Picture Post, Sunday May 15, 2022

It has been a ridiculously long time since I posted a new blog post.

Lord knows A LOT has happened in the past almost-four-years since my most recent blog post.

Covid 19 and Joe Biden becoming US President have happened, though I'm not sure which is worse.

But, to post something after all this time, I'll just put up some recent photos I've taken.

1&2. SpaceX Falcon 9 Friday, May 6 at 5:42 a.m. ET, SpaceX launch of 53 Starlink satellites from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Taken from Space View Park in Titusville, Florida. #2. Taken a few minutes after a SpaceX rocket launch. From Space View Park in Titusville, Florida.

Fuji X-T4, Fujinon 10-24mm F4 OIS WR lens @11.5mm, f/18,and 400s

 

 

Fuji X-T4, Tamron 18-300mm 18-300mm F/3.5-6.3 DiIII-A VC VXD lens@18mm, f/14,and 120s

3. SpaceX Falcon 9 Saturday, March 19 at 12:42 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launch of 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.  Taken from the beach at Jetty Park in Port Canaveral, Fla.

Fuji X-T4, Fujinon 10-24mm F4 OIS WR lens @10mm, f/20,and 240s

4. Day time Moon. Taken from my Palm Bay, Florida back yard on May 10, 2022 at 5:21pm Eastern time

1/200s @ f/8 Fuji X-T4, Nikon 400mm Ai f/5.6 lens w/Nikon TC-14B teleconverter (840mm 35mm eq)

5. Night time Moon. Taken from my Palm Bay, Florida back yard on May 9, 2022 at 11:45pm Eastern time

1/30s @ f/8 Fuji X-T4, Nikon 400mm Ai f/5.6 lens w/Nikon TC-14B teleconverter (840mm 35mm eq)

Sea Oats, Indialantic, Florida

Fujifilm X-T10, adapted Nikon 50mm AI-S lens, f/2.8, 1/4000sec., ISO 200

Here's a colorful Florida photo for anyone who might happen upon this blog.
I have been posting political posts lately, and thought I'd do something different, like post a photo.
I do have a photography blog, sans politics, called Brevard County Images if you care to see it.
People of all political persuasions are welcome to visit and comment on either or both blogs.

I use a Fuji mirrorless camera and have two Fuji auto focus lenses made for that camera system. I have numerous older manual focus lenses originally designed for and used on 35mm SLR film cameras, that are capable of being adapted to work with this camera.
I absolutely love the camera and the Fujifilm X system.
The problem is money.
Fujinon lenses, lenses made by Fujifilm, are fairly expensive, but one advantage of a mirrorless camera system is that, due to the physical size, many old, manual focus camera lenses from many different lens manufacturers can be adapted to, and used, on these cameras.
With this photo, I had carried an old, Nikon 50mm manual focus lens with me and thought it's wide maximum aperture would make it a good choice to get a photo of this nearby sea oat in crisp detail and yet give the farther distant Atlantic Ocean and the beach a pleasant, colorful blur.
Outrageous colors provided by God Himself, with the help of about a 1/3 to 1/2 stop underexposure.
I hope y'all like it.

American Liberals Are Causing Oceans To Rise

After decades of being preached to about the imminent dangers of the supposed rising sea levels, due to, according to them, man-made climate change, I now see that it's the world's Trump-hating Liberals that are causing any sea level changes.
The sheer volume of the tears of Earth's liberals, over - every - freaking - thing since the November 2016 presidential election easily has the potential to cause more detrimental sea level changes than any possible rise caused by the other 6.5 billion carbon-spewing people on earth who are not Trump-hating liberals.
I can't go to the mail box at the side of the street in front of my house without getting my shoes/socks/feet wet from stepping in big puddles of liberal's tears.
Question: Have liberals never had to read The Boy Who Cried Wolf in school as a kid?
Heck, I joke about having grown up going to Louisiana public schools, but even I got that story loud and clear as a young'n.
The whole DEFCON I thing where the world's liberals now live, long-term, and their constant bleating about the wolf's arrival have proven quite false, thus far, don't you think?
Two easily-arrived-at determinations of the non-ending crying are, a) people tune them out and ignore them and b) the Crocodile Tears of Fake-ness actually will drive people away from liberal political opinions and to voting to support the much-improved economy and incredibly low unemployment figures of the Trump administration's economic policies.
I do get tired of liberal's crying, but I do like seeing President Trump cause them to come out of their shells and show themselves for the bat poop crazy, unreasonable people they have actually been all along.
But, as a liberal actor, in the guise of a movie character, once said, "Stupid is as stupid does."
There's even a Walk Away movement by former liberals/Democrats, encouraging their former protest-mates to get a brain and to get a life.
I miss the days when I could have a reasonable political discussion of politics with a liberal friend.
That started changing under George W. Bush's administration, and by the day after the presidential election of 2016, even people I thought stopped being able to talk politics like a human and instead chose to become screeching doomsayers like the talking heads on MSNBC.
I know that I may often sound like an unreasonable conservative on this blog, blogs are one-sided by their nature, BUT!, I know what I believe, AND WHY I BELIEVE IT.
I believe that liberalism as being practiced in America by those in power in the Democratic party is intellectually wrong and dangerous.
I AM a hard-core political conservative, so sounding harsh on here is a risk I'm willing to take.
Even my most strident diatribe here is nothing compared to the screeching by "experts" on CNN or MSNBC. Unreasonable mental gymnastics are required to follow what, to a liberal, is sound reasoning on shows such as Rachel Maddow's. Girl be crazy.

THE Most Important Point About Trump's Supreme Court Choice

I have looked, read, thought, and otherwise obsessed over the Supreme Court Appointee choice that President Donald Trump will make in the summer of 2018 to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
No matter how I look at the issues and the individual judge choices, which are important, ONE THING of importance stands head and shoulders above all others in this particular case.
The most important thing about President Trump's next Supreme Court choice is simply THAT HILLARY CLINTON IS NOT IN OFFICE TO MAKE THAT CHOICE.
And, although the world seems really crazy to me, that last fact allows me to sleep a little better at night.
I would, hands-down, prefer ANY Supreme Court Justice picked from the list of possible appointees that Trump listed as far back as during his presidential campaign run (a truly impressively accomplished list of judges if you take the time to look at them), than any justice Hillary Clinton would have chosen.

Labor Unions are Crying; June 27, 2018

Glory Hallelujah!
Today, the Supreme Court of the United States of America declared it unconstitutional for public sector labor unions continue to steal, um, deduct "fees" from the paychecks of any employee anywhere.
If you love labor unions and their money laundering of "fees" and union dues directly into the coffers of liberal Democratic political candidates, then you are probably crying.
I have no love for labor unions, based on personal experience and the effects of union members on beloved members of my family, and therefore LOVE this decision.
The fact that union membership is at an all-time low, yet labor union donations to national Democratic political candidates is at an all-time high, goes farther than I could elucidate here to show that today's labor unions reason for existence is to finance the Democratic Party and liberal parties.
I'll just let it go at that.

Taxation Without Representation

June 21, 2018.

Aaaaand, America has come full circle.
Well, at the very least another example of America having come full circle regarding another reason that provoked the Founding Fathers to break off from England.
The Supreme Court of the United States of America, in a 5-4 decision, has decided that any particular state can collect taxes from people who live in other states.
The door to collecting taxes in every single aspect of the internet has been shoved open by the US Supreme Court.
I'm not surprised at all.
I AM disappointed.
Just another way "The Man" is determined to keep us individuals "down."

Hating On Trump for Illegal Alien Child Separations?

Hate seeing babies separated from their parents on the border?

It's really funny, in an un-funny way, how liberals in June 2018 are hating on Donald Trump for the US's laws on handling illegal aliens entering the country...illegally.

Just a reminder, folks.

This has been going on for Many years. Yes, even all through the Immaculate One, Barack Obama's administration.

Here's but one of many, many possible examples of the Obama Administration doing baby separating on a massive scale, that never even got Rachel Maddow to shed one single, fake, crocodile tear...

Where were the crying liberals blaming Obama for the THOUSANDS of family separations he was in charge of?  

Yep, it's unfortunate, but it is, and has been for years, The Law of the Land.

Don't like the law? Contact your Congressman -woman, Senator, to have them change it.

"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." - Abraham Lincoln
  
Next week we both know you'll be whining about a completely different thing, having totally forgotten "the children," just like y'all always do when it's convenient for you and your politics.

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/abraham_lincoln_122582

The be
 

What Christmas Songs - versions/artists - Do You Hate?

I like to listen to a lot of different kinds of music.

I have to admit to being a guitar nut, so pretty much any music with good guitar will attract me like moth to a flame.
This is why I tend to hate rap, not because I'm a racist schmuck, but because rap very, very rarely has any guitar parts.  Someone talking over a phat beat is not something I care to listen to.
Gibson Musical Instruments used to have ads in guitar magazines showing a person from mid-chest to knees, sitting with a Les Paul guitar in their lap.  The caption of the ad said, "Lyrics, wasted time between guitar solos."  That pretty much sums up a great portion of my musical tastes.
When it comes to Christmas music, my tastes are very traditional.
I love instrumental music. There are some great instrumental Christmas albums out from over the decades. We've all heard the lyrics to many Christmas classics so many thousands of times that instrumental versions are awesome, and let us add the lyrics in our heads.
So, when an artist "gets jazzy" and tries to change an old Christmas song to make it their own, they generally fail in my estimation.
First on my list of hated Christmas song versions is, of course, Barbara Streisand's version of Jingle Bells.
I consider it a good Christmas season for myself if I somehow escape hearing Bab's version of Jingle Bells.  I cannot, for the life of me, understand why any radio host would play this travesty of a Christmas song.  I think I got my point across on that one.
Another Christmas song version that can ruin my week is Bruce Springsteen's version of Santa Claus is Comin' to Town.  I have a dear, dear friend who loves, loves, loves each and every song by Bruce Springsteen.  As in, my friend sees no error in any song choice or performance by Mr. Springsteen, ever.  That's cool.  I have bands and artists that have done little wrong in my mind, but even my favorite artists let out a stinky fart of  a song now and then, so I have no understanding of liking EVERY SINGLE THING a musical artist ever does.  The "constipated" Bruce Springsteen showed up at the studio the day they recorded this son and he sings as if he's trying to rid his body of a particularly reluctant bit of excrement.  Excrement, that's the perfect word for this song.
I am truly sorry if you love this version of Santa's Comin', but I cannot abide it.
Albert Einstein stated that noting can exceed the speed of light, but I have to say I believe my hand moving to change a radio channel when one of these two songs comes on quite possibly passes through the light speed barrier in any Christmas season.
If I thought for a while, I could come up with a bunch more Christmas song versions that drive me up the wall but I'll just list a couple more and open the floor for your comments.
I'd love to know what Christmas song versions are out there that you hate!
Oh yeah, anything by Rhianna. I had the TV's song channel on one time and they were playing Christmas music and I heard a song by someone who was blatantly singing off-pitch. I went over to look at the TV to see who was able to get a song recorded and played in public in which the singing "artist" was so obviously pitchy. It was Rhianna.
Later I heard another Christmas song with the same off-pitch singing.  Sure enough, going over to the TV revealed the culprit to be Rhianna.  Maybe she's talent-less, maybe she needs to quit smoking, but either way, her Christmas songs were terrible. If "I" can tell you're off-pitch, you're off-pitch BAD!
How about some hate for Dean Martin's version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer?
I hate most lounge singer's songs of ANY type, but Christmas ones the most because the lounge singer types try, in vain, to make the songs sound hip and happening.  They invariably fail at this.  And, to add insult to injury, Mr. Martin has the gall to call the legendary Rudolph, "Ol' Rudy" in the song. How dare he?
OK, let me have it. Show me the error of my ways on Bruce's or Bab's Christmas tunes. Or add to my list and tell me which Christmas songs out there for public consumption send bad shivers up your spine.
Merry Christmas 2017!
God Bless You All

Doing My Duty as an America Citizen

I had jury duty today.Don't worry, I wasn't chosen, so my strange way of looking at the world wasn't foisted upon the judicial system.
The morning was spent in "The Jury Room" where we all waited to be called, or not called in my case.
They bragged about the unlimited coffee they kept fresh for us.
This was a non-issue for me because I hate coffee in all it's nefarious, EE-VIL forms.
But they also supplied the jury room with an old TV set on a rolling cart, and below it on the shelves were: 1) A VHS VCR, 2) A jumble of old, pre-recorded VHS tape movies, and 3) a stack of 300, 500, and 1000 piece puzzles.
They had Robocop, so I was planning to start that if things got desperate enough to watch an old VHS tape.
The clouds parted for me when they mentioned that, for jurors, the building's cafe gave out free coffee and hot chocolate.
I'm not much for hot drinks, but hot chocolate?  Heck yeah.
So I went down there and walked past the meager little coffee cups and got me a McDonald's medium sized Styrofoam soda "cup" and topped it off with the free hot chocolate.
I immediately scalded my tongue, mouth, and the first few inches of my throat. That was the 12,654th reminder of why I avoid hot drinks.
I had to wait over 30 minutes for the chocolate to be drinkable, but it lasted me a while.
I spent a solid hour reading one of my camera manuals on my little tablet, I like to read non-fiction in waiting rooms, and learned some camera features that I either didn't know were there or how to better use features I knew about.
Then I dozed a while, I don't think I snored, but I wasn't awake enough to be sure, so...
Then just before lunch time, they let the rest of us go.
The state of Florida uses the list of licensed drivers for their pool of folks to choose for jurors, not the registered voter rolls like many people think.
I've known a lot of people in my life that didn't register to vote simply becasue they don't want to be a juror.
You'd get a surprise if you assumed you were "safe" from that in Florida.

Falcon 9 Rocket Launch, 1:26AM 8/14/16

Nikon D750, Nikkor 18-35mm lens at 18mm, f/22 ,  352sec., ISO 100

My younger daughter leaves this week for graduate school in Sweden.
We went with her older sister to Cocoa Beach, Florida to watch one more night rocket launch together.
Having grown up here on the Space Coast, space shuttle and rocket launches have been a recurring part of their lives.
She knows it could possibly be years, if she's ever able to see another rocket launch.
They never get old.

Trump Asked Russia To Hack American Government Computers!

Not really.  That was just the catchiest title I could think of.

WARNING! What follows here is a political screed, written by me, John Masters.  If you are thin-skinned, do NOT read this.  This is me angry and letting off steam.  I'm a really nice guy, but even nice guys get mad now and then.  Think of this as me getting my anger out "on paper" and putting it to sea in a bottle.

To  those who feel that "Trump invited Russia to hack into US State Department servers!"

Um, NEWS FLASH!  Trump was engaging in something called "sarcasm" when he "asked" Russia to find Hillary's emails. 

 

Please, for the love of Pete, Google the meaning of the word "sarcasm."

The word Trump used, FIND, does not, and never will mean, "hack into the United States State Department, or any other US government computers," mainly because...

Hillary's server she used for her emails was NEVER, EVER, EVER part of the U.S. State Department!  Hillary's server she personally had set up in the bathroom closet of a Denver facility (can't make this stuff up folks) used during her disastrous tenure as US Secretary of State WAS PRIVATE, remember? NOT in any way, shape, or form was this PRIVATE SERVER part of any US Government computer system.  I guess the media and the left didn't know or conveniently forget this in their desire for Trump to be "investigated."  That Hillary Clinton in her official capacity, knowingly placed secure US documents on an extremely vulnerable private server was a big part of why she was investigated regarding the emails in the first place.  

The irony here is thick enough to need a big man wielding a sharp machete to even scratch the surface of it!

The media, and apparently many Americans, were totally unprepared to handle the concept of someone running for POTUS to use sarcasm. 

The media, and the US political left in general, have always seen themselves as more hip, smarter, and better in every meaningful way than us rubes on the right.  Is it beginning to dawn on you that Donald Trump got under the skin of the media and the left in your hunger to see him go down?

You gotta admit, Trump TOTALLY made the media and the left in general look like the clueless fly-over-country types this time.

Here's the bottom line:

It is IMPOSSIBLE for ANYONE to go "find" Hillary's emails because:

A.) The server no longer exists.  It hasn't existed for a couple of years now.   It is IMPOSSIBLE to hack a non-existent computer.

B.) According to Hillary, she had deleted the 30,000 emails.  Consequently, even if the server still existed, the emails are gone, because, according to Hillary whom we all know never lies, the 30,000 emails were long ago deleted.

The absolute worst, most serious charge that could possibly be drummed-up and leveled against Donald Trump here is simply that he advocated a foreign nation to break into a private computer server.

I personally think that'll go nowhere.   

But the mainstream in-the-bag-for-Hillary media and the left tend to be pretty vindictive and so, I could be wrong.

How I See Things

My problem, is that I usually DON'T see things.

I'm one of those people that can travel the same path to and from, say, work, every day but then cannot tell you what businesses are along this well-traveled path.

I don't know if that's good, because I'm concentrating on driving, or bad, because I'm not aware of my surroundings as much as I should be.

But when I have my camera, I suddenly see everything.

This orange sunset in the windows of this boat caught my peripheral vision on Wednesday evening.

Had I not had my camera and was instead walking to meet a friend, I would have never bothered to stop and look over there, much less stop and walk back and forth like I did to get the best shot.

"Zoom with your feet" is good advice, even if you have a zoom lens on your camera. 

Sometimes the perspective change from using your feet instead of that zoom (if you can, but not advisable at the edge of a cliff) makes a lot of difference.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 28-300mm lens at 190mm, f/8 ,  1/80sec., ISO 800

While Two Black Men Die At The Hands Of Police Every Week (on average)...

   Using FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports and CDC statistics,  between January 1, 2009 and

December 31, 2012, there were an average of 4,472 black men killed by black men in America each of those years.

   Dr. Richard Johnson, criminologist at the University of Toledo, studied the details in these statistics from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control, and calculated that the average number of black men killed in both justified and unjustified police shootings to be 112 during each of those same four years.

   So, 2.5% of the yearly average of 4,472 black men killed by each other or cops, were death by cop. Again, FBI and CDC statistics.

   We're having internet rage, riots and police shootings over that 2.5% of black men's deaths, while ignoring the 97.5% of yearly black men's deaths that are within their own communities.

   Not much on the news about the 97.5% of black deaths due to minority on minority violence, except the regular reports of how many black men's deaths there are every week in Chicago.  The people in Chicago are killing each other at such an alarming rate, many of which are with guns in this city with a huge number of restrictive gun laws.  Go figure.

   And speaking of deaths that aren't making the news...

   According to the Centers for Disease Control, 12.8% of the United States population is black, yet OVER 35% of the yearly abortions in America are black babies.  During that time period, abortion deaths of Hispanic babies was 21%, while other minorities made up 7% more of the total abortion number.  At LEAST 63% of abortions yearly are brown skinned babies and some other minorities.

   Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was a believer in the "science" of eugenics, which she preached with a missionary fervor.

   A foundational thesis of the founding of Planned Parenthood, and that Margaret Sanger taught to anyone who would listen, was that "undesirables" should not BE ALLOWED to reproduce.  Black people were very much at the top of Ms. Sanger's list of folks she didn't want reproducing in the world, and specifically America. 

   Planned Parenthood is still the largest abortion provider in America today, by far.

   So, with the CDC yearly abortion number percentages above, it's brutally clear that Planned Parenthood still kills babies of minority mothers in numbers that would please Ms. Sanger and her eugenics believing pals of the early/mid 20th century.

   Adolf Hitler used the "science" of eugenics as a basis for his attempted extermination of Jews, the diseased, the handicapped, mentally unstable, gypsies, etc. in the 1930s and 1940s.

   In short, the numbers of minorities killed by police pales in comparison to the numbers of minorities killed by other minorities, and THAT number pales in comparison to the numbers of black and Hispanic babies killed by legal abortions in America each and every year.

   Police shootings of black men are being used as excuses for riots and the murder of on duty police officers, while the elephants in the room, the many thousands of minority on minority deaths, and the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of minority babies dying in abortions each year are pretty much ignored.

   When the media report, and the people of America get at each others' throats about the 2 deaths of black men by cops average weekly rate, I mentally think, "Why isn't anyone freaking  out about the 4,350 black babies that were aborted the same week those two black men were killed by police, and 4,350 black babies aborted the next week, and 4,350 black babies aborted the next week..."

   That my friends, is legal genocide.
   It's kinda hard to ask for God's mercy and blessing on America when that many innocent deaths happen day after day, year after year.

Gibson Four Conductor, Quick Connect Wiring Differences

A Public Service Announcement


Gibson neck and bridge four conductor humbuckers, wired traditionally, with solder, and to be used only as humbuckers without any phase switching or coil cutting, has long had the same wiring color scheme as one another.

When Gibson began to use printed circuit boards (PCBs) in many guitars like the Les Paul and the SG, at least since 2011 or so, there's a confusing difference in the bridge pickup's coils magnetic polarity and in the wiring color scheme WHEN WANTING TO WIRE IN OUT OF PHASE SWITCHING AND COIL SPITTING.

I have evaluated several different four conductor quick connect pairs of Gibson humbucker pickups and found the same wiring changes in all the bridge pickups.

I created the following picture and am posting it here in case others out there take a four conductor Gibson humbucker from the quick connect era and want to cut off the connector and wire it in WITH either an out of phase switching scheme and/or wiring in switches for coil splitting.

The several sets of four conductor quick connect neck/bridge pairs of Gibson humbucker pickups I've had all had these exact details, and I checked each set several times to be sure of what I was seeing.

 I am including my email address too in case someone sees a problem in my drawing.  I welcome corrections.

UPDATE: February 16, 2019
I have been contacted by a reader, who confronted this issue with the different wiring of newer generations of Gibson humbucker pickups that were produced with the quick connect wiring, as discussed in this post, and in the image/diagram below.
He had Gibson humbuckers with the quick connects clipped off, and wanted to wire his Les Paul into the Jimmy Page "this guitar can do ANYTHING" scheme.
This reader reported that by reversing the bar magnet in the bridge pickup resulted in the both the polarity of the pickup and the wiring then being as if it were an "old" wired Gibson pickup.
That was all he needed to do to "correct" this issue of modern Gibson bridge humbucker pickups seeming to be of different polarity and wiring when compared to the Gibson bridge humbucker pickups of the pre-quick connect era.
My heartfelt thanks to this reader for basically understanding what I talked about in this post, and to find an easy "solution" to traditionally solder wiring in the newer generations of Gibson bridge humbuckers created for the quick connect system. (Not to mention confirming that I wasn't insane in my conclusions here.)

Happy Thanksgiving, Thursday November 26, 2015

I have to say that, in a lot of ways, life has been kinda rough this year.

But every single time I even think about feeling sorry for myself, something or someone comes along in my life to remind me just how good I have it.

If nothing else, I have lived 53 years, even if I didn't always make the most of every day.

My older brother Paul died in 2001 at age 41.

I have lived twelve years more than he got to.

Thank you God, for all of your many blessings in my life.

Thank you God, for my life, my wife, daughters, sister-in-law, and son-in-law, and all the others I've been blessed to call family and friends, but who have moved on from this life.

God please bless America, though we're more wicked than ever and might not deserve your blessing. 

I know for sure we didn't deserve Jesus, and you sent him and he came willingly, and the Holy Spirit bore Him up and now guides us here while we wait for Jesus' return.

Happy Thanksgiving and God bless whomever might read this, whenever you read this.

Maggie

"...Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation..."  -- Margaret Thatcher

Something Completely Different from the Paris Terrorist Attacks

The last few days, with the islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, I've read and digested as much as I can.

Then President Obama speaks and all that I though I had digested curdles and makes me want to puke.

President Obama is the weakest, wimpiest President, well, certainly in my 53 years here.

So, instead of continuing to whine about the non-existent leadership from "the leader of the free world," I will post a pretty picture.

Posting a pretty picture for people to look at is at least as effective as President Obama's non-response to islamic terrorism in this world.

Photo taken at Melbourne Harbor Marina, Melbourne, Fla., on November 10, 6:49am.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 28-300mm lens at 190mm, f/32 ,  1/20sec., ISO 100

People Photography

People photography is not my specialty.

I am not a confrontational person, and when you're as big as I am, when I try to get close with my camera to people, their reaction kills whatever potential photo I saw.

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 48mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

You have to be a good people person and have a lot of personal charm to get good people photos, like a great street photographer does.

Saturday, I hobbled around downtown Melbourne for a little while, the afternoon light was glorious (as was the whole day).

At one point, I could see amazing light on the west-facing buildings of a side street. so I followed the light.

When I wander with my camera, I just look for interesting light around me and walk over there, good photographs invariably present themselves.

On the other side of the small street, where the light was great, a tattoo artist came out of his shop and sat down for a smoke.

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 95mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

He looked up at me and I pointed at my camera and asked if he minded if I took a photo or two of him and his shop.

He asked what the photos were for (people often ask if I work for the newspaper), and I said they're just for me.  I told him I'd lived here for eighteen years and I had realized that if I moved away I wouldn't have photos that represent this area as I saw it.  That I was trying to now take photos that would more completely show how I see the area where I live.

He said he didn't mind and set about doing stuff on his smart phone.

I took these photos.  

Thanks to Matt at Low Tide Tattoos!

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 34mm, f8, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 48mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Nikon D90, 18-300mm lens at 95mm, f/11, 1/160sec, ISO 200

Why I Didn't Watch Yesterday's Superbowl

I'm fifty-two years old.

I have had four back surgeries, have the metal rods and screws along my spine to prove it, and now have chronic back and leg pain to the point that I have a morphine pain pump in my side with a catheter that runs around my side to my spine.

At the end of the catheter is a needle that is stitched in place where the tip is inside the intrathecal space (where the spinal cord and spinal fluid are).

I get a few milligrams of morphine every twenty-four hours to keep me from going insane, or simply curling up in bed and giving up on life.

I hurt anyway, but most times, I can have a life.  Not anything like before my injuries, but still, I'm happy to be here.

And this, from a guy who once took pride in how much physical pain I could take.  I could shake off things that would make many crumble.  That was some misplaced pride, let me tell you.

I don't say all of this for sympathy, I am constantly aware of people around me and in the world who have it so much worse than I do.  I thank God for my many blessings every day.  I AM blessed.

But dealing with all the pain changes a person's thoughts, personality, and desires; no helping it, it just does.

On to NFL football...

When young, I loved watching Pro football.  I still love college football, I watch it a lot every fall, but I have totally lost my love for Pro Football.

I guess the eternal cycling of young men through college football keeps it fresh and exciting to my mind.  Pro football, not so much.  Not at all is more accurate.

Now if the New Orleans Saints had been in the Superbowl again, I would have definitely watched.  I'm a Louisiana boy who grew up in the era of Saints fans wearing paper sacks over their heads to hide in shame over our team's pitiful performances on the field.  The Saints back in the Superbowl, I would definitely watch.  For whatever reason as a kid, I loved the Minnesota Vikings, Fran Tarkenton was a childhood hero for me on and off the field, a real can-do guy.  I loved the Houston Oilers, Earl Campbell is still my most favorite pro player of all time to have watched on the field.  And of course, the Saints.  The hapless but lovable Saints.

But with the Patriots playing the Seahawks in the 2015 Superbowl, I forget which dumb Roman numeral they are up to, well, that was just too big of a yawn to me to invest my time.

The weather here has been so beautiful this week, sunny with a few puffy, cotton boll clouds, and a light breeze in case you almost started sweating.

If you haven't been to central or south Florida in the winter, I can just say there's a reason so many elderly people retire here, and that reason ain't Disney World; it's our winter weather.

So, yesterday, my back is only hurting normally, so I can steel my mind and try to do stuff anyway, AND I had a great desire to get out and take some photos with my camera.  I also needed to go to the grocery store for a few items, those in-between major grocery shopping trips items. I just wanted to stop at a a couple of local parks or something along the way to scratch this terrible itch to photograph something.  I wasn't expecting anything new, this is old, well-documented ground for me and my camera.

As often happens, I headed toward the beach, but started seeing interesting things in the golden evening light along the way, so I never made it to the beach.

Yesterday I learned that revisiting places I have photographed many times can still throw a few surprises, and therefore great new photo opportunities, at me.

This blog post is sprinkled with some of the photos I took while the rest of the world gorged on beer, pizza, chips, and Superbowl football.

Then, as a bonus, Walmart was as close to empty as I had ever seen it in many years, so shopping was fairly easy for me, no crowds or lines at the registers when checking out.

All in all it was a much better time for me than watching that game could ever have been, well, unless the Saints had been in there.

But probably even better than that scenario as well.

These were the only Saints I was able to see yesterday...