Category: Aspiration

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The Monarch and I agree: What an Aroma

San Diego is a three-season climate: Early Summer, Mid Summer, and Late Summer. The first fully flourishes: Little birds tweet; crows caw; citrus grows in residents’ yards; squirrels scamper; and non-perennials burst with fresh flowers; among many other delights. In some other locale, these things would be signs of Spring, but Summer never really ends here and merely transitions from states of vitality—which booms this fine February. Despite the drier-than-typical third season, lusciousness abounds. Sights and sounds of vibrant life are everywhere.

Smells, too. While walking along Meade Ave. between Alabama and Mississippi, in the University Heights community, on Feb. 23, 2021, a wondrously friendly fragrance greeted my nostrils, and I stopped to regard the source—the purple flowers you see in the Featured Image. The Monarch presented photographic opportunity, and I pulled out Leica Q2 for two deliberate but hasty shots. Luckily, the first is wings down; the unpublished other, they’re up. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/500 sec, 28mm; 10:39 a.m. PST.

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A Valentine’s Day Story

A favored walking route from Old Trolley Barn Park is the alley between Alabama and Florida streets. Occasionally, Pace (pronounced paw-chay, according to his owner) appears—and, on some days, Coon or Ghost (both nicknames) in an adjacent, expansive yard. Today, I passed by a woman either emptying recyclables or trash (not sure which) and she wished: “Happy Valentine’s Day”. She was cheerful, which emotion a higher-pitch voice accentuated. Her apartment overlooks the alley, and she recognized me from looking out her windows on other days.

The 35-year-old Salt Lake City native has resided in San Diego for about a decade. We talked about the terrible expense of living here, mainly housing, which she offsets by having a roommate and adopting a minimalist lifestyle. Governor Gavin “Gruesome” Newsom’s several SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns put her on unemployment twice, which led her to become entrepreneurial, rather than depressed and destitute. Adapting her mom’s recipe, she bakes and sells chocolate chip cookies by the dozen—$15 a box.

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Don’t Be Typosquatted

In early September 2014, I bought my wife the Singer Heavy Duty 4432 Sewing Machine from Amazon for $99.99. Annie had hoped to make some of her own clothes—something she had long aspired to do. Perhaps if we lived in a larger apartment, she would have achieved her dream; setting up and using the Singer—portable as the thing is—required more space than we could spare.

Fast-forward to late-December 2020. Annie saw a post on Nextdoor from someone looking to buy a sewing machine. Budget: $100. Seeing as the 4432 had never been used, other than to make sure it operated, Amazon’s current price was $209.99, and the manufacturer’s $289.99, $100 would be a deal. Annie responded, and the woman, who we’ll call Grace, agreed to buy the Singer, which would come with extra sewing doodads.

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A Bible Story

My wife has started reading the Bible, which helps her cope with these trying times that never seem to end—and they won’t as long as SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)—better known as COVID-19lockdowns destroy lives and livelihoods and deep cultural and political fissures foster an American Civil (Cold) War. Anne had been using my 1980-edition, leather-bound Harper Study Bible that I purchased used for $60 in April 2017. This morning, she decided to buy a Good Book for herself.

The question: From where? Before even I could answer, she stated: “Not from Amazon”. Okay. I knew that Rock Church has a Christian bookstore in Point Loma, Calif.; we could go there. “What about La Mesa?” she asked—having no idea if there might be a bookseller there. “Siri, Christian bookstores”, I queried. Sure enough, there turned out to be a shop at 4695 Date. Ave. To the car we walked, then drove East to a rewarding shopping expedition but disheartening look at too many shuttered small businesses.

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Good Advice

Happy New Year! Here’s a worthy resolution that my wife and I saw today, chalked on the Madison Ave. sidewalk near Massachusetts in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood. I used Leica Q2 to capture the […]

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The Bee Tree

I am not a photographer and bear no illusions about ever being one. My composition skills are raw, and rarely cooked, and I lack the post-production sense that someone else would use to create art. My camera, the Leica Q2, is professional grade and seemingly beyond my skills. But I handle the all-in-one well enough, and it is satisfying to use—enjoyable and versatile.

I am a storyteller, however, and use photos to mark moments or to illustrate a  narrative. Take as example the Featured Image (warning: 30GB file), which I captured today along Georgia Street between Lincoln and Polk in San Diego’s University Heights neighborhood. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/320 sec, 28mm; 11:36 a.m. PST. The original was portrait, but I cropped square.

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Flickr a Week 37a: ‘Aerial View of New York City, in which the World Trade Center Twin Towers is Prominent’

About a month before Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists used hijacked commercial airliners as missiles, Carol M. Highsmith captured self-titled “Aerial View of New York City, in which the World Trade Center Twin Towers is Prominent“. According to the Library of Congress, to which she donated this photo and others from across America, Carol produced a digital image “to represent her original film transparency; some details may differ between the film and the digital images”.

The link from her name goes to the LoC page; that in the credit to Rawpixel Ltd., which posted the public domain cityscape on Dec. 9, 2018. Carol is the photographer but not the Flickr account holder from where she joins the series. Camera and other information is unknown.

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Brother and Sister

Uncle Arnie passed away last night, Eastern Daylight Time, in Northern Maine. He was 74. Three years ago today, we lost Mom, his sister. Their bond tightened as they aged, and I wonder about the strange synchronicity of one sibling departing on August 4 and the other on the 5th.

My strongest personal memory of Uncle Arnie is him yelling at me and my being perplexed by his reaction. He was known to be cool-headed. I was as old as 12 and about to cross the street in front of my grandparent’s house to the neighbor’s place when he screamed “Joey!” with supreme urgency that caused me to stop and turn towards him just as a car topped the hill and roared past. Uncle Arnie almost certainly saved my life that summer’s day. He gave me one hell of a scolding and sent me inside.