Red Monkey: Vacations and Photos Archives

January 29, 2008

Dreaming ...

It is a well known fact to anyone who knows me at all well, that I hate winter with a fiery passion. That, in fact, I proclaimed in CCD (think Catholic Sunday School) loudly and frequently that hell was not hot, but cold. Naturally, the parents who'd volunteered to teach were scandalized but hardly knew what to do with a child who simply out-logic'd them about the issue. (Well, we say "left out in the cold" when someone leaves us ... or "turns a cold shoulder," right? And if hell is the absence of God ... then God has given those in hell the cold shoulder and therefore, OBVIOUSLY, hell is cold. These poor volunteer teachers just kind of blinked at me and ignored the issue all together.)

Come to think of it, this is the way most adults tended to deal with me. Anyway.

I talked in an earlier post this month about when I first moved to Arlington and began attending Butler Elementary. There was one area we used to stage our Pretend games of Hardy Boys ... Nancy Drew when Tracy got upset and put her foot down about us playing at being boys. Sometimes Star Wars and sometimes we just made stuff up. There was a tree that was our front door ... another that helped delineate the "rooms" of our "house." Another that I climbed incessantly despite the fact that tree climbing was expressly forbidden. (And it's a measure of how invisible I felt ... and possibly how much the teachers knew what "being in trouble" meant to me ... that they sometimes walked right underneath the tree I was in and never said a word ... despite the little ratty tattle-tales.)

But this place ... this place was for dreaming and the photo does not even begin to do it justice.

If you click through, a desktop wallpaper version will pop up ... 1680x1260.

That rock, that's flat to the ground, mostly buried ... yeah, over there on the bottom, kind of to the right. We used to sit on that and look down into that little "valley" below us and just dream. We were always quiet and serious there. Some places just ask that of you and even grade-schoolers can sense it. Later, when recess was a little less about games of Let's Pretend and a little more ... for me, anyway ... trying to figure out life, the universe and everything, I can remember laying on my back, watching the sky ... trying to find a way to watch the sky and my little valley at the same time ... and, of course, solve all the issues in the universe. All in a 30 minute recess.

For me, the small pathway entrance into the woods represented so many different things. And that clearing you had to pass to get to it. Completely exposed ... except because it was a "valley" ... the teachers couldn't see us if we went down there.

I know my love of that spot drove most of our teachers crazy. It was at the very, very edge of our "safe" playground area. Going down to that valley, or worse, into the woods, was strictly forbidden. The kind of forbidden that kids hate because you can feel the adults' fear behind the edict ... when they are honestly scared that "bad things" will happen to any child who disobeys. It's a very different feel from the arbitrary, we're-imposing-order-upon-you kinds of rules.

And, to be honest, the entire time I went to Butler, at least once a year there were reports of "flashers" in raincoats just waiting to show off for some kid. And, there was a creek which ran through the narrow strip of woods ... home to the ever-lovely cottonmouths (water moccasins).

For me, the woods represented something else completely. Some flashes of a special place. Tinged with hints of fear. Coloured with a need to explore and discover and learn. A need to know and put an end to something that I couldn't name ... and at the same time I was terrified that I was not ready to know what answers the woods might hold, what they might unlock.

Our teachers took small groups through the woods on science expeditions from time to time. And I could see where the older kids ... the neighborhood kids had set up BMX bike ramps and obstacles. A rope swing to get across the creek.

The magic of the woods danced on the unknown edges during these excursions, as if the mere presence of adults ... of a gaggle of other children ... forced the things I needed further away into the undergrowth ... dancing up the vines into the treetops ... lurking in the gaping wounds of some of the tree trunks.

A couple of times, when I was near the end of elementary school ... when I had started junior high and was playing one summer, I went into the woods alone, hoping to unlock this thing that kept teasing me. Nothing bad ever happened. I saw a couple of other kids, playing. No adults. No snakes.

And no answers to my mystery, either.

Despite the fact that the woods taunted me from my recess perch ... when I was finally able to explore them, I was left with one conclusion:

These were the wrong woods.

Beautiful and interesting in their own right. Mysterious and captivating.

But these woods were not, after all, my woods.

And my woods ... Balcones Woods ... back in Austin ... those had been torn down.

I would have to find my answers another way.

January 28, 2008

Incisive

So my partner had to have surgery for trigger finger last week. She caught it early, but was also having some wrist pain as well, so they tested for carpal tunnel. For this she also tested as having some issues and since they were going in for the trigger finger, they were going to fix the carpal tunnel issue as well.

Of course, she tests really really well. Even when she's not great in a particular topic or issue, if it's a standardized test she does well. After the surgeon opened things up ... he was shocked to discover she had a REALLY tight carpal tunnel ... definitely needed the surgery for that even more than the trigger finger.

And ... since I've been playing with the macro lens ... I sure couldn't resist taking a few pics. The first is the upper palm of the hand for the trigger finger. I'm going to try another one of the trigger finger tonight in the natural light from another angle and see if I can get it a bit more clear.

and then here's the carpal tunnel incision:

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:59 AM | Comments (3) | Vacations and Photos | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

January 25, 2008

Ready For My Close-Up

I began snapping photos with a crappy little 110 camera that my grandmother gave me. She won it at some event or another and thought it was more or less a toy. When I showed her the pictures I'd taken with it, she was shocked. For a 110 camera, they were really nice ... she hadn't expected that I would actually use it or that it would actually take anything with any degree of clarity.

For someone who has been pushed into the box of writer my entire life, I'm also an extremely visual person. I write fiction the way that I do because I can see a movie of the action playing out. And with that first camera, I was set to have my own little newspaper - text and photos together as they were in my head. I spent days skulking around the neighborhood like some demented Harriet the Spy (demented because unlike Harriet, I did not actually peer in windows nor clamber into people's homes). I took "stealth" photograph after stealth photograph of the construction going on right behind our house. An expose on how messy and wasteful the construction workers were.

I joined the photography group in junior high and took pictures for our ninth grade yearbook. I specialized in the candid shot ... and the staged "candid" shot. I wanted to continue with it in high school, but my mother refused to pay the lab/film fees for the class ... and since I was not allowed to have a job until after graduation ... I didn't have a way to pay for it myself. I tried to pick it back up for myself in college once I'd moved out of the house. I bought an awesome old camera with the "ring and stick" version of focus, fine tuned with a prism in the center. The first few years with it were great ... but I unfortunately discovered a difficulty in focusing which plagues me to this day. I'm never, ever, ever sure that I have my shot in focus. That causes me to lose a lot of shots just due to timing ... and even more that I thought were focused only to find out that once again I had squinted my way into focus instead of using the lens. Luckily my favourite type of shot is landscape and I usually didn't screw those up.

So, at the first chance, I switched to digital photography where I at least don't waste money developing crappy film. Today I have a Nikon Coolpix 8700 that I adore. It's auto-focus, but has manual options ... the zoom is great ... the size is great. And while I still screw up some close-range shots, thinking they're clear in the viewfinder or the screen, they are fewer and further between. Plus I take about 10 times as many shots since I don't have to pay for developing film! (Factoid nine about the other half: taking multiple shots of the same scene or item drives her NUTS.)

This week, I finally got a new toy that I've been wanting to try for ages ... a 10x macro lens for extreme closeups. Here's some playing around I did just to get the hang of the lens and how to use it:

Yep, that's Indiana Jones in LEGO form. These sets have just recently come out and they are SOOOOO cleverly done. I thought this might be a good way to practice up close details.

Who ever thought Jabba the Hutt could be cute????? This is Jabba in the Galactic Heroes line of toys - Star Wars toys for pre-action-figure crowd. The figures are really clever and cute ... but really ... a cute Jabba? Must be the eyes....

Okay, attempting to leave the toys behind and start playing a bit more with some artistic type shots ... this little plate of marbles, I must have shot 10 times from different angles, distances, et cetera. This is one of my favourite shots.

I call this one "Nestled" ...

The next two I call "Relief" ... again just playing around with focus a bit more than trying for a perfect composition. But I kind of liked the aqua coloured gel capsules on the green wood.

One of these days, I'll set up my little studio in a box and take some shots playing with lighting as well. Just playing around ... but it's been fun so far. I'm looking forward to setting up some better shots in the future. Like maybe after the snow is gone and it's above 50 degrees again....

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:30 AM | Comments (7) | Vacations and Photos | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

January 23, 2008

Sticky Snow

This was a few weeks ago, I think. Frankly, all the snow kind of blurs together for me. It was a heavy, wet snow and it had been blowing darn near horizontal.

Click through for a desktop wallpaper 1680x1050 and slightly different version.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:53 AM | Comments (3) | Vacations and Photos | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble

January 7, 2008

Tagged!

Gotta love the "low risk" tagging in San Francisco. Bored in class? Draw a tag on a sticker and then label your way to tagging fame out on the street!

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:26 AM | Comments (3) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Vacations and Photos | StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble