The Bow Tie Man

Lake Superior Rocky Shore

2012-02-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I skimmed through photos that I have taken in the past few months for one that I could modify to fit on the cover of our church's bulletins. The photographers of our congregation all chip in a few photos every few months so that the church does not have to purchase preprinted bulletin covers. As I perused my photos from our trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula this summer, I happened upon the photo I posted today. I took this and several others when Valerie and I stopped at a roadside park on the northwestern tip of the peninsula. The Lake Superior shoreline in that area consists primarily of rocks. This photo caught my eye in its color version, but I thought it might look good in black and white, too.

Fresh Snow At Fenner

2012-02-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

The frosty 8 degrees with an even colder wind chill could not keep me from venturing out to Fenner Arboretum this morning to crunch around in the new snow. We only got a few inches last night, but given the little snow we have gotten this year, any snow seems like a refreshing change. I have said it plenty of times before, but I really like the bright, clear mornings that often follow a snow storm. And while I like the snow, part of me is ready for spring to get here so that I can tramp around Fenner chasing butterflies and dragonflies again.

Capitol From Above

2012-02-02T21:07:00.001-05:00

It has been a few days since I have posted anything, so I figured that this photo of the Capitol taken from the 19th floor of the Boji Tower (formerly the Michigan National Bank building) would suffice. The other day, I escorted our pastor and his son up in the building to a lobbyists' office that had a great view of the Capitol and the rest of downtown Lansing from on high. Apparently, Calvin had wanted to go see the big building downtown that he and his father have passed many times.

More Office Updates

2012-01-24T21:05:00.003-05:00

Back in November, I wrote about the redecorating of our office. I mentioned that we still needed to get some chairs for the office. Well, after Christmas, we ordered our chairs and last Friday they finally arrived. They are nice, cushy wing-backed chairs. Valerie also gave me a very beautiful stained glass reading lamp for Christmas. It sheds a beautiful tone of light in the office at night and is just right for the table on which it sets. Now all we have to do is find a rug on which we both can agree, which so far has not been easy!

A Beautiful January Saturday

2012-01-24T20:56:00.003-05:00

Saturday, we ventured out to Mom's house to celebrate Valerie's birthday with my family. Before the celebration, Doug and I went back in the woods to undertake our annual ritual of burning Mom's brush pile. In the meantime, Valerie worked diligently up at the house, quilting a couple of quilts. While we were in the back, we took some time to wander a bit in the woods and shoot some photos. It was a beautiful day to be outside thanks to the newly fallen snow from the night before and the cloudless sky letting every beam of sunlight shine through the trees.

Black & White Winter Woldumar

2012-01-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

The bright crisp day after a snowstorm always makes me excited, especially when I can get outdoors and enjoy the beauty of nature blanketed with the new fallen snow. Today, I ventured out to Woldumar Nature Center to get some fresh air and shoot some photos. I took all of the photos in color, but a number of them looked better in black and white.

Lincoln Brick Park

2012-01-07T15:00:00.000-05:00

With the brief sunshine this morning, I decided to take a quick drive over to Grand Ledge to see if I could track down a park about which I had recently learned. It is called Lincoln Brick Park and it is on the northwest side of Grand Ledge just outside of the city limits. I had never heard of this park until recently, having visited its more popular neighbor, Fitzgerald Park, just across the river. Fitzgerald Park is much larger and has the sandstone ledges from which Grand Ledge got its name, but this little county park seems like a nice place.

The park sits on the site of a long-abandoned brick factory. Some of the ruined buildings still dot the landscape and several of the "hills" in the park are actually overgrown piles of broken bricks. Along the river, you can see some sandstone and shale outcroppings similar to the ones in Fitzgerald Park. The swimming area of the park is actually the old pit from which the company mined the shale it used in the brick-making process. The pit was said to be 60 feet deep when the production ended, but sedimentary filling has lowered the depth to about 20 feet today. According to local legend, a steam engine used to convey loaded carts full of material from the bottom of the pit remains buried under the sediment and water.

Framed!

2012-01-07T14:23:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the enactment of a law on which I had worked for several years. The passage of this bill meant a lot to my boss and he asked me to mat and frame a copy of the bill with a photo of the bill's signing and the pen the Governor used to sign the bill. I decided to show the steps that I use to design and cut mats and frame things. Because I need to include the pen in this composition, I have to make sort of a shadowbox to accommodate the thickness of the pen.

1. I do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to figure out the dimension needed for the mats. My scribbles shown here have the dimensions for the very first mat, the most complicated one to cut with 16 cuts. The other two mats only have 4 cuts each.

2. I sketch out the cut lines on the back of the first mat and make sure my corners are square. The lines along the edges of the mat board are the easiest to keep square (as long as the original piece is square), but the inner lines sometimes get off by just a sliver. Most people never notice these minor deviations once the mat is cut, but I can always see them in my work and it frustrates me. So, I measure several times to make sure I am accurate.

I cut the mats using the tools of my trade: a Logan mat cutter and the beveled and straight cutting heads.

3. Using the beveled cutting head, I make the cuts on the back of the first mat along the lines I scribed earlier. The mat cutter provides a straightedge along which I can make my cuts.

4. With the first mat cut, I cut two additional mats. These are simple rectangular mats that will form the shadowbox that I need to include the pen in the composition. The first mat has a 3" border, the middle mat has a 2.5" border, and the top mat has a 2" border.

5. Once I have all the mats cut, I assemble them using some very special double-sided "glue" tape. This is not the standard two-sided tape you get at the store, but is a much more adhesive version that will hold up much better over time. Between each mat, I put into place foam board spacers to create the depth needed for the Governor's pen.

6. When all the mats have been assembled, I secure the photo, the front and back pages of the signed bill, and the pen. I could not easily photograph the final step of putting the composition in the frame, but I did include a photo of it hanging on my boss' wall in his office.

New Bow Ties For Christmas

2011-12-30T10:50:00.005-05:00

Mrs. Claus (aka Valerie) spent some time in her magical bow tie workshop this Christmas and made me a number of cool new bow ties and matching pocket squares for my suits. One is missing from the photo above because I wore it the other day and it is already on my tie rack. My favorite has to be the black tie with the red and white polka dots followed by the brown tie with the green, yellow, and teal squigglies all over it.

Help Me Faygo Red Pop, You're My Only Hope!

2011-12-26T19:58:00.000-05:00

A while back I was perusing the Think Geek website and happened upon their R2-D2 ice cube tray. I quickly added it to my Christmas list. Actually, I think it was the only thing on my Christmas list! My sister gave me one of these trays for Christmas and I promptly filled it up to make icy R2-D2s. I popped the first batch out tonight to put in my glass of Faygo Red Pop. After dunking one, I pulled it out for a photo. Leigh also got new glasses for us, as Valerie and I kept breaking our other ones. You can see one of those glasses in the picture, too.

Конец Советского Союза

2011-12-22T22:43:00.001-05:00

Christmas day twenty years ago probably passed for most Americans like it does today. However, on the other side of the world in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev would resign on December 25, 1991 and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would cease to exist. That night, the red Soviet banner, emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, would fly for the last time over the Kremlin.

Cute Critters

2011-12-18T16:04:00.000-05:00

Last night Valerie and I went to the Potter Park Zoo here in Lansing to see the new baby Amur (Siberian) Tigers born a few months ago. They were pretty darn cute, but they had some stiff competition in one little girl. Doug, Leigh, and Claire came with us to the zoo. She was all bundled up as you can see below, but she was cute as button as usual.

Coolest. Mug. Ever.

2011-12-14T21:37:00.000-05:00

I received the most awesome mug ever tonight from Elise, one of our church youth group members. She loves to create art and has amazing talent in a number of media, including whatever kind of clay you use to make a super sweet bow tie mug. As I told her, this mug made the short list of items that I would run into a burning house to save from a fire should that ever happen. Thank you, Elise!

Finally, After Eight Years

2011-12-13T20:35:00.000-05:00

Me, my coworker Kerry, Governor Rick Snyder, my boss Sen. Bruce Caswell, and Secretary of State Ruth Johnson at the bill signing ceremony for Senate Bill 166, a partial repeal of Michigan's Drivers Responsibility Program

Generally, I try not to inject too much of my work into my blog, but today I had the opportunity to see a piece of legislation signed into law on which I have worked since 2003. For the past eight years, Michigan has had a program called the Drivers Responsibility Program (DRP). The law was enacted during the budget debates in 2003 when Michigan faced a large deficit. The program levies an administrative fee from $150 to $1,000 for two years on certain traffic violations. This administrative fee is on top of the fines and penalties a judge issues someone for their traffic violations. The intention of this law never was to make drivers more responsible, it only served to help balance the budget without having to cut pork. No one would complain about charging traffic violators more, right?

However, the law right from the start had a very low response rate. The first two years saw only a 27% and 37% rate of return, so all that money that was supposed to pour in never did. The response rate today is around 50-60%, which amounts to $130 million a year. What did happen and continues to happen is that people that have already paid their court-ordered fines and, in some cases, served jail time for their traffic violations end up getting another big administrative fee they have to pay, which many cannot afford. Again, if the revenues generated from these fines actually went to helping train better drivers, this might not be a bad thing. But the fines were always viewed as a stop-gap budget measure with the euphemistic "Driver Responsibility Program" moniker attached to distract from its real purpose. Many judges toss out charges that will trigger a fine under this program and many police will not ticket someone or ticket them for a lesser offense to avoid a citation that will cause the driver to get a DRP fine.

My boss voted against the original DRP bill in mid-2003 and by the end of the year we had already introduced legislation to repeal the law. The next two legislative sessions he introduced the same bill again. When he returned to the Legislature this year, he dusted off the bill and reintroduced it. By now, many of the people that voted for the original program have seen that their vote was a mistake and most legislators believe that the law needs to end. But, as so often is the case, the money the program generates remains the sticking point. We hammered out a compromise this summer and fall that resulted in the bill the Governor signed today. The bill started out as a complete repeal, but ended up as a partial repeal that eliminates all the $150 and $200 fines in the program starting October 1, 2012. This amounts to a reduction of 10% of the program's revenues, so we still have 90% more to go. Regardless, we made the first dent in this really bad program enacted under the guise of public safety. I know that I have plenty of work ahead of me as we chip away at the rest.

The Triumph of Christianity Over Paganism

2011-12-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

On our trip to Italy, Valerie and I had very different things that we wanted to see. She wanted to see the more modern (modern in the sense of less than a thousand-years-old) buildings and artwork, while I wanted to explore the ancient ruins. Fortunately, we had plenty of both types of historical structures and items to see.

I have always found the "flatter" Byzantine-style of artwork more pleasing to me as opposed to the western-style of painting. In the many churches we visited, I liked the mosaic artwork on the walls and ceilings done in this style. Even, the Sistine Chapel with its paintings by Michelangelo on the ceiling and walls, while amazing for their diversity and size, really did not impress me that much. However, one painting grabbed my attention. We saw this painting in the Vatican Museums on our way to see the Sistine Chapel.

Painted by Tommaso Laureti Siciliano in 1585, this piece titled The Triumph of the Christianity Over Paganism, struck me from the moment I saw it. The piece depicts a fallen Greek or Roman idol shattered on the floor with a crucifix replacing it on the pedestal where the idol once stood. The painting spans the majority of the ceiling of the Hall of Constantine and proved difficult to photograph entirely even with a very wide-angle lens. As the other paintings on the walls were done by Raphael and his students, the lighting was kept low in this room to help preserve them; thus, I had to shoot a photo of the painting with the slowest shutter speed and widest aperture possible without the benefit of a tripod, resulting in a less-than-clear photo.

Just That Kind Of A Week...

2011-12-09T20:56:00.001-05:00

I took this photo tonight about twelve hours before the official full moon tomorrow at 7:38am. I know that a full moon does not really have any effect on the crazy things that seem to happen each month around this time. However, after the past few days, I might have to rethink that premise. We sent out a district-wide newsletter this week and we have been getting a lot of weird responses from constituents ever since. We dealt with some pretty big legislation this week that kept me buzzing doing some research on several decades worth of Supreme Court and Attorney General opinions. Today, I had hoped to get caught up on some work I could not get done earlier this week, but I ended up spending most of the day on the phone putting out fires and creating an analysis of the legislation we passed on Wednesday. My description of my week really does not explain how nuts the past few days have been, but I hope the full moon passes soon.

Iconic Italy

2011-12-08T20:05:00.001-05:00

On our very first day in Rome, Valerie and I happened upon the Bulgarian Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius next to Trevi Fountain. The church was built in 1650 and originally called Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi. In 2002, Pope John Paul II gave the Bulgarian Orthodox Church the building to serve as the seat of the Bulgarian Orthodox bishop of Italy, Malta, and San Marino.

At the front of the sanctuary of the church stood four modern icons, one of which Valerie and I really liked. The icon represented Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Greek monk brothers born in the 9th Century that traveled to Eastern Europe as missionaries. They created the Glagolitic alphabet, the basis of Cyrillic alphabet used in many Slavic language and a handful of non-Slavic languages in central Asian countries that once belonged to the Soviet Union. They used the alphabet they created to translate parts of the Bible into Old Church Slavonic.

The icon in the Bulgarian church depicts the younger Cyril holding a scroll with the script he created, while his older brother, Methodius, holds an open Bible with the first verse of the Gospel of John in Old Church Slavonic.

During the latter part of our trip, we visited a church near the Colosseum called the Basilica of San Clemente. The current church building dates to 1100 and rests on a series of earlier foundations that date all the way back to a building destroyed in the fire of AD 64. As we walked around the church sanctuary, we saw another icon of the brothers made out of mosaic tiles. In this icon, the brothers have switched places from the picture in the Bulgarian church.

We learned that in the excavated lower parts of the church held the actual tomb of Saint Cyril. Until 1857, the earlier foundations and the treasures they held remained undiscovered. An Irish priest assigned to the church had been poking around some holes in the foundation of the church and discovered a fresco on a wall. His curiosity led to the full-scale excavation of the area under the church and the discovery of Cyril's tomb.

We never expected to find so many links to the creators of the alphabet of our second language, Russian, and the missionaries that brought Christianity to Slavic countries.

You Say Pompeii, I Say Pompei

2011-12-03T19:30:00.000-05:00

In a whirlwind of travel, when Valerie and I arrived back to Rome late one night from our trip to Florence, we purchased train tickets for early the next morning to travel to Naples so we could go see the ancient ruins of Pompei or Pompeii. I do not really know which spelling is correct, as I saw both on signs. However, the single "i" spelling seemed more frequent, so I shall use it henceforth.

The ancient city of Pompei dates back as far as the 6th Century BC. By the time it had been enveloped in the ash and rubble from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in late AD 79, Pompei had become a very popular and wealthy city. Initially, archaeologists believed that the ash killed people and animals through suffocation, but recently this belief has changed. Today, researchers postulate that the intense heat from the eruption killed most people. The heat generated reached nearly 500 degrees Fahrenheit and killed people very quickly, even those inside homes. Pompei remained buried for over 1,600 years before rediscovered in 1748.

You may view more photos from our trip to Pompei by clicking here or clicking on the "Italy 2011 Photos" link under the blog logo. Below I have posted some helpful travel tips on how to do a day trip from Rome to Pompei, a subject on which I could find hardly any practical information.

Helpful Hints For A Day Trip To Pompeii From Rome

1. You need to get from Rome to Naples, which requires train trip of about 2 hours. We took an early train from Termini Station in Rome to Naples' main train station, Napoli Centrale. We purchased the tickets from one of the very easy to use self-service ticket kiosks in Termini Station. They speak 3 or 4 major languages, so purchasing tickets does not take much effort other than knowing your destination and times you wish to travel.

2. When you arrive in the train station in Naples, you can go two different ways to reach the Circumvesuviana train station, Napoli Garibaldi. The Circumvesuviana serves the towns around Naples and will take you to Pompei. The main stairs in the center of Napoli Centrale will take you down to the Circumvesuviana station. At the bottom of those steps you should turn right and look for the Circumvesuviana signs. You can also disembark your train from Rome and head toward the left (south) of the building. You will go outside, turn to the right, and take the stairs down to the Circumesuviana station. This route takes you right to the ticket office. The tickets are €4.50 each way (remember to get a return ticket), unless you travel on a weekend when they cost half. The tickets looked like this:

3. When you have purchased your tickets, head over to the entry gates and scan your ticket in the scanner or, as in our case, let the guy standing there operating the gates scan the ticket. Go through the gates and down the stairs to the correct platform. You want to take the train with the final destination of Sorrento. This is Line C or the blue line, though I never really saw anything stating that in the station. There are little screens over the platforms that say when the next train should arrive in the station and where it is heading. The screen for the train to Sorrento indicated that the train went via Pompei.

4. When the train arrives and you get on you will have about a 45 minute ride ahead of you. Some of the trains have a screen that shows the stops ahead and an announcer that announces the next station, but not all of them. Our train to Pompei had neither. Including the stop for Pompei, Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri, you will have 20 stops on this route, so sit tight for a while.

5. When you arrive at the Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri stop and exit the train station, turn right (south) on the street that runs along the station and walk about 200 feet. The entrance to Pompei will be on your left.

6. To get back to Naples, you need to reverse the process. Go into the train station and validate your return ticket in the little scanner machine by the entrance to the tunnel that takes you under the tracks to the platform opposite from the one at which you arrived. Remember that on your way back, you need to get off at the Napoli Garibaldi stop to be at the main train station for your trip back to Rome.

We Interrupt This Broadcast...

2011-11-30T12:52:00.001-05:00

I decided to take a short break from posting photos from our Italy trip to post photos of the 6"-10" inches of snow we got last night. I hope it stays around for a while (about 4 months would be perfect), but I assume the weather will warm up and melt it away. I sure hope this storm is indicative of the amount of snow coming later this winter.

TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM

2011-11-29T20:21:00.006-05:00

When Valerie and I visited Florence midway through our trip to Italy, we had a singular goal of visiting the big cathedral, the Duomo, to see the first real church dome. Valerie had read a lot about this dome in her historic preservation classes and research on other famous domed buildings. You can see photos of this church and its baptistry and bell tower by clicking here.

When we climbed to the top of the Duomo, we both noticed a church in the distance of which we noted the general direction so that we could visit it later or the next day. This church, Santa Croce (Holy Cross), did not compare in size with the Duomo, but I liked it much better. You can also see more photos of Santa Croce by clicking here. It had a lot more character in it and it also housed the tombs or funeral monuments of a number of famous people. Names like Michelangelo, Dante, Fermi, and Marconi appear on a number of monuments or plaques. However, the two that impressed me the most were of Niccolo Machiavelli and Galileo.

As a political science major, I have read my fair share of Machiavelli. He is considered one of the founders of modern political science. Many of his ideas seem dated when read in their original context, but when applied to today's political arena, Mr. Machiavelli's work has stood the test of time. His most famous treatise, The Prince, even made it to the Vatican's banned book list. His monument bears the Latin inscription, TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM, or So Great A Name Has No Adequate Praise.

The tomb of Galileo also impressed me greatly. Hand's down, Galileo is the father of modern science. Born the same year John Calvin died, Galileo led his own reformation in the scientific world that also came up against the wrath of the Catholic church. Today, no one questions his view of a heliocentric solar system, but in the 17th-Century he faced stiff opposition from the Pope and faced excommunication.

Ponte Degli Angeli - The Bridge Of Angels

2011-11-27T21:11:00.006-05:00

One of my favorite places in Rome was a bridge called in Italian, Ponte degli Angeli, or the Bridge of Angels. This bridge has ten marble angels spaced across it, five on each side. The angels all hold a specific item relating to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. You may click here to see photos of all ten angels.

The bridge crosses the Tiber River and connects the old eastern Campus Martius area of Rome with the western side of the city where Vatican City resides. It leads directly to the front door of Castel Sant'Angelo, Saint Angel's Castle. Both the bridge, originally called Pons Aelius or Hadrian's Bridge, and the castle were built in the AD 130s by Emperor Hadrian.

St. Peter's Basilica At Night

2011-11-27T16:00:00.004-05:00

The generally busy St. Peter's Square happened to be quiet the Sunday night I took these photos. St. Peter's Basilica ranks as one of the most popular tourist sites in Rome and a long line generally wraps around the edges of the square as people go through security to enter the church. St. Peter's resides near the site where tradition holds that Nero had St. Peter crucified and buried. According to a number of things we heard while in Rome, Nero blamed Christians for the fire of AD 64 and St. Peter, as the head of the church, paid the price for this.

On the facade of the church, you can see an inscription in Latin:

IN HONOREM PRINCIPIS APOST
PAVLVS V BVRGHESIVS ROMANVS
PONT MAX AN MDCXII PONT VII

This inscription presents a good example of a similar type of inscription that appears all over old churches and buildings in Rome. Roughly translated, the inscription reads, "In honor of the prince of Apostles, Paul V Bourghese of Rome, Pope, 1612, in his 7th year". Pope Paul V undertook the building of this church to honor the first pope and "prince of the Apostles", St. Peter. Inscriptions like this one, minus the first line, appear on countless buildings throughout Rome with the names of popes or cardinals that had buildings constructed or renovated during their time in office. We even saw where Pope John Paul II has his name over a couple of door casings in the dome of St. Peter's and Pope Benedict XVI already has his name inscribed on a commemorative door at St. Paul's Outside the Walls Basilica.

Villa d'Este - Tivoli, Italy

2011-11-26T08:18:00.005-05:00

Valerie and I took an adventure to the outskirts of Rome one day to see the Villa d'Este in a little town called Tivoli. Our trip to Tivoli did not go quite as we had expected, mainly because of the very little helpful advice from a number of tour books and the non-existent assistance from the bus driver who cared more about her hour-long cell phone conversation than announcing the stops. We ended up having to walk a little bit more than planned, but arrived at Villa d'Este in one piece only 45 minutes later than we had expected. I shall post some helpful hints on how to get to this beautiful estate below for anyone that might happen upon this blog and wish to visit someday.

Instead of posting photos of Villa d'Este, I put together a very short video with photos and video clips of the amazing fountains at the estate. The music in the background comes from the 16th-century water organ fountain that plays a couple times a day. I wish I would have taken more interior photos of the main house, but like a good tourist, I followed the signs that said no photos. However, halfway through I started snapping a few shots when I realized everyone else was and the museum personnel were not stopping them. The place was amazingly beautiful and well worth the frustrating travel to get there.

Helpful Hints On Getting To Villa d'Este (Tivoli) from Rome

1. Take the B line (blue line) of the Metro heading toward Rebibbia to the Ponte Mammolo station.

2. When you exit the subway car, look for a little store selling snacks in the station. You can purchase tickets for the Cotral bus here. There should be a sign on the window that indicates you can buy tickets for the bus to Tivoli, Villa d'Este, and Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana). The tickets cost €2.00 a person, one direction, so you need to buy two tickets each. The tickets looked like this:

3. Upon exiting the Metro station, you will find the bus stop for the Cotral buses at the top of the stairs. You will want the platform for the #2 bus. The platform has a screen with the number of the bus on it with a list of a number of the major stops. It should say Tivoli and Villa d'Este on it.

4. When the bus arrives, hop on and insert one of your tickets into the little scanning device near the front of the bus. Do not pull it out too quickly, as it needs to print a date and time on it. Hold onto this until you disembark the bus in case someone checks. However, do not be surprised if the ticket stamper does not work.

5. The bus will go for about 45 minutes to reach your destination. Supposedly, the buses should have a little screen telling you the bus stop and the driver should announce the stops. Our bus did not have the screen and the driver could not be bothered with announcing the stops due to her lengthy cell phone conversation. You will know you are getting close to the end when your bus starts climbing a really steep hill.

6. You want to get off at the Piazza Garibaldi stop. If you have Rick Steve's travel guide, it says something about looking for the main square across from some amusement rides. Rip out that page and throw it away! From your vantage point on the bus, you cannot really see the main square and, if it is not summer time, the rides are located at a totally different area at the very end of the bus line. We know this because we ended up there and backtracked on foot after getting directions from a nice flower salesman. Once the bus gets up the aforementioned steep hill, it will go several stops before reaching Piazza Garibaldi. If you can see out the front of the bus, you will see that the bus will pull up the the curb in a special bus lane. You will also see that the road will make a 90-degree right hand turn just passed the bus stop. This is where you want to get off the bus. If you miss this stop and go further, you can get off at the next stop and walk back. The next stop is just past the castle in downtown Tivoli. Here's a map of the intersection for reference (note the castle on the lower right):

7. To return to Rome, you want to reverse the process. Get on the bus across the street from the original stop and wait for the blue Cotral bus. I could not see where a bus number was indicated on the bus when it stopped, but it did say "Via Tiburina" on the front marquee. Knowing that was the road on which we traversed from Rome, I figured it was a good bet. We ended up getting on a bus that took us to the Rebibbia Metro station, which was just as good as returning to our origin. We got on the bus at about 3:00pm, which happened to be the time of day all the local high school kids ride the bus from school, so it was pretty packed!

The Rome Colosseum

2011-11-25T18:25:00.007-05:00

From the lines to get into it, the Colosseum in Rome has to rank as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the city. The only lines we saw that were longer were at the Vatican. I had read a few guide books that recommended going to Palatine Hill and getting the combination ticket for it and the Colosseum in order to avoid the long lines to buy tickets for the Colosseum. I found Palatine Hill and its excavations far more impressive than the Colosseum, but that is different blog post. The guide books were spot on and we breezed through the ticket office with our tickets for both sites. The tickets were good for two days, so we ended up going to the Colosseum the next day, as we spent a lot of time at Palatine.

The sheer size of the Colosseum is impressive. Most of it has been rebuilt a number of times over the past two millennia, so what is "real" and what is not remains up to interpretation. The upper section houses an interesting exhibit on the fire of AD 64 and its effects on Rome as a whole, but specifically the Colosseum area where the fire started. It also houses a number of artifacts like the graffiti carved in the marble pictured above. The most interesting fact I learned is that the historians believe few, if any, Christians were fed to the lions here as often portrayed in popular culture.

Back From Italy!

2011-11-25T11:28:00.003-05:00

After a very long day yesterday, Valerie and I arrived home from our whirlwind, two-week trip to Italy. I plan to have many more posts about the trip and also travel tips that hopefully will help other travelers to see some of the off-the-beaten path things we saw and to clear up the lack of information out there that we encountered when trying to navigate around Rome and the other places we went. But for now, I have a lot of laundry to do and not all of my photos have processed yet. So, I shall just post a photo of the old Roman aqueduct right now and promise many more photos to come!

When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It!

2011-11-06T21:51:00.003-05:00

We celebrated my mother and father-in-law's birthday today. They were both born on November 7, albeit 12 years apart. I was playing with the dessert forks before we ate cake tonight and I snapped them all lined up, awaiting the the serving of the cake.

Almost Finished Office

2011-11-05T16:33:00.002-04:00

In a post a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had undertaken the painting and reorganizing of my office at home. I finished the work about two weeks in the past, but I just remembered that I wanted to post some photos of the room with its new green paint and reorganized bookshelves. Next to the little table in the third photo, Valerie and I would like to put a nice cushy wing back chair when we find the right one. The new floor plan lets a lot more natural light into the room during the day. Even with a chair partially in front of the window, the light will still be better.

Halloween Tetris

2011-10-31T21:32:00.002-04:00

Valerie and I went over to one of my coworker's Halloween party tonight. We ate hotdogs and other goodies, while all the little kids in the neighborhood came by to trick-or-treat. As the night wound down, a group of high school girls came trick-or-treating. They were dressed as the blocks in the Tetris video game. This had to be one of the most inventive costumes I have ever seen. I blocked out their faces, as I have no idea who they were, but I had to post a picture of their very unique costumes.

Cool Jar

2011-10-31T17:00:00.000-04:00

Valerie and a friend from work spent the afternoon yesterday making and canning applesauce. One of the jars had a different mouth on which their lids did not fit. I liked the design of the jar with its big block letters, so I shot a few photos of it.

X Marks The Spot

2011-10-30T16:05:00.002-04:00

I have always liked this old railway crossing sign down at Greenfield Village. I took this last weekend on our visit there. Valerie and I realized that the steam engine that chugs along the Greenfield Village track originated in Calumet as a part of the Calumet Hecla Mining Company railway on the Keweenaw Peninsula. The name Calumet Hecla appears on everything up there.

Parking Around Here Sure Stinks

2011-10-28T17:22:00.001-04:00

This sign made me wonder if someone was trying to make a subtle statement about parking around campus!

Fourteen Years On

2011-10-26T12:00:00.001-04:00

Today's photo is of my father, my sister, and me on Father's Day in 1997. Though Dad still looks fairly healthy in this photo, I can see the early signs of the cancer that ultimately killed him in how thin he looks in this picture. Dad had just turned 55, I was nearly 22, and Leigh was 18. Also pictured on Leigh's lap is Daisy, our miniature Dachshund. I found this photo stuck in some stuff as I worked on repainting and reorganizing the office at home this weekend.

Fourteen years ago on October 26, 1997, our family said their final goodbyes to my father's mortal body with the hope and comfort of knowing that we shall see him again in the resurrection. The sadness of those early days of his death have faded over the years, though I still miss him greatly. Little memories of him pop up here and there. This summer when Valerie and I visited the Keweenaw Peninsula, a freighter rounded the tip of the peninsula. I knew this freighter well and commenced telling Valerie all about it. In the middle of my description, I started to choke up a bit, remembering how Dad used to tell me all about the Great Lakes ships that he so loved and passed on that love to his son.

I wish that he could have met Valerie and I know he would have adored and spoiled my little niece, Claire. However, I know that thanks to the way he and Mom raised me and my sister, his influence, still has a lasting effect in our lives and the lives of many others still today. He taught us how to work hard and serve others, a trait from which both my sister and I have benefited greatly in our lives. He loved Mom and they were best of friends, another example that he set for us and that I hope to always emulate in my marriage to Valerie.

Most Wanted

2011-10-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite stops at Greenfield Village, next to the glass-blowing shop, is the print shop. This is one of the old-timey professions that interests me the most. The written and printed word has always fascinated me. I think that printing would have suited me well, at least from my modern perspective. In all reality, I probably would have been a farmer or factory worker in the past, but it is fun to dream about what I could have done. While I do not run the presses today, I do design a lot of work that makes it to the print shop in the work I do on campaigns and for the Historical Society.

In order to make it readable, I flipped this photograph of the word "WANTED" spelled out in movable type. The original had the letters in their correct orientation, which is backwards in order to make the positive print on the paper.

Holy Mackerel

2011-10-23T17:00:00.000-04:00

These cans of mackerel were lined up on one of the shelves of the Greenfield Village general store during our visit yesterday. I could not resist posting this photograph with this title.

All My Ducks In A Row

2011-10-22T22:08:00.002-04:00

Today, Valerie and I went to Greenfield Village with Doug, Leigh, and Claire. We had a nice day enjoying one of the last nice days of the year. These duck decoys were in the window of the village's general store looking for a way to escape.

No, I Am Not Becoming A Democrat!

2011-10-17T21:50:00.004-04:00

Tonight, I spent some time patching a few holes in the plaster of our office at home. The office remains the last room that has not gotten a fresh coat of paint since I bought the house in 2002. When I first moved into the house, the office was my bedroom as I worked on finishing all the other rooms. Then I sort of settled into it, started hanging pictures, moved in bookshelves, and used the room without caring too much about the drab beige walls. Valerie has been bugging me for the past six years (i.e. ever since we were married) to paint the office. So, I have finally decided to do so. With the new paint color (probably green), I plan on hanging some different artwork on the walls. Our college diplomas will still hang somewhere prominent, but some of my other photos and artwork will have to find a new home. In their place I plan to hang some Michigan political memorabilia. I have a really cool election poster from Soapy Williams' first gubernatorial race along with one of his trademark green-and-white polka dot bow tie election pins. Two of the photos I plan to hang are actual Associated Press photographs. They are photos of two of my favorite former Michigan governors: Soapy Williams and Frank Murphy. Both men just happen to have been Democrats, a fact that Valerie always likes to point out to me. I contend that in today's political climate, Williams would have probably could have been a fairly decent Republican, while Murphy, even though many claim him as a bastion of the left, probably would have been a middle-of-the-road kind of politician.

The Soapy Williams photo has Governor Williams and then-Senator John F. Kennedy standing on the three-year-old Mackinac Bridge on June 2, 1960. Williams endorsed Kennedy for President on the day of this photograph.The Frank Murphy photo shows the former Governor, now U.S. Attorney General Murphy watching the June 28, 1939 championship fight between Joe Lewis and Tony Galento. Murphy watched the fight with Gene Tunney, a former heavyweight champion boxer.

Pepper Pile

2011-10-16T21:31:00.002-04:00

I picked the last five bell peppers out of my slowly dying garden the other day. I have put them in the windowsill hoping that they will ripen a bit more before I slice them and add them to the bag of frozen peppers I keep for cooking. I had amazing pepper plants that grew tall and strong this year, but I hardly had any peppers. I think that my partially sunny back yard is the real culprit. If I could trust that my produce would not walk off, I would till up the front yard and plant it next year!

Sings Of The Times: Bees Abuzzin'

2011-10-08T22:19:00.006-04:00

In the past week, I have happened upon two rather random instances of markings on trees or tree parts that reference bees:
Exhibit 1 - Last weekend on the church retreat, Valerie and I happened upon this tree with the word "Bees" spray painted on it with an arrow pointing upward. I could not see any sign of a crack in the bark where they might have made a hive in a rotted out section of the tree, nor did I see a wasp nest hanging from a branch. Why would you warn people about bees in a tree in the middle of the woods? Is there some special attraction that this very tree has on people that makes them want to climb it and some thoughtful person has warned them away because of the bees?

Exhibit 2 - I have no idea why this stump next to St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown Lansing has the words "Bee Mine" carved into it, but it caught my eye the other day. I can only imagine that maybe a bunch of bees made a hive in the hollow area at one point, though it appeared pretty empty when I peered into the hole. It did cause me to picture little bees with miner hats, gas headlamps, and pick axes.

October's Opening Days

2011-10-02T18:47:00.003-04:00

From my post in the woods last night, you know that Valerie and I went with some folks from church to a camp near Flint, called Camp Lael, for a church retreat this weekend. We had an indoor campfire Friday and Saturday nights (though I missed last night's fire during my rescue dog adventure), had time of singing and fellowship together, and enjoyed the ever-improving fall weather on Saturday. I put together a scavenger hunt based on words out of a number of Bible verses, like waves, sand, and stream. Everyone broke into teams and first found the words before wandering all over the camp to photograph or bring back examples of the items mentioned. Surprisingly, most of the items on the list, aside from the litany of birds in Deuteronomy 14:12-18, ended up being found. The two teams that found the most items have an ongoing debate over which team really won, a debate which I imagine will continue for the foreseeable future based on the longevity of the matter so far. I guess bragging rights are more important to some people than others!

Lost In The Woods

2011-10-01T22:26:00.005-04:00

This has to be one of the most unique posts I have ever written. I am currently in my sleeping bag lying on the ground in the woods. Our church had a retreat at a camp near Flint this weekend and a K-9 search and rescue organization was also here. Tonight they needed volunteers for one of the dogs to find. Erin, our pastor's wife, and I volunteered. She's somewhere about 100 yards away in the same woods. The dog, Tigger, has to find us both first and then lead her trainer to us. They figure it might take up to two hours. They started at about 9:00pm, so we shall see how well Tigger does.

Sunday Morning Update: Tigger did not do too well on her test. At about 9:40pm, Tigger and her handlers nearly walked right to me. I cannot believe they did not see their flash lights reflecting on the blue tarp wrapped around my sleeping bag. I was situated in a thicket about 5 feet off a small footpath. They were crunching through some brush and had they gone just a bit further they would have crossed the path and nearly walked on top of me! But, they turned around and headed back to the main trail and followed it further south to the clearing where I had been dropped off earlier in the evening. From there Tigger must have picked up my scent because I could hear her running up the footpath toward me at around 9:50pm. She stopped on the path, sniffed around quickly, and ran back to the clearing. She never got off the path to get closer to me, so I just assumed that she knew I was there and that my "rescue" would commence imminently. However, she never returned and I did not get rescued. It appears that Erin also did not get rescued, though I have not talked to her yet to hear her story and to find out if Tigger got very close to finding her. This was a really fun experience and I learned a lot about rescue dog training from talking to the trainers last night. There were folks from Colorado, West Virginia, the Province of Alberta, and a bunch from Michigan.

Cass & Washington Cross Paths In Lansing

2011-09-24T15:54:00.009-04:00

This is an article I wrote for the 0ctober 2011 History Explorer newsletter for the Historical Society of Greater Lansing...

Downtown Lansing, two pieces of art crafted out of different media - both copies of earlier works, one a statue and one a painting - and created 150 years apart link the lives of two great Americans that could never be duplicated: George Washington and Lewis Cass. Aside from their mutual interest in Freemasonry, the military, and American politics, a direct connection between Washington and Cass seems tenuous at best. Born in 1782, Lewis Cass would have just turned 17 when George Washington died and no record of them ever meeting one another exists. However, upon the Cass family’s migration to the Northwest Territory in 1799, young Lewis encountered a number of compatriots of the recently deceased President Washington as they traversed the distance between New Hampshire and their new home in Marietta, Ohio. During a short stay in Winchester, Virginia, Cass met Revolutionary War General and former Virginia Congressman Daniel Morgan. In his biographical work, Life and Times of Lewis Cass, W.L.G. Smith states, “...Lewis often conversed with General Morgan (1), of revolutionary memory, and listened to hour after hour of anecdotes told by him, and by a Mr. Bush, the innkeeper, of the early life and conduct of Washington, who was stationed for some time at the fort, whose dilapidated walls were then visible.” As a young man growing up in the United States in its infancy, Cass would have learned of the exploits of George Washington, but he never met the first President.

Two blocks southeast of the Michigan Capitol stands the Lewis Cass state office building. This large sandstone building once served as the main state office building for the State of Michigan. Today, the Lewis Cass building stands six stories tall, though until 1951 it had a seventh story, which fire damaged beyond repair. A young father and state highway department worker, Richard Shay, set fire to the building in an attempt to avoid service in the Korean War. The fire destroyed countless state records and spurred the state into creating legislation to protect its records more effectively. For many decades, this building, once simply called the “State Office Building”, and the Capitol served as the only major state government buildings in Lansing.

On the northeast corner of Walnut and Washtenaw Streets, facing toward the Michigan Capitol building with its back turned to the Lewis Cass building, stands a statue of President George Washington. American sculptor, Donald De Lue, designed the original copy of George Washington As A Master Mason at the request of the Grand Lodge of New Orleans in 1959. Another copy of this statue was commissioned by the Grand Lodge of New York for presentation at its display for the World’s Fair in 1964-65. That copy now stands in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, New York. Several identical versions of this piece stand around the country, including one in Detroit, near Mariners’ Church. A gift of the Free and Accepted Masons of Michigan, the Lansing version was installed in 1982 in front of the Lewis Cass Building to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Washington’s birth.

The back wall of the chambers of the Michigan Senate bears a stately portrait of Lewis Cass. For years this portrait hung proudly in the Senate chambers with no one questioning its origin. During the restoration of the Michigan Capitol in the late-1980s and early-1990’s, an art historian noticed the Cass portrait and recognized that something seemed too familiar in this portrait. Looking at the Cass portrait it is difficult not to notice the similarities to a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, painted in 1796. The Stuart painting, called the Lansdowne Portrait, hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. Senator William Bingham commissioned the portrait as a gift for an American sympathizer in the British Parliament during the Revolutionary War, William Petty, the Marquess of Lansdowne. The painting symbolizes George Washington refusing a third term as President. The Stuart painting has Washington standing next to a table with his left arm outstretched, as opposed to an arm withdrawn and covered by a cloak in the Cass version. However, upon closer review, most of the other elements of the two paintings seem remarkably similar. The chair, the pen and ink, the scroll, the table leg, the carpet design, and even the number and orientation of the books on and under the table, all look the same in both paintings (2).

Several famous copies of the Lansdowne Portrait, a copy itself of an earlier Stuart piece, exist today, including a copy by an unknown artist that hangs in the Rayburn Room in the U.S. Capitol and another painting based on the Stuart portrait by John Venderlyn, hanging in the U.S. House Chambers. It was not uncommon in the early 19th-Century for painters to make mass reproductions of famous artwork and portraits of famous personages.

Suspecting something more than met the eye with the Cass portrait, an x-ray of the painting was taken at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) during a cleaning and preservation of the piece. The scan showed a second layer of paint under the face of Mr. Cass, which looked distinctly like Washington. Alfred Ackerman, an art expert from the DIA involved in the painting’s restoration stated, “There has definitely been a change in the design around the head.” The records of the Michigan Territorial Council indicate that on June 29, 1832, the Council approved payment to a “Thomas M’Cleland, for balance due him for a full length portrait of Lewis Cass, late Governor of Michigan, for the library room, one hundred and twenty dollars.” We may never know if Mr. McCleland painted a replica copy of the Lansdowne Portrait and modified it later to approximate Cass or whether he simply painted over someone else’s work and collected $120 for his efforts. Copies of the more famous Stuart work would have been available and would have served as a quick way to memorialize a famous person with little work required to paint a different face over Washington’s.

The portrait of Lewis Cass hangs on the northwest corner of the Senate chamber and from that location one can see the Lewis Cass building out the western windows of the Capitol. From the vantage point of the lawn of the Lewis Cass building, the statue of George Washington stares somberly at the Michigan Capitol, toward the southern wing of that great building where the Michigan Senate convenes. The painting of Lewis Cass and the statue of George Washington look toward each other, knowing that while their paths in life never crossed, their stories remain intertwined in the random history of these two works of art in downtown Lansing.

Footnotes

(1) Mel Gibson’s character, Benjamin Martin, in the 2000 movie, The Patriot, was a mishmash of historical characters, including General Daniel Morgan. Near the end of the movie, the final major battle scene shows Martin taking advantage of Lord Cornwallis and Colonel Tavington’s disdain toward the militia in an effort to lure the British army into an ambush. During the real Revolutionary War at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781, then-Colonel Daniel Morgan met Colonel Banastre Tarleton - the basis for the Tavington character - and his dragoons in the watershed battle upon which the writers of The Patriot based the climactic final battle scene. Unlike in the movie, Morgan did not face Tarleton in hand-to-hand combat. Both men survived the war and went on to win election in the U.S. Congress and British Parliament, respectively.

(2) The National Portrait Gallery website (http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/portrait/index.html) has an interactive guide that explains the symbolic meanings of each of the elements in the Lansdowne Portrait.

Sources

Garrett, Bob. “State Office Building Fire.” State of Michigan. September 6, 2011 <http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-54463_19313_20652_19271_19357-135402--,00.html>.

Hart, Charles Henry. “Stuart’s Lansdowne Portrait Of Washington.” Harpers New Monthly Magazine August 1896: 378-386.

McCann, Hugh. “Cass’ Portrait Stirs Up The Ghost Of Washington.” The Detroit News January 1, 1990: 1-A, 4-A.

Merrill, Linda, Rogers, Lisa, and Passmore, Kaye. Picturing America: Teachers Resource Book. Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Humanities, 2008.

Michigan Territorial Council. Laws Of The Territory Of Michigan. Lansing: W.S. George & Co., 1874.

Office of the Clerk. “Artist Gilbert Stuart’s portraits of George Washington.” U.S. House of Representatives. September 6, 2011 <http://artandhistory.house.gov/highlights.aspx?
action=view&intID=351>.

Ibid. “Portraits of Lafayette and Washington.” U.S. House of Representatives. September 6, 2011 <http://artandhistory.house.gov/art_artifacts/virtual_tours/house_chamber/portraits.aspx>.

Smith, W.L.G. Life and Times of Lewis Cass. New York: Derby & Jackson, 1856.

“The Portrait.” Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. September 6, 2011 <http://www.georgewashington.si.edu/portrait/index.html>.

Magnificent Michilimackinac, Marvelous Mackinac Bridge

2011-09-20T18:00:00.006-04:00

When we went to Mackinaw City on Saturday, we stopped into Fort Michilimackinac before we headed over to the boat docks for our trip. While I have a ton of photographs of the fort from different aspects, but the bright sunflowers against the dark blue sky and the puffy white clouds was a new angle that I had not photographed in the past. The church and the southwest row house stand in the background.

Once our boat ride got underway, we took a quick jaunt under the Mackinac Bridge before heading east to the lighthouses. I never tire of traversing over, or under in this case, this marvel of engineering.

Late Summer Lighthouse Tour

2011-09-19T20:11:00.005-04:00

On Saturday, Valerie and I went up north to Mackinaw City to take a lighthouse tour that Valerie had gotten me for Christmas last year. The weather was beautiful and we went quite a ways out into Lake Huron on our 100 mile circuitous route around a number of lighthouses. In all we saw eight lighthouses, but I have only included below the six to which we got closest.

Round Island Lighthouse (left) & Martin Reef Lighthouse (right)

Spectacle Reef Lighthouse (left) & Poe Reef Lighthouse (right)

Fourteen Foot Shoal Lighthouse (left) & Cheboygan Crib Lighthouse (right)

Tantalizing Tiles

2011-09-10T18:11:00.002-04:00

During our wanderings around Chicago on Thursday, Valerie and I went to the Driehaus Museum, an old mansion on the northeastern corner of Erie Street and Wabash Avenue. I know that Valerie will most likely post about this house on her blog, so I shall not go too much into the details of the building. I really liked the blue tiles on the walls of the smoking room near the front entrance. The museum did not allow flash photography and I had to take this photo as best as I could under less than perfect lighting conditions on a dark, overcast day. Regardless, the tile pictured here is quite a remarkable piece of artistry.

Astronaut Appartments

2011-09-09T21:40:00.002-04:00

Valerie and I spent all day yesterday and this morning in Chicago. We went there to see a taping of the NPR show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me last night. The show is a hilarious take on the news that airs every Saturday. They tape the show on Thursday nights and edit it for Saturday's broadcast. Last night the show started late, as they were watching President Obama's speech and writing a few last minute jokes based on his address. Henry Winkler, "The Fonz", was their guest on the show last night, though he was not there in person. It was really cool to see how they take over two hours of really funny material and boil it down into a 45-minute radio show.

We arrived in Chicago early to wander around for a while. We first went to the Chicago Theatre for a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility. I think that was better than ever seeing a show there. After that we went to an old mansion for a tour. This house was on par with some of the palaces in London we have seen.

Amidst our wandering, we passed the two cool apartment buildings called "Marina City". I have always liked these building for some reason. Valerie does not share my affection of these structures. She thinks that I like them because they look space age and like someplace the Jetsons would live. I think she might be right. The rest of our stay we kept referring to them as the astronaut apartments.

Perturbing Plumbing

2011-09-05T21:17:00.004-04:00

Last week I had an epiphany as to why the hot water in our shower upstairs did not come out at the same pressure as the cold. After changing out the old hot water feed valve and purging the line of the sludge causing a constriction, we had much more pressure. Not only did we have more pressure, we had a lot more water flowing through the shower and into the tub. I spent quite a bit of time trying to make sure we did not have a clog in the pipes, as we had a good amount of water standing in the tub after a shower. So, my attempt to remedy one problem bred another one.

Today, I replaced the shower head with a more modern, efficient one in hopes of slowing the amount of water collecting in the tub. This fix also caused another problem elsewhere. The pressure building up in the faucet because the reduced flow from the shower head caused the 80-year-old rubber washer that seals the diverter valve to disintegrate and rush out into the tub with the water out of the faucet. The water pressure in the shower went to trickle.

I took the whole faucet assembly off the tub and disassembled it downstairs in my workshop. Amazingly, you could open up the guts of this very sturdy piece of hardware in order to get to the diverter valve. The only problem I faced was the fact that the screw holding the valve seal had rusted in place. I played around trying to retrofit a rubber seal with no success. I ended up finding a rubber washer at Menard's that I popped over the head of the stubborn screw. When the shower is engaged it seals the valve well enough to get good pressure to the shower.

I found the patent drawings for this faucet online today. The faucet we have says "patent pending" on it, so I assume that it dates to somewhere between 1930 when the plans were submitted and 1933 when the patent was granted. Parts 37-39 in the first drawing above are the parts that gave me all the problems.

I ordered a new faucet for our tub today. I have to make a small modification to attach the existing riser pipe to the new faucet. The riser pipes are standard 1/2" MIP fittings, but they have an unique ball joint that requires a 3/4" junction (49 & 51 in the second sketch above) that I figured out how to fabricate. I figured that we might as well change out the faucet before my cobbled fix fails and we cannot use the shower.

Mmmm... Bacon Stone?

2011-09-05T09:35:00.004-04:00

I have not posted in a few days, so I figured I should put up a photo of something. This photo is of the corner blocks on an old abandoned building at the Quincy Mine complex. The sandstone blocks come from a quarry in Jacobsville, a little town at the very southeastern tip of the island that makes up the Keweenaw "peninsula". Appropriately called Jacobsville sandstone, blocks of this material show up in buildings throughout the Keweenaw. When it is cut at the correct angle, the sandstone looks a lot like bacon, as you can see in this photo.

Leaf

2011-08-28T19:41:00.002-04:00

I had no intention of messing with the color of this photo when I took it earlier today. However, I played around with it, removing all the yellow out of it, which makes the red veins of this cottonwood leaf stand out against the grey surrounding material. I thought it made for a dramatic photo.

Hurry Up And Ripen!

2011-08-27T21:49:00.003-04:00

My little tiny garden has not been quite what I had hoped this summer. First of all, my red bell pepper plants ended up being jalapeno pepper plant that the greenhouse had mislabeled. I have a bumper crop of jalapenos, but Valerie does not like them much and I am running out of ideas for what I can do with them. My cayenne peppers have finally started to ripen, as you can see above, but I do not have many of them. I have about twenty small tomatoes from my volunteer tomato plants. I really hope they hurry up and ripen, because I have picked up quite a taste for fresh tomatoes for my lunches. You cannot beat a little salt and pepper on a tomato slice. I have been to the city market the past few weeks to get fresh tomatoes out of the field. They are so much better that the half-ripe store bought ones.

Chains

2011-08-22T21:28:00.004-04:00

I took this photo at the Quincy Mine in the hoist building. They hung from the ceiling of the building, 80 feet above. I played around with the contrast and definition tonight to make the photo more dramatic and give it a gritty, industrial appearance.

A Fuzzy Image 20 Years Ago

2011-08-21T21:24:00.003-04:00

With the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks just a few weeks away, I suspect news stories with people talking about where they were when they heard about the attacks will litter the airwaves. Those tragic events do evoke strong emotions and I can say that I recall the events of a decade ago with a fair amount of clarity. For my parents' generation, many people have the assassination of President Kennedy as that seminal memory from their past. My grandparents had the Pearl Harbor attack.

However, an anniversary went by this weekend that garnered far less attention than any of these events, but I shall always have the images of that day, two decades ago, etched in my mind. On August 21, 1991, a tired, shaken Mikhail Gorbachev stepped off an airplane in Moscow. He returned to the capital of the crumbling USSR a defeated man, a mere four months before he would relinquish his office and see the Soviet Union cease to exist. I remember vividly the photo above of him walking down the steps of the plane surrounded by agents of the Soviet version of the Secret Service and their clearly visible machine guns at the ready. Gorbachev survived a coup attempt that weekend and arrived back in Moscow on August 21, 1991 to a quickly changing world.

I shall always remember this photo and the many images of the people surrounding the Russian parliament building, the "White House", listening to Boris Yeltsin calling the coup leaders' bluff. The 1991 coup only brought the failings of the Soviet Union to light, though it had been flagging for quite some time. By the end of the year, the USSR would cease to exist. The events behind this this image opened the doors for my eventual travel and stay in Russia in 1993 and 1994. I arrived in Moscow six days before the second anniversary of the start of the 1991 coup and on the anniversary the city erupted in fireworks. Sadly, in October of that same year, in an effort to squelch another coup attempt, Yeltsin ordered an assault on the recalcitrant parliament holed up in the same White House that he defended two years earlier. The events of August 19-21, 1991, though hardly remembered in the news today, will probably always rank high in my memory of big events in my life.

The Bucks Stop Here

2011-08-21T18:53:00.003-04:00

I forgot to post this picture of two bucks at Fenner Arboretum last week. They both have velvet on their antlers, but that will soon get itchy and they will start rubbing trees to exfoliate the dried velvet. The number of deer at Fenner amazes me. There were five fawns and three does eating nearby these bucks the night I photographed these two.

Fauna At Fenner

2011-08-20T17:03:00.002-04:00

I ventured out to Fenner Arboretum this morning before heading to the grocery store. It was still pretty damp and not much was moving. I did happen upon an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail gorging itself on the purple flowers of the many thistles dotting the big field at Fenner. I also kept coming across a little fawn that just wanted to rest in the weeds and not have to get up to run away from me.

Light As A Feather

2011-08-17T21:27:00.003-04:00

I photographed this ethereal little feather with the late summer sunset shining through it in our back yard tonight.

Perfect Summertime Sandwich

2011-08-15T20:33:00.004-04:00

I saved a couple nice tomatoes from becoming sauce yesterday so that I could make us BLT sandwiches tonight for supper. Yesterday, Valerie baked the bread I used, so we had quite the tasty meal. As I used baby spinach instead of lettuce, they really should be called BST sandwiches. It was good to have a flavorful, fully ripened tomato instead of the chemically ripened ones you so often get from the grocery store. I wish we had a sunnier lawn to grow our own tomatoes, but I have tried and failed too many times. We just have too much shade.

I'm Ex-SAUCE-ted

2011-08-14T20:09:00.003-04:00

After returning from church this afternoon, I undertook a fairly large tomato processing endeavor. I got a bushel-and-a-half (about 65 pounds) of "canning" tomatoes at the Lansing City Market yesterday and commenced making and canning a bunch of tomato-related items this afternoon. I ended up with 14 quarts of tomato sauce, 8 pints of Italian-style stewed tomatoes, and 4 quarts of tomato juice that I shall use for making tomato soup. It always amazes me how that many tomatoes cooks down so much.

I See The Light

2011-08-13T23:46:00.002-04:00

Last night I had the opportunity to photograph the interior of the old Bank of Lansing, now Comerica Bank, in downtown Lansing for a historical society project for Valerie. When I loaded them on my computer tonight, I really liked this close-up of one of the big chandeliers in the main atrium of the bank and figured I needed to share it.

I'm A Little Teapot

2011-08-13T14:23:00.002-04:00

Today's photograph comes from the collection of pictures I took last weekend up north. I shot these tin kettles hanging in the little storehouse building display at historic Fort Wilkins in Copper Harbor. The kettles were new and not actual artefacts, as were all the other items displayed in the open for visitors to handle. I had to use a stool to get on the right level to photograph them, as they hung from nails in the ceiling joist beams. When Valerie and I looked through all the photos from our trip the other night, she said that this one looked like something that belonged on my blog.

Signs Of The Times: Keweenaw Version

2011-08-11T21:24:00.003-04:00

The more photos I take, the more I really like to photograph old signs and advertisement. In this day and age, with all the flashy moving images and video on our mobile phones, a good old static sign often cuts through the clutter and din of life. I shot these old highway signs in Calumet while we were on our trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula last weekend. Like much of this part of the world, these old signs have stood the test of time and keep doing their job whilst the rest of the world zooms past.

Just down the street from today's first photo was this wonderful specimen of, um... well, you get the idea. I can only imagine that the owner of the "privet property" portion of the sidewalk must have had a tiff with the city and decided to demarcate where his property began and the city's ended. If I did not know a number of erudite Yoopers, I might make some joke about the poor use of English in this photo stemming from the backwoods of the Upper Peninsula. However, I shall abstain, as idiots tend to find their way everywhere!

Anatomy Of A Murder

2011-08-10T21:56:00.007-04:00

On our recent jaunt to the Upper Peninsula, Valerie and I stopped in Marquette for a few hours. The main reason for our stop was to take some photos of some local lighthouses and the Marquette County courthouse for my collection of Michigan courthouses, which you can see on our Marvins' Gardens website.

As we arrived in Marquette on a Thursday afternoon during work hours, we had the opportunity to see the inside of the courthouse. We traipsed around the interior and ran into one of the circuit court officials upstairs waiting for the court session to resume. He welcomed us into the main courtroom. There we learned that this very room was used in the filming of the 1959 Jimmy Stewart and George C. Scott film, Anatomy of a Murder. Neither of us have seen this movie, but we have added it to our Netflix queue for future viewing.

The courtroom has an amazing stained glass dome skylight and there are a number of stained glass windows throughout the building. We both liked the tile floors, especially the design in the main corridor on the first floor. Visiting courthouses is always a gamble, as some are treasures like this one, while counties have chosen to build bland modern boxes with no character. Fortunately, Marquette County has chosen to keep this gem of an old building.

Win One For The Gipper

2011-08-09T20:30:00.005-04:00

Rarely do I find myself in the position of knowing something historical that Valerie does not know. Our trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula, had two such occasions, though I can only recall one right now. Just down the street from the bed and breakfast where we stayed, stands a memorial to George Gipp. Gipp played football for Notre Dame, became Notre Dame's first all-American player in his senior year, and died in December 1920 after his last game. His coach, the infamous Knute Rockne, invoked his memory eight years later in a pep talk to his team before going out to beat the undefeated 1928 Army team. Allegedly, Gipp had told Rockne on his deathbed to "win one for the Gipper" when sometime in the future the team faced a tough challenge.

In 1940, Ronald Reagan played George Gipp in the movie, Knute Rockne, All American. During his years as President, Reagan's nickname was "The Gipper" and he even used the quote at the 1988 Republican National Convention when he told George H.W. Bush to "go out there and win one for the Gipper".

A Tale Of Two Mines

2011-08-09T18:18:00.008-04:00

Both Valerie and I visited the Keweenaw Peninsula with our families years ago. In that time much has changed in the area, especially in the case of tourism. Nowhere is this more obvious than the two old mines that we visited: Delaware and Quincy. Here's a review of what each site has to offer:

Delaware Mine
Halfway between Copper Harbor and Calumet on US-41

We both remember our trip to the Delaware Mine as kids and both remember how our families skipped a stop at the Quincy Mine on those same trips. Back then, tourism kept the Delaware Mine humming with lots of guests each day. We both recall the big tour groups there when we visited in the past. When we visited this time on a Saturday afternoon, the place was dead quiet. The tours are self-guided with only an occasional sign to describe what you are seeing (or barely seeing in the dim light). The guided tours that we recalled ended nearly a decade ago when the economy tanked. We both commented on how the whole place seems more like one of those hokey tourist traps along Route 66 and has lost its tenuous grip on being a place to learn about history. However, on a hot day, the 45 degree temperature in the mine felt good. For $10 a person it is not a bad investment, but it does not offer what it used to have. A few ruins of old mine buildings still litter the grounds along with actual litter of the non-historical type. The whole place needs a good sprucing up in order to bring back some of its luster. It is a good place to take kids if you do not care about the lack of any real learning about the history around you. Plus, the owner has two pet skunks you might get to meet in the gift shop.

Quincy Mine
Just north of Hancock on US-41

The National Park Service has done an amazing job of rescuing the old Quincy Mine. From what we could gather, most of the upgrades to the site have taken place in the last decade or so, much after we last toured the area. We both commented that had this place existed in its current form a long time ago, our families would have surely stopped here for a tour. Like the Delaware Mine site, the place is littered with ruins and old machinery, but thankfully not pure junk like Delaware. It is clean considering the rusting tools and equipment and ruined buildings. You quickly realize that everything in copper mining, except for the narrow tunnels, is big. The buildings that housed the hoist and top of the mine shaft tower over the whole landscape. The giant drum of the steam hoist makes you feel very small. The mine shaft itself does not make you feel little until your guide takes you into one of the multi-storey caverns that stretch higher than you can see, yet you know the ceiling is still several hundred feet underground. There are quite a few old ruins on the site and some cool old machines, including a couple steam engines. At $18 a person, the Quincy Mine tour is a tad steeper in price, but you get nearly 2 hours of a guided tour in the hoist house and mine, a ride on a cool rail tram car down and back up a steep hill, and lots of interesting facts about mining you never would get elsewhere. We definitely recommend the Quincy Mine to anyone that has the time to visit this impressive piece of Michigan history.

1,602...

2011-08-08T20:48:00.004-04:00

Valerie and I finally made good on many years' worth of talk about visiting the Keweenaw Peninsula in upper Michigan. We traveled for five days and racked up an interesting set of statistics: 1,602 miles driven; 1,365 photos taken, visits to 11 lighthouses and 7 county courthouses; tours of two copper mines; visits to many beautiful old churches; two bad lunch experiences; and, stops at several waterfalls. You can see us pictured above in our hard hats at the Delaware Mine, which we both remembered as being far more cooler as kids than it was this time (more on that in a later post).

I have hardly even had the chance to look over the tons of photos I took, but I wanted to post a few below of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Calumet where Valerie and I attended church on Sunday. Prior to 1966, the church was called St. Joseph Slovenian Catholic Church. With the waning population of the area, four of the local Catholic parishes joined together as one body and chose this building in which to worship. You can see why by looking at the beautiful building pictured below.

As I sift through the photos, I shall post more of our adventure and I am sure that Valerie will have her own twist on some of the photos over at her blog, too.

Whew! It's Been A Hot & Busy Month

2011-08-02T18:13:00.004-04:00

So, I have been derelict in posting anything lately. It has been hot and miserable, so I have been hiding out anywhere cool for the past month. I hope the heat breaks soon and we can get back to some reasonable temperatures. Anyway, here are a few photos from the past few weeks that I have taken:
A Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly at Fenner Arboretum. These guys have been far more friendly this year and have let me get some better photos of them. While not the largest butterfly in Michigan, these guys do have wingspans of up to 6 inches. They dwarf some smaller breeds of birds.

A Red-Spotted Purple butterfly at Fenner Arboretum. This is my second favorite butterfly after the Baltimore Checkerspot. While not rare, they tend to keep to themselves and stay back in the darker parts of the woods. I had to use the flash to get this photo, as it was in a dark thicket. I hope to see one of the northern versions of these, the White Admiral, when Valerie and I do some traveling in the Upper Peninsula.

A thistle at Fenner Arboretum. Summer is slowly getting closer to fall when these guys start to arrive.

My adorable niece, Claire, being bounced by my sister, Leigh. Claire sure is a cute little bugger!

Three's A Crowd

2011-07-10T20:56:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I had to travel down to my boss' district for an event and I left a little early to wander in the Lost Nation State Game Area near Pittsford. While I had hoped, on a very long shot, that I might find a Mitchell's Satyr butterfly (one of Michigan's two butterfly endangered species) because of the right conditions and known sighting in the area, I doubted I would find one. And I did not find one. I did find three new species to me.

Until this morning, I had thought that I had just captured the photo of an Easter Comma butterfly. The photo on the left of the dorsal side of its wings looks very much like the Comma. However, the undersides of the wings are completely different patterns. The Comma has a more mottled coloration, while this photo shows a more uniform grey coloration. The telltale sign that this was not a Comma, is the little white mark on the ventral wing. On the many species of Commas, this white mark looks sort of like the punctuation mark for which the butterfly gets its name. In this case, I have captured a Question Mark butterfly (Polygonia interrogationis), not a Comma. Had I actually chased this one through the prickly brush into which it flew, I might have gotten a better photo of its wing to show you the white mark is not a complete comma, but has a little white dot underneath the comma; thus, the name Question Mark. While many variations of the Comma exists, I believe that there is only one Question Mark. They are all of the same genus: Polygonia.

My new dragonfly is what I believe to be a female Canada Darner (Aeshna canadensis). With some help from a bug website on which I post hard to identify bugs, I got some pretty good advice that this is a Canada Darner. There are 12 species of darners (one of two families of large dragonflies) common to Michigan. Four of them live only in the Upper Peninsula, with one only existing on Isle Royale. The Canada Darner does exist throughout the state. This should have been a fairly straight forward identification, except I could not find anything that had similar coloration to the tail of this one in any of the resources I consult. I later learned that Canada Darners lose some of their bright blue and green coloration when they are cold. Given that this one posed so calmly sunning itself, a trait not common to darners, it makes sense that this one was just warming up yesterday morning.

My last find was all over the place back in the fen where I had sought out the Satyr that I never found. This little guy is a Dorcas Copper butterfly (Lycaena dorcas). They look very much like the Bog Copper or Purplish Copper. However, after reading a bunch of online articles, three of which that were unrelated but had photos of this butterfly taken in the same game area where I had taken these, I figured that this was the best candidate for the identity of this little guy. And little it was - about the size of my fingernail on my smallest finger!

With these three new finds, I am up to 27 dragonfly species photographed in Michigan and 40 butterfly species.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

2011-07-06T20:30:00.004-04:00

Last night whilst wandering at Fenner Arboretum, I happened upon a bell. I had seen this from a distance before, but never went over to investigate until last night. A small plaque on one of the poles holding the bell stated:

"Salvaged from the old Cherry St. School. Used to summon cemetery and arboretum employees in case of fire in the park."

I highly doubt the bell still serves this purpose, as it sits in the very middle of a mature pine forest a great distance away from the main building at Fenner. During a forest fire, the last place I would want to venture to ring a warning bell would be anywhere in the middle of a tinderbox like a pine forest with all its dry, fallen needles just waiting to ignite! Furthermore, someone would have to climb the posts on which it rests to ring it, as no rope remains attached to it.

On my lunch break today, I wandered over to Cherry Street to take a picture of the school building from whence the bell allegedly came. I would like to do some research on whether the story of the bell's origin is accurate. The Cherry Street School today serves as some sort of mental health facility. The face of the building has been marred by an architect with no taste and the building clearly seen better days, receiving less than stellar care presently.

Thar She Blows

2011-07-05T21:40:00.002-04:00

Downtown Lansing, near the Lansing State Journal building, stands a small volcano. It appears that some local artist has gussied up one of the steam vents that dots the city as the Board of Water & Light slowly disassembles the steam heating system downtown. I do not know why they need these several foot high vents, but I am glad that someone had an imagination and decorated this one.

Independence Day Insects

2011-07-04T17:41:00.002-04:00

I hesitantly decided to go to Woldumar Nature Center this afternoon to see if I could scare up some bugs and possibly capture some good photos of something new. I have been thoroughly disappointed this summer with the dragonflies and butterflies that I have seen, or not seen to be exact. I like finding new ones that I have not photographed in the past, but I also like to see old friends, which have been few and far between this year. I saw my first Red Admiral butterfly today, a butterfly that in past years was something that I saw every time I went somewhere. Last year, I saw my first one in late April - this year it was Independence Day!

I did capture a new species of butterfly today. The top two photos are of a Tawny Emperor (Asterocampa clyton). The Tawny Emperor is similar to the Hackberry Emperor that I found last week at Fenner. Amazingly, I have not seen any of the Hackberry Emperors in the couple trips to Fenner since last Saturday. It is just that kind of year! I saw this little guy in the wooded section of Woldumar. They prefer the woods to the open areas. I find it harder to shoot good butterfly photos in the dense underbrush, especially on bright days when the shadows seem even more dark than on an overcast day. I know I could find more diverse numbers of butterflies at least if I trudged through the thickets more often.

The dragonfly in today's post is a male Eastern Pondhawk. I have seen my fair share of the female of this species in the past, but this is first time I have had the chance to get close enough to a male to shoot some photos. They are generally more skittish than the females, but even the females tend to flit off when you get close. These dragonflies are half the size of the Dragonhunters and Green Darners, but they will also eat other dragonflies, even their own species.

Lazy Little Frog

2011-06-26T16:13:00.002-04:00

I do not have much to say about this little guy other than I think he has the right idea taking a rest in the shade on a hot summer day!

Bunches O' Bugs

2011-06-25T13:55:00.004-04:00

I took Valerie to Perry this morning to meet my sister so they could go shopping this morning and I took my time getting home. I stopped at Rose Lake and wandered the fields and forests for an hour or so and then popped back into Lansing to stop at Fenner Arboretum for a while.

Boy, did I hit the dragonfly and butterfly jackpot today. The first three photos above are of dragonflies I have photographed before, but have not gotten as good of photos. The green one is a female Eastern Pondhawk, the second one is an immature male Halloween Pennant, and the third is a female Black Saddlebags. One and three were shot at Fenner and number two was at Rose Lake. The fourth photo is of a Northern Pearly Eye butterfly and I took his photo at Rose Lake. I was happy to get these shots, but even more excited with my new finds.

I had hardly gotten out of the car at Fenner when I saw something on the pavement of the parking lot that caught my eye. Lo and behold, it was a new butterfly. I knew right away that this one was something I had never photographed. Fortunately, it seems to be a very friendly butterfly, as I got lots of photos of it. It is a Hackberry Emperor butterfly (Asterocampa celtis). The dorsal side of the Hackberry Emperor looks similar to the Northern Pearly Eye above, but unlike the Pearly Eye, the Emperor opens its wings to sun its much more elaborate ventral side, while the Pearly Eye rests with its wings closed.

These dragonflies are not necessarily new to me, but it is the first time I have had the opportunity to photograph a male Common Green Darner dragonfly (Anax junius). The male has a blue tale and the female has a greenish red tale. I doubt I have to tell you what they are doing here. This is about the most docile I have seen a male and the closest I have ever gotten to one to take a photo.

At Rose Lake, I happened upon the king of North American dragonflies, the Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus). The Dragonhunter is the largest dragonfly in North America and it is a very agile predator. It routinely eats other dragonflies, which it dwarfs. It will also eat Monarch butterflies regardless of their alleged bad taste and toxins. It is in the clubtail family, but it is the only dragonfly of its genus in the western hemisphere. Its nearest cousin lives in Asia. This guy was nearly 4 inches long!

My last new find of the day was only realized when I got home. I thought that I had just captured a better photo of a Common Baskettail dragonfly, but looking at my identification book, something did not look right with its tail. The tail coloration tipped me off and so I started comparing things and realized real quickly that this was a new find. It is a famale Four-Spotted Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula quadrimaculata). The four spots of its name are not very big and appear halfway down the upper edges of each wing. It also has some shading near its body on the lower wing. I photographed this one at Rose Lake.

First Harvest Of The Summer

2011-06-23T19:59:00.002-04:00

My pepper plants have been doing really well this summer. I picked the first few of my Cayenne peppers today because they were longer than the plant on which they grew. I theorized that all the nutrients that could be strengthening the little plants was ending up growing these mutant peppers. I hope that picking them now will make the plants grow bigger and produce more later in the summer. A few years ago my Cayenne plants produced lots of peppers, so I hope to replicate that harvest plus some with my extra care I have been giving the plants this year. I also have some bell peppers growing and I think I have some mislabeled jalapenos growing, too.

Port Austin Trip Video

2011-06-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

Here's a brief video from our trip yesterday:

Impromptu Kayak Trip

2011-06-19T13:31:00.004-04:00

I had a really long week at work and Valerie and I talked about just getting away for Saturday and going for one of our adventures, even if it meant driving somewhere and just looking at a lake or something. We packed up our kayaks and headed to Port Austin, a little Lake Huron town on the very tip of the "thumb" of the Lower Peninsula. We have talked about doing this with my sister and brother-in-law, but this was just a last minute thing and we figured they would not have a babysitter for Claire on short notice.

The water around Port Austin remains very shallow out to the lighthouse, aptly named the Port Austin Reef lighthouse. The reef varies from rocks jutting out of the water to areas where the water dips to 15 feet or so. This actually made for a little harder paddling than I would have expected as the waves got larger in the shallower water near the lighthouse.

The Port Austin Reef Lighthouse sits at the very tip of the reef and Lake Huron gets much deeper north of the light. The lighthouse plays host to a large colony of seagulls, most of which I excised from this photo. Construction on the lighthouse tower finished in 1878.

After bobbing around in the lake for a few hours, we stopped along the way back on a small islet to eat lunch. The reef here stretched out several hundred feet from the shoreline of the island at a dept of only around a few inches to a foot. This lack of depth made it a little harder for me to get my kayak back into the deeper water without having to wade out a good distance. Coming into land we had the waves to carry us up on the rocks, but getting back in I had to fight the waves while bottoming out in the troughs of the waves.

After arriving back to Port Austin, we wandered the town a bit and then drove over to the Point Aux Barques Lighthouse a few miles away. After visiting there for a while we drove along the coastline to Port Huron so Valerie could get some yarn for a couple of sweaters at the Mary Maxim store and so we could eat supper at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant we really like in Port Huron.

Supper On A Stick

2011-06-17T22:21:00.002-04:00

Food served on a stick always seems tastier; tonight's supper was no exception!

Busy Buggy Day

2011-06-11T22:25:00.003-04:00

After helping Valerie paint her sewing room and going to a graduation open house for one of her coworker's daughter, I ventured out to Woldumar Nature Center to see if I could find some butterflies or dragonflies. The bugs did not disappoint me today. I scarcely got on the trail I traverse frequently at Woldumar when the Viceroy butterfly (Limenitis archippus) above welcomed me. It posed really well and let me take quite a few photos. I really like these guys and think that they are a nicer looking butterfly than the more prevalent Monarchs they mimic. They have a less erratic pattern to their spots and lines and I like the shape of their wings better.

I also captured some photos of a friendly Little Wood Satyr butterfly (Eupthychia cymela). I have photographed these in the past, but have never gotten this good or close of photos. They tend to be skittish, so my bigger lens has paid off again.

I think I have mentioned it before, but the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas phaeton) is my favorite butterfly. It is so unique with its outlandish design and its little orange-tipped antennae. Plus, in this case, this butterfly was perched about six inches in front of the dragonfly in the next picture that I would never have seen had this guy not caught my attention!

This Common Green Darner (Anax junius) showed some atypical behavior in that it did not fly away from me when I got within 20 feet of it! I know that people get photos of these all the time, but I never seem to have any luck. I have only photographed the female of this species and never have gotten close enough to the male for a photo. The males have a blue tale instead of the brownish red tale of the female.

I still await confirmation on this dragonfly from my fellow bug watchers over on the Bug Guide website, but I think it is an immature male Midland Clubtail (Gomphus fraternus). If I am correct, this is the same species I photographed last week, just not freshly "hatched".

I saw a few other butterflies that would not cooperate with me (the Swallowtails never do) and the Common Whitetail dragonflies were everywhere. However, the lack of certain species of butterflies and dragonflies this year really perplexes me, which I think the extra rain caused. I hope some of my old friends reappear soon.

Finally, Some Bugs!

2011-06-05T18:01:00.003-04:00

I have been less than satisfied with my dragonfly and butterfly photographing this spring so far. The extra rains have pushed back the season for these guys to come out to play and, in the case of dragonflies, has probably washed away many of their eggs for this season. However, my trip to Fenner Arboretum proved fruitful today. The Dot-tailed Whiteface dragonflies (top photo) have done well with the damp weather, as they are all over the place at Fenner this year. Last year, I did not see one of them there, but today I could scarcely walk five feet without rousing multiple of them from their perches in the weeds. I also happened upon a number of skippers of various species and an American Copper butterfly (bottom photo).

My most interesting finds though, were a Lancet Clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus exilis) and a Midland Clubtail dragonfly (Gomphus fraternus). The Lancet Clubtail (second photo) is very similar to the Dusky Clubtail, but I am pretty sure this is the Lancet. I photographed what I thought to be a Dusky last year at Fenner, but the photo was from a distance and now I think it might have really been a Lancet.

The Midland Clubtail (third photo) I photographed is a very young, or teneral, male. When a dragonfly sheds the exoskeleton from its nymph stage, its new exoskeleton has to dry a while and harden. Its wings also unfurl at that time. When they come out, they are together, like the wings in the picture. Once the dragonfly dries out and things harden, its wings will always be out like the wings of all the other dragonflies I have photographed.

Once You Pop, You Can't Stop

2011-06-04T17:14:00.002-04:00

The poppy plant my mother gave me for my birthday two years ago has really flourished this year. Last year, I only had three poppy blossoms, but this year I think the plant already has the makings of 19 individual flowers. The pesky squirrels bit off three of them, but apparently they found them not to their liking. I hope they seed themselves and fill up my front flowerbed with their interesting foliage and huge red blooms in future years. Even if the seeds do not take hold, the one plant I have seems to grow bigger every year, so it might fill in the area by itself.

Word Around Town

2011-05-29T21:52:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, while Valerie and her mother did the traditional Memorial Day flower plantings at the cemeteries in Owosso, I spent a few hours just walking the streets downtown Owosso shooting photos. The overcast skies did not allow me to get the photos I had set out to capture, but I did get the chance to shoot some interesting things. The photos I posted in today's post all have words in them. I captured the plaque and the eagle and shield in the memorial park on the corner of Washington and Oliver Streets, known as Fayette Square. The 1924 cornerstone engraving adorns Owosso City Hall. I found the orange Gideons New Testament resting on the doorstep of the historic Woodard paymaster house near Curwood Castle. The Gideons give out their orange covered New Testaments to middle school students; the middle school resides just a few blocks away.

First Dragonflies Of The Season

2011-05-25T21:38:00.003-04:00

My annual dragonfly and butterfly photo season has officially begun. It has been a bit slower going this year with work bogging me down and the weather not cooperating. Last night I had the opportunity to go to Woldumar Nature Center while Valerie went to a meeting. The place was fairly quiet and not even the mosquitoes were present. I think everything is a bit behind this spring with the cooler weather and lots of rain. Also, the lack of mosquitoes probably has kept the dragonflies at bay, as they eat a lot of mosquitoes. I did happen upon this skittish little bugger. It has similar markings to a Meadowhawk dragonflies, but the colors are all wrong. I could not place it, but it has been several months since I last scampered after these bugs, so I figured my identification skills had just atrophied through the winter months. When I arrived home last night, I got distracted by a work project and did not upload the photos until tonight. Then I realized that this dragonfly, at least this version of a dragonfly, was new to me. It is the female version of the Dot-Tailed Whiteface (Leucorrhinia intacta), which I had first photographed the male version of last year at this time. If you look closely at the second photo, you can see the "whiteness" of the face, though it is more pronounced on the male.

So, I Can Take My Shih Tzu Into The Lighthouse?

2011-05-24T18:08:00.003-04:00

I snapped this photo of a sign on the exterior of the Whitefish Point Lighthouse the other day. I find it refreshing that the museum allows you to do a number of things that other places don't, but they are not pushy about it either. Thus, if you want to walk your dog, eat a hot dog, and drink a pop all while shoeless and shirtless, you may still enter the lighthouse. After all, none of those things are required according to this sign!

All For Some Onion Rings

2011-05-22T19:53:00.005-04:00

Valerie and I made one of our epic day trips yesterday to the Upper Peninsula. We left home at 7:00am and headed above the Mackinac Bridge for our first stop at the family property in the little burg of Moran. We wandered a bit in the woods, which, thankfully, were devoid of any major form of buzzing and biting insect. We both commented on how nice it was to not hear the din of the city around us and how noisy it really was out there with all the birds chirping.

From there we headed up to Whitefish Point. We wandered the beach a bit and then went up in the tower of the lighthouse. This summer is the first full summer that they will have it open, so I was excited to go up in the tower of one of my favorite lighthouses. I took the first of the two photos on the stairs up the side of the tower and the second from inside the tower.

We leisurely made our way to Sault Ste. Marie with a stop at the Point Iroquois Lighthouse, one of Valerie's favorites. We stopped to watch two freighters locking through from Lake Superior to the lower river and then made our way to the one definite destination we had on our list yesterday: Clyde's Drive-In. We got our onion rings (the only real reason to go there) and other greasy supper food before heading home. Amazingly, we made it home at 10:00pm, which seems like some sort of record given the good amount of time we actually spent out of the car. I must have been going faster than I realized on the road. It was nice to get out of town and up to the U.P. where we both really would prefer to be most days.

Below is a montage of photos and videos taken on the beach at Whitefish Point for anyone that wants to see and hear the peaceful water from the beach there.

Capitol Blossoms

2011-05-16T21:04:00.002-04:00

Spring has finally arrived at the Capitol with all the flowering cherry and apple trees around the grounds. The bright sunshine and clear blue sky added to the pretty blossoms that I photographed framing the dome this afternoon.

Another Successful Lock-In

2011-05-14T20:35:00.004-04:00

Valerie and I survived the annual youth group lock-in that we hosted at church last night. The event started at 8:00pm and ran to 8:00am this morning. I planned several ridiculous games that kept the kids going until about 5:00am when they started getting really tired. To see some video from the lock-in, check out our youth group's YouTube page and look for the 2011 lock-in videos: www.youtube.com/JudsonYouth. Posted below is my favorite game of the night:

Jack Be Nimble

2011-05-08T15:58:00.005-04:00

Today was the first really nice spring day that I had the chance to wander for a bit outside. I went over to Fenner Arboretum and spent some time back in the more wooded areas today looking for any signs of early butterflies. I found the little Spring Azure butterflies that I desperately would like to photograph with their wings open, but none would stop long enough for any good pictures. However, in chasing them, I stumbled upon a Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant. I must admit that I do not know enough about wildflowers as I would like. I had hoped I had photographed a pitcher plant, so I could title this post "A Pitcher Is Worth A Thousand Words", but I did not have such luck.

As I got to the backside of Fenner, I did happen upon a more sedentary butterfly, a Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa). I photographed one of these back in April 2009 and have seen them briefly at other times, but this one seemed a lot more friendly and photogenic. It even alighted* from its log perch and landed on my hat.

*I also learned today, or at least realized, that the verb "alight" means both "to get off" or "to dismount" and also "to land" or "to perch". So, something can alight from something to alight on something else. I have used both definitions of this word before, but never really realized the opposite meaning until today!

Tulip Time

2011-05-01T17:20:00.002-04:00

Today, I mowed for the first time this season. I typically do not like doing lawn work on the Lord's day, but it was getting out-of-control and with rain in the forecast, I figured it needed to get done. While mowing, I noticed that our tulips are already blossoming. The cooler weather has slowed them up a bit, but they are still earlier than they used to be. It is good to see a color other than brown out in the garden. The odd thing is that I do not recall ever planting pink tulips, so I am not sure how these got in the garden.

Aw, Nuts

2011-04-30T22:27:00.002-04:00

I spent the day at Mom's working with Doug on a number of projects. During a lull in all the excitement, I wandered back in the woods to see if I could track down any of the elusive butterflies we had encountered on an earlier jaunt through the forest. I did not see any additional butterflies, but I did take some photos. One of them caught my eye tonight. It is the caps to a clump of acorns without the acorns in them. Undoubtedly, some critter ate them this winter, leaving the empty tops.

Spring Is Finally Springing

2011-04-29T21:52:00.003-04:00

Wow, it has been far too long since I have actually had the chance to post any new photos. Work has been pretty rough for the last month or so with a lot of really discouraging events taking place. Add to that the miserable weather and I have not been all that inspired to express myself creatively through my photography. Most days I just come home mentally drained. However, Valerie and I decided to take a nice walk this evening in the waning daylight. We walked down to Cooley Gardens, which due to the weather has very little blooming compared to past years at this time. The magnolia trees were in bloom though, so I took some photos of their white blossoms. I hope the weather gets nicer soon so at least I can see some sunshine through my office window instead of the grey skies that match the tone of my work as of late!

Claire And Kayaking

2011-03-19T21:25:00.002-04:00

It has been a pretty good weekend. The sun has been out and the weather has been nice finally on the weekend instead of just during the work week. I finally got the chance to put the kayak back in the river today and paddle for an hour-and-a-half. Best of all was the arrival of my new niece, Claire Ashleigh Seger, on Thursday. We got to see her first thing Thursday night after she was born and then Friday night for a little longer. After the week Valerie and I had at work, the fresh air and cute little baby were much needed breaks from the real world.

Foreboding Front

2011-03-14T12:33:00.002-04:00

I took today's photo on my walk to work. The early morning sunlight lit the face of the Capitol making some dramatic shadows. The clear blue sky above looks black through my polarizing filter, giving this photo a foreboding look to it even though it is a nice bright and clear day. Given the fact that the next three days will see protests galore at the Capitol, the foreboding feeling may be accurate.

A Common Thread

2011-03-03T20:55:00.002-05:00

Wow, it has been a while since I have posted. Part of me wonders if I can ever get back to doing my daily photos that I loved doing for so long. Tonight I came home and saw Valerie's ball of thread that she has been using to crochet little snowflakes ornaments. It struck me as a good subject for a photo, so I grabbed my camera. It felt good actually being creative outside of writing tomes of legal jargon or responses to everyone's complaints about whatever they write to their senator. I just need to get back in the habit of making time for photography like I used to do.

Occupational Hazards

2011-02-17T20:19:00.002-05:00

I have been horrible at updating this blog as of late. Mainly, I have no time to be creative outside of my job. Fortunately, my job actually requires some creativity, so I do not totally lack stimulation that makes most people hate what they do for a living. Plus, it has been mostly overcast and yucky on the days that I do have time to go shoot photos. So, today there is no photo, but I do have an interesting story to tell.

I have been putting in long days at the office, as we just have a ton of work to do. Last night was no exception and Valerie actually came up and hung out until I finally gave up around 9:30 and left the office. This morning I was pretty tired, mostly mentally, and was trying to gear up for the expected-but-fortunately-not-realized slew of people calling in to complain about the Governor's budget proposal. My first call came in and it was a doozy out of left field. I do not feel comfortable explaining the whole conversation, but let's just say the guy's profanity-laced tirade contained two death threats against someone in his city. Logically, the second person with whom I spoke this morning just happened to be to a police officer in that city. By 8:30 this morning I was already talking to crazy people and the day had hardly begun! About 3:30, my boss and I were having a casual conversation when in came a state police officer and our chief sergeant-at-arms. Allegedly, the person that called me was not happy that I called the police and subsequently threatened to blow up our building. I am sure glad that tomorrow is Friday; I do not think I could take much more of this week!

Really Cool Bow Tie

2011-02-08T21:27:00.002-05:00

I stumbled across this old photo of 70s movie star Steve McQueen the other day online. I do not know when Life published it, but I thought that it was a cool photo, especially because of his bow tie. The tie is not quite perfect, which matches McQueen's persona. Aside from The Great Escape, which I love, I really have not gotten too attached to his other films. I just thought that a photo of him sporting a hand-tied bow tie was too good not to post.

Staying Connected

2011-02-06T19:02:00.002-05:00

In this day and age, telephones have advanced from behemoths anchored to the walls to little gadgets that tend to get used for more things than making calls. Downtown Lansing, AT&T has an old building that houses a bunch of its switching equipment and offices. On the side of the building that faces Capitol Avenue, there is a series of pictures carved into the face of the exterior wall. Each depicts a place where the telephone would soon be found. Today, people would take for granted the existence of phones in all these places, but hardly a century ago, even the simplest phones were high tech and rare. In a century, what will seem quaint and old fashioned to future generations?

Enlightening

2011-02-04T16:47:00.002-05:00

I finally got an opportunity to get outside for a very short period to enjoy the beautiful sunshine. I would have preferred to be out tromping through the snow at Woldumar or Fenner, but I had to settle for a walk around the Capitol. I shot this photo at the AT&T building downtown.

Yes, I Know That It's Been A While Since I Have Updated...

2011-01-30T21:25:00.003-05:00

My new job has kept me so busy, that even my favorite past-time, photograph, has suffered. My mother and brother-in-law were complaining today that I had not updated my blog in a long time, so I promised them I would. I promptly took a picture of them both so that I would have something to post! I also took a few photos of a dish full of yellow and white M&Ms left over from my sister's baby shower yesterday. I hope I can get a little more free time to enjoy photography again soon.

Bow Ties Are Still Cool

2011-01-19T18:54:00.003-05:00

Watching a bit of the pomp and circumstance that happens before the Governor's State of the State address tonight, I was prompted to do a little research on Soapy Williams' bow ties. What caught my eye was our new Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Young wearing his trademark bow tie. I am glad that I trend toward the bow tie versus no tie fad that is sweeping the Capitol because of our new governor's style. Anyway, I found this interesting story from Time Magazine, August 27, 1973:

A few of the faithful never strayed —men like G. Mennen ("Soapy") Williams, Arthur Schlesinger and Bobby Short, who made the bow tie their individual badge regardless of the moment's fashion. Now they have plenty of company. The bow tie is once again popular, and not only among middle-aged fellows who are trying to recapture the campus spirit of the 1930s.
Stores across the country report a strong demand for bows from customers of all ages and varied stations. At times this summer in the display cases of Chicago's Frank Bros, store there were no long ties at all. Early last year, the bow accounted for less than 1% of tie sales nationwide; now the figure is between 8% and 10%, and growing.
The bow has always had a strange versatility—conveying a certain jauntiness for otherwise staid professors, say, while bespeaking formality in evening clothes. That split image still exists.
Nightclub Entertainer Short says that the bow gives him a "classic and nifty" look. Lawyer Cox changes his bow for a four-in-hand when he argues a case because he thinks that the bow makes him appear frivolous.
Both notions seem to be contributing to the present revival. The bow boom received most of its energy from the Gatsby-look promotion that began some months ago—the whole cardigan sweater, floppy flannel pants, '20s thing (TIME, March 26). But instead of fizzling the way the women's bow tie fad did, bows for men became bigger this summer—in design as well as sales.
They will get still more push for the fall and winter because of the much publicized "layered look."
The bow that classifies as modern today is not the tacky, pallid, narrow tie that waiters and theater ushers wear.
Rather it is the wide, colorful butterfly version. A man can decorate his Adam's apple with anything from a variegated stripe on peau de soie to a jacquard design on woven silk. A few of the old bowmen, like Soapy Williams, have made the switch. Having turned in the skinny bows he wore as Michigan's Governor (1949-60), Williams, now a state supreme court justice, sports butterflies instead. He insists that they are "more handsome and comfortable than the other kind."
With the butterfly, however, knot making is a bit more difficult. The material is bulkier, wider, more difficult to pull through a knot. Many stores offer illustrated instructions on the proper method—which is not much different from tying a shoelace or anything else tied in a bow shape. Still, retailers say, younger men wearing bows for the first time prefer the already-tied clip-ons.
Older customers still go for the tie-your-own, recalling a sartorial skill many learned years ago. Perfect symmetry is not the goal anyway. There is a certain virtue in a tie that is slightly askew.
Some retailers feel traditions must be defended. At Brooks Bros, in Los Angeles, Manager Ray Dwinell carries only the tie-your-own kind.

Signs Of Life

2011-01-17T17:24:00.004-05:00

Even in the midst of the cold winter, our lavender plants in the front yard appear to have a little green still on them. Their fragrance has greatly dissipated since the summer, but if you break a leaf you can still smell it a little. Next year I want to trim this plant better in order to get a more uniform plant. I also want to uproot some of the baby lavender plants that have sprouted near it and move them somewhere to fill in bare spots in the flower beds in front of the house.

Front Desk Fruit

2011-01-14T22:04:00.002-05:00

No one in our office knows where these two apples and two bananas originated, but yesterday they just appeared on a plate on our front desk. They caught my eye this morning and I decided to photograph the mystery fruit before it got eaten.

Books

2011-01-12T21:29:00.002-05:00

As is typical around our house, you can find books just about anywhere. Valerie asked me to take some photos for her blog the other night and one was a stack of these books on our piano. I edited this photo, changing it to black and white and playing with the contrast a bit.

Grandpa's Paperclip Holder

2011-01-11T18:09:00.002-05:00

This Christmas, my mother gave me a paperclip holder that belonged to my grandfather back when he sold BMW motorcycles. Grandpa Syms always had a money-making idea and most of the time he made plenty of money from those ideas. His BMW dealership was located in Clifford, Michigan. Let's just say that Clifford is not the kind of place where you see many BMWs, whether cars or motorcycles. Clifford is not a tourist destination or even on a main road to anywhere else in the world! Nevertheless, Grandpa had a successful motorcycle business in a rural, lower income part of Michigan's "thumb". People would travel quite a distance to buy from him and for service. This paperclip holder still had some copper-colored paperclips in it that I assume date back to when he had it in his office several decades ago. It now resides on my desk in my new office and has been quite useful already.