A Cold Neighborhood

For those of you without internet or the Weather Channel, Minnesota and Wisconsin have been socked in with a major snowstorm. They are already calling it "THE BLIZZARD OF 2010!" on the local news channels. That this is the only blizzard so far of the whole year makes that understandable, if still a bit overstated. But that is easy for me to say. St Cloud "only" got about 8 inches, and the wind is "only" blowing about 30 MPH around here. South and southwest of here received up to 20 inches of snow.

So it wasn't a day for a long drive but it was worth going through the park, the same one that was pictured last week. These pictures show better visibility than there actually was. It was (and is) a real live blizzard. I am glad I am in for the night in a warm apartment with good smells coming from the kitchen. Every now and then, I peek out the window to watch the wind whip the snow into unmanageable drifts.

On a sad note, I have to note the demise of a good friend of this past year and a half or so. Above is a picture of my Macbook, the tool used to post almost all of these blogs these past months. Since then I have saved almost 15,000 photos that I shot this past year on this computer, and written almost 300 blog posts with this computer. It slipped through my cold hands and slippery down coat yesterday, and fell on concrete. It was after a crappy, crappy day at work, and I was almost in tears. And I would have been if I hadn't discovered that although the screen is totally toast, it does still work with an external monitor. Talk about small favors, but it does seem that the real value of things, just like the value of life, is the memories, or in this case, the memory of a still functioning hard drive.

What makes a neighborhood a home...

In the next few weeks I am going to take some photos of my "local," the bar adjacent to my home. It's not that I head there immediately after work, but it is a warm, nearby place to hang out.

Can you believe it snowed in Minnesota?

It did indeed snow. Not that much, but enough to make it worthwhile to carry a camera around for a bit this morning. Actually, these photos are interesting to me, though probably not to most others, as they do show a bit about the thought process that goes on to "make" a photo.

I have noticed this interestingly shaped birch tree before and drive past it every morning on my way to work. I had envisioned, or imagined how I would photograph this tree, and the photo of the branch with the house in the background is pretty close to that vision. What I didn't imagine was the "view" the other way. The shot of the branch and the blue Studebaker truck is the result of simply looking a different way at a "subject" that I thought I saw every day. It's not high art, but it is a mildly interesting photo.

The photos of the trees show a similar process. I liked the more distant shot of the large oak, and it did sort of work out. But then I looked up and saw the tree that was right above me, and the two other photos showed up. Again, I am not sure if any of these are even printable or worth all that much, but they accomplish several things. First, they do show the results of a Minnesota winter storm. And these photos also show a tiny bit of the process that happens when I wander about with a camera.

Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace

Unless you are living next to this house....

Eau Claire Gothic

I made it to Eau Claire this weekend for a bit and got to relive some old memories and create some new, great memories. I saw this off of Water Street and was struck by the view.

More north

It was a different day today, with low hanging clouds and a dark and at times a dramatic sky. The lake reflected the sky's mood, though when the sun popped out for a few moments, it made a floating patch of ice almost glow. There are Tetzloff Christmas trees from Birch Tree Farms, too.

Up North...

Just a few photos from "up north." While the weather was less than ideal last night, today it was stellar, and perfect for a walk along the Amicon River. The dark sky was from a squall that was heading inland from the lake.

Identity

The other day a funny thing happened to me. I was leaving my office suite for a meeting and was, as usual, a moment or two late. As I was steaming down the hallway towards the meeting, I heard someone behind me bellow, "Dean! Dean! Dean!" After about the fifth time, I realized that the person wasn't looking to stop someone named Dean but rather was trying to call the Dean. In this case, the dean was not Dean but the dean was me.

I laughed out loud while waiting for the student, who just wanted the dean's signature on a form. But in the the past few days it has made me think of identity and name calling. My name is Jason, and seldom do I ever mention an honorific or earned title like dean or doctor or professor or even "mister." So it did surprise me to hear me called like a cow for dinner as "dean."

It did me think about titles and identity. Do I need to be called dean to be a dean, or professor instead of Jason to be a professor? I am not sure. Titles do define the relationship though I do feel that is for the better and for the worse. Maybe lines do need to be tightly drawn, and you do need to be the dean or doctor or pastor or mister or Ms or whatever just so that relationship is clear, defined, and that it becomes harder to cross that line. Maybe I would be more sure of myself or more certain of my role and of boundaries if if I kept that title in front of my name and in front of relationships, however defined.

I have rationalized my stance, correctly or not, in this way. If I need to wear a suit or for that matter, use a title to have people recognize that I am the dean and that I need and deserve the respect and those lines of deference or distance, than I might be in trouble already. It seems a ready escape to say, not unlike many of our parents, it is so/do this because I am the Mom/Dad/teacher/dean.

So I answer my phone with "this is Jason," and while I might list my title on my email tag, I think that I remain "Jason" for the most part. I will continue to be a bit surprised when people chase me down the hall trying to get "Dean" to stop. And I think that this is largely a good thing.

morning sky

I know that these photos are late and out of sequence but it was a magnificent morning sky a few weeks ago. These were taken with a $100 Nikon point and shoot, which just further confirms how great the sky was on that morning.

Leica photos

In 1977, I was in New York City for a UN study trip with my church. I was way too young to appreciate all that the city had to offer, but I was a big enough photo geek to appreciate that at that time, the city probably had more camera stores than any other city in the world. When I was there, I tried to go to as many as possible with the goal of buying a Leica. That I didn't know how to use one and did not have any real idea of all there was to the Leica line didn't stop me on this quest.

I kind of think its like your first car, and how you remember all the details, and the memory of that camera has stayed with me. It was a Leica IIIa with a serial number of about 175,000, and it came with an Elmar 50 mm lens. It was $225, which was a problem since I only had $200 to spend. After I came back the third or fourth time to moon or pine over the camera, the guy said OK, I'll sell it for $200--I think mostly to keep me from coming back and bugging him.

In the years since then, I guess I have owned 50 different Leicas, but they come and go, you know. I have looked for a Leica similar to that first one, but never found one that had the right serial number or they were too much money for a camera that would mostly sit on a shelf. Then, one showed up for pretty much the same amount that I paid 30+ years ago and I snapped it up.

How fun, and on a recent snowy morning, I took it out for a test drive and shot my first roll of 35mm film in years. These photos are not high art by any means, but it is pretty cool to even get photos from a 75 year old camera and lens. The process involved to actually focus a camera, correctly set the shutter speed and lens opening, and hold it still enough to get a sharp photo was fun. Who needs that auto exposure, auto focus, image stabilization stuff? If nothing else, it confirms that all these years later, I am still basically a camera geek.

More fall

I was in "resort country" this past week for a conference, and was able to find a few photos.  The walleye is just, well, it's just Minnesota.  Or Wisconsin, I guess, though there you would find a muskie.  

The leaves are the remnants of fall.  After a week of rain and 50-60 mile an hour winds, leaves still on the trees are scarce.  I avoided taking pictures of some of the snow we experienced, but it was a warning that snow is coming soon enough.

Fall

You know, one of the things that I worried about while I was gone was that I would miss all the fall colors--it really is my favorite time of the year, and one of the things that made me glad to be back in the Midwest.  The PNW has color, but it doesn't have the knife edge of the seasons, the sometimes rapid progression from green to gold to gone.

So I was pleased to see a few bright colors hanging on well into October.  I suppose the lack of rain for the past three weeks has contributed to the longevity of some of the color, but no matter why, fall colors always make the day a bit brighter.

The end of the trip

The trip is winding down, and I will be heading home, I hope, tomorrow. I say "I hope" because Delta isn't making the return trip easy on me. Two flight changes so far, and they have a few more hours to play around with me. The problem is that they have shrunk the number of flights so much that if one is canceled, it is no longer the case that you can hop on one a few hours later. But I am sure that I will get there sometime, though later than I had hoped.

It has been a good trip, though a bit overlong. Not too much, but by just a few days. That was a judgement call on my part--I have been saying that I have never taken a two week vacation, but I just recalled that I was in England for three weeks in 1998, so I guess I have done this before. Still, I told someone today that the relaxation of the trip is fading as I realize and remember all that I need to do once I get back. I guess vacations are always like that.

Italy has been surprising. It is very accessible as a country, even without any Italian. Actually, Latin and Spanish blunted my illiteracy a bit, and I find I can read signs and menus enough to know that I am not ordering the tripe or going in a woman's bathroom. No small feat, that, and worth celebrating a bit. Yep, two of my triumphs of two weeks in Italy were that I didn't eat cow stomach or head into the woman's loo. I am sure that they are going to do a travel story on me--the semi-incompetent American.

The big surprise is that if you are careful, Italy is very affordable. Public transportation is cheap, and I am staying in an above average place for about $65, no $66, no $67, no $68 American Pesos a night. I joke because the dollar has lost 17 cents (and counting) to the Euro since I booked my room three weeks ago. I offered to pay my tab in dollars, and my inn keeper basically laughed. But still. A Diet Coke is $1.38, a pretty good chocolate bar is about the same, and if you are willing to eat on the street and from the market, you can easily eat all day on 20 Euro a day, and eat very very well. Today, for example, I had a chocolate croissant and an Americano with milk for breakfast, and then bought some yogurt from the market for something healthy. I had bite of chocolate and part of a soda for lunch on the run, and then went to a deli at a nearby market and bought some Tuscan prosciutto, some lasagna, and a corn, onion, and cheese thingy, and splurged on a bottle, not a box of wine. Total for the day for food was a little over 16 Euro. If I would have "settled" for a great, ham, cheese, sun dried tomato and balsamic vinegar panini and a bottle of beer or Coke, I could have made it in just over 10 Euro, and felt that I ate very well today.

That leads me to my student consumer price index for bread, cheese, meat and beer/wine. Two people could eat all they wanted and pretty much drink all they wanted from a market for about 8 Euro, and eat a very good meal, with above average ingredients and probably even get a bit of buzz going if they drank all the wine. I know that you can't have a picnic in the US for that, not unless it was with Wonder Bread and PB&J. It was fun figuring out and comparing the prices, for they didn't make a lot of sense. Olive oil is more expensive here than in the US--go figure out that one! Milk is more expensive but you can get a 1.5 liter bottle of water for about 35 cents. Orange juice is always much less expensive than soda, but pasta is more expensive than in the US. Up is down, war is peace, etc.

The real test of whether I would come back here is not whether or not olive oil is expensive or whether I can find cheap Soppressata. I found that for the most part Italy was and Italians were warm and friendly--much more so than France and the French. Not much of a surprise there, I suppose, but I like it here. There is a tendency to become overwhelmed by the sheer amount and number of masterpieces and churches and ruins and towers and views. I think that would be mitigated if I was traveling with people and you could say, "Yes, I saw this and that and such, now let's go eat and drink wine." There might be more of a balance--when you travel by yourself, it is easy to forget that and go from one church to another to the museum to the scenic view to the...

I explored Florence, but I only touched Tuscany. While public transportation got me into the countryside a little, I do think that to really explore (and to find that villa to buy) you probably need to have a car. That has it's own set of challenges such as parking and the anarchy and chaos of Italian roads and drivers. If you could rent outside of the city, and could avoid all that, I suppose you could manage, and it would be worth it to be able to get lost in the countryside. I know I mostly saw the tourist side of things, though I did wander pretty far afield in the city.

But it was a good trip. I pushed myself a bit by trying a new country/place instead England for the umpteenth time or Prague for the eighth time or whatever. I saw many things that I have taught about and art that I have only imagined or seen in books. In some ways it is almost cultural literacy 101. Yes, I taught Western Civ, but to see where Savranola burned those books or to see the REAL David, you don't really feel the impact or the weight or the realness of all that history. That part was fun--I should done this when I was teaching Western Civ--I think I could have made it more real for those students who were no doubt bored to tears in that class.

My last pictures are a hodgepodge. I was in Fiesole, the Florence suburb that commands the highest ground in the area. It is a vertical town with stunning views of the area. No less so is the simple "chapel" of the Church of San Francesco. It did seem more "holy" to me than the elaborately carved and shining alters of the basilica and the Duomos. And lastly, a sunset, by request. I will probably have a wrap up post once I edit the 1500+ photos that I took but that will happen when I get home. Until then, this is it from Italy.

Hmmmm...

I am not really sure why I am doing this. Aside from my normal insecurities that no one really reads this or cares, my inn keeper really put all this in perspective. He has noticed that I always come and go with cameras and had asked what I was trying to accomplish while I was here. I had mentioned this blog, but tonight, he pointed out the obvious. "You don't have to be a good photographer at all, " he pointed out. "It is so beautiful here that any one could get a good picture." How true. You are just viewing the work of an overeducated monkey with a camera. Enjoy!

I was up early today, and tried the train AND the bus system. And succeeded at both, though with different results. I went to Pisa this morning, a city that has little to offer other than a builder's mistake. For the first time, I felt like that monkey mentioned above, or certainly a tourist. I refuse to even post a photo. The train thing went well once I figured out that while you buy a ticket in one place, it doesn't mean that the train that you need is actually in the station where you bought the ticket. Ooops. It convinces me that the US needs more light rail.

The second trip of the the day was to San Gimignano, a true gem of a walled medieval city with commanding views of Tuscany. The city one once had 73 tours, but only about dozen remain. It is walkable, laid back and charming. Each turn brought another picture worthy view and this trained monkey had an easy time finding a few photos.