So Far

Well vacation has been very good so far. Visiting old friends, Mike and Tammy. Meet an old Flickr contact, mscrant1971, for the first time. Sat around a fire and just relaxed. Ate good food, drank some beer, took pictures, walked on the beach, went to a flea market, photo museum and did nothing at times. Relaxing. Bought a book at the flea market called "Brass Tacks" by David Cushman Coyle. This is about economics that seems to be fitting for today. It was written in 1935. It was written so that the average American could understand it. Seems to be quite interesting. I'll keep up updated. It cost me a quarter. I also bought a 78 rpm record, it is a little warped, that is the size of a 45 record. It is red vinyl and is a religious record. It is old for sure. It was also a quarter. Maybe I'll frame it. I like old colored records. At the Florida museum of Photographic Arts the teeny tiny museum had a teeny tiny show of works by Burk Uzzle.

Check out his website and see great works from Woodstock among his works.

No comments on the news. I am on vacation and really could not care less for now.

Look for me in my balloon.

Photo is from last vacation. This is in Asheville.

Why the FUCK is Blogger not letting me create paragraphs. It is creating on big mess that is a pain in the ass to read.

Republicans are Fascists

Yes I think the Republican party is a fascist party. When they call us socialist or communists lets call them fascists. I can hear them howl now. I urge you to check out the description for yourself and see what you think. Bet you find I am right.

I guess the banks giving all those huge bonus payouts is their way of saying thank you for bailing us out, now go fuck yourselves. I amazes me that Congress is acting all huffy about the bonus payouts. It is one year later and they passed NO legislation to have some form of control over the issue. The banks should be forced to pay back all loans to the people of the United States before they issue any bonuses. Banks are still the cause of all the unrest we are having today and they simply do not care. They are not renegotiating mortgages for the most part, not giving loans and holding on to a large portion of the money they have coming in. If you dig into the banks financial statements, and you do not have to go far, you will find that the profits they are making are by not doing business as normal. If you vastly scale back on mortgages, loans, layoff large numbers of staff it is no wonder your profits look large.

Do you really think because the Dow is over 10 grand that things are getting better. It is a shell game and I am here to tell you that we have not seen the end of the problems banks have caused. My recommendation is to hold onto your money and stop building up your debt. There is more to come. We are one terror attack or some other major national tragedy of the country having a major meltdown.

The picture above was taken on a little street in St. Pete. This was out behind a bar. Was this intended for the trash? It seemed like and odd place for this. They had a courtyard with similar works inside. Anyhow I liked how it was just sitting there like trash.

Redwoods for Tammy

Ok Tammy, here are some redwood trees. If you look at the first picture you will see a red thing off in the distance. That is a person. This was the fallen trunk of a redwood. It is insane how huge these things are. The second is just looking up. In the third one I am standing inside the burned out trunk of a redwood. This tree was still alive. It is as if the fire never did anything to the tree.

It is just a cool place. There is a nice river running through this area. Peaceful.

This was when I stayed in Crescent City, CA. A small town with nothing going on most of the time. I was here over July, 4th 2006. So they had a party down on the green on July 3rd with a band, beer and locals. They were somewhat amazed we where there on vacation. It is usually fairly cool/cold here. Because they are so close to the mountains the Pacific Ocean keeps the area cool. The one thing that was cool was the previous winter there were tons of storms so the main beach, which was a couple miles long, had tons of driftwood on it. On the 4th after the parade tons of people went down to the beach and built huge fires and partied on the beach all day waiting for the fireworks. The amount of driftwood was staggering. lots of big pieces. People actually built huts out of it. Very cool.

It is great because overall there are not many people so everything is pretty much in its natural state.

When you go bring your jacket.

National Parks are cool

Labor Day weekend 2005 as the world was fully awakening to horror of Katrina's impact on New Orleans I was heading out to Vegas as a layover night before heading to the north rim of the Grand Canyon for a few days, then off to the south rim for a couple nights and back to Vegas again. Very cool and interesting part of the United States if you have never been there. I would like to go back again for a few weeks and just roam around. On the third day there I went to Bryce Canyon, above, and Zion National Park. A very long day with lots of traveling. I absolutely love Bryce and Zion. Very beautiful and vastly different from one another given how close they are to each other. I hiked down to the bottom of Bryce and very cool and not so easy. Going down was easy, going back up was a long tough trip for me. Thankfully I had plenty of water. It was just a tad warm. Some wild rock formations. When you were on the other side from where this picture was taken you had views for a long ways off. Up where high up on the plateau and were down on small towns and vast amounts of wide open plains leading to the mountains in the distance. Very cool.

So on this trip I was able to go to three National Parks, Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam in the in five days before getting back to Vegas. The great thing it never seemed rush, except when we needed to get out of Utah and to Arizona to get a bottle Early Times before the liquor store closed. There were none in Utah and this only one for many many many miles. You understand.

I would go back to Bryce and Zion before the Grand Canyon truth being told. And if want you go to Hilldale, Arizona or Colorado City, Utah and hangout with the fundamentalist Mormons as they live out in the area. They are pretty remote.

Just go.........................

Return of an old friend

It is nice to return to an old friend to say hi and see how time has treated them. Well I returned to my friend and photo partner the Underwood Motel last week. The photos here will give you and indication of how time has treated her. The top photo was taken in October of 2009, the second was taken in March of 2006. The 2006 picture was the actual beginning for me to take photography to another level. I had only been on Flickr for two months at that point. So you see that things were coming together as a photographer around the same time.

So this sign, which I love as an old classic neon sign, holds a special place for me. It is my version of Linus's blanket. It always give me great shots and shows how time and mother nature take its toll if left to her own devices. As you can see the arrow is now completely hidden from view and at the rate the field around her is growing the whole sign will soon be invisible to those who do not know she is there. I am going to head back up for more pictures as soon as we have some cold weather and some of the brush and shrubs have died. I have a fear that the sign is not long for the world and I need to capture as many pictures as possible before it disappears either from man or mother nature, although as long as it is there I will photograph it.

Thank you Underwood Motel for being my blanket.

I'm just Sayin'

Who won what today? How the fuck does that happen? Mr. President you had best get moving so you can show why you won the Nobel Peace Prize. I'm sayin' I am just a wee bit cynical. I am sure you can understand.

And what was that hype about the rocket crashing into moon. Well I fell for it. I watched the big nothing happen on tv this morning. If you were hoping for some good press and then generate more dollars for your budget I would say you failed. I'm just sayin'.

Why is it still so damm hot here. I was 92 today. Hello Mother Nature, it is supposed to be fall. Enough with this breaking records with the heat garbage. We would like to turn off the AC and open the windows. Thank you very much my dear.

The photo of the Chrysler was taken just south of Starke, Florida on 301 last Saturday.

World as Art

So tonight when I was not listening to music and playing on the internet I watched a show on PBS called "Craft in America". The show focused on assorted artists doing pottery, which is my favorite, glass blowing, metal working, weaving, book making amongst other art forms. What was cool is they were small independent artists who worked in traditional ways and excelled at their craft. It was cool to hear them talk with such passion about their craft.
One last thing on pottery. When I go on vacation I like to by a piece of pottery, from a local artist, if the chance presents itself. It is much better than a t-shirt.

I wish I had learned a craft in the arts as a kid.

So maybe today you heard about the healthcare bill, its cost and such. However the things that is complete crap is that even in ten years, 2019, there will be 25 million still uninsured. The estimates say 1/3 of those will be illegal aliens. There is no acceptable reason that they can not pass a bill making sure that all Americans are insured, now. Yes it will be costly, however it is morally corrupt that you can not get this done. You disappoint me greatly.


The photo is of plans for the new Tampa Art Museum that will be opening which will be opening in Feb. of 2010. These were tossed outside near the trash. This was before they torn down the old museum, which was in very sad shape. I thought at the time I should take them. Now I am pissed that I didn't. Oh well, more crap I really did not need.

Too Long

So this week we are entering nine years of the "War on Terror". So glad that it is working so well. What have really accomplished during this war? Are we really safer? Are you happy with all the powers the government has now? Is the Obama war plan what you expected?

Did you see Brett Favre last night. Amazing how the guy still is so damm good. It is great to watch him because he is having so much fun.

Looks like I may need a hot water heater soon. I am trying to talk my landlord into a tankless system. I hope he goes for it.

Photo from South Beach. January 2007.

Rock On

So today while watching the Bucs lose again I saw something that I think is just stupid.

It is not a big thing, but it annoys me. I saw the woman at the table in front of me eating her chicken wings with a fork and knife. She would hold a chicken wing with a napkin, pick some chicken off with the knife and eat it using the fork. Come on now. You eat chicken wings with your hands.

I got some good pictures yesterday, including some more of the Underwood Motel sign. It is slowly being consumed by plants. I would guess in a year from now you will hardly be able to see it at all.

Have another tough week coming at work. We were short a person last week. Jonathan, one of the three who is in the office everyday, was in the hospital. He went in last weekend for what he thought was kidney stones. Well not so lucky. He had a tear in his colon. It actually burst when they had him in the cat scan machine. They actually saw it happen. He is lucky he was at the hospital when this happened. Could have been much much worse. He will be out of work this week for sure and maybe next week. Then I am on vacation. Thankfully.

The holding company that owned us has sold us. The new owners are called Prophet Equity.

I think this should be good. We will be the main focus of their investment. They are looking to buy other company's and grow the company that way. We shall see. It will be nice to be the main focus of the investors. I missed most of the conference call about this, the store was super busy, but on thing that the person who was going over the purchase stated was they are Christians. Big fucking whoop. That has no place on the call announcing that your company has been sold. It is not their website, so why does that need to be mentioned.

Photo is in Asheville.

Whats going on...........

I for one am glad that the Olympics are going to be in Rio. AHHH, its Rio people. I may be wrong but I suspect it has more to offer as a whole party scene than Chicago.

Afghanistan is so screwed up that no matter what decision Obama makes it will be wrong.

Today I am going on a photo roadtrip a couple hours north of Tampa. A little more of old Florida. Hope I find something good.

I need to go buy ne some good Octoberfest beer. Must look today.

My tummy aches.

Sorry for the weak post today.

Photo taken in Asheville, NC.