I made as joke to a young neighbor “Monday, I’ll swallow a Live Toad and do laundry”. Which I did today! It is a riff on a story my father told. My paternal Grandfather was a Locomotive Engineer. He drove a big, coal fired, steam locomotive. Mondays, laundry day, my grandmother would go into a basement, tie a sweat rag around her head and fire up gas burners under a big tub to boil his coal soot covered overalls.
My Dad said on Mondays, NOBODY messed with my Grandmother.
I’m way past ready for Autumn. Ready to pack & leave Camp Crazy Town!
Yay! Mission Accomplished! All those ships & troops can come home now!
A video shared on X on Wednesday by photographer Joe Flood captured workers pulling up “chunks” of loose blue sealant as they power washed the basin of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
7 April: Pool draining begins. “The president said the job of cleaning and waterproofing the pool with a new color he had chosen, called “American flag blue”, would cost $US 1.8 million and be done in a week. (ABC News)
23 April: “It’s going to last many, many years and it’s going to have no leaks, going to have no problems, going to be clean and beautiful,” he told reporters at a press conference at the pool. (ABC News)
2 July 2026: “U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro claimed that Hearn was seen “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands.”
31 July 2026: Justice Department moves to drop case against ex-Olympian charged with damaging Reflecting Pool – ” Documents provided by the Interior Department …show that the damage was the result of a botched installation by a contractor as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”
10 September: Re-open! A mere 5 months! Great Job!
I wonder who was President a decade ago? He’s to blame!
Me, after 3 full afternoons of self teaching open source software LibreOffice (Open Office support stopped years ago) and Scribus. I’m too cheap to use MS Word or InDesign and I don’t want to be locked into Blurb. I’ve no need for Ingram Sparks. No more LLC, Biz Bank account, Sales or Income Tax Returns – ain’t looking for money or Barnes & Nobles sales. And want nothing to do with anything even remotely related to Jeff Bezos. So maybe a few family gifts and a vanity ISBN number or two!
No day of the next 7 has a “9” as the left most temperature digit! Cooling rain on the way tonight! First open screen afternoon in six weeks!
Raleigh 7 Day Forecast
Refraining from “colorful” Submariner epithets: “Trump’s name slated to replace Black war hero on aircraft carrier“
“The Navy is weighing whether to put President Donald Trump’s name on an aircraft carrier currently named after Doris Miller. CNN reported the possible switch on Thursday, noting that the Navy has effectively stopped internally referring to the ship as the USS Doris Miller. The effort to rename the USS Doris Miller has been underway since earlier this year, an anonymous source told CNN.
“Who could possibly be surprised that Donald Trump thinks that he’s more befitting an honor like this than a World War II and American war hero?” Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) said during a CNN interview on Thursday. “Doris Miller, this is a man. Donald Trump is a five-time draft dodger. He’s called veterans suckers and losers. He refused to go to an American military cemetery in Europe because it was raining.”
On a positive note, if, as Trump as ordered, the ships design is changed to WWII era “Steam Catapults”, the hull redesign, lack of their manufacturing availability and cost overruns means: A. It’ll never happen & B. Ole DJT will have been long moldering!
Me, discovering that to write and publish some books I have in mind, stuff I may need to learn: Atticus, BookWright, LibreOffice. Maybe InDesign!
Working on a book today, having time to think about and savor the good fortune I had and my very favorite folks to work with as a photographer.
Click images for full size
Halfway done reading reading “George Hurrells Hollywood” by Mark Viera. My lighting epiphany from “The Muse” led me to the work of George Hurrell. And within a year, I had found Mole-Richardson Tungsten Fresnel Lights on eBay. Made this in August of 2014.
Senior Portrait Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – August 2014
Studio Setup Below
A rare Roku streaming evening from PBS tonight, watched a 40 year old documentary, benefit of my modest monthly contribution. And I thought about my maternal Grand Parents who saw her on their way to Ellis Island. And it triggered thoughts of the sonnet by Emma Lazurus inscribed in it’s New York harbor pedestal:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I wish it were still so. And am ashamed of our nations current immigration policy. My hunch is, our nation will course correct next November. We are still free to do so. Liberty.
1/16th scale version by Auguste Bartholdi at Musée d’Orsay- Sept 2016
She showed up today, to shake me out of my summer ennui. Finished a project I started last Spring, for a Dancer I’ve photographed and admired for a decade. And she helped me anew, re-start the draft of a book (s). And hiding out in the A/C from this ugly summer heat and humidity, even motivated me to get back to my Rowing Machine. Back in the groove!
Getting ready to be, in my mind, old. And relieved. My plan for time left.
Photograph For Cary Citizen – 2018 “Lazy Daze”
The second of three DVD’s that arrived by USPS this week. All from GoodwillBooks.com. As Gust Avrakotos of the CIA said, “We’ll see”.
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