Compromise (5/4/2023)

During our lunch meeting at work, Kevin our supervisor asked me what I have learned during my long career. We had gotten takeout and most of the staff members were gathered around the conference table eating our salads, pizza or sandwiches. The question made me think back to something we talked about at our UU church yesterday: write a letter of apology to yourself for something you did to someone else. At the time, I could not think of anything I was sorry of.

So, what wisdom could I impart to this group of colleagues and friends now I am a month from retiring? I could not leave them hanging, like I did in church, or really haven’t learned anything in life.

After a few seconds it dawned on me: mellow out, compromise. I have mellowed out over time. As I described to the gang, I have always devoted 100% the company, organization, and colleagues I worked for and with. This devotion was sometimes to a fault. The fault was that I would not compromise. I used two examples that I told to my colleagues, which I’ll recount here.

I entered required military draft in 1976. When my wife graduated in the US in 1977, she moved to the Netherlands to be with me; however, to be allowed to live there we had to get married. In addition, marriage allowed me to live off base and tripled my salary. We were able to rent a mobile home near the barracks and we moved in. The guys in the group I was working in (mostly career soldiers) started making fun of me before we got married and making crude jokes like: “Don’t come knocking, when the trailer is rocking,” and this was a mild one. Instead of taking this in jest, I got pissed and after extensive teasing I blew up. This got so bad that the Army asked me to file for Section 8 (or insanity). I refused, partially because I knew I wasn’t insane and because I wasn’t looking for a compromise. I threated to kill them. Eventually the solution was to make me the base photographer for my remaining time. I was the only private first class with a private office and free to roam the base to take photographs. It helped that I was the leader in the photography hobby club. Compromise might have been OK and gotten me out early.

The other example I used took me back to Uganda. My first job out of the Army. If you are a regular reader, you would know I worked there as a farm manager for a leprosy center in 1978 and 79. This was at the end of the reign of one of the most ruthless dictators Idi Amin. We stayed in the country during the civil war that ousted him. Right after our liberation one of my friends and top assistant, a local young Ugandan man went crazy and tried to attack all the white (European) staff at the center except me and my wife. The rumor went around the entire hospital that I sent him. It was known that I had quarrels with the European medical superintendent and the European hospital administrator because they were funneling profits from the farm to pay for the hospital expenses. I understood that this was one of the reasons the farm was there; however, in my mind they were taking too much. It seemed that everyone in the hospital knew of the issue and when the guy stated running around with a machete trying to kill all the white folks, rumors started flying. This made it impossible for me to maintain my position at the center and I had to return home. Of course, I did not send him, and had I taken a less public, less strong stand, the rumor might not have started, and I would have been allowed to stay.

These two examples are among a few where a harsh or hard stand had some interesting results. I can mention many more. Finally, in 2002 after two quick consecutive layoffs and a minor bout of depression I decided to go for a few counseling sessions and it was there, by talking with a complete stranger, that I finally became to understand that a strong, hardline opinion might not always be the best, especially if you express it and put your foot down. Lessons learned.

When Kevin asked me, it took me a few seconds to figure out what I had learned in the course of my career. The day before my wife and I were listening to a radio show where they were talking about the term: “That’s a great question.” My wife commented that it was such an overused meaningless sentence. But I had to contradict her, I told her that as an instructor it gives me just enough time to consider the question and come up with an answer. Then came the answer over the radio and they answered it the same way as I told my wife. The question from Kevin was such a good question that needed a few milliseconds of thought to come up with the answer. That was a great question, Kevin!

The end of an error? (1/21/2021)

 Well, we finally got rid of the red faced dictator today (this was written yesterday).  It felt good.  We celebrated with binge watching, champagne, and pizza.  The little dictator snuck out off town like a defeated looser.  Good riddance and let the healing begin.

Us toasting to the swearing in of the new president.  Folks have asked me what happened to my mask.  I had just given the champagne glasses to the wife and her father and returned to put the bottle in the fridge.  On my way back from the fridge I had take a sip when my wife asked me to come over for a selfie.  I forgot to pull my mask back up.  Sorry no overt message here!  (Photo by my wife).

Yes, I understand that these are no healing words that I just typed.  I am sorry, I should be kinder.  I promise that I will, start trying in my next post, or just a little later in this one.  But it feels so good to get rid of this liar, this narcissist, this con-man; I can go on.  It is just such a shame that there are still so many people that believe him and blindly follow him.  I was listening to a podcast from the New York Times yesterday called "the Daily" where they talked about the Trump followers and what they think and would do now.  In interviews some mentioned succession.  Others mentioned that when they saw strangers they now wondered whether they were Republican or Democrats.  Truthfully, I have wondered that sometimes as well, especially at the beginning of COVID when you saw people without face masks.  I wrote about it here, although that was more about their preexisting conditions.

So yes I sincerely hope we can, as Biden put it, start living like neighbors and not like enemies or adversaries.  Neighbors can have their differences but can talk it out and come to a compromise. 

Well, where to go from here.  I promise that in future my blogs will return to "normal" or to what I have always intended for this blog: a reflection of me; my travels (through the state) when that starts again; my photography (I will soon be getting a new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, which should be loads of fun ... a 160 MP camera); my bonsai, my love of nature and the environment; and finally my love of teaching and training.  I will most likely sprinkle an occasional gripe about politics in there, especially when it impacts these loves or other personal things, but I promise I will try to get of my political soap box.  

But damn, that champagne tasted good. 

Too many hobbies?: Bonsai lessons in the woods (11/28/2017)

When it comes to hobbies, I am multifarious.  My mother always complained that I knew a little about too many things: “A Jack of all trades, master of none.”  My mother was probably correct.  This is why our home is such a mess, there is always so much going on in our lives; but I guess that keeps life interesting.  We hardly have any time for TV watching.  I wrote about this a little bit in 2015, but after this weekend it is time to revisit this subject. 

My hobbies include nature and forest bathing, sailing, photography, bonsai, hiking and biking, to name a few.  This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend and our daughter was visiting, which meant some intensive walking in the woods, or as we know it “#optoutside.”  Optoutside was started by an outdoor outfitter company as their answer to the shopping craze of Black Friday, where (I think) half of the U.S.A. goes absolutely crazy and goes shopping for deals and for Christmas gifts.  So, on Friday and Saturday morning we did a 3-mile walk in the woods, before lunch.

Taking the dogs for a walk, early in the morning before all the heavy walking later in the day.  However, it gave me the urge to look at the trail from the height of a dog's head.  Naturally they do not see red or green and have a greater sense of smell.

The two walks were a great excuse for me to combine a few of my hobbies:  hiking, bonsai growing, photography, nature and forest bathing.  The forest bathing part sometimes had to play second fiddle, my company became impatient at times with me lingering in the woods and taking it all up.  But I did have some time to assimilate it all, especially when they took our older dog on a shorter path home and I was allowed to take the longer trail with the younger dog.

During our walk I encountered this dead tree that was infested by termites and obviously, the woodpeckers had discovered them as well.

Jut a bit off the trail I noticed this tree with this large gall or growth.  At first I wondered if it was a swarm of bees or even a nest, but no it seemed to be solid wood.  I walk this trail a lot and it was the first time I noticed it.

I am trying to grow bonsai.  I wrote about that before, as well.  Some of my trees are as old as my daughter; they were started from seed by a friend of mine who was a native plant grower 30 years ago.  They are not perfect at all; I have ignored them for a long time and am finally getting back into them in the past 3 years or so.  They were root bound and in horrible shape; I am surprised that they survived my abuse (read neglect) for that long.  Some of my best specimens did die the 30 years of moving from New Mexico to Ohio and now the last 17 years in Virginia.  Since getting back into it, I have been following a few YouTube channels and blogs about growing them and learned a lot (I will post a list of the ones I follow below). 

In bonsai root over rock is a style.  During our walk we found a root over root.  Pretty cool how the dogwood roots are growing over the mature oak root.  I assume that the soil has eroded away, or maybe the oak root has pushed up as part of the growth process.

One of my favorite channels is the one of Nigel Saunders.  Nigel is very strong on developing a good evenly spreading root system and he encourages people to study the plants they grow in nature and try to copy them.  So, this weekend I spent a lot of time taking pictures of the bases of trees and studying how the roots come out of them (I also wrote about them before in that previous bonsai blog and in one specifically about roots).

One of my favorite examples of a well spread root system on an American beech.  There were lots of nice examples to look at during our walk.

Having little to no leaves on the trees, I was also able to study the branch structure in the canopy; although in our woods there is a lot of competition for light and the first 30 to 60 feet of most of the tree trunks are bare without many branches.  Still it was fun to look at.  Even in these situations did I see what Nigel alludes to about branching: the second set of branches coming out at about 2/3 the distance of the first set of branches; and that a trunk divides into two and then again divide into two, and so on.  All things to keep in mind when creating realistic miniature trees.  During our walk there was one slope where the trees had a particularly wild branching structure and I lingered in that area for a bit, and took a few pictures.

Last, a study photo of the branch structure in one of the trees during my walk.  Maybe something I can try to copy in the design of one of my trees.

After a long weekend like this I felt motivated and inspired to work on my trees.  I addition I feel rested but exercised, mentally recharged from being out in the woods, and I just feel good from bathing in the woods (figuratively that is, although I still would like to build an outdoor shower).  Naturally it helped that I got so many likes on some of the photographs that I posted on my Instagram site as well, for as the research shows even that give you an endorphin rush; you do not even need to go out into the woods and exercise to get a runners high!  However, nothing beats forest bathing.

Now for some of the YouTube channels that I follow:
Nigel Saunders
MikBonsai (he also has a great Facebook page)
Appalachian Bonsai 
Bonsai Talk
Bonsai & Killifish

Blogs that I follow:
Adam Levine (he has a great Instagram page)
Flemish Bonsai Blog
Robin Bonsai
Maros Bonsai Blog

I also love the work that Harry Harrington does.

I am a trainer: The classes that I teach (11/13/2017)

If you are a regular visitor, by now you should know that I give day long workshops throughout the state of Virginia.  I do it for a living and in general I do on to two day-long workshops each week.  I will detail the workshops below, but first a brief explanation.

An updated photograph from 2019 during teleworking times.  I somehow lost the original pic.

We have a mandatory certification program for people working in Erosion and Sediment Control and in Stormwater Management.  In the distant past I used to be in charge of that program, and taught the certification classes.  However, the program was moved from one government department to another, and guess what?  I lost my job as manager of the program.  This is what usually happens with mergers, so it did not come as a surprise.  What surprised me was that they kept me, I was actually afraid of being laid-off or moved to a different job.  However, my current supervisor understood my love of course development, teaching, public speaking, and my life experience.  So, I am still allowed to do what I love to do these things: but especially teach.

Actually, one of the things I was asked to do was to step away from teaching the regular classes and to develop a number of classes that go deeper into the various subjects discussed in our certification classes.  We call these classes our Continuing Education classes; although the other day I called them the Special Ed. classes.  In my classes I stay away from my political opinion (although my regular readers now I have one), I am somewhat of a lecturer, but try to be Socratic at times.  So what classes did I develop and teach?

Integration of Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Program – This was the first course I developed.  It dealt with the transition from one department to another and the adoption of the then new stormwater management regulations.  I talked about how the two laws and regulations interacted and complemented each other.  Many of the Erosion and Sediment Control professionals were all the sudden faced with having to deal with enforcing the new Stormwater regulations and having to deal with a new State agency.  This was a very intense 6-hour class; it also introduced a lot of controversial new regulatory issues.

Plan Review Using the Older Standards – Since the adoption of the new Stormwater Management Regulations there were a group of older (grandfathered) stormwater structures that needed to be reviewed by folks who had never reviewed them before.  We teach the review of the new Low Impact Development (LID) Best Management Structures (BMPs) in our regular classes, so this class was for the review of some of the older more traditional ones.  This was another intense 6-hour class.

Erosion and Sediment Control Inspector Refresher Class – Everyone needs a refresher class so now and then; to go back and to hear it all again.  I end this class with a Bingo game.  This is a fun filled, very interactive 5.5-hour class.

Native Plants for Stormwater and Erosion and Sediment Control – Being a Plant Ecologist by training, this class was my first real hobby class.  I love doing this class and people seem to enjoy it as well.  I will be redesigning it this winter a bit, and will de-emphasize the law and regulations a bit and add more discussion about the various plants (that is what I also one of the comments in the evaluations of the class I received).  One or two people have an issue with me bringing up evolution and natural selection in this class.  So be it.  This is a very intense 6-hour class.

Applied Soils for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is another one of my favorite courses.  I developed this with a dear friend of mine.  We taught it together until he left the department; and now I am on my own.  In this class I deal with soils in three ways.  I look at it from the agriculture (USDA) side, the hydrology side and the engineering (Unified Soil Classification) side.  Then I try to tie it in to our job in construction as it relates to erosion and stormwater management.  This is a great 5-hour class.

Wetlands for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is not a class intended to turn people into wetland delineators.  While I worked as a delineator for over 15 years, that is not the intent of this class.  What I do in this class is teach inspectors and plan reviewers to recognize “red flags” and know what to do when they see them.  I also want them to know how to react to sediment releases in wetlands.  This past week I taught the last of this class in its current format.  I will be redesigning it and taking a lot of the discussion on law and regulations out of it and putting it on-line.  For the rest, I again want to make it more hands-on and show pictures of plant species (invasive and typical wetland species) to get people more in to it.  This is a 6 to 6.5-hour class.

 SWPPP Inspections – This is the most interactive class of the bunch, with a class exercise.  We discuss the development of a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, the different elements and the inspection of a site for compliance with the SWPPP and the Pollution Prevention Plan (P2).  This is a great 5-hour class.

Where the water goes – A class subtitled “Hydrology for Inspectors.”  A class that deals with the flow of water on a construction site.  How water behaves itself on slopes, why it matters and what we do to mitigate for its effect.  We discuss how we manage the flow of water on a site and examine a lot of “how-not-to” photographs.  I love this 6-hour course.

Soil Amendments for Erosion and Sediment Control and Stormwater Management Professionals – This is a 3-hour course divided into two parts.  The first part deals with the use of compost and fertilizers in the restoration after construction has been completed.  In the second part we discuss the use of special soil mixes for bio-retention areas.

Photography for Inspectors – This is also a 3-hour course that I usually do in combination with the previous course.  As readers of my blog may know, I am somewhat of a photographer and I have been trained in it.  I teach the do’s and don’ts for inspectors as well as some of the photographic theory. 

Finally, I am in the process of developing some more classes (no rest for the weary).  But it keeps my brain going, it keeps me young.  I often joke, that I roll out of my motel bed in the morning and look on my sign-in sheet what class I am teaching that day; for sure, never a boring day.

In addition to all these classes, I also do some workshops on request here and there that are hybrids between these classes.  As I tell my students, if you have ideas for classes let me know.

   

I will also entertain special requests to teach any of these classes or any workshop where ever you are.

No, it does not have to be perfect (10/13/2017)

Wow, two posts so close together!  But I felt I owe you one.  I have been on political and environmental rants or soap boxes lately and need to get off it; although today's post started out from lots of anxieties including a lot of political ones.  Rest assured, I will not go into them.

Working from home today, I needed my "smoking" or maybe I should call it my "socialization" break (I don't smoke).  I had just pulled up a few websites and all kinds of news items stared me in the face, and then my arm buzzed.  "Ready to take me for a stroll?" my Fitbit asked me?  That darn thing has a feature that reminds me every hour at 10 minutes before the hour that I need to get my 250 steps in that hour.  At least it does that when I sit on my ass that entire hour.  So as any good slave to their activity tracker does, I obliged.

Being a student of "forest bathing" and, as I already mentioned, not in the best of mental shapes this morning, I go for broke.  What the hell, I think let's just go for a little stroll out back on the path in the woods behind our home, and ignore all the ticks and potential chiggers.  I need to forest bathe!  Somehow the dogs also think they should forest bathe.

On the forest trail behind our home.

This is partially a serious and a not so serious post, so let's get the not so serious one out of the way.  We do not put our dogs on the leash in this area (don't tell the park rangers, please!), it is behind our house, there is never anyone there and I was only going out for 10 minutes.  Our beagle Lucy started eating grass all the way; in other words it was slow going.  This would have been fine, I wanted to forest bathe, and really relax.  However, this is fairly difficult with a loudly gagging dog behind you on the trail, disturbing the peace and quiet of the woods.  So I just walked a little faster, figuring out she knew where I was going.  I also wanted to stop on the way to take some photos and take in nature, so I was planning to go slow anyway.  This confused our other dog Jake somewhat: "aren't we waiting for Lucy?"

At least I got my forest bathing in, the smells and the sounds were great (with the exception of the occasional gagging behind me in the distance).  We've had a wet couple of days; it actually rained over 3 inches two days ago, so I expected a wet mess.  To my surprise it wasn't: the pond behind our home was still dry.  These (Grafton) ponds are groundwater fed and we've had a dry fall, so I am not that surprised.  

As you can see this pond is still dry despite all the rain we had the last couple of days.

It was just nice to slowly walk the trail, to smell nature, to observe the beauty and come to my senses.  Taking photos helps me see things more clearly.  The photographs do not need to be perfect it is just fun, it makes you slow down, look around and observe.  Get out there and do it.  Like my walk today, it was not perfect, but it was what I needed.  I would not want to change it for anything else.

The lichen on this tree grow on the north side of the tree that is mostly in the shade.  the south side has no lichen growing, probably because it is too hot and dry from the sun beating on it.

This oak had beautiful sloughing bark.  When I was living and working in the mid-West this was of great interest to us because this was where the endangered Indiana bat live under during the summer months. 

  

I just loved the seeds (nuts) of this sedge and how they hung like that.

And yes, even this post does not have to be perfect!

Sailing meditates me (Any open water, 6/28/2016)

One of the books I am reading discusses the healing power of water; Wallace Nichols describes in his book Blue Mind: "The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected and Better at What You Do."  It is  a fun and and fascinating book in which I often see myself.  Nichols' book has a similar theme as Richard Louv's books on Nature Deficit Disorder in that Lowe talks about green nature and Nichols talks about blue nature.  But regardless, whether it is the greens or the blues: nature has it.

A picture I took earlier this year on Catalina Island in Maine.  This picture captures the blue and the green that are so important in my life.

What struck me in one of the passages in Nichols' book was his statement about how someone mentioned that once you are near water you do not need to meditate, but that "water meditates you."  I found that a profound statement and it stuck with me.  If you read my previous post <here> where I wrote about when I visit the beach, how I can just sit in the waves for hours; let the water wash over me; forget everything; live in the moment; wait for the next wave; yes, empty my mind; and let it be. It kind of sounds like the definition of meditation to me.  I don't do it consciously, the water does it for me, the water meditates me.  Truthfully, being in nature often does that for me too (I write about it <here>).  Probably less so, because I have to pay attention to what my dogs do, and keep up with my wife who walks faster than I do (we need to get the heart rate up, you know.  Honestly, there is a time for that too.).

I took this picture of a boot at a mooring buoy in the York River some time ago, and I am not sure if I shared it with you already but scenes like this, or doing this, meditates me. 

I was discussing this concept of water meditating me with a good friend at church the other day.  Doc Robin is a band leader, self proclaimed shaman and the leader of the Earth Rising Community in our Unitarian Church.  "I often think that church interferes with my spirituality ... The spirituality that I can get from nature", he quipped when we discussed the concept of nature (or water) meditating you instead of you meditating in nature (or on or near the water).  So there is something to it; being in nature or water, or being able to see it (even in pictures) is good for you, it heals the body and the mind, it lowers anxiety and lowers the blood pressure.

Last week I experienced this again when we went sailing.  You really cannot think about much else when being at the rudder and trying to maintain course and keeping the wind in the sail.  The winds were around 15 knots, which were fairly strong for our small 25 foot boat.  Nothing dangerous, but you need to keep attention to what you are doing, stay in the moment.  Yes, there were dolphins, birds and wonderful weather, but just looking backwards or not paying attention for a few seconds results in a course change, loose the wind out of your sail, or maybe get too much. Even occasionally looking on my tablet (GPS) to see where we were resulted in a course shift.  It could also cause your boat to come about or to gibe.  You had to be in the moment.  I really could not think of anything else that was going on in my life than being right in the moment and concentrating on my sailing, staying on course and reading the wind and the water.

You want to see two people experiencing flow?  Here you have it!  My wife and I look like we are truly enjoying ourselves and I am concentrating on keeping the boat on course and properly into the wind.

Granted, I do not have an autopilot as many people I know have on their boat.  I am not sure if I want one.  I know it would be nice when I solo sail or need to do something in a hurry, but in the past when I sailed on a friend's boat with autopilot it felt that I somehow lost that intimate touch with the water and the wind.  It was great to be on the water and I loved it; it was so much better than being on land, and of course you always have to pay attention, but still, I like the rudder in my hand.  Granted, I have not sailed in my own boat for longer than 4 or 5 hours at a stretch, so time will tell.  On top of that, I always have someone to take over when I have to take a pee-pee break.

After reading Nichols I realized that in reality, our sailing trip "meditated me", there was no time for distractions.  Mihály Csikszentmihálályi describes this as flow.  Flow is an interesting concept that I learned about from a book that he published in 1990 under the same title (boy that was a long time ago that I read that book).  When you are in flow, you are completely absorbed in and energized by what you are doing (no television watching does not count).  Healing at 15 degrees or more, with 15 knot winds and thoroughly enjoying yourself, not thinking about anything else (as I show you in the photograph above), now that is flow.  Kayaking through the marshes, looking at birds and snails hanging on to the marsh grasses is also flow.

I took this picture while kayaking this weekend of all the snails hanging on the the smooth cord grass (Spartina) during high tide.

Think about it folks, get out there, let nature meditate you!  Blue or green, it it good for your physical and mental health.  Go with the flow!

We went kayaking this past weekend.  Another advanture in the blue and green.  My wife took this picture of me, she really had to call be a few times to get my attention and take this picture.  I was absorbed by being out there in it.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question (5/11/2016)

If you are a blogger and read my posts, I have an interesting and a somewhat important (to me that is) question for you.  Why do you blog?  I am not one hundred percent sure why I blog (or actually I have 8 reasons), and that is probably why I have not broken through as this world famous blogger that is making a lot of money with my blogs.  Actually, I don’t even advertise on my blogs, so I have yet to make a penny on them, and really that's not why I do this.  But reading the newspaper this weekend about this famous stay-at-home mom blogging about her trials and tribulations raising kids and everyone following her and making money hand-over-fist, I wonder, am I missing something?  Or should I just quit?  Maybe I miss direction?  I am a dilatant, I know a little bit about a lot of things; l write about nature, training, sailing, stormwater, the environment, human communication and now this kind of stuff.  On top of that I try to show, what I think are pretty pictures that I took during my travels.  On top of that I sometimes mix all these things together together to make my and my reader's heads spin.  Look at the labels on the side of my blog, it is absolutely crazy!  A key word for everyone.  Maybe that's why I have only 100 to 200 or so readers every month.  But who cares?  So why do I do it?  Do I do it for the readers and the followers?  Or am I just egotistical?

To tell you the truth, these are the 8 reasons why I blog:

1. I started out to share my photographs and dig a little deeper, different and more philosophical than what I can do on my Facebook site or my Instagram site,
2. The blog became somewhat of a diary, but not a superficial "what did I do on vacation type diary" like Facebook that I share with friends,
3. I tried to share my passion for sailing and share some of my experiences of fixing up my boat and sailing with the sailing community,
4. I wanted to show the beauty of some of the far out-of-the-way areas in Virginia that I visit during my extensive travels in the state,
5. I wanted to share my passion for the environment,
6. I wanted to share my passion for teaching,
7. In my first writing class I took in college learned that you need to practice writing and for me the blog hopefully is helping me with my writing skills.  I sorely need this, since I am in the process of writing a book, and 
8. Finally, this is a good distraction from all my other writing and creative efforts; it is a different way to let my creative juices flow.

So the question remains, if you are a blogger, do you have similar reasons why you blog or are they different?

But that last point, creativity, that is important isn't it?  Why is it important to be creative?  For me it is one way I can enjoy life; a way to look back on a day, on an event, and be:

1. Grateful for the experiences I have had during the day and during my life.  It is important and fun to record them in words and photographs; to be happy about them and share them,
2. These experiences, the memories and writing about them nourish the soul,
3. I’m having fun writing,
4. It just inspires me,
5. It makes me think, reason and figure out things like sentence structure and logic,
6. In some sense it gives me the feeling of human connectedness with you all out there that read my blog, although I don't known you, and 
7. While it is not part of writing, the getting outside gives me exercise, takes care of my nature deficit disorder, and when I describe it I get to relive it.

Yes,a lot of this harks back to a lot of self improvement books that I've read about purposefull living, such as Dr. Sood's book in my reading list.  But I mean it.  My blog is an expression of gratefulness for being alive (after some of my life experiences), for being in love with my wife, my daughter, and happy the majority of the time!  Yes, I have to remind myself to be grateful when I'm depressed and down.  Dr. Sood teaches us to mention 5 things we are grateful for when we wake up in the morning before we get up out of bed.  Well, I usually write about about them in my blog.
  

On the other hand, if you are a regular reader, why the heck do you come back to this blog?   Because you never know what to expect?  Because of the photography (sorry guys no pictures today)?  Because you are a friend, family or a follower?

I realize that I wrote about blogging before (click <here> to see that entry), and hopefully this is an addendum to that blog and brings it a little further (Just an update, the photography class is well received and I am still having fun).   But yes, there are times I need to soul search,  look inside and try to figure out what I'm doing and why and hope to help you on your way as well!

Digging deeper (3/30/2016)

Boy, I only had one post in March.  Guess I had nothing to say.  Well, not really, but life is getting away from me (taxes and other writings).  Maybe I had nothing inspirational to say or nothing I have wanted to share; at least until today, when during lunch time I started looking through the on-line version of Wired and ran into the "Instagram Rabbit Hole" section of the magazine.  That was fun.  What Wired does is, one of their photographers takes one of their favorite photographers on Instagram and looks who they follow or who follows them and they go down five levels and see where they end up.  I tried it with people who follow me on Instagram and it was fun.

It is kind of as the 7 degrees of separation, the theory that everyone on this earth is no more that 7 persons away from each other.  Fore example my wife and I have actually spent a very pleasant evening talking with the father of the king of the Netherlands (or Holland as some call it) when we lived in Yemen of all places.  Now that all the sudden brings you close to many world leaders.  I wonder how many degrees I am away from Kim Jong-un; although that would not be really be not something I to be very proud of.  But then, I have been close to other weirdos as well (see my posts on Idi Amin).

It is just very fascinating to me these kinds of rabbit holes.  When I did it to my Instagram contacts I ran into locked pages, or pages that you had to ask permission to the owners from to connect to.  Makes you wonder what they have to hide, or if they are just private.

Going to one of my favorite photographers following me: Derya or @Daltuny on Instagram from Turkey, this is one of the latest photographs by her:

Photo taken by Derya and published on Instagram

Going "5 generations" in random down the rabbit hole (avoiding locked pages and just selfies) I got here to the page of Kenny Byron or @kidd_ok on Instagram.  Kenny seems to be a snow boarder and this was a recent photograph I loved:

Photograph by Kenny Byron published on Instagram

Fun to games like this.  Next time I would end up somewhere completely different, but I am so happy I ended up here Kenny Byron takes some awesome pictures, but so did the intermediaries between Derya and him, it was a feast for the eyes.  You should try it, whether you do it in Instagram, Google+ or maybe even in Facebook.  Who knows where you end up and what you learn about the world around you and your fellow humans.

So sorry guys, no photographs or deep thoughts by me, just some observations on the inter-connectedness  of us all, something I did discuss in this post before as well.  I am still amazed how small our world is becoming and how much we depend on each other.

On blogging, course design, photography and training (Fairfax, 10/20/2015)

I am having a comfortable landing (I hope) just good, there were a lot of loose ends are being tied down, like in the closing of the year.  I have therefore not written much these past two months; I am way to busy for that.  Yes, consider this a good thing.  I just have too darn much to do or to look forward to.  Here are some of the things:

1. It is the end of the sailing season; if we are lucky we'll get a few more nice days in.  As a rule of thumb, we try to sail on black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving for you non-U.S.A. residents, when most of the people seem to go Christmas shopping) and that generally is my last one for the year, at least on our boat.
2. I am done with my class designs for this years' classes and now I have one and a half month of heavy teaching (and travel) to look forward to (the photo below was taken at 8 pm in a Starbucks in Fairfax while I was writing this blog).
3. I am starting to think about new classes: a photography class, a hydrology class and a class on soil amendments.  How is that for diversity?
4. I have got some other irons in the fire that I cannot write about (yet).
5. In addition the days are getting shorter (bring on Seasonal Affected Disorder or SAD, at least for some, but I think we all slow down when fall and winter rolls around)
6. Finally, one of my co-workers is pregnant, which is great, but it will probably mean a more intensive travel schedule for us next year.  If I was a mother of a new born I would not want to go on overnight trips without the kiddo, especially if I was breast feeding.

On the road again.  My evening coffee at Starbucks, waiting for my computer to start up.

So yes this blog may suffer somewhat.  But I will really try to keep it up with a few interesting items, maybe not about my travels throughout the state, but more about my job and research.  I do not want to make this a "dear diary," so don't worry.

If you write a blog your self you know that there are many pages behind a blog.  I can check how many people read my posts, broken down by post, by day, by week, month or even year.  I know how readers got to my blog: by accident, via another website, what search engine they used, even what browser they used, you name it.  I even know what country they come from (surprise, most of my readers come from the U.S.A., but Russians are running second, followed by Germans and the French).

A lot of bloggers are in it to make money.  Yes, I could allow Google or Amazon to put advertisement on my blog and every time you would click on an add, I would get maybe 5 cents or something like it.  There are even blog posts about boosting traffic to your site like this one: <click here>.  This is how some bloggers are hoping to strike it rich and this is why they create these outrageous blogs.  Who knows, I may eventually break down and allow adds on my site, in the hope that you the readers will make me rich!  We'll see.

As I mentioned before, I started this blog for myself; I wanted to get back to photography and get into writing.  My wife and I had so much experience working all over the world, we felt that those experiences needed to be documented, if not only for our daughter, for future generations.  Moreover, I feel I have so much more to give.

So yes! I am going to teach a photography course again.  The last one I taught was in 1977 while serving in the Dutch Army as the Installation's photographer.  It is fun doing research on photography, or at least slowly trying to get slides together on items such as ISO setting and photographic noise (yes there is such a thing; we used to call it grain when we worked in film).

I took a photograph with my cell phone of a book case in my office from a distance of 12 feet at three different ISO settings (Auto, 100 and 800).  As you can see the ISO 100 setting produced the least noise, the problem is the shutter speed (your lens has to stay open longer), and at low light the camera set at ISO 100 might be subject to movement/shaking of the camera/phone.

I know most of it, but now try to put it in a three hour class that is useful for stormwater inspectors.  Who knows, I may need to make it a six hour class.  We could do so much, even a practicum and have them go out and take pictures; although then I would need to limit the class size (we usually limit our class size to 40 but as a solo teacher I could not manage 40 in the field).  There are really so many photo tips and tricks I could teach them (and you on my blog; if you want to learn more, let me know and leave me a comment).

As I mentioned, I will also be teaching a class on hydrology and in a future post I will be writing a little bit about that.  I found some really neat stuff on some of the history of stormwater management, some of which has fascinated me since I was 18 and enjoyed observing in Yemen when I worked there in the mid 1980s.  Yet another subject dear to my heart.  Stay tuned!

York Spit Lighthouse (5/16/2015)

There are a couple of things in life that are really my passion.   They include sailing, photography and teaching; although I have not biked much lately, I would almost want to count that as well as one of my passions in life.   I think what they have in common is that they make me live in the moment.   Doing these things I get in a zone and cannot think of much else.  You just need to concentrate on it, and do the best job at it; stay on course with a goal in mind: get (back) to the harbor; maybe where you started from, or maybe to your next goal (harbor).  Your mind is not allowed to wander much when you do these things; in particular in a boat with a tiller. I notice that I invariably go off course during those few times that I look at my GPS; it is amazing what that brief lack of concentration will do.  Just scanning the water, the horizon or just talking with the crew does not result in drastic course changes, but looking at a screen and concentrating on something else will do that.  Crazy maybe, but when driving a car my mind is often busy with something else, or as Dr. Amit Sood says in his "Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living", working on my open files.  During sailing or teaching my file cabinet is closed shut.  Living in the moment is so important!

In the moment (photo taken by the admiral Donna Briedé)

It was a wonderful day of sailing on Saturday.  Winds were 10 to 15 knots out of the Southwest; just perfect to achieve one of my goals: sail out to York Spit light and back.  From the opening of our creek the course was set to 90 degrees (due east) and after about two hours of sailing in the open water of the Bay we approached the spit.  Near the spit, the waves were between one and two feet in height with a great frequency in between that made it a great rolling ride.

Word has it that York Spit used to be an octagonal light house, but ot was abandoned by the coast guard and dynamited.  Below is a picture I stole from Wikipedia:

Now it is just some remnants of the steel base, a light and a few radar reflectors that guard the opening of the channel into the York River.  It is a pity that they could find someone to take care of this historic lighthouse and that they felt the need to destroy it.

Remnants of York Spit Light

After rounding the spit we held the course as close to 270 as we could and zoomed back to the creek we came out of.  We had to lay in one small tack to make it.  The admiral was on the tiller and I had some time to experiment taking photos.  So much for being in the zone (maybe in a different zone).  We had some great encounters with dolphins on the way; it was an absolute great sail.  Very unlike most of the sails that sailors tell you about; they tell you mostly about all those bad experiences they had.

It was an absolutely great Saturday without many worries, except staying in the zone.  One of the worst ways of going off course is by looking back; come to think of it, that is a crazy metaphor for life isn't it?

Newport News Park (4/5/2015)

Looking outside over the cityscape and skyscrapers of Richmond in the rain today, I have to reminisce about the wonderful weekend we had: the weather was glorious and the company (family) was glorious.  It was Easter weekend and that absolutely contributed to the great mood and atmosphere.  Having too many recreational choices: hiking, biking or sailing (you guessed right we are not great church people in our family), we settled on a good hike in Newport News Park.  I brought the camera and concentrated on wildlife (bird) photography.

There were plenty of cool birds to be found.  While my wife and I are birdwatchers, we took the dogs this time, and it is almost impossible to look through a pair of binoculars while a dog is tugging on the leash that is in your other hand.   Thank goodness our daughter was visiting, so I had my hands free to take pictures.  During our walk in the park we ran into a group of birdwatchers.  I forgot what the group is called, but I am sure they have the words “Hampton Roads” and “Birdwatchers” or “Birdwatching” in the name.  It seems that they meet every first and third weekend in Newport News Park (I think at 7 am), rain or shine to go bird watching.  We met them at the end of their bi-monthly trip and they reported to us that they had seen 73 different species.  Not bad for a Sunday morning, or for the park.  Birdwatchers are generally a great group of people, they are almost always willing to talk and just our inquiry, asking them if they had seen something interesting, resulted in a conversation that lasted at least 20 minutes.  I really think that is the case globally.

We walked almost the same way as the week before, so if you want to read more about the park look here or look in the labels column.  But, below are six of my bird pictures.

This is a blue heron.  You can see a pretty big turtle behind him going through the marsh. 

This egret just caught a fish and he is ready to swallow it.

Another egret in the forested part of the wetland, in the background you can see a swan on the pond.

This green heron landed right in front of me on a branch.

A white breasted nuthatch; their call is so recognizable and they are fairly easy to spot but difficult to photograph at times (they never pose).

Last but not least a picture that should be turned into a jig saw puzzle.  Two Canada Geese and a mallard.

Seaford (2/16/2015)

When I was young, in my early 20s, I studied photography and wanted to become a photographer.  One on the most interesting tricks in the darkroom was solarizing your photograph.  You never really knew what the results would be, but it was always fun.  It came down to putting your sheet of paper under the enlarger and exposing it to light, light every picture you print.  Subsequently, the paper would go into the developer and you were not to agitate the liquid.  At one point, while the picture was developing, you would flip on the light for a few seconds, and in essence your picture would turn black.  At least the areas that were light turned dark.  Simply the developing chemical was not exhausted and still worked.  In the darker areas nothing would happen and the used chemicals would bleed over from the dark areas to the lighter areas, resulting in the fine white lines you see with solarisation.  If you wanted a white picture, you could then put another piece of paper on the developed picture and use the paper as a negative.  Naturally you could do the same with film.  You could really never control the process and the outcome was never really predictable for me.  Now in modern days computer algorithms do all the work.  This picture was taken with my phone and I have the computer do all the work.  Still the results are fascinating, if you do not over use it.

This picture was taken at the yacht club.  It has been really cold these past few days and today we are expecting snow.  Evidence of the cold is the freezing of the water in our creek.  The water is saline, and you know it must be cold when an ice sheet forms.  NOAA tells me that saltwater freezes at 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit or -2 Celsius.   Even the solarized picture above shows the ice hanging off the lines that keep the boats in their place.  The picture below shows the ice on the side of one of the piers.  The ice is covering the shoreline as it is deposited by the tides.  Above the ice is the Spartina alterniflora shore.  This plant (smooth cordgrass) lives in the tidal areas on the east coast, and is an invasive weed on the west coast.  This past weekend we had a talk at the yacht club on sea level rise, and this is one of those plants that will be feeling the pinch.  It does not like constant inundation or feet that are too dry. 

Richmond (1/21/2015)

Sometimes the simplest pictures give you the most joy.  Moreover, some pictures just beg to be taken because of its composition and simplicity.

Let's talk about the joy first.  I think a lot of people can rejoice with me about the gas prices.  I need a full tank every 4 days or so.  This is because of the large commuting distance I have to work.  Today I paid $1.86 per gallon of gas, and last week I bought it for $1.66 at Costco.  That is half the price that I paid a half year ago.  Considering I have a 16 gallon tank, I am currently not spending (some call it saving) approximately $30 per week.  That really helps the family budget.  I think a lot of Americans are experiencing this joy, in particular those that have a small income.  Most have not seen a wage hike in years, and it looks like there is absolutely no willingness to give us one in the near future.  Our law makers only seem to look out for the big guys; the people that fund their re-election campaign.

Oh well, enough politicking.  People often ask me why I don't move closer to my work.  For one, if you have been reading my blog, you know what a great "back yard" I have.  Granted it is actually Newport News Park, but my back yard runs right into it (guess you can still see the old fence), but in reality I have a 8000+ acre back yard.  And I don't have to mow it!  On top of that, the section behind our home is a nature preserve for the Mabee salamander.  Nothing better in curing my nature deficit disorder.  Regular readers also know how much I love Yorktown, the river, the Chesapeake Bay and sailing. Finally, I am a nomad, as my blog's name mentions.  I travel a lot and I am in Richmond maybe two or three days per week on average.  So yes, I burn a lot of gas and I am happy with the low prices.

Secondly, the picture it self.  I find far too often we take pictures of family or beautiful vistas.  That is all good, but what about recording mundane life.  I know sociologists, historians and archaeologist love discovering shopping lists that are more than 100 years old.  Even better are receipts that are that old or older.  Those types of documents are invaluable in developing a mental picture how people lived in those days.  I understand dairies in which people recorded the price of something they bought are invaluable.  I wonder when these types of people look back to our times what they'll see: screen captures of amazon.com pages?  So yes, I do think it is important that we have some photographic record of what life was all about, even a picture of pumping gas.  I do think it is important to document some of the mundane elements in addition to all the pictures of vistas and of people playing and having fun.

To me this picture has some classic composition elements in it.  I love the repetition in it: the vertical posts, the curved metal styles and even the pumps.  Moreover, the base of the columns, the pumps, styles and the trash can are in a diagonal.  Somewhat classic elements.  By no means is this a high quality photograph, but is has some of the elements of composition in it.

On an end note, yes gas is cheap, and I realize not all people are happy.  If you are an oil worker, a land owner who relies on any royalty payments, or you depend on business from these people, I'm sorry that your income is now even lower.  But I assure you this shall pass and prices will go up again.

Newport News Park (12/25/2014)

Christmas day and time to play with our new toy camera (an Olympus TH-3 ... kind of Olympus' answer to the Gopro).  This camera is waterproof and shock proof, and this was our chance to try it out in water.  Thank goodness it rained the day before and the ponds had some water in it.  Below are two pictures, the first one was just before I submerged the camera and the second one is actually an underwater picture in the pond.  The water is somewhat murky with leaves and pine needles sticking up.

It is definitively a camera what we will be having fun with, in particular on the boat and in other more nature oriented situations.  Everything I've done with the camera is very satisfactory.  I love it.  Time will tell is we keep that opinion.

To everyone, hope you had a great Christmas and a happy new year.

Super Moon in Yorktwon (8/10/2014)

Well, it was “super moon” night last night, and what better way is there to watch it come up over the Chesapeake Bay/York River?  It seemed that a lot of people had that idea and there were literally hundreds of people at the Yorktown Beach.  It was the place to be, that’s for sure.  Yorktown is slowly becoming the attraction our county administrators always wanted it to be.  I just wish that there were a few more places to eat and drink, or should I say, more diversity.  The few places that are there have American fair, and I’m not sure if the sushi place ever opened.  No I don’t want another Mexican chain, or any other chain as such, but a few more terraces where you can sit, relax and drink something would be great; maybe a bit more European flair.  However, last night finding parking was even at a premium.  But for sure Yorktown was the place to be last night. 

Everybody was out there, taking photographs.  It was amazing seeing all the flashes from cameras when we were standing on the fishing pier and looking back into town.  It is actually insane, people taking flash pictures of the moon.  I guess most do not know that it is probably better to turn off the flash when taking moon pictures; our flashes in Yorktown are not going to make the moon extra bright.  It reminds me of what we experienced when I worked in Nepal in the early 1980s.  We were in a hotel in Pokhara looking at the full moon reflecting on the snow of the Annapurna Mountains.  All the sudden a tour group of Japanese tourist came out and the photo flashes started going off like crazy.  They were trying to catch a photo of mountains at night that were at least 40 some miles away.  Pity this was the time before digital cameras, so I bet there were a lot of disappointing faces when they came back home and had their films developed.  But then you still see it in stadiums during sporting events.  People would make such better pictures when they take one or two photography lessons instead of opening the box and start shooting.

Waiting for the moon was probably the most interesting.  It was approximately two fingers thick held at arm’s length above the horizon before you could actually see it.  I guess the humidity (light fog) or pollution over the water obscured the moon for a bit, before we could actually see it.  I am posting two pictures I took last night that I particularly like:  the one with the grasses and the one with the reflection of vehicle headlights in the sand (timing is perfect).  It was a nice evening; I still can’t believe what a great summer we’ve had.