Retreat becomes full-blown hiatus - final post until September 15: puddle lakes, familiar road, study of the young writer

I shot two scenes today, both on my morning walk, and one portrait, on my coffee break. This is the first scene and I shot it because when I saw these puddles, I was reminded of how it used to be when I would be flying my airplane and would look down and see a seemingly endless spatter of lakes laid out across the tundra.

Minnesota boasts of 10,000 lakes. There are 3 million in Alaska and I used to fly over them in my little airplane. I would pay very close attention to those lakes, and match them up with the ones on my map. I always wanted to know just where I was.

Once I lost track and then all the lakes looked the same and I could not match any of them to my map. Oh, well. I just followed my compass and it took me to where I wanted to go, anyway - that being Umiat. Then GPS came along and it didn't seem to matter anymore, but still I kept track of those lakes, because I still wanted to always know where I was.

I long to fly over those lakes again.

I have photographed this stretch of road many times - with snow, school buses, people on bicycles, fall leaves, dogs running, moose crossing, a cat walking... but somehow, today, when I looked at it, it looked different to me than it had ever looked before.

So I shot it again.

Afterward, I realized - this summer retreat that I announced awhile back - this effort to keep this blog short and simple? I must make it a full hiatus and break away until mid-September.

It is not because I am tired of doing the blog. I love doing the blog. Of all the forms of publishing that I have ever engaged myself in there is only one that I like doing better than the blog - and that is the writing and making of books.

That is my favorite thing of all - to write and make books - I have done a lot of book writing and making that still needs to be brought to completion - and then this blog.

But I have some projects I must finish, and soon, including two Uiñiq magazines, the second of which will probably be the last Uiñiq I ever do. I can't say that for certain, because I thought that in 1996, yet I wound up doing some more.

If I am to finish these Uiñiqs and the two other jobs I have lined up between now and summer's end, I must put aside as many distractions as I possibly can.

And, as much as I love it, this blog is a distraction from those projects.

So I am putting it aside until September 15, when all the paying projects that I am working on should be done.

Then I truly need to figure out how to make online publishing pay, because I either figure out how to live in the world of online publishing or I go under. It is that simple.

The old ways of doing things are fading and, when I finish my current projects, I am pretty sure they will be over for me, for good, permanently.

So I have to figure it out.

I do not have the temperament to take a regular job - even a photography job - and to work for someone and get bossed around. And there aren't so many good jobs left anymore, anyway, because everybody's got a camera on their phone and everybody is on Facebook and photographs are seen more and more as cheap and common things that are to be taken for free and given away for free and it is pretty hard to compete against free and for free.

And yet, to survive online, one must somehow learn to give away his work for free and yet bring in income for doing it.

I have yet to figure it out, but I must.

If I can, I can really do something.

If not... no... it can work. I know it can work.

It must work. It will work. 

I can do it and I will do it.

I just don't know how.

Haven't a clue.

This is the portrait I shot, just before I rolled past the drive-through window at Metro Cafe. Hence:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #7,921: she appears at the Metro window with a braid in her hair.

I know that in taking such a long break, I will lose some of my current readers for good. Other things will fill the time they now devote to this blog and when I return, they will just keep going on as they are.

But I won't lose Shoshana. She will come back and she will read the blog again. I am confident that others among you will, too.

And then I have to get... I don't know... say, 100,000 or so more new readers to join in.

Maybe a million more.

Or one very rich philanthropist who wants to turn me loose.

Then I would not have to worry about making a living and I could really go nuts. I could make an online publication like no one had ever seen before.

I am not saying it would be the best online photographic publication in the world - not with great publications out there like Burn and Visura and Lens, drawing on a wide variety of the best photo talent in the world. But it would be good and it would be like nothing else anyone had seen before. This I am confident of.

Alaska would come alive, right here, in my blog, or whatever my blog becomes or merges with. ALIVE!!! Because this place called Alaska lives, and I live to be in it.

That will not happen, of course. That philanthropist does not exist. But, somehow... I just have to figure it out.

Maybe pulling back from it for awhile will help me figure it out.

Or maybe it is all a foolish dream, destined to go the way of all foolish dreams.

No... no... I cannot yield to that notion.

I will keep reading Shoshana's stories as well. When she finishes a story, she brings a copy to Metro Cafe and passes it through the window to me, along with the coffee and the pastry.

That is why I know she is a talented writer. She is a talented barista as well, but her talents go way beyond making and serving lattes.

See you in September!

PS: Even though I will not be posting, I will keep shooting, everyday, capturing smatterings of whatever I see, just as I have been.

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Cowboy ahead - I am not on the road to Fairbanks

Here I am in severe retreat mode. No time to blog. Two weeks ago, I had made up my mind that by today Margie and I would either be in Fairbanks or on the road to Fairbanks, to take in the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics 50th anniversary games.

But it is impossible. I can't go. If I do, I will not finish what I must finish by the time it must be finished.

So here I am, driving down Sunrise, behind a cowboy.

Go, Olympians! I will be with you in spirit, and there will be many photographers present. Your accomplishments this week will be well documented.

The train rolls again

All my regular readers know that I love trains - big trains and little trains, too. When I was boy, my family had an electric Lionel steam locomotive with a coal car, several freight cars and a caboose. Most of the time, it stayed in boxes, but every now and then my dad would let me get it out, splice the tracks together and then I would run that train late into the night, headlight shining, little puffs of smoke belching from the smokestack, until my parents forced me to shut it down and go to bed.

To make it more interesting, I would sometimes put marbles and toy soldiers, tanks, planes, jets, horses, knights in armor and such on the track. That heavy chunk of steel locomotive would blast its way through it all - and if it did sometimes derail, it was a tough thing and the crash would cause it no harm.

For Christmas of 2000, I bought myself a little HO train. I set it up briefly on my office floor and let it run in circles as my original good black cat, Little Guy, watched, chased, and sometimes batted at it.

Less than two months later, Little Guy vanished and I was left devastated. I do not exaggerate. Devastated. Truly, truly, devastated. No less so than if he had been one of the closest humans to me. Among the things I did to cope was to build a railroad in my office, about eight feet up on the wall above the floor.

Either when Kalib was a baby or before he was born, my locamotive derailed and fell into one of my fish tanks and got ruined. Since that time, my railroad has sat inactive.

But I wanted the boys to see the train go, so a few weeks ago I bought a new locamotive, broke it in a crash before they could see it, got it repaired and now the train is running again.

This weekend, the boys saw it roll for the first time.

They were fascinated. Especially Kalib. "Choo! Choo!" he shouted. "Chugga, chugga, chugga, Chugginton!" 

As you can see, especially in a larger view, the tabby cat, Pistol-Yero, was fascinated, too.

I also have pictures of Jim and Jobe being fascinated, but I will let this one do it by itself.

Come mid-afternoon, I found myself hungry for a hot dog, but there were none. So I got into the car to go get one. Along the way, I passed these firemen and this firetruck.

Can anyone tell me what year this Chevy pickup truck is?

If Scot of Metro Cafe sees this, he will know.

Later, I took a long bike ride, down past the shot-up sign alongside the Little Su, and then way beyond that. It started to rain right after I left the house, and then rained on me until I got home. It was a cold rain and it was windy and I had no jacket but only a t-shirt, but I didn't care.

If I had cared, I would have turned around and went home.

If you view this in large view, you can see actual raindrops that have fallen from the sky and are about to strike the ground.

I returned home the long way, so that I could pedal a little further. These two passed me up, but just barely. Not so long ago, I announced that I was taking this blog into retreat mode for the remainder of the summer, as the work burden on me is too great to spend more than a minimal amount of time per day on this blog.

Due to events like the Fourth of July, my birthday, visits of the boys and such, I have somewhat retreated from that retreat, but the time gun is really pointed at my head now, so I am going back into retreat. Again, I will still try to post every day, but not much.

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Passing airplane still generates magic; a man, a horse, and Catahoula; two girls on a riverbank; four-wheeler in the river; ice cream on the face

Despite all the work facing me, I remained lazy throughout the remainder of the day. One should not work on magical days such as yesterday, especially when his grandsons are present.

I was out in the back yard with Margie and the boys when an airplane passed overhead. I remembered when I was a child how wonderful, mystical, and magical it was to see an airplane pass overhead. What with their constant viewing of videos, the trips to the 3D movies and all that, could Kalib and Jobe ever possibly get that same feeling from watching an airplane pass overhead?

Ha! Kalib got the feeling!

And so did Jobe!

In the afternoon, I took off on a 16 mile bike ride. It wasn't long enough. It was too short. I wanted to go and go, but I figured I would be gone too long. Down on Sunrise Drive, I saw a man, a horse, and a dog coming toward me.

It was these three - the man is Jim, the horse is Warrior and the dog is Chain. Chain is a Catahoula Leopard Dog, a breed that I had never heard of.

"I never thought I would wind up with a Catahoula," Jim said. "But I did."

I looked Catahoula up on Google and found they originated in Louisana. Here is part of what I learned about them:

The Catahoula Leopard Dog is independent, protective, and territorial. Loving with its family and all people they know well and reserved with strangers (this would include strange children)...

These dogs need attention. This is not a dog that can be tied to a doghouse, fed, and ignored. Chaining and or ignoring a Catahoula Leopard Dog will either make them shy or aggressive. They need human companionship. This breed needs direction, training, something to do, people, attention...

A Catahoula Leopard Dog enjoys the company of a good horse...

Maybe I made up one of the above lines.

I pedaled until it looked like the road was about to end in someone's yard.

On the way back, I decided to stop, climb up the rise over the road and see what I could see. This is what I saw - the Little Susitna River, with two girls sitting on the bank. Hence, this series of studies, beginning with:

Two girls on a riverbank, study #4,328: They stick their feet in the water.

Two girls on a riverbank, study #2: The sky overhead.

Two girls on a riverbank, study #282,881: they are joined by a dog.

I shot this four-wheeler image as I pedaled across the bridge that crosses the Little Su.*

*In comments, reader AkPonyGirl has pointed out that it is illegal to drive a four-wheeler in the Little Su, due to the damage they cause to salmon spawn.  Thank you, AkPonyGirl.

About 10:00 PM, I mentioned the words, "ice cream cone" and Kalib got excited. So I loaded up the boys, left Margie home for some moments of solitude and headed off to Dairy Queen. On the way, we saw a rainbow and began to chase it.

We did not catch it, but we did overshoot Dairy Queen, so we turned around at the next stoplight and headed back in the direction of ice cream.

At Dairy Queen, we got our cones, then parked for awhile. In the outside driver's rearview mirror, I saw two Dairy Queen workers, taking a break.

The boys and their cones. After I took this picture, I started the car back up and drove home.Jobe was a sticky mess when we got home, but the cone made it all the way without being dumped on the floor, in his lap or on Kalib and that was a first.

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Warm sunshine, two boys, a cat, an uncle and a gramma

This is from almost right now - just shot these and then came in to put up a lazy blog entry. Lazy, because I slept in very late this morning and although I have had breakfast and coffee, I still feel groggy, plus the sun is shining, it is warm and the grandsons are here to spend the weekend with us.

I have much work to do - a magazine to be made press ready by Wednesday, thousands of pictures to edit and place for the next magazine after - and had been planning to work hard all through the weekend. Right now, I don't feel like it. I feel like all I want to do is to hang out with the grandkids and the cats and be lazy.

This picture really needs to be bigger to be grasped. That's why I make the slideshow, so readers can see bigger copies of the pictures, but the Squarespace slideshow setup is pretty tedious for the viewer, so, as I am only posting two pictures today, I also set these up in the "click and view" method, which, in Squarespace, is a very tedious process for the blogger, but as I only have two pictures today the tedium will not be that terrible. 

Click on the image and you will see a larger copy.

The grandkids and the good black cat, Jimmy.

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