June, 2012

10 Jun

Mr. Mister.

By Silver Blue

Or in this case, Mister/Mister.

From Busch Gardens, two water misters attached to fans causing an early morning fog/cool down. I didn’t avail myself of it, however, because I had my camera with me. 🙂

Silver Blue (who really DID say, as soon as I looked at this: Oh! Mister Mister!)

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Funny (1)
09 Jun

One more Tall Ship

By Silver Blue

Just because I love this photo.

Remember: Sing like no one is listening, Dance like no one is watching, and Love as if you’ve never been hurt. Your “heaven” is what you make it to be.

When I realized that this was only the 6th OpSail since 1964, I realized that I was part of something very special. There’s no guarantee I’ll be around for the next one — in body, or in locale.

Life is short. Take the chance. Follow your passion.

Do what makes YOU happy.

Others may try to stand in your way, to tell you that you can’t, or you shouldn’t, or that you mustn’t. But why? If it’s not hurting anyone else, then why not have a go at whatever it is? Colour your hair. Eat that cake. Run that marathon. Be what YOU want to be. Never look back on your life and wonder what might have been…your time could be up at any moment. A moment spent happy is NEVER a moment wasted.

Silver Blue…who is dancing away now…

What do you think of this post?
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Touching (2)
08 Jun

The TALL Ships

By Silver Blue | 1 comment

1

OpSail 2012 was today. The arrival of the tall ships.

I was in love.

The Coast Guard ship which started it all.

Coming around the bend from Fort Monroe.

Yes. The sailors were standing on the masts.

Another tall ship with the sailors on the masts.

I’m sunburned, but it’s WORTH it.

Silver Blue, who was able to lose himself behind the camera. A very successful Photo Phriday!

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (1)
05 Jun

A Ghost of A Chance

By Silver Blue

Okay, before you go and write me off as a complete lunatic – I do believe that my house is inhabited by more than just my roommate and myself. There have been too many coincidences with too many roommates and guests in the house to just attempt to write it off to chance.

I have reason to believe that it is occupied by three spirits: Mildred, Harry, and Philip.   Mildred and Harry live upstairs, while Philip prefers the stairwell and downstairs.  These are helpful spirits, not poltergeists nor malignant ghosts.   Philip has helped me correct situations in a few ways that I can’t describe – knocking here, tap dancing there, to let me know that things just aren’t “right” at the house at that time. The names came in dreams and “glimpses” to a former roommate and me that neither of us could explain.

I first came to realize there was something at work in the house before I even purchased it when, upon preparing to return the key to the seller due to her ineptitude and penchant for lying, I heard a voice from the stairwell saying “Watch your back and I’ll take care of the rest”.

A former roommate and I have heard Mildred singing in the upstairs rooms and when you try to focus in on her song, she stops.  Harry is Mildred’s companion.  Only once or twice have I heard a male voice mumble something in response to Mildred’s singing. Mildred also enjoys opening the bathroom closet door.  A mutual friend, Kate Turney, came to the house and “pish-toshed” the idea of a ghost.  She firmly closed the bathroom closet door and she and I went into what I was using as the office.  Within 15 minutes, we heard the door handle turn and the door creak open.

Philip lives downstairs.  When you are upstairs, there are times when you can hear him practically running laps from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen, over the stair-stoop, and back to the living room.  In fact, you can even track which room he is currently in by the sound.

When I first purchased a digital camera for work (the Agfa ePhoto 307), I took it home to attempt to learn how to use it.  That evening, in August 1998, I was to snap what I consider to be a picture of Philip in my living room.

 

The dormer windows in the photo below show in the above photograph. Something moved between the lens and the desired photo of the mantel. I have always stated that I thought it was Philip, even though I have no physical proof that it is.

Sandi has discovered that Mildred likes to hide items that she doesn’t approve of, be it shoes, hats, or the like. Former roommate Chris Byer discovered that Philip has a proclivity for making his displeasure known, from causing a Home Interiors glass-jar candle to levitate, cross the room, and hit the wall beside his head, dropping to the couch without breaking, to causing the glass door on the front of the stereo cabinet to swing out and fall to the floor with much commotion, without breaking the glass, and with the hinges that go up and down into the cabinet still firmly in place.

Mildred’s “bathroom closet door”  became quite the spectacle at my annual Christmas Parties. People attempted to test her by the same methods that Kate used in 1998 – and to everyone’s amusement, the house always fell silent before you heard the door mechanism click and the door open. When former roommate Randy first moved in, he was a skeptic. He shut the closet door, sat on the water closet do to his business, and saw the door handle turn and open an inch. He later was to comment that it was a good thing he was already “doing it”, because he certainly would have been otherwise.

Silver Blue, who has been on both sides…at the same time. Don’t tell me it can’t be done.

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (3)
05 Jun

Boycotting CPI/Sears Photography.

By Silver Blue

As of this moment, I have to let everyone know that if you’re considering having portraits made, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, go to Sears, or ANY portrait studio run by CPI (Consumer Programs Inc). I had a picture taken for a “Mother’s Day Special of free 16×20” on May 3. As of today, it STILL has not arrived (due, they claim, to equipment failure). It MAY be shipped by 6/6. I can go to Walgreens and get a 16×20 in under an hour. Customer service is non-existent, and the poor employees know NOTHING about what corporate is doing to them.
Interestingly enough, KMart, who owns Sears, has their photo studios run by Olan Mills. They have their act together. Guess I need to start going there, then.

I issued a customer service complaint on 6/1/12 and guess what? Even though they claim they will respond in 24 hours, it’s now the 5th, and… NOTHING. Just what I expected. So, no more business from me, CPI/Sears. Plus, I plan on letting EVERYONE know, here, on my blog, and on Facebook, exactly what shoddy work you do, what poor customer service you have, and how you really don’t care about your customers.

Maybe a little bad word of mouth will finally wake you up. #searsphotographysucks #cpisucks

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (0)
04 Jun

Look Closer…

By Silver Blue

Yes, I have my share of silver and blue in Meditation Corner, but this nighttime capture is the closest I’ve let people in.

I have my tapestries from the monks, the photos of me with them, two roses (from the opening and closing altars), the mandala, an incense holder, a dreamcatcher, stained glass, a tapestry from the Dalai Lama, and a boomerang from the Aborigines in Australia. Then, there’s the family crest, the Storm Watch candle, the soapstone incense burner, and also Mama Quinn, and the Harlequin from N’Awlins.

This is my escape from it all. Where I go to get re-centered.  Where I go to find… me.

Where I go… to build my big blue wall.

Silver Blue … who will tell you: there’s no way in and no way out. Leave it up to my Northern Star to prove me wrong.

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (4)
03 Jun

Take me back to my youth.

By Silver Blue

On a hot evening in June, 2008, I was standing at the kitchen window of the Shenandoah Forester when, for a moment, I was returned to the days of my youth. Fireflies (or as we used to call them, “lightning bugs”) scattered all over the landscape, their lanterns flashing on and off in a random melody. I was six years old again, on the mountainside of my Grandma and Grandpa Barker, with a glass mason jar (fitted with a lid punched for air holes) running, catching, and trying not release those that I had already caught, knowing at the end of the evening, before I had to go to bed, I’d be releasing them so they wouldn’t die. I had allowed myself to become that firefly in a mason jar. I had to find my way out, or I knew I would die.

Four years later, at the beginning of June, 2012 also on a hot evening we were under a tornado warning. Silver Blue, the idiot, was on his porch with a camera. Feeling I could hear the tornado approach and make it the 15 feet to my cellar in time, I stood there, snapping shots of the sky. The birds ceased their chirping. Even the crickets quieted their song. All was calm and deathly still. Like the eye of a hurricane.

I ventured out. It was 8:15 at night. We had 15 minutes left of the tornado warning. Little did I know that less than a mile from me, the waterspout had made landfall and would go on for about 3.5 miles doing 4.3 million in damage, but fortunately with no severe injury or loss of life, and only one company (Amory Seafood) being destroyed.

Standing in the street, in the still, strange quiet time, with the sky having that strange green hue that tornadoes bring, I noticed something. A flicker. First to the left. Then to the right. Could I capture this with my camera?

See that yellow dot towards the center of the photo? Yes. My fireflies had returned. Something told me the worst had passed. The crickets started back up. Then, slowly, birds started to chirp. About 15 minutes later, another severe rain band passed over our area; but there were to be no more tornadoes that night.

Silver Blue, who remembers that even in the worst of situations, there’s always hope.

What do you think of this post?
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Touching (2)
02 Jun

Truth in Advertising

By Silver Blue

Saw this yesterday … before the tornado and such.

I mean… I’d hate to think their Pepsi is Flat. It’s meant to be Fizzy. 🙂

Silver Blue, who has ice in his glass, but not frosty bevvie to enjoy. Sigh.

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Funny (2)
01 Jun

We got COWS!

By Silver Blue

Anytime someone talks about tornadoes, I think of the line from Twister.

The sky looked ominous:

Gladys Smith of Hampton took the following photo (not me):

No immediate reports of injury or loss of life.

Silver Blue, who is exhausted, without power (so I’m over at my parents’) and will go sleep-sleep now.

What do you think of this post?
  • Touching (0)
  • Funny (0)
  • Interesting (0)

Days of Silver Blue

June 2012
S M T W T F S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930