I Got My Film Scanner Working Again...

When I retired, I bought a really nice Nikon 35mm film scanner.  I wanted to be able to scan some of my old 35mm negatives if I wanted to make prints or to post them on the web.  I didn't use the scanner all that much - most of my energy was put into making new photographs.  I would scan some images every now and then, but then with all the Mac OS updates, the Nikon software stopped working.  So I used an older computer and got the scanner working again.  Then that laptop died!  Oh man.  So no more scanning...  The other day it occurred to me to try some amazing software that was designed to work with any scanner, and it worked with my Nikon Scanner!  So I found a folder of random negatives that said "important."  I couldn't believe it when I saw what was in the folder.  There were negatives that I thought I had lost forever.  I was really surprised to find this one.  The story is that I was driving down the Long Island Expressway and got a call on the company radio that there had been a shooting at a motel, which was about 5 minutes away.  So I was the first one to arrive on the scene!  I got here before the police and before the body was covered.  Yikes.  It turns out that this was a mob hit.  This guy was running from the mob because he owed someone a lot of money.  Two guys were waiting for him when he left the motel, and that was it!  This was my least favorite assignment.  Man oh man.  Oh, and since the paper never runs photographs of bodies, the photo never ran.

Landscape in a Rear View Mirror

I was doing our Sunday night ritual after a pasta, which is going to McDonalds for an ice cream cone.  As I went over the top of a hill, I happened to glance in the rearview mirror and saw this view of the sunset.  I kept on driving and then thought "Don't be stupid, go around the block and shoot the picture!"  So I did just that, and then stopped the car to shoot this.  I am not sure what it means, other than it is a different way of looking at the landscape.

 

...The Well Dressed Airline Passenger

Tomorrow morning I take Kathy to JFK for her flight to Los Angeles.  She is really anxious to see Amy and Liz and of course Vivian, our granddaughter!  So she is taking precautions.  She talked to our friend Nancy, and Nancy's daughter Sarah flew to Bermuda a few weeks ago, and this is what she wore at the airport and on her flights - an N95 mask, and a face shield.  So Nancy gave the face shield to Kathy for her trip.  I am apprehensive a bit about Kathy traveling by air, but I think it will be OK.  She can't WAIT to see Vivian!

 

I Think There is a Cat in This Picture Somewhere

The cats are fascinating how they decide to rest.  Us humans, we just lie on a bed, mostly stretched out, I think.  These guys can curl up eight different ways or stretch out, sometimes rightside up, sometimes upside down.  I am endlessly fascinated with what they do to themselves, and somehow end up comfortable, and able to sleep.  With the black and white markings on Grace it is hard to know where one part of the cat starts, and where it ends.

 

This is Surreal

I can't believe this photograph!  I took my infrared camera out and walked over to the side garden, just to see what I could see.  The thing is, with the infrared camera, you never know how things will look.  I was stunned when I saw this image on the back of the camera after I took the first picture!  As a reminder, the infrared camera sees only infrared light and plants with chlorophyl reflect a lot of that light.  So it turns out that everything in the garden reflects IR light, and so everything is white in this picture.  the brightest white is a patch of sunlight shining on the ivy.  There was no way that I could imagine this photograph when I snapped the shutter!  Please click on this image to see it in a larger size.

 

I Am Thankful

I am thankful for my ability to find photographs easily, most days.  Today I went out into the side yard late in the day, after my bike ride, with my camera.  I was a bit desperate because it was late and I hadn't taken a photograph today.  There are these really small ferns that started growing under the Japanese maple tree and I though I would see what I could find there.  The late afternoon sun was shining through some trees and just illuminating a couple of ferns.  After about 10 minutes, just this one fern had the full light of the sun on it and the others were in shadow.  There's my photo!

 

No Dunkin' Donuts - Week 24

A lovely day at the beach today.  It was a not to hot, and there was a pretty good breeze out of the west the whole time we were there, so it was so nice to sit in a breeze and have coffee and a donut.  I was looking around for photographs which are harder to find on the beach lately.  With the heat most people are staying home.  I did see these two groups of people with their umbrellas, so walked down to the water to change my point of view.  And this giant floating marine crane, made a perfect background I thought, because it was incongruous.  I checked Google maps, and the crane is almost half a mile away - I was using a 400mm lens and long focal length lenses compress objects in the photograph. This crane, by the way is a monster, and they have photographs posted on the fence where it is kept, and it can lift an entire barge or boat out of the water!

 

Algal Bloom

I drove by Scudders Pond the other day, and was stunned to see the entire pond covered with algae.  My first reaction was that it was beautiful, with all the abstract patterns that the algae made on the top of the water.  So I got out my camera and spent perhaps 15 minutes looking for different photographs of the scene.  I like this one the best.  What a strange but beautiful landscape!  Some algal blooms are the result of an excess of nutrients, particularly phosphorus and nitrogen into waters and higher concentrations of these nutrients in water cause increased growth of algae and green plants. Additionally a combination of environmental factors including  temperature, sunlight, river flow and water storage levels and the water chemistry are all factors. But I would bet money that it has a lot to do with the high temperatures we have been having for weeks on end.  So get this, the next day I drove by and there was no sign of the algae.  I think the wind had blown it all down to one end of the pond. 

Consequences of Covid

We were driving away from McDonalds with our ice cream cones, and while stopped at a red light I noticed this store.  I have photographed it before, because in the past it sometimes put mannequin displays out front on the sidewalk with brightly colored leggings.  That photograph was Saturday, May 12, 2017.  If you use the search function in the upper left corner and put in "Body Parts" you can find the sunny photograph of the store when it was open.  Now the store is closed, the result of the pandemic, which is a shame.  The store was small and appealed to young women, based on the clothing that I saw.  I hate the idea that a small store like this which maybe supported one or two people is gone.

A Beautiful Garden

Back in June I posted a photograph of this garden from a different angle, with a motorcycle in the foreground, because I loved the contrast between the machine and the garden.  Well, a few weeks ago I was backing the car out of the driveway and I saw this view through the car window.  It was such a beautiful view of Tina's garden that I stopped the car to photograph this.  I took this photograph on June 30, so it doesn't look as good at this now, after the drought.

 

Two Windows, Two Cats

The cats are very particular about where they sit.  It is really rare to see them both in the windows at the same time.  This is Grace's window, where she is sitting, and she spends a lot of time there, especially in the heat.  Something outdoors attracted them both to the open windows at the same time, and for a while they were both looking out.  Then they became aware of me, and I had my camera by then, and this is the result!

'E's dead. No, no, 'e's uh...he's resting.

These cats are endlessly fascinating and always interesting.  I came into the dining room and saw Sam like this on the floor.  He wasn't stretching or anything, just lying there like this.  I managed to snap 2 or 3 shots and then suddenly he rolled over and scampered away.  Whew, I managed to get the shot!  The title is funny, and I wonder how many of you recognize the quote?  It's from Monty Python's "The Dead Parrot Sketch."  Who figured this out?

 

Cumulus

On my bike ride yesterday as I passed the golf course, which I have photographed before, I saw these cumulus clouds over the green grass of the course.  I kept riding for maybe 30 feet before I stopped and turned around.  The brief view of the beautiful cumulus clouds was what did it.  I realize that looking at these clouds in a beautiful blue sky lifts my spirits.  Clouds can do that. 

 

No Dunkin' Donuts - Week 23

Another wonderful day at the beach with coffee, tea and donuts!  It was cooler today and there was a nice breeze, so it was comfortable.  There were maybe a dozen people at the beach this week, as opposed to two last week.  While sitting at the table, I could see this fisherman at work, casting his line into the harbor.  I like this shot because of the colors - the red shirt against the blue water and sky.  AND - it's an ACTION shot!   :-)

 

A Beautiful Sky

We were about to sit down to dinner, and Kathy said "Look at the light outside, it is yellow."  So I grabbed my toy camera and went out to the side yard and looked up.  There was late afternoon sunlight on some lower clouds, seen against high clouds and a blue sky.  It was just beautiful, and I wanted to share it with you.

 

Mercenaria mercenaria

I haven't had clams on the half-shell in I don't know how long.  I think I have a nagging worry about "what if there is something wrong with the clams?"   I know they can carry things in them that can be harmful to us.  So what I usually do with hard clams is bring them home and steam them, in hopes the steaming will make the clams safe.  But for some reason the other day, I really wanted them on the half-shell, so I bought a dozen of them at the store.  The store has a good reputation for shellfish and seafood, so I felt comfortable eating them.  Man oh man were they delicious!  I love the taste of salt water you get along with the clams.  I was able to find my clam knife (and my oyster knife) and I decided to eat them as they came out of the shell without putting any cocktail sauce on them.  Yum!

This is what they look like when they are opened.  The photograph on the bottom shows the leftovers in the sink after my lunch was done!  Oh "Mercenaria mercenaria?" That is the Latin name for hard clams.  How would I know that?  Because when I was in High School, I worked for the Milford Laboratory,  a U. S  Government marine biological lab in Milford that was doing research on shellfish, and I did photographs and movies of the research.  I made graphs for the research papers, and I used a mechanical lettering set to write "Mercenaris mercenaria" about a million times!  So get this, I went to check on "Mercenaria mercenaria" and found this:  The term "red tide" refers to an accumulation of a toxin, such as saxitoxin, produced by marine algae.  Filter-feeding shellfish are affected, such as clams, oysters, and mussels. The toxin affects the human central nervous system. Eating contaminated shellfish, raw or cooked, can be fatal.  Yikes!  "...raw or cooked!"  I may be done eating raw clams!

 

One Feather and the Miracle of Flight

I found this feather lying in the driveway.  It's a small feather, only about 3 inches long.  As I looked it I realized that it is a beautiful thing, and then I started thinking about what a miracle of engineering it is - how light and yet how strong.  And to think that this is only one out of a multitude of feathers that each bird uses to fly.  And what a miracle flight is!  And then I wondered how many feathers a bird DOES have.  So I looked it up.  The number of feathers on a bird varies according to the species, its age, and the season. Most small songbirds have between 1,500 and 3,000 feathers on their bodies. A swan, however, might have as many as 25,000 feathers. A bird of prey, such as the eagle, would have between 5,000 and 8,000 feathers. 

 

Repairing the Electric Lines

You may remember my photograph of the road along my bike route, blocked by the fallen tree last Saturday.  What I had not noticed was that when the tree came down, it also broke the power pole and took it down as well.  So about three days ago, on my ride, I turned into the street and it was clear!  The tree was gone and the power lines had been repaired and attached to a new pole.  Here's the funny thing - The main electric wire that was down was a 4,000 volt line that is on an insulator on the very top of the power pole, and a ground wire that is about 3 feet below it.  So the electric repair crew has put the power lines back on top of the pole.  However, also on the pole are the telephone lines, and any fiber optic lines or coax lines used for internet.  So the electric crew took care of THEIR lines, but what they did was cut the fallen pole in pieces, and then took the portion of the old pole, and tied it to the new pole, AT GROUND LEVEL!  So it will be up to a telephone repair crew to come and lift all these lines back up to the correct hight on the new pole - these telephone lines are usually 10 feet below the high-voltage line.  I mean that is only fair, but still it is funny to see these telephone lines down so low.

Here is the machine that pulled the tree stump out of the ground and has it in it's "jaws."

This is a more detailed photo of the remains of the old pole with its lines attached.

And this is my "Wait!  What?" photo.  These are the telephone lines and probably a FIOS internet cable underneath.  but look at how low it is right above the driveway of this house!  Maybe it is going uphill just enough to get a car under it on the right hand side, out of the picture.  I don't think the electric repair crew did this family any favors leaving these wires down so low!

Heavy Rain

We had some heavy rain today which was good because it has been so dry for so long.  Everything got a good watering.  I happened to go out on the front porch to watch the rain, and I saw this scene.  All the colors of the bush and the scene were more pastel because of all the rain coming down.  If you click on the photograph to enlarge it, you can see the detail in the rain. 

The Last of the Repairs, We Hope...

I thought that all our neighborhood had power.  How wrong I was.  On my way back from my bike ride I saw these crews from Texas setting up trucks on a smaller street down the block.  One of the workers said a number of houses at the end of the street had not had power for a week!  Yikes!  The politicians and residents all over Long Island are furious with the power company for how long it has taken to restore power.  The power company arranged for 1600 crews from out of state to be in place before the storm hit.  They had tried to get 2500 crews.  Crews have been arriving every day from all over the country.  They are saying that the number of power outages were way more than first estimated.  So maybe the power company has been doing a good job.  The thing that they are guilty of is having a phone and texting reporting system that completely collapsed under the onslaught of calls.  One story in the paper mentioned a man who tried to call in because a broken 4000 volt line was down in his back yard, and was setting fire to the grass.  The fire department came and said they couldn't do a thing because the line was still live, but even the firemen couldn't call the power company!  Man, that is messed up!  Supposedly, all the repairs were supposed to be finished by Wednesday night.

No Dunkin' Donuts - Week 22

Twenty-Two weeks of sheltering in place.  Twenty-Two weeks of having Dunkin' Donuts at the beach!  Something new every week.  This week it was an empty beach, for the most part.  It was over 80 degrees at 10 AM when we arrived with our donuts and coffee and tea.  I understand people not wanting to sun themselves when it is sunny and 80 degrees out.  I think there were a couple of people sitting in chairs down by the water, but other than that, we owned the place, sitting at "our" picnic bench...   :-)

Trying to Grab The Planets

Lets be honest here, these are TERRIBLE photographs of the planets!  I went out and set up one of my telescopes, a 106mm refractor on an equatorial mount which will track objects in the sky.  Then I made my first attempt to get a photograph of both Jupiter, above, and Saturn, below.  It was very frustrating, operating the telescope and all the extra equipment - the special astronomy camera, and a laptop and the new software.  What I really wanted to do, and was successful at, was that I wanted short movies, perhaps a minute long of each planet, so beginners could see how much planets "bounce around" from the turbulence in the atmosphere.  And I got that, but then I tried to extract some still photographs from the video, and this is the result. Some members of our club are experts in taking those videos, and then "stacking" the best images to make one still photograph, and those images almost look like they were from the Hubble Space Telescope.  There is no risk you will fine excellent photographs like that here!

 

Florescent Light Store?

Look!  An empty florescent light store!  See all the tubes on display on the walls?  Well, not really...  It is in fact a Sprint store which sells cell phones.  It used to be a Radio Shack store for years and years and I bought so many electronic parts for projects over the years.  Radio Shack went under and Sprint bought some of their stores, and turned them in to boring cell phone stores.  So what's going on?  Well, T-Mobile has just bought Sprint, so they are cleaning out their stores and making them T-Mobil stores.  The florescent tubes are "light boxes" to hold large color transparencies displaying phones.  When they want to change a picture, they take down the old transparency, and put up a new one!  What boggles my mind is that it was night, the store was closed, and yet they have all these freaking florescent tubes lit up - for what?  For nothing.  I will have to come back some night (this store is right next to a MacDonalds where we get our ice cream cones, so I WILL be back) and I will take another photograph to show you the beautiful color displays when they put them up.

Obstacles

My bike ride has gotten a bit more interesting since the hurricane passed through.  There are trees down everywhere, most of which have been moved to the side of the road, or which stick out blocking one lane and that's no problem at all.  But this, now this was a problem!  I was determined to continue on my normal route though.  So I went over by the power pole to the left, and walked over the curb on to the grass that you can see, and found a way around the uprooted tree roots.  There were no wires over on that side, so that made it easier.  This is what the roots looked like.  I was surprised about how thin the roots were.  It also looked like the soil is very sandy, which would not be unusual for Long Island.  It is surprising how these thin roots could hold up this tree.  Wait!  They didn't!  It is hard to tell how high the roots and the earth are, but they were over my head!  I continued to the left around the roots, and into someone's driveway, and then back out to the street, and I was on my way!

 

"Bebe" - April 2000 - August 2020

This is our oldest cat "Bebe," who is 20 years old.  She has a sister who was called "Sweet Pea."  Sweet Pea died about five years ago.  Yesterday we had to take Bebe to the vet to be euthanized.  She has been getting weaker and thinner, but she is a trooper and has been hanging in there for a long time now.  But she started bleeding yesterday afternoon on the floor and the rugs, and we realized that her time had come.  It is SO difficult to have to say goodbye to a pet we have loved for so long.  Bebe was such a warm and friendly cat and loved to curl up with us, or lie on us. 

 

 What is funny is that when we got our two newer cats, Grace and Sam, they immediately recognized her as the boss of the house!  They always deferred to her, especially at the food bowls!  So many times we would see Grace, the black and white cat, curled up next to Bebe, and she would be grooming her by licking her.  It was a wonderful thing to see.  It was always amazing to see that Sam, who is a big cat and walks round as if he owns the place, yield to her as they passed each other on the stairs.  

And here is BeBe in her favorite place!

When we brought Bebe's body home from the vets, she was wrapped in an old towel, and we carried her home in this special box, brightly decorated with cute cats.  We opened the top of the box in the living room and both Grace and Sam came over to the open box and sniffed around,  and Grace put her paws on the open box and looked in and sniffed.  Our sense was that both cats realized that Bebe had died.  After dinner we put the box by the back door, so that in the morning I could take her out and bury her.  Imagine our surprise when we looked into the back room some time later and saw Grace just sitting next to Bebe in the box.  We were really touched...

 

No Dunkin' Donuts - Week 21

This post should have been done on Tuesday, which was our Dunkin' Donuts Day, but we had more exciting information to tell you about our new granddaughter!  Even if the hurricane was forecast to arrive at mid day, we decided to have our coffee and donuts at the beach.  It was not raining when we arrived, so we thought we would sit at "our" picnic table, but as we got out of the car the rain started.  So we enjoyed our breakfast while watching the rain come.  I thought I would do an impressionistic photograph because it gives a good feeling for being at the beach in the rain.  After we drove home, the rain paused a bit and we were able to get into the house without getting soaked.  Who goes to the beach when a hurricane is coming and doesn't bring an umbrella?

What Hurricanes Do

I stayed indoors during most of the hurricane yesterday.  At some points the wind was howling.  I think we had some 65 MPH gusts.  The lights flickered a few times and then went out.  So when things calmed down just a bit, I went out for a drive to see if I could figure out where the power line was down.  There were lines down everywhere!  I ended up driving down by Sea Cliff Beach, at the bottom of the cliff where I could see all the boats moored by the Yacht club.  The boats all looked OK, except this one.  OK some technical stuff here - this is a "double headsail rig" but I don't know the name of the jib in front - the one that has been partially shredded. That sail is wrapped around it's support when not in use - that is called "roller reefing."  What was not anticipated by the owner was that the strength of the wind was so great, that it managed to unroll the sail a bit, and then it flapped in the high winds, and was shredded - pieces of the sail ripped off and are caught, like rags, on the mast. Love that this is such a beautiful boat, and white, and that the background is dark gray because the sun was shining on the yacht.  This new sail will cost the owner a few bucks!  But, hey, it has been said that "a boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money."

Mother and Daughter!

Just look at this smile from Amy!  She gave birth to a healthy baby girl last night, named "Vivian" and we are over the moon!  It was a long haul - Amy and Gus went to the hospital yesterday, in Los Angeles at 11 AM and Vivian was not born until 9 PM!  Yikes!  She was exhausted, needless to say.  This beautiful baby weighed 7 lbs 11 ozs.  We are so grateful, because this has been such a long journey for Amy and Gus - probably 12 years all together.

Amy sent this photograph just a couple of hours ago and it is fun to see Vivian in a full face portrait.

When Desperate...

When desperate for a photograph, I head for the nearest garden!  We can see these Black-eyed Susans from our dining room table, and it is a joy to see this brilliant flash of yellow from so far away.  So I headed over to the garden because I needed a beautiful photograph to post for you all.  This is the result and I hope it brings you joy!

The Eye

I was stopped at a red light behind this tanker truck full of gasoline.  It had filled up down at the terminal at the harbor, where fuel comes in by barge.  I have seen these trucks over the years, and have been familiar with the eye inside the triangle.  The eye is there because the first name of the transportation company is "Island."  But I got curious about the significance of an eye in a triangle.  It is called "The Eye of Providence," or "the all-seeing eye of God."  It is used in various religions and other institutions whereby the eye of God watches over humanity.  It is also one of the symbols of the Masons, and it is the symbol of His Divine watchfulness and His ever present care of the universe.  It is also on the top of the pyramid on the reverse of the U.S. One Dollar bill.  Aren't you glad you came by the blog today to find all this out?

The Life of Ants

We have two white Adirondack chairs up on the hill in the side yard.  They are quite pretty up there.  We have never sat up on that little hill before, but now that the chairs are there, we have found it is a wonderful plate to sit and look out on all our property - (which is less than a quarter acre!)    :-)    So I took my ham and cheese sandwich up there for lunch and to read my book.  I noticed a few of these ants walking around on the chair I was not sitting in, and on the arm of which was the plate holding my sandwich.  When I saw a few ants near the plate, I lifted up the sandwich and held it until I had finished it.  I defeated the ants!  I look over at my plate 10 minutes later and I could not believe my eyes!  there was one tiny piece of cheese left on the plate and a swarm of ants were all over it!  Man oh man,  HOW did a few ants get the message to all the other ants?  I guess some of them traveled really quickly from the cheese to where the other ants were.  But it seemed to happen so quickly!  Maybe I should read a book about the life of ants!