Awhile after encountering the hydrofoil the same north wind powered a large, eight foot wingspan kite high overhead. Cheri Down Park, my meeting point for lunch with Pam, was in sight as I took a detour to talk with the kite flier.
Seated in a comfortable beach chair, he turned a one foot diameter reel pulling the kite in. Kite flying was a relaxation for this permanent resident. As the kite descended overhead I caught this short video. In retrospect the beauty is ominous, a metaphor for the approaching novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Morning walks through January 2020 were solitary events, more so on stormy morning such as this, January 23rd. Even the dog walkers stayed home. The surf surged to the dunes. Click me for my posting, “Rough Surf.”
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The sun broke through between clouds to rake with light the beach scurf and wind scud. In the distance, a steady west gale blows surf onto itself as a white curtain.
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Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography
At dawn I walked on the beach from North 1st street to South 8th Street Cocoa Beach. Tide was at peak of high, the surf still high from gale winds. Click me for yesterday’s posting, “Rough Surf.”
In the first video, set the effect of a strong west wind pushing surf spray back onto itself, the ocean brightly lit across dunes. I was standing on a boardwalk access from South 8th Street.
Squalls returned, forcing me to hide the DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) under my waterproof shell. Then, the squall broken once again, releasing sunlight for this double rainbow.
On Tuesday, December 17, 2019 a caterpillar dropped from vegetation to crawl across the parking lot of Sonic Drive-In, 2140 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953, crawl up an order station, affix its tail to the kelly green semi-gloss enamel, to form a chrysalis.
The afternoon of New Years Eve, 14 days later, we spied the Retro theme of this fast food business, finding it appealing, stopped for a hi-fat lunch of hamburgers, onion rings (“highly recommended, very delicious”) and (ha, ha) diet sodas, choosing this same order station where the emerged Brush-foot butterfly, of the family Nymphalidae, clung, drying in anticipation of flight.
Captured here with the Apple IPhone 8. I cannot identify the exact butterfly species this is. Source: wikipedia article on Nymphalidae.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Joseph P. Lee, a middle aged gentleman with carvings of a mature willow flanked by urns. In the intervening 162 years the upper layers of slate flake at the edges.
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Born June 6, 1799 Died June 22, 1857 Lived 58 years and 16 Days
Rhoda Ann Mattison, a wife who died too young. What was the relationship of James and Rhoda to Catherine and John?
Born October 14, 1794 Diet April 8, 1822 Lived 27 years 5 months 20 days. Wife of James Mattison
The carving is a pineapple (for hospitality) set in a elegant vase on a plinth flanked by ionic columns, a simple arch (banded to imply a rainbow?) surmounts all. Cross hatching implies space. An implied eternal banding of stylized leaves as starbursts.
I brought out the characteristic slate coloring. There is evidence of ware from the intervening 197 years, though the carving is surprising crisp.
Slideshow of photographs in this series
Catherine A. Mattison Born 1792/1793, Death March 13, 1815. Lived 22 years.
John Mattison, Death December 2, 1831, Born August 15, 1815 (5 months after Catherine’s Death), Lived 15 years, 3 months and 18 days.
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Here is the east side of the inner enclosure wall of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus) where it ends at a cliff edge over the Atlantic ocean.
Visible are the last 60 feet or so of the limestone strata supporting the inner ring.
When first constructed, the inner ring was complete, the western side 1,000 feet from the cliff.. Today’s form of a semi-circle was created by nature when the force of Atlantic Ocean waves eroded the cliff, undercutting the strata.
Look close to see a fracture where the next block of limestone will fall into the waves.
Ancient fort wall with tourists and Cliff Edge of Dun Aonghasa (Dun Aengus)
Wishing a blessed All Saints Day (November 1st) for all my readers.
Here’s a fireworks display to help you celebrate the Fourth of July. Click on any image for a larger view.
Our home on west hill has a great view of the Ithaca fireworks. I had to shoot through overhead electricity wires. Some of the photographs were enhanced to remove the lines.
Click photographs to view larger images as a slide show.
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.” ― Charles Bukowski
It is necessary to find insights in unpleasant places. Take this quote from Bukowski, a reprehensible individual in that following in the totality of his actions will lead to bad results. What can you say about a guy who believed his downtown Los Angeles neighborhood was ruined after the the pimps and whores were forced out? Still, Bukowski wrote well about the personal truth of his self-made environment, one he drank, whored and wrote his way to become a present-day saint of atheists.
With Trump and his “War on Christmas” is analogous. Trump does the magician’s, the practiced thief’s, slight of hand, distracting us while pocketing the coin, picking the pocket. His use of this slight of hand is effective in so far the premise is true. Sure, there is a War on Christmas. It started 2017 years ago when Herod ordered the innocents slaughtered to destroy the rumored Messiah. Then, as now, Herod was defeated by dreams and determined action. This is a link to my take on the story, ““Christmas Angels”.
A return to Christmas Past brings us to the “Me” of the title and how Amol K. shared in our 2002 celebration. Amol had arrived from India as a new hire for our team. That fall I searched for a roommate to share in household expenses. CBORD’s Human Resources department brought Amol and I together. He required temporary lodging until his marriage planned for 2003.
A single parent who raised a son alone, my Christmas preparations started immediately after Thankgiving with boxes of materials and decorations organized over fourteen years into beginning, middle and end boxes. In this way, day by day, I gradually transformed our home for Christmas. Workday evenings, unpacking a box at a time and laying out the contents.
The changes caught the attention of Amol. Raise in a middle class family of Bombay, India, Amol, a practicing Hindu, asked questions about the objects and images slowing building with the month, the sun drawing down lower and lower on the horizon, darkness now falling soon after 4 pm. Amol was curious to understand these new experiences.
Amol saw correlations with his own belief systems and stories and enjoyed helping decorate the tree on Christmas Eve.
We attended Christmas night mass together, shared presents Christmas morning. It was not a question of Amol becoming a Roman Catholic proselyte, he enjoyed experiencing the stories, practices and celebrations of Christmas.
Beliefs and religious practices are like a sky scraper. A push against natural law, constantly under pressure from gravity, wind, frost/thaw cycles and human fanatics who must see them come down by whatever means necessary. “You must break eggs to make an omelet.” This is a photograph taken on the returning training ship Empire State July 2001, less than two months before a fanatical suicide attack brought the Twin Towers down.
Happy New Year, remember to love your neighbor as yourself in 2018.
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