President's Day 2013

Well it's President's Day, another "Birthington's Washday" as my grandfather would say in other words Washington's Birthday. I thought now would be time for an interesting post disclosing something I've noticed, perhaps a parallel in American political appearance. Is it just me or has anybody else noticed the similarities between Jimmy McMillan (A New York Politician) and Chester Arthur (US President from 1881-1885)?

McMillan is best known for his platform line "The Rent Is Too Damn High!" and that also happens to be the name of his party he founded.

Arthur was considered the sharpest dressed president to ever live. I imagine they would have been playing ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" song if it had been available on phonograph, (super early release version, by Time Travel Recording Studios) instead of "Hail To The Chief"

The thing I notice is McMillan seems to have taken influence from Arthur for his trademark facial hair. To add to that, McMillan is sharply dressed. If I had to say, his style is a modern rendition of Arthur, which is pretty cool. In any other situation I suppose they'd get ostracized for looking like characters out of a Lewis Carroll or Charles Dickens novel, that or escaped members of some obscure but one time experiment in bizarreness 1970's acid rock band project.

All I'm saying is when I saw McMillan on TV, it was a "Wait where have I seen that before? looks similar.." moment that had me do a quick perusal through the history books for reference to confirm my suspicion.

"Nobody can top my level of swag, they'll still be tryin' well over a century from now. I'm the real OG (Orginal Gansta) from 1883, and all the other Chet Arthurs are just immitating!" - Chester A. Arthur in an 1884 interview.
Well alright, not his actual words, but that's what one might imagine I suppose in looking at this portrait.

"The rent is too damn high!" Exclaims Jimmy McMillan in 2010. - Yes these are his actual words, he really said that.. really.   

I'm Back.. With Dinosaurs? (Winter Road Trip Discovery)

Long time no writing. I apologize everybody for being away from this for so long. It's been around a month now. Much has happened, and much has not happened. For one I suppose I continued to recover from my surgery but was ailed by other problems such as succeeding infections I'm still trying to fight from the feet. At times I seem to suffer from forgetting that I have a blog as other events come about. I've been engulfed with some projects and a career change that's taken some rather unexpected rough turns for the worst yet I still endeavor to bring you the blog.

In this time out it's provided me with excellent solace to reflect upon my first time blogging and what I can do to make it better and improve it's structure. For one I'm considering creating several corresponding or sub blogs. I realize maybe when I get on here I write about such a wide array of ideas and concepts that it spans anything from fiction to non-fiction and though it's largely entertainment; It would be wise for me to dedicate a blog to each category. Still plan to keep this spontaneous and unrestricted and freestyle, yet give each category a sub blog or partner blog space now. Not certain what will be what but the adventures I take seem to be a popular subject so almost certainly there will be one blog dedicated to travels alone, another as just a drawing board for an over active imagination to indulge the zombie people (or a place to bounce some crazy ideas in my mind off) and maybe a third dedicated to cars, guitars or something. I'm also considering a photo journalistic or just photography approach blog (example, last summer's forest wildfires that I covered) as this may have many cross overs yet be in a field of it's own deserving a blog page. All this is to be determined, I'll do my best to keep my readers posted.

So I believe last time I left off somewhere promising to show you what it was I found on a trip in to a desert region of Wyoming, after the part with all the holiday wishes, festive food, and recovering from the surgery. So here we are back to the grind as usual.

What I found in Wyoming was not from the ghost town as I was looking for, I did determine it's approximate location however. Yet the roads proved impassable as they were gated off due to heavy snow near that one location, the routes that lead to dirt roads that could bring me to my intended destination. So like anything I got lost running around the general area looking for other access points just getting away exploring. I stumbled upon an old scenic back road, long ago state highway of some kind that was absent of snow and canyon that had enough wind and sun to remove much of the ground cover. I gently rolled my car along a long winding stretch of deserted pavement. An old grey ribbon of asphalt winding off in the distance, faded grey from years of Wyoming weather and sun, cracking with dried grass breaking through from last growing season. I never saw another vehicle on the road. I went through a canyon and followed a river (the river was snowy near the banks and iced over a bit, yet the higher areas were dry). I soon found myself in the bad lands and curiosity got the better of me when I saw some odd looking rock formations. I decided I best check it out in person and proceeded into wash out areas on foot, scoping the path through ravines. I had a heck of time negotiating a patch of thorny dried bushes. They were taller than me and it was like trying to get past barbed wire bushels.

At first I began snapping my photos thinking "These are some really interesting rocks" .. or were they rocks?

Strange rock with holes in it.

Wait a minute?.. lets go back to that strange rock with holes in it!

Here it is, the one on the right, it's a rock but there's something fishy about this rock.

Same weird rock, different angle.

Ok, now what rock has splintered fiber like material protruding from it?



In relation to my hand, this is how big this thing is.

Yeah, now there's something up with this boulder.

Some other rock element in here with the sand stone. Reminds me of jade but it's brown, at first I mistook it for being rusty old fragments of some long ago metal object, perhaps something to do with the 1860's ghost town out here I originally set out after on this trip.

Carefully feeling the grain with my frozen fingers, not adding any real pressure here as not to damage whatever this is.

Now, notice the cracks with the sunlight showing through? There is really something odd with this rock, as if it was never a rock to begin with. Now if I did not know any better this was some kind of organism at one time. Either a tree or animal. I've seen prehistoric wood and this is not exactly it, so this leaves animal. To me this seems like a skull.

Peeping holes.

These thorny bushes lay all around the rocks.

Lots of rock deposits on the ground of variety, amongst the worst thorny dry bushes.

Chiseled magnificence of nature.

After three in the afternoon, catching the waning sun near shortest day of the year, December 23rd, 2012.

The work of time, thousands, millions of years perhaps in the making.

Strange similar honeycombed hole patterns similar to the weird rock I discovered.

 

If I had to take a guess I'd say I discovered the skull of some sort of prehistoric beast. What of, I'm uncertain. This rock is really more of a boulder, the size of half a small car or more. I'd say it would fit snug in the cabin of a Volkswagen Beetle if all the seats were removed, excluding the fact it would easily crush the car from such weight strain. I'd estimate it's a good ton of rock. I'd say if it was a living creature, it would have to be prehistoric for one, and likely a dinosaur. I won't discount the chance that this was possibly a larger mammal such as a woolly mammoth sized creature, yet it almost seems too big for that. I'm no expert but from my limited budding knowledge of geology and paleontology, knowing many of these sandstone rock formations in Wyoming are Precambrian era or Cambrian aged, this could easily palce this in a time when Wyoming was part of a prehistoric ocean bed, slowly turning into a swamp. After gawking through books and the Internet at known dinosaur skulls, I suspect by the oblong shape of this skull and eye socket placement that this was some giant sea creature, a big dino fish if you will. I might be totally wrong but it's looking to me that what I might have discovered could be some prehistoric mega Sturgeon ancestor or something. To put this plainly, if time travel were possible, I'd not want to go fishing when this thing lived! I'd make but two simple easy bites for it, if that much. Either way I know where to find it and will probably contact Wyoming's paleontology experts at the university in Laramie and let them know I found something of potential interest to them, I'd be curious to hear what they say, or even take somebody who's an expert in this field to this and show them. I want to know exactly what it is as well. If I ever find out, you can count on me to make note of it on the blog here.

Welcoming The First Day of 2013

As we bid farewell and send off 2012 to the annals of history we look forward with receiving arms and wishful gaze to 2013 and hopes to a new better, and more prosperous year than before.

I hope every body's New Year's Eve celebrations went well. We are having a New Year's Day celebration which involves an old southern tradition, eating of black eyed peas for good luck, then amongst the holiday feast, the grand finale dessert. I'm actually glad the holidays are about over, maybe everything can finally get back to normal. Not much business can be done at this time but as soon as it all gets back to rolling maybe I can get back to the doctor sooner so they can remove the gear they got hooked up to me and I can get back to what I do and being more active.

Now for the trifle, I got to show this thing. It's too delicious looking not to showcase it with a mini gallery as I rarely see dessert dishes this good. The trifle is a big chocolate, pudding, whip cream, cookie crumb, cake, and all around delicious gourmet monster.

 

Here's to a happy prosperous fulfilling rewarding productive New Year! Cheers!

So Long To 2012!

Well I'm back up here and ready to write some more exciting blog posts. My surgery went very well, much better than the last surgery I had before, and for this I'm thankful. I knew it would go alright but I'll admit I was a little apprehensive as the complications of the last surgery had left a sour taste in my mouth, just all around bad memories from waking up in the intensive care unit and staying in the hospital for longer than expected. Now I have the feeling of winter cabin fever but I guess it's better being down and out in the winter than summer. I've had summer surgeries and sometimes those are not pleasant recovering from being shut inside while the weather outside is warm and sunny. I ventured out a few days ago but came back, my insides felt odd and I was feeling a little short of breath. Much of this time recovering has been spent cleaning dried blood from myself, finding and removing tape, patches hospital bands and electrodes that are no longer needed. My free time is pretty simple, sleep, lounge around, stay warm, play music, browse the computer, work with the camera, take care of any indoor small jobs to get done when I feel like it, eat, drink juice, and take the pills I've been prescribed.

I've got a nice temporary early morning predawn ritual going now. I get up before sunrise, go to the kitchen to have refreshing drink, take my 3 medications and chase it down with an Ensure protein shake. The protein shake helps really disperse the meds throughout my body. I go back to the bedroom, light some incenses or candles (smoke 'em if I got 'em) check what's happening in the outside world on the computer do any work that can be done from there, (if you call it work). Then kick back feet up, back in a corner on the bed laying nestled in a giant pile of pillows. By this point I've either got a guitar out or a warm furry cat sprawled across my lap in a nice mellow strung out vicoden daze. It's relaxing but it's getting a little old. On that note I'll be excited for this first coming week of 2013, I'll get to do my follow up appointment with the surgeon. Maybe they will remove the gear that I can't remove yet, perhaps lift restrictions on what I can't be doing for now. I'm under restrictions to avoid infections and they don't want me doing something that will put stitches, tape, or large dried blood areas at risk. I guess I've already lost some blood so I need to take time to replenish that. So this sort of puts the kabosh on showering too much or getting out, I hate being housebound but I guess if there's a time of year for it, this is it. At least that means the less exposure to the dry winter conditions outside, less frigid unforgiving temps to deal with, and less chapped skin.

What all this means is my New Year's is very mellow and low key but that's no big deal. No drinking and mixing with medical drugs is not my thing anyway. Just some relaxing family time and alone time, the fondue pot has come out, fondue is good.

In reflection on a few notable events of 2012, I took an awesome road trip to Montana on my own, started my first blog, joined the ranks of Gibson guitar players, worked hard, had a career path change, received an IMDb credit from an indie movie I was in a couple years ago, began some serious spelunking/subterranean adventures. It was eventful, like every year I'm left with saying well "It could have been better" - I got to believe 2013 gets better. In 2012 I laid the ground work for a number of things, revamped my life organization skills, re-adjusted myself, revised what I use to get things done, became far more organized for the future, that was my big resolution last year and it's largely been realized. My resolution for this next year is to put myself back on track with what I've practiced, honed my skills on, anticipated, been trained for. I need to use these to the optimum while pursuing and completing some other endeavors I have going. For one, after this last surgery I'd say my medical challenges are now in the 90% or better completion range. My hope is in 2013 I'll put the finishing touches on the medical related needs, complete them and never look back. This will free up a large portion of my budget and open doors to many other possibilities. I'm thrilled. I know I still have much that I want to strive way harder than before and deliver more potential than before.

For those reading this post tonight, have a happy wonderful awesome fantastic new year and here's to 2013 bound to be way better than 2012. Remember, you can make it happen! It could be worse or better, I'm gonna strive to make it better every time I get the chance.

Be safe out there as this is a peak night of the year for traffic accidents. Drinking, sadly combined with too many people jumping behind the wheel who don't realize their limits leads to too much heartbreak. If your sober please, drive safely.. if your in doubt, sit it out! Get a designated driver if you can find one. Stay inside and crash at your party host's house or crash on a couch or wherever is safe, just don't crash in an automobile on the icy winter roads. I'm sure they'll understand. Be safe, have fun and have a Happy New Year's Eve!

Surgery Day

I just wanted to inform my readers that I may be taking a little break in my blogging here for a day or two, or three, perhaps less as I spring back very quick. I'm going into a surgery later today so I might be out and down for a little while. This is not much to worry about, I've had surgeries all my life. This one is significant but relatively minor in comparison, I'm happy it's not like the last one. Last one was some ten hours under anesthesia, higher risk of complications which did occur. I unexpectedly found myself in the intensive care unit for a little over 3 days after coming out, there was a lot of bleeding, phenomena, collapsed lungs and breathing problems. That was the the biggest one in my life, the one that put me into uncharted territory as far as I ever wanted to go. I experienced many wild things that in all my surgeries I'd never experienced before, many things I've yet told anybody the full extent of. It certainly left me with new outlook on life burned into my memory. One thing about it, before that last surgery I had a gut feeling about something an unlike others in the past I was nearly a nervous breakdown before it happened. Yes, every surgery there's a little nervousness but after so many it gets routine except for ones like the last, then even those are hard to comprehend for somebody that's had a lifetime of medical operations under their belt. Fortunately I don't have anything like that feeling right now. I cringe a little at the needle parts despite having a lifetime of surgical needles put in my arm and cringe a little at that walk from the waiting room down the cold hallway to the operation bed or table. Then there's always that last glance at people and gazing at the walls and ceiling before I completely black out. Then the recovery room next, where they better damn well remove the catheter before I wake, I hate those things! Right before the surgery last time I spent my time in the waiting room joking, laughing and smiling. It's the best I could do to calm myself. I listened to country music on my MP3 player as it was very calming. I remember high on my play list of songs was the music of The Band Perry and other genres of mainly calming acoustic music. Anybody that knows me knows I listen to just about everything, and I mean just about everything, my musical tastes and appreciation range all over yet the acoustic set the atmosphere of the last surgery, maybe this one too.

I want to write about what I found Wyoming ASAP, you don't want to miss it.. it was of a rather prehistoric nature, I believe.

That's all, wish me luck and I wish my readers best of luck in whatever endeavors or challenges they face today.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all who are reading this! I've got some exciting things to report from the my Wyoming desert, winter expedition but I'll save that for on here shortly in a few days.

As for now I wanted to rave and give a big time shout out about Cannon cameras.

The big thing I got this year was a EOS Rebel TO3, this camera kicks butt! I'm very grateful for this as it's just the thing I've been looking for. I've been scrapping along for years using an old Kodak Easy Share V570 dual lens. I won't knock it, the V570 was an incredible camera in it's time. I got mine in early 2006 (maybe one of the first models out) and it was and still is a charm for ease of use and quality for a little pocket camera. It seemed ahead of it's time at one point, it preceded the Nikon Cool Pix craze of the mid/late 2000's. In my humble opinion the V570 I had was doing a better job than many of the Cool Pix cameras floating around out there amongst people I knew that were using Cool Pixs. It was better to me on so many points. It is the most user friendly interface camera I've ever used, it was more compact than the Cool Pix and it put out clearer shots from what I could compare. It had an accurate and up to the second read out on it's screen of what was captured. The V570  Captured motion shots with ease, was quick to get to and could sport a heck of a zoom for a compact pocket camera. One of the best components of that little mighty camera was the Carl Zeiss lenses it sported, Zeiss being a world standard in often the best flippin' lenses made on the planet. Someday not long from now I'll furnish pictures of my old V570 on here, it may be either in one or in it's current state, a bit of a project sprawled out in pieces on a table. On an adventure this last fall I sadly dropped it in some tunnels at the bottom of a missile base I was exploring. The tunnels are partially flooded. I quickly pulled the camera out of the water and when I got home, immediately disassembled it to let the components dry and I'm hoping when I re-assemble it, it'll work. I like that little camera and while the best modern tablets and smart phones are just now beginning to rival the quality of pictures it took, and this camera has been outdated by successor V series models Kodak made, the V570 still has potential as an easy to grab little pocket camera, I know I'm stuck in the past, but this is where the new Cannon comes in!

The new Cannon Rebel will hopefully last longer, for sure some of the first things on my to-do list is to acquire some UV protection lenses to cover the each set of lens, I got a strap with the Rebel but for sure I'm gonna need to get the belt holster. They make quick, easy to get to belt holsters for these which is swcheeet! That would be ideal, before I go climbing around anymore dark spooky places that are flooded, using a holster to protect and keep it in place is a must and further more using a strap just in case it were to fall from the holster would be an added safeguard.. then I'm gonna want to find a good camera bag for it that would be padded and made for extreme conditions, between mountain climbing, wading rivers, exploring caves, going into subterranean tunnels, repelling on ropes, all that crazy stuff I best find optimal protection for "Teh hand Cannon."

I'm totally stoked, there's so much I'm finding on this Rebel that's blowing my mind, with it I also got an extra high capacity storage card, and a second lens, a telephoto lens. The features are abound, numerous functions, fully adjustable shutter speed, aperture, and timing settings. Manual and auto focus, stabilizer. Too much to mention really, I'm still discovering much. One of the best things is it's a pro-grade digital camera that really feels like a camera should. I've been shooting digital cameras for a decade now, as a kid I use to shoot with my grandfather's 35 mm Nikon before I got access to digital. the Nikon was a great camera, so were all the other old film cameras I had access to. Two things the early digital could not do, had poor image pixel quality, I think we all know this and number 2, you could not feel the shot, there was and ever present vibration from the shutter and a "click" the film cameras had which digital could not recreate, until now that is. This Rebel has that beautiful feel to the shots, it's reminiscent an old film Hasselblad feeling, the 'blad had a little more energy to the feeling but this Cannon has more natural smooth follow through shot feel.

Jeez, I could rave about this all day. So as the reader your probably asking what this all means. Well I'll tell you, this means much higher quality, better pixels, more stunning in focus, lifelike definition photos are coming right at you on this blog. I'm dying for a chance to get back to Glacier National National Park sometime because the photos I shot were with the V570, those were alright, some good, for just a little pocket camera.. this well, I suspect me and the Rebel would make a real big dent! So here's a little taste of what this Rebel is capable of. Lookout! Prepare for visual sensory overload!

This is using the telephoto lens standing on the other side of the house! The outside temperature on the thermometer is not displayed, the wire is broke (darn 20 plus year old thermometers breaking!) but I could read the inside temperature as 63 degrees.



Suddenly this camera and my eye for the shot is bringing out the cat's expression in haunting clarity.

 Advante-garde absolute definition. I've been wow'ed!



Looking out a window at night. Probably hard to tell I was inside with this shot.

Perfect timing this year, many years we don't get snow on Christmas or if we have a snowy Christmas, it's a slush mess and ice storm in the days proceeding Christmas. Here it's coming down right on cue and began falling just after sundown on Christmas Eve, you can't ask for better timing from old man weather.

Muppet (the dog) bathing Smudge (the cat).

 

Another shot with the telephoto, from the other side of the kitchen.

From another part of the house, zoomed in on an old guitar in the family room. I can read the label on the inside of the guitar, better yet, this is not even full zoom, I can zero in on the part of the label alone, just then you would not know what your looking at, I backed out enough so it can be seen that it's a guitar. This is uber cool, it's like the SR-71 Blackbird of telephoto capable cameras, actually I know there's way stronger telephoto lenses out there, I'll probably add more to this rig but this is seriously cool stuff.. and yes the Blackbird is reference to the super sonic super duper secret American spy plane the US Air Force flew in the 1960's, a piece of technology so insanely ahead of it's time, it could allegedly read the date off a penny from some insane altitude many miles above the earth (not sure if I believe that one or if that's a myth) but you get my jest. The telephoto on this camera has some awesome potential.

How's this for checking to see if the food is done? I'm not anywhere near the microwave. I'm more than halfway across the house!

 

These were some of the better shots, as with anything new like this, there's a fine art to honing the skill and getting into the zone with this piece of gear. I love the auto focus feature but much of this I'm doing on my own as well, turning the auto off and doing my best to manually obtain clean results. It's like the old days with film cameras, I can remember carefully focusing by turning the lens and gradually dialing in on the wheels and knobs. Flashbacks in my mind to the old 35mm in the 1990's, adjusting every last thing, bring the subject into focus, steady, breath, wait for it... exhale and press the button. Now I can resume the fine science of tweaking aperture and shutter settings, adding my own signature effects on greater levels than I was ever equipped with in the past. I'll paint with light something fierce now.

This blows everything away from before, I've shot many cameras but this is now my favorite and it kicks ass! I know I'll capture some amazing stuff with this. I'm already going- "I need to make a list.. Arches and Canyon Lands National Parks in Utah, Glacier in Montana, Bridger Tetons and Yellowstone in Wyoming!" I'm getting all fired up, too bad it's winter :( Well I got other things on my to do list before then and this gives time to plan and practice as practice makes perfect and it's said a photo can be worth 1000 words.

This is truly a great Christmas. Thank you so much, parents! This is one of those gifts that's been dropped in my hands at just the right time. This is just the exact thing I've been aiming for that I thought would be a great tool in doing what I do. Now it's my obligation to do great things with this awesome camera. It's seldom we have years like this anymore where things just come together and fit in place as they should. This is a win win situation, thank you so much!

I want to wish a Merry Christmas to friends, family & you the reader. What I bring to you all is not possible without the support you've provided along the way.