Magic Hour

Nope, not what I planned on putting up here, but when Nature presents such a scene, who am I to refuse?

This was taken last Friday, when the family and I went out to celebrate my niece Emily's 16th birthday- woohoo! A good time was had by all, even though her silly uncle destroyed her musical birthday candle contraption. Seriously, the thing was all clever, playing music and sparkling and burning, but the damn thing would not shut up... at first...

Today was my Mom's 72nd birthday, and though there was no big party, I left work a little early and took her and the ubiquitous Emily to dinner at 'The Park', a 50's-style Eat 'n' Park. Good stuff, and nice to see them, as I won't be able to for the next two weeks or so (nothing bad, just lots of stuff going on). For 72, Mom's doing really well- though, as she tells me, "it's hell getting old". (That's also the first time I ever heard my mom swear!) Of course, she's also the one who tells me she's a "tough old bird", so I think she's doing just fine.

No promises as to when the art-type thing will get posted, but hopefully soon. There's some technical issues I need to work out, and some general tinkering. But we'll see.

Music: "Happy Birthday" - The Beatles (though neither Emily nor my Mom like them)

I can see for miles and miles...

Here's a camphone shot from my friends' yard, taken Saturday evening. That's the kind of view you can't just ask for...

No art to post today; I'm up here in PA on some family business, but I didn't want you regular viewers to go thinking I'd slipped and forgotten about it. Hopefully I'll have some more arty stuff to go up here Wednesday. If it's what I think it is, there will probably be a bunch of words to go along with it. If not, expect more of the same!

Hope everyone is doing well, and continues to do so.

Music: "My Father's Eyes" - Eric Clapton

In the Camera(phone) Eye

I've noticed recently there are a lot of pretty skies out there. I don't know what it is that is suddenly making me aware of this fact; it's not like there were no skies before now. Maybe it's that I'm not listening so closely to my audiobooks (I apparently have a sliding scale of bad books- if they take long enough to get bad enough, I'll stick it out and finish it), maybe it's just that I'm looking out while my mind wanders. Whatever the reason, I've been seeing a lot of beautiful sunsets and skies like the above, and the one below.

The other thing I've noticed is, given half a chance, my cellphone's camera can do a pretty decent job of capturing an image. I wouldn't try using it for passport photos, but it's not bad. Regardless, I now have the ability to hold these skies whenever I see them, instead of just trying to hold onto them with my so-fallible memory. I think I'm lucky, to now finally be able to see the skies, instead of constantly keeping my eyes on the ground.

So yeah, these pictures are really serving two purposes: 1) to share some of nature's beauty with anyone who happens to stroll by and 2) to avoid actually posting any art. I'm at a point right now where I don't like much anything I've got in the pipeline here, either due to trouble with the computer or just really not liking the sketches I've got here. Things are... less than optimal for me, artistically-speaking. I have a couple things I really like here, but they're not really where I want them to be just yet, and I have something coming up that I really hope I can put together. But, the ideas just aren't rolling out like they had been. The couple times I've wanted to pick up the pencil recently, I've not been in the position to do so. I hope this will all pass, and I'll go back to the artistic powerhouse I was before, dazzling you all with my dead on renditions of those so-popular comic book and science fiction characters. Or dazzle myself, at least.

Okay, for those of you who struggled through that last paragraph, sorry about that. I know some of you read this to actually see what's going on with me, so there you go. For everyone else, wake up! I'm done whining for now.

Hmmm... let's see...

Music: "Prime Mover" - Rush

(Yes, I know that these beautiful sunsets are created in part by all the pollution in the air. Thanks.)