Category: Travels With Jane

Legacy I/T, Art & Optimism

Residual to my IBM PC Company/Lenovo 11 or so years as an I/T Architect (hired as an “Experienced Professional” sans Degree), I still have a Google Voice DiD Telephone Number and IMAP e-mail accounts that I access via “Thunderbird”.

The Google Voice number became my “Brooke Meyer Photography” business number with a PolyCom handset on my desk attached to an Ethernet Switch attached to my router. Also, setup for “distinct ring” as a second line on home phone OOMA network. And of course, support went away for the Polycom. As did Google’s forwarding of SMS texts to another DiD. But that’s not what this is about.

Musée d’Orsay 2016

Google did preserve the forwarding of Voice Call Notification and Text Messages to my Gmail account! I detest “SmartPhone” itty-bitty screens and soft key boards (Ancient Flatulent aka Old Fart). My daily driver is a lightweight, $149 Chromebook with 15″ screen, full keyboard and all day battery life, I get SMS Texts to my e-Mail. And can respond, from the Gmail app! Tres convenient!

Text today from my recently moved adoptive granddaughter/dog rescuer/soprano/teacher/recipe sharer who is visiting NYC this week. From MoMA. A photograph made with her, what else, phone. And I responded with my version from Paris in 2016 and explained the Degas wax original is in the National Gallery of Art in D.C.. The young lady visiting New York renews my hope in humanity.

Artistic Gravity

Started a book a year ago. And then, procrastinated. Today, the literary dam finally broke and I was submerged in the torrents of “Atticus”, “Bookwright”, DocX and PDFs. Too hot to go outside, so format and write, I will. “Maybe”, as Shirley Horn sang, “September”.

Waterfall, Bute Inlet B.C. – Aboard M.V. Aurora Explorer – 3 Sept 2009

103 in Paris! Mon Dieu!

Shocked by the news today! My memory of Paris in mid September through October is wonderful! Open the windows! And the beginning of the Paris Opera Season! Ballet! This is from our 4th floor apt. (they start at 0 which explained the 52, 300 year old oak steps) on Rue Ferdinand Duval in the Marais.

Seeing the news today, while in the comfort of my apt., in Caroline du Nord, where air conditioning is a given and rare in Paris – how awful with no relief for Le Parisien. Tar Heels know! We’d be nude! Okay, maybe that would work 😉

View from our apartment window

Travels With Jane #10

The Blackball Car Ferry from Victoria Harbor, B.C. to Port Angeles, Washington lands you close to this National Park – which my Boss Lady knew about and I had no idea. She guided me in Seattle & Hawaii. Yes, back in 2009, at sea!

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park, Washington -16 May 2008

Jane Smarter Than Tarzan

Reading this today, I was surprised that young men could be so stupid. Ok, not really surprised, I’m an old man: Women Home Buyers & Men Dating.

Long ago, a 21 year marriage blew up and I lucked out, finding a woman who’d made a similar poor decision. We shared her apartment until we decided we could afford a house. I presented a stack of cancelled checks, my half of rent & utilities, written to my late Sweetheart, to the Mortgage Loan Officer handling our application, as proof of her income. I was “Miscellaneous Income, Other”. It made the numbers work for the bank and we became homeowners – unmarried and living in Sin. We did Marry and I bought the next house with a VA Loan Guarantee and my first pay stub from my new job at the IBM PC Company. The proceeds from selling our first house together improved the lives of a combined five children plus some grand kids.

Marché Bastille, Paris

She was way better with budget than me. I was good for fixing stuff, gutting & renovating kitchens and lifting heavy stuff. The Italian Julia Child , spoiled me rotten. And we both thrived in Paris. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien. It’s okay to have a Boss Lady. Tarzan knew!

Travels With Jane #9 – Pac West

Made this photograph in September of 2009, on the back end of a wonderful voyage aboard the Aurora Explorer. The car ferry from Victoria to Seattle, via the Strait of Juan de Fuca, allowed me to be topside, something ex-Submariners find, astonishing. Saw this on the stern quarter. Big Boat – 560 ft vs the 425 ft Lafayette Class Polaris Boomer I was aboard. They’re sailing for a “Nuclear Strategic Deterrent Patrol” aka “Making a hole in the water for a few months”. In 2026, they’re still on Patrol.

Ohio Class Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine with USCG Escorts, outbound.

Travels With Jane #8 – Marais, Paris

This is wildly ahead of the chronology of my Post Plan but:

A mid-April, windows open, 90 degree Saturday in North Carolina, with good Hefeweizen from Bavaria & Bourbon from Kentucky, listening to Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time”. Deciding on the last prints I’ll order for my home gallery and an exhibit plan I’ll submit in mid summer. But that’s not what this is about.

Made this photograph on another Saturday, in Sept of 2016. Print arrived last week. I’ll frame tomorrow. That September afternoon, after wandering about Le Marais near our apt., we lounged a few hours at the cafe on the right. Shared a meal with my late sweetheart. It was, the very best of times.

Place Ste. Catherine

Like a lot of others, we’d both made poor marital decisions, had child custody battles, witnessed the deaths of parents and got corporate downsized. And we struggled through two years of Stage 4 Cancer consequences. Yet, we’d found each other – “In the Nick of Time”. Arriving home in North Carolina, we decided the kitchen renovation could wait a year and revisited Paris, the next September. Which included the 5oth Anniversary Performance of Balanchine’s “Jewels” in a good box at the Palais Garnier, aka the Paris Opera House. Which the Paris Opera has announced for it’s next Season. I won’t attend because my love, to paraphrase Etta Jones, won’t be there.

Travels With Jane #7 – Vancouver BC

Mid May 2008, an airport rental car got us from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I made my photography transition to Raw Image File format. My complete kit kit was a Pentax K10 DSLR and a Tamron 28-75 f2.8 lens.

Most Camera brands have a proprietary Raw file format: Pentax “PEF”, Nikon “NEF”, Canon “CR2”, etc.. Each require software specific to the Make & Model of camera. My Pentax camera also offered DNG aka Digital Negatives, an open standard, originally published by Adobe and which they tried to give away to a standards body. It was supported by the free software I had on my laptop, Google’s “Picasa”. So the day after leaving Seattle, I switched to DNGs and have used them exclusively ever since. It’s like cooking from scratch vs a TV Dinner.

My Sweetheart and Boss Lady showed me Vancouver, a place she knew. A Taxi took us to the wonderful Vancouver Aquarium at Stanley Park. Next day, a car ferry took us to Nanimao on Vancouver Island

Click images for full size.

Downtown Vancouver, B.C.
Grid
Stellar Sea Lion
Crabby
Moon Jellies
Car Ferry to Naniamo
Strait of Georgia

Travels With Jane #6 – Seattle

2008 was a busy travel year. Tokyo in Feb., UK in Mar. and Seattle in May, to visit old friends of my Sweetheart & Boss Lady. I’d been commuting for business to Beijing and had a LOT of Air Miles, so RDU to SeaTac, in First, was a freebie. It was a place she wanted to show me.

Before our trip was completed, I changed my camera to record RAW images vs the JPEG default setting. These were the last JPEGs I ever captured. It was one more step on learning to take control of my work

Click images for full size.

Travels With Jane #3 – Tokyo

A few months after returning “camera less” from Paris, I added a newly purchased DSLR to my laptop bag for a business trip to Japan. I’d bought a Pentax K10D and a Tamron 28-75mm, 2.8 Lens. I still have and use the lens. Still use Pentax bodies but I’ve proved the axiom “you date your cameras but marry your lenses”. It’s been on been on 12 or 13 DSLR bodies. Even replaced the rubber zoom and focus sleeves that I wore through.

Tokyo Tower, Feb 2008

I’d read the camera manual front to back but was still using “Picasa” and shooting JPEGs. That didn’t last long – within a year, I had a calibrated monitor, Wacom Digitizer Tablet, Photoshop and had switched the camera to DNG’s aka Raw. It was Step One of of my photography journey.

And before my flight left from Narita, my work Boss Lady told me we were okayed for travel to Scotland. So about 12 or 14 hours later, between flights at O’Hare in Chicago, I called my real Boss Lady and asked her if she would like to go to Scotland. And she said yes!

Travels With Jane #2 – Paris

Our first non-business trip to Paris, made with a 3.2 MP Sony Cyber shot. The camera was obsolete but what I had. Days later, a skilled Paris pickpocket “liberated” it from my jacket, hung on a chair back while I went to the loo in a Bistro. Which post travel, triggered my justification to buy a replacement and the discovery that was the basis of my post-corporate photography career.

I owe him. Also proved the wisdom of daily downloads from camera to storage. He did get my Metro Sign photo. Bless his heart!

Tour Eiffel, Paris 2007

Travels With Jane -#1

Woke to a Carolina “Window & Screen Open” March Day – 76 & sunshine!! Dreams had brought vivid memory of my late sweetheart. Later, post caffeine and fully conscious, I thought about the question I hear when I tell folks I’ve retired – “Are you traveling”? Nope, already did that! A lot! Some for business, some for us. Some for both. While we could.

My Boss Lady & Sweet Heart – Bastille Market, Paris 2016