Another shot from the Confederate Cemetery. This is one of the carved cannons on the memorial, looking north at where the Arkansas soldiers are buried.
Confederate Cemetery
Posted by bdshepherd on 14 Dec 2011
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Price Tower
Posted by bdshepherd on 14 Dec 2011
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Another photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I’m mainly posting this to try something with SmugMug‘s social sharing features.
The Thinker
Posted by Brad on 14 Dec 2011
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One of my favorite photographs I’ve taken, and that’s in spite of my self. The original is underexposed and oversaturated, with strips of glaring afternoon sun away from the subject matter. The gorilla (at the Memphis Zoo) only held the pose for a moment, though, so it was a matter of just aiming and hitting the shutter release. Thankfully, there was enough time to focus, so I was able to salvage this fun moment.
Confederate Cemetery
Posted by Brad on 13 Dec 2011
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Got out to the Confederate Cemetery this morning. It’s been a while since I’ve done the full-blown lugging of the tripod, leisurely setting up shots, and taking way too many pictures. So long, in fact, that I think the last time I did it I wasted actual, physical film.
Price Tower
Posted by Brad on 12 Dec 2011
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Price Tower is Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper. If you had to guess what city it was in, you would guess wrong. It was built, of all places, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (original home of Phillips 66, which explains how there was enough money there). It is now a hotel, and a rather nice one.
Arkansas & Missouri Railroad
Posted by Brad on 12 Dec 2011
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The Arkansas & Missouri Railroad runs an excursion train from Rogers to Van Buren. A few years ago my in-laws bought tickets for all of us to ride. This photo was taken looking out the back of our passenger car as the locomotive shunted the caboose around.
Smug Mug
Posted by Brad on 12 Dec 2011
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This is a test of posting from my Smug Mug photo account. Seems pretty great so far. There’s a free trial, and you can get $5 off an account if you decide you like it (& I get a little money toward my next subscription payment too) if you follow this link.
I took this photo during Bikes, Blues & BBQ here in Fayetteville three or four years ago. The rally happens every year, and there are tons of beautiful bikes around, but I just haven’t made the time to walk down Dickson Street and take photos more recently. Figuring out what to do with (currently) two- and four-year-olds while strolling through a bike rally taking pictures has had just a bit to do with that.
Ugh
Posted by Brad on 08 Oct 2010
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Finally hit the 20,000-word mark a couple nights ago. That would be great, except I should have been pushing 30,000 instead. The last three weeks or so have been difficult. At first, I blamed MineCraft, an addictive little Java game that isn’t really that little. It’s definitely worth checking out, but if you like it enough to play more than a couple minutes, be warned: you will be up late playing.
That definitely made it harder to focus on my writing, but the main reason is that I’ve just been feeling fuzzy and sleep deprived, a combination of getting ready for Boy 2′s first birthday (last week) and something in the air this fall inducing hay-fever-like symptoms. I could have been writing regardless, but with ready-made excuses . . .
So now I’m trying to get my focus back, even though I have actual paying work I need to do. That’s probably the worst of all: instead of either writing or goofing off, now the choice is between two productive activities — work or writing — and goofing off. Goofing off still wins most of the time, but I need to change that.
Razorback Arkansas, Woo Pig!
Posted by Brad on 19 Sep 2010
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I added the last half of that, but the first half is what Boy 1 calls the Razorbacks whenever I’m watching a game. As in, “Can we watch Razorback Arkansas, papa?” (referring specifically to the football team playing).
I haven’t got much writing done the last couple days, but am finally getting back in the groove today. Friday, I was mostly busy with Boy 1 and getting him to pee in the toilet. It’s taken forever to get him to go, but — other than when he’s sleeping — he hasn’t worn diapers at all the last two days. He’s not all the way there yet, but it’s wonderful to finally be this close.
Yesterday the whole family walked up to see the newly renovated Washington County Courthouse, which is very nice, looking as close as they could get it to how it was a hundred years ago. After that, we walked around the farmers’ market on the square, then to the grocery, then finally home. We didn’t get started until just before 11:00, which was kickoff time for the Arkansas-Georgia game, so I spent the better part of the walk with one ear glued to the radio. We got back just in time for me to see the end of the third quarter and the near-implosion in the fourth.
I don’t know if we can actually win against Alabama next week, but I definitely think it’s in the realm of possibility.
I was at a bit of a lull in the story when real life got busy, so writing kind of slipped a bit in my priorities. Headaches just when I had a bit of time to write but a damper on things as well. But this morning I picked up just where I left off, which made me very happy. Quality aside (I’ll worry about that in the rewrite) I haven’t done this well writing since the summer after my freshman year of college, when I pounded out over 400 manuscript pages to finish my first novel. That will never see the light of day in anything like its present form, but it felt good to write it, and it feels even better to finally be writing again now.
UPDATE:
Yarr! Almost forgot it were Talk Like a Pirate Day, ya lubbers! Yarr!
Never Forget . . .
Posted by Brad on 11 Sep 2010
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(Cross-posted from Zero Sheep, originally published 9/11/2009):
At least until it becomes unfashionable for pseudo-intellectuals to care more about their country and their fellow citizens than shoddy moral equivalence and trendy anti-Americanism.
Whether or not a person thinks 9/11 should be remembered and commemorated makes a pretty good litmus test I think — not of a person’s politics, but of their character. If someone spouts some variation on the theme that we should ‘put it behind us,’ then I can be pretty sure that person is shallow and self-centered, unable or unwilling to accept that life and reality are bigger than any one person or poisonous, delusional notion of universal peace and brotherhood.
Bad things happen, and they happen to good people.
Bad people are out there — genuinely bad, not just ‘misunderstood.’
Evil exists.
On this day more than any other, for Americans, it is impossible to both be honest and to embrace moral equivalence. The people that are annoyed by the remembrances and want to ‘move on’ should look deep inside themselves and ask themselves why.
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As an aside, but not unrelated, I highly recommend this look back at that day by New Yorker Allahpundit, now writing for Hot Air, as compiled from his Twitter stream by Andy Levy.
