Whatever

On My Way To Fame (& No Fortune)

About 3 weeks ago I received an email asking for permission to use a photograph of mine that I had on Flickr! called 12-13-2007 Sunrise. It was to be used at the bottom of a page to end a section of a 30 page Executive Summary entitled Savannah River Basin Textile Recovery Plan and Graniteville Area Redevelopment Plan. Yikes, that’s a mouthful. It is a set of recommendations developed over about a year of study for the local economies in Aiken, Abeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Pickens, and Saluda counties that have been negatively impacted by the closures of textile mills and related facilities.

I said go ahead and use it, all I asked in return was that they send me a copy when they were printed. Came in the mail on Friday. Glossy thing with lots of consulting techno-babel that takes up a lot of space and doesn’t say much. I was surprised that mine was the only photograph in the whole thing (aside from the cover.) There were about 250 copies printed up, and the other 249 will be distributed to stakeholders throughout the region (whatever a stakeholder is.) There is a list of them on the back page along with the Project Team, Steering Committee and at the bottom the Photography credit of yours truly.

You can say you knew me when….

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New Truck

One day Jim Bob was walking down Main Street when he saw his buddy Bubba driving a brand new pickup. Bubba pulled up to him with a wide grin.

“Bubba, where’d you git that truck?!?”

“Tammie Joe gived it to me,” Bubba replied.

“She gived it to ya? I know’d she wuz kinda sweet on ya’ll but a new truck?”

“Well, Jim Bob let me tell you wut’ happened. We wuz drivin’ out on County Road 6, in the middle of nowheres. Tammie Joe pulled off the road, put the truck in 4X4 wheel drive, and headed into the woods. She parked the truck, got out, threw off all her clothes and said, ‘Bubba, ya’ll take whatever you want.'”

“So I took the truck!”

“Bubba, yore a smart man! Them clothes woulda never fit you!”

Flowering Vine

Flowering VineWhat is this flowering vine? I Googled “Yellow Flower Vine” and didn’t get a definitive answer.

Instead of taking a hike in the woods this morning we decided to take a walk downtown to the Old Aiken Market where we can get fresh baked bagels and fresh squeezed orange juice for our Sunday breakfast. It is definitely springtime here in Aiken because on our 5 mile meander we passed by numerous plants and trees in bloom and stopped at several spots so I could take pictures of the azalea, dogwood, wisteria, cherry and whatever that yellow vine is blossoms. We also stopped for a while at the Aiken Training Track and watched the thoroughbreds go through their morning exercises. We stopped at a railroad overpass and watched the local 5 car work train pass by. On the way home we ducked into the library to read a magazine. By the time we got home we had killed the entire morning.

Update: Two years (March 31, 2010) after I posted this, I got an email from someone asking if I ever did find out what this plant was called. He has a big bush of it in his backyard and was trying to figure what it was. He did manage to find out what it was with zero help from me and emailed me the name, Rosa Banksiae ‘Lutea’. Cool. So that is where the old home that dates from the time of the Civil War War of Northern Aggression, Banksia, and currently houses the local county’s museum got its name.

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I Hit The Rent Limter. Again.

Monday we placed two red envelopes in the mail. This morning I got 2 emails from Netflix saying that they had received the discs. So far so good. This afternoon I got one email from Netflix saying they had shipped one movie. Why not two? Did an email not get sent? So I checked my queue and there at the top it lists movie number 2 as shipping on Wednesday. WTF? It is not like it listed long wait or even short wait. Why the delay?

It just happened a couple weeks ago too. I mailed one back on Thursday, Friday I received the email telling me they had received the disc. They didn’t mail my next movie until Monday. Again why the delay?

I can almost forgive the one where the movie arrived back at the distribution center on December 30, but didn’t ship one out until the 2nd of January. But I can’t, because they actually received 2 movies that day with one being shipped out New Year’s Eve (which is still the next day.) Why the long delay?

My favorite delaying tactic is that whenever they get a movie back and for whatever reason, your next movie isn’t at the closest distribution center, they even tell you it will be shipping the next day from another distribution center. So not only do you have to wait 2 or 3 days for the mail instead of the usual one, but they add an extra day right from the git go. Haven’t they ever heard of the internet? It should take seconds to get the word to the next distribution center that I want that movie, not hours.

I’m being throttled, but what am I going to do, switch? Netflix is still the best fit for us and I think they know it.

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Question Time

Hillary Clinton goes to a primary school in New York to talk about the world. After her talk she offers a question time. One little boy puts up his hand. The Senator asks him what his name is.

‘Kenneth.’

‘And what is your question, Kenneth?’

‘I have three questions:
First – whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband’s eight years in the office as President?
Second – why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
Third – whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?’

Just then the bell rings for recess. Hillary Clinton informs the kids that they will continue after recess. When they resume, Hillary says, ‘Okay, where were we? Oh, that’s right, question time. Who has a question?’

A different little boy puts his hand up. Hillary points to him and asks him what his name is.

‘Larry.’

‘And what is your question, Larry?’

‘I have five questions:
First – whatever happened to the medical health care plan you were paid to develop during your husband’s eight years in the office as President?
Second – why would you run for President after your husband shamed the office?
Third – whatever happened to all those things you took when you left the White House?
Fourth – why did the recess bell go off 20 minutes early?
And Fifth – what happened to Kenneth?’

Whatever Happened To That Post Office Photo Project

Air MailI’ve given it up. I think I’m going to start taking photos of people handing me mail sacks while I sit in my plane instead.

Not really, it has been because the days are too short and too cold, plus all the Post Offices we have left are too far away for day trips. Give us another month or so and we will be back at it. Only 115 to go.

While you wait, don’t forget to look at the already captured photos in my Gallery. And if you would like to see more old timey photos, check out the Library of Congress’ Flickr page.

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Deny Crane. Denny Crane. Denny Crane.

So as to make episodes of House not seem so repetitious we have decided to inter space those DVDs with episodes some different TV shows. First up was Disc 1 – Season1 of Boston Legal. We watched 15 minutes of the first episode, Head Cases, and turned it off. Too quirky.

We were sitting in the living room eating dinner off the coffee table. Popped the DVD out and surfed for entertainment. Couldn’t find anything else on the tube to watch, so Donna suggested trying to watch some more of Boston Legal. I said OK, and put the disc back in and started at episode 2, Still Crazy After All These Years. I don’t know if this episode was less quirky or we recognized guest star Elizabeth Mitchell from Season 3 of TDTVS and liked her, but whatever reason, we hung with it. We then watched episodes three and four to finish off the disc.

I’ve added the rest of Season 1 to the TV queue. Thanks for the suggestion D.J.

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