I take a walk and then a drive, but I do not try to splash water on the dry man
Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 4:00AM
Wasilla, Alaska, by 300 in Metro Cafe, Wasilla, aircraft, coffee, dog

I have been spending too much time sitting in this chair. I am tired of sitting in this chair. In fact, I am getting sore from sitting in this chair.

Here's the challenge: remember how yesterday I mentioned that I am in the midst of processing a bunch of photos? I'm not sure how many. Somewhere between 200 and 300. Remember how yesterday the program Lightroom went haywire and cost me several wasted hours?

Nothing like that happened today, but what did happen was that I spent somewhere between four and five hours processing just three images. I leave for Nantucket Wednesday, and not only must I have all these photos done before that, but there are other tasks that I must do - such as go photograph some more village basketball in Anchorage Saturday - and I must prepare the slide show that I will present in Nantucket and in New York.

It's not as bad as it sounds, though, because those three photos were exceptionally difficult. All three were excellent content-wise, but were severely underexposed and strongly backlit besides that. So they were pretty damn hard (Riana has given me permission to swear - but I will still swear lightly and with good judgement and only when it is essential) to process and pull into a normal range.

Were in not for RAW photography, they would have been lost forever. Had I shot jpeg or on film - not a chance.

After I finished those three off, I probably averaged about 15 minutes per image until I stopped for the night. I must pick up the pace.

Before I started it all, I did get out for my walk. Here I am, above, going down Tamar, where I saw no other person, not even a dog.

When I got back to Seldon, I did see a DC-3. It always makes me feel good to look up into the sky and to see a DC-3. An old airplane, older than me - still flying.

As I neared the top of the hill on Ward's Street, I heard someone shout at me from a distance back. I turned to see who it could be.

It was this woman. I did not know her. Why the hell was she shouting at me?

As it turned out, she was not shouting at me at all, but at that white dog in front of her.

I wonder who she was?

I wonder who the dog was?

And did you see the Anchorage Daily News today, the story about the man who shot his neighbor's Chihuahua dead with a shotgun? He said he didn't mean to kill it; he only intended to tickle it. He shot it with a shotgun to tickle it tickle it. He said he was glad the dog was gone though, because it was a nuisance.

And the Daily News ran a warm and homey picture of him loving his own dog.

Did he see the irony?

And I did break away at the usual time to go to Metro. I did not do a "through the window study" or a "reverse study."

Instead, I did a "waiting in the Metro drive-through line study."

This is it:

Waiting in the Metro drive-through, Study #12

As I drove home, I saw this UPS van coming. It could have splashed water on the guy walking down the bike trail, but it didn't.

As you can see, he is dry.

I wonder if he was still dry after I passed him by?

I didn't try to splash water on him - honest, I didn't.

I'm not that kind of guy.

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