An Amazing Start to my Day

I had an amazing start to my day here at the Northern Short Course.  This post is not about a photograph, obviously, but is about the story.  This is the book I am reading - you saw a photo of it in sunlight with my glasses on it.  So I was eating breakfast in the hotel dining room this morning.  I happened to notice an airline captain (four stripes on his epaulets) and he was finishing his breakfast at the same time I was.  So I took a chance and went over to his table and asked if he had ever read this book.  He said he hadn't.  So I told him that it was about the start of commercial aviation in the United States back in the early 1940's, and that if he were to read it, he would have white knuckles!  So he thanked me, and then I stood there and talked to him for about 20 minutes, and we both had flying stories to tell, and I learned how he got his start in the U.S Force, before coming to the airlines.  It was such a wonderful conversation and a really nice start to my day!

He's DOING it Again!

"What is he doing?"  "He's taking photographs while driving.  We TOLD him not to do that!"  I was on the way from Long Island to Newark, NJ for a photo conference that starts tomorrow.  I took the Queens Midtown tunnel to Manhattan, and then the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey.  I realized that I haven't driven through the Queens Midtown tunnel for a long time - perhaps 6 years or so!  I always take mass transit to get to the city and rarely drive, so it was fun to pass through here again.

Harbor Lights

"I saw the harbor lights, They only told me we were parting..."  This song has nothing to do with my photograph - I just thought of "harbor lights" after I took the picture and so Googled it, and found there was a song with this name.  Other than that, I drove by the water tonight and because there was almost no wind, the lights on the far shore were reflected in the water.  I thought it was pretty, so I jammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt in the middle of the road with tires smoking, so I could take this photo.  (It didn't actually happen that way - I pulled over carefully, and stopped.)  Oh, then I did a long exposure on a tripod to capture this.  Sometimes I tend to embellish my stories.

There's A Kitty In There

I never tire of looking at the kitties - they are always doing interesting things.  It is so interesting to see them when they curl up on the couch for their afternoon nap.  Sometimes their faces are showing, but at other times they tuck their nose and eyes somewhere into themselves, and put a paw over their face, and they appear to disappear.  They are almost like a complex knot in a piece of rope that you have to struggle with to untie.

In Memoriam?

This is another photo quiz!  Which photograph is your favorite?  Here are the details:  I saw these wreaths of flowers hanging on one of the benches down at the shoreline, so I stopped to photograph them.  I have no idea what the flowers are for - I have never seen any of the benches with flowers on them before.  There hasn't been any kind of ship sinking in the harbor, so I doubt it was something like that.  Each bench, however has a bronze plaque with a name on it.  The plaque on this bench says "In loving memory of Eda Maria Ayres 1926 - 1998"  Perhaps this is an anniversary of some kind.  So which photograph do you like best?  I think the lower one is more dramatic, from a low angle and with the larger wreath.  But I think I prefer the top photograph, because it has a greater sense of context - we can see more clearly where the bench is located, and I also love the gentle curve of the sidewalk and the railing curving into the distance.  What do you think?

A Cold Day for Rowing

On the way to the bagel store this morning I saw several eight-man rowing shells in the harbor.  It was a bit tricky to shoot them, because it was a bit windy, and their course was south of the power plant, and it is difficult to get a clear view down there.  I tried one vantage point but I only had a narrow view which didn't work, so I drove to another spot and finally got this clear view.  I like that the yellow oil boom in the foreground is both yellow, and graphically similar - a line - as is the yellow rowing shell.  Man, I do NOT envy these guys out on the water when it is this cold out. It is worth clicking on this to see it in more detail.

The Lego Buildings

I traveled out to Stony Brook University to attend an astronomy lecture about the Sun this evening.  The campus has grown so much since I first arrived on Long Island 46 years ago - I found there were whole new areas that I have never seen, and I ended up driving around quite a bit, looking for the lecture hall.  At a stop sign I saw these new dormitories, and I was dumbstruck to see that they looked as if they were built from Legos!  This is funny, right?  The truth is they were constructed from prefabricated insulated aluminum panels, and these buildings are considered sustainable architecture, involving the use of recycled materials.