Sidetracked Charley

Some decades ago I applied for a job working on an island. A small island.  One with only a couple miles of road. No car needed.  The company provided golf carts. And evidently boats for diving trips just off shore. I had just gotten my open water diving certification and it seemed ideal. Then someone raised the specter of island fever. I had been snowed in most of a winter in a Colorado ski resort and certainly understood cabin fever but don't we all want to be stranded on an island? Besides I would have thirty days twice a year to go back to the mainland USA. And in a moment of stark awareness I realized I would probably spend every single minute of those 60 days driving. Driving has been my way of escape since I was 16. No destination necessary. Just hop in the car and drive. I may have even fallen in love with photography because a camera in the passenger seat gave me an excuse to just drive.  But it doesn't take an island or a snow storm to close you into fe...

Fall approaches. I am not one to go by dates on a calendar. I think it is time for a major readjustment of the Georgian. Living on the land I find I pay attention more to the winds or lack there of or their direction or something as subtle as how they smell. Generally there is a day in mid August when a subtle shift comes and whispers of a change of season. I really have not felt it yet. Others are talking about winter around the corner. Frankly, the far corner. But we are a ski resort historically and everyone starts predicting the winter to end all winters months ahead of time. They want their condos and vacation homes booked for the increasingly shorter ski season. When I began skiing in the late 1960's the ski areas generally opened the weekend before Thanksgiving, and ski instructors and patrol had been on the slopes practicing the week before that. And ski slopes did it without making any snow. And when they closed after Easter it was with snow left on the slopes. And...

Country Lane with Snow Living in the mountains I always watch the weather sites. I say sites because nobody ever gets it right so I monitor three or more and draw my own conclusions. For weeks now it has been sliding snowflakes . This is that weather forecast where a slight chance for snow  drifts across the week always beginning tomorrow but never quite showing up. Friday they dared drop the slight and go with chance for snow - up to 1" over night.  Pardon me NOAA but living in the mountains of New Mexico let me say one inch is not snow. It is flurries . We did get the one inch, perhaps a bit more so I paid a bit more attention to the forecast for Saturday day. Three to five which we didn't get but overnight Saturday into Sunday the prediction went up to five or eight. Yeah, we'll see, I thought as I checked outside before heading to bed Saturday night with just a hint of a flake here and there in the dark skies. The Corolla Entombed  Sometime in the middle...

Dream Home? I love living where I live. I love living alone. I am a true introvert and really have few close friends. Most of them live someplace else. And that is mostly fine. I used to consider having an attached rental unit a chance for both financial and safety stability. Now I consider it and renters a liability. Renters have become plagues in recent years. But winter is approaching and since the dreaded New Year storm of 2006/2007 I am a bit tharned about winter. Only about five occupied houses on my "block" and one of those is going to be empty all winter. She is a long term friend and I am totally pissed at her about it when I am not celebrating getting her neediness out of my field of vision. She says I am not a nice person which is why I have so few friends. She does not see that as a choice or her fault I am not nice to her currently. (note: Translation of not nice - I am not doing what she wants.) So yesterday I drove to Las Vegas, New Mexico and fell in ...

Ocate Fix-it-Upper by J. Binford-Bell You might be an artist  IF you have a set of twelve dishes NOT for a large dinner party BUT so you can go twelve days with out washing them. J. Binford-Bell Or making the bed comes second to stretching a canvas or you take the money for next months mortgage and buy a new 24.5 mega pixel camera. And a beautiful fall day is not for doing outside chores but grabbing your camera and hitting the road to find great photo opportunities. Artists, or any creative people, just see the world from an entirely different perspective and set of priorities. That became really clear to me last week as I spent some plastic money for a new camera on the same day my tenant notified me he was breaking his lease. My immediate reaction to not having rent money past November if it does not get rented was, "Will just have to spend more time in the studio painting. Doesn't cost me much." At such times I am more excited abou...

Manual Focus Required I like winter. Really I do. I have enjoyed winter sports more than summer sports much of my life. For over two decades I taught skiing. And when a skiing accident ended that I adopted snowshoeing as my winter sport. Photography takes me out when others stay in. I live in the mountains because I like moderate summers and most months of winter. I am, however, not fond of December snows. They just seem rude. They arrive with high winds and plunging temps. They come before I or anyone seems mentally prepared even if we have been wishing for snow for the ski area and the moisture it provides for the trees of our forest. And they come most years in one, two, three punches that hardly allow you to get your driveway cleared. The county plows struggle with the blowing snow and none of the drivers know where the bar ditches are. Hint - they are under the smooth snow just before the piles the plow has made on the edges. Osha Road And there are just more gra...