Sometimes the Water is Nice

We had some beautiful clouds throughout the day. And, as they usually do, I was afraid that they would completely disappear before sundown. But, alas! Some of them were kind enough to stick around. So, tonight I rode my trusty bicycle up to the community lake, hoping to get some good reflections. The first thing that you are probably thinking is "Where is the cactus?" That's a fair question. And the second is probably "What are lakes doing in the middle of the Arizona desert?" That's an even better question.

As for the cactus, well, sometimes I just like to broaden my horizons (no pun intended). And, after all, who doesn't like reflections off of water? As for what the lakes are doing in the desert, well, who doesn't like reflections off of water? This community lake is by the playground area and near the community center. This puts it near the streets. And streets bring street lights. When I am shooting around cactus, I try to avoid getting any man-made objects in the pictures. If I can't completely avoid them, I at least try to hide them behind the cactus or a handy bush. But, hey, when you are at the lake by the street, your gonna have street lights! You can see them in all of the following shots. It's just almost impossible to keep away from them. So I do my best with them, and try to make them fit in as best as I can.

Any way, when I first arrived at the lake tonight, the sun was still behind a cloud. But, I could see that there was a clear area beneath the cloud that the sun should come bursting through. This first shot give you and idea what the cloud was like that the sun was hiding behind.



As I was waiting for the sun to make it's appearance, I rode my bike around the lake a few times, trying to pick my positions for my shots. I decided on the location below for the shots of when the sun first dropped below the clouds. I tried to include the reflection of the sun itself, as well as reflections of trees, light poles, etc.



Whenever there is a tree nearby, I like to use some of its branches to add a little interest to the foreground, as in this next shot.



A little later, I moved around to another location, where the pool of water is larger and more still. The still water provides smoother reflections.



And, tonight we had a small crescent moon. Click on this next shot to see it a little larger. I tried to capture the moon and its reflection along with the colors of the sky.



Then I hopped on my bike and made my way back home.

Wow! Where does the time go?

I ended my last post by saying that I had just thrown my back out of whack. Well, I'm glad to say that I am up and about. I'm just taking it rather easy, as my back is still kind of edgy. Add to that the fact that I've been really busy at my work. Add to that the fact that we haven't had a very rainy season this summer. Not much rain, not many clouds. So, I've only been out shooting sunsets a couple of times in the last couple of weeks.

So, I thought that this time I'd talk about a couple of photos from last July (yes, a year ago!). I have posted these pictures in my Picasa web albums, so you can see these and more, there.

The first shot is one that I took when I stepped out my back door just to check the sky and see if I was going to need to go shoot the sunset. As I looked at the sky, I was really stunned at the sun's rays through the hole in the cloud. So, I ran back in the house to get my camera, and was very happy to see that the hole had not vanished when I got back to the yard. I try to not take pictures of roof tops and light poles, but sometimes you gotta take the picture where you stand. Any way, I love the sun's rays around and through the cloud.



It was looking like some good things might happen in the coming sunset, so I hit the road in search of of the setting sun. Here are a few more pictures from later that same day.

I'm Still Here!!

I could start by asking, what else could go wrong? But I won't. If I did, you might think that I was just whining. On the other hand, I know that each of you has experienced much of the same. The happy news is that I'm now back on the air!

OK, so what's been going on?

Computer crash - One day, my computer decided that it didn't want to boot up any more. The Windows boot procedure reported that a certain file was missing or corrupt. After spending about a week trying to restore a copy of that file and get running again, I finally gave up. The next approach was to buy a new hard drive, and start over by restoring from the factory restore disk. Of course, this puts the machine back into its factory new state, which means that every Windows Update needed to be reinstalled, and every program that I use needed to be reinstalled. What with only being able to work on this in the evenings after getting home from work, this took several weeks to get back up again. As for all my photographs, I was able to install the old hard drive as a second drive, and copy all my pictures to the new disk. I wasn't so concerned about loosing the picture files, since I keep a copy of all of them on a external USB hard drive, and on burnable DVD disks. So, I was quite certain that I could recover them all. Note to all -- MAKE SURE TO BACKUP ALL OF YOUR IMPORTANT FILES!!!

Office furniture exchange - In the midst of trying to get my computer back up again, my wife wanted me to exchange my office furniture with hers. It would seem that it would have been easier to exchange offices, but she didn't want to do that. Did you ever play that computer game Sokoban? This games goes back several years ago; it was a simple game involving a bunch of boxes that you had to push around to get them into the proper places. There were 50 levels to solve, and some of them were extremely difficult. But, not nearly as difficult as actually exchanging furniture between two rooms. In reality, it involves at least four rooms in the house, and more likely every room in the house. And that's exactly what it did. And to start off, all of the computers had to be shut down and moved to a safe waiting area. It took me about two solid days to get the furniture moved. And then it took about another week to get the computers back up and running. And, of course, my wife's computer had to come first. Anyway, both my wife's computer and mine are back up and running. But, there seems to be a lot of stuff left all over the house. The entire household has not recovered yet. So, the job is not yet finished.

Through it all, do you think that I stopped taking photos. No!!! Alright, here two photos from just last night.





So what's next? Well, today I threw my back out, and right now as the sun is ready to set, it's raining real hard to boot. So, no pictures tonight. Hopefully I'll be up and at 'em real soon.

Oh No - It's June Already!!

Where does the time go?!?! For a while, I thought that I might be able to catch up with photo uploading and blogging. Well, here it is, and we are more than half-way through the month of June. And, I only just now finished uploading the pictures that I took last June. Yikes!!

I'd like to present just a couple more shots from last June. Make sure to click on the following pictures to see them in a larger format. There are a lot of details to see in these shots. No matter how many sunsets I've photographed, I never cease to be surprised by something new. If the clouds are in just the right position, and the sun has a clear view, when the sun just goes down below the horizon, even when it is no longer shining on you, it will be shining on the bottoms of the clouds above you. And wow! Usually, the clouds turn red. But, there are times when they turn an almost brown color. And the bottoms of them can look all puffy and billowy.

In the first shot below, you can see that the sun is just about to drop below the horizon. Due to the stuff that is in the air, the color of the sunlight shining on the cloud bottoms makes them look brown.



In the following shots, I just wanted to show what I thought were some really beautiful clouds. Make sure to click them to see them larger.









Believe it or not, I'm all done now with last June's photos. I think that now I'd like to spend more time talking about current photo shoots, rather than talking about year-old shots. So, here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago.



That's all I have for right now. Life has been quite busy, as has probably been the case with you, also. I certainly hope to not be so long before making the next post. Till then...

Almost the End of June

Sooner of later, I'm sure that the month of June will come to an end. But, until that time arrives, I have some more special picture to share. After all, last June, we had some really great sunsets.

We are very near the end of June. These shots were taken on the 26th. So, there are not that many shots remaining before we finally get in to July. The first shot below shows how great the sky was looking. As the sun began to disappear into the haze at the horizon, it turned its typical beautiful Arizona Orange. Above that, was a patch of blue sky. And above that, was a cloud bank that was beginning to take on a brown cast.



Zooming in a lot shows what almost looks like a Martian landscape.



And then it was time to start playing around. I repositioned myself to put the sun behind some trees. After all, I do like having something of interest in the foreground.



Once again zooming in, reveals the Martian landscape again. But, this time with those rather non-Martian looking tree leaves bracketing the shot.



As the sun continued down, it encountered another bank of clouds. The next two shots show the sun partially hidden by the clouds. I really like seeing the big round ball of the sun with a streak of clouds in front of it.





Here is one last shot from that night, just before the sun began to sink below the mountains.



Alas, to let you know that we have had a few nice sunsets more recently than a year ago, here is a shot I got just a couple of nights ago. The sun is setting in the West, and this shot is looking Northeast. I've mentioned before, sometimes the best stuff is happening behind you!

For Jerry - the Brother I Never Knew

How do you say goodbye to the brother you never knew?

If you will pardon me a little, this post is going to be a little out of the normal. But, yes, it does contain some sunsets photos!

I am the youngest (by far) of four siblings. My brother Ward was 16 years old when I was born, my brother Jerry was 14, and my sister Shelley was 11. Jerry suffered brain damage before he was born, and would never be normal. My mom and dad did the best they could raising all three of my siblings in their home, and giving them a good start in life. But when they discovered that an unexpected fourth child (me) was coming, they feared that Jerry, who was at about the developmental level of a four-year-old, and was just as wild and full of energy as any four-year-old boy that you have ever known, might accidentally harm a new-born baby.

And so, for my parents, came a very difficult decision; one that I'm sure must have caused them great pain for the rest of their lives. They decided to turn Jerry over to the state of Missouri. This happened before I was born. I know that when I was a very small child, Jerry came home for visits a few times. But, these are occasions that I have no recollection of.

We moved out of the state of Missouri when I was eleven, and I never saw Jerry again. So, basically, to me, Jerry, even though I knew that he existed and I counted him as a brother, at the same time he, in essence, did not exist.

Last Tuesday morning, I received a phone call from my sister (who also lives here in Arizona), saying that Jerry had been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and an unknown infection, and that his organs were shutting down. By that evening, my sister called me again to say that Jerry had died.

The question echoed in my mind - how am I supposed to feel about this? Even now, with his funeral a couple of days in the past, this is still a difficult question. Please don't think me cold and hard if I say that for the most part I have felt nothing. There have been, however, a couple of moments when the tears flowed.

Since both of my parents have already passed on, it occurred to me very briefly, that perhaps I didn't even need to attend Jerry's funeral. After all, I really never knew him. And plane fare to Missouri on short notice amounted to a small fortune. But, on the other hand he was my brother. And, my other brother and sister were definitely going to be there, and what would they think of their baby brother, if he didn't make an appearance, too. I felt I owed it to them, and to Jerry's memory. And, somehow, I also felt I owed it to myself to be there. And so plans were made, and my sister and I caught a flight on Thursday. Our brother Ward and his wife Jeanne, had driven to see Jerry when they heard that he was ill, and had in fact, arrived in time to spend the last three hours of Jerry's life with him. When Shelley and I landed in Springfield a couple of days later, they drove to Springfield to pick us up.

So, here are some photos that chronicle my experiences and the trip to meet the brother I never knew.

The night that Jerry died, as I was driving home, I was nearing my neck of the woods as the sun was setting. So, I found a spot that I had been to before about a year ago, actually on a day that I had had one of our cats put down, and had taken sunset photos in honor of that cat. I know that may seem kind of silly, but, that's how I felt. So, on this night that Jerry died, I got out of the car in this same spot of desert, and walked around taking pictures, this time in honor of Jerry, even though to me, he was nearly a complete stranger. It was during this photo session that my emotions first stirred, and I cried some for the brother I never knew.

These first three photos are from that night, and I dedicate them to Jerry.







The next day, Wednesday, I spent most of the day trying to set up flight arrangements. That evening, I went out to shoot a few more pictures. Here are a couple from that night that I like. The second picture below, shows that sometimes, the clouds really do have silver linings.





Thursday, Shelley and I took wing. That night, as we were on the last leg of the journey to Springfield, I had a window seat on the left side of the plane, which happened to face West. Here are some pictures that I took that night from about 30,000 feet. These, obviously, were shot through the airplane window. I wasn't expecting very good results, but the pictures turned out to be not too bad. The sunset itself, was spectacular as the sun sank below all the haze in the air and the clouds. I didn't have any idea of what to expect from on high. In some of these photos, you can see the wing of the plane.











While I was taking the pictures from the airplane, I was using both the Fujifilm and Canon cameras. I was afraid that the cameras would have difficulty focusing through the window. The Fujifilm was in auto-focus mode, and even while zoomed in quite a bit, as long as there was sufficient detail in the clouds, it was able to successfully focus. Even traveling at 600 miles-per-hour didn't seem to matter! As for the Canon, I put it into manual focus, and focused on the details at the end of the wing. I figured that was near enough to infinity.

The following morning, we awoke in our hotel room and I looked out the window at the sunrise. Here is one of the interresting shots.



Notice the double image of the sun. I was shooting through the window at an angle. I am assuming that something in the window glass caused this refraction.

And so, the day proceeded. I met the wonderful people who had known and taken care of Jerry. I met the other men with mental disabilities that lived in the home with Jerry. I met the people who supervised him at his job. (Yes, he was able to hold down a job at a business that employs persons with disabilities.) I learned that there was a lot more to Jerry than I would ever have imagined. It turns out that a lot of people, not only liked him, but truly loved him. Jerry, in his arrested mental development, had an innocence about him that let the love and joy of God show through. And the people around him felt that. The funeral was very well attended. It was there, that I shed a few more tears.

I think that now, I am proud of this brother of mine that I never knew. This trip has brought me, hopefully, some closure on this matter. After all, I now feel that I really do know him, at least a little.

I arrived home late last night (Saturday) from this trip to Missouri. This morning in our Church service, we celebrated Memorial Day - a time to remember those who have died in military service. But, we did something more as well. Our celebration was opened up to all who wanted to remember anyone that has passed from our lives who we found to be special. For each such person, a candle was lit by the person doing the remembering, and the name of the deceased was spoken for all to hear. One of the candles you see below, I lit just this morning, in memory of the brother I never knew - Jerry Ronald Degler.

Even MORE Pictures from Last June!

In my last posting, I said that I would show what became of the cloud bank that was above and to left of the cactus. So ...

In that last picture (in the last posting), the clouds behind the cactus looked nice, but normal. By zooming in for a closer look, the clouds took on a very pink appearance. This color was unexpected, and didn't really show up until I took this closer shot.



In just a short while, the sun went below the horizon, and the tops of the clouds above the cactus turned a wonderful orange. I love the shape of those clouds. Another thing that I really like in this shot is red glow on the horizon in the lower right corner, which is where the sun went down.



And, a little bit later still, and the overhead clouds turned red. Also, notice the sky shadows being cast by the clouds.



But, now I'd like to back up a little in time to just before the sun went down. This next shot shows rain falling from the cloud to the west. But, as it frequently does here in the desert, the rain never reaches the ground. You can see the wind causing the rain to fall at an angle.



And finally, here is a shot that I really like. I love shots where the sun looks quite large as it goes down, partially behind the horizon. But, look right above the sun -- you can see the rain falling, but not making it to the ground.