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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Potpourri

Last week I entered a photo in one of the weekly contests on the Pentax Forum. The theme that week was to put a photo to song lyrics. There are many people with a lot more talent and ability than I in the photographic arts and I love looking at their pictures. They give me inspiration to go out and try to find and create something memorable that says those thousand words a picture should. Sometimes I get inspired in a "different" way. You can imagine pictures to go to "The Wind Beneath My Wings", or "New York, New York", but my mind went elsewhere. On the way to work I stopped by the Municipal Campground/Rec Park and took some photos.  The song that I remembered was "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I remember it like this:
Don't go out tonight
Well, it's bound to take your life.
There's a bathroom on the right.

I won the humor award.

Then I went to work. We don't have cubicle farms in small towns, but more homey kinds of settings. This is my office. At least the roof doesn't leak. Here is my desk and a typical lunch.
I can tell by your ooohs and aaahhs that you are impressed with my extravagant executive style and exquisite taste in decor. And you all thought I was just another country bumpkin! Guess I showed you how impotent
important I am! At least it is a lot like family as most of us (out of 8) have worked together for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Recently our first batch of barn swallows fledged. We may get three batches this year with the early start. Here they are outside the barn with mom and dad keeping an eye on them. They remind me of Moe, Larry, and Curly, but with parents that aren't ashamed of them yet.
And now for something completely different. About a week ago we heard from our friend Andie that her former supervisor, with whom she worked closely, was accused of (or maybe it was charged with) murdering his third wife. At about that same time my brother told me a five year old child was shot and killed across the street from where he lived until last August. It appears as though our world hasn't changed much. I am very glad both Andie and my brother literally dodged that bullet. I would be happy to build them each a small house on the farm where they could get away from that world. Better yet, here's one just up the street a short distance that some might consider a fixer upper. It could use a little TLC and maybe a roof.
The good thing was that Andie called and the Cooker and Stitch were out doing other things. I had her conversation all to myself, although there was a message to convey. In the words of Chief Dan George, "My heart soars like a hawk".  Good to know it can still react that way.

Here is a place on the deck that we use for reading or just marking the passage of time. A little respite from the world outside.
 Always remember and never forget that "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like bananas."

21 comments:

  1. Fruit flies! Now there's a post in the waiting. Congrats on the award and executive perks.

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  2. LOL on your interpretation of the song lyrics.

    I like your office - it has a window!

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  3. Congrats on the award! I expect you will be collecting more soon.

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  4. I'm glad you won the humor award. Those barn swallows are adorable!

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  5. I love the picture of the birds on the fence!

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  6. One of the great things about living in Iceland is that you tend to forget that horrible things like that still go on in other parts the world...and it is indeed sad times when your within 6 degrees of separation of these atrocities twice in one week.

    Time does indeed fly like an arrow so enjoy the barn swallows and your peaceful spot in the world.

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  7. Congrats on the award! Love the pic. And your office is fabulous! And very neat. My hubby's desk will never look like that (although mine does at times!)

    Sad about the two murders, all a little too close to home. The chair next to the flowers seems like a good place to get away from all that.

    And I adore barn swallows!

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  8. Mr.C, fruit flies, drosophila, are great for Mendelian experiments.

    PP, and Jimi Hendrix sang,"scuse me while I kiss this guy".

    DB, I keep trying, but I need to learn more and practice plenty.

    Ahab, the fact that they eat a couple of hundred bugs a day makes them adorable AND indispensable.

    jenaconti, they have hilarious expressions more than one would think.

    Vicki, maybe that feeling of relative safety and stark beauty is what attracts me to Iceland.

    Knatolee, We had a regional communications blackout so I cleaned my desk off. It doesn't happen very often. That's why I took a picture of it.

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  9. I'm going to have to borrow a few of the swallows to allow them to feast on a few of our millions of mosquitoes here. I love your photos...and your sense of humor. I can see exactly how you won that award.

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  10. Way to go!
    And I love these photos!
    AND your humor!!!

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  11. chlost, are you still coming up this way later this month?

    Kelli, the bathhouse photo isn't much, but it fit the theme of the contest well.

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  12. I like your office, and your lunch looks so healthy!

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  13. I've been away from your blog way too long! Thanks for the chuckles, great pics, and wonderful writing!

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  14. It's that wonderfully elegant office of yours that helps you produce such wonderfully eloquent posts.

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  15. I am SO impressed with your extravagant executive style and exquisite taste in decor!
    :)
    Love the barn fixer-upper. Could totally see myself there.

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  16. MP,healthy sort of, but very plain and bland.

    TO,where have you been my desert dwelling friend?

    Friko, my "elegant" desk is made from a solid core maple door. Eloquent? Hardly! The only help I get is from reading the myriad of interesting people and wonderful writers out there. Yes, all of you!

    Dawn, with a little fresh tar paper on the roof it could be good to go!

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  17. Male fruit flies, spurned by females, also turn to alcohol. (Isn't research the greatest?!)

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  18. pg, A broken heart is a broken heart no matter what your species.

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  19. I like your office space and love your place on the deck...

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  20. Thanks for dropping by my blog. Love your interpretation of CCR. There is another one around somewhere on PPT called Have You Ever Seen Lorraine?
    Love the swallows. We have a dozen or more around our house all summer it seems, learning to fly, banking off the upstairs windows and dodging the cats.

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  21. Where are you Jon. I hope it is Iceland.

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