A dose of vitamin N

This was an interesting prompt.  What the heck?  There is no Vitamin N.  But then, when I googled it, it all made sense.  Nature.

Yeah, I believe I get a good dose of Vitamin N on the weekends and an even bigger dose of it during my breaks, but I don't think I get enough of it on a daily basis.  But then again, who has the time, except for those who are independently wealthy, or those who are retired?

I'm getting out on a daily basis for a little bit.  I did a short walk today to find a geocache.  It was the 227th consecutive day I've found a geocache.  The goal is to get to at least 366 days.  Finding geocaches gets me outside, but it's no necessarily nature like going to Bryce Canyon and hiking down in the canyon.  Then again, very few places can compete with Bryce Canyon.

So that's why I get out on the weekends for my hikes.  It fulfills me and keeps me fairly fresh for the upcoming week.  It's one of the reasons I really love my spring break the most.  Christmas break is a cruel holiday, especially if you're an adult.  You see two weeks off and you think, "Yeah, two weeks off."  But you spend the first week dealing with everything leading up to Christmas and you spend the second week with everything leading up to New Year and in reality you only have about two or three days to do what you really want to do.

My school district has taken two weeks at spring break for the longest time. I love it.  Think about it.  Spring break.  No commitments, nothing really to do except you have two weeks off to do what you want to do.  And if the weather is bad, it's only for a day, so you can curl up with a good book at home for that day.  At Christmas, if the weather is bad, you still have to go out in that crap, because things have to get done.

So yeah, I don't get enough of it, but I try to make the most of my Vitamin N any chance I can get.

On Safari

I've been recently reading about the Minnesota dentist who went to Africa on Safari and the killing of Cecil the Lion.  The hue and cry over this has been just short of amazing in my opinion.  I have yet to weight in on the subject very heavily, mainly because what I say will little matter in the grand scheme of things.  I've found, many times over, that once people set their opinion about something, there are two chances that you will have to sway them to change their opinion - Slim and None.

Now, my opinion is this.  I was dismayed that the man chose to kill a magnificent beast such as Cecil the Lion.  I do not condemn hunters.  In the past, I've eaten elk and goose that were hunted.  Therein lies the difference in the two.  If a person is hunting and will eat the meat, then I'm all for it as long as the hunting is done humanely.  To hunt, just for a trophy, I feel is despicable.  We already know that we are superior to animals due to our superior intellect, but to take a life of another animal, just so you can mount their head on the wall I feel is just wrong.  That being said, I do feel that keeping the head of an elk, or deer as a trophy is fine, if you're also going to eat the animal.  

Now the uproar over this incident is really interesting. Take a look at the photo I've added to this  entry.  The photo is not mine and is in the public domain.  One of our most beloved presidents, one who is on Mt. Rushmore, was an avid hunter.  Theodore Roosevelt went on an extensive African safari following the end of his presidency.  Roosevelt spent about a year in Africa, collecting specimens for the Smithsonian and other museums.  Collecting specimens basically means shot and killed.  Roosevelt, in a year's time, was responsible for the death of over 1100 animals, including over 500 big game animals.  17 lions, 11 elephants and 20 rhinoceros were among the harvest, including 4 white rhinos.  Today, there are only 4 Northern white rhinos in existence anywhere in the world.

I find it rather contradictory that Roosevelt, who preserved many of our national monuments, including the first national monument, Devils Tower, and helped start the conservation movement in our country, could go on this kind of hunting expedition.  Yet, one could argue that his collecting of all these animals might result in better knowledge of the animal because now those specimens are displayed in museums in many different places.  Roosevelt was quoted as saying, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."

Had Roosevelt gone on his safari in today's Internet climate, he would have been vilified.  I doubt that many people out there know about this chapter of his life. I don't like this aspect of one of my hero's life, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it, because it's in the past.  This is part of his life that balances out some of the good he did during his life.  All people are like that.  

I used to revere Thomas Edison when I was younger.  The more I know about Edison, the more I've come to know that Edison wasn't a very nice person.  But that's beside the point.  Are we going to condemn a man for one incident?  Even if it's a series of incidents, are we going to condemn this man for all eternity?  If that's the case, where's the condemnation of Theodore Roosevelt?

In reality, the uproar over this incident has buried something else.  Social media has excoriated this dentist and in the process has basically forced him to shut his place of business.  Perhaps he can afford to do that, seeing how he could afford $55,000 to bag a lion trophy in Africa.  I would be willing to bet that all of his employees, however, can't afford this time off.  Where's the uproar over that?  And don't try to justify it by saying that they worked for a guy who kills for sport.  Do you know what your employer does in his or her off time?  Probably not.  Think about that for awhile, especially the next time another firestorm runs rampant via social media.

The Awkward Dinner Party - Day 17 of the Chill

Thinking about this prompt, I thought I might want to take a bunch of people from the past and put them all at the dinner table and see where it went.  One would think that it might get awkward putting Jesus Christ at the same dinner table as Thomas Jefferson, but actually, I think those two might get along fairly well.

So then, how might I get a better mix of people to create the ultimate awkward dinner party.  Then it hit me.  Just pick some random people off of the Internet from a social media site and have them come together for just one night.  The only requirement would be, I get to set the dinner conversations.  That would work.

All I'd have to do is throw out one political or social football, like abortion, or Obamacare or the death penalty the rest would be just entertaining to watch.  See?  That's where the problem lies.  I'm sorry if this is becoming redundant, but it just seems like people forget common decency and societal norms when they get on social media.

Even though my parents didn't outright tell me, I knew about the three things that you just didn't discuss in polite society: Religion, Sex, and Politics, or any combination of those, which might be all three sometimes.  Granted, I'm speaking in generalities here, but we seem to have lost our moral and social filters when it comes to social media.  We feel we can just post whatever we want and we don't care who the hell we piss off.

And the sad part is, when most people post stuff, either they're looking for someone to troll, so they can pontificate their side more and bring in other like thinking people, or they actually think they're going to convince the other side to change their own though process.  

Newsflash.  You're not going to convert anyone and all it's going to accomplish is to get every one just madder at the other side.  And for what purpose?  As far as I can see, there is not real purpose that's going to have any positive outcome.  It's probably one of the reasons that I try not to get pulled into political discussions.  Notice that I said try, because sometimes I don't succeed in avoiding the discussion.

However, from now on, I'm just going to avoid them all together.  It's not worth my blood pressure and I have better things to do than to validate someone else's viewpoint that I already agree with, or argue with someone who's not going to change their opinion just because I think I can convince them that they're wrong.  I already know the answer to that one.  I'm not.

Total Random stuff

I have been challenged by my blogger friend P.J. to a post of randomness.  11 random thoughts about me, 11 questions from P.J.  Then I'm supposed to challenge 11 other bloggers to do the same thing.  That's the tough part, which won't get done, and you'll see why in the randomness below.  I hope not to repeat any randomness that P.J. might have already stated, but that's the randomness I guess.

So here goes.

1.  There are 58 National Parks in the United States.  I have been to 24 of them.  I will not list them all here as that would be tedious. At one time I had a goal of seeing them all.  Whether that will happen all depends now upon how healthy I can stay over the next 20 to 30 years.

2.  I think most people who read this blog don't realize that I am happily married.  I post a lot of photos of my kids, but very few of my wife.  I've been married for 26 years and they have been the most fulfilling years of my life.  I would not be the person I am with her.  Therefore, every photo in this blog will feature her.

3.   I have had two concussions that I know of, but it could be more.  Perhaps the dain bramage associated with concussions has knocked that out of my memory.  First one was when I was 8 or so and I got run over by a neighbor while we were playing kickball in the street.  I was knocked unconscious and lay there for a long time.  I have no recollection of this incident outside of what my parents have told me about it.  The second time was between 8th and 9th grade in a bicycle incident.  Not saying I wouldn't have gotten a concussion had I been wearing a helmet, but I wish they had been mandatory back then, especially with all the evidence coming out recently over head injuries in sports.

4.  I have broken my right pinkie finger twice and my left arm once, all between February 1972 and July 1972.  Let's just say that the last part of my 8th grade year, I was always splinted up in some way.  I broke and dislocated my pinkie playing basketball.  Three days after the doctor took the splint off of my finger, I bumped into a friend of mine and broke the finger again in a different place.  That splint lasted until the end of the school year.  My left arm was broken in the above mentioned bicycle accident.  As an aside, I am still very good friends with the girl who I bumped into when I rebroke my finger.  She doesn't know about the incident, unless she figures it out by reading this.  Also, when I hold my palm up on my right hand, my right pinkie doesn't meet with the other fingers.  These are the only bones I've ever broken.

5.  I have cool looking eyes. They are bluish gray with gold flecks in them.  Looking at some photos of my youngest son, he has similar eyes.

6.  I do not read very many blogs.  In fact, I don't think I could tag 11 other bloggers to get them to repeat the process, so I won't be doing that part.

7.  I used to do counted cross stitch.  I entered several of them in the Los Angeles County Fair and one year, my design took home a first place ribbon.  Our home is decorated with many of my designs, most from patterns that I used to buy.  When people visit and see them for the first time, they always compliment my wife over her stitchery and she always has to refer them back to me.  I don't do this anymore because it aggravates my carpal tunnel syndrome.  My hands go to sleep in minutes after starting to stitch.

8.  There has been a teacher in my family since 1896.  I consider myself a fourth generation teacher.  My dad was a teacher as were both of his parents.  I have a newspaper clipping from 1896 that shows my great aunt as the teacher in a one room school house.  There is a little doe-eyed kindergartener sitting in the front row - my grandmother.  She was being taught by her oldest sister, who was basically a full generation older than she was.  My daughter has continued on the tradition.

9.  If I wanted to recreate my proposal to my wife, I couldn't.  I proposed to her as we floated over Fantasyland in Disneyland on the skyway.  That ride doesn't exist anymore.  Why Fantasyland?  It was too noisy on the Tomorrowland side, so I waited until we rode through the Matterhorn into Fantasyland where it was a little quieter and then popped the question.

10.  My favorite painter is Pablo Picasso and my favorite photographer is Ansel Adams.  I could look at paintings by Picasso or photographs by Adams for hours on end.  When we go to the Los Angeles County of Art, I always head to the Picasso area first.  After Adams died, I went to a showing of 100 of his photographs.  He is a fine landscape photographer, but I don't think he could do portraits very well.  In my opinion, they lacked something that the rest of his photographs had.

11.  My favorite singer when I was in high school was John Denver.  I saw him in concert twice, once at the Universal Amphitheater and once at the Inglewood Forum.  The concert at the Forum was in the round and he was on a revolving stage, so he faced the entire audience at one time or another.  He put on a very good show both times.

Well, those are my random thoughts about me.  P.J. also posted 11 questions that I'm supposed to answer too, so here those are.

1.  What is your dream vacation spot and why?

One of the national parks I have not visited is Arches National Park in Utah.  I would like to go there, spend an entire day sitting near Delicate Arch and watch the light play over it, all the while taking photos.  I guess, in the long run, any place I haven't been to yet would be a dream vacation for me.  I love to travel and going somewhere new would be incredibly fun for me.

2.  Where did you come up with the name of your blog?

At the time, I was doing my 365 project, taking at least one photo every single day.  So this is another part of it - A Photo a Day.

3.  How do you define blogging success?

I think success is dependent on the blogger.  What some people would consider success, others would consider failure.  As long as I continue to write here, I consider that a success however.

4.  What is your favorite type of "going out" entertainment?

Getting outdoors and hiking with someone, or geocaching with a friend is what I enjoy the most.

5.  How many states have I lived in?

I was born in Indiana, lived there until I was 3 and a half, then my parents moved us out to California where I've lived ever since.  Interestingly, it wasn't until I was in my 20s before I stopped thinking about Indiana as "back home."  

6.  What is my favorite holiday and why?

This may sound selfish, but I like President's day.  It happens right around my birthday which usually means I get a three day weekend out of the deal.  I kind of like that.

7.  What your favorite number and why?

13  My favorite football team is the Miami Dolphins and my favorite football player is Dan Marino who wore 13 during his career.  I also like the fact that most people view 13 as unlucky.  That makes it good for me.

8.  What would be your dream vehicle to own?

Pretty much anything from the 1950s would be really cool to own.  

9.  What is your favorite hobby?

Geocaching.  Some would say it's an obsession of mine, but I enjoy participating in the silly game.  It keeps me busy and out of trouble for the most part.

10.  How do you try and keep your blog fresh?

My first blog was entitled Electronic Breadcrumbs and it was solely about geocaching.  After awhile, you can only talk about geocaching for so long before you end up repeating yourself.  I found I was doing that and started to write less and less on that blog.  That's one of the reasons I started to write this blog.  It's about anything I want it to be, which keeps it fresh.  I don't think I'd write a specialty blog again.

11.  Where do you do your best thinking?

When I'm out mowing the lawn.   Mowing the lawn is pretty mind numbing, so I think about all sorts of things while I'm mowing the lawn.  It keeps me occupied and seems to shorten the process of getting the grass cut.

Well, there you have it.  That's probably way more than you ever needed to know about me.  I'd love to hear your feedback, preferably here as opposed to on Facebook, but I'll take it either place.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday's post originally was entitled Thanksgiving.  I changed it after I started writing, so since today is the actual day this year, I'll be posting some of my thoughts on what I'm thankful for.  You may not agree with all of them, but that's your right.

This will not be a post about being thankful for friends, family, etc.  I'm always thankful for them.  I want to show some thanks for other things that I think many of us take for granted.  And while it's true, we may take our family for granted, I hope that I don't.

First off, I am going to say I'm thankful for our health care we have here.  My dad was an "orphan" by the time he was 27, my mom was "orphaned" before she turned 40. Both of my parents are still alive as is my father-in-law.  Without advances in medicine that we've had in the last 50 years, it's very likely that they might not be around to enjoy their grandchildren.  While it weirds me out a little to realize that I'm now the father of three adult children, my parents have seven adult grandchildren.  I don't believe my dad's parents even got to enjoy one adult grandchild.

I'm thankful that I can get up in the middle of the night and get a drink of water if I want.  Nearly one billion (yes, you read that right, billion with a B) people don't have access to safe water on a regular basis.  According to water.org website, 3.4 million people die each year from a water related illness.  The majority of those illnesses are caused by fecal material (still hungry for that turkey dinner?).  More people have a cell phone than have safe water to drink.  Those are some sobering statistics.

I'm also thankful that I live in a country that allows me to worship, or not worship as I please.  Can you imagine living in a country where you could only worship via one religion?  What if you didn't agree with that religious philosophy?  Think about that the next time you kneel down to pray.  Our country might not be perfect in many ways, but it's a lot better than many other areas out there.

Lastly, I'm thankful that we can all share in discourse about what we think is right and wrong with our country and with the way some businesses choose to run their business, which is what I'm going to do right now.  

Over the past week, I've seen many posts on Facebook from people voicing their displeasure over certain stores opening for business today.  The business of the company is to make money for the company.  They don't make money when they're closed.  If they believe this will bring in more money for them, then more power to them.

You don't have to go.  Yes, I respect your right to voice your displeasure, however, I believe you're wrong.  If you don't like it, don't go.  When I worked as seasonal help at Disneyland back in college, I never worked on a holiday.  Why?  Not because Disneyland was closed, but because the permanent employees all wanted to work.  They got paid time and a half.  Granted some stores might not do that because they aren't unionized, but the employees might need that extra money down the road for Christmas presents.

I also find it interesting that all this complaining has been directed at stores opened on Thanksgiving Day.  How many of you watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade?  Do you think Macy's produced that out of the goodness of their heart?  Why are there no complaints about the people holding onto the tethers of the balloons at the parade?  In fact, why is there no complaints about the NFL playing football on TV?  All those poor football players, and referees and stadium employees away from their families on Thanksgiving Day?  What a travesty.  I think we should boycott that too.

Tongue in cheek aside, I hope all of my readers have a happy Thanksgiving, no matter how you choose to celebrate it.  As for me, my plan is to watch the Lions win on Thanksgiving for the first time since 2003, then drive with my wife and boys to my sister's house to gather around the table with the family that's here in Southern California.  My thoughts will be with family members (especially my daughter who will be celebrating with her boyfriend and family in San Mateo) who weren't able to make it down.  I know we shall be seeing them at Christmas.

That's a lot of people

This is not a article I would usually write, but I stumbled across a website today that had some pretty sobering statistics.  According to this site, I was the 2,909,470,267th person alive when I was born and the 76,444,994,032nd person to have lived since history began.  In my mind, those are staggering numbers.  Think of all the people that have ever been on this earth and 1 in 15 are alive right now.  Between the time I was born and my daughter, my first born, was born, 3.7 trillion people were born, including my three sisters and my wife.

Since I was born the population of the planet has more than doubled with the population surpassing 7 billion people in October 2011.  If that trend continues, the population of the earth will pass 8 billion in the year 2025 and it could conceivably triple since I was born by the year 2043. With good health, I think I have a reasonable chance of still being alive then and 9 billion people on the planet sounds like just an enormous amount of people. 

With the strain from this many people, resources, such as food, water and fuel will become increasingly scarce.  Based on the consumption of resources and the population increased, sometime during the 2030s, the UN estimates that we will need the equivalent of two earths in order to support all of the people in it.  Of course a lot can change between now and then.

Clearly, this can't happen since we only have one earth.  But technology could bail us out.  200 years ago, 97% of people in the United States lived and worked on farms supplying the needs of the entire country.  Today, only about 3% of our population lives and works on farms and those farms supply most of the food for the world.  Somewhere down the road, there has to be a limit to the amount of food that can be produced.  What it is, we don't know yet.  Perhaps we've already hit the limit.  That food will be a limiting factor on the population of the planet is a foregone conclusion.  Fresh, clean, drinkable water will be the other main limiting factor.

I do not know what the answers to these problems will be and of other problems that plague this planet, but it seems as if we need to work together.  I'm concerned about the future of number 80,198,082,265, number 80,520,546,297 and number 81,067,205,912.  How we react to this in the future will probably be our legacy to not only our children but our grandchildren, great grandchildren and beyond.  What numbers are you concerned about?  And consider this.  In the time it took you to read this short article, the earth's population increased by slightly more than 1000 people.

Photo Blogging Challenge (May 2013): Night

I've been out of commission for a couple of weeks mainly because the last two to three weeks of school are just incredibly busy that I don't have much time for anything else.  This is only my 3rd post this month, by far and away, my lowest monthly total for this year.  Now that vacation time is hear, I have more free time to explore other things and that also includes blogging more frequently than I have been this month.  

As noted in the title, the photo blogging challenge for this week was night.  I have several different shots, but some that are very similar as I did a lot of night time photography this month.

1.  Jellyfish

A couple of weeks ago, I made a quick trip down to San Diego to go to Sea World.  They had a deal for teachers that if you went to the park on a voucher they provided for you, you'd get in free, plus get a year pass good for the rest of the year.  I couldn't pass that up.  

Most of the jellyfish exhibits I've seen at aquariums are always in simulated night environments, probably because jellyfish are more deepwater creatures so they don't need or get a whole lot of light in the first place.  If you ever get to one of these exhibits, you can get mesmerized by these floating disks of jelly very easily.  It's a very peaceful and calming thing to view if you crowd out of your mind the stinging tentacles that most jellyfish tend to have.

2.  Evolution

In the town where I live, we have a new shopping area completed just a couple of years ago, including a very nice movie theater.  In the center of the square, opposite the theater's entrance is this nice fountain, complete with stair step waterfalls cascading down to different tiers in the fountain.  At night there are lights under the water that illuminate it.

Included in the fountain are what look like salamanders, eels and fish, slowly evolving and coming out of the early "primordial sea" of Earth.  Several of these creatures are also reading books.  I chose to process this one in B&W.  I liked the flowing water, but I wanted the attention to also focus on the salamander reading its book.  With the light in orange and red, I think that would have drawn the viewer's eye away from the salamander and to the lights and the water.

3.  Heavenly bodies


I had about 20 seconds to set this shot up.  Our church fiesta was in full swing and I had been walking around taking shots of the various amusement rides at the fiesta, when I spotted the crescent moon just about to drop behind the trees.

I had the camera on the tripod already, so it was just a matter of setting it up, composing the shot and triggering the shutter.  The ride was slowing down, so I had one chance to get the light trails before the moon disappeared behind the trees.  As a bonus, I also got Jupiter shining brightly above the moon.

4.  The movie theater

This is the marquee for our movie theater.  To get to the theater, you have to walk under the marquee, between several restaurants and past the fountain I described above.  I've taken shots similar to this before, but that was back when I didn't have as good a working knowledge of my camera like I feel I have now.

This shot was a matter of timing.  I had to watch down the street and wait for cars to come by.  Just leaving the shutter on washed the shot out very quickly as the lit marquee is surprisingly bright.  Just a couple of seconds of open shutter was enough to get a good image on this shot.  I would have preferred to have continuous streaks of both headlights and taillights, but traffic was light last night when I was taking those shots, so I had to take what was given to me.

5.  The Statue

There's not a statue in this shot, but if you look in the lower right hand corner, you'll see a man in an orange shirt who is remarkably in focus.  This photo is an 8 second exposure, which is why I call this shot the statue.  

I've actually used this particular shot in another challenge set up by P.J. earlier this month, but I wanted to include it in this five shot set, because of this guy.  During photography's infancy, it was common to have most people's photos taken when they were sitting down so it would be easier to control movement.  Most exposures lasted 30 seconds or longer, so many of the chairs they sat in actually had neck braces to help the subject hold their heads still.  A photo of a Civil War battle is incredibly rare although I know at least one does exist.  Most of the Civil War photos were taken after the battles were done, mainly because dead bodies tend not to move.

I think the reason why this guy is actually so still is he wasn't aware I was taking his photo.  He probably would have been self conscious had he known and swayed slightly, making him a blur much like the other guy standing in front of the ride.  Looking over some of my other shots taken with this one, I'm still amazed at how many people really do stay fairly still over long exposures.

Once you're done, head on over to PJs place to see other bloggers interpretation of the night.

Lastly, I would like to apologize to the other bloggers who posted photos last month.  I never was able to get around and look at your shots and I will make that up over the next couple of days.  I look forward to seeing your interpretations of the night.

Flashback Friday

Photo taken March 28, 2012.  I posted this one for the theme at 365 that week, which was "Creatures."  This is our dog Jack, and although I've taken better photos of him, I really liked his eyes in this one.  These are some of the quotes I found on-line to accompany his photo that day.


"Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe, we are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made."
-Roger Caras

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."
- Unknown

"Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear."
-Dave Barry

"The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog."
-George Graham