July 2007

I'm having a slight crisis of enthusiasm. Existential nausea, kind of "down in the dumps", lacking in gumption and gusto. Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance says that the best cure for lack of gumption is a good nap. So, on my way to bed, I leave this photo of a peacock feather.

Tall cumulus clouds to the north teasing me with thunder but staying just out of reach. Not a big deal I guess since even when they do stray overhead, the amount of rain they produce is torrential but short lived and useless in the long run. But the lightening is consequential as it ignites wildfires and kills computers, all of which I've experienced first hand.

Cath is climbing Mount Whitney and is gone for two weeks while I'm home tending the chickens and scanning the horizon for smoke. I'm fine with the arrangement as I've done Whitney several times and these days backpacking is far down on my list of things I want to do.

Yesterday I was up at 4 AM and on the road exploring Old Highway 80 which runs through Descanso and heads east to small communities like Campo, Bankhead Springs and Jacumba. It's a fun drive over a highway that was once an important transportation artery but was bypassed and abandoned in the early 70's. Well, not abandoned, but it has certainly seen more exciting days. Thankfully I'm not the only sentimental fool in the world because the significance of Old I-80 has been recognized and it was declared a historical landmark. Full description here.

I've talked a lot here about the decline of rural communities and this road really brings that point home. The entire stretch of highway is cluttered with abandoned properties and discarded houses. The "unincorporated" community of Bankhead Springs is like a ghost town as every house along the road is boarded up and crumbling.

These days Indian casinos are the main source of back country commerce but back in the 20's and 30's, health spas were the rage. Jacumba (pronounced 'hacumba') in the 30's was a trend setting destination for that day's celebrities and movie stars. It sits on a geothermal hot springs and at that time was the location of America's leading hotel health spa. But time moved on and the health spas have been abandoned and gone to ruin. I spent an hour climbing around the wreckage of one bath house that still has walls though no roof. One more back country derelict that hints of better times.

Lets call this an informal entry for those relatives and friends who happen to browse by the journal. I'm not feeling particularly well so I'm just shuffling around the place taking care of the important stuff. Haven't had a chance to seriously put the new lens to work but below are some samples of the quick shots I took over the weekend. Cheers

6 AM - I've been in the market for a macro lens to round out my complement of photo gear. Most of my photos are taken with the stock 17-55 mm lens that came with my Nikon camera and I have a 70-300 mm lens to cover the nature shots. A macro lens is used for close up work and most often it's the one used for those stunning photos of bees on flowers.

Yesterday I received my Nikon 105mm macro and I hadn't had it 5 minutes before I was out back chasing bees in the weeds. This photo is my first attempt and though it's a little blurry, you get the idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I know, you've seen one 'bee on flower' photo you've seen them all but I gotta get the clich� shots out of my system before I can move on to other things.

When taking a shot like this you have to deal with how quickly the bee is moving as well as the the movement of the flower being blown by the wind. A tripod is usually required though this lens comes with something called 'Vibration Reduction' which is electronic circuitry that compensates for the movement of the camera when the shutter is snapped.

3:30 PM - After a quick ride into town I spent the rest of the day fencing in some tomatoes I've planted down by the creek bed. Nothing serious, just a few plants that I've had to plant in wire mesh baskets to keep the gophers and wood rats out. Purely for fun as any harvest (if any) will never recoup the cost of materieals.

And finally I've had a couple of enquires about the NOAA weather guys that came out to program my computer. Everything went fine and my weather station is uploading data to the weather service 24/7. If you go to this page and click on the blue dot at Descanso, you will find my station. http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sgx/cpm/cooparea.php?wfo=sgx (Bottom lower right on the map, mouse over the dots to find Descanso) Not especially exciting for anyone but local weather nerds, like myself.

These days when I'm driving the back country looking for pretty pictures, it seems the phrase I utter most often is, �What the **** is that??!!!�.

The shot on the right is from my early evening drive last Saturday night. I'm running out of places to take beautiful sweeping landscape photos and even in the best of times our area doesn't have a lot to offer. It's been over a month since the wildflowers dried up and the hillsides are now a monotonous brown.

To tell the truth though, I find the Mop Lady photo a lot more interesting than some of my others. It was taken on a desolate section of old highway 8 and it's obviously a spot where people hang out to drink beer, throw their cans in the brush and make scarecrows out of deflated inflatable dolls. I'm not sure if I want to picture the social dynamics going on during that party.

But I have to admit that the back country provides a wealth of photo opportunities that I didn't have when I was growing up in status conscious Coronado California. You've seen one extravagant trophy McMansion you've seen them all.

Here's a photo of the front yard of someone I know personally. In fact he's so proud of his creation that he offered to turn the Christmas lights on so I could come back and get a night shot. Maybe later. And lest I get cocky and start feeling superior I remind myself that I'm the one in my neighborhood who likes to fly the skull & crossbones on my flagpole. Hey, it's cute.

Of course taking photos of creepy odd ball stuff can become as clich� ridden as any other form of photography. I'm also wary of pretentious photographers who appoint themselves as commentators on social issues. Back in college I was disappointed by some guys in my class who pretended to be making socially conscious photographic statements but in actuality were just cruelly using their cameras to create attention getting pictures. Old people in retirement homes were their favorite victims; the more wrinkles the better.

When dealing with hobbies, it's sometimes a fine line between passion and obsession. Before the new camera, my passion (borderline obsession) was collecting old fashioned revolvers. I'm talking about "cowboy guns" and it's a pretty benign area in what some might consider a controversial hobby.

But on a Saturday about 6 months ago at 1:30 in the afternoon I was plinking away with my .22 Single Six when a neighbor took exception to the noise. He protested rather adamantly which is kind of surprising since he is also a shooter and has never hesitated to shoot whenever he wanted. On average I was practicing a half hour 3 days a week. I'm not sure where I crossed the line but where ever it was, the incident kind of took the fun out of the hobby. No, I haven't abandoned it but dang, not knowing if I'm going to piss someone off is inhibiting in what was once a carefree activity.

A few weeks ago I was taking pictures of some signs that a business has strung out along the highway. They're kind of like the old Burma Shave signs that were used back in the 50's. So I'm taking photos of these eyesores (I mean business acquisition tools) when I strayed too close to the actual business. The proprietor took exception to my presence and confronted me. No, my safety wasn't in jeopardy but I was given a lecture complete with finger wagging. Apparently, even though the business is begging for attention, the polite thing to do is ask permission before taking pictures.

10 AM - Some animals find me fascinating. These gals couldn't take their eyes off of me the other day when I walked through their pasture and I'm not sure if they were worried or just curious. More likely they were wondering when I was going to magically produce a bail of alphalfa.

The heat wave we had last week has moved east and I've been able to stay out a little longer during the day to catch up on some chores. So this morning I butchered a tractor tire. Yep, it seems that the dumpster people will not accept old tires though, if they're chopped up into a reasonable size they will take them.

Ever chop up a tire? Easier said than done. But tractor tires are actually pretty easy since the only steel they contain is where the tire meets the rim. With the use of my metal cutting circular saw and a reciprocating saw I was able to reduce our 4' diameter tire into small disposable sections. Another exciting day on the ranch.

Cath and I were up and out early this morning for a Sunday drive. One of our favorite routes is north on Boulder Creek Road which takes us through the remote Inaja Indian Reservation and then on to Julian. The road is dirt for most of the way and the Inaja reservation is a small 846 acre parcel that you pass through just before you reach the Pine Hills fire station. Inaja is uninhabited and the main landmark from the road is an abandoned chapel that marks the entrance to a small cemetery. Similar to many cemeteries I've come across in the back country, this is a small fenced in parcel of mostly unmarked graves.

As far as I can tell, the chapel has not been used in the 18 years since we started driving this road. All things considered, it's in pretty good shape but it has the appearance of a project that was never completed and finally abandoned.

Burned by fire, bleached from record heat and dehydrated from a decade of drought, the pines and oaks of Southern California are struggling to survive. Beetles have killed millions of pines throughout the southwest and disease is killing oaks at an alarming rate all through California. The story isn't juicy enough to be covered by the media but residents of the back country see evidence of the blight everyday. In San Diego County alone the estimated number of dead, dying and diseased trees is in the range of 300,000 with approximately 200,000 acres affected.

All through the county, acres of land have been set aside as the dumping ground for the dead trees. Too damaged for construction, the trees are eventually ground up for mulch or at best, sawed up for firewood.

This morning we passsed a pile of lumber that lined the road for 100' and was piled 15' high. A small collection compared to others.

5 AM - As with all things 'computer', nothing is simple and straight forward. The new printer, though a step above your typical "off the shelf" variety, is not producing accurate renditions of my photos. That is, the colors and light levels that I see on the computer screen are not recreated accurately on the printed copy. It's a common problem and the fix is to use a monitor calibration tool to tune the monitor and set up a profile that will display colors consistently.

I did that last night by using a program called Spider 2 which comes with a device that looks a little like a starfish that you hang on your monitor screen. After about 5 minutes the program calibrates the colors displayed by your computer and tunes them to what is considered the industry standard. A profile is established and from now on, that data is loaded every time I start the computer. Yeah it does sound a little obsessive especially since I have no plans to go professional and sell photos. On the other hand, what's a hobby for if not to provide an outlet for all your obsessive/compulsive inclinations.

My monitor and video card are reasonably new so the adjustments the program had to make weren't especially radical. My old photos do look a little darker now so in the future I'll have to make a levels adjustment before printing. Or go back and re-Photoshop about a thousand pictures. Actually, with Photoshop I could probably set up some sort of batch routine and do that automatically. Maybe tomorrow.

11 PM - So what's the next step? I'm not really into framing and hanging my photos and frankly, I get a little sick of looking at them all the time. In college we mounted them on white rigid cardboard mat and kept them in large manila portfolios. I liked that method so I've been trying to recreate the process we used back then. Since none of my photos ever end up in standard sizes (5x7 or 8x10) I can't use pre-cut mats so I've had to get into mat cutting which is a whole sideline onto itself. Kind of the Martha Stewart end of the hobby. "It's a good thing."

Oh yeah, the photo is a piece of playground equipment one of my neighbors mounted on his property. Apparently McDonald's owed him a favor.

Blistering hot July summer days so let the fires begin. And they did yesterday with two wildfires near Julian which is about 12 miles to the north of us. It was a record breaking dry winter and the brush is tinder dry and ready to explode so yesterday, I hooked up the fire hose and tested my fire pump. Everything seems in working order but the success of my fire fighting tools is dependent on me being home and receiving ample warning.

If I happen to be away when a brush fire breaks out the first thing the authorities do is close all the roads. They're maddeningly stubborn about letting local residents through so the worst case scenario would be for me to be away from home when the fire begins.

Late Saturday afternoon I picked a section on highway 79 and did a 1 mile walk looking for things to photograph. My biggest obstacle is the fence that runs along the road and this is one area where trespassing might actually be an issue. So I fought the urge to get closer, kept my distance and used my long lens. Country property seems to accumulate stuff easily and you walk a fine line when trying to tell the difference between junk and decoration. Rustic, rusty old tractors make fine photo subjects but you can't always tell if the thing broke down on the spot or was dragged there to provide a clich� icon of country character.

This pump hopper (what do ya call these things?) was a bit of a surprise. As far as I know they're used to pump ground oil but Santa Barbara is the closest place where they do that. I suppose they might be used to drive a water pump.

Back in the 50's when I lived in Norman Oklahoma you could expect to see them everywhere and they can't be missed when driving through Texas.

And finally, today was my health appraisal for the year. (Kaiser speak for checkup) Cholesterol is the big issue for me but even though I've been dieting since December, I didn't make my goal weight. On the Kaiser scales I was down from 207 to 191 which still leaves me 6 lbs short of what they consider the optimal weight for a 5'10" 57 year old. Ya know, I don't think I'll ever make that weight. At least not and still have a life worth living.