Month: August 2025

“Saturday, I go out to play”.

1947, T-Bone Walker wrote this lyric. My hearing of it is Eva Cassidy.

Today, this old carcass got out to the Cary Downtown Park to test drive some new gear. A monochrome only sensor (take that Bayer Filter!) and some colored filters traditionally used on B&W film. I was today, a novitiate.

Another gray hair did a presentation at Cary Photographic Artists and I hit that thing like a bass to a lure! Turns out, odd duck that I am, been using Pentax gear forever. So I already had the glass.

Weather turned from ugly to wonderful. So test drive today aka “play” with a monochrome only sensor and colored filters (it’s a physics / visible spectrum / traditional B&W film thing). Saturday, in the park. Click each for full size.

Old Man Fun – Part Trois!

After a few weeks of no Phone scammer calls, got a new one today from, you guessed it, a spoofed / unassigned DID number – this time in Georgia. So pick up call, put on speaker and blow quasi-duck call noise maker whose origin was previously described! Some poor boiler room soul answers and they get another blast! Then they hang up! Mission accomplished! Soon as this snuggle bunny / neighbors dog is off a trial diet, she’s getting serious goodies from Moi! Maybe even, another stuffed LampChop toy!

The Upside of Long Experience aka “Old Guy”

In my older apartment complex, it’s usually quiet except for the hellishly loud backpack leaf blowers of the weekly landscape crew and currently,the woeful wailing’s of a dog left alone in the apartment behind me. I have exhausted my frustration for the poor dog in e-Mails to the apartment complex management. It is neither life threatening or physically harmful – just aggravating. I would be willing to dog sit. But that’s not what this is about.

I thought about all the modern stuff I got rid of or never had: Social Media ( Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X, AI anything), Streaming anything, Apple anything, Amazon anything, Cable anything and Fast Food. Reading the news, I have NO idea why the Cracker Barrel logo matters at all! Was in one once, decades ago – meh.

Point is, all the noise is just that – meaningless noise, as in “It ain’t about nuthin” (a favorite, ungrammatical double negative and borderline malapropism).

My “TBR” (To Be Read”) stack of books is always handy and I’ve plenty of music CDS. WCPE FM is always entertaining and restorative. Legitimate, curated news is available by digital subscription with no ads.

So except for weekly leaf blowers and the occasional mournful dog, I’m noise free!

A Horse, Of Course!

Halfway through a new edit of four (ok, five) photography sessions for an ex co-worker & /friend from my corporate days. Roughly a year before my exit/nearly fired by mainland China Managers, I’d been self teaching photography after a 2007 incident in Paris where a skilled pick pocket “liberated” an already obsolete Sony P&S from my jacket, hung on the back of a bistro chair while I went to the loo. But that’s not what this is about.

May 2009

A trusting co-worker and horse owner bought into my photography enthusiasm! We set up a shoot session at the stable where she boarded her horse. It was my first introduction to:

A. The inexplicable bond between horses & women.

B. Discovering all Stable owners are crazy.

C. I had a LOT to learn about making photographs. A lot!

So with enthusiasm and naivete, we made some photographs. Which I was embarrassed by. So I asked for and got a d0-over. Looking at the photographs I made for her 3, 7 and 11 years later (different horses), I can see the difference made by the experience of a wearing out s bunch of camera bodies and maybe 6oo to 700 K clicks. How to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!

And Now For Something Completely Different!

There are two Baseball Movies that I think are worthy of your time – “Bull Durham” and “Major League”. Ok, yeah I was born in Cleveland. But today was Bob Uecker Day in Milwaukee – pretty sure he was in the “Front Row”.

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/uecker

Eureka!

When you realize your OXO Good Grips Garlic Press (❤️, ❤️, ❤️) could work with Shallots, too! (Okay, I swiped the image from the OXO site, lazy photographer & Saturday afternoon Happy Hour – but I did de-vein the Shrimp ).

Shrimps shells are getting happy in slow pan with water before liquor goes into base sauce of olive oil, good cheap white box wine, garlic, shallot and Meyer (what else) Lemon zest. Quick hit with Shrimp, than the rest of yesterdays Brown & White Rice made in homemade Shrimp stock goes in. Besides proper country French Bread, sliced vine ripe tomato in olive oil and just cut Basil from my upstairs neighbor’s ginormous Basil bush (I got a very kind “Thank You” note about the still warm Basil pasta I brought her after my first foray).

Glorious good weather with VERY comfortable Dew Point, Humidity and Temp – all windows & door open. I’m good!

Showtime!

Today, finished editing and posting (including a play I mis”played”) all the dress rehearsals of Cary Player production I photographed for Cary Citizen between 2011 and 2016! Online galleries are here, just click on the name: Cary Players Galleries.

And 2016 was, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!

Dress Rehearsal – Cary Arts Center – 28 November 2016

In Quiet and Peace

USS Andrew Jackson SSB(N) 619 – U.S. Navy Photo

Long ago, three addresses and two houses and one widower hood past, a summer visitation to Grandmas settled one evening to watch “Band of Brothers”. A grandson by marriage, left to his room while watching, finding it too violent. Which I thought was, “good on him”.

I cannot, not remember the scene where Dick Winters is portrayed on D+1, of 7 June 1944: “I would live this war one day at a time, and I promised myself that if I survived, I would find a small farm somewhere in the Pennsylvania countryside and spend the remainder of my life in quiet and peace.”

As an old man, I cherish my quiet and peace. And understand how much of modern noise is exactly that, just meaningless noise. I remarked today, to my very young neighbor and dog rescuer, that as much as her dog has learned to trust me, she still suffers from unimaginable treatment before her rescue as a puppy, from a Dumpster. Some scars are always felt.

Principals

Oct. of 2010 found me floundering, looking for a raison d’etre. Newly decoupled from an IT job at Lenovo nee IBM PC Company, south of Social Security and burnt from the inanity of self absorbed navel gazers who professed omnipotence, my tank was empty. Which properly worried my sweetheart about how we were going to get along.

So trying to find my bearings . I got a legit press pass from “Cary Citizen” and went to photograph “Celebration of The Children In the Arts”. Which was, unknown to me, a gateway spiritual drug. I found my artistic North Star!

100% naive of Ballet, Deanna Seay (who’d I had no idea had just retired as Principal Soloist at Miami City Ballet or had any idea of what that meant) was very kind and supportive and invited me to just come and watch classes.

And I remember thinking “This is hard – really hard – way harder than than Football or Basketball!” And I got to meet and photograph Principals who were very kind to my endeavors

Deanna Seay Master Class – February 2011

Maria Chapman Kennedy with Mimi Staker – August 2012

Elizabeth Gaither & Class – July 2014

The Upside of Age 75

No, this old carcass can’t do what it used to do. Just like the stuff I couldn’t do as a child, before adolescence, teens and adult ages. So we are, I think, on a journey, whether we wish to or not!

3D Jazz Project at Cary Ballet Conservatory – Cary Arts Center, April 2013

There is, in my widower dotage, a blessed quietude and relief from worry. I shopped today for what I had on my list, knowing the budget was okay.

I am blessedly relieved from the incessant noise of oxymoronically “Social Media”. I have no concern or involvement with Door Dash, FaceBook, Uber, TikTok, Amazon Drone Delivery or the really oxymoronically named “Artificial Intelligence”.

I did grow up with and make a living with and from digital technology and yeah, hook up an inference engine to a knowledge data base -you’re still left with what you already know, ya’ know? Just convenient- like a calculator.

So this blessed relief, to borrow a Thomas Hardy title, of being “Far From The Madding Crowd”, is my luxury. I’m good with that.

The Curmudgeon “Emeril”!

Just turned off my Magic Microwave/Air Fryer/Broiler/Convection Oven at 400F with Skin On, Bone In Chicken Thighs. They got trimmed and tossed with Olive Oil, Old Bay and Dry Vermouth beforehand.

Turned off my 400F oven with a sheet pan of sliced peach tossed with Olive Oil, Kosher Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper and Dry Vermouth.

Rice Cooker on Warm with half White, half Brown Rice in homemade veggie stock.

Which explains why my young neighbor, fellow cook and provider of Canine Therapy teasingly calls me “Emeril”!

Today started at La Farm Bakery for honest French Country Bread, then Capri Flavors for grated Parmesan, then Total Wine for essentials, then the Raleigh Farmers Market for Nahunta Pork (Ribs, Chops, Butt Roast and Ham Hock), then a vendor stand for big ole field ripe tomatoes and fresh shelled Butter Beans – just take me now Lord! And finally, Harris Teeter for Dry Vermouth (recipe) and a Brown Rice California Roll- needed a late lunch.

Yeah, I cook. Ain’t eating that stuff in the middle of the store. Or drive through anything. Curmudgeon!

When Inmates Run The Asylum

This 75 year old guy really wants his 2025 Covid & Flu Shots, like last year!

Nah, Mad King Donald’s – Mad King Robert knows WAY more than all those pesky Doctors & Phd’s. He is, very, very, Special!

Kennedy said in the Tuesday statement that he wants the health department to move away from mRNA vaccines, calling on the department to start “investing in better solutions.” He provided no details on what those technologies might be.

https://fox8.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-rfk-jr-pulls-500-million-in-funding-for-vaccine-development/

Sea Story -And This Is No Sh*T!

It is nearly an obligation to relate the experience of the previous generation to the latest. Which explains my relating the experience of a then, very young Submariner to my young neighbor last afternoon. I told her about “Kiddie Cruises” aka Annapolis Midshipmen ordered to the USN Fleet, in summer.

USS Andrew Jackson SSB(N) 619 – U.S. Navy Photo

I was crew aboard a Lafayette Class Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine. We operated from a tender in Rota, Spain.

Weapons Gang is also Deck Gang so I was top side when a Midshipman (not lying, blonde good looking boy) crossed the brow and announced to the Chief Steward, Senior Chief Petty Officer Willie Jackson (who NOBODY messed with and whose shoulders blotted out the Sun) his bags were on the Pier. Chief Jackson rolled his eyes while our XO, LCDR Russell took his cigar out of his mouth and explained to the Midshipman how much time he would be allowed to retrieve his bags and report to the Wardroom where the errors of his ways would be explained, in plain language.

Submarines are a meritocracy and nobody cares about your rank. And no one aboard was going to sign that Child’s Qual Card.