Happy Birthday Sebastian!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEBASTIAN!!! 

Sebastian at his first birthday celebration....

Drove to Maine to celebrate Sebastian's first birthday. Beautiful day driving up with Chris. Arrived a lot earlier than we expected so se stopped at Nubble Light and walked around the rocks and water. 

Seagull watching the people allowed me to get several shots of him. 

Keeping an eye on me the entire time....

Chris goofing in the rocks!! 

When the lights went out

In Seabrook...

My entire day seemed to be off kilter. Drove to Salem to run a 6.66 Devils Chase run only to find there was no parking. When I did find parking it was nearly a mile away, so I was running back and forth and missed the start. I was a bit disappointed they took the start (a chip timed race) so early. So I bailed and drove home. Jesse and Ally came down, and the rain started, so we couldn't do much in the way of fun. They headed home early. The weather was predicted to become pretty nasty. They weren't too far off the mark. Headed up to Seabrook, NH in the snow with a friend who does the sound for the Ozzy tribute band--Crazy Train. 

The Crazy Train show in Seabrook had problems from the get go. A crazy Halloween storm hit the northeast, electrical and equipment problems.  My camera battery, which I looked at and was full when I left home decided to only be a quarter charged when I turned it on. ARGH! The issues were worked out with the band. They played a set, people were dancing and enjoying the show. There were a few really fun people on the dance floor. A man doing pole dancing asked Chris to join him. Chris declined saying "you've got the wrong the wrong guy!" Great fun and laughter until...boom out go the lights. 

I was fortunate enough to snap this with my phone of "Ozzy" goofing with the club decorations and signs. Treacherous drive home through the snow, sleet and rain to find no power, downed trees, and blizzard conditions. 

Happy Halloween!!!

A night in Boston

House of Blues in Boston.




Interesting club Hindu/Indian decor, great music, people watching.




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Harvard Fall Festival

Old barn made for great black and white studies.





Llamas....


1967 Corvette.


240z


Aluminum Cobra made for amazing reflections.


Row of Cobras at the auto show.


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Cruise Nite

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Rain in the evening

August 15 : Rain in the night and dog-day weather again after two clear days. I do not like the name "dog-days.​" Can we not have a new name for this season? It is the season for mould and mildew and foggy, muggy often rainy weather.
-Thoreau's​ Journal, 1858.

A Thoreau scholar and friend posted this. Seemed fitting as I listen to the rain pelt my window thus evening.


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Storm over Acton

The clouds over Acton last night as the storm approached.





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Location:Acton, MA

Cruise Night

Cruise Night in Lunenburg at Kimballs. Fun times.

Bel Air. I love vintage style cars. The curves and style.

Faucet as a hood ornament. As my friend pointed out..notice it's the HOT handle.

Vintage car reflecting modern life and my friend Chris. 

Denny's 1964 Corvette.

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Mount Wachusett

My first hike up Mt. Wachusett in central Massachusetts. Claimed to be the highest point in central MA. The info center historical data said it was 23,000 ft at some point in history but worn down by the weather. Rather startling. Rocky ascent took 20 minutes. I found the descent a bit tricky but went rather quick even with stopping to take a few phone shots. I love the rocks and saw a small snake slithered across my path on the way up.

Thoreau Letters 1853

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are, if indeed you cannot get it above them, than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise. 1853


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April 26

The charm of the Indian to me is that he stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison, in which he finds himself opposed and confined, not sheltered and protected. He walks as if he sustained the roof; he carries his arms as if the walls would fall in and crush him, and his feet remember the cellar beneath. His muscles are never relaxed. It is rare that he overcomes the house, and learns to sit at home in it...it is a great art to saunter. Journal 1841. HDT


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Altering Life

Photography takes an instant out of time altering life by holding it still. Dorothea Lange

New Flyer Fan

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It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

NARA Park in Acton. Nice walk a bit short, but a beautiful day nonetheless. Can't wait for "real" spring to do some hikes.

Sebastian 3 months

Daily Wisdom

God is Consciousness that pervades the entire universe of the living and the non-living.
- Ramakrishna

This is just so beautiful!!!

My girl adores Neruda. I've been reading him over the past few days and see why...this poem is so touching. Every time I read it it brings tears to my eyes.

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You
by Pablo Neruda
I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving you to not loving you,
From waiting for you to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

The one about hockey

I'm not all nature, transcendental thought, love and Peace. I do love hockey. The skill, the speed, the excitement, sticking up for teammates. The fights are fun at times. So there I said it.

I love the Flyers. I miss watching their games living in the NE. Generally I follow on my phone app.

I have a pair of Flyers earrings that have magical powers. Tonight I forgot to wear them ended in a shoot out. I put them on and wa-la. Flyers victory.

Congrats Philadelphia Flyers!! Good job!!

More mailboxes

Observations on my morning run...

It's one of those places you cross the road for your mail. All the boxes are buried in the snow drifts. Many look like baby birds with their mouths hanging wide open waiting for someone to drop a letter in. Amazing how nature affects our lives without us considering it.

January 31

1854 HDT
"The winter, cold and bound out as it is, is thrown to us like a bone to a famishing dog, and we are expected to get the marrow out of it....Some desert the field and go into winter quarters in the city.

But the winter was not given to us for no purpose. We are tasked to find out and appropriate all the nutriment it yields. If it is a cold and hard season, its fruit, no doubt, is more concentrated and nutty.

The seasons were not made in vain. Because the fruits of the earth are already ripe, we are not to suppose that there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the greatest harvest of the year, the harvest of thought."

This is one of my favorite entries into his journal. I love the power of his convictions in this. the beginning is so strong and definite and carries it's weight all the way through. I have read this one over and over. It really affects me and has new meaning with each reading.


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a walk in the winter woods

"the snow falls on no two trees alike, but the forms it assumes are as various as those of the twigs and leaves which receive it." Henry David Thoreau 1841

Walked the pond path with short visit to the cabin site. I must say quite a workout! My legs were jelly at the end. I really must invest in snowshoes. Beautiful walk in the wintery woods. Walking up to the cabin site I imagined Louisa, Bronson or Ellery walking up that snowy bank to visit him.

The rock cairn completely covered; the sign up to the base.

Concord Center

On a clear beautiful winter day! As I was leaving the inn after watching the Flyers beat the Hawks!! That is always a good day.



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Snowy Scenes

Middlesex County, Massachusetts. January 18, 2011



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Wintery Walk

They predicted 1-3" from this storm. It's not even mid-day and I have cleared more than 3" off my car. The roads haven't been plowed and walking is tricky.

I ended my walk earlier than I wanted as the people with 4- wheel drive seem to think they are invincible. Usually there is very little traffic on this road.



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January 15

In 1857 Thoreau writes:

We are ordinarily in a state of desperation; such is our life ... But let us hear a strain of music, we are at once advertised of a life no man has told us of. Suppose I try to describe faithfully the prospect which a strain of music exhibits to me. The field of my life becomes a boundless plain, glorious to tread, with no death or disappointment at the end of it. All meanness and trivialness disappear. I become adequate to any deed. No particulars survive this expansion; persons do not survive it. In the light of this strain there is no thou nor I. We are actually above ourselves.

I wonder what strain he was listening to?

One morning I was feeling low and the song "Bare Necessities" starting playing on the radio. Such a silly song but it really has a lot to say. I ended up laughing when it was over and wondered what I was so bothered about earlier. I suppose that is what Thoreau is getting at.

I recently listened to the audio book "Life" by Keith Richards, very entertaining and informative. However, whenever I listen to the Rolling Stones now the songs have completely new meaning. Learning the history of their lives and how songs came to be gives them this entirely new meaning and enjoyment. A bit like hearing them for the first time.

I digress, back to Thoreau's journal entry, I love the last part "we are above ourselves." That is what really touched me reading this this morning.

Snowy Rail Reflections

Sun setting over the Philadelphia suburbs. What a striking sunset. Was regretting not having my SLR.


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A Day In The Life

My opinion of healthcare in this country has plummeted! Jim had cataract surgery. At first they blamed the botched surgery on him for sniffing while they performed the operation. Then it became the shape of his eye. After surgery they didn't explain what was happening, and not being a patient person...well that is an entirely different story. So now the story is he is a complicated case. I don't need a degree to tell you that.

Days running here and there for I don't know how many different prescriptions. With a fun little episode of the pharmacy giving him the wrong prescription, then the insurance company won't authorize the right one because the wrong one was dispensed. Get where I'm going with this now? The right hand has no clue what the left is doing. Multiple trips back and forth testing his eye pressure, which always seems to be up. I feel as if I live at Moore Eye Institute, and they aren't the friendliest bunch of people. The receptionists are as icy as the office.

And now I sit in their freezing cold office for three hours waiting! Listening to game shows on the TV that I would love to blow up. The stimulating topics being discussed: How to eat to lose weight, should priests  marry, and other mindlessness. Why are people interested in this drivel??

On the upside I have read a bit about the life of John Muir. Ironically I am sitting in an eye institute reading about Muir's eye injury.

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On seeing God

It is better to see God in everything than to try and figure it out.

- Neem Karoli Baba

Concord River

The Concord River in early January. The river was so stunning I had to stop and admire it. Sometimes nature is just to inspiring to ignore and begs for you stop and take a moment to marvel at it's beauty. 

I've heard people say winter depresses them. When the snow is flung to the side of road collecting dirt and pollution, maybe. I look at the frozen landscape and am in awe of the changes in nature. The trees are barren, the air is cold, and ice forms on the river banks. In a few months buds will form and the lush greenery will return. The cycle of nature impresses me. I stand in awe of it everyday.

I want to spend everyday in nature. My greatest friend. 

New Year's Day 2011

1.1.11
Went to Walden for the new year day hike. Attempted to take pictures of living historian Richard Smith, but he proved to be too busy greeting "souls" at the replica house at Walden Pond State Reservation. Smith often portrays Henry David Thoreau, transcendentalist, writer, poet, environmentalist, and of course-- lover of nature!

The event was very successful, although not conducive to one who wants to enjoy the solitude of nature. The temperature an unusual balmy 50 degrees more than likely had a great deal to do with the popularity of the event. I did manage a few shots of the pond with amazing ice floes. Young children were standing and jumping on the ice testing it's strength. A group of "polar bear" participants broke through the ice and jumped into the icy Walden waters. Busy, crowded day, but any day at Walden Pond is a great day to me.

A young woman gave me the sweetest compliment as I waited for the hike to begin, she approached me and said "you are just gorgeous!" At first it shocked and surprised me, because I don't see myself as one anyone notices, let alone to the point I would affect them in such a way. After I recovered I told her it was the sweetest thing anyone ever said to me. It's really something when someone takes the time to compliment others.