Images

If you do a picture like this with a flashlight or some other focussed light you get very distinct edges like a spirograph. With glowsticks, there isn’t a point of light, it is a stick, so the picture looks blurry, but it isn’t. It is more like a light painting with a paint roller instead of a fine brush.

I liked the way this picture looked, even though it doesn’t have the fine points that these pictures usually display. The brighter lights are where there are bubbles in the glowstick so there are blank areas next to bright ones that make it look like a point of light moving instead of a band.

I can’t say that today I have much to say. I decided to post a picture of a puppy today, because puppies are cute and sometimes you just need a nice uplifting picture.

Atlas, the guy with the world on his shoulders. Or, maybe it’s Hercules taking over for a short spell. This was the third picture that I took that I was thinking of making into a triptych.

I guess that it seemed like the squished man, Sisyphus endlessly pushing the rock up a hill and Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders just seemed to go together. I guess that it is three ways to deal with challenges. You can let them crush you, you can endlessly push at them and feel like you aren’t making progress or maybe you can pick them up and carry a weight that you never thought you could hold.

First of all, I don’t feel like I’m endlessly pushing a rock up a hill. Well, not today at least. Don’t we all have those days where we feel like whatever we do it just feels like nothing goes your way? But today has been a better day. Still have the cold, but I’m feeling better and today I didn’t have to spend any time at the hospital, so I can’t complain.

But as part of the series I put together yesterday, I took this picture of Sisyphus pushing the rock up a hill. Seemed to fit the mood at the time. So, here it is.

I was playing with some clay and this granite rock and I took a few different pictures. I thought that I might put them together as a triptych, but that seemed like too much work for today, so I’m just posting this one. It will give me a little relief on the picture every day.

It has been a week and it’s only Thursday. Today I feel like the guy under the rock. I’m exhausted, but fortunately things seem to be good. I need to get some rest and get over this cold. The guy under the rock is just resting, he’ll pick things up and go on in a day or two after he has had a chance to take a break.

Everyone who rides bikes ends up with a box of odds and ends. This is just an arrangement of some parts that were given to me and a donated vase.

This definitely wasn’t the picture I planned to post today.

I remember the first time that I drove a Viggen. It was my brother’s car and it was one of the first times I took a manual out by myself. Matt had a great deal of trust in me. The occasion was much different; I was going to a friend’s wedding.

Today I was driving a similar Viggen home from the University Hospital (nearly the same location as the wedding) after spending the day there with my dad. Thankfully, it looks like he’s going to be okay, but days like today have a way of making you think about things.

It only takes a few seconds to change the course of your life. A phone call saying, “There’s something wrong with your dad.”; a friend saying, “They told me that I have cancer.”; or an early morning call, “If you want to say goodbye to Matt you better come to the hospital right now.”

Sometimes it turns out ok, maybe a false alarm, or a fluke circumstance. Other times it is something more serious. Something that changes everything forever, and not just for a day, or week, or year.

Days like today are a good reminder that you don’t always have all the time in the world to tell the people you care about how much they mean to you. It’s important to use the time you do have to let them know how you feel and to do so often, just in case.

With the new snow I have just felt the need to get outside for a bit. Since I’m still getting over a cold, it probably isn’t my wisest course of action, but a little fresh air can’t hurt right?

So, I made a snow angel in the yard. As you can see, there wasn’t a real deep snow, so there is a lot of visible grass. If this angel is my brother that is probably appropriate, because if there was ever going to be an angel with a grass stained robe it would be Matt.

 

This morning I went for a walk out in the snow. While everything was white and frosty when I began, it was already starting to melt. By the time I started for home, the trail I was walking on had already started turning to mud and the ice and snow was falling from the trees.

I guess we need to take in the beautiful moments when they happen. Because things can change so quickly. If we don’t remember to be grateful for the good things in life while they are happening, we can get sucked into the inevitable thaws and sometimes it can seem like that is all that there is.

After I got home, just a few hours later, the cold that I’ve been dealing with got way worse. Even as I write this my head is pounding and I feel pretty lousy. The thing is, this morning I got to spend some time taking in some beautiful scenery and take some pictures. Even though things have turned, I have to admit that it was a pretty great morning. Despite my minor suffering tonight (and it is minor, a cold could be so many worse things) I’m grateful for the morning. And the sun is going to rise tomorrow and the next day and things are going to be good again.

I don’t have much to say about this, it is what it is.