Driving home from Wal-Mart: Eagle and windsurfing ravens; As I walk, I meet a pup named Charlie

As I took my walk this morning, I spotted two individuals on the road ahead of me. One was quite frisky.

Turns out his name is Charlie. Charlie took a shine to me.

Charlie.

I was driving home from Wal-Mart and the wind was blowing, hard. It was the kind of wind that warms things up, but still, if you stood in it, you would have thought it very cold. The ravens loved the wind. It blew straight into the false front of the building above, then turned toward the sky, creating a strong updraft for the birds to windsurf on.

Here come some ravens, making their way toward the updraft.

The ravens catch the updraft, and go windsurfing.

What fun they have! Ravens love to windsurf.

As I drive on, I spot a bald eagle in a tree, less than 100 yards from the windsurfing ravens. There is no traffic behind me. I stop, roll down my window, shoot my pocket camera, and then continue on.

Later, while walking again, a DHL van comes by. I have heard the bad news about DHL. I wonder if the driver is about to lose his job.

 

I drop Margie off at work at 5:00 PM this afternoon. It has begun to snow.

Melanie visits, and reads the paper. Royce was her birthday present, 14 or 15 years ago. Nobody can remember for certain. Now she lives with two other cats. Royce still lives here. They are always glad to see each other.

Wasilla: Skating with a dead salmon; New York City: Painted and unpainted faces at Coney Island

I had to pick Margie up from work at 4:00, so I left the house at 3:30, thinking that I would stop at Wasilla Lake and see if anything was happening there. Not too much. Maybe half-a-dozen people skating here and there on the lake and a few more walking about onshore.

The first ones to catch my eye were this father and son, David and Christopher Rogers. It was the first time in his life that two-year old Christopher had stepped onto the ice wearing skates. He was still trying to get used to them. I reasoned that the father was likely a hockey player, in the process of passing his sport on to his son.

So I asked David, "Do you play hockey?"

"No," he answered. 

They both have hockey sticks, but little Christopher has momentarily been separated from his.

David retrieves Christopher's hockey stick, and slides it back to him. He may not be a hockey player, but he and his wife have long loved the Anchorage Aces, and catch every game they can. As it happened, his wife went into labor during a playoff game. Ever since he became cognizant of the world around him, Dad says, Christopher has loved to watch hockey.

Now David was giving him his first chance to begin learning the talents he will need to one day play the game himself.

Now father and son skirmish for the puck. I hope somehow to halfway keep track of this kid, Christopher Rogers. I think we might see him doing battle in the rink one day.

I saw another father and son skating across the ice, so I went over to check them out and noticed they were skating straight toward a dead, spawned-out, salmon, frozen fast into the surface of the lake.

The boy skates toward the salmon.

Another boy comes skating toward the salmon.

The two boys collide, and one goes down almost atop the salmon.

Dad has helped little Christopher stand up in skating position. They glide slowly across the ice, Dad backwards, son forward. They do not know it, but they are headed toward the salmon, too.

After taking a fall, little Christopher gets up and is amazed to see the salmon. I did not have time to linger and discuss diet, but I suspect that Christopher knows the tasted of salmon. It wouldn't surprise me if he eats salmon often.

Another photographer, Bill Roth of the Anchorage Daily News, was also prowling the lake. He had been photographing a man skating farther out and then he came over to say hi, saw the salmon, and got artistic.

And I took a few pictures of the man out in the lake. The sun had now set on the surface of the lake, although it still shone on the mountains and the upper walls of Fred Meyer. I would have liked to have spoken with this skater, as I would have the other father and the two boys. But it was very nearly 4:00 PM and Margie was not going to be happy if I left her standing outside the work place. 

She would not complain. She is not like that. But she would not be happy, even though she would soon put it behind her.

(Remember, a "click" reveals a larger image.)

Margie was tired but happy when I pulled up in front of Wal-Mart and she climbed into the car. We stopped at the drive-through window of the Espresso Cafe, ordered some hot drinks, then wandered around a bit on our way home. A momma moose and her calf ran across the road in front of us.

Back to Coney Island: A young girl got her face painted

After the face painting, she admired herself in a cheap mirror.

And then I saw the homely face of a graying man who is quickly growing old, looking at me from that same mirror. Who could this hideous creature be, I wondered. And then I realized - it was me!

Yet, how could this be? I can assure you, my friends, that I do not look like this. There must be something wrong with that mirror. I am young, handsome - quite good-looking, debonaire. And I always will be. No gray in me. Maybe a little bit in my beard, but that doesn't count.

That mirror is very cheap.

New York City: Hot Afternoon in Coney Island (Part 1); Wasilla: Cold Afternoon on Wasilla Lake

Ten days ago, I took a walk along the beach and on the boardwalk of Coney Island. Just as I was preparing to leave and to walk off in search of a cat, I saw this scene. Why is that girl prancing about atop of a school bus in high heels?

But wait! Even as I photograph her strange antics, my peripheral vision picks up some additional action off to my right:

It is a little girl and a woman, framed in the space formed between the jaws and hearts of a pair of public lovers.

 

She is modeling for a fashion shoot. Both she, the photographer, and their light man, who holds a large reflector just out of the frame, are students at Parsons. They hope to make it big, one day soon.

They're still at it.

I decide its time to leave, to go search for a cat. It will be dark soon, so I resolve not to take anymore pictures until I find a cat; I don't want to waste what little daylight I have left and miss out on the cat as a result. I have no idea how long these two stayed here, thus engaged.

I suspect they welcomed the dark.

Before I can find a cat, I come upon this Christ statue, at a Catholic church. Despite my resolve, I pause, and shoot three frames.

I found four Coney Island cats, and here's three of them, along with Santos, the man who fought city hall to keep their home from being destroyed so that someone could build big buildings on the place where these cats play, and hang out with chickens and ducks. I will post the full story on Grahamn Kracker's No Cats Allowed blog, but not until sometime Friday, maybe early, maybe late.

Even now, though, there are other New York City cats on that blog, should anyone be interested.

Today, on Wasilla Lake

 

This morning, I had a vexing internet problem. I could only log on for a second or two and then no more, no matter what I did. So I spent hours consulting with my service provider and Macintosh support, and then, for reasons that no one knows, it started working again.

It was now early afternoon and I was exasperated. I had to get out of here. I grabbed Margie and drove off to Taco Bell. So exasperated was I that I forgot my camera. I never forget my camera. But I did.

"You watch," I told Margie after I realized what I had done, "something wonderful will happen, and I will not have my camera."

Sure enough, as we drove past Wasilla Lake on the return home, we saw some boys playing hockey far out on the ice of the lake. "Damnit." I said.

Then, as we passed by an elementary school, we saw several small students, all standing in a neat row in radiant light alongside the road, a teacher watching over them. "Damnit," I said.

After we got home, I decided to get my camera, go back to the lake, photograph those boys, ask them a few questions and put the images and their answers in the blog. For a moment, I even thought about taking my big guns, the ones that I have hardly touched since my injury - my Canon 1Ds M III and some telephoto and wide angle lenses. I could handle it now, and it wouldn't be for that long, anyway.

Then I decided against it. I would just take the pocket camera, the one that I have been doing all the images in this blog with and work within the parameters that it limited me to.

But when I got back to the lake, the boys were gone. Two girls now walked across the lake. I suspect that they were headed home from school.

That's Fred Meyer's in the background, built right on the edge of the lake.

Our little town has been the brunt of much ridicule these past couple of months, but damn! What a setting we live in.

Hey, I love New York. How could anyone not love New York? But trade this for that, even though a past mayor and the city council let Fred Meyer build their box store in the completely wrong place?

Ha!

And then there was Bill Maher, on TV, looking at my buddy, Jim, the black cat. Man, he is smart. And so funny. I am not being sarcastic. I mean this, sincerely. And yes, our Governor and the little town that all of us who live here, even we who voted for Barack Obama, share with her, absorbed the brunt of much of his humor.

New York: Subway series, final; Wasilla: I lose my glasses

Young woman exits subway as I get on.

So many separate worlds, packed into so tiny of a space. (Remember, a click reveals a larger image.)

She seems to sleep on her feet. What kind of day did she have?

I did not expect to find such literal emptiness on the New York Subway. This was one of those times when I got on a train and went in the opposite direction from what I intended.

 

The persistence of smiles.

The way down into the subway.

Me outside, they inside. The opposite of what we who live Inside are used to.

This could be Fourth Avenue in Anchorage - if it were above ground and there was snow. I still worry that it could be me one day. What would this mean for my wife?

Divergent desires.

Red Line #1: The train I rode the most.

Perhaps she meditates.

I'll bet his neck is really warm.

The sports page.

Self-portrait: An Alaskan rides the New York Subway. Not all of us have, you know.

This will do it for the subway series. I have several other New York picture series that I shot and planned to put in here. I doubt that I will have time to do many more of them. I will try to get in at least a couple, but by then my pre-election trip to New York will be slipping so far into the past that I really ought to move on.

I should go to India.

Today in Wasilla: I lose my glasses 

I keep two pairs of reading glasses: one in my pocket in a little tube and another that is never supposed to leave my work station. Yesterday morning, I lost the pair in the little tube. In the evening, I lost the other pair. I tried to work at this computer anyway, but by late afternoon, I could not take it anymore. I got in the car and drove to Carr's, to buy another pair of glasses in a tube. Along the way I passed Teeland's, one of the original buildings of Wasilla.

When we moved here, Teelands sat right in the middle of the fabled wisdom of Wasilla's Main Street. Then it got moved to just over a block off Main Street. One morning, Margie and I decided to try breakfast here. We entered and found ourselves the only customers in the quite large, bottom-floor, restaurant. There were two waitresses. They stood behind the counter, visiting.

Five minutes later, they still stood behind the counter, visiting. I got up and called one over. She took our order, and filled our coffee cups. When the coffee cups went empty, I waited for a refill. None came, so I got up, went to the coffee pot and refilled them myself.

The breakfast was pretty good, though. And before we left, a lady came in and apologized. She said that had she been in the restaurant when we came in, the service would have been good. She charged us for only one breakfast. The other was free.

One of these days, we might go back and give them another chance.

Mostly, though, we go to Family, where the service is great and the food is, too.

Sometimes, we go to IHOP, which can be pretty good, too.

I discovered that Carr's no longer carries the glasses in the little tubes. And in the non-tube version, they only had women's glasses. So I went to the new Target for the first time and they had all the glasses that I needed. I bought four pair. 

I will probably lose them all in a short time.

I was very lazy today. These two pictures were the only images that I shot.

A quiet vote on a noisy day in Wasilla; New York series still on hold

After marking the names of the candidates of her choice, Margie casts her ballot. Now I will back up just a few minutes.

Our polling station is at Tanaina Elementary School, where all of our children attended, and where they sometimes had Sarah Palin's father as a substitute teacher. Some of the students were at recess when we parked and headed toward the door.

As we walked toward the voting room, I was surprised to see students walking out. We always vote here and never before had I seen students in the ballot room.

When we stepped into the voting room, I saw more students, getting a civics lesson on how the voting booth works.

Inside the voting booth, my unmarked ballot awaits my vote.

After Marking her ballot, Margie heads to the machine into which it will be cast.

In the evening, Margie smiles as First Lady To Be Michelle Obama joins Barack Obama on the podium in Chicago after his acceptance speech. I know that there is a great deal of disappointment in Wasilla tonight, but this was just the outcome we had hoped for. Wasilla's disappointment is profoundly offset by the new surge of hope that so many in this country now feel.

What a bleak time we have been through! What a horrific challenge Obama faces. Yet, if there is anyone who can inspire and lead us through the storm that is bearing down upon us, I believe it is Barack Obama. He needs our help. He is going to face so much opposition from the very people who created this mess that now faces him. On that account, John McCain's concession speech was an excellent and fine piece of work. 

It sounded like the John McCain that so many of us once loved and respected. Had that John McCain been on the campaign trail, rather than the one who sought vainly to capitalize on the anger and fear that the Bush administration so exploited, who knows how this election might have turned out?

Now, the obvious question is, where are my pictures of Sarah Palin and her entourage, as she cast her vote in Wasilla this morning? I'm afraid I blew that one, folks. I was not too concerned about it at all. I thought that I would handle it just the way that I have been handling most everything in Wasilla in this blog.

I did not know what time she would vote, but I figured I would eat my breakfast, then head out in the general direction of her polling station and if I happened upon her entourage then I would photograph it, if not, I wouldn't. No big deal. Her vote would get plenty of news coverage without me being there. 

As usual these days, I went to bed about 4:00 AM and then did not get up until a bit after 8:00. As I was preparing my oatmeal, Caleb walked into the house, home from his overnight shift at work.

"You should have seen it out there," he said. "Sarah Palin had an escort of State Troopers a mile along. They had the roads blocked off and were escorting her back to Anchorage to catch her flight." This happened about 7:30 AM, he said.

Suddenly, I felt that it did matter; that I should not have even bothered going to bed but should have just stayed up and then very early set out and scoped out the scene and photographed it - even that I should have gone through the process ahead of time to get the proper press credentials and should have been right there in the voting room to provide my own witness of this onetime moment in Wasilla's history.

Too late.

I had also thought about going to Anchorage tonight, to drop into the big party that the Obama supporters would surely stage, but instead, I choose to spend the entire day hanging out quietly, alone with my wife. 

That part of the decision was good. I enjoyed hanging out just with her. I always enjoy hanging out with my wife.