“When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.”
~ Minnie Aumonier
May 15
May 2023 – Quote of the Month
Apr 28
The Last Number Exchange
Spam is an evil thing as evidenced by the drag it places on our digital lives as well as the genuine bad intentions behind most of it.
I received this text spam a week or two ago. Its crafty. I can well imagine many people being fooled into responding: perhaps to tell them that they have the wrong number; perhaps because they are genuinely confused about which contact of theirs is reaching out to them.
But my first thought was: this text could spell a lot of danger for many a relationship. How many jealous ‘significant others’ see a message like this pop up on their partner’s phone and immediately go ape-shit? Of course, such a knee-jerk response should be telling of the nature of the relationship in the first place, but a text like this could be gasoline on a match.
I have every expectation that the dawning AI revolution while make this look like child’s play.
Apr 27
April 2023 – Quote of the Month
“If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.”
~Warren Buffet
Apr 26
March 2023 – Quote of the Month
“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”
~Henry David Thoreau
Mar 26
Pretty in Pink
March’s perfunctory post is again from December 25, 2021. (On our Tanzania trip, we shot over 9,800+ photos and videos, so I can go to this source for a long time when I’m feeling short on posting enthusiasm.)
Lake Natron is a remote, surreal landscape. The lake is hyper saline and super alkaline with temperatures that range from 40˚ (104f) to 60˚C (140f).
The lakes chemistry provides a home for a halophilic microorganisms called cyanobacteria that turns the lake red. The lake is inhospitable or outright deadly to most other organisms but more than 2.5 million endangered Lesser Flamingos breed here. – Seventy-five percent of the world’s population are born on its shores. Since the flamingos have no predators to contend with they feed on the algae and cyanobacteria in relative peace: probably only bothered by camera wielding tourists like myself.
Mar 26
February 2023 – Quote of the Month
“That which isn’t good for the hive, isn’t good for the bee.”
~Marcus Aurelius
Feb 26
Beware of Doctor Bellfield
When one thinks of the Brady Bunch, they probably conjure storylines depicting wholesome family values. Odd then when Alice doesn’t call the authorities to report their neighbor as quite probably a pedophile.
At least there were boundaries. – Apparently Carol and Mike need to approve any and all, ‘X-rated swimming pools.’
Trivia: This scene where Bobby and Cindy are contemplating skinny dipping is cut on some airings.
Feb 26
January 2023 – Quote of the Month
“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?
~Marcus Aurelius
Jan 30
Color Corrected Killer Kitties
This being another challenging month, I’m just sharing a photo from January 7, 2022 taken in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park. But I thought, for a change of pace I’d share the raw, uncolor corrected image compared to post color correction and sharpening. All color correction was done in Adobe Lightroom and the sharpening was done with Topaz Sharpen AI. Pushing the colors around as much as I had to in order to restore the sky and bring out the kitties resulted in a lot of noise. Fortunately Topaz Sharpen AI has good options to mitigate exacerbating noise upon sharpening.
That’s about as creative as I can get this month. Also, now I think that Topaz should sponsor my website.
Jan 30
December 2022 – Quote of the Month
“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dec 26
Dreaming of Giraffes
The last month has been chaos and trouble and I won’t relate it here. But in spite of some serious mental exhaustion, I’ll fulfill my monthly posting duties and leave this year with a fond recollection of where I was last year in December.
Dec 26
November 2022 – Quote of the Month
“I think it’s perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it, but I don’t know everything, and there may well be a God somewhere, hiding away. Actually, if he is keeping out of sight, it’s because he’s ashamed of his followers and all the cruelty and ignorance they’re responsible for promoting in his name. If I were him, I’d want nothing to do with them.”
~ Philip Pullman
Nov 29
Breaking News
Even though news is no not nearly so soul crushing like it was while Trump was in office, I still find myself burned out on all of it. I’ve often advocated that a democracy depends on a well-informed electorate, so I’ve felt that its almost akin to a patriotic duty to follow the news.
But increasingly, I’m trying to step away from news that is likely not to impact me or the nation / world. That might sound self-centered, but by way of example I’m talking about stories of some Woman who drowns herself and her kids in Texas.
Maybe there is an underpinning in the story about depression, drugs or abuse that is relevant outside of her community. But reading such tragedies takes something of a mental toll.
And then there are the endless celebrity fluff pieces or the speculative news articles of something that might happen e.g. Apple might buy Disney based on Rumors.
Still, I tune into big global news like Russia’s war on Ukraine. And I enjoy positive happenings like the Artemis program.
But with our phones in hand, it’s so easy to occupy an idyll minute while on hold with a support desk or waiting for a friend to meet. It becomes a twitch.
I have those bored moments and am likely not going to step away from using my phone to kill time when there is nothing else to do, but increasingly asking myself when I read a headline, “How will this help me?” “What will I get out of this?” The answer is usually, “It won’t” or “Nothing much”. When you start looking at news this way, then one observes that 98% of it is passable noise.
I think I need to start carrying a good old fashioned paperback book with me everywhere.
Nov 19
October 2022 – Quote of the Month
“There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch.”
~Robert Brault
Oct 31
Happy Halloween Kids
Here’s hoping that I never outgrow Halloween. So far… So good…
Oct 20
September 2022 – Quote of the Month
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
~Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Sep 29
A Murder of Bats
Instead of world news commentary, here is a piece of inane trivia that I observed one evening while watching a rerun of Columbo.
From season 9, episode 6 entitled, ‘Murder in Malibu‘ which was released in May 14, 1990:
I wonder how much time was spent looking through stock film before the producers said, ‘Ah, screw it! Let’s use bats instead. Nobody will notice or care.‘
Sep 27
August 2022 – Quote of the Month
“Fantasy, if it’s really convincing, can’t become dated, for the simple reason that it represents a flight into a dimension that lies beyond the reach of time.”
~Walt Disney
Aug 30
Firestarter of Oldupai Emanyata
Taken at a Massai Boma in Oldupai Emanyata, Tanzania on January 12 2022.
With another villager’s help, this man started a fire with friction in less than a minute. A humbling exposure to another culture, another way of life.
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