Transitions, a repeat from August 3, 2008, my first blog post...

For those of you who have followed previous blogs of mine, this might be a bit different--those were blogs for a specific purpose--one was for a trip to London, the other for a trip to Prague.  This blog comes at a different time in my life, one with filled with new opportunities and adventures.  It also comes at a time when I need to do a better job and want to do a better job keeping in touch with people, people who are now 2,500 miles away.  The audience is very small, but I hope that it meets this goal.

As hinted at, I am in a transitional phase of my life--I sold most of my "stuff," loaded up my Honda, and moved to Beverly...whoops, it just looked like the Clampett's were moving in my car.  I had a new opportunity be a dean-type person at a community college in Bellingham, WA, so I am moving/moved to there from Findlay, OH.  There are a few places in California further away, but it is a long way from Findlay, as I am often reminded.  New job, new place to live, and a new blog space...there is a certain symmetry.

I am certain of only one thing about this blog--I want it to be, and need it to be interactive, and a tool for communication both ways.  Please comment and share, and do so often.  I recognize that the procedure for doing so is awkward, so feel free to use my email to respond.  It is henry919@mac.com.  Share with me, and this will be a lot more fun for everyone.

500th post, and Ireland

I was somewhat surprised to see that this is my 500th post since I started this blog five and a half years ago.  I am not sure that this is a lot of posts or too few.  I know that if you have read them then  you know far more about me than either I know about you or than would if you hadn't read them.  Is that a gift or a burden?  I am not sure.

What is interesting is that 499 posts ago I was facing significant changes in my life, moving from  one end of the country to another for a new job, absorbing the impact of being jobless, the loss of friends and countless other big and little changes.  How odd life is.  I find myself at the time of this 500th post going through many the same things--I don't know where I will be, what I will be doing, etc.  The only thing the same is the uncertainty, or more accurately, the uncertainties.

As I told myself in my blog before, I am if not well prepared more prepared than some who face their uncertainties.  I am reasonably skilled and educated, I am able to survive until summer even if nothing comes my way, and if needed I suppose I could stretch that out.  There are things I could do   other than what I have done before.  If I could avoid wearing a hair net in a new job, I think I would be ok.  Anyone need a ronin historian?  A photo for their wall or garage?  A wedding photographer?  A tutor?  A substitute?  A clown?  I am available.

In the meantime, I am establishing a routine, albeit a somewhat solitary one.  I am at a coffee shop by 8AM or so, looking and working on my career.  I go to the gym.  And, as I told one friend, I rinse and repeat all this the next day.  There are jobs out there which is a change from a few months or years ago and I do have an interview or two.  Who knows?

One thing that I have had the chance to do is to read, and read a lot.  Since December I have read some 45 books--I am not sure if that is a lot, but it is more than I have had a chance to read in a long time.  I am trying to balance out my list as my siren call is to read mostly drivel.  As in the books about the spy who did that but was caught by the clever British detective who lived a post-apocalyptic world or something like that.  At least I am avoiding books about vampires!  I have managed to read a few other books--I am about half-way through the Booker Prize-winners and National Book Award winners  since 1990, for example,  and have caught up with a few other classics that I have missed over the years.  One is The Little Prince. How fun is that?  I am skipping the French though I bet it is even more of a gem in its original language.  Still, it is a remarkable book, and it is a book that I know I will read again and again.

As the prince says, "I must endure a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies."

I do believe that, though I wish there weren't so damn many of them right now.

On to the 501st post...

Prague, Part 2

I am not sure when all of these were taken…as I reassemble my files, some of the dates became jumbled.  I think a lot of these were taken in 2004 or 2006, a few years before the advent of this blog.  What is interesting is that I have several versions of most of these photos, from raw photos to finished photos.  I find that as I edit these photos now, I tweak/adjust these photos very differently now than I did 7-8 years ago.  The technology has changed but not all that much but my aesthetic taste, if it actually exists, has changed.  I crop tighter and want simpler lines and less complicated colors.

Of course all these are for sale!  $125 for a 16x20-ish canvas print.  More for larger sizes.  And as always, comments are welcome

Next up are photos from Ireland…

Prague, Part 1

I am not in Prague nor do I have any immediate plans to go there.  That doesn't mean that I don't want to go again, and in fact looking at these photos which predate this blog make me want to go even more.   Since I don't really have much to say (or do, for that matter) I am going to do something that I have said/threatened/promised to do for a long time--go through at least some of my 60,000 or so photographs.  These were taken my last trip to Prague, but somewhere I have photographic evidence of several other trips.  They may not be the best photos but they are ones that mean something to me.  Watch for future installments, and I do take requests.

Gopher Tales

One of the things that I have been doing on my "sabbatical" besides applying for jobs has been going to auctions.  I have always enjoyed auctions for fun and for profit.   It is fun to people watch and it is fun to see unusual things and what these old things sell for.  And  I have made a bit of money, at least enough to support my camera and other habits and sometimes I have made enough to help pay rent which is not an inconsequential consideration these days.

This past weekend I bought a box of books mainly for one book which is pictured above.  Gopher Tales is by Antoinette Elizabeth Ford and was in print from 1932 to the 1950s and was one of the three books by Ford which served as the foundation of teaching Minnesota history to fourth through sixth graders  for most of four decades.While even I feel that  we can be too politically correct, this book is so politically incorrect that it shocks me.  Of course it is not challenging to women or blacks, because there is not a single mention of any minority group other than Native Americans and women are only mentioned as the people who cook and maintain the crops.  Well, Native American women worked hard because the men were lazy and only hunted, but that is about the only real mention of specific women.

In this state that has so much rich and important Native American history and culture  and that still has a very vital and important Native American population, it is pretty shocking to see how they were portrayed in such an important book.  It is the same sad tale that you might imagine with noble whites and savage Redskins who, if they only listened to the whites, would be saved, etc.  In this book, treaties were always fair and fairly negotiated, and Native Americans, child-like as they were, were happy just because of the benevolent feasting that heralded negotiations.

Very certainly this book mirrored the times in which it was used as a text.  Minnesota's progressive image was not always progressive--Jim Crow Minnesota, where Indians were not allowed to vote or fully participate in the economy or schools or government was not that long ago and some say it is still around.  But this isn't a story book--this was a widely used text book!  Ford published an outline guide so teachers would know how to teach from this and her other books, and I found it reprinted into the late 1960s, eve after her death in 1955.

What this really is a research project for me--I alreadyfound and  ordered her other books, found a picture of her, and will find out even more.  Minnesota does not have an Act 31 like Wisconsin, but Minnesota and Native American history is to be taught in state schools.  But what is (or isn't) being taught?  Is it better today than it was for most of the 20th century?  Click on and then take a look at the photos posted above--I hope that it all wasn't this bad.

My demise is somewhat over-reported...

   
Despite only three or four posts in the last three or four months, I am not dead nor have I stopped taking any photos or thinking deep or shallow thoughts.  I have just been a bit busy and more than a little preoccupied with that life that goes on around me.

I like to say I am transitioning, but I think that implies that I have somewhere to transition to, and that isn't exactly the case.  My job in St Cloud ended, with all the challenges that entailed, at the end of the year.  It was a long good bye by any standard.  I knew that the College was reorganizing and "going a different direction" that didn't include me since July--I fulfilled the terms of my contract and then some and worked through the end of the year. That was not without challenges but as I have said before, how you leave the room is sometimes as important as how you got into the room.  All in all it worked and it was made mostly bearable by some of the great people that I worked with.

So right now, I am not sure where I might be transitioning to.  In many many ways it is wonderful to say that I could go anywhere in the country or world for an adventure, and that not many people can say that.  I can, and that makes this job search easier--I don't exactly have to stay in the greater (?) St Cloud area, and trust me, my search is pretty broad and spans continents.  But there is some cost to be able to say that, too. 

As I transition to wherever/whatever, I will try to include others more than I have these past few months.