Tag: people

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Where We Posed

The third of four installments for our 35th blessed marriage anniversary is a bit out of sequence. Annie wears a ring in the Featured Image, so the ceremony already had taken place. The official wedding photo, she in her gown, comes tomorrow.

We were matched, became acquainted, and were wed in Yongin, Korea, which is about 43 km (26 miles) south of Seoul. I don’t much remember the locale.

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When We Were Acquainted

Annie smiles for the camera in a portrait probably taken by me. You do remember when film shooting was the only option—not the nostalgia thing that it is today, yes?

We were a newly matched couple in Yongin, Korea. My guess on the date for the Featured Image: Jan. 10, 1989, maybe the 11th. We would be blessed in marriage with 1,274 other couples on January 12. I will share more about that event, and our 35th wedding anniversary, in two days.

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When We Met

Today, Annie and I celebrate 35 years since our matching during a religious gathering in Yongin, Korea. We were no more than a few hours together when someone shot the Featured Image for us.

The companion capture is a day or two later, possible Jan. 10, 1989 or the 11th. We each hold a bottle of McCol, a carbonated barley drink that, honestly, I disliked. The photographer is unknown for both pictures, although he and/or she used one of our film cameras (no digital shooters back then).

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Bearded Me

The year ends with an unexpected post. Today, my cousin Dan emailed a couple older photos, both likely taken by his dad (my Uncle Glenn). Date and my age are uncertain as I write. If Dan can answer my question where, then time is something I can add later on.

I probably started the beard around age 16, definitely by 17—but age 18 or 19 is possible, too, in the Featured Image. Seventeen is my guess. If correct, location likely would be my Nana’s apartment in Lewiston, Maine. Same would be true if a year or two older.

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The Shopper and the Vendor

Artisans set up outside Mystic Mocha on Dec. 10, 2023. The boutique breakfast and coffee shop is located in San Diego neighborhood University Heights, where streets Alabama, Mission, and Monroe meet. I happened by, turned about, returned home, and grabbed Leica Q2 Monochrom. I then walked back for some stealth shooting from the hip.

What a mess made. Among the half-dozen photos, the Featured Image is the only one where people are somewhat clear. Next time, I will try zone focusing instead, rather than let the camera choose (wrongly). Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 1:41 p.m. PST.

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Finally, Somebody Uses the Bike Lanes

Dec. 9, 2023, as I stopped to photograph someone’s life belongings heaped onto four shopping carts, suddenly, and rapidly, riders roared by along University Ave. in Hillcrest. San Diego’s panache for tearing up parking spaces and replacing them with kilometers-upon-kilometers of bike lanes is controversial among businesses and many residents but unapologetic policy public.

On any normal day, bikers are few, and their numbers are next to meaningless compared to the volume of buses, cars, SUVs, and trucks, among other vehicles. So I was rather surprised seeing such mass of riders, who vastly spilled out of the bike lane into traffic.

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A Life Reduced

For Dec. 9, 2023—before encountering the problem delaying new posts—I had planned to share some sightings in Hillcrest that same day. I had ventured there to drop off at FedEx a box containing my wife’s Galaxy Tab S8. For holiday sales, Samsung offered insanely generous $600 trade-in against the S9 Ultra, which I ordered for me and Annie happily inherited my S8 Plus. Expect a future first-impression about the larger tablet.

The homeless are prominent fixtures along University Avenue in, ah, Hellcrest. Used to be that street dwellers had crusty, weathered appearances; many had problems with alcohol, drugs, or mental illness—perhaps all three. But during the past 12 months or so, particularly, more of San Diego’s homeless appear to be new to the streets, older in age, or both. Many of them cart along more belongings—shopping carts carrying real possessions, not the debris collected hunter-gather style by long-time wanderers.

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Waiting to Cross

From the same North Park corner as yesterday’s jaywalker, we regard a woman looking at her smartphone while waiting to cross 30th Street at University Ave. She wasn’t the target of the shot; I cropped him away for her.

This neighborhood is considered one of the more desirable ones closer to downtown San Diego. I passed a dozen (or more) homeless folks from Meade to University. Streets are dirty, and stinky, but nowhere near as ripe as Hillcrest. Yep, desirable.

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The Jaywalker

If I walk where there are stoplights, someone surely will cross the street against traffic. Nowhere else have I seen such consistently stupid, arrogant behavior. Is it only San Diego? All California? I do wonder. This type of jaywalking isn’t occasional. Every time I venture out, someone strolls into oncoming traffic.

The gentleman in the Featured Image is an offender seen today. He and I walked along 30th Street in North Park—he ahead of me and later behind. Oddly, we would both arrive at Target, but by different routes. At either Lincoln or Polk (not sure which), I crossed to the other side of 30th with a walk sign. That meant green light for the cars going in the same direction as me. Continuing along 30th, he ignored the don’t walk sign and brazenly crossed into oncoming traffic, meaning cars proceeding on a green light.

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Autumn Annie

Where does the time go? I opened Google Photos to “22 years since…” and a portrait of my wife from November 2001! She looks great, but—my gosh—two decades doesn’t seem long ago by my memory when in reality it’s a third of a lifetime passed. Yikes!

The Featured Image is presented as captured. The companion is not, and I will get to that in the next paragraphs. Canon PowerShot S20 was my go-to digicam during that era. The compact was among the first over-3-megapixel pocket-size shooters. Vitals, incomplete: f/5.6, 1/125 sec, 6.55mm; 12:34 p.m. EST, November 4.

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‘No Contract, No Peace; No Justice, No Peace’

The headline is the slogan I heard chanted by striking workers, seen on the El Cajon Blvd sidewalk between Georgia and Florida streets and alongside—but not on—Kindred Hospital property, which is in San Diego neighborhood University Heights. Last time I saw, and documented, similar picketing was June 2018.

But the tone was different today; hostile even. “No justice, no peace” is more typically associated with cultural and societal protests, particularly regarding equality or race. I always have regarded it as an implicit threat; you may not agree. Putting that aside, how else should “no peace” be interpretated as chanted by unionized workers demanding contract concessions? You tell me.

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Three of Us

I take the hint—just need to follow-through. Tonight, my cousin Dan emailed another photo, taken by my uncle, circa 1970, with closing “call any time”. I will. I will. We Wilcox men must stick together.

Meanwhile, the Featured Image, later edited by me, is what he sent. I only share with you because everyone benefits from humbling moments of public humiliation. Eleven-year-old me looks like the prince of dweebs. I am aghast, honestly. Someone should have left that little twerp in the woods.