Spokane River in B&W

From a recent trip to Washington State, just before Thanksgiving. This is just outside Spokane:

Flatlands

Looking at the St. Louis skyline, from the bluffs in Glen Carbon / Edwardsville. Late afternoon, Christmas day. It's about 11 miles straight line...

This is actually the view I had from my first abode when I moved out here in 1989. There was an old Day’s Inn, on it’s last legs, and I lived there for 2 months until we got the house in DC sold and the family moved out. They original hotel is long gone, there’s a smaller Comfort Inn there now.

Green Space on the Prairie

Late afternoon on Christmas Day, my son and I went for a walk at one of the local Green Space areas. Not quite a "winter wonderland", but still a nice bit of calm and quiet to reflect on Christmas.

Resting At Sunset

My wife actually took this one, in CLearwater FL. I just did some clean-up in Photoshop.

We were looking at an opportunity recently, that would've involved relocating to the Tampa/St. Pete area. It didn't work out, but was an interesting experience. Not a bad place for a sunset, though....

Calendar

I've been thinking (for several years) about putting a calendar of my images. Finally, the other day, I pulled together a dozen shots from my microstock submissions, and sent them off to my favorite processing lab: Mpix. They did a (predictably) wonderful job, it looks great. Much better than the samples I've seen at places like OfficeMax, Kinkos and Wal*Mart.

Here's what I used:

January -

February -

March -

April -

May -

June -

July -

August -

September -

October -

November -

December -

Locations: January - Charleston Falls, near Dayton, OH. February - Land Between The Lakes, Western KY. March - Pontiac, IL. April - West Alton, Missouri. May - Niles, OH. June - New River Gorge, WV. July - Funk's Grove, IL. August - Bellflower, IL. September - Edwardsville, IL. October - Highland, IL. November - Seattle, WA. December - Land Between The Lakes, Western KY.

Merry Christmas!

This is last year's electronic Christmas card. I decided to recycle it! My mother made this ornament years ago, it is a Moravian Star...

Season's Greetings

Or Happy Hanukkah, or Kwanza, or Winter Solstice, or whatever you choose to celebrate. For our family, it's Christmas, though.

Rear Ended....

We were out running errands this morning, my wife and I, and our van got rear ended. Minding our own business, stopped at a red light. When the "Green Arrow" came on for the turning lane, the lady behind us hit the gas. Problem was, we're both in the straight lane, and our light is red. C'est La Vie, part of life these days, not even the first time this vehicle has been hit from behind while stopped at a light. But It'll probably cost over a grand to fix, based on other experiences. (Thankfully the other lady has insurance).

The interesting thing is that our vehicle, a Chrysler mini-van, was hit by a Lexus SUV, and their front bumper compeletely cleared our back bumper. All of the impact was on the rear gate, which is now crumpled. It is firghtening to imagine the damage if the lady had been going 20mph, instead of just starting. Or if she had hit some kid in one of those micro cars?... Now I'm no SUV hater, or anything, but this certainly raises an interesting issue about non-uniform bumper height. It would be nice if bumpers could act as designed, as impact absorbing devices......

Just my thought for the day.

Testing

Oldies.....

More images from 2003, my first year of posting to BetterPhoto:

Brrrr

Something from last January, for a cold December day:

Chain, Chain, Chain....

A couple of images from the old Chain Of Rocks Bridge, where Rt. 66 crossed the Mississippi.

It has been a while since I've been over there, need to plan an excursion.