Panther Junction

Hello again, everyone! Boy, it's about time I got back to this, huh? Well, I'm sorry, but I've been too busy setting up house properly, getting all my black and white images scanned and in my photo galleries, and getting involved in an online aviation photo site, thanks to days of scanning all my old airplane photos. Whew! But I took some time to do a little photography around and of the place, so I thought I'd share it with you, since some of you asked for visuals. The above photo was taken yesterday morning, and shows my perch (the rock outcrop at the top of the hill in the foreground, right below the mountain that looks like a giant nipple) for the following photos:


And here's the general overview, showing my apartment building -- the line pointing directly to my door -- in relationship to the Panther Junction Visitor Center. We're looking east/northeast toward the Deadhorse Mountains.


Here's a little closer view (not that you couldn't have enlarged your self by clicking on it), without all the titling.


And as a parting shot, here's a panorama I cooked up on Photoshop, spanning the entire area, or at least as far as I could with rocks in the way. I'm still not too happy with how Photoshop does panoramas, as Microsoft's Picture It! and Canon's Photostitch did much better jobs matching exposures. (They're both PC programs, though.) My "Photoshop for Dummies" book suggested putting the camera in Manual Exposure mode to avoid this, so I'll try that out next time. Hmm . . . Now that I look at it, I could've accomplished the same thing by just cropping the top and bottom of the first shot, and saved myself all the aggravation.


Yep, I was right. Oh, well.

Now, That's More Like It!

Hello, again! For those of you out there who may be keeping up with such things, here is the latest update on the whole Doug's Chaos thing. How 'bout that, huh? Not bad! Finally, I can walk around and know where everything is (mostly), and not trip over or fall over or fall into all the boxes, storage tubs, and the like. Whew! Man, am I glad that's over.


And here we have Doug's new Nerve Center -- at least in its first incarnation. I'm not too happy about the whole linear layout to this one, but it will service me quite nicely after the obligatory two-week adjustment period. The silver Coleman cooler does double duty as not only the device to get my refrigerated/frozen food items back from Alpine, but also as my CD collection storage device. The two storage containers to the left of the table will remain there for a while, as they are filled with photos and photo albums to be scanned in, as well as loads of family stuff to go through. The chair on the end was just sitting around not doing anything important, so I put it to use as a makeshift microwave table. In such a tiny, cramped space as this, everybody has to pull his own weight, you know. He seems quite pleased with his new job, and the microwave is just happy it's not sitting on the floor anymore.

Well, that'll catch you up on the place for now, but I'll be sure to post a complete tour of it as soon as the rest of the stuff is dealt with. Don't touch that dial!

Cherokee Moonrise

Look at what I encountered this morning as I left for work -- a sliver of a crescent moon newly risen. As usual, this photo does the event no justice, especially with the ISO turned up to 1250 where it recorded the earthshine on the moon, but I just had to give it a shot. (That's Venus hovering overhead.) I gave the photo this title due to a rather intense personal experience I had while reading a passage from Forrest Carter's wonderful book The Education of Little Tree about his boyhood experiences growing up in the 1930's while living with his Cherokee grandparents. That passage -- actually the emotional and spiritual luge run it created -- plus this moonrise followed by the observation of the Deadhorse Mountains glowing in Cherokee Red -- even though they were lit from behind -- made for a very powerful start to my day.

Out with the old, in with the new . . .

Happy 2008, everyone! I'm so sorry I haven't gotten to you sooner in this new blog, but I've been just a little busy moving to my new digs at Panther Junction over the New Year changeover. Here's a glimpse into what's been going on:


This is my old Nerve Center, in my spacious 2-bedroom apartment at Persimmon Gap out in the middle of nowhere that I loved so much. Lots of hours spent here at that computer, or gazing out that window when a block would occur.


And here's what it looked like at the end of the day yesterday. Two and a half days of packing and moving and cleaning and Bingo! I'm outta here. Sad. It doesn't look nearly as homey, does it?


Well, here we are now, 26 miles away at Panther Junction in my tiny efficiency apartment. This will be the site of my new Nerve Center, as it looked before I began the big move and crammed my 20 pounds of crap into a 5-pound bag. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.)


Welcome to my mayhem! If you think I'm going just a bit crazy right now, you would be absolutely right. I have certain areas that had to be kept clutter free -- this one here at my desk and my living/sleeping area -- but the rest is, as you can see, the pits. Oh, well . . . Putting it all back together will keep me off the streets -- and the trails! -- but not for long. (It took me a half-hour this morning just to locate all the necessary pieces of my uniform so I could go to work this morning. That's gonna change!)

So once again, a very Happy New Year to you all, and thanks so much for checking in. I'll catch up with you later on when I have more time. Adios for now!