Barb

Close-up of some old barbed wire, along Kamiak Butte, Wa. From May 2008,this one has been hiding out on my hard drive for a year.

Coiled Clay

Funky Funky but Chic

Another from the BetterPhoto archive...

Over the years, I've made many many trips between St.Louis area and points-north (usually on business). A bit south of Bloomington, and north of Lincoln, Funk's Grove sits along old Rt. 66. Unfortunately, like the mythical town of Radiator Springs, it is bypassed by the Interstate. About 5 miles south of the Shirley exit and about 5 miles north of the McLean exit.... Anyway, with a name like Funk's Grove, I had to check it out!! Not a lot there, at least these days. But next time I'll have to pick up some Maple Sirip!

Other Puppy, Brother Puppy....

To follow yesterday's photo of Chuckie, here's Stu. Enjoying a flop in the yard on a sunny day.

Puppy!

I was playing around with my camera a bit this weekend, getting some examples for a talk on photoghraphy that I'll be giving this week at my son's scout troop. This is one of our dogs, Chuckie. Maybe not officially a puppy: He's 2 years old almost 80 pounds. But he'll be a a good puppy forever!

Open Hole

Just a close up of a flute I noticed during my son's piano recital last week....

Curbside

Not much to be said, just a little slice of life...

Pedal Power

I made it out for a bike ride this afternoon, 14.37 miles (accoring to my trusty Garmin). That's a good start to May. I managed 32.8 miles in April, after only 8.7 in March. I know that my 56 miles ytd is an easy weekend for a lot of folks, but I'm OK with it.... If only I didn't have that pesky "working for a living" thing. Remember, May is May is National Bike Month!

Tree In Lake

Still plowing through the BetterPhoto archive, still LOTS and LOTS of images to go. Meanwhile, my membership there expires at the end of this month, and I don't plan to renew.

This is Silver Lake Park, in Highland IL. Long time readers will remember SLP as a favorite spot of mine back when I worked in Highland. I spend many a lunch-time there.

Soccer

A couple of years ago, my son is 2nd from the left...

7.01%

One of the fun things about iTunes/iPod is the ability to keep track of all sorts of statistics, and to set up “smart” playlists based on them. Recently-added, recently-played, 5-star-rated, etc.

Anyway….. recently I did a sort of my music library on iTunes, and noticed a pretty high number of songs that have never been played. There’s lots of reasons why this is, but it's mostly older CD's recently ripped to digital, and lots of various forms of free stuff. Bottom line: after cleaning up the obvious stuff (such as stuff downloaded for my wife and immediately burned to audio CDs), I was left with over 700 un-played songs out of almost 10,000 on the iPod (7.01% of my library). More than I expected....

Hmmmm, what to do?? Obviously, make a “smart” playlist of songs with a play-count of zero! Which I did, and to which I’ve been listening for the past couple of days. Lots of interesting stuff.

Loading Dock

A little "slice of life", taken at one of the local community colleges, where my son was doing AIM testing for his piano lessons. Contrinuing the BetterPhoto archives........ It is probably not too surprising that this didn't win anything, though I do like it.

Ice Behind The Falls

This is one from Charleston Falls, which is a cool little recreation area I discovered a bit north of I-70, near Dayton, OH....

Winterlong

Yet another BP shot...

Funk's Hybrid

Yet another BP shot... An old sign on a building in St. Jacobs, IL.