The Prisoner of Dharma - A Picture Every Now & Then # 28

A Picture Every Now & Then 028 - Prisoner of Dharma

This is a simple cut and paste of items I found online. Ever since the survivors of Flight 815 began finding hatches "Lost" has reminded me of the game "Myst". However, "Myst" was a mostly solitary situation and didn't include the social complexities found in "Lost".*

Next stop, the Village. Perhaps Rod Serling is Number 2 and host of the Dharma orientation films.

A Picture A Day has been forced, by my inability to keep up the pace, to become A Picture Every Now & Then. What was meant to be a series of daily mobile phone images now includes higher resolution photos and mash-up images. Enjoy!

*Yes, I try to insert bad puns into my writings whenever possible.

The Mesopotamians

TMBG was on TV and I just happened to have on my shirt of the song from the tune they performed on the show.

Statler Arms (Fuji S5000) - A Picture A Day # 27

A Picture A Day 027 - Statler Arms (Fuji S5000)

A little while back I posted another photo of this hotel which was taken with my LG VX8300 phone from my hotel room on the 9th floor of the Wyndham Hotel.

Remember the two old complainers in the balcony seats on "The Muppet Show"? Their names were Statler and Waldorf, after the well known hotels in NYC. "Waldorf" is also a type of salad, presumably served at it's namesake hotel, thereby standing out in my memory, but, in the past I frequently found I couldn't recall the name of the other old man, Statler. This hotel reminded me of his name and cemented it in my memory for the time being. My fondness for "The Muppet Show" caused me to insist on acquiring a better image of this hotel than the one from my phone. Also, it's a fair street-level view East on Euclid from the Wyndham.

Lighted Decorative Sculpture - A Picture A Day # 26

A Picture A Day 026 - Lighted Decorative Sculpture

More 'fun with colors'!

To be completely honest, I'm not certain this wall ever changed colors. I believe the impression of color-change in these shots is due to my tinkering with my cameras settings or the slightly different angle of each shot.

Not the Death Star - A Picture A Day # 25

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No. We are not smuggling a Wookie to a detention center on the Death Star. Did the EXIT signs give that away?

This is the wall opposite the color changing wall in my previous post. This wall is static. The only thing moving here is the reflected light from the color-changing wall.

Reflected light is typically somewhat dimmer than it's source and the blue tones showed up best, but, at the far end of each of these images, you may notice that one is tinged green and the other is tinged red.

Color Changing Wall - A Picture A Day # 24

A Picture A Day 024 - Color Changing Wall

This fancy display is in a tunnel under Euclid Avenue connecting the lobby of the Cleveland Clinic to it's main parking garage.

I don't know the method used, but the change progresses at a relaxed pace.

When I first encountered this wall I believed the effect was related to the angle from which one viewed the wall because, as I walked, the effect seemed to be keeping pace with my stride. So, I stopped in my tracks.

A moment or two of observation revealed that the wall changes color in waves from one end to the other. It's interesting when one is in the hallway.

In truth, I only shot these as a test for my camera, to see how well it would reproduce the illumination.

If I've never mentioned it before, I'm proud of my humble camera, a Fuji S5000, which seems to match my skill level fairly well.

I'm still learning from it and it's still serving my photographic needs after five years.

Still, there are some things I'd like to try, photographically, which will require a professional strength camera and some extra equipment.

I don't expect to be dabbling in those waters any time soon, so it's a good thing I like what I've got.

It was a 2003 Christmas gift from my wife. Thanks again, Dear.

R.I.P. Lux Interior of "The Cramps" - A Picture A Day # 23

Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits, Bad Music for Bad People, Smell of Female (Red Rose), Smell of Female (Enigma), A Date with Elvis, Stay Sick, Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon (CD single), Look Mom No Head!, Flamejob, Big Beat from Badsville, Fiends of Dope Island, How to Make a Monster
[Not shown: The Purple Knif Show, and Live at Napa State Mental Hospital (DVD)]

A Picture A Day 023 - My collection of CD's by "The Cramps".

The first five CD's shown here might be called "Music to Haunt By" because nearly every song on each became something of an anthem from late August through October 31st every year for a select group of friends who were all in the Jaycees together, building and operating Haunted Houses for fund-raising.

There aren't many people in the world who would praise "The Cramps" for anything outside the musical realm, but they were truly a driving force for us while we worked, helping us do good deeds in a strange and frightening manner. It should be noted that our Haunted Houses were indeed award winning and all due credit goes to the inspiration we derived from the music of The Cramps.

When you get right down to it, Lux Interior was a musician paying homage to some great music and, with Poison Ivy Rorschach and The Cramps, doing his damnedest to remind us what it is to be true to your individuality. Few of us have the guts to do it, but some of us can still appreciate it. Thanks Lux.

Parental Advisory - Don't Give Your Kids "The Cramps"
Let them learn about it in the streets,
where they learned everything else that matters.

Best tracks for a scary good time:
Goo Goo Muck, Rockin' Bones, Voodoo Idol, Primitive, Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk, Can't Find My Mind, Human Fly, Surfin' Bird, Garbageman, Love Me, She Said, Save It, TV Set, Uranium Rock, You Got Good Taste, I Ain't Nuthin' But A Gorehound, Weekend On Mars, Psychotic Reaction, Surfin' Dead, and Aloha From Hell.

Other stuff your momma warned you about:
The Crusher, Green Door, The Way I Walk, New Kind of Kick, I Can't Hardly Stand It, Thee Most Exaulted Potentate of Love, Call of the Wighat, Faster Pussycat, The Hot Pearl Snatch, People Ain't No Good, What's Inside A Girl?, Kizmiaz, Cornfed Dames, (Hot Pool of) Womanneed, It's Just That Song, Bikini Girls with Machine Guns, The Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon, Shortnin' Bread, Mama oo Pow Pow, Saddle Up A Buzz Buzz, Muleskinner Blues, Jailhouse Rock, Beat Out My Love, Dames Booze Chains and Boots, Hardworkin' Man, Miniskirt Blues, Don't Get Funny with Me, Eyeball in My Martini, Hipsville 29 B.C., Wilder Wilder Faster Faster, Ultra Twist, How Come You Do Me?, Nest of the Cuckoo Bird, I'm Customized, Inside Out and Upside Down (with You), Sinners, Route 66 (Get Your Kicks on), Cramp Stomp, Like A Bad Girl Should, Super Goo, Hypno Sex Ray, Big Black Witchcraft Rock, Oowee Baby, Mojo Man from Mars, Wrong Way Ticket, and many, many more...

Oh, what curves! - A Picture A Day # 22

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in the blog before but, when I was a kid I wanted to be an architect when I grew up. Weird, huh? I had a neighbor who was an architect and I knew he had designed his own house (of a 'modern' style, for the time), and I thought that was cool. But what does a little kid know about being an architect?

Because my family runs a used book store we always had a small but interesting library at home. I remember spending a lot of time just flipping through books.

We had a decent encyclopedia set, books from some of those TIME/LIFE sets, and so many coffee table and kids' books about other places, animals, space exploration, and you name it, that I'll never remember them all. The point is, sure I loved dinosaurs as much as any other child but I was endlessly intrigued by man-made things.

My fascination with building and design is what spurred hours of play with Lego sets and, perhaps more important, designing and re-designing what, to me, were the ultimate Hot Wheels tracks.

Hot Wheels should be required play for small children. Not just the cars, but the building of tracks. You can't just string together anything you can imagine. Hot Wheels track design requires a kid to obey the most basic laws of everyday physics and learn how to command them, and this includes an introduction to algebraic concepts. If this track is X pieces long and begins at height Y (the back of a dining room chair?) the loop/jump/curve must be positioned at Z for the car to successfully transit the obstacle. Oh no! We then learn that the weight and speed of the car will cause the track to slip if not properly supported... and the exercises in design, engineering, and physical theories begin anew with every fresh track design.

So, the point is, I like design, architecture, and engineering. And curvy stuff always catches my eye (wink wink). So, this is the first building I encountered at the Cleveland Clinic and I was pleasantly surprised to find an architectural model of the whole campus inside the main building, then lucky to have an opportunity to photograph the building in daylight and again at dusk.

By the way, if you haven't noticed, you can click the images to see larger versions of almost all of them.

A Picture A Day 022
Oh, what curves!

Bus Lanes & Bike Lanes - A Picture A Day # 21

A Picture A Day 021
Bus Lanes & Bike Lanes

Public transportation has a rather nice face in Cleveland. These bus stops sit on islands down the middle of the street. The buses have their own "BUS ONLY" lanes, more lanes for regular traffic, and, along the outer edges are bike lanes. These bus stops protect riders from most precipitation but not from wind. Inside the shelters are vending machines so riders may purchase tickets prior to boarding. The 'Healthline' route, sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic runs 24/7/365 from every 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the time of day. Naturally, the more frequent runs are during business hours and the 15 minute waits are in the middle of the night. I purchased a day pass on my first day in C-land and it worked out quite well. I rode 4 times for $4.50, something that would have cost me $8.00 had I paid per individual ride.

This view, from my hotel room, shows the central bus lanes in a block without a stop. I had no worries, there were stations on each of the blocks adjacent to this one, so there was no trouble catching the buses. Oh, I just noticed that the bike lanes are absent here too, but that may be due to the fact that this is a city block rather than a sprawl block.

It's worth noting that all of this work was recently completed sometime in 2008. At the time of this post, if you look at Euclid Avenue in Google Earth or Google Maps you will see the streets dug up as construction of the new bus line was still underway. BTW, this hotel, The Wyndham, was in an area called the Theater District near something called Playhouse Square. I didn't have much time for tourism, nor was the weather cooperating with such endeavors but, I noticed what appeared to be a centralized ticketing house, which I presume permits visitors an easy way to find information about and pick up tix to any show in the district. If you're a fan of theater this place is certainly worth a long weekend, should you have one to spare. I'd love to go back, but honestly, such things aren't in my budget right now. It's going on my "hope to do" list.

Ice Hole Abstract - A Picture A Day # 20

A Picture A Day 020
Ice Hole Abstract

A small glacier formed behind the book store. The ice was at least 4 inches thick in some places. I nearly broke a sturdy wooden shovel handle trying to break the ice away from the ground on Saturday (1/31/09). I managed to clear this patch (about 3' wide x 5' long) before I had to call it quits.

I took this photo when I was leaving work. It was dark and the lone street light cast too few lumens for a good photograph. I took the junk shot, cranked up the fill light, and treated it to a number of effects to wind up with this nebulous, Star Trek-ian, void. The ground in the center of this hole was dry and I had set my pack in the middle to try and provide some sense of scale. Alas, the bag remained invisible, so we're stuck with this.

The Snow Melt Begins - A Picture A Day # 19

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The Snow Melt Begins

A Kitten's First Winter - A Picture A Day # 18

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A Kitten's First Winter

Snowy Day - A Picture A Day # 17

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... on the crest of the new fallen snow...

Snow Day - A Picture A Day #16

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Neon Snacks - A Picture A Day #15

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I enjoy photographing real neon. If there is a reflection, all the better!

Some of my previous photos, as well as others still to come, were taken in and around the Cleveland Clinic. This photo was taken at Grandview Hospital in Dayton. It's the sign above a bank of vending machines available to visitors 24/7.

Part of the reason I'm so far behind on this "picture a day" business has to do with spending so much time with family in hospitals lately.

I'm going to try and post enough photos tonight to get caught up with the idea of a picture a day. Thinking about how and why I was able to get these photos has become something of a choke point. To speed things along and avoid thinking about them too deeply I'll refrain from adding text to most of them, if not all them.

Enjoy the images. I do... really. I wouldn't post them if I didn't. It's just the how and why behind them that's getting under my skin. Feel free to comment or ask questions about any of the upcoming pictures. Some of them are pretty nifty... Catharsis Photography