This Old Blog

This is an entry about the Mars Science Laboratory , or MSL, a.k.a. Curiosity. I have absolutely nothing to add to what's already been written. This is instead my little electronic scrapbook section for one of the most exciting space missions since Apollo 11 . Since I live on the east cost in Orlando, I stayed up past my bedtime to watch the video streams from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory located at the California Institute of Technology. Because of the three hour time difference between the two coasts it was 1:31am local Orlando time when Curiosity successfully landed on Mars. I was so happy for the mission command crew when the final successful indicators came down from Mars that Curiosity had safely landed, but nowhere near as elated as they obviously where. I wish I could have been there at least as a witness, a bystander to all the joy and relief they felt that this part of the mission to Mars was successfully concluded. And I was so happy to see indicators from the ...

This is a small cautionary tale about business, one a small business, and one a large one. We'll start with the small business, the former Seminole Wind on Monroe. The first time I even knew Seminole Wind existed was when I drove by it July of last year and caught site of the sign addressed to the President hanging up high (see below). I stopped and grabbed a photo, and then drove on. It was in July of last year that I helped my youngest daughter move into her current residence, another rental. We were driving up an down Monroe between where we were staying on Monroe and where my daughter eventually wound up. My daughter had never heard of this place in all the time she'd been there and I'd never noticed, like I said, before now. After this one photo I forgot about it. And then, this past weekend, driving up Monroe back to where our hotel was I happened to glance over to the place and saw it was completely closed up. The only indication that there was even a closure was ...

Mollie (a.k.a. Rocket) has grown a bit since the last time I saw her . She's up to ten pounds. She's also been "trained" to handle being outdoor on a special leash. The leash consists of a special harness that fits around the upper body; one strap around the body behind the front legs and the second around the body at the front of the legs, with a connecting strap parallel with the spine and a second parallel with the brisket. It seemed to work, although I was warned that Mollie hadn't learned she could somehow get out of the harness. Regardless of the danger of Mollie getting free, the harness and attached lead managed to help maintain control on a rather active ten pound cat. On this particular outing Mollie immediately went into a stalking mode and went slinking and jinking towards a group of azaleas at the side of my daughter's place. I'm not sure what she was after, but she sure was intent on getting whatever it was she thought she was stalking. I...

You can tell what kind of influence you've had on one of your children when they tell you to meet them for a short father-daughter photo walk as soon as you check into your hotel room. That's exactly what Megs did. She invited her mom and dad to meet her at Railroad Square Art Park . In all the years I've trekked back and forth between Orlando and Tallahassee, I never knew this place existed. It sits right across the railroad tracks from the old Amtrack station on Railroad Avenue, caddy corner from the northwest corner of the FAMU campus. It used to be the Downtown Industrial Park in the 1960s. When it finally closed down it left behind a large collection of warehouses that were turned into over 50 artist shops and studios. My daughter knows of this place because she had a small studio in one of the warehouses-converted-to-studios when she was taking art classes as FSU. She made the perfect guide for the short period of time we walked about and photographed the area. I jus...

Took the day off from the office and worked around the house. Filled out and filed all my insurance claim forms (all one of them) over the robbery. Six items (two bodies plus vertical grips, two zooms) can cost a lot of money if you want to replace them with current gear. If the insurance company cuts me a check minus our deductible then I'll have a decent (for me) unexpected windfall to replace everything with contemporary technology. The question is with what. After a day of just doing house chores my wife and I went out for a late supper to a place on International Drive. I like I-Drive because I can exercise my crazy style of photography and nobody bats an eyelash. After all, I-Drive is the heart of tourist country, and tourists are always snapping something. Later on in the restaurant I saw no less than three groups taking photos of themselves, and one of them had a Canon digital Rebel (model unknown). What was interesting is that none of them were using flash. Contemporary ...

I went into the office for the better part of the day after the police took my statement about the robbery. I worked until 4:30pm, then made the mistake of spending time photographing around Slavia until 5:30pm before heading home. During that time the imp of the perverse that had decided to pick on me manged to tie up traffic all along every surface road I wanted to take, with one wreck after another, all the way up to the intersection of the 408 and I-4. I didn't get home until an hour later. Since I didn't have anything thawed for supper the wife and I went out to our local Lime Grill for supper. My wife told the cashier and the manager on duty about my day. When we were just about finished with our meal the manager came by with complementary sopapillas, a random act of kindness meant to offset some of the long day's events. And come to think of it, it did. I took the E-PL2 with the Leica 25mm with me to capture, well, whatever. Lime Grill is surrounded on three sides w...

I had planned to do a bit more exploration up and down SR-426, looking for the remains of Slavia , the community from the early 20th century for which the cemetery bears the same name. I found the old Martin Stano store, sitting empty and falling apart on 426, silently watching the traffic go past on the big five-lane road that SR-426 has become. I tried to stand in the same location that the unknown photography stood in to take the black and white in 1926. I almost got it right. It was an old Florida combination general store and gas station, which would have been handy in that area back in those days. The gas island is still there but the gas pump is long since gone and the plumbing that once led to a storage tank filled over. Yes, that's a National Trust for Historic Preservation sticker on the front door. Does that mean it's part of the trust? I don't know. I would have thought that some stranger didn't run up one day and randomly slap the sticker on the front d...