Ice storm

Maryland and the surrounding states got pummeled by a significant ice storm last night. I woke this morning to nearly 3/8" of ice on everything and several downed limbs. There was, of course, no electric power which I found mildly exciting. Mildly because I would not be showering this morning (we're on a well) but still excited because I got to use some "old timey" methods of getting comfortable. I made up a pot of coffee by heating the water on the wood stove and using my old reliable drip coffee maker. I haven't used this coffee maker since I lived in Manhattan; I missed it! I also fired up my little oil lamp and started a great new book my father leant to me last weekend. I started reading Kenneth Roberts' Arundel by the light of my lamp, sipping coffee while limbs cracked and fell to the ground; a sound similar to lightening cracking. All in all we lost a few limbs from our sycamore, peach and maple trees. The maple getting the worst of it; a 10" diameter branch cracked and hangs vertically. I used my camp saw to make quick work of the broken limbs on the other trees and will have to tackle the maple this weekend. Though destructive, the ice did make for an unexpected day off from work and some nice photos.  This blog is brought to you today by means of my iPad; operating in my mobile blogging configuration.

Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania

I spent nearly the whole day, driving from Westminster, MD to my hometown of Sherrill, NY.  Unfortunately, this trip was not planned.  My good friend, Hoopsie's father passed away and my journey's purpose was to attend the wake.  Rest in peace Mr. Hoopes.  Nevertheless, I had the whole day to make the 6.5 hour drive so I took my time and pointed the Tacoma down some interesting little roads in southern Pennsylvania.  I discovered an eerie old town (city) called Mahanoy City.  It is an old coal mining town about 50 miles northwest of Reading.  It was settled in 1863 and prosperred as a coal town.  (More from wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahanoy_City,_Pennsylvania )  The town, today, looks quite dingy and depressed.  Row houses with awnings tightly line the streets.  I picked a diner called "That Place" on Centre Street for lunch.  Afterwards, I explored briefly and stopped to take some photos of an old trestle bridge.  I thought it was neat to see the old coal reference "The Road of Anthracite" painted on the bridge as well as "Pulling for Mahanoy City BPA".  I did some online research and could not find any meaning behind the "BPA"... anybody out there know?

Catching up

I made it down to my brother's place in a little under seven hours. I enjoyed the drive and the transition of the geography. There is quite a difference in topography between Maryland and North Carolina, it was interesting to watch it change from behind the wheel. I saw a lot of neat sites and wished I had the to stop and explore/take pictures. I did stop once to take a quick picture of an old, rusted out car, sinking into the ground, wrapped in the rays of the setting sun, but quickly hopped back in the truck when a van pulled over to watch me. Yikes.

It was great to finally see Pat and his lovely wife, Alyse again. It has been nearly two years, and we had a lot of catching up to do. Pat's buddy, Connor came over and it was a lot of fun listening to these two marines tell their stories and jokes. I brought down a couple cases of National Bohemian beer for Pat, and I think we nearly polished off a whole case last night. Good times. Today Pat's going to give me the nickle tour of Camp Lejeune and then we'll check out some tactical gun shops and hopefully get some mountain biking in. 

Photo bombing my blog today...

Day two of mobile blogging in DC

Like the title says, today is day two of my mobile blogging venture in northwest DC.  My company has sent me downtown for a couple days of training and as such I've packed my mobile set up with me: GX-1 camera, ipad & SD card reader.  It's a decent set up.  I use the photogene app to process my raw images and convert them to jpg.  Then I use my Blogger app to actually write my post, insert the images and publish the blog post.  However, I do loose a lot of creative control using the Blogger app.  The biggest drawback to using the app, in my opinion, is not being able to edit the HTML to resize and position my images in a pleasing way.   Typically, when I blog, I arrange the images much the way I would if they were on display in a gallery (Not that my images of bloody dead squirrels would be drawing the masses for a viewing - well, maybe?!).  But using the Blogger app limits you to stacking images on top of each other.  Although I must give the Blogger app developers a thumbs up for finally allowing more than one image to be inserted in a blog post.  As a photoblogger, that was very frustrating.

As I draft this post, it's 7:30am and I'm sitting on a 4000 series railcar, riding the green line from Greenbelt, down to the Gallery Place Metro station where I'll get off and walk about six blocks to my training center, down F Street in NW DC.  The subway ride is mostly underground so I'm saving this draft to publish when I get top-side.  I'm going to include just one photo in this post.  And let this post serve as a precursor to the photos I will post throughout the day.  The snapshots I'll take on the street on my walk to class.  The architectural photos I'll take during my lunch hour.  Perhaps the subway scenes I'll capture on the way back to the Greenbelt Metro Station.  Stay tuned for a tower of today's images in the following post.