July the last

Hope y'all like chicory flower photos

Flickr is messing with me; the last two photos I've uploaded for public consumption have comment boxes that can be seen only by me. I have decided to no longer even try to upload public photos to the sorry site. I will still comment on a few friend's photos as I try to convince them to come to a real photo sharing site; Megashot! Megashot now has a Critique Forum and the photo on yesterday's blog was changed due to a critique suggestion I received there. Since then I have received another suggestion and I will try to follow through on it. I learned a lot about photography during my Flickr years, but I have learned more in the past six months on Megashot than ever I learned on Flickr.

I had one guy tell me he was intimidated by the quality photos and complexity of Megashot and was leery of joining as he is a novice photographer, but now he is glad he took the leap of faith. With some encouragement from Cyrus and myself, his photographic skills have increased remarkably and he is no longer shooting like a Sunday snap-shooter. Megashot is the best place for photographers of all skill levels, so if you haven't joined us, please consider doing so. Being a member of one doesn't mean you have to give up the other.

New Megashot contest begins midnight tonight GMT. The theme is Mixed-Category.
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Carolyn has only two tomato plants left and they only have a couple of small marbles growing. She has already tossed her cucumber plants; she got six cumbers off of four plants. Just too damn much heat!
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Have a wild weekend!
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Mother Earth

Bumble butt on chicory

I drove Carolyn to the markets on 107 yesterday and I also was looking for some chicory blossoms located along a back road that would be easy to shoot without much walking. I love the delicate blue hue of the petals, but I have also seen white ones and purple ones. I finally found some back along 107 at church camp road. The sun was in-and-out after some heavy rain early. I got a few decent photos of pretty chicory blooms and attending bugs; I could have stayed a lot longer but Carolyn was beginning to cook sitting in the Escape as the sun finally blasted away in full glory. I've never seen the like of chicory growing along the highways as we have this year.
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The big produce farms along the Nolichucky river are suffering from the heat and lack of rain, even with the irrigation pumps running most of the time. I saw one big potato field that had been plowed under because the plants turned brown before the spuds could get bigger than marbles. Silage corn is paltry and it is being cut early and the ground plowed. The tomato fields are not too bad yet, but the plants are slow growing. The local produce that is available is costing more each time we go to the markets, but we have bought some of the best corn we ever had,
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Tammy mentioned submitting some photos to Mother Earth News magazine, and I dug up my old password and  put a photo similar to the one above on the site. I am also going to renew my subscription to the print edition; maybe one of my brilliant shots will be published in the widely read and highly acclaimed periodical.
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Have a ... damn, it's Friday already! .. good weekend!
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They called me Beatle ...

Milk and honey

So you like the Beatles and/or their music? Me too. I first became aware of the now legends in early summer of 1963 when I was hired to help a weird person move. He actually was not in any sense weird; he was a genuine Beatnik and professor from the local college. He came into my regular barbershop on a Saturday morning looking to hire a few guys to help him carry boxes and furniture from a truck to his new "digs" as he called his house. I happened be getting a trim that morning and figured to help the guy for a few extra bucks; I was making $50 per week at my factory job and the promise of $10 for a morning's labor was too hard to resist. Ten bucks would buy an 18 gallon tankful of gasoline for my new Chevy convertible, a carton of smokes, and leave enough for a date at a drive-in movie and a bit of pin-ball money. Back to the Beatles. The guy had a box full of magazines and on top was a cover with a photo of four strange looking musician-type guys from some place in England. I picked it up and the dude noticed me looking at the photo and said something to the effect that "those spirits are going to be big soon" and he told me to keep the mag if I wanted it. The guys in the photo had funky hairdos and it wasn't many weeks afterward when the AM radio began playing their I Want to Hold Your Hand song. Before it hit the airwaves, I had already decided I wanted the look and I have not been back to a barbershop since that fateful Saturday. Problem; to go from nerdish crew-cut hair to Beatle shag meant I had endure a period where my hair looked like the Caesar style that was popular with gay men at the time. Of course I was an ignorant country boy and knew but little about being "queer" as it was called in that era. Soon however, I was being called a "fag" and "fagot" and other names and was even propositioned by a guy while in downtown JC. The local whores stopped smiling when they saw me walking or driving down the street and instead presented me with a glower and a pat on their backside along with a middle-finger salute. I was threatened with mayhem on more than one occasion and was sucker-punched at the roller-skating rink. My boss threatened to fire me and my co-workers shunned me. One good thing; the girl I was dating said I was "cuter than ever" and that was enough to strengthen my resolve to keep my hair long. Ah! February 1964 rolled around and I was ready. The Beatles were on the very popular Sunday evening Ed Sullivan variety show on CBS tv and millions of Americans were introduced to the future of not only popular music, but to a changing lifestyle and world that came of age at Woodstock in 1969. Most Americans past the age of thirty were aghast at the Beatle look; the band and their fans were sent to eternal hell from pulpits around the nation, and some AM stations refused to further play their music. The revolution was on! Times were good as many of my co-workers resumed accepting me and they even nicknamed me "Beatle". Prostitutes again waved and smiled as I went by and their salute turned to thumbs-up as they invitingly patted their crotches instead of their asses. Sweet vindication! During this time I went from shy and ignorant country bumpkin to a much wiser but still shy young man of the world.

Yep, they called me "Beatle" and though I've worn many nicknames since then, it is the one of which I am proudest.
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Have a Wednesday all day long!
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That kind of day ...

Swarovski's little frog

It's the kind of day when you want to ride through the neighborhood looking for the guy wearing the earmuffs and pushing his electric mower over his lawn so you can drive up behind him and blast your horn while hollering “mow that, motherfucker!"
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Have a Tuesday!
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Itchin' and bitchin'

Sunday was day off from the net but there is never any rest for the righteous. I sat around most of the day yesterday, working some with SilkyPix software. I was waiting for the late day light so I could go back to Greene County and shoot an old barn and a couple of houses that the Olympus camera messed up when making shots. Stll didn't have much luck as there were people around just about everywhere. We got home just before dark and I still have no new pics to play with and I doubt that I am any wiser.
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I found what was making my back itch so badly; it is not so much the wounds healing but my skin is sensitive to the glue on the bandages. I had my in-home nurse change from store-brand bandages to Band-Aids and the rash is now leaving.

Another thing, the wounds are not healing; they are still seeping a bit of blood and one is showing some redness in surrounding skin. I fear infection. Infection can settle in artificial joints and wreak havoc. If I get infection around any of the prosthesis and it cannot be quickly healed they will have to fuse the affected joints and that is not a very good thing. The reason I get easily infected is the methotrexate shots I take every week for the RA; the medicine all but shuts down my immune system's and ability to fight infection. RA is caused by some unknown virus that is carried in the immune system; one of the best ways to fight it is to turn off the system; methotrexate does just that.

One bit of good news, though; the report came back on the cancers and they are not the kind that readily invades the body.
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Have a worsh day!
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Busy Saturday

 This is close to my desk and it is Carolyn's way

of ascertaining my dieting willpower;

I placed the joker for this photo

I have been working most of the morning helping some new Megashot members with various things such as making and uploading an avatar, a banner, and how to find their photo's progress in the contest. I then answered a long over due email which ended up being rather enjoyable, and I got my stuff out of the closet, did a setup, and made a photo. I received several comments on some of my photos overnight and I responded to them. I have yet to check for new members and welcome any whom may have joined since last evening, and I am going to Flickr to see if I need to do anything there. Not many people comment on my Flickr postings although I do as much commenting there as I do on Megashot. The Nature contest has a week left, but I probably will not post any more entries until maybe the last day. There will be another contest in August, but I haven't checked to see what the theme will be.
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Carolyn worked for awhile this morning and it gave me some time for peace and quiet in the house. I love peace and quiet but those times have been few for the past several years. I also love my privacy but I haven't had much of that since JJ moved in eight years ago. Old folk seem to need and prefer a bit more alone time than do youngsters.
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It is very hot again today with temps close to 100F (37.7C) in another hour from now. It is 95F in the shade on my porch as I write this from inside and air-conditioned house.
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Yesterday, Carolyn made bread pudding for desert with left over biscuits; mighty fine. Chris and her boyfriend just got settled into their new apartment; this is her fourth new place this year. She moves more often than do my bowels.
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Well back to the grind I love so well; looking at great photos and commenting on a few. I may suck up my courage and get on Facebook for awhile for more photo commenting; Megashot has several pages there and as much as I abhor Facebook, it is drawing in many new members for the site. I can usually get in a  page or two of "likes" and a few remarks about photos before I get the shakes and have to leave. I am also doing a few critiques on Megashot's Critique Corner, although I am not always comfortable doing so. If I like a photo, it is for some obscure reason to which I cannot put words and the same for ones I dislike. But I try to help; I don't care much for the technical stuff as it is too restrictive, but I do love a well balanced photo. A photo of a turd is a photo of a turd, but a photo of a turd with a fly sneaking up on it is a good, well balanced photo.
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Hope you are having a good Saturday!
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Hot News!

Shot Day... Yee-Haw!!!

Back later ...
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I'm back and I didn't get my shot; I forgot to buy the medicine. This is twice in the past three months I've forgotten it and these two times are the first times ever. I think senility has crept in, crapped, and crept out. It is a helpless feeling when you know your brain is melting down and there is nothing to be done about it. I'm having problems of late remembering names of my Flickr and Megashot friends and contacts. I ain't feeling sorry for myself but just letting you know that I may become a blathering idiot at any moment.
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Carolyn is on the phone with the insurance company about the employee auto accident, and I just sent an email to the store about the pitiful three-legged table laying on its back on the living room floor. It misses its other leg.
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Carolyn has to work tomorrow, it is hotter than Hades here, and my last photos literally suck mud. I think a bottle of Jack Daniels is in order; in fact, I think I will stretch a baby-bottle nipple over the Black Jack bottle and pretend I am sucking on a delicious titty until what is left of my brain is pickled!
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Have a wonderful weekend, dear friends.
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Blue Thursday

Ain't got much to say for today; one of Carolyn's employees had a fender-bender in a company van last evening. She was off from work and in a place where she had no business taking the van. She was careless and hit a stopped car in the rear. No one injured and little car damage, but the employee was charged for following too close. Carolyn is in a bad mood this morning and you know who is catching hell. After 75 years of marriage, I'm pretty well used to it; the duck's back thing, you know.
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Have a Thursday!
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Assorted legs and holes

Historic Jonesborough

 This scene will dramatically change to hysteric come

Story Telling time.

Carolyn is up in arms; she has four new dining chairs in the dining area, and a gimpy three-legged table upside-down on the living room floor. We ordered the outfit online from a reputable dealer and it was shipped by truck and got here very quickly. When my son assembled it, he realized one of the table legs had holes for threaded inserts to accept bolts but no inserts. That was two weeks ago tomorrow. The next day, Carolyn phoned the store and told them of her problem and they said they would check into it. Tuesday rolled around and she phoned again; seems the first guy failed to inform the right people, so she had to again relate her problem to customer service. Finally on Thursday we received an email from the store saying they had contacted the manufacturer and they wanted to know if we needed a left-side or right-side leg. The stupid table legs are all alike; interchangeable! I sent them and email again telling them we need a table leg and not a chair leg! Tuesday this week comes around and still no word from the store so Carolyn phones them again and she was not nice this time. They claimed that we forgot to put our order number in the email and they could do nothing. The order number was on the email and my email address links to it on their system anyway. I then sent an email saying enough is enough (not the language I used) and for them to send a prepaid RMA and to contact their carrier to come get the table and chairs. I put the order number in bold type. I then received an apology from the store via email and they said they had made a mistake about needing a chair leg and had again contacted the manufacturer about a replacement and would keep us informed. Carolyn has thirty days to complain to the credit card company about the purchase and they will contact the seller and decide if we should be charged. Well, you know how that always comes out. Carolyn has said she will not pay for the set if her plight is not remedied, and she won't. I can fix the problem myself and already have all the necessaries at hand to do so.
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Took Carolyn to dentist yesterday and he pulled a tooth for her. I asked her this morning how she felt and she replied that she had a big hole there. I told her now she had one on both ends and that is when the fight started. She has gone to hairdresser right now and I am licking my war wounds. My back isn't itching as badly today, my tooth is still tender but almost as well as it will ever be, the sky is again threatening, and life ain't half bad.
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May your Wednesday winklepickers fit like old friends.
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Y'all come!
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Palin-Cheney in '12 ... or ... Ken the Bagger?

One hour ago the sky was clear all over the place; now it is raining heavily. More rain, please! What is different today than yesterday? My tooth still hurts but not as badly, the sores are itching much worse, I can't get a decent shower because I am not to get the wounds wet, I didn't sleep well, sinuses are clogged, and I am another day older. The good part; I lived through it. Now, I cannot get on Megashot to look at my beautiful pictures. I don't have a way to know if it is my connection or if the site is down; I think Megashot needs a blog to inform people if and when they are down.
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This country seems to thrive on stoopid, so I have decided to support the Tea Baggers in this and the next election. I need to find out what time Sara Palin comes on Fox News so I can get a real view of this country's problems. There doesn't seem to be a organized central leader for the rebels without a cause; it is mostly a bunch of local cells across the country protesting everything they see as government related except the things which benefit them personally. They don't like government healthcare spending, but invading non-threatening Iraq and causing the maiming of thousands of our soldiers whom are very expensive to rehabilitate and will be on government subsidies for the rest of their lives is ok, not to mention all the Iraqi civilians who have been killed and injured and we as taxpayers here are paying to care for there. The last time there were meaningful "cells" for a cause in this country was before the Cold War began. Most of you will not remember good ol' boy Joe McCarthy (don't confuse him with Charlie McCarthy; Charlie was much smarter), but he managed to break up the communist cells and probably came near to causing the US military to take control of the government. He would approve of the bagger cells though, and they are a worse threat to our freedom than those wretched Russian infiltrators ever were. Yep, you can now call me Ken the Bagger as I set forth on my mission to destabilize this government run by evil liberals and push for the Sara-Dick ticket in naught-twelve.
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I am off to take Carolyn to dentist; I should be so lucky!
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Have a good Tuesday and when election day comes, write my name in on your ballot; I promise real change! I am the new "Me" generation.
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Fly away with me

We are finally getting a bit of rain, but it is the old "too little too late" to help corn and other much needed crops. Gardens are suffering badly, many being abandoned. Only the big-time farmers along the Nolichucky valley are doing pretty good; they are irrigating from the river. My tooth still hurts enough to be aggravating but is easing a tad. The little Olympus camera I use when I don't feel like carrying the Pentax let me down yesterday. I found some stuff I really like to shoot in N. Greene county, but the photos I made were very disappointing and I got rained on while shooting them. I had good light, but the photos are sucky at best; I deleted all but one and will have to run it through a paint program to make any sense of it. I will go back with the Pentax asap.
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Worsh Day; a day when working people come clean. Have a good one!
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Hoof and mouth disease

 Monarch butterfly larvae on milkweed.

The larvae lives its entire life-cycle from egg to pupae on the same milkweed plant.

It will turn into a butterfly, migrate to Mexico, have unprotected sex,

get drunk on bad tequilla, and never find its way home,

spending the remainder of its life in a sleezy cantina

where it will get its throat slit by a jealous cockroach

I have a toothache; ain't got many teeth left but one is sure raising a fuss. Wish I could go to dentist like normal people do. Orajel and wait for the worst. The callous on my sole is also very sore today.
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My diet is racing right along; lost three pounds in less than two months. Won't be long 'til I see the tips of my toes. A Megashot member just built a a new Food and Drink community and looking at all that good stuff ain't no big help in my lose weight department.
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My internet connection has been pathetic this weekend; I am on dsl and it is supposed to be the same speed no matter how many people are on the web; I don't have to share like people on cable internet do. That means the new teleco owners are more than likely using bandwidth throttling on weekends; this first happened two weekends ago but only to Megashot and my weather site and lasted 24 hours. This week it has been going on since Friday evening and was very pronounced yesterday morning. Monday I will call the cable company and see if they can promise me a better deal; they way it stands now, I may as well be on dial-up.
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Mark is predicting a race war may be eminent in this country, and I am thinking maybe a religious war to go along with it. Anyway, the Far Right seems to be pushing for both or either, and the rich corporations will be the main ones to benefit from such.
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Have a Sunday!
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You'ns!
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Saturday

 From Tennessee

on the Appalachian Trail looking south-east
into North Carolina

The high mountain in the distance is Roan Mountain

Cock's comb wildflower
and
bumble bee

The Friday Sessions

From the pulpit:
BP has sort of plugged its hole even as Congress passes a financial reform bill that will open many more in our pocketbooks for Wall Street to exploit. Most Americans have no idea how little the reform bill means in reigning in ways the big money industries used to exploit us and cause the ongoing and worsening crises we are in. There is much back-slapping in DC today by both parties while the Republicans shamefully act as if they want the bill repealed. Big bucks will be ever more present in campaigns and personal bank accounts of members of Congress. Obama is beside himself with glee because he thinks he has again hoodooed the public the same as he did with the medical reform law. I sincerely hope all members of Congress are replaced in the next few elections, and that Obama is sent packing back to the Heartland of a nation divided much as it was when Lincoln was elected president, but this time it is rich versus poor; Lincoln would most likely find today's America utterly disgusting. I have always been horrified by lynchings the Old South way, but in the case of politicians, I make an exception; may their gods have no mercy on their soulless carcasses. Wake up, America!
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I hope to get into Jonesborough this weekend for some shooting. I don't want to stray too far from home until the wounds are better healed. The nurse said for me to keep them dry which means I cannot take a shower and will be a bit gamey; in fact I already have an aura which I will take with me to get my shot
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Have any of you ever heard of a country music group called Lester "Roadhog" Moran and His Cadillac Cowboys? They first appeared on a Statler Brothers album back in the 70s and then made a fairly successful album of their own using the band name as the title. The foursome's hometown is a small Alabama community called Rainbow Valley where they sometimes held concerts at the local Johnny Mack Brown High School. I'm sure you know of the famous actor Johnny Mack Brown. Here is a sample from the album; enjoy:

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Have a good Friday!

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You'uns's

Titleless

Man! It feels good to sleep an entire night; I had to swaller a double-dose of Xanax, but it got 'er done. I still have a bit of sleep hangover but it is worth it.
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Carolyn is back from drugstore, she picked up some stuff to dress the wounds which have not even become sore. I hope she can get a pic of my back before she re-redresses the places
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Has the Obama Health Care Initiative helped any so far? An emphatic YES! The cost of my weekly fix went from $28 to $57 since it was passed by a beaming Congress who had my best interests at heart. The $57 covers five minutes in doc's office for a nurse to check my chart, get a syringe, and give me the shot. I even have to go to the drugstore and buy the medicine separately. Even with insurance at $150 per month for premiums, my co-pay will be more than a hundred each month. Fixed income people are taking it on the chin as the rich get richer. The only redeeming value other than my ability to keep going from day-to-day is the fact that the nurses are cute. That means nothing to an old man, though.
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Have a non-judicial Thursday!
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You'ns!
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Draining Miss Davis

I have placed another of my short stories on my Brasstacks blog. It is very rough and needs much editing. I wrote this one year when I was having a particularly difficult time with income taxes. I really do not know if the story is worth the effort of some re-writing and final editing; my ending takes a leap of faith to understand.
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Darkside of the Loon

I am going through a very dull period; so much humidity after the rains that it is smothering to sit outside for very long. I don't have new photos to work on and am redoing old ones with SilkyPix. Carolyn and Chris accompanied me to be skinned; they seemed disappointed the entire procedure of removing three whatevers took less than 20 min, 30 min counting checking in, waiting, and checking out. The darn places are starting to itch.
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I was thinking of retiring my crusty Pink Floyd Darkside baseball cap, but I checked the prices of similar new ones and the cheapest was $20 and another place had them for $35, all made in China. Can you say "rip-off", boys and girls? I would have grudgingly paid $10, but old crusty is looking better every minute; don't smell too good, though. It is becoming tattered from many washings (well, at least two washings) so I am afraid to launder it again. Oh what the heck; I am a practicing hillbilly and it just adds to the effect.
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The new Nature contest seems to rapidly be pulling in members for Megashot, but some of the photos being entered are at best iffy as far as nature goes. If it is a city scene with a blade of grass showing, it is entered. I refuse to even vote on such. My best photo got kicked out of level three because I didn't vote but the hell of it is, I did vote. It didn't have a lot of points anyway but it is good to have one or more at the highest level. Another was kicked out because one of my pop-up reminders popped-up while I was voting and the contest tossed the pic. It is not supposed to do so unless I hit the "Esc" key. The pop-up does steal focus, but it is not the same as hitting the escape key; or is it?
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Enough belly-aching for this Wednesday; have a good one!
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Y'all!
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Dull Tuesday

 Road to Frog Level

Exactly nothing going on today, so I will try to entertain you with a couple of things I found on the web; the first one is very useful.
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Use Notepad as a Diary!

1. Open a blank Notepad file

2. Write .LOG as the first line of the file, followed by a enter. Save
the file and close it.

3. Double-click the file to open it and notice that Notepad appends the current date and time to the end of the file and places the cursor on the line after.

4. Type your notes and then save and close the file.

5. Each time you open the file, Notepad repeats the process
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Obit announcement:
( the last line is the clincher for me)
Dear friends,
It is with the saddest heart that I pass on the following.  Please join
me in remembering a great icon.

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and
complications from repeated pokes in the belly.  He was 71.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly-greased coffin.  Dozens of celebrities
turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs.  Butterworth, Hungry
Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and
Cap'n Crunch.  The grave site was piled high with flours as long- time
friend, Aunt Jemima, delivered the eulogy, describing Doughboy as a man
who never knew how much he was kneaded.  Doughboy rose quickly in show
business, but his later life was filled with turnovers.  He was not
considered a very "smart" cookie, wasting much of his dough on
half-baked schemes.  Despite being a little flaky at times, he -- even
still, as a crusty old man -- was considered a roll model for millions.
Toward the end, it was thought he would rise again, but alas, he was no
tart.

Doughboy is survived by his wife, Play Dough; two children, John Dough
and Jane Dough; plus they had one in the oven.  He is also survived by
his elderly father, Pop Tart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about twenty minutes.
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Have a Tuesday!
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Y'all!
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Ken's variety show

I decided to reschedule with the optometrist; I already have enough to think about this week.
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The area has finally gotten some long overdue rainfall; it has been showering off-and-on since last evening. Presently the drizzle has stopped and the sun is trying to find a crack in the clouds. The grass seems to be greening before my eyes.
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I rode with Carolyn to turn a key in for one of her accounts; they called and told her not to come back to clean. Her contract was about fulfilled anyway and she was not going to re-bid it. It was a state job and low paying with service once per week. The rest of the country may be coming out of the Great Recession, but this area is still losing net jobs and income is falling even as retail sales are increasing; doesn't make a lot of sense. I suppose the people whom had disposable finances all along are confident to begin spending again; cart before the horse, I think.
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Sunday afternoon we rode some unfamiliar back roads in Greene and Hawkins counties, not so much to find photo ops but more to get away from the house. I like riding in the countryside but Carolyn is becoming tired of it. Tough!
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Yesterday morning and again last night I worked with the new software program, SilkyPix Developer studio. It is a a fully functional trial version and an excellent program for developing RAW format into JPEG or TIFF formats. I had been using RawTherapee to do the work, but the creator has stopped updating it so I decided to go in a different direction. RT was free, but SilkyPix is rather expensive at $150 but it is a much better program and at least the equal of Adobe Lightroom. I decided on SP because a limited copy came with my camera and I am familiar with its basics; now to save up to purchase it. Most of my photos from now on will be converted with SP and nothing else unless I need to do some special effects at which time I will revert to bloated and unstable Corel Paintshop Pro. BTW; I now have Paintshop Pro working pretty well but it is inherently slow; my problem was that I had some plugins on a network hard drive which worked fine on previous versions but PsP XIII has an aversion to such.
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Worsh Day!
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Y'all!
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Lily o' my heart

Not much going on today; I'll take Carolyn over to Fall Branch later and that will be about all I'm in the notion of doing. My only living aunt and her daughter came over yesterday afternoon for a visit; she has forever been a second mother for me. Jerry came by for a few minutes this morning; he visits nearly every Sunday and brings his mom a newspaper. I was hoping to show a pic of Carolyn's new dining set, but it had parts missing and she is beside herself. The photo is of a lily my mom had in her flower bed when she died in 2002. I originally bought the flower for her on Mother's Day a few years before she became sick. Carolyn transplanted it with her flowers and even though it is in near perpetual shade, it has bloomed every year.
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Have a nice day!
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Y'all!
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 I think this is my best hosta blossom photo

We had a minor rain event at my house last evening and the grass is a bit greener this morning. The temps have moderated and it is actually nice outside with mostly cloudy skies.
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Hopefully by Monday, I will have a bit more time to spend on the Megashot Facebook pages; at the moment I am pooped from a busy week and lack of sleep.Nope, just remembered; eye doc Monday and I will invaded and dilated.
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Megashot.net was offline for a few hours yesterday while coders worked at bringing new features online. The new doo-dads are mostly vanity items to do with Explore and contest winners. Unlike Flickr, Megashot has a meaningful Explore feature; one where members rate anonymously the photos of other members and the highest rated shots can make Megashot of the day, week, month, year, and all time in various categories. On Flickr, it seems like someone somewhere uses a witches potion and various incantations to decide which photos are "Most Interesting" and if it is not chosen the day it is uploaded, it will never make Explore.
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For me, seeing a good photo or other artwork is like when I was a virgin and about to make love for the first time; there it is laid out before me and all I have to do is enter and savor the beauty of the presentation. When first viewed, a good photo causes a small gasp from me and an adrenaline rush much like first sexual penetration and the deeper I get into it, the more I find to like. Sigh ...
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Have a super Saturday!
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Y'all!
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Friday stumbles

 Bristol, Virginia

The temps have moderated a bit, but it will still be hot outside today; the worst part; no rain in sight. JJ and Todd haven't mowed one lawn this week and neither have another income source.
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Shot day again and then Monday at the ophthalmologist for the annual eye exam; we of the age spot generation have to keep close check on our eyes because they also get age spots; cataracts. Wednesday is back to the skin doc and early next month I start the rounds all over again with a visit to the heart doc; I have come to believe that doctors are the worst disease ever bestowed on humanity. If God had truly wanted Pharaoh to kick all the Israelites out of Egypt, He would have caused a plague of MD's to descend on the land.
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Have a hilarious Friday and a super fun weekend!
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Y'all!
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When I published this blog post today, this "Ad by Google" popped up. I appreciate their concern about my age spots!

I saw the Wizard!

 Mater farm: post-frost; pre-storm

Oh, such bad news from the doc! The lesions on my arms are not skin cancer; they are age spots. Dammit call them anything but age spots; that's what old people have; I am young and vibrant with soft hide like a baby. Just because my hair is white, most of my teeth are missing, I am deaf in my left ear, can't half see, and I smell badly they think I have age spots.

The doctor is very observant; as soon as he walked in he saw my gnarled and crooked hands and said "You have rheumatoid arthritis!", to which I replied "Does it show?"!

He said my two spots were nothing to worry about; one is similar looking to a wart. He liked me so well he wants a return engagement next Wednesday morning; he did find a skin cancer on my back and I am to have it scrapped, burned, sliced and diced, and removed. Him telling me that piece of news was still not as bad as knowing I have age spots.

Actually, the worst part of today's experience was sitting in the waiting room for more than an hour; I was getting ready to take my age spots and leave when they called me back. Fortunately they did not make me get on the scales.
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Have a good ... whatever it is ... tomorrow.
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Y'all!
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Skinned!

The Yellow Dirt Road

I'm off to see the doctor, the wonderful doctor of skin
I'll find if he is a whiz of a doc if ever a doc their was.
If ever oh ever a doc there was the doc of skin is one because,
Because, because, because, because, because.
Because of the wonderful skin he does.
I'm off to see the doctor, the wonderful doctor of skin

Ta-de-da and toddle-oo!
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Y'all
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Rotten maters

Carolyn's maters are getting bloom-end rot; time for a dose of Epsom Salts. Cucumbers are sparse but tasty; same with peppers. Just too blasted hot for container growing; the roots are probably cooking.
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Blood work today and skin doc tomorrow. I'm thinking of looking through the yellow pages to see if there are any doctors left in this town that ain't poked, prodded, cut on me, and relieved me of lots of money, and if there are, I should make appointments with all of them and get it over with. Phooey!
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I was going to wonder if friend Mark got a good tan at the beach over the weekend, but I suppose I better not; he may still be in a foul mood.
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The photo was overexposed so I developed the RAW format file using SilkyPix Developer Studio and it came out very well, I think. I waited until a cloud shaded the scene before making the shot so all I had to do was account for the bit of sky in background. You can get a one-month free trial of SilkyPix; just google.
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Happy Wednesday!
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Y'all!
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Labs

Gotta get some blood work done; post later today or tomorrow ...
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Grumpy and Dopey

 Color by nostalgia

Nothing going on today. Itchy eyes and sneezin' my fool head off. Carolyn is running errands and I am trying to catch up on my Megashot commenting. Not much use to comment on Flickr anymore; only a very few close friends comment on my photos there; the other folks could at least stop by and say they don't like my stuff; it would make things simpler. The site is becoming an online joke as it tries to catch up to Megashot while blocking all links to megashot.net and its member's photos. Megashot membership may cost a bit more than Flickr Pro accounts, but with Megashot, you are getting much more than just a social site; you are getting your own home page for your photos.
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Texas built its wealth with the petroleum industry, so I don't feel as badly concerning BP oil gobs hitting the beaches there as I do for Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. I do get emotional when I think of all the wildlife that the oil is harming on any and all shorelines. There is not one real effort being considered—much less put in place—to prevent this from happening again at any moment. America the Foolish!
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I'm always grouchy when my eyes are messed up, but I am still very lovable. Have a good Tuesday!
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Y'all!
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Dog Days are barking

 Hwy 107

This morning, Megashot's membership is 800; not bad for for being public for only five months and all features are not yet in place. The Nature contest is ongoing and my first entry finally made it to level two and was then kicked out because I did not vote; I was never notified to vote. My second entry has made it to level two but I don't much care if it goes any higher. I have a few friends on Megashot whom appreciate my attempts at photography and that is all the reward I could ask for. I still spend a lot of my online time on the site, welcoming new members, commenting on at least one of their photos, and inviting them to post in a community. I also do a lot of commenting from the communities I belong to, plus the commenting and "liking" photos on several Megashot owned Facebook pages where most of the new members come from.

Over on Flickr, I am again culling contacts whom have not posted photos for more than a year, and I will soon begin removing those whom like to get comments but never comment; that will reduce my contacts by at least half. I will do the same on Megashot after everything shakes out there. Close friends in both places are excepted.
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Yesterday was one of rest; I did absolutely nothing except play with some photos from Saturday. A few kin were in and out, along with one neighbor whom is selling her house across the street and wants Jon to trim some trees; he and Todd are already taking care of the lawn mowing for her.
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We need rain; badly. Lawns are August brown, rivers and creeks are looking very low, and some municipalities are talking about restricting water usage. I suppose the extremely wet 2009 was just a fluke in a continuing drought. Historically, Dog Days is the driest part of the year.
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Worsh day once more; hope you have a wet one!
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Y'all
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Tribulations of a net junkie

 Leesburg Presbyterian Church

Founded 1818

Dog Days began yesterday!

"Are you upset little friend? Have you been lying awake worrying? Well, don't worry...I'm here. The flood waters will recede, the famine will end, the sun will shine tomorrow, and I will always be here to take care of you." -Charlie Brown to Snoopy

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Yesterday; a day I will remember for a while. As of Friday night, our plans were to drive to Watts Bar lake and stay the night in a motel. I went to bed at 11:00pm and awoke before 2:30am for one of my old man trips to the bathroom. I never did go back to sleep, eventually arising a 6:00 Saturday morning. Carolyn got up at 6:30 but I felt so out of sorts I told her I didn't think I could make the trip and have any fun at all. We then decided to hit some more back roads in Greene County looking for photo ops. But, the real aggravation was that I could not successfully get on Megashot and my weather page was slow to load also. I sometimes could access Megashot, but it was after a 10 minute or more page load and when I got there, only a small portion of my stuff ever fully loaded. All other sites worked fine so I knew there was no problem on my end. I contacted Cyrus via Facebook and he said the site was fine. We finally got away from home at 10:00am and after stopping for gas and a nutritious Egg McMuffin, we were on our way to Greeneville with Carolyn driving. We worked the east and northeast county roads that we hadn't been on before, finding absolutely nothing. I remembered a long closed service station that I shot a few years back and I got a decent shot of it. We traveled on to Leesburg which is another old and once important community in Washington County. On a road toward Fall Branch, we ran across an old church and even at mid-day light, it looked promising for photos. I got a few of it from the parking lot and and from the cemetery, the latter having graves of people born in the late 1700s. Finally on to Fall Branch to clean the building and then more back roads to Harmony, Sulphur Springs, Bowmantown, Leesburg again, and finally back home, arriving at about 5:00pm. We were both worn out, I was very sleepy, and Megashot was still not working. I logged off Windows and onto Ubuntu Linux which has an easy to use pinger and route tracer. When I pinged Megashot, the round-trip was as fast as it should be, but when I traced the route the information travels from me to Megashot servers, it quit at the fifth relay and the following seven were returning nothing. I logged back on Windows and figured I would be without full net access until Tuesday so I edited a few of the photos from the day. At 7:20, I noticed my little weather icon was back on the browser, so I clicked Megashot and all worked fine and is still working as of 10:15 Sunday morning. It is very disturbing to me when stuff like that happens because Megashot is where I spend a big part of my online time. I am now way behind on commenting there, on blogs, and on Flickr. Strange Saturday even for one as strange as I.
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I have entered but one photo in the Megashot Nature contest, and it hasn't made it out of the first level. it was my best nature photo. Not much use of me putting any more into competition.
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Have a good Sunday and a Happy Birthday, USA!
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Y'all!

Yesterday I was describing—in a comment for Mark—one of Carolyn's fine breakfasts and for some reason I became very hungry; the photo explains what happened next.  On the over-sized diet-busting plate I see scrambled eggs surrounded by sweetened grits with butter (yes, we put sugar on our grits, y'all), fried taters, a hunk of concord grape jelly, a slice of the big, bronze-looking mater that Carolyn grew, bacon, and dry toast; she said it was too hot to turn the oven on for biscuits or buttered toast and if I didn't like it, I could stand in the kitchen and make my own breakfast. I already had coffee, so I got a glass of cranberry juice. I need to have a talk with her about the back-sassing!
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I had to eat breakfast at my desk; we don't even have a dining table. Since we moved here in 1994, she has had three dining sets and the last one I bought for her as a gift; she sold it in a yard sale last summer, thinking she would soon get another. Why did she sell it? She was tired of the color! I hardened my heart thus we still do not have a place to gather and eat. Before you give me too much hell, I have eased up a bit and she is shopping for a new set; I'm really just a softie and besides, I'm getting tired of removing crumbs and degreasing my pc keyboard and mouse.
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I will write more later ... if I can think of anything. I'm hungry again.
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Happy Fiday!
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Y'all
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Tell me no lies ...

The big Megashot flower contest is over, the winners announced, and I am more than glad it has passed. The Nature contest has begun, but from seeing the results of the flower competition, I don't think I have any photos that will remotely qualify as being artfully tasteful enough. I may enter a few of my dregs over the contest period just to see what is being presented, but everyday photos like mine have no place in real competition.
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I forgot to include the link to the admission prices for the Jonesborough story telling event, but it is now in place. If you click it, have your local heart trauma center on the line when you read the ticket prices. One thing for sure, I am in the wrong business as a story writer; telling my tales looks to be much more profitable. The event used to be free, even the ghost stories* and I would think a $50 per person for the weekend should be plenty enough to pay and it should include all tents and events. A family of four out-of-towners could easily spend $1000+ for tickets, lodging, food, and a few knock-off souvenirs; it ain't worth it and will eventually be the downfall of the festival. An example: about 1970, Jonesborough began having an Independence Day festival called Jonesborough Days, and it quickly became one of the top five draws in the entire South for such events. It began as a four day party with a small carnival, name-draw musicians, street vendors and all the things necessary to showcase the town. Over the years, the carnival was dropped, the music became local bands only, and street vendors were forced to pay more for their spaces than a lot of them could make. The event twiddled down to one day. Now, it has had a renaissance and is back to two days is doing pretty well; it takes place this weekend and I won't be going.
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Have a sublime Thursday!
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Y'all!
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*The ghost stories were told at night in a cemetery; now the cadavers demand a fee!