Coffee Muses » just musings

Dog Days Of Summer

Gary Boyd — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:17:17 +0000

I have found myself swamped with a lack of umph these past few weeks. The heat and humidity of a SE Texas August has me spending all of my time just trying to stay cool…

I have been stuck in a procrastinating mode for days and days and days. I watch the radar images on my computer screen as the thunderstorms of summer just miss watering the grass in my yard by portions of a mile…Lightning flashes, thunder rolls across the land, the cool breezes of the cloud-tops drop the temperature by 10 degrees or more…But the rains don’t fall…here.

I find myself getting lost in fiction. Fantasy novels, sci-fi, historical fiction, mysteries, suspense…it doesn’t matter what kind of fiction. Day after day, after checking the mail (and email) it’s nose buried in book (or eBook)…I am beginning to understand the call of a Kindle.

My summer this year is a return to the summers of my youth. A glass of ice tea, a good book, and a place in the shade (or if the temps are closing in on the century mark…an easy chair in the AC) and I’m good to stay. It is really hard to get excited about much of anything outdoors when the breezes don’t blow and the sun shines down from a cloudless sky as the temperatures move north of ninety day after day. Even the sky seems baked almost colorless.

One day turns into two, two days become a week…then a month…time slips by and you don’t know where the days have gone. Hazed over in heat and dust…Each day marked by another alert on the weather site… Ozone Watch Issued…Heat Advisory…At least there are no more mosquitoes…

Even the dogs are spending the days under the house. Sometimes they don’t even seem to have the energy to come out to bark at the UPS driver as he makes his delivery. If only Sherry had enough time off for a mountain run…Then life would be good…

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Gary Boyd — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:32:46 +0000

Every time I hear this lady sing I wonder where I was all her life…Have a listen.

I am…Again

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Leon Hale Talks About Owning Rural Property

Gary Boyd — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:58:01 +0000

I caught Leon Hales latest in my feed reader last week and thought he had a lot of good points. After spending a quarter of a century posting columns from the porch of his place in Winedale, Leon Hale has come to some conclusions about the joys of a second home in the country.

Here’s the main one: Your weekend hideout will end up costing you twice as much as you probably thought.

He explains this point this way…

Owning a weekend farm, or whatever you want to call it, is a great deal like starting all over. You’ll likely have another mortgage payment to make. And more insurance. And another set of taxes. (Taxes in the country aren’t super high, but they do the same thing taxes in the city do — they go up.)
I’ve heard weekend landowners say that somehow it didn’t occur to them that when they bought their little place, they would also need to buy everything they already owned in town.

Then he reminds all us men of this terrible fact of married life…

Here’s the gravest risk of them all:
A couple buys 30 acres in the woods, 100 miles from Houston, and the husband loves the place and wants to live out there. But the wife hates it. Can’t stand the loneliness and the insects, and once she saw a snake. That husband has big trouble.

This is the one that worries me about planning a move to the mountains…What happens if my wife isn’t happen once the move is a done deal. It’s not like you get a do over. And moving to the mountains wont be a perpetual vacation.

His most important point is this…

What you need to do, before making a move like this, is realize that you’ll have a good many days when you wish you hadn’t done it.

For his reasons to these points you’ll have to read his column from this past week over at Owning a country home is no easy chore | Leon Hale | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

When you live in the country full time, not just on the weekends, your life moves at a different rhythm. The things you take for granted in town just take longer in the country. Especially when it involves repairs. Parts are never available when you need them. The parts warehouse is far away in a distant city.

Even finding someone to do work on your place takes more time and effort.

p.s. I have been having a bit of trouble finding my voice these past few weeks…Blame on the dog days of summer…Blame it on procrastination. What ever the cause, I will make a more concerted effort to restart the habit of opening the stream and letting the words flow.

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Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million – CNN.com

Gary Boyd — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 21:26:17 +0000

Los Angeles, California CNN — Rick Norsigians hobby of picking through piles of unwanted items at garage sales in search of antiques has paid off for the Fresno, California, painter.
Two small boxes he bought 10 years ago for $45 — negotiated down from $70 — are now estimated to be worth at least $200 million, according to a Beverly Hills art appraiser.
via Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million – CNN.com.

To think…it could have been anyone that day.

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They Took My Kodachrome Away

Gary Boyd — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 22:44:07 +0000

Kodachrome – Paul Simon – Momma Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away – Click here for more amazing videos

PARSONS — Freelance photojournalist Steve McCurry, whose work has graced the pages of National Geographic, laid 36 slides representing the last frames of Kodachrome film on the light board sitting on a counter in Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons.
He placed a lupe – a magnifier that makes it easier to view film – over one frame and took a closer look at the film.
As Kodachrome is no longer manufactured, Steinle said that on Dec. 10 Dwayne’s Photo will end its processing of Kodachrome.
Read more: http://www.kansas.com/2010/07/14/1403115/last-kodachrome-roll-processed.html#ixzz0uY7e8xXV
via Last Kodachrome roll processed in Parsons | Business News for Wichita Kansas | Local Journal of Wichita Business News and Kansas Business News | Wichita Eagle.

And so the last roll of Kodachrome was processed and the equipment is being shut down and moved out…And a lifetime of photographic history comes to an end. Digital brought about the end. So a word of warning to anyone out there with a roll or two of the stuff…You have until December to get it processed. But if I were you…I’d do it sooner rather than later..Don’cha know.

Back in the early 70′s when I started getting serious about my photos it was Kodachrome I burned through because it was cheap to have processed in those days. And the quality of the image was amazing…Just as long as you had the light.

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