Methodology

Click to embigulate.

A Gopher in Sunglasses

When I was growing up, my mom worked for oral surgeon C. W. Littlefield. In the summer, he hired me to mop the floor, sterilize the instruments, take out the trash, develop x-rays, etc. At the same time, he kept an eye on what was going on inside my mouth, and even did some extractions when I got braces, and later when I needed two wisdom teeth removed. It is not widely known, but due in large part to his influence, when I was a young teenager, I wanted to be a dentist when I grew up.

My parents moved to Florida in the late 1980s, but they did not lose touch with Dr. Littlefield. His practice shifted and evolved, and he is now one of southwest Oklahoma's best dental implant surgeons. In fact, last summer he did Abby's implants, and they are a complete success.

I thought of all this when, while looking for some photographic prints for my photo class last night, I can across a pile of x-ray panagraphs, which are full-mouth x-rays made with a large, expensive machine with a rotating emitter. I knew how to use this machine at one time.

The panagraph posted on this page, which is only the center of the film since my scanner isn't large enough for the whole sheet, is my mouth in 1983. Usually they ask you to remove any jewelry, but as you can see, I thought it would be wicked cool to wear shades in my picture.

She's Back! :>)

For anyone who is wondering if Abby's arthritis treatment is working, I have good news! She is much better. She is in much less pain, and is doing things she hasn't done in years, including gardening, as these images from today show. All three of us, plus the dogs, have been in the front flower beds all morning, preparing a wildflower and sunflower plot. Abby is very excited, and as you can see, is right in the middle of it.

My Opinion of 98 Percent of All Music

I found this on another forum. Click to enlarge.

Johny B Good!

We are wrapping up production of the third edition of Ada Magazine this week, and I tapped my wife Abby to shoot some photos for it. I picked her to shoot rock drummer Johny Barbata, who lives east of Ada, for our "Where Are They Now?" section, since I knew Abby would get a huge kick out of photographing this rock legend, and therefore do an excellent job. We went out there together, but I just held lights and adjusted exposures a bit for her. She did the rest, and it looks great.

Johny was excellent company, and played his drums a bit for us. He gave Abby a signed copy of his book, and she hasn't put it down since. His web site is http://www.johnybarbata.com/.

Pictured: one of Abby's images from the cutting room floor of Johny.

Silver...uh...Gold Lining

An image very similar to this was very well-received by our readership Tuesday, so I thought I'd post it. My photo students and I shot it while we were out and about, shooting.

Learning Curve

Photo students on assignment

As I teach deeper and deeper into intermediate digital photography, I am finding that I am guided by intuition, in much the same way that film directors like Francis Coppola make their movies. I feel, and probably always will feel, that going into the field and shooting is more valuable to my students than listening to me describe f-stops and Bayer patterns by a factor of one grillion.

To that end, tonight I arranged to have the Ada Fire Department being a crew out to the Pontotoc Technology Center to do a couple of training exercises at their fire training tower. It was supposed to be a bit of a surprise for my students, but one of them is actually married to one of the firefighters who was training tonight. Despite that, we all had an excellent time, and made some neat photos.

Afterwards we took a short nature walk in the archery woods to the south. On the way back to the classroom, we discovered a very cool thunderstorm forming to the west, with the sun setting directly behind it. It, too, made pictures, and in the end it seemed like a productive session.


Ada firefighters, and our beautiful sunset

That Sialogogic Year, 1995

In my journal, 1995 was the year of quotations. I was reading a lot of philosophy, and it was an important influence on my life. At the time I was flying a lot, too, which was the other influence.

To accompany this entry, I have chosen the nose of one of my goats, since they are the most curious creatures I know.

"No one is better than you, but you are no better than anyone else until you do something to prove it." -Donald Laird

"Dirty and pure, the characteristics of people who think intensely." -Franz Kafka

"To see the world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour" -William Blake

" 'I am' can only be granted as a gift; it is a crude illusion to believe it is something which I can give to myself." -Martin Heidegger

"Man is always more than he knows of himself." -Carl Jaspers

"I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules." -Albert Camus

"The truly good man is not aware of his goodness, and is therefore good." -The Tao Te Ching

"For here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life." -Rainer Maria Rilke

"Forget everything. Open the windows. Clear the room. The wind blows through it. You can see only its emptiness. You search in every corner and don't find yourself." -Kafka

Relying on Reliable Stuff

My NASA flight controller friend Michelle sent me some pictures of herself, since I asked her to, since her hair is totally a different color now than what it was when she and I were close in 1997.

Knowing that she is a flight controller, and that this image was made while she was actually on duty in Houston, I couldn't escape the irony of the Magic Eight Ball in the frame.

"Will the mission go two extra days?"
"Ask again later!"

Update: Michelle emailed me saying she liked this blog entry...

"The blog is funny! I say keep it.
Do you want to know the "true" story behind the 8 ball?
Its actually kind of our mascott! We are always being asked "do we have good comm now?" or "will we have good comm at blah time. We are in the business of making comm predictions....we've even developed a tool to help us no, not the 8 ball, its just the front man. Every once in a while a CATO with that's feeling some spunk will grab the 8 ball and "predict" the comm, just for grins ;0"

Sunshine and the Second Amendment

Today we were visited by our friends Jamie and Ian, who got married last year at St. Lucia.

Among other things, we gathered some of our firearms and headed out to the pasture. Since we have a pond with a large dam, it's perfect for sport shooting. It was also Abby's first opportunity to shoot the target pistol she bought me in February. We all had fun, including Jamie, who is not an experienced shooter. "This kicks a$$!" she exclaimed after unleashing both barrels of Abby's shotgun.

Jamie, Abby, Mitchell and Ian

Abby shooting my .22

A Photo that Shall Live in Infamy

I have shot a lot of hard-hitting photos in my career, spanning personal tragedy, death, natural disasters, the human drama of athletic competition, and much more. I have been threatened, called names, yelled at, almost assaulted, run over by athletes on the field, hit by baseballs, etc. Once I even covered my own car crash.

With all the images over the years, you would imagine that images at scenes that showed life and property being lost would garner the most wrath from a sensitive public. But no. The most offensive image I ever published, at least based on the incredibly hostile reaction of our readers, was this 1991 image of an armadillo that had been squished by traffic, then painted over by the highway department while striping the centerline on state highway 19 west of Ada. One caller to my home phone, who courageously withheld his identity, said I was, "a sick son of a b!tch."

Memories of Film - Filmemories!

Kodak Tri-X Pan Film

There has been a lot of spring cleaning going on this year, in my workplace and at home. Today at the office, Editor Talina Turner was digging through the "morgue," a back room where we keep old newpapers, oily rags, half-empty gasoline cans, and extra cigarette lighters. (Okay, I was joking about everything but the old newspapers.)

In our diggings and throwings out, we found some old photo junk, like enlargers, timers, paper safes - stuff like that. We also came across a 100-foot roll of Kodak Tri-X Pan Film, which we in the news business used on a daily basis for 40 years before replacing it with color film, then with digital cameras. It was an excellent and forgiving staple of photography.

Just for fun we opened it up and played with it for a while, stretching it all the way down the length of the building, then wadding it into a pile (so I could photograph it) before tossing it.

And in case you need your mind blown for the day, consider this: no one has ever seen unexposed film.


Talina plays with the film.

Wildfire

Despite taking precautions against frost damage, it appears that Sunday night's temperatures in an isolated area of the state, here in southeast Oklahoma, dove into hard freeze, killing the tomatoes and bell peppers I planted last week. Such are the fates. I bought new, more mature plants today and put them into the garden right away. They look good.


Frost-withered bell pepper plant

Since the peaches had already bloomed and started producing fruit, they may have survived. Here is an image of a very small peach on the tree today, apparently unharmed...


The title of this post comes not from The Andromeda Strain or a short-lived TV series, but from the lyrics to a song we all probably know, Michael Martin Murphey's Wildfire...

"Oh, they say she died one winter, when there came a killing frost..."

An Education

Tonight was my first session teaching intermediate digital photography at the vo-tech. I had seven enrolled, but only four made the class. That's a shame, since despite my not feeling very well, we had a pretty decent session. We were helped a whole lot by the evening, which was very beautiful, and only a little bit chilly. Our first order of business was to photograph our son Mitchell and his youth pastor Lane, who I invited to participate in some measure due to Lane's cool and highly photographable motorcycle. I also knew that Mitchell and Lane would be good subjects, and would have fun doing it.


Students Royce, Myrna, Latricia, and Diana photograph Lane on his Honda


Lane and Mitch show off for our cameras

With the lesson about how to photograph the chrome on the bike, the faces in the afternoon light, and the highlights versus the shadows complete, it was time for a walk in the woods behind the vo-tech. We moved pretty slowly, taking our time moving around a large pond, photographing cattails, the sky, the sun, trees, etc as we went.


Tree and pond, evening light


Royce shooting toward the pond

One of the students tonight bore a remarkable resemblance to actress Diane Farr...

Diana the photo student and Diane the actress

To wrap up the night, we went inside and reviewed everything we had shot. I hope that in my antihistamine-addled state that I was able to give them something. I promised that next week we would shoot more and that I would be a better instructor.


While we were shooting, I made this image, which I told my students at the time looked "like a poem."

The House that Jack Built

In the process of cleaning the old house in Ryan, then hauling home some of the relics, Abby and I are now suffering from congestion in our throats and sinuses. Initially I was attributing it to mowing after we got home yesterday, since I drove the riding mower through some areas of last year's poison ivy. But since Abby didn't mow, and is also congested, we think it might be a reaction to dust and mold stirred up from the old house.

Sidebar: while I was mowing I spotted two Rottweilers who were looking at our goats not as charming playthings, but as tender and delicious delicacies. I shouted at them and got them to leave, but they returned. I asked Abby what to do, so she yelled at them, and they did not return. Moral: Abby is all-powerful.

Pictured: the House in Ryan, which I think is a lovely place. I understand why Abby is upset that it is selling - it is one of those houses that seems to tell you stories when you are merely walking its halls.

All Things Must Pass

Abby, Mitchell and I went to Abby's hometown of Ryan, Oklahoma this weekend, to help clean and prepare her father's house for sale in three weeks. Abby literally grew up in this house, in a town where everyone knows everyone else. She didn't even have to cross a street to walk to school in the morning - only an alley.

The house, which is a charming white clapboard house surrounded by paper shell pecan trees, has sat empty for some years, since her father moved to a different house on a large acreage west of town. Along with the house, some of its contents are also for sale. Abby and I have made several trips to Ryan just to get stuff that has been squirreled away in the place, like kitchen knives, original art work, even some rather beautiful furniture, that all belong to Abby in one way or another.

Abby is sad that the place is being sold, but also understands that this old house, like all things, must pass.

Pictured: Abby on the front porch of the house in November 2003, and today.

The Boogie Man Paradox

It seems to be a latter-day principal that the crowning achievement of an individual is that s/he be safe.

A few minutes ago I was cleaning my computer keyboard with Formula 409, the bottle for which says that it's "antibacterial." On its face, I have no problem with this concept. Digging deeper, however, are several ironic contradictions, not just about bacteria, but about the whole notion of safety, cleanliness, and the real and psychological effects of it. Here are a few myths about bacteria, disease, immunization, and safety...

1. Bacteria is the enemy. Trust me, we need bacteria for life itself. Without billions of healthy bacteria in our bodies, each of us would be dead in a few days.
2. Bacteria cause disease. In general, only a tiny fraction of the bacteria in the world cause disease in humans. A teaspoon of healthy topsoil contains more bacteria than there are people on the world. Don't panic. Dirt from the yard isn't going to kill you.
   
3. The flu shot can give you the flu. People who tell me that they actually GOT influenza after getting a vaccination are probably wrong in the first place. Influenza is just one of hundreds of upper respiratory diseases humans can contract, and unless a doctor does a specific serological antibody test for influenza, you could have practically anything. Additionally, the viral particles in the vaccine are "killed" chemically, so the worst they can do to you is give you minor "flu-like" symptoms. If you really did get the flu right after a vaccination, you just got unlucky in your timing. Finally, influenza makes you really sick, not just achy and feverish.
4. Childhood immunizations are dangerous. This is a very popular form of panicky idiocy for younger parents who don't remember the world in which children got seriously ill or died from diseases like chicken pox or measles. They hear anecdotal tales from friends, the internet, talk radio, or other specious sources that claim a child somewhere died or got seriously ill from being vaccinated. And while a child or two might actually get sick or die from an MMR or DPT, you can't take your eye off the big picture, that tens of thousands or even millions of children will be spared if they are vaccinated.
   
5. Cleaning is always good. There is a great cadre of scientists who believe as I do that one of the most important reasons for the resurgence of polio in the mid-twentieth century was that many American communities cleaned up a lot of their sewage systems and garbage collection systems, and as a result children were no longer exposed to low levels of poliovirus, which is transmitted by the oral-fecal route. Eventually, they were exposed to full-blown polio in the schools and had no immunity built up to it.
6. Children should always be safe. This also sounds plausible on the surface, but is a lot like vaccinations. If you keep your kids too safe for too long, they won't have the ability to deal with the real world when they are thrust into it. It's natural for kids to sometimes cut themselves, fall out of trees and off their bikes, and even break their bones. Their bodies heal.
7. Life should be fair. Nothing disappoints me more about modern education than the concept that everyone should be treated fairly. Come on people - the world is harsh and competitive, and the sooner our kids learn this, the better. There's no such thing as "everyone gets a trophy" day in the real world.

Pictured: the fires of controversy.

Migration of the Byte Geese

For several months now I have toyed with the idea of upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the new and improved operating system from Apple with some nice new features and tweaks. A buddy of mine at the office had it on his, but found that in its maiden form it had several annoying glitches that Apple didn't seem to understand. For example, it would stop downloading anything at all once it got about one megabyte into the file, which we eventually decided was due to a conflict with our network router.

Since then Apple has come up with some minor fixes, and the software is now in its 10.5.2 incarnation, which seems to have addressed any problems, so now here at home I have upgraded both the iMac and the eMac. Abby's laptop is waiting while she finishes migrating some files and figures out which new CD label program she wants to use, since her old one won't work with Leopard.

Since migrating, I have been very happy with Leopard, and definitely recommend it.

Pictured: screen shot of my iMac's desktop this morning. The desktop picture is Canyonlands in March 2005.

Like an Incumbent Senator

For those of you out there who are allergic to poison ivy, here is a tidbit: it stays in and around the area where it grew when it's dormant, or even when you've nuked it into the stone age two years earlier. We know this thanks to our son Mitchell, who came in contact with a dormant poison ivy stem while we were down at the pond a few days ago, and later the same day brought some bricks from Dorothy's shed up to the house for the garden. The bricks had been in a thicket of poison ivy that we killed two years ago with RoundUp. Now he is itchy and bumpy. :>(

In conclusion, the boogie man will get you, so cover yourself in SPF 9000 sunscreen when you go to the mailbox, wear a crash helmet when mowing your lawn, and try to stay indoors as much as possible. (If this paragraph doesn't seem all that funny to you, it might be that it's making fun of you.)

Pictured: poison ivy on our patch a year ago.

The Farce! The Farce!

If You Are a Star Wars Fan...

This is a little slow getting started, but I laughed all the way through...

The Holics Among Us

At my office today we all had to sign a document from corporate stating that we understood the drug and alcohol abuse policy they enforce. I certainly have no problem with that, since some of my least favorite ex-coworkers had drug and alcohol problems, including one who blazed up a doobie in the car in which I was riding one night.

Again, I digress. Signing this document reminded me of some complaining I needed to do, this time about the misuse of the suffix "holic." Holic? What is a holic, Richard? Simply put, it's the second half of the word alcoholic.

In case you don't see it coming, this is another rant about the destruction of language. An alcoholic is a person addicted to alcohol. In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl. But in this context, it is ethanol, or grain alcohol, the kind in intoxicating drinks such as beer, wine, or spirits.

Why, then, are we unable to describe addictions to other substances without referring to alcohol? What, for example, is a rageaholic? Someone addicted to rageahol? When we work too much we are called workaholics, as if we can't stop consuming workahol. Is a chocoholic someone addicted to chocohol? (Interesting side note: Firefox's spell check thinks "chocoholic" and "workaholic" are words).

Perhaps I am naive enough to imagine it would be to all our benefits to be creative enough to express ourselves without shredding the very language of expression.

For the illustration to go with this puerile rant, I have chosen a goat's butt, for both metaphorical reasons, and because I have easy access to goats' butts.

A Really Bad Athlete

As athletic as some of my adventures tend to be (like hiking and snow skiing, for example), I am a notoriously poor competitive athlete. I don't have champion hand/eye/foot coordination, I'm not very strong in the upper body, and I am dripping in nurdness. Despite this, I have tried to play sports all my life, so when Mitchell's youth pastor and Mitchell asked me to play baseball in the pasture tonight, I was happy to oblige. We all had a terrific time, got nasty sweaty, and managed to avoid any hospitalization.

As we were getting out the balls, gloves, and bat, I found a relic from my days playing on Ada's perennial cellar-dwelling softball team, the Brown Rats. (The reason we lost all the time wasn't clumsy geeks like me, but two or three hot dogs who fantasized about being in the major leagues; they would make a championship-winning throw to the plate from deep in the outfield [instead of just hitting the cut-off man], only to have the ball bounce to the backstop and allow two more runs to score. They weren't team players.)

I digress. The relic, pictured here, is my right-hand batting glove, which I also wore under my outfield/first base glove. It got pretty grody during our five seasons at Matthews Park here in Ada, but I don't remember it being this grody. I think maybe it deteriorated in the garage cabinets. So instead of saving it and risking a visit from the health department or the fire department's HazMat unit, I scanned it for you to see, and tossed it in the trash. Goodbye, nasty glove!

Sub-story: when the East Central University Lady Tigers softball team breaks their huddle at the start of a game, their spirit yell is, "Balls to the wall!" I think that's pretty funny.

Sunday Afternoon

Yesterday was the Byng School horticulture garden sale, and I got 24 bell pepper plants and 32 tomato plants, so today I planted them. Abby and Mitchell helped, and we were joined by the youth minister from Dorothy's church, Lane. We also trimmed Abby's photinias on either side of the garage. When Abby decided to make a Wal Mart run, Mitchell, Lane and I went down to the pond and shot my pistol for a while, which was very fun for all three of us. Either later tonight or tomorrow, I hope to sew the seed items in the garden, which are lettuce, spinach, cucumber, cantaloupe, and marigolds.

Pictured: Abby's photos of me with lotsa tomatoes and Mitchell and me planting.

Sunday Morning

"..and the rain sets in..."

It was foggy, then cloudy and rainy, today. Our usually energetic son Mitchell got home from school and laid down on the couch immediately, with two sleepy companions, Max and Sierra.

"But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate; we breathe ourselves out and away; from moment to moment our emotion grows fainter, like a perfume." -Rainer Maria Rilke

Something for My Wife (or Every Little Kiss)

It was a stressful day for all of us, but for me it went easier because I spent much of the afternoon working outdoors. By the end of the day, with Abby and me home from work and Mitchell home from school, I spent a few minutes unwinding by prowling around the patch, finding kibble to throw to the goats, checking out my new fruit tress, planning my garden, watching the sun go down.

Down by Dorothy's, I noticed the old apple tree was starting to blossom. The small, pale pink and white flowers smelled so good that I knew I had something to bring inside to Abby.

I don't especially want or expect anything more than a quiet "thank you," so much as I want to lay another brick of foundation in our marriage. I do that by being the husband who brings his wife apple blossoms in the spring.