Jim Skipper's Journal

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A Surprise with My Morning Paper
I went out to pick up the morning paper yesterday and was surprised to find this car in the ditch behind my hedge.
( Photo here )

Another Pitch for Wayne's Portrait Work
I added the image of a print Wayne made of a photograph of his maternal grandfather just to show what can be down with a regular photo. He says he needs $250 for an 11x15 print. He uses colored hardboard (?) and selects the color to suit the image.

He has a 22x30 print copied from Rembrandt's painting of the Apostle Paul. It certainly makes a nice wall hanging if you like that sort of thing.

Here's the link to the updated page of the samples he sent me: Wayne's Art

Amy's Photos from "Trunk or Treat"
I'm still learning about how Facebook operates. Many people use it for a photo album. Amy is one of our church photographers and she put her photos on Facebook I don't know whether everyone can see them or whether it's a friends-only kind of thing.

But here are some nice photos from our Trunk or Treat event at church Halloween night if you can see them. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=785982&id=1303581645

The first photo is of Ann and Sarah at the trunk of our Barracuda. Becky is in photo 14 at her pickup tailgate decorated with fire fighting gear.

... to look after orphans and widows in their distress ... James 1:27
We were pretty busy this week getting ready for the "Ladies Alone" Banquet at church.
Photos Are Here

Have your favorite photo portrait turned into a work of art.
A friend of mine is trying to start a portrait business from home. He is no longer able to work a full-time job, but still wants to do some work.

He does pen and ink enlargements of photos and illustrations. You'll have to see the samples I put online for him. I've seen some of his work based on photos of his relatives and I don't know why he didn't send copies of them. I'll have to check with him about that.

Anyway, I put these here.

Almost Back To Normal (How Did I Manage That?)
Well, that's actually PHYSICALLY normal for an old guy approaching 70. I don't think I've managed to reach normal in other areas. Ann and I mostly slept twelve hours a night for the entire week after we got back from Tennessee. Then we spent a week being a little more active and getting out more.

We participated in the church's Trunk or Treat event Halloween evening. Becky asked me to take the Barracuda and she displayed her vast die-cast car collection under the big back glass. It made a great display case and the parents were interested in the car. Becky brought her pickup and decorated it with fire safety gear and gave away plastic fire fighter helmets. There were many other imaginatively decorated trunks or pick-up beds. The popcorn, soft drinks, and cotton candy were free and candy was distributed from every trunk.

Young women in poodle skirts whirled hula-hoops at the trunk of a beautifully restored 1957 Chevrolet. All-in-all those who helped to make it work enjoyed it as much as the parents and children who came through to display their costumes and collect goodies.

Blue Green Resorts are OK
The presentation and sales pitch was three hours long, but pleasant because of the woman he explained things to us. She is 64, a seven-year cancer survivor, and a recent widow. Two of her children work there also. They have vacationed all over the U.S. since the children were small. Her daughter goes with her on vacations now.

The program they have sounds great but the price was too high for me. I did buy some sample "points" to use next year so they can try to sell to us again.

Ann went to the clinic and got some medication for her cough and fever. She really felt bad today. Then we drove through Gatlinburg and on into the Smokey Mountains National Park, but circled back by Cade's Cove and then followed the back-road back to Pigeon Forge.

We scheduled some shows for tomorrow and hope to ride Segways.

PHOTO PAGE HERE

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
We got here at 2:00 CDT (3:00 EDT). That's 1048 miles and 18 hours drive time. Not much rain today, but the pavement was still wet and traffic blew a lot of water around.

We checked in and were assigned a hotel and signed the paperwork for the presentation tomorrow. We have to be there at 9:00 in the morning. (That would seem like 8:00 to us.) We drove about 10 miles to the hotel and checked in then did some more sight-seeing and ate at a Denny's.

Now we're resting. Ann doesn't feel well and I'm tired, but I did process some photos and put them on a simple web page. Hope you can see them here.
Or here:
http://www.jamesmskipper.us/Tennessee/TennesseePhotos.html

Dickson, Tennessee
We have stopped for the night in Dickson, Tennessee, just east of Nashville. We spent last night with Ray and Martha, my cousins in Hope, Arkansas. We just love visiting with them. It's like being at home. Occasionally, we can schedule longer visits when we're there. It has rained all day. That made the drive more tiring.

The Dream Games
I met Dina Roberts here and bought her book "Thirty Cats" which I would describe as a young adult romance with a twist.

A year or so ago I read her latest novel "The Dream Games" and did a little proofing and editing. I guess it could be called a fantasy romance since much of the story takes place in a series of dreams. (I would never make it as a book reviewer.) The romance is all teen angst, but I loved it.

She has it on line now to see what readers think of it before trying to do anything further with it. This is the link to the book index. A link to her blog is there.

How about checking it out and telling her I sent you.

Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona
Two years ago this month Ann and I drove Route 66 from Chicago to L.A. ending on the Santa Monica pier. Becky joined us in Tulsa and flew home from Flagstaff. The total trip took ten days averaging almost 250 miles per day. We drove only in daylight so that we wouldn't miss anything. Together we probably took 100 photos each day. I've despaired of selecting the best ten or twelve for each day and so haven't posted any.

But today I decided that I wanted to display the photos from the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, so here they are.

Long Lost Family Photos
Back in 1972 I did a test roll of color negative film in a used Kodak 3-D camera that I was considering buying. However, typical film processors of that time couldn't handle the format for printing and I didn't get it custom printed. The negatives languished in the film sleeves for 37 years until I scanned them yesterday with my new film scanner. Here is the link to the Facebook album I put them in: Old Family Photos. I think family members will enjoy seeing photos from so long ago.

I didn't buy the Kodak 3-D camera, but I do have my uncle's View-Master Stereo Camera. It makes those little tiny images that fit the circular reels for View-Master viewers. There is also a cutter that punches the small images out of the 35mm film to fit the reels. It is somewhat complicated to use. Two images are made at each location; first at the bottom of the film and then by shifting the lenses up, another set is made at the top of the film. Then the wind knob is released to continue to the next film location.

Photo of Young Ann
This picture was made in the fall of 1961 a few weeks after our first date, but before her 20th birthday. He drove from Fayetteville to Siloam Springs just to see some different scenery. It was not the best weather to be out, but we didn't have any money and the best we could do was take a snack to the park.
Ann – 1961 Siloam Springs

The photo was made with a Kodak Signet 40 35mm range-finder manual focus full-frame camera with manual f/stop and shutter speed exposure sittings. With the camera out of focus, the range-finder created a double image in a small triangle in the center of the viewfinder. The focus was to be adjusted until the double image disappeared. My uncle and aunt had given me the camera as a high school graduation gift in 1959, and it was stolen from my apartment soon after this trip.

The film was Kodak Ektachrome transparency (slide) film with an ASA of about 60 probably. Since the day was a little cold and grey, the exposure was probably about 1/60 sec @ f/4.5. The colors were not real sharp because of the overcast weather and they seem to have faded a little over this past half century. Camerapedia Article for Signet 40

LJ Member Illustrates New Children's Book
I'm now the proud owner of a copy of Oliver at the Window illustrated by

cordial_kitten
Book Cover

THE ILLUSTRATIONS ARE BEAUTIFUL!
But you'll have to buy a copy to see!
http://www.amazon.com/Oliver-at-Window-Elizabeth-Shreeve/dp/1590785487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252600907&sr=1-1

Cooler Weather
It's 93 degrees here, but the humidity is only 35%. A cool front must be near.

Inside it's 73 degrees and 49% humidity.

On the Way to the Doctor's
Couple

We drove along Texas Highway 3 together in the Clear Lake area, and while stopped at a traffic light, I signaled that I wanted a photo. I couldn't lower the window glass because the power has failed in that door, but in spite of the reflections the photo shows what I wanted to show. That looks like a brand new Triumph. Didn't a Japanese company buy the rights to build them. I guess I could look it up. The young woman and the pup are posing for the picture; I'm not sure what the guy thought.

The doctor says everything about my heart is the same as 18 months ago except it now has better pumping capacity for some reason. An increase from 58% to 68% seems like more than just test variation, so that's good. I don't think these tests have shown a noticeable change in the 15 or so years they've been testing me. Maybe the drugs are doing some good. The problem was very minor in the first place, but this doctor wants to be sure it stays that way. I do too.

More of Our Tax Dollars at Work
Paving the drive.

When we got back from Arkansas, we found that the drainage ditch in front of the house had been scrapped out again and our older culvert had been marked for replacement. The culvert at the other drive had been replaced when the city repaved the road a couple of years ago. Monday they dug out the old concrete culvert and set a new, long, plastic culvert. Tuesday they paved over it in the operation you see in the photo.

It's getting to hard to mow the ditch so I'm going to keep the grass from growing back into it or perhaps put a culvert along the full length of the lot. Now THAT would not be at taxpayer expense - well, this taxpayer, of course, and it might even raise my taxes if it's considered a property improvement.

Did you ever wonder why property owners aren't responsible for roads and drainage on their own property? I'm not sure about the rest of the United States, but in Arkansas a hundred years or so ago property owners were directed to maintain the roads on their property. It didn't work well because most of them felt the same way about roads as they felt about schools, "If I don't use it, why should I be required to support it." I've read that back in those days a tree across the road or a big mud hole would just stay there and travelers would detour or make a "turnout" around the obstacle. The property owner didn't need to travel that section of the road, so he didn't care whether the tree was moved or not. The travelers were in a hurry and wouldn't be passing that way again and besides it wasn't their property, so they just made the detour. Often when people were asked how far it was to some location the answer was conditioned on whether they "took the turnouts or not."!

The folks who pushed for improved roadways for automobile travel in the early twentieth century (about 1920) even tried private road construction and found that it was next to impossible to get the funds together for even a few miles of paved road. (Although there must have been some successful early toll roads even then.)