crouches lower, juts his head out level with his shoulders, and his muzzle appears to have shape-shifted into the shape of a wolf’s.  If I didn’t know any better, I would think I was walking a border collie.  When the bizarre mix (he looks like a golden retriever with a pug’s head) gets closer, Tisen lunges with growly barks.  This is a first!  I think perhaps it is due to the strangeness of the dog.  But then we pass a chocolate lab puppy who is being a typical silly, playful pup and Tisen does a complete repeat performance.

I don’t know what changed between yesterday and today to make him behave so differently.  I keep thinking the longer it’s been since he was neutered, the less aggressive he’ll be, but I’m guessing whatever hormonal effect there will be has already happened.  I consider the possibility that it’s seasonal.  After all, we’ve had ridiculously warm weather for at least a week straight now.  Maybe his body thinks it’s spring.

While I am usually longing for spring this time of year, I find myself longing for winter instead.  Not out of hope it might settle Tisen down, but, in part, because it’s harder to appreciate the spring fully when you haven’t gone through a long, cold winter.  And, to be honest, I’m already tired of swatting mosquitos.  I do not want to think about what the insect population is going to be like if we don’t have any more cold weather this year.  I can only hope the bird, bat, and dragonfly populations keep pace.

Since I cannot take any photos of snow and ice, I decide to pull out some old ones.  Here are some shots from the Canadian Rockies in Jasper National Park, Alberta.  The high temperature our first day there on that trip was -15 Fahrenheit.  Now that is winter.

Dogs and Nomads

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It was a big day for Tisen.  We drove to Atlanta last night and stayed in a La Quinta (did you know they allowed dogs for free?).  Pat hung out with Tisen until my work meetings were over and I could take the rest of my meetings from the car while he drove us back home.

Tisen did not seem like he felt well from about an hour into the drive to Atlanta until we returned home today.  He was clearly nervous about traveling.

After returning home, we took Tisen with us to McKamey Animal Center to officially adopt him.  Nearly every staff member on duty came to see Tisen and to thank us for adopting him.  I’m not sure why they were thanking us–we are so grateful to them for saving him.

I have spent much of the evening with eyes brimming with tears, overwhelmed with gratitude.  Gratitude for the people who saved Tisen.  Gratitude for Tisen himself.  Gratitude that my sister-in-law fosters cats (which gave me the ides to foster dogs).  Gratitude that Anna introduced us to Tisen.  Gratitude that Tisen picked us as much as we picked him.

While we are at the shelter, Tisen flirts with a boxer/bulldog mix named Rosie through a glass door.  She has the opposite eye patch from him and they seem like they were made for each other.  She is so ridiculously cute, we are suddenly tempted to bring home a friend for Tisen.  But, when we do the “meet and greet” to see how they get along, Tisen will not allow Rosie to get any affection from any human in the room.  When someone starts to pet her, he dives between human and Rosie, making growly noises.  We decide Tisen wants to be an only dog, which is probably for the best.

After another stop at PetsMart for a couple of items we forgot last trip (which results in the purchase of yet another squeaky toy), we return home.  I cuddle Tisen on the couch.  He lays across my lap and sighs like life just doesn’t get any better.  As I sit here petting him, I think he might be right.

But, I am trying to write my blog.  Tisen seems to want to be between me and my laptop.  I tease him that he is both helping me write my blog by providing a subject and preventing me from writing my blog by physically interfering.  He doesn’t seem to get the joke, but he sighs again and readjusts, hoping for a belly rub.

As I contemplate the long-term commitment we have just made, I realize I might have to change my domain name.  We came to Chattanooga thinking we would live here 6-12 months and then move on to a new area.  Instead, we have extended our lease on our apartment, committed to lease a manufacturing space for 3 years, and taken in a dog.  So much for being nomads!

 

 

January Spring

Posted by dkrashb on

I take Tisen, our new foster dog, for a walk.  I leave my jacket at home because it’s 61 degrees.  The birds are in full-on spring mode.  Even the insects seem to have hatched.  I don’t know if 61 degrees in Chattanooga in January is normal, but it’s nice.  I’m disappointed when the sun starts to set at 6PM as if the warmer weather brought longer days.

As I watch Tisen prance along (if he were a horse, he’d be a Lipazzaner), looking more full of himself after 36 hours of being spoiled silly.  A runner passes us going the opposite direction.  He didn’t react to her at all yesterday–it’s the same woman.  But today, he lunges at her, growling a low warning.  Either the spring weather has him feeling his oats or he’s decided I’m someone he needs to protect from mysterious people running at us.

He reacts the same way 10 minutes later when two men run on a path that curves around and runs into ours.  Yet, they’re running away from us.  What makes runners look so threatening to dogs?  Even our gentle Bogart was not happy if a runner didn’t make a wide enough berth when they were coming towards me.

The spring weather has runners out in droves.  I don’t know if they’ve been running on treadmills and are thrilled for the change in temperature or if they have been waiting to start running since the New Year and the weather removed their last excuse.  Whatever it is, I have been walking these paths daily and I can tell you there are more runners out today than there have been since we moved here last August.

This is the “way up” phenomena, I suppose.  The “way up” phenomena in temperature changes plays out about the same as the “way down” phenomena in weight changes.  When the temperature is on the “way up,” it feels extra warm by comparison to the cold temperatures and so we suddenly feel inspired to don less clothing and exercise out doors even though, if the temperature were on the “way down,” we would be wearing layers at the same temperature.

Similarly, the “way down” phenomena in weight loss inspires us to think we look much better when we’ve lost a few pounds and to dress in clothing that, when we were on the “way up,” we would not have been caught dead in at the same exact weight.  Maybe that should be called the “weigh down” phenomena?

Tisen and I stop in our favorite store, Bone Appetite, for the third day in a row and pick up the oatmeal shampoo they were out of.  Tisen’s skin is getting less flaky and his coat is getting more shiny, but he still has red, irritated areas that he licks and chews at.  Between switching him to a high quality food, feeding him fish oil, bathing him in oatmeal, and treating him with “Nu Stock,” I’m hoping he’ll stop itching soon.

Turns

Posted by dkrashb on

Our plan is to fly on the big training hill in the morning, with Pat re-clearing for his first mountain flight.  Then, we will go up to the office, Pat will complete the one remaining written test he hasn’t done yet and get the required chalk talk on his flight plan.  Finally, we will each take a tandem flight to learn how to recognize our altitude in preparation for our first mountain launch.  Then, we will return Sunday morning and Pat will fly off the mountain.  I get nervous thinking about it.

While this plan all sounds grand, the weather forecast has not looked promising.  I have been crossing my fingers that the predictions will be completely wrong.  Here I am, up at 5:30AM on a Saturday morning, standing on our balcony with a cup of coffee.  It feels like it’s close to 60 degrees.  The wind is whipping up, although we’ve found the wind on our balcony is no predictor of the wind on the training hills.  But the rain is holding off.  The clouds even appear to be breaking up a bit.  I decide maybe our plan will work after all and continue getting ready.

We start off on time–pulling out of the parking lot at 7:02AM.  But as we make our way down the road, lightening appears in the sky.  We drive to the hills anyway, arriving  in time to watch the storm blow across the field.  At least we didn’t set up any gliders.

Now it’s Sunday morning and it’s a rerun of Saturday.  With one major difference–this time we have a new foster dog, Tisen, who will join us.

Today, the weather is semi-cooperative.  I start learning how to make 90 degree turns.  Pat, however, isn’t feeling well and, after his first flight, drives for me until I call it quits after an imperfect landing.  I was coming in fast and hadn’t bled off enough speed when I started to flare the glider for the landing.  This caused the glider to swoop up into the air.  While this is scary, it’s not really dangerous because the glider will act as a parachute and set you down relatively gently as long as you lock out your arms.  However, at the last second, I dropped my arms, causing me to impact the ground harder than I’d like.  I also somehow managed to hit my knee with the control bar when I landed.  Given that my knee was hurting before I decided to whack it with a control bar, it seemed like a good time to call it a day.

Pat, feeling better, got in two flights before the wind started getting crazy.  We went up top for him to finish his test and get his chalk talk and discovered, at high altitude, there was no visibility and crazy winds.  No tandem flight today, either.

But that’s OK.  When it comes to learning to fly, I’m happy to wait for good weather.

Catch the Moon

Posted by dkrashb on

I have been using the moon as a model a lot, but I find it is not as cooperative as I expected.  While, like a model, it’s a heavenly body, unlike a model, it presents itself on a predictable schedule.  As such, you would think it would be easy to schedule a shoot.  However, I have learned that a) there is such a thing as cloud cover, b) the moon doesn’t always rise before I go to bed, c) the moon often rises out of sight from where I am looking.

As a result, I have started to worry more about missing the shots of the moon rising behind the Walnut Street bridge in August.  I now wonder if perhaps that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I missed.

Now that I have a lunar calendar that tells me what time the moon rises, a good tripod, and the ideal composition in mind, I just need the moon to return to it’s former position in the sky.  In doing a little research, I found www.photoephemeris.com for planning outdoor shoots in advance and even tools to figure out where the moon will rise and the path it will travel.  (Maybe we can all be Ansel Adams after all?)

However, this doesn’t answer my question as to how long it will be before the moon rises in the same location.  I am having some troubles finding an answer to this.  I have found articles on the difference in appearance of the moon at apogee vs perigee, the repeating cycle of maxima and minima delineation that takes 18 1/2 years, and calculating the differences in brightness, but I still can’t find how long it takes for the moon to rise in the same location.  I’m guessing that it will repeat within my lifetime, but probably not soon.  In the meantime, I keep watching the moon when it chooses to show itself and looking for opportunities to shoot it rising.

The shot here is a full moon rising through clouds, shot with my iPhone (which was convinced it needed to flash) from a rest area while driving back to Chattanooga from Columbus.  While this looks more like something I might, say, paint during a continuing education class on impressionist painting, I am still impressed by the improvements in the iPhone camera from the 3GS to the 4S–just don’t expect to get good landscape photos at night.

I am particularly impressed with the LCD flash on the iPhone 4S.  I was a little surprised by how brightly it flashed when I took a picture, but when I discovered the flashlight app now has a setting that lets you turn on the LCD light continuously to use it as a flashlight, I was amazed.  I was able to find my workout clothes in the dark this morning and successfully determined the difference between black and dark purple.  If you haven’t upgraded, it’s time.

Don’t Want to Miss This Syndrome

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Once again, I find myself shooting the sunset.  Every time I sit down to process photos of the sunset taken from our building, I promise myself I will find a new perspective and not create yet another 100 shots that look like the thousands I’ve taken before.  But then, I look out the window, see amazing things, and grab my camera.

There are several problems with this.  For one thing, I tend to get a very busy foreground with a lot of crap in it I’d really like to get out of my pictures.  I can’t crop the crap out because I would lose much of the sky, which is the whole reason I wanted to shoot in the first place.

The choices that must be made when shooting!  Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just arrange the buildings and landscape with a remote control to best fit my vision?  More realistically, I keep thinking I will run across the street and up the mound so I can shoot over the trees.  But do I ever do that?  No.  I panic when I see the sky and don’t want to miss the perfect color even though I almost always end up deleting the first 10 minutes worth of shots because the color gets better as the sun disappears.

I believe I suffer from “Don’t Want to Miss This” syndrome.  Besides shooting sunsets from bad view points, I also find myself eating foods that no human should ever touch, attending events that are of no interest to me, and taking unreasonable risks (ask me how I once ended up in an ultralight crash).  I wonder if I were in a flock of sheep I would follow them over a cliff just to find out what that was like?

Restraining myself to the subject of photography for the purposes of this post, I find the “Don’t Want to Miss This” syndrome causes an all or nothing kind of pursuit of photos.  It just depends on whether my phobia of missing a shot is outweighing my phobia of missing an experience because I’m too wrapped up in camera gear to participate.  What I need is balance.

The thing about sunsets is that it’s easy enough to find out what time the sun will set.  And, I’m getting pretty good at predicting when we’ll have a great one (which is pretty much about 75% of the time), so seems like I should be able to just plan to go across the street at the right time and shoot.  Perhaps scheduling shoots a few times a week would help balance out the equation?  While I might still grab shots when I notice a sunset, at least I wouldn’t always be shooting from the same place.

Is it too late to change my New Year’s resolutions?

Ringing in the New Year

Posted by dkrashb on

 

For 41 years, I lived in one place.  Even when I went other places for weeks or months at a time, it was always temporary and I knew I would be returning home to Columbus.  There are certain things that happen when you always return to the same place for 41 years.

First, you make friends.  This happens through the natural course of life, although most of my current friends are people I met through work or a networking effect of those I met through work.  Over 41 years, I ended up with an eclectic group of friends who honor me by at least acting like they enjoy our company.

A second thing that happens is a place becomes familiar.  You hear about an event one year and think “Oh, we should try that next year.”

Between learning about the annual events and having friends who invite us to do things and/or have parties, we never really had to put much thought into New Year’s Eve.  We stumbled across something we wanted to do as a couple, were invited to do something with other couples, or were invited to someone’s party.

Now, as a couple with no dogs, no children, activities that mainly take us out of town, and home offices, it’s suddenly very difficult to meet friends.

The strangeness of being without geographically close friends stuck home when we found ourselves with no plans for New Year’s Eve.  I realize in retrospect that I have simply gotten lazy when it comes to planning New Year’s Eve.  I have taken it for granted that something will fall into our laps without considering how that could possibly happen in a new place.

Figuring that New Year’s would take care of itself, I didn’t bother to make any definitive plans.  Then, New Year’s was upon us.  Interestingly, it did take care of itself.  We decided to walk across the bridge to downtown and return to a restaurant we hadn’t been to since a visit to Chattanooga before we moved here, back in March.  I was skeptical that they would have any tables open, but it turns out that they had several tables for two available.  Apparently going out as a twosome is not that popular on New Year’s Eve.

We had an amazing dinner and shared a great bottle of wine.  After talking and laughing our way through four courses, we walked out feeling reconnected and ready to face a new year together.  However, it was only 9:00PM.

So, we went to the new Sherlock Holmes movie to keep us up until midnight.  It turns out I’m much older than I thought–I was nodding off in the first 10 minutes.

After the movie, we walked to the center of the Market St bridge by midnight.  We stood on the bridge and kissed at midnight and watched fireworks in at least 5 different directions as we made our way home.  So what if we were home by 12:15AM?

Fire in the Sky

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Tonight, as the sun sinks, I look up just in time to see the clouds streaking across the sky, brilliantly lit in red and orange.  I’ve never seen the sunset in such a way as to create a striped backdrop for the skyline before.  I drop everything and run up to the roof.  Well, maybe not run, but walk as quickly as I can without falling on my face while carrying a tripod and camera.

When I get to the roof, I am amazed by the stillness of the air and the feeling of warmth rising from the roof.  I stand up my camera and start to shoot.  I would like to shoot nothing but the sky, but I can’t get the roof top across the street out of the frame.

The clouds create a blaze of fire over the horizon.  I stand there pondering whether my photos will look fake, the color is so brilliant.  I wonder what about Chattanooga causes so many glorious sunsets?  Is it just that because our windows give us a great view of the sunset that I notice how beautiful it is?  Or does Chattanooga have some sort of special set of circumstances that generates spectacular sunrises and sunsets on a regular basis?  Perhaps it’s just that coming from Columbus, Ohio, we so seldom saw the sun.

I stand for a moment between shots.  I let the light change a little before taking the next one.  I zoom out and try to capture the vastness of the sky.  It’s impossible.  I decide right then and there I’m buying a wider-angle lens.  I breathe in the evening air, moist with humidity rising off the cooling river.  I breathe out and let go of every worry.  All I see, think, and feel is the blazing sky.

I look closely and take aim.  I capture a moment of light and clouds and manmade structures all combined in a way that they have never been combined before and will never be combined again.  I adjust my exposure until, at last, what I see in my LCD is as spectacular as the sky that surrounds me.  I breathe again as I look at the Christmas tree reflecting in the river.  I wonder if it will show up in my picture.

I watch as the sunlight fades and the sky turns to more subtle shades of fire against twilight blue and then I shoot again, this time zoomed in to capture the reflection of the city on the river.

When the last of the light has faded away and I stand shivering on the roof top as the wind picks up, I pack up my tripod and camera and head back inside.  I take a look at my photos on my monitor and I am pleased.  While I have much to learn, at least there is one shot that perfectly captured what I wanted to capture while standing on the roof, shooting fire.

Fantasy Morning Attempt 1: Bring in the Elves

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This morning, I decide to conduct an experiment. I’m up at 5:30AM and I don’t absolutely have to be online until 9AM. That gives me 3 1/2 hours to enjoy my morning. I decide I will try to make my fantasy morning a reality today.

Step 1: Sip coffee while sitting on the balcony watching the sunrise.

The first problem is that I have to make the coffee. Making coffee was not part of my fantasy morning. But, since there is no coffee making elf who will appear and make the coffee for me, I get a pot going.

While the coffee is brewing, the second problem occurs. I have bodily functions that I must attend to. My fantasy morning was bodily-function free. However, when nature calls, there is no denying her. I decide I will just start over now that the coffee is made and I am guaranteed a bodily-function free hour if I’m lucky.

I take my hot mug of coffee out on the balcony. Problem number 3 occurs when I realize it’s quite cold out on said balcony. Oh, and I forgot:

Step 2: Take some shots of the sunrise while sitting on said balcony sipping coffee.

I return indoors to put a warm jacket on and pick up my camera and tripod, which I take out with me. This is problem number 4: I didn’t account for any setup time in my fantasy morning. Everything was just in place. And, by the way, problem 5 is rather obvious in that the sun doesn’t rise until after 7:00AM this time of year. I’m still a good hour away from first light. I set up my tripod and camera anyway. There is an interesting cloud hanging over the downtown skyline across the river and the smoke stacks on the various buildings have steam pouring out of them that appear to be creating the cloud. I watch the cloud and take some pictures as a substitute for the sunrise.

After about 10 minutes, I’ve had enough–in my fantasy morning, it was at least 60 degrees. My feet and hands are freezing and I’m going to run out of time if I wait for sunrise. This leads to:

Step 3: Do some yoga.

Which, of course, leads to problem number 6–I have to bring in my camera and get out my yoga props. Once again, I didn’t account for clean up or set up time in my fantasy morning. But, I manage to get my yoga space set up with plenty of props for restorative poses.

I go through a few “low-flow” poses (as one of my instructors in Columbus used to call it) to get the blood flowing again, warming my hands and feet after my time on the balcony. Then, I go into a series of restorative poses that I hold for ten slow, deep breaths each (since I can’t see a clock). While this probably isn’t long enough, I’m clearly running out of time for my fantasy morning and I still have 3 more steps to go.

I decide to multi-task:

Step 4: Meditate.

I finish up my yoga with reclining goddess and do my meditation while I relax in the pose. It takes a while to get the music I want to play on my laptop, eating up several precious minutes while I mess around with getting iTunes to work. However, once I get it going, it’s actually the nicest multi-tasking I’ve ever done. When I’m done, I do a quick Shavasana and pick up all my yoga toys.

I check the clock. My fantasy morning includes an hour of writing time and a walk with Pat as steps 5 and 6 respectively. However, I left showering and getting dressed out of my fantasy morning–apparently in my fantasy morning, I work all day in my pajamas. I have time to shower and change plus take a walk with Pat or just to write. The clock ticks on unsympathetically. I decide to jump in the shower.

When I get out of the shower, the sky is turning red. I wrap up in my big, thick robe and carry the tripod and camera back onto the balcony. Looks like I will be shooting the sunrise after all. But, realistically, I don’t have time for this. The sunrise is so dramatic, I can’t tear myself away. I keep watching until the unbelievably bright red starts to fade into a more normal, muted tone. Then, I make a mad dash to finish getting ready for a walk.

I wake up Pat and tell him I want to go for a walk. I resist the urge to check email, realizing that if I do, we will get no walk in at all. As it is, we are only have time for a short loop. When at last we get outside, Pat constantly tells me to slow down–I am practically jogging trying to get some distance in.

In the end, my fantasy morning feels rushed, not so relaxing, and I don’t have time to write. Where are the elves when you really need them?

Mine Sweeping

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We attempt to go for a walk this morning.  But it’s getting late by the time we leave so we are forced to do the short loop through the park.  We realize that someone new must have moved into the neighborhood because of the dog poop on the sidewalk.  There are three separate piles along the way.  Each one looks older than the last, like the piles are from three separate days.  I wonder if the new dog owner is French–they’re not allowed to pick up dog poop because it’s someone’s job.

Stopping short of doing forensics on the dog poop piles, we walk around cautiously, avoiding getting any on our shoes successfully.  Then, we are greeted by three women, each with a small dog.  We’ve met these women and their dogs before–these women pick up after their dogs.  The little dogs have fun racing around together, but they don’t stop for a pet.  Although one is willing to let you throw its ball.  Today, we let them go on by without attempting to pet them.

Convinced that there is no dog poop to step around in sight, my eyes go to the sky.  I am hoping to see the Red-Shouldered Hawks who hunt in the park, but instead, I spot a flock of much smaller birds hanging out in the tree tops where they are back lit and there is no hope of getting a good look at them.  From their size and shape, I would guess they were a group of Cedar Waxwings, but who knows.  The call of the White-Throated Sparrow catches my attention.  I point it out to Pat, but he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, having failed to notice a bird was singing.  I realize he is probably thinking about our dogs, long gone, and missing them.

I try to imagine having a dog again.  I feel certain that some day, a dog will walk into our lives and stick.  But, for now, we are dogless and content to remain so for a while.  In the meantime, we console ourselves by petting other people’s dogs.

We return home and I work.  Our walk seems to have been symbolic of what I will face during my work day–I seem to spend most of my day trying to avoid land mines.

At the end of the day, it’s getting late and we have nothing to eat in the house.  It’s been raining since mid-morning, but it’s not that cold.  We decide to walk over to the Japanese restaurant by Coolidge park.  I pull on a rain jacket with a hood and find an umbrella.  We make our way carefully, leaping over deep puddles that have formed, dodging the splash from cars, and peeking from under our hoods before crossing the street.  I can’t help but feel my entire day has been about avoiding traps and obstacles.

When we get to the Japanese place, we discover it’s not open on Mondays.

We head for the Italian place at the end of the street.  It’s the restaurant furthest from our place on this strip, which means another block of dodging puddles.  But, we are happy to learn that tonight there is a special.  Fat Tire for $2.50 a pint and 20% off all pizzas.  We decide to give their pizza a try.  At the end of our meal, we discover that we’ve just eaten the cheapest meal we’ve ever had in Chattanooga.  Since the Japanese place tends to be the most expensive, we’re happy that they were closed today.

Now that we are warm and full, it’s time to go back out into the rain.  I pull on my raincoat and steel myself mentally.  We rush through the darkness, holding the umbrella so that it partially covers both of us. When Pat tips the umbrella, the water runs off onto my shoulder and into my purse.  I straighten the umbrella in his hands several times before I finally take over holding it.

We run across the streets, black silhouettes against headlights.  I realize we should have worn something with reflective strips on it.  Instead of avoiding mines, now we are dodging bullets.  When we make it back to our building, a man with a backpack is sitting on the steps up to the entry.  The steps are sheltered.  We assume he is homeless and trying to get out of the rain.  We greet him and continue on by, entering the security code to get into the building and making sure no one follows us in.

We walk into our place dripping with rain.  I strip off my rain jacket and find a spot to set the umbrella so it can dry.  After shaking away the wet, I get myself ready for bed.  I feel as if I survived some sort of test today.  Walking in the rain, especially after dark, always feels like an adventure.  I wish the end of my work day gave me the same rush that walking in the rain does.