Stars In His Eyes,

Stars In His Eyes, originally uploaded by use2blost.

     Naivete in his heart.
     History and Political Science have been an embarrassingly rude awakening to me. I knew about slavery, of course, and you would have to have lived on the moon to not realize we took a big dump on the Indians. Somehow, I still thought we were fairly well behaved as a nation. It seems this is not the case. I realized we had migrated away from the vision of government our forefathers held, but I had no idea the level of blatant self interest voter apathy permits in our elected officials. I had never reflected on the truth that a selfish, fearful population is the one most easily manipulated. I find myself alarmed, but try to keep in mind I am like a emotional savant, with childish expectations of virtue, and a petulance born of growing up in what counts for poverty in the one of the most prosperous countries in the world. I find myself considering political issues, and wondering at a lasting solution. It seems to me, probably the best thing we could do to straighten out politics would be to eliminate the middleman. The selfishness of the general population creates more than enough chaos. We want what serves us best, and to hell with the other faction. This makes the American Public easy to manipulate, and the political machine, which to me seems to include business, government, and organized religion, grows in wealth and power by siphoning these off of the American people. Most of us seem to realize that the roofies has worn off...we even know who is screwing us. We just can't seem to reach enough lucidity to do anything about it. A platform of specific reforms would be lengthy, and probably impractical after the editing required to get a huge grass roots movement to all agree on it. Perhaps just a few things at a time, is the ticket. we could chisel away at the problem rather than specific symptoms. I think the election process needs to be more about competency than money, and the name recognition /media exposure the money purchases. So from now on, no reporting on elections. every candidate gets equal time, his voting record on past issues is published, and media coverage is limited to live rhetoric or debate. Please do not analyze the candidates for us. We wanna grow up and learn to do it ourselves (I feel like I've been asleep).
     I also think election campaigns should have a cap on spending. If we remove the need to compete for campaign contributions, the public interest will begin to have the same clout as the corporate interest, and citizens will be as important as lobbyists. And we pay them too much. Pay them less, and make them utilize public health care. They'll come up with a great plan, overnight. I promise. My little pea brain thinks this would completely change the political climate of America.

About the picture... I seldom go to the trouble to take a self portrait, but insomnia can take you out of your comfort zone. The right eye is A star similar to our sun that has exploded, and the left eye is The Orion Nebula, both taken by the Hubble Telescope and gathered from the Hubble website. Airbrushing them into my irises with Photoshop Elements, was the last thing I did after processing my mug. The HDR was done with Mediachance Dynamic Photo. I tried a little bit of burning, on my wrinkles, to add some mileage.

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as to lighting, this was taken in the bathroom with me sitting on the counter opposite the mirror, which has a fixture across the top holding 6 bulbs. for this shot, a couple of the bulbs are unscrewed. It definitely qualifies, so I submitted it to the ghetto lighting pool.

Youth, and Bucking the System..

Bucking the system., originally uploaded by use2blost.

I am trying to take mostly conventional portraiture, lately. I wish to hone my skills. Today is the Day, the powers that be have sworn that my financial aid will be in my possession. I await it nervously, sure something will go wrong. There is much I should do, but a lot of time I find myself lost between my ears, thumb inserted in posterior. Not only do I have some overdue bills, But I am desperate to get away to the mountains. Backpacking is my idea of a good time, and once you have your gear, the cost of a getaway is minimal, determined by how much gas you need to get where you're going. However... I've had a bad road trip experience in the past, related to mechanical failure and prefer not to go out of town without a little chunk in the bank. The experience of spending several days in the forest without hearing a machine is a drink of water to my soul. I feel less distracted from God, and usually manage to sort out a thing or two. This happens when I am alone, and last break, I simply did not have the right combination of time off and an empty schedule to get away. I prepare myself for disappointment.
The van reminds me of my time living in Little Five Points, a neighborhood in south Metro Atlanta. I had flunked out of college at 19, and It just really seemed like a good idea to not come home (they have been throwing me out of schools since I was a HS sophomore). Of course, in Little Five the van woulda had a peace sign or two on it. Little Five is THAT place. The place in the city where you can buy crystal (meth), crystals (not meth), Birkenstocks, tie-dyed shirts, nude paintings of artist's tattooed and pierced girlfriends, and LSD. And you can go into a restaurant and get a special meal. One with no animal in it. At all. It was wild. (Not the vegan meal...that whole period of my life.) I went up there for a party and ended up getting an apartment with another dumbass who had flunked out of college, though he was a little older than me. It is amazing, what can seem like a good idea sometimes. The adventure didn't go to well. Moving my roommate's couch in, I found a magazine under the cushion.
The magazine had been folded backwards, probably so the reader (Ha!) could peruse with one hand as he gazed upon the muscular nudity of a blond man with an erection much more impressive than my own. Wow. I stuck it back.
That was the start of my two year attempt to be a grown up. My rent took all of two week's checks and dollar or two of a third. After my roommate fell in love, he moved out and moved in with Micheal. They were both named Micheal. I lost weight. A lot. I had a friend  murdered. I learned a few things about commerce. Acquisition, distribution, profit. I remember a titty dancer got raped outside the apartment one night. (I had forgotten about that...but as I write I can see her face streaked with tears, as we waited for the police.)
Life in Little Five was a struggle, but I had some good times, and quite a few coming-of-age experiences. I want a good job, later so we won't really go into a lotta things about this part of my youth, but the van made me smile. We drove past it Thursday night as Debbie took me to a movie (The Proposal). I ran out the next day, sans tripod, and shot these with the Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm, resting the long-ass lens on my vehicle windowsill.
I'm gonna go check my account.

Boots

Boots, originally uploaded by use2blost. Larger

Are still wet. They've been wet since Thursday night. I to had wear sneakers to work today. I have the ankles of a six year old girl, so I don't like this much.

Now, The bench was on the side of the road. When I found it it was weathered to the point of complete exposure to the elements. The wood was black and the back and two sides were unattached. The slats were loose in a jumble on top of the three pieces. I'm not plugging my refinishing job... I'm just a little impressed with myself because the junk only sat in my back yard for two or three weeks. That's moving like the wind compared to some of my other projects. I like old weathered wood exposed, and raw (Oh, boy! now a lot of pornseeker hits are in store for this post! Yeah! It's all about the traffic, baby.) and black with mildew. It excites me.
Anyway, I sand away the mildew, but I stop short of taking her down (I know, I'm shameless) to virgin substrate. I try to straddle the plane of demarcation between the aged and unblemished. When I get the look I want, then I slap on about 4 coats of high gloss exterior polyurethane with a progressively lighter hand sanding between each one. Before the final coat I lovingly caress my project with some extra fine wore out sandpaper, then rub her down using a soft lint-free cloth lightly dampened with mineral spirits. What I shoot for is a build up deep enough to fill every last dimple of grain leveling the surface, with a finish smoother than baby booties.

Wow, I really got sidetracked. My point was, my boots have been wet since Thursday. We have gotten an enormous amount of rain. Check out the puddle In the front yard of my jobsite. I got a big kick out of the Sumrall's front forty looking like a bass lake.

I wanted to experiment with the texture of leather and wood with a pronounced grain. The Puddle of Enchantmentwas a happy accident.

Interestingly enough, This Client has had me paint several times. The last time, fifteen months ago, my Father died. So this was little weird. When he passed away, They made me Aunt Judy's guardian. My first day on the job this time, Aunt Judy's doc called. Wanted to know where I stood on the resuscitation issue, cause she wasn't doing so hot. That was a wild phone call. (Auntie got out of the hospital Monday)

The Eggs of a Scorned Woman. AKA Seven Pepper Quiche

Well, the financial aid has not arrived, and it is time to begin studying for finals...but as a change of pace I thought I might try posting a Food Tutorial before swearing off flickr, the blog, and the internet in general for a couple weeks. I have a little work going on, and cheese was on sale. OMG. I love cheese, and hadn't bought any in a month. I'm talkin' pepper jack, sharp cheddar, all kinds of cheese, 8 oz packages 4 for 5 bucks. I mighta overdid it.
So I came home, stocked my many packets of cheese in the fridge, grabbed a colander, and strolled through the back yard, and came up with this.

I managed to get a couple zuchinnis, squash, and cucumbers before some type of fungus wreaked havoc in my garden, but lately the only thing I seem to be harvesting are cherry tomatoes and assorted peppers. I'm still learning about the whole gardening thing, but cherry tomato plants are amazing. With a little work I am sure we could engineer biological weapons from them. One tiny green leaf hanging out of a dixie cup, halfway nurtured will grow to cover 35-65 sq ft. The peppers in general are also doing very well, and I've got one habenero TREE. It must be some kinda mutant. If you saw it you would think Chris and the Habenero Stalk.

So this colander situation happens a couple times a week, and seems to be picking up speed. As well as drying, freezing, and giving stuff away, Ive been making a lot of quiches. At least that's what I call them. If you research quiches on the web, it seems the egg mixture isn't just eggs, but eggs and other stuff and they call the mixture "custard". So don't be thinking this is a legitimate recipe or that this is a blog to be taken seriously. This is good stuff though, and it will put hair on your chest.



This quiche has seven peppers:
bell, chili, poblano, jalepeno,bannana, habenero, and black pepper.
It also takes cheese, and of course eggs. About a dozen'll do ya.
There is one small eggplant (Everything is organically grown...you can walk in my back yard and lick plants. No harm will come to you.)
Some onion, garlic, broccoli... you can put in anything you want,even meat, but the whole point for me is to use up some of these tomatoes and peppers, so I left some room.



first start with a couple no-stick pans. (Praise God for No-Stick Cookware.) sprinkle some grated cheese in the bottoms...you really can't overdo this, but a thin layer, that you can see the bottom of the pan through, is adequate. It'll be fine. This Cheese will melt into a thin, oiled crust.


You can even be so extravagant as to line the sides of the pan with slices...but I'm on a budget.



Then you add your structural stuff, try to make a layer of slices of the firmer vegetables along the bottom (this is simple chris-quiche theory. I believe it makes it easier to get pieces out of the pan). I've actually never messed with eggplant. In my illustrious youth, I was the night chef at an Italian restaurant for a while. We served eggplant parmigiana, but it was already prepped. Often, I imagine, you get more hands-on cooking experience as the lunch chef. The eggplant color and texture tickled me to death :). They just feel funny.

So with this quiche, I started with my slices of eggplant, which I distributed as far as it would go, and filled in the bottom layer with some onions. Poblanos and bells are pretty big and firm, and I use those as well (If you take the trouble to grow stuff to eat, you really oughta save a little corner by your tomatoes to plant some basil, sage, oregano, rosemary and thyme.... that stuff practically grows itself, and hopping out the back door to snatch a few leaves off a plant and throw them in a pan always makes me grin.) Now is a good time to throw in your herbs, black pepper, and maybe a little chopped garlic. I skipped it this time, but a little finely chopped celery gives a great flavor, especially with some chicken chunks.



Getting back on the subject, when you've got a good bottom layer going
You can fill it in with some broccoli, lots of tomatoes, and of course peppers.



Just a few chilis, with a couple jalapenos and a banana or to will be more than enough for a lot of people. Not everyone will want to add habeneros, but if you should, you'll wanna wash your hands thoroughly before you touch your face, or pee.



I almost forgot... as your doing the fill in, sprinkle in plenty of cheese. Tomatoes have a lot of moisture, and the cheese really helps out with firmness, and tastes good, too. It is on sale.



After I get all my goodies in, with lots of cheese, I throw a couple handfuls of sun-dried cherry tomatoes across the top. I know I got lotsa 'maters already, but SDT's have a different flavor. You can't get it any other way.



Just prior to baking, before I put my eggs in, it looks like this:



For beating the eggs, I use a Ryobi 18volt lithium-ion drill, with a paint mixer, kept aside in the kitchen. I have no blender, ( I lost it in the divorce, and haven't gotten around to replacing it) but I'm sure that would work better. These jokers need to be fluffy. Really. A big wad of yellow foam.



After pouring up my eggs. I throw both pans in a preheated oven for about twenty minutes at 405-415. Then it's time to pull 'em out for a second and throw a layer of cheese slices on top. I used slices of pepper jack here, but anything will do. Sprinkling parmesan on top gives a little crispy, cheesey, brown crust, as the parmesan sinks/sticks to the underlying cheese slices and slowly starts changing color...

(I can"t believe I forgot to shoot a bracket for this picture. You'll just have to use your imagination.)

I put it back in the oven and keep an eye on it. Another Ten minutes or so makes it look like this.



These will cut up into 12-14 lunch-sized servings of quiche, that I'll individually wrap (after eating a couple), and freeze. I'll pull a piece out as needed and nuke it for 1-2 minutes, and eat it without guilt. I'm sure it's healthy, though I imagine it packs a pretty good cholesterol punch.

BTW, these are high dynamic range images, for those who care. High Dynamic Range technology was first developed and used to photograph Mushroom Clouds It lets you combine multiple exposures into one image, and tone map them. Each picture in this post is the result of combining Three to Five separate images. once I started I was kinda committed. Unfortunately, a couple of thee composites are substandard. I have never seen it done with food... remember you saw it here first. The software is a free download, and even with only one jpeg to work with you can fake it and transform a picture-



You can get a better look at the difference Large
Probably the most noteworthy aspect of these food shots is the lighting...under my kitchen cabinets over the breakfast bar, I've got a couple grow lights where I'll start seeds and cuttings. I tell myself that it helps early picked vegetables ripen... it also truly jacks up your reds, when you hdr.

Toss Me a Beer.

Toss Me a Beer., originally uploaded by use2blost.

this cropduster came in by blowin' treetops out of his way. I've never been that close to an airplane I wasn't boarding. We pulled over in a convenience store parking lot to find my lighter, and then he roared over. I got one or two interesting shots, but I missed the humdinger. My first sight of him was as he blew over us from behind... as he waggled in silhouette, My mind's eye went "click" and I grieved a little.
I did get one of him waving at me...
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I don't know which I like better...

old man... reworked, originally uploaded by use2blost.

Extreme HDR or a treatment so subtle that you must disclose it in order to discuss it. This remake of Jack is about as heavily edited as you can get without becoming abstract, but this picture:

could conceivably be straight-out-of-the-camera, with a filter.

Belonging to God

Anonymous said...

hmm, maybe you and I don't belong to God..,

"He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." - John 8:47

I cannot say that I have fully given my life to God or Jesus, I have lots of attachments like beer, money, etc.

Reckon these vices keep me from belonging to God?

TJG

April 23, 2009 7:51 PM

Perhaps you and I don't belong to God... but maybe we do.

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that Jesus^£ had silenced the Sadducees, they met together in the same place. ³⁵One of them, an expert in the Law, tested him by asking, ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷Jesus^£ said to him, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’^{£ 38}This is the greatest and most important^£ commandment. ³⁹The second is like it: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’^{£ 40}All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”

This is what Jesus says we must do. This is the most important thing, according to him. What is interesting is that Jesus, who knows a whole lot, including the hearts of men, chooses to answer a one - answer question, with two answers. He tells us that All the Law (a vast do-and-don't database) and All the Prophets can be distilled to these essentials... hmmm. All means all. Law..... Prophets.... This tells us that when we violate the Law, or fail to apply the wisdom of the Prophets, we are either not loving God, or not loving our neighbor (and remember, Jesus tells us these are flip sides of the same coin, goes so far as to say that not loving our neighbor is not loving God: "first be reconciled to your brother...." ).
Now, I don't like the notion that breaking a commandment means that I am not loving God. It is a nagging rebuttal from the peanut gallery, that rings out when I am trying to bask in self-righteousness, or privately congratulate myself on my down-to-earth spirituality. I would LOVE to correct Jesus. (Whoa, Lord! you've made a mistake in your thinking... let me explain it to you...) To tell us that obeying the Law, and applying the wisdom of the Prophets, are manifestations of loving God and my Neighbor, and that these two things are the One Thing that matters most to God, is shining an inconvenient light into the corners and shadows of religion.

TJG, you ask if your vices keep you from belonging to God:

I cannot say that I have fully given my life to God or Jesus, I have lots of attachments like beer, money, etc.

Reckon these vices keep me from belonging to God?

I think everything already belongs to God, but here is perhaps some food for thought.

1. Must you love God in order to surrender to him? Hopefully these are issues of degree, with a correlation between them.
2. If drunkeness and goldigging cut the telephone line to God, What about hypocrisy, chasin' ho's (or just thinking about it :D), overeating, ...driving past the homeless, hungry dude on the way to Wallyworld to get a fishing license? ...ordering the first (or any) crusade? What sins are exempt?