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The Death Spiral

My personal computer is dying.

There, I’ve said it.

I’ve known for a while. There have been signs. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been so absent from my regular online haunts, like reading blogs and publishing stuff on my own blog.

I honestly don’t even want to THINK about getting a new computer. I hate having to make decisions about technology, because truly informed decisions take lots of reading, and lots of thought.

And, as soon as you mention needing a new techy thing or other, everyone wants to share advice and opinions. To me, all of that is even MORE overwhelming. Because what is good or works for one person may not be good or work for me.

The latest “sign” is that the network adapter stopped working. So I can’t connect to our home network or the biggest network of all, the Internet. It can probably be fixed. But why bother when I know the thing needs to be replaced. It’s time, really. I have been in denial for MONTHS.

Anyhoo… to change the subject, look at this pretty sunrise.

Pretty Sunrise
Pretty Sunrise

I am a visual person. I really , really love all the colors in nature (like sunrises and sunsets). I’m not usually up early enough to see sunrises and, if I were, I wouldn’t be able to see much of it from my house because I don’t have a very good view of the eastern or western sky.

Recently, due to the oppressive Mid-Atlantic heat and humidity, and the fact that I work from home so have nothing to really force me out of the house, I’d been feeling rather house-bound. Like a cabin fever sort of thing. I got outside, but only in the evenings when walking the dogs. Not only did that feel hot and uncomfortable, it was also LOUD because of the stupid cicadas. They’ve been quite loud and quite incessant for WEEKS. If you’ve never had to live with the darn things and don’t know what I mean, make sure your sound is turned on then follow this link.

So I decided to head to the beach for a few days. Hubby hates the beach and I really wanted to swim in the ocean one more time before beach season ends. I am a remote employee, so I just moved my office and altered my hours for a couple of days. I worked in the early morning and late afternoon/evenings and had midday to hang out on the beach.

It was a refreshing and much-needed break.

While there, since I had to get up early to work anyway, I made sure to enjoy sunrise from the beach. I mean, I had to sit somewhere to drink that all-important morning coffee, right?

I don’t take pictures just for the sake of taking a lot of pictures. I take pictures trying to capture — and share — the beauty (and other stuff) that I see.

I’m always saying, you can’t just take an occasional snapshot here and there and expect to have a bunch of great photos on hand. You have to take a lot of pictures in order to capture a few good ones.

Anyone can push a shutter and capture a moment. I throw away/delete a lot more images than I share. I think most good photographers do. That’s another key to being good, knowing when you have created/captured something that’s not so good. If it’s not good or it’s even really bad, DON’T SHARE IT.

I actually captured quite a few decent sunrise pics, but I think the one I shared above is my favorite.

If you’d like to see some of the “bloopers” watch the video I embedded below. There’s sound, so you may want to adjust your volume before pressing play.

I hope to make more-frequent appearances once I have procured a new personal computer.

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Last Fall…

…I took a short road trip to Maine. I’d never seen Maine, had always wanted to, and had this overwhelming desire to just go.

So I went.

The light was amazing.

Autumn light is as soft as it gets. What’s that mean? Colors just look richer. Fall has officially arrived for me when the air becomes crisp, I start seeing lots of pink in the sky at dawn and dusk and colors in general are just warmer-feeling.


After sunset, looking across Gloucester Harbor (Massachusetts).
Do the dark colors in that image depress you?
Or do you find it soothing?

This shot was also taken in Gloucester, but at the Inner Harbor.
I shot this one 30-45 minutes before the first one.

This picture is from Rockport Harbor, also in Massachusetts.
It was taken at 6:43 AM, but I was facing sort of north,
which is why you don’t see the pinks in the sky.
You need to face east or west for that, don’t ask me why.
All I know is, quality of light is about angles.

This shot was taken at about 12:45 PM.
Eagle Lake at Acadia National Park in Maine.
The warmest colors here are the leaves.
Midday is the worst time for pictures.


The Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Maine.
Just before sunset.
That’s the Golden Hour for photographers.


The light was perfect for this one.
It was completely accidental.
I saw this when I turned to leave the lighthouse.
Looking east at 5:12 PM from Bass Harbor Head.
That was after sunset on October 7.
Maine is the easternmost US state.
And that spot in Maine is pretty far east.

I hope you enjoyed the quickie road trip.

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Randomness


from the front
Originally uploaded by misfitgirl

It’s been an interesting week at the ToadMama abode, there just hasn’t been a whole lot to blog about.

Monday night, Shannon, Amy and I celebrated Thirsty Third Thursday. Amy had obligations on Thursday, so we moved the gathering up a couple of days.

Tuesday was mostly uneventful.

Wednesday morning started early — 5:00 AM — with a call from Mom saying, “Can you come and get me? Dad just went to the hospital in an ambulance.” To make a long story short, he has a kidney stone. Poor guy. It could be worse. He’ll be fine. He’s just got to make it through a painful few days.

Speaking of painful, around noon on Thursday I had to go get Dad a new prescription for pain meds. The stuff they prescribed at the hospital wasn’t working well enough. Luckily, Mom has wireless Internet, so I got to work from her house that afternoon and into the early evening.

Hopefully Friday will be calm. A repairman is coming to replace a recalled piece of equipment in our dishwasher. And I’ll be working.

Saturday should be exciting. We’re getting a foster dog! I am an American Brittany Rescue volunteer. That’s where all my dogs have come from. We’ll be fostering a young, male Brittany for a while. More on that in the next few days.

Wondering how the picture is applicable? Well, I’ll tell you. Hubby and I decided on this year’s vacation destination. We’re taking a week-long motorcycle trip to Maine. Maybe this time I’ll get to see some barns and stuff. I loved the coast of Maine, but I am looking forward to seeing the interior of New England, too. I am not sure when we’re going yet; planning is still in the very early stages. More on that eventually, too.

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Goodbye "Summer Fridays"

All good things must come to an end, as the old cliche goes. Today is my last Summer Friday. The company I work for has this program where, during the summer, we get every other Friday off. As long as we work four ten-hour days during that week, or an extra hour (roughly) every day for the nine previous days. (I usually do both anyway, but that’s beside the point!)

For various reasons, they extended it through the end of October. Which is cool. But today is the last day.

Anyway, knowing that I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn this morning, I stayed up until the wee hours getting the rest of my New England pictures ready for a Flickr upload. CLICK HERE if you want to see them.

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I Missed WHAT!?!

I am totally bummed. I went to Maine a couple of weeks ago. One of the reasons I thought it would be cool to see Maine is the fact that so many Stephen King novels are based there. He’s been one of my favorite authors since I was a kid. (The image at left came from HERE.)

This is probably nerdy, but what I didn’t say during my trip log is that when I got to Ogunquit, I said to myself, “Hey, this is where Fran Goldsmith lived before her parents died and she hooked up with creepy Harold to start the trek to meet Mother Abigail.” That’s from The Stand, my ultimate favorite King novel. Ogunquit, like Kennebunkport (a close neighbor) did not look anything like I’d expected.

Why it never dawned on me to look up Stephen King, I’ll never know.

I mean, I could have visited his HOUSE. I was so close, too! I was in the same town for goodness sake. Granted, it was dark. But I could have driven back the next day.

What’s the big deal, you ask? Would you visit Memphis and not at least drive past Graceland?

Oh well. Hubby and I may go back to New England next year. If we do, we’ll just have to stop in Bangor…

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Bar Harbor to Freeport, Maine

Thursday dawned wet and gray in Bar Harbor. But that was okay. I’d been blessed with fabulous weather ’til then. And I’d already made the decision to pull out early. There was a lighthouse I’d missed on the way up and another point along the coast that I knew I just had to see.

Bar Harbor was far too overrun by tourists anyway. As nice as the town is, I couldn’t wait to escape the slow-moving, sidewalk blocking cruise ship passengers.

Unfortunately, I had to do a bit of shopping downtown before I left. It was awful. But I survived.

While there, I couldn’t pass-up this photo op. I usually make Hubby capture these classic moments. But he wasn’t there. So I asked some old guy who agreed despite giving me a look that said, “Uh, you want to get your picture taken with that thing? How weird.”

My trip just wouldn’t be complete without a lovely image like that to share.

In the picture above, you can see a couple packs of the cruisers I keep whining about.

My first stop was a town named Stonington on the island of Deer Isle, which is south of Acadia. The drive was stunning. Not only are the trees colorful, even the plants in the fields are putting on a show.

To get from the mainland to Deer Isle, you have to cross Eggemoggin Reach using this narrow suspension bridge, which was built in 1939 using a design very similar to that ill-fated bridge in Washington state that blew apart in a windstorm. (Chances are you’ve seen the classic video of that bridge waving wildly as a man runs for his life.) It was a little creepy. But Deer Isle was worth it.

I finally ate a lobster roll while in Stonington. It was gross. It is basically cold chunks of lobster in mayo with little seasoning and not much taste. Hubby described lobster well by comparing it to tough shrimp. An awful lot of people love lobster, but I am not one of them. I knew that before I tried the sandwich, but I had to do it.

My next stop was the Pemaquid Point lighthouse, several hours down the mainland coast from Deer Isle. Again, the drive was spectacular. And weird.

The weird part was this other crazy bridge I had to cross. The Penobscot Narrows Suspension Bridge is one of only two bridges of its type in the country. It may not look crazy in the above picture, but look at the image below and you’ll see what I mean. There was only one support with a traffic lane suspended on each side.

I survived the crossing. After a brief stop in Camden, Maine (yet another very picturesque Maine coastal town)…


I made it to Pemaquid Point with just minutes of daylight to spare. That’s why you can see the moon in what I think is a pretty cool shot of the lighthouse.

Friday, I’ll be driving home. Wonder what interesting stuff I’ll encounter along the way…

Oh yeah, you can see the rest of Thursday’s pictures on my Flickr page.