Friday Shootout -- Feet (A Two-Part Blog)

Prior to putting this blog together, Bagman, Butler, and I stopped our usual banter and stood in a small circle for a moment of silence in memory of Barry Frasier.  At the end of that time, I rang a small bell.  He will be greatly missed around the world. 

Then, because he would probably be irritated if we stayed out of character too long, we got to work on the Friday shootout.  And when I wasn't looking, Bagman hit me on the back of the head with a wadded up piece of paper. 

On the wadded up piece of paper was a poem I had written five or six years ago that seemed appropriate for today's shootout:

On Feet

Empirical feet measure progress

with steel-toed shoes and sensible soles,

plodding and dragging heels in the center

of sidewalks, crossing at lights,

to the courthouse where they stand parallel

and exactly six inches apart, to edit

typos in prosecutorial briefs.

Faithful feet go bare, slam-dancing

on blazing coals and whirling in the smoke,

splayed or pigeon-toed, without destinations

tickling each other as courtroom doors

open around them, running on their balls

with whatever riff-raff appears.

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BAGMAN:  "You're not going to use that are you?   This is a photo blog.  Although since you aren't around much any more, you might not remember that!"

BUTLER:  "Leave him alone, Baggie.  He's been busy.  Work has been frustrating and he doesn't want to sound negative about work because you never if somebody from his job might be reading it..."

BAGMAN:  "Bull Dookey!   Nobody from his stupid job is reading his stupid blog!  And you know why I know?   Because he ain't freaking writing his precious blog!!!"

BUTLER:  "Of course.  His point exactly."

Actually it wasn't my point because while they are arguing I was finding some pictures of feet...

...although they don't look exactly like feet...

BAGMAN: "At least he didn't make any kind of comment about feeling washed up..."

BUTLER:  "Although he can probably count the years until he retires on the toes of one foot."

BAGMAN:  "And then he'll just monkey around...oh yes, he does that alot at home already."

However, taking a positive spin on things...

...feet can be used to score points in the soccer game of life.

Steel-toed boots can gird you for budget battles in a tight economy

...can give you a new perspective to face each day...

PART TWO

Up until yesterday, I thought that was the end of the blog and I didn't have any snappy ending and I was missing Barry anyway and wishing I could still make him laugh.  Who knows.  Maybe he's laughing all the time now. 

But then last night, we were watching the grandchildren.  Noah is still and infant mostly eats and sleeps.  But Conner was running around and suddenly, without even knowing the theme of today's shootout, he  suddenly became obsessed with the shoes in the closet.  I didn't have much time.  I rushed up to grab the camera and started shooting.  As you will see, it is not easy to get good angles when standing in a small closet.  Or to focus.  Or to get the lighting right.

BAGMAN:  "Excuses!  Excuses!  You're just lazy and out of practice!!" 

Anyhow (from Conner's point of view):

Wow! It's a shoe store on the floor!  Just for me!

This one is kind of my style.

I wonder if they have one in a size 1/2

Maybe this one is a bit more masculine.

Gosh, my Diggy has big shoes to fill!

Okay!  I'll take this one. 

There is no caption for this last picture, only the sound of Mark quickly setting down the camera and lunging.  Because just as this picture was being snapped, Conner suddenly had a brainstorm idea, spun to the right, ran through the door to his right and threw the shoe...

...in the toilet. 

Happy Father's Day, More Friday-Shootout

First of all, Happy Father's Day

Secondly, I had three other things I was going to add to Friday's Hometown Shoot Out Metal theme but was either too busy, too scramble-minded, or -- and I just forgot the other thing -- but I never added them, so this below is a kind of a postscript to Friday.

A stain on the barbecue grill

This last one, above, does deserve a little explanation. It is the section of hydraulic hurricane doors at Charleston Center where I work. I don't usually write about work despite the fact I would love to write a book on it. But the book would have to be published posthumously.

However the hurricane doors are interesting. Charleston Center is a wonderful alcohol and drug treatment facility that includes 44 beds on the fourth floor for inpatients. When it was built 12 years ago, a great deal of attention was paid to the hurricane risk the building presented being close to the ocean and it was designed to handle a large storm surge. Two huge, hydraulic doors were designed for the front and back doors. They have only been used once when we were threaatened by Hurricane Floyd which, thankfully, move up the coast and we avoided a major hit. (Regrets to Wilmington, NC!!).

The County's facilities management folk come in with small forklifts, move them from under the stairwells (where the detail above was shot), put them in place in special seals on the doors, and after making sure the building is totally empty, they use air pressure to make them watertight and the building is sealed up tight until the threat is done.

This year, since they haven't been used for awhile, I asked to have them tested before the hurricane season was on us. Facilities management came out and then called me to say that it wasn't necessary.

After all the careful planning, design, expensive construction and installation -- and after even using them for Floyd -- some practical-minded person finally noticed after 12 years that Charleston Center has a huge side door off the childcare area on the side. We have two state of the art hurricane doors but we have three entrances.

Since we are government (don't get me started...) my guess is that when the building was being built the third door was cut as a budget-saving concession.

Next week, maybe I should go and count the number of tires on our fleet vans to make sure each one has four.

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Okay...I've now got the first period of time, a couple of hours, I've had in a while and am going to go and look at what everyone else did on Friday's shoot-out. Sorry I've been absent.

Hometown Shootout - Water (A Dozen Uses)

WATER! WATER! A DOZEN OF THE MOST POPULAR THINGS WE DO WITH WATER!
Charleston, SC is in a part of the state called the Lowcountry. In some ways, a photographer's nightmare because it is endlessly flat and I do miss mountains. But there is water everywhere.and we do almost everything with water.

And so, without further ado...

...Let's dive right in!

FIRST OF ALL, REMEMBER THAT OIL AND WATER DON'T MIX

But Bagman says: "If it rains on blacktop, oil and water dance together very sensually.

Sounds like something he would say. So let's try to move this blog along and list the twelve most popular things we do with water in the Lowcountry.

(1) WE BUILD HOMES NEAR WATER
In the Low Country, we often build our houses near the water -- there is so much of it, this is often hard to avoid. But Bagman and I have a tendency to stand on our heads while taking pictures of these houses.




Wait a minute! Who is that below, reflectively sneaking off along the bank?


BUTLER: "Be careful, I think it's Bagman in disguise, sneaking off to hide in your bathroom, planning to try and take an x-rated picture of you in the shower."

It doesn't matter. I can't worry about Bagman right now since I have too many pictures and need to move forward or this blog will be endless. Anyway, speaking of building houses near water, sometimes the water becomes a problem and sits in the grass.

(2) THEN WE TRY TO MOVE WATER AWAY FROM OUR HOMES

Becuase we live near water, we sometimes have to move water away from our houses. This weekend, my neighbor and I have been sweating (another form of water) to dig a trench between our houses where water accumulates. The black pipe will carry water away from the grass. Ironically we had to cut and re-arrange the white pipes under the black pipes -- the white pipes are the water lines for the irrigation system which pumps water onto the grass.
Does anyone else see something really weird about this plan?

In any case, last night, he knocks on my door and says, "Oh my, I've messed up. I think I just cut your irrigation water line."

Just another little extra work...but, the next morning, looked at where the break might be since we could only identify one end of where he cut it. The other end seemed to have disappeared in a terrible tangle of huge roots and rocks that would take hours to dig through. We worked up a pretty good sweat digging up rocks and roots and trying to figure out where it connected. Until finally, we decided to turn on the sprinklers to see if that will help identify the other end. It was a miracle! Everything worked! It turned out he had cut into one end of a piece of old PVC pipe that wasn't connected to anything on the other end! Enough of dirty water. Let's look at other uses we have for water.

(3) HOT FROM DIGGING, WE DRINK WATER
We in the Lowcountry use water for alot of things. For instance, we drink it, although I suppose people in other places drink it too. I've never quite understood buying bottled water although I support my wife's bottled water addiction.

The whole top part of the refrigerator is full of it.

As is the bottom part of the refrigerator.

Don't ask me. And don't tell Karen but sometimes Bagman fills her used water bottles with tap water and puts them back. I tend to drink water at work from a water fountain, or a water bubbler.

These were designed and installed by government architects (i.e. lowest bidders) and government, of course must ensure accessibility by diverse people. In this case, I usually drink from the one on the left but people who are two or three inches shorter than myself can use the one on the right. It is also a little hard to read, but I still can't figure out why each fountain has two buttons, both of which say: "PUSH." I'm surprised that one of them wasn't written in Spanish or braille.

(3) WE HEAT WATER UP

Sometimes, in the Lowcountry, we use water heaters to heat our water
We put warning labels on them so people will know how to use hot water.

My favorite is (if you blow it up you can read it):
"Feel water before bathing or showering."

BAGMAN: "Psst. Hey, Mark. The shower's just the right temperature. So why don't you take one?"
BUTLER: "Be careful, boss. You'll be sorry. I think he is planning something Baggish.

But I ignore both of them. I've got way too many pictures to post for this one and am trying not to be too boring.

(4) WE COOL WATER DOWN

And sometimes the air conditioner leaks in interesting ways

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TIME FOR A VIDEO BREAK!!!

(5) WE DRIVE THROUGH WATER and WE SING ABOUT WATER

CAUTION: Do not attempt this at home! This was filmed using a professional crazy driver. Always fasten your seat belt and DO NOT ATTEMPT driving in the rain while simultaneously singing and holding a camera.

(6) WE USE WATER FOR DECORATIVE FOUNTAINS

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(7) WE SWIM IN WATER and TRY TO BREATHE UNDER WATER









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(8) FISH SWIM UNDER WATER and TRY TO BREATHE ABOVE WATER


(9) WE DIP OUR BABIES IN SALT WATER

(10) THEN WE WASH OFF THE SALT WATER WITH FRESH WATER


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(11) WE PLAY IN WATER

Another sort of cheat (if cheating were possible) -- and they don't blow up well which is a shame since I would love to see Karen's face...Brian, once again, made a parent sit in the front row seat for this ride -- Disneyland, of course.

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(12) WE USE WATER TO PUT OUT FIRES

I know, I know, this wasn't really in my hometown neighborhood and it was taken several years and a war ago -- but I just had to add it. I happened to be at a conference in a hotel across the street from the Pentagon that day. The quality is poor because it is a still shot from a very shaky video I took an old small video camera, the only thing I had with me at the time.



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AND THAT ENDS THE 12 THINGS WE DO WITH WATER

BAGMAN SAYS: "Muaa ha ha! There's one more use of water Mark was afraid to mention! Muaa ha ha ha!"

WARNING! WARNING! BAGMAN HAS HIJACKED THIS BLOG!

BUTLER WARNS READERS NOT TO LOOK FURTHER UNLESS THEY ARE OVER 18

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BUTLER WARNS: DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER!
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BAGMAN WILL PAY FOR THIS!

So before we bring this lengthy dissertation on water to a close, I want you to know that Butler and I have, indeed, sentenced Bagman to a punishment appropriate to his deed and have locked him in the shower drain for a period of time not to exceed one week.

FRIDAY PHOTO SHOOTOUT - CEMETERIES

I got away from blogging this week. Sort of. I think I skipped maybe two days. And am still not sure about the Photo Shootout thing...I'm pretty sure the theme is cemeteries. I think I know a few of the people who do it. Patty at Chrisfield, Maryland, Reggie Girl at Midlife, Menopause, mistakes and random stuff, and Barry at An Explorer's View of Life, (Butler says this was a very poorly timed theme, Barry, and understands if you don't post anything. Bagman, of course, thinks God has a warped sense of humor like himself). I also just learned of several other Shooter-outers - I hope I link them correctly: GingerV, Half Crazy, J9, Jen, Loida, and Sarah Paige.


And last time, I missed the underlying idea that these Friday shootouts gave us a chance to showcase our home towns, and posted stuff from all over and from different years. This time I took the effort to shoot in Charleston, SC. Well, Mt. Pleasant, which is near Charleston.


These are from the little cemetery behind an old church where I attend A.A. meetings. I go other places but this is where I call my home group. Not the cemetery. The church.


The fuzzy one above, I took during a wild period where Bagman insisted on shooting pictures from a moving car...yesterday's blog. But I save this one for today because...just because. This is I-526 going out of Mt. Pleasant. I ride it regularly and the little cross by the side of the road probably doesn't meet the rigid definition of a cemetary. But it is one of the hundreds of little cross memorials that people put up beside highways. You can't read it but it says "Jerry Ramos" and I always wonder who he was. And I always throw out a short prayer for him and his family when I pass.

Thank you, Patty, for saying (when I cheated last time) that home is where the camera is, because I can't resist posting some older, more distant cemetary shots as well:

This was in a place I wrote down as Tzuitlan, Mexico, somewhere in the State of Veracruz. I wish I had been carrying a camera but I only had a video camera and stills are poor from it. My wife and I had thought we could get from Jalapa to El Tajin in one afternoon and ended up at dusk in the mountains, lost, looking for a hotel or anything resembling a hotel in a large market town that had clearly not based its economy on the tourist trade. I kind of liked it but Karen wasn't too happy. Driving out the next morning in more drizzle, I saw this cemetary and stopped, shooting stills on a movie camera, wishing for a real camera and hearing a voice from the car, "Mark! Are you going to be all day?"

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At least I had a still camera in Italy when we ran into the church cemetery (below) near Florence.

Haves and have nots. Maybe just waiting for the work to be done, or maybe the money just wasn't there for the Salerno family. Unlike some of the ones below...

Dante's tomb

I think this was in the Vatican but I was bad at documenting. I was shooting about 800 shots a day over three weeks. Unlike being lost and hungry in a rain, Karen was much more patient with me in Italy. But she was still not about to stand around with a notebook recording locations of shots for me. Mostly she was shopping, which gave me a chance to practice patience too. She'd dart into a shop and I'd say I was heading over to a church or some other place of visual interest. "Just don't lose me," she say. Thankfully, I never did.



This was in a download folder called Venice Day 1...but it could also have been in Sienna from the day before. The photo below was from the same folder and I know it was from Sienna.

The finger of a saint

And another saint (getting back to my hometown...or a sort of hometown) -- my mother-in-law returning to her roots in Vidalia, Georgia.