Female Conspiracies

Have you ever wondered about conspiracies? John F. Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy? Global warming is a fraud? Princess Diana was murdered by the Royal family? 9/11 was planned by the U.S. government? There are dozens of websites on conspiracies. There is a website that has lists of anything you can image. There are lists of bizarre relationships, human sideshow freaks, and of course my all-time favorite, the top 10 most unusual uses of beer. Any Oregonian would obviously know that one top 10 use of beer is to kill slugs. Naturally, there would be a top 10 list of conspiracies. Go to http://listverse.com/miscellaneous/top-10-conspiracy-theories/ to check it out.

There is a conspiracy going on right in my neighborhood. In fact, right in my house. It is a female conspiracy. Men know exactly what I am talking about. Women get together with other women and you have a conspiracy.

Take my wife. That is her on the left in the photo above and with her is our neighbor, Liz. They take routine walks, sometimes have coffee, and work in the kitchen together. Now see what you get......two women getting together and the result is planning a conspiracy. Their routine rendezvous’ are on the premise of walking the dogs, shopping and the like. But look at them in this photo; don’t them look like they are concocting some evil conspiracy? These are not just two women innocently preparing a salad in the kitchen. I am sure these are conspiracy meetings.

I happened to capture this photo of them in the kitchen. It was like one of those paparazzi shots. It seems benign enough. However, do not be fooled. I don’t know what they were talking about, or conspiring about. Look at their eyes. I just know they are crafting some conspiracy and it will be all too clear to me one day. I will blog on it when I discover what the conspiracy was.

When the ladies return from their walks, I will ask what they talked about. “Nothing special” is generally the answer. I might get lucky some days and get briefed on some interesting neighborhood topic. But I know it is just a cover. They never reveal the real topics of their discussions or their conspiracy plans.

Men don’t conspire. Women don’t perspire and men don’t conspire. We are not that smart. For sure, we are not smart enough to out-conspire a woman. However, give us men some credit; we are smart enough to not even try.

What is your favorite conspiracy? Do you have a conspiracy theory? Women, would you care to let us in on any of your conspiracies? Anonymously, of course………….

Cheers,
dale

2009 New Year Resolutions

I am ready to begin the new year. One of my goals for 2009, in addition to regularly contribute something interesting to this blog, is to work on two photographic projects. I guess these goals are my 2009 New Year resolutions.

My two projects are to assemble and edit photographs from India and China. I have over 5,000 images from these two countries captured during my visits there. My plan is to select, edit and post (and maybe exhibit or publish) my images that document places and people from both of these countries.

China and India are extraordinary places. I hope my images will evoke your emotions, through the medium of photography, to experience the people, the sights, sounds and smells of both of these incredible parts of the world.

The image included in this blog post is of a man plucking feathers from a bird with his teeth in the City Market of Bangalore, India. This capture was taken in October of 2007 during my month long stay in India. I spend one afternoon in the Bangalore City Market and it was an overwhelming experience that overdosed all of my senses.

Would you join me in this wonderful journey? Perhaps you have been to either China or India? Please share your stories!

Cheers and Happy New Year!

dale

Christmas Day

It certainly is wonderful to have all my family home for Christmas day. After opening presents, we ate crepes au nutella, strawberry jam, powdered sugar, and whipped cream! Yum!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our home to yours.

Cheers,
dale

Teenage Girl

Have you been around teenagers much? I mean in this century? Perhaps in this decade, this year? Even in this day and age? And in particular, have you been around teenage girls?

My daughter, bless her heart because really she is a very sweet, smart girl, has left this fifty year old man dazed and confused.

Let’s start with how fourteen year old girls communicate. Do you speak “teenage-eze?” How about “teenage-girl?” Believe me, I speak neither. I gave my daughter and four friends a ride home. In the car, they giggled and gaggled, talked all at the same time, and raced from seemingly one topic to another in nano-seconds streaming all thoughts of consciousness together into run-on sentences, then with one giant simultaneous pause, burst into unified laughter. And then these girls started the process all over again. I had no clue what they were talking about or what was so funny.

Teenage girls text message each other with relentless veracity. These creatures pound out words and messages faster with their thumbs than I can type my name on a normal keyboard. I took typing 101 in high school to learn how to type on what is now an old fashioned and obsolete type-writer. Do they teach “texting 101” in school these days?

I caught my daughter curling her hair in the bathroom one morning while texting her friends at the same time. This is the ultimate multi-tasking. She text messages under the table while sitting at the dinner table (like we are not going to notice….), under her covers while going to bed, and who knows where else. And all of these messages are very private. If you ever try to lean over and sneak a peek, it is like you committed the gravest of privacy invasions!

Is there anyone out there that speaks “teenage-eze?” How about “teenage-girl?” I need help. Please, someone help this dinosaur dad………

Ugly American

Artist at Montmarte

I am returning from France where I was on a speaking engagement. After a lecture in London earlier in the week, I moved on to Paris to share “my infinite wisdom and knowledge.” It was a very short speech and the quotations are intended to emphasize the inflection of my sarcasm.

It’s a funny thing about teaching or giving lectures. I always learn more than I think I actually teach. I certainly learn from research and preparing my topic. However, speaking opens doors in which people share with me their experiences and knowledge. I walk away feeling that others are far more interesting than me. I get the best end of the bargain because I meet someone terribly interesting I did not know before and learn something new.

While in Paris, I took some personal time to explore and see the sites of city. This was my first time in Paris.

Paris is intoxicating. There is something about the city that makes even the hard-hearted feel romantic and full of love. I never could tell if it was the food, the French language, the sites, the architecture, or an abundance of beautiful women. It probably was a little of each. Nonetheless, Paris makes you believe you are love even if you are traveling alone (though I wished my wife were on the trip to share the city and romance together).

I was extremely apprehensive about traveling to Paris. My high school French had been long forgotten and everyone warned me how the French only speak English if necessary. Americans do not get a warm reception. It probably has a lot to do with the whole “freedom fries” things a few years back. Perhaps it was Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France seven times and not ever getting caught doping despite best efforts of the French.

Paris is a dichotomy. On the one hand, the city is a magnificent, wonderfully enchanting place. I surely want to go back again. It has an intimate, charming attraction that draws your soul in.

However, I must say despite my best efforts to be very sensitive about not being the “ugly American,” I found myself in a number of circumstances where I really felt the French people were rude.

I hate making generalizations and judging my entire impressions of a city and culture on certain people’s bad behavior. However, the treatment I received on certain occasions left me wondering about this strange dichotomy of Paris.

Let me give you a couple of examples. On Saturday I was free and had two friends map out a route I should take to tour the city, i.e. Musee de Lourve, Tuileries Jardin, Hotel de Ville, Hotel Sully, Plaza de la Vosages, Plaza de la Bastilles, Maison au Victor Hugo, etc. The morning was cold and got worse by noon as it began to rain. I found a cute little café to duck into out of the rain to have some potage français d'oignon, a glass of Bordeaux, and a crepe au nutella assisted with a warm espresso.

Like many cafes, it was busy with people. The very French waiter asked if I was alone and raced off to find me a table. Meanwhile, a French couple came in and the waiter immediately whisked them off to the window table ahead of me to the table he was originally preparing for me. I waited for quite some time until the waiter returned and then he promptly sat me at a table three tables away from the window. The other two tables near the window were empty. I just tried to smile and ignore that inwardly I felt very much mistreated.

Later in the afternoon, I stopped into a pub to warm up and have a pint. This waiter was a bit more gracious as he sat me by the window so I could look out onto the street to watch people walk by. I was feeling good about this experience as my body shivered with cold. The waiter has sat me in a location beneath a heater. I could begin to feel the warmth come back into my body.

The warmth and experience was short-lived. Once the waiter served up my pint, I am convinced he went to the back room and turned off the heater. With the heater, the seating location was delightfully warm. However, the table was by the door. With no heat and the door constantly opening and closing from patrons, the Parisien chill quickly returned. I am convinced the waiter purposely turned the heat off because about halfway through my pint, a French couple was seated next to me. Once they sat down, it was incredibly coincident the heater quickly turned back on.

Paris is like a bad relationship with a beautiful woman. The woman is incredibly beautiful, her looks are mysterious and sexy, her smell is intoxicating, and she has an aura about her that makes you her prisoner.

However, she treats you badly at every turn. Despite her bad behavior, you hang on paralyzed and intrigued by this sensual attraction unable to let go.

After being annoyed and offended by the discrimination I experienced, I decided I would still love Paris and turn the other cheek on some people’s bad behavior. I am sure the French have lots of experiences with obnoxious, uncouth Americans. I just wasn’t one of them!

For me, I decided I could only do my best not to be an annoying or obnoxious American tourist. However, sometimes I found it hard to ignore the poor treatment I received. A little graciousness would go a long way….from both sides.

However, I want to be really clear. Not every French person I met treated me badly or was rude. On the contrary, I met some really great, genuine people in Paris. But it was those experiences that were more frequent occurrences than when I had visited other parts of the world. This left me with a very distinct impression.

I decided much of the circumstances depend on my internal ability to overlook a local cultural “misbehavior” and make the most of things.

So I am going to remain attracted to the sensual, intoxication of Paris and ignore the rest.

Cheers,
dale

Taking a Different Turn

My body was filled with a chilling cold I just couldn’t shake. I have not slept in over 24 hours except for some mild dosing. I found a fleece blanket in the closet to cover myself as I tried to catch some sleep. Still chilled, I crawled further under the sheets searching for warmth. Slightly drifting off, I would be interrupted again with another round of chilling cold. Once awake, I would get up for another time to adjust the heat in the room. However, I never really could figure out the magical combination on the heating device that would bring in warmth to settle me off to a deep sleep.

Three hours later of rustling under the covers of blankets and seeking to chase the chill away, I finally gave up and decided try a hot shower and head out for a Sunday afternoon walk.

Today’s Sunday walk took a very different turn than usual. Today was a walk through the streets of London and Kensington Garden. My lack of sleep was due to the long flight from Salt Lake City to JFK and across the pond. I never can sleep well on airplanes.

The cold of London pierced me to the bone despite blue skies and sunshine. I hoped my late afternoon walk would help shed this feeling of cold. The moist air of London and its chill brought back memories of the feelings years earlier while on winter afternoon jogs through Seattle’s Green Lake. Same cold, same dampness, same chill to the bone.

I love to people-watch. Sunday afternoon brought all kinds of people out into the streets of London and Kensington Garden. The diversity of the people in London was immediately striking. As I walked along the streets and through the park, I heard more variety of non-English languages spoken in one place than anywhere in the world. In fact, it struck me odd to hear British English spoken as if it was out of context, as if they were in the wrong place.

Multitudes of race and ethnicity were quite prevalent as well to coincide with the Babel of languages. In particular, I noticed many mixed race couples as quite common as I wondered along Gloucester Street.

As I walked and observed people, one thing puzzled me. In America, we are so bent to be proper and ensure everything we say or what we call things is politically correct. A black person is inappropriately called “black,” but instead the politically correct term is “African-American.” Now here is what puzzled me. What do you call a black person in the UK? An “African-Brit?”

I walked along Gloucester Street passing a number of Indian cuisine restaurants with interesting menus posted in the window, a Starbucks, pubs, and many apartment flats. I arrived at the gates of Kensington Gardens and walked along the board walk across the gardens toward Kensington Palace and Princess Di’s children’s park.

The park was bustling. Families from grandparents to grandchildren strolled along the garden’s walkways. “Mums” played “tag” with their children. A father raced his daughter to be first to touch a park bench. Another father passes a football (in America, a soccer ball) to his son. The diversity continued to strike me. I have walked through many cities and have never seen so much diversity. Only New York City comes close. And perhaps I was so taken by the diversity because I have lived in Utah too long.

Many people are out walking their dogs. Big dogs, little dogs, dogs with coats, dogs with flashing light collars and certainly no cats. Most dogs were running free unconstrained by their masters chasing squirrels, birds and other dogs. One dog saw this as an opportunity to break from its owner and dash far off into the garden. The frantic master dashed off screaming the dog’s name into the dusk of the evening weaving through the large oak tree grove of Kensington.

The stereo-typc was confirmed for me as most dogs in the park were those little, short white dogs with the beards. I am not sure of the correct breed name but I call them “Westinghouse” or “westie” for short. They look so cute with their little plaid jackets but westies think they own the park. They have a “little dog complex”.

As the sun set, darkness settled in bringing with it a fresh, new wave of chill to the evening. I made my way back out the entrance of the Garden and I wove through the London streets as busy traffic raced by. The city remained alive. With all the brick buildings, unique detail of architecture, and smoke rising from smoke stacks, I couldn’t help but to mentally drift off and visualize the city during the World War II German assualt. In my mind’s eye I could hear screaming air raid sirens echo through vacant streets with bombs exploding off in the distance of the night. It felt erry.

I found my way back to my rented apartment where my chill remained. However, this time I unlocked the magical combination to the electric heater and it eventually chased the the cold away…..and I fell into a deep, cozy sleep.

Cheers,
dale

To Be Young and in Love........

My oldest son, Douglas, recently graduated from college with a performance music degree. His performance instrument is the double bass. I guess that makes him a bassist.

Douglas spent the summer playing electric bass on a cruise ship going back and forth from Seattle to Alaska. After a four month contract, Douglas returned home to Utah for a while before heading off to San Diego in January.

Here is where the story begins. In the last part of Douglas’ senior year, he met a girl, Rose. Yes, a girl. With the introduction of a girl you quickly can see why the story starts here. Rose has been on an internship in Washington D.C. this quarter from her school in San Diego.

Are you beginning to see why Douglas is heading to San Diego in January? Yes, a girl.

Today’s technology is amazing and even more amazing when you are in love with a girl that is a long distance away. Text messages, blogs, email, internet, and unlimited minutes on the cell phone are all integral technologies to have in today’s world of love and romance. This capability surely did not exist when I was young.

It is interesting to me how transparent and open young people are today on technology like Facebook, MySpace, and internet blogs. If you follow enough young people on these social networks you can see these relationships played out right before your eyes on the internet. You know when things are going well, when a couple is having a fight, or many other things I don’t want to really know about. At times I feel like a spectator and other times I just want to intercede and referee. I am usually biased on whose side to take. I usually side with Rose.

Technology and multiple ways to communicate in today’s world do not fill the void when you are young, in love and separated for months. Douglas has been working in a restaurant but still has had free time on his hands. To fill time and do something special for Rose, he began a woodworking project to build a bookcase. This is no simple bookcase with 90 degree corners and easy joints to create. We are talking angled joints and semi-circle shelves. It is a real engineering feat.

Douglas has used every tool I own (which is actually not all that many) to complete this project. I haven’t used any of these tools in years. What does that tell you about my capacity to build or fix things?

This project has been a real labor of love. Rose, perhaps? Rose is coming through Utah to stay with us for a few days and see Douglas, mostly to see Douglas, before going home to California for the holidays. I learned a few days ago that the bookcase is to be assembled before she arrives. The two of them plan to stain and finish the bookcase together. Wow, truly this is a labor of love.

Remember those days, to be young and in love………

Snipe Hunt

I am not a hunter. Never have been and likely will never be one.

But I went “bird” hunting yesterday for the second time in my life. I put “bird” in quotes because it was really “duck” hunting but real “bird” hunters do not call it “duck” hunting. The proper vernacular is “bird” hunting. You shoot “birds”, not ducks. Now you know. Should you find yourself in a conversation with a duck hunter you can speak the proper lingo and not sound like an idiot.

This was the second time I had been bird hunting. The first time was in the Utah desert looking for a bird called a Chukar. I learned after this hunt that Chukars were imported from Afghanistan and now live in the desert regions of the west. I never saw a Chukar on this hunt, other any other bird for that matter. My friend, Tom, never fired a shot. His dog never pointed at a bird. Nothing. I was convinced this was a snipe hunt, although it did make for a nice hike in the autumn Utah sun. Remember snipe hunts from your childhood days? I finally went to Cabela’s where they have stuffed wildlife on display in the store. Sure enough, they had a Chukar.

But the snipe hunt….oooppps, I mean Chukar hunt, is for another blog day.

Yesterday was a duck hunt, ah, I mean we were hunting for “birds”. I was really going along for the experience and my version of “shooting” birds was to take photographs.
Tom, who we will keep anonymous in this blog, is a hard core “bird” hunter and takes this passion of his very seriously. Since Tom did not fire a shot or get a bird all day, I don’t want to embarrass him by disclosing his real identity. But Tom, you know who you are.

The day started by meeting Tom at 5:00 am at his house. This meant getting up at 4:00 am to gather up my photography gear and put on my Iraqi thermal underwear (that’s right, my brother gave my Army issued thermal underwear when he was on assignment in Iraq. Iraq is in the hot desert but the Army insisted all those going to Iraq be issued thermal underwear. This underwear is awesome and great for skiing, so thank you U.S. Army!).

The wildlife experience began early. On the drive to Tom’s house I met up with eight doe and a big buck deer with a huge rack (a rack is the antlers on the deer’s head). I thought to myself, only in Utah, eight women and one man. I am sure the doe were all sister-wives along with their husband for a pre-dawn walk. I had to stop the car and wait for them to cross the road before I could move on.

Once we arrived at the wetlands where Tom hunts, we put on headlamps and hauled the gear to the “blind”. I learned that the blind is a place you sit in camouflage hiding from the birds until you pop out and shoot them. I was only told about the popping out and shooting part because I never actually saw it happen as Tom never fired a shot all day.

I have to confess I knew about the blind concept but was expecting something a little less primitive. I thought at least there would be wood floors, perhaps a little propane heater, camo Barko lounge chairs, you know, some of the basics. Instead, the blind is nothing but a roughly made burlap camouflaged tent sitting over shallow cold marsh water. We sat on folding camo stools for the next twelve hours staring at plastic decoy ducks sitting in the water in front of us.

Everything has to be camouflaged. I could tell Tom was worried about my black camera bags so we tucked them under the burlap camo cover and out of the water. I wore camo waiters, camo coat, and a camo hat. Tom gave me camo make-up paint to cover my face. It took me two or three attempts to get the paint just right. I just couldn’t get over that the face paint came in a little plastic case called a “camo compact”. You know women’s make-up compacts? The camo compact was the same thing, little mirror included, but minus the little brush for blush. I guess you don’t need blush when you are camouflaged.

We did see birds fly overhead, much too high to shoot at, and a few Tom tried to coax down from on high with his assortment of duck calls and whistles but with no success. Even robo-duck, a decoy duck mounted on a stick in the middle of the marsh with his mechanical, flapping wings that are wirelessly operated to simulate a duck landing in hopes of attracting other ducks to this particular marsh, didn’t work. The redeeming value of my bird education came when Tom taught me the difference between a flock of ducks and a flock of seagulls. The velocity of ducks flapping their wings is at a much faster rate than seagulls. I feel better now knowing this important difference.

At least a shot fired was fired over the course of the day, though not from Tom’s gun. The great thing about photography is that there is always something interesting to shoot. I think Tom was a little annoyed that he came away empty-handed and I got some terrific captures. Or he might have been just cold.

Either way, it was a great day taking photographs and being with my friend Tom. I look forward to processing up more of the images I captured in addition to the ones posted here.

As for Tom, rumor has it from a good source that he went back to the marsh to hunt for birds again today. As for this snipe hunter, I am staying home by the warm fire.

Cheers,
Dale

Sunday walks

I missed my Sunday walk with my wife, Joy, and our dog, Roxy, today. My oldest son, Douglas, was teaching me Adobe Dreamweaver and helping creating my welcomephotoimages.com website....and this blog.

However, I posted an image from last week's Sunday walk around our neighborhood on South Mountain in Draper, UT. This capture was taken while walking on one of the wooded trails close to our house. We are so fortunate to have mountains, trails and such beauty so close to our home. A real delight for a photographer out looking for light, contrast and color.

I have challeged myself to take up the words of Jay Maisel, renowned photographer from New York City, "you can't take photographs if you don't have your camera with you!" So I decided to take my camera with me on our Sunday afternoon walk last week and this is one of my captures.

I liked this image because of the deep blue sky and contrast of the bare tree in the foreground. The weather in Utah over the month of November has been generally sunny and beautiful, unlike the rain, clouds and wet days from when we lived in Oregon. It makes for wonderful autumn days filled with sunshine and crisp, cool air.

See you in a week for my next post.

Cheers,

Dale