Sometimes the morning commute isn’t so bad!
October's morning mists and early light play on still waters.
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The AT&T Z221 Cell Phone - Image Credit: AT&T
It wasn’t that long ago, just about one year, when I purchased a nice little Motorola cell phone from and signed up with TracFone. By and large TracFone fit my needs: it was cheap, worked most places (even inside the office), was usable most places, and it was cheap. Though it remained cheap, something happened along the way… I could get no usable service in Hiram, so I was completely out-of-touch at the observatory. As I recall, it used to work great out there but not now and not for some time. Now being unreachable may be relaxing for some but I don’t get many calls and those I do receive are pretty important. What if someone needed to reach me in an emergency while I was out stargazing? More importantly, what if I needed to make an emergency call? I found that, over many square miles around Hiram, I had no service available. I was uncomfortably out of touch. I don’t own a cell phone for personal pleasure and hardly talk on telephones at all. I own a mobile phone for urgent communications wherever I might be! So I researched and shopped and decided I’d try AT&T this time. Verizon Wireless came in a close second but was more expensive and reportedly has shaky coverage not far from Hiram. The AT&T GoPhone Prepay plan and phone(s) seemed to be a good fit and I think I’ve got a good shot at coverage in Hiram: the cell phone tower put up on the college campus was spearheaded by AT&T. I purchased a quad-band world phone, the ZTE-made Z221, for its flip-phone form factor. It’s got AT&T Mobile Music, mobile email, and a Web browser but I doubt I’ll use any of those things. Well, maybe if I can hit Twitter with updates. Really, I’ll be happy if I can just talk on the phone when I need to!
Buying online, direct from AT&T was not easy for me. Selecting a plan and a phone were easy enough. Completing the order and paying were quite another matter! As required, I provided my street address for shipping and service location purposes — all well and good. When it came time to pay, however, their system required that the credit card used have the same address as the shipping address (even though the order form allowed for differing information) BUT NO PO BOXES! I’d been receiving my statements at my PO Box for security reasons. Chat sales support said I would have to go to my local AT&T store if I wanted to buy. Well, why do you have an e-commerce Web site??? To get around the restriction, I logged on to my credit card account, changed to electronic billing, changed my physical address to match my shipping address, and after a couple of hours, tried my order again. Vois là! Order completed! I’ll probably stick with paperless billing for a while and see how I like it but it’s stupid I had to concoct that little workaround. What did their requirement achieve except frustration on the part of their would-be customer? They’re lucky I was that interested because, at this level of business and for me, it’s another day, another cell phone!
UPDATE: The GoPhone works great in Hiram — even inside the observatory dome! I am very pleased. The phone is only marginally useable at home but everywhere else I’ve traveled (so far) I receive good to excellent signal strength.
The living decoration at our door.
During the past few years I have been enjoying making photographs of dragonflies. Though I sometimes see them in unexpected places, I usually travel to nearby ponds and still, small lakes to find the gossamer-winged beauties. Today we spent on errands, traveling all about shopping for groceries, looking in on contractors preparing mom-in-law’s house for sale, buying a new office chair for She Who Must Be Obeyed. Arriving back at home, walking ’round the bend to our house what should I see but a big, beautiful dragonfly perched at eye-level, just to the left of our screen door! I hesitated a bit thinking the big insect would take flight as soon as I approached but no, it stayed put! I was carrying several items so I set them down on the porch, took my trusty G11 from its pouch, set it for macro and moved it. The dragonfly stayed put, even wiped its eye as I lined up shot after shot! Once I was sure I’d gotten as good images as I could, I slowly stretched out my finger and touched the resting flyer’s abdomen. Still, it stayed put! Our visitor stayed in place until I tried to place a piece of white paper under its wing in order to photograph the intricate details then off it went… but only about six feet higher on the same wall. Such a welcome visitor; it’s as if it knew it would be appreciated.
PS – Not long after this, we spotted the resident garter snake sunning itself among the barberry hedges. Hopefully the neighbors will leave mister snake alone.
Against a backdrop of sunshine and blue skies storm clouds build. Not long after this image was recorded, the rain began.
We made a little trip to Hiram on Saturday to check on the Observatory. It has been stormy and wet lately and the office dehumidifier must be emptied to prevent overflow. Along the way we had a small adventure. For the past few days we’ve been experiencing periods of partly-cloudy skies interrupted by rain and thunderstorms. We would sometimes see the clouds building as they moved towards us, their bottoms darkening as if heavy with water; then the rains would come. Though it had not rained much near our home this day, in Portage County the situation was much different. A storm had parked itself over the area and, for a couple of hours, drenched the landscape. As we traveled the rolling route south to Hiram we encountered several areas where gravel had washed across the road… sure sign of recent local flooding. Next we came to a low spot where we slowed to a crawl to safely drive through standing water several inches deep. Not long after that we saw red and blue police lights in the middle of the road ahead. There was a gap in the road, edge to edge, a couple of feet across where the asphalt pavement was missing entirely. We detoured and arrived safely in Hiram where all seemed damp but otherwise normal. Duties done we headed for nearby Garrettsville and their excellent Subway restaurant (I mean it, nice people and consistently the best Subway sandwiches we’ve enjoyed). The shop has a front door on the village’s main street and a back door that opens to an extensive deck system that runs along a mill stream through the center of town.
The view looking south from a pedestrian bridge over an old mill dam in downtown Garrettsville, Ohio. On the left, water floods the town's old mill spillway.
After lunch we stepped out on to the deck and were greeted with surprising sights and sounds — the usually quiet stream flowing gently over an old dam was a raging torrent of brown water tearing through the rock and building-lined channel.
The view looking north from a road bridge in downtown Garrettsville, Ohio. The stream crashes over submerged rocks as it rushes towards us in this picture.
The rushing water roared so as to cause us to shout to be heard; it crashed and tumbled over submerged rocks, and careened down, under and past the town’s new bridge. The sight and commotion drew locals to stop, park their cars on nearby streets, and lean over bridge railings to take in the sights and sounds. Yet as we finally left Garrettsville on our drive homeward, we soon exited areas where there had been tremendous rainfall … as if all was right with the rest of the world. It was a surprising Saturday.
What a cool camera that guy has! That's the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Oh, and that's the President of the United States holding it. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.
I was looking around for images of a couple of cameras after which I lust. Yes I know, I’m awakening attachment ya danged Buddhist! A guy can dream, can’t he? Anyway, I found some nice shots of the Canon EOS 7D which I could reasonably afford new some day. The 7D has really good specs, though not a full-frame sensor, and according to DPReview.com: “… in terms of build quality, speed of operation, ergonomics and image quality, a cut above Canon’s previous APS-C flagship, the EOS 50D.” I love my 50D. Canon’s EOS 5D Mark II, however, is my dream machine: 21 megapixels of tasty imaging power and a superbe full-frame sensor for my wide-angle pleasure! I mean it… I can dream about spending $2,500+ on a camera; if I told my spouse I spent that kind of money on one, I’d soon be out cold, in dreamland alright!
One of the photos I ran across stopped me in my digital tracks. The guy holding the Mark II looked somehow familiar. I glanced up from my little Android tablet at the TV screen and who should I see there, chewing out Congress, but the same person I’d just discovered in a photograph holding my object of desire … the President of the United States!
Apparently, back in February 2009, POTUS was waiting around backstage at Dobson High School in Mesa, Arizona, prior to delivering remarks about providing mortgage payment relief. There in the wings, he asked to take a look at the camera a photographer was holding. Are you really going to refuse if the President of the United States says he wants to take a look at your camera? Here you go!
Nice camera, fella!
A view of the curved-wall gallery area at the library and my photos as I placed them. There was one other, larger image placed near the entrance to the gallery and a staff office.The gallery could use better lighting. Donations, anyone?
I started out the post-holiday work week hanging my photos in the gallery area of the Westlake Porter Public Library. It took longer unpacking the pictures from their shipping materials (layers of bubble wrap taped shut around each framed picture) than it did to actually hang them. The library provides adjustable hangers that attach to a modern picture molding near the ceiling of the gallery areas. As I was hanging the pictures a couple strode up and remarked, “We’re here to see the pictures. Not much here.” They spent a grand total of about 15 seconds before they turned heel and walked away. A few minutes later a couple of library volunteers took a few moments from their work, storing books for an upcoming fund-raising sale, to look at the pictures. They expressed their admiration, wondered where the pictures were taken, and spent a decent time looking at them. All to be expected, I suppose, but I’d not experienced the extremes in such quick succession!
You can view and purchase the photos that appear in the showing, along with a couple of alternative images that are not on display, at: GuilfordPhoto.com
Sometimes good things happen when you least expect them.
I hadn’t paid a visit to one of my favorite places in a long time so this morning, on the way to work, I stopped by David Fortier River Park in Olmsted Falls. It was quiet and dark under the clear, early-morning sky. I carried my little Canon G11 camera towards the rock-lined stream and river that converge in the valley park and gingerly stepped out upon the rocks. I photographed ancient, water-sculpted rock walls and flowing streams. I took images of the rich green colors and leafy trees, light and dark reflected in the water that led to the park’s stone bridge. It was beautiful and relaxing just being there for 10 minutes. Realizing it was time to resume my trip, I carefully stepped across the damp, slippery rocks, looking down to avoid water and a sure tumble into the shallow stream. Then, either at a glance or in the still-live LCD panel of the camera, a sight caught my eye: all of the elements I sought combined, in painterly fashion, in one image. I took one shot, made my way (still dry) to my car and headed off. Only tonight looking at the photographs did I see that, for all of those carefully-composed photographs, my favorite and the best of the morning was that “accidental” vision. Beautiful serendipity.
Dragonfly Halloween Pennant (Celithemis eponina)
The library invited me to hang another showing of my photographs in their art gallery area. The gallery is actually an alcove in a long corridor that leads to the facility’s meeting rooms. Hundreds of people will pass pay on their way to and from events. It may not be the Cleveland Museum of Art, but it’s something!
It was fun and a bit challenging (self-editing certainly can be) choosing from among hundreds of photos which to show. I’d decided on a nature theme, “Down by the Pond”, which helped narrow the prospects. Despite that the selection process took hours. Once I’d made my picks, I made final technical and artistic adjustments to the images and set the digital files aside.
Late Wednesday morning I placed the order for 12 of my photographs to be printed and framed through Mpix, a company whose work I’ve appreciated. Their quality is high and their prices are quite reasonable. Still, when you take even a respectable price for framed art and multiply by 12, well, it gets into real money pretty quick!
Thursday afternoon a big box arrived at the office … the photos! I was stunned. I’d expected a bit more delay between ordering and receipt but that’s just one more thing about Mpix that I appreciate!
Friday I spent a few hours revamping my photography Web site. It’s still fairly basic but a lot more attractive and well-organized than it has been. Print sales there are disabled, at present, until I can create a price list.
So everything’s coming together for my little show. I’ll add some pond-themed photos from a 2009 exhibit to the new pictures and will have about 20 themed works for people to look at. Now, if only they’ll buy a few!
The local Apple Store (Westlake, Ohio) just refused to sell me one of their ( $29 !) accessory adapters tax-exempt “unless purchased with a computer!” My local government agency forbids us to pay sales tax on any purchase made for the agency; it upsets the state auditors. The store manager (and Apple policy?) represented their own retail practices as Ohio Sales Tax law and tried to convince me he was correct. He repeatedly said, “we checked; it’s Ohio law!” Is this what they do to prevent “small” tax-exempt sales from taking up too much sales staff time? If the manager or some other staffer would have just made the sale, it would have taken way less time (and cost less) than our extended discussion about whether the “not accessories” rule originates with the state of Ohio or with Apple, Inc.! What might actually speed customer interaction is installing an old-fashioned cash register with a person to run it; I didn’t need to consult with a sales person, I just wanted to pay for a little adapter and be on my way! Store policy made that impossible. So what’s the point in us shopping at our local Apple Retail Store for accessories when I’ll have to go to Target, or Best Buy, or order online from CDW-G? The exchange took an otherwise pleasant visit to their shiny store and flushed it down the toilet. Bought the darned thing at the local (Ohio) Best Buy using my store-issued tax-exempt card, no problem… there.
Visitors enjoy white light (big telescope) and hydrogen-alpha (small scope) views of Earth's Sun. Photo by Kevin Kelley, WestLife.
I spent a fun couple of hours, August 10, sharing views of the Sun through my telescopes at the Westlake Porter Public Library. It was a sort of sidewalk astronomy event, part of “Science Week” there, and drew 53 participants. Lots of passing clouds got in the way, shoved along by steady winds, and people were surprisingly patient waiting for the Sun to return. When we had clear skies we were rewarded with very good viewing of a beautiful loop-shaped solar prominence through the 35mm Lunt Ha scope; careful viewers with moments of better seeing spied several more! Seeing wasn’t quite good enough to reliably find the two small sunspot groups present, nor was it good enough to see granulation patters that afternoon using the 90mm Meade telescope with white light filter. I did see granulation that morning during testing at home. Sadly, a very large sunspot group, visible only days earlier, was just over the Sun’s limb this day. Procrastination in these things isn’t good but it was well worth the morning’s last-minute effort of fabricating a sturdy piggyback mount to mate the Ha with my trusty old Meade 390. It took just two trips to the hardware store for less than $10 worth of parts to create an excellent mount! A newspaper reporter asked me what organizations I represented and it turns out there were three: Cuyahoga Astronomical Association, Stephens Memorial Observatory (Hiram College), and the library! And I wore three name tags.
PhotonStopper 