Welcome to Breakfast in America
I’m a Brit who unexpectedly emigrated to the USA in 2008, and this is my photo journal.
It’s an eclectic mix of things; there’s no guiding theme or topic. It is whatever happens to catch my attention, what I’ve been thinking, doing, and whatever my current obsessions are. At the moment, they are clearing some of the backlog on my ‘honey-do’ list, backpacking and hammock camping.
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Drawing (365:122)
Tonight I was working on the design of my next backpacking wood burner.
Today after posting a couple of pictures I sat down at my desk and got on with some (paid) work for a change. My efforts were put on hold while Ginger’s parents came visiting, and again for the afternoon school run. By dinner time I was finished for the day, apart from writing a fairly long e-mail discussing the work and setting up a call in the morning.
After a bit of surfing I thought it’d be nice to draw up my new design for a backpacking wood burner in Google SketchUp. Unfortunately the free version doesn’t allow you to intersect a curved surface with a hole (I’m not sure if the paid version does either). As the burner design is a set of cylinders riddled with holes this idea was going to be a bit of a non-starter. So I decided to hand draw a rough sketch to help me with the construction and think out the design. Today’s picture shows me completing my drawing.
It’s been a long time since I last drew something, I wrote a little bit about it back in February, when I pondered how much better my drawing might be if I’d just done a little every week. This morning I noticed Ginger’s portable painting easel and paint box by the bed, and that image must have stuck with me throughout the day. I draw technically, and it is a learned process; very much a process. Drawing is not something I can naturally do, the images don’t just flow from my fingers. I have great respect, jealousy even for those lucky people who do have this innate ability.
My Photography is the same. Technical, not emotional, produced by following a set of processes. Again I greatly admire people who can get emotion into their pictures. I’ve tried but I just don’t ‘get it’. I guess I have to accept my limitations, and make the best of what I can do. Anyhow, I think I’ll try and include a little drawing in my weekly activities, and see how it turns out.
Today’s other pictures
Up-draft gassifier backpacking wood burner 
Hamming it up for the camera -
Living with cats (365:121)
Living with cats (365:121). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today I almost committed the ultimate 365 Days faux pas,
because for the first time this year I forgot to take my picture. I was just climbing into bed when I realized. I threw on my dressing gown and headed off to the kitchen table for today’s picture.
The day started slowly, with a Sunday off from church. Lanie’s been in KC since after school on Friday at a diocesan youth event. This removed our need to attend the 9 am service at church, which we normally do so that so she can be in choir or acolyte. It was nice to take a break, and we sat in bed surfing and chatting all morning. I spent what was left of my day on the Interwebs and caught up on some outstanding voluntary work, as Monday I have some web development work to do.
Having had my bedtime postponed for photographic purposes, I wanted to get today’s picture out of the way as quickly as possible, I even left off my glasses, which meant I couldn’t check any pictures I took (it shows). So I proceeded to press the shutter and get it over with.
There is something about the sound of the lens focusing, the ‘beep’ of the focus confirmation and the clunk of the mirror and shutter operating that attracts cats. Normally Tubby is the most inquisitive, but today before I could count to one, Getzger was up on the kitchen table trying to get in on the act. In the end I gave up, so this picture which includes Mr. G. Cat Esquire (Not sure that any Americans, even if they are pure bred Abyssinian really qualify for the ‘Esquire’ bit) will do for today.
Footnote: The plaque on the wall behind me in the alternate shot reads: “Everything tastes better with cat fur in it” I can’t attest to this as I’ve not had much opportunity to try meals without cat fur in them to enable me to confirm or refute this statement.
Today’s alternate shot
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April 2011
This month signals the return of colour; there are only eight black and white pictures.
I’ve built two marginally successful wood burning stoves for backpacking and I bought a summer sleeping bag. We’ve only managed to get out hiking three times, that’s a disappointing 10.5 miles, bringing our year’s hiking tally to 81 miles. We did take the Kayaks out twice (nine miles) bringing our yaking total to a miserly 12.6 miles. We need to try a lot harder in May. I went fishing with Tom twice, and I even caught five bass. I had a hair cut, took wedding pictures, helped out with a youth group lock-in, and laughed hysterically at people’s Facebook comments on the royal wedding.
Plans for May will need to be the same as those for April only more so. We are desperate to get out backpacking, and the yaks need exercise. So lots more hiking and kayaking pictures. We ought to manage at the very least 16 miles hiking. I want to make my Mark III backpacking stove, so some more workshop pictures, or even pictures of a pot of boiling water. Now that would be a good result.
1. Late night stand-by, 2. Sprinky appears to be giving me the ‘evil eye’, 3. Family hike at Busiek state park and wildlife area, 4. Trying out my new sleeping bag, 5. More fun in the workshop, 6. Reconnoitre, 7. My once a week ‘Studying’ picture, 8. Gary and Ginger on a run ashore, 9. Meh, 10. A fairly typical Sunday, 11. Fishing, 12. Running repairs, 13. Laying down in my kayak isn’t too difficult, 14. Hair cut, 15. Batch-loaded, inverted down-draft gassifier wood stove, 16. Beauty and the (out of focus) beast, 17. Gary and Loyal at Christ Episcopal Church, 18. Gary by the Little Sac River, 19. Lunch break and ‘phone call – day hike at Busiek, 20. Late night self portrait at the kitchen table, 21. Slideshow, 22. 2.25am Youth group lock-in, 23. You’ll always find me in the kitchen at lock-ins, 24. Dirty Martini, 25. Easter Eggs, 26. Bedtime, 27. Compressor coupling, 28. Gary and Ginger in ‘Urban Market’, 29. Gary and Ginger watching the running commentary on the Royal Wedding on Facebook, 30. Silliness on the Sac River Trail
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Silliness on the Sac River Trail (365:120)
Silliness on the Sac River Trail (365:120) — The real picture is in the background. Ginger, Katie and I put in a four-mile hike on the Sac River trail today. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. The real picture is in the background. Ginger, Katie and I put in a four-mile hike on the Sac River trail today. I was expecting the trail to be very muddy, but it turned out to be surprisingly dry. During a brief stop, I thought I’d grab a quick safety shot. I had an idea in mind. So, it seems did Ginger and Katie. I could have gone with the more serious shot, but this one’s more fun. Ginger said she looks stupid – well that’s what you get for messing with my self-portraits. Katie’s comment was along the lines of “D’oh, you can’t see me licking mom’s hair – it was kewl.” Oh well, I’d wanted them out of focus in the background, little knowing the stunt they were going to pull once my back was turned, so tough!
We decided to stop for lunch at the old barn, where Ginger and I ate lunch on our last visit on March 28, We were surprised to find the building had collapsed, leaving just a pile of rubble where we had been sitting. The recent storms must have done for it, though checking the timbers there was a lot of termite damage which I’m sure escalated its demise.
After the hike we returned to Springfield via Braum’s where we each had a double dip cone. The calories in the ice cream cones probably exceeded the number of calories we consumed on the hike, but they were very yummy.
This afternoon I tried out my latest Backpacking wood burning stove again, unfortunately with no more luck. It burns well once lit, wood gas is being generated and it burns well too, but the stove is not producing enough heat to boil a litre of water in a reasonable time, or without adding more fuel. I sat and thought about it for a while; I’ve now got another design in mind, which is not based on any of the designs I’ve seen, but uses what I’ve learned about gasification and wood gas burners in general. Hopefully a I have a more efficient, easier to manage and more consistent configuration. Whatever happens I know I’ll have great fun designing, building and trying it out.
Today’s alternate shots & extras
This would have been today’s shot but I prefer the more irreverent picture. 
A reward for the day’s hiking 
The old barn had collapsed since our last visit 
Where has the barn gone? -
Gary and Ginger watch the running commentary on the Royal Wedding on Facebook (365:119)
And it was absolutely hilarious.
We both had tears of laughter streaming down our faces at one point. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-monarchy. I think the monarchy does a great job of marketing Great Britain plc, encourages tourism and there’s something to be said for maintaining tradition; no surprises I’m an Episcopalian then. What I do object to is the rabid hype, hysteria, tackiness and pure bad taste events such as royal weddings seem to encourage.
Several people I know here (Springfield, Missouri) got up at the crack of dawn to watch
drool overthe events back in Blighty. They seemed much more interested in the event than the few ex-pats I know around the world.We spent some time exchanging irreverent and ribald facebook comments on the wedding. Comments of note included: “Why is no one in work today…” – my brother. “Today is a good day to travel” – a friend who is popping over to France, and pictures of another contact in her own wedding dress waving a couple of union jacks semaphore style while her bemused hubby ignores her and reads the newspaper. Should any of them stumble upon this rambling; you all know who you are. One of my sons claimed he was playing Mario on the SNES and posted “If he wasn’t getting married today, this is definitely what William would’ve been doing.” the other has just posted “I think that Sky Sports played a blinder today… Premier League Years versus the Royal Wedding. Only ever going to be one winner.” and then there was a whole string of comments about the frock which were so funny and inappropriate I won’t repeat any of them here or they won’t let me back in the UK ever again.
It was about then that my bright idea for today’s picture came to me. So today you see Ginger and I sitting in bed with our respective laptops, laughing ourselves silly.
Today’s alternate shot
Royal wedding watching on Facebook. It must have been the mention of a gratuitous nipple that did it -
Gary and Ginger in ‘Urban Market’ (365:118)
Gary and Ginger in ‘Urban Market’ (365:118). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Slight change of plan today.
Ginger returned from the school run with tidings of yard sales, not just any yard sale, but a church yard sale, so off we went.
To prevent rampant purchasing we maintain ‘to buy’ lists, the idea being that stuff not on the list doesn’t get bought, scotching most impulse purchases. On the whole it works, though I spent $4 on $30 worth of audio cables that wasn’t on the list. I don’t think we got anything that was on the list, which was annoying as I wanted to find a small aluminium pan to go on my wood burning backpacking stove.
We dropped off our goodies at home and decided to go out again and check out a couple of flea markets. I was waiting to find out if I was cooking dinner for class tonight, so we had time to spare. We went round three flea markets and today’s picture was taken in the third – Urban Market. Ginger has this habit of standing behind me when I take a picture of both of us – she says it’s so that she doesn’t look bigger then me, but the normal result is that I’m in focus and she isn’t. Anyway I’m taller by half an inch, I just choose to wear very flat shoes, so there.
I found an aluminium pitcher just the right size for the wood burner at the rather worryingly named STD. Now I’ll need to fire up the stove again and test it.
I made cottage pie for eight in the afternoon which seemed to be well received at class (no green beans or mushroom soup in my recipe). Mary’s cheesecake was much better than the cottage pie though – yum! Hopefully I haven’t poisoned anyone.
Today’s extras
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Compressor coupling (365:117)
Compressor coupling (365:117). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tyres do not stay inflated around here.
Whether that be bike or car tyres, we seem to be continually getting the compressor out and adding air (that originally read ‘we seems’ I’ve obviously been subconsciously influenced by that obnoxious Ja Jar Binks character in Phantom Menace). Yesterday topping up one of the van’s tyres was accompanied by a large amount of hissing; the compressor’s hose had split near to the compressor coupling. I was too busy with wedding pics to fix it yesterday, so today I thought I’d try to fix the hose before settling down for my weekly EFM studying. The fact that this gave me a photo opportunity that didn’t involve me studying had nothing whatsoever to do with this you understand.
So here I am trying to work out how to take the coupling off. If I had my eyes tested and got new glasses I probably wouldn’t need the magnifying glass, but I have better things to spend my pennies on like food, shelter, drink, gas (Mon Dieu the price of gas), hiking and backpacking gear etc. etc.
The rest of the day was spent studying. I’d two lessons to get through this week so it was quite a slog, though thankfully the lesson topics were much more interesting than some we’ve had over the past few weeks.
In September my Green Card expires. So we finished the day looking at pictures of us; mentally earmarking those we want to get printed to use as evidence to support my application for the removal of conditions and the issue of a new (ten year) Green Card. And to do that we have to prove that our wedding and relationship isn’t a sham organised just to get me into the country. It’s a shame the US Government doesn’t accept Flickr accounts as evidence. As it doesn’t we will have to call on friends to write affidavits for us, and there’s the possibility of an interview, plus they’ll be taking my biometrics again.
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Bedtime (365:116)
Bedtime (365:116). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Memory. I wish I had one.
Possibly I did all sorts of things, but more likely I procrastinated at the computer. Actually a little bit of checking shows that I did some (paid!) work, and processed the first batch of Dash and Leslie’s wedding pictures, which kept me busy through most of the day. Lots of nice shots to pick from, though a fair bit of processing partly because of the orange lighting, and in one shot because unknown to me the bride was wearing a pair of black sandals, which showed when she was sitting down. Photoshop to the rescue – I lengthened the dress slightly to cover them up. Ginger asked how I fixed it, which given her experience of Photoshop I take as complement.
Of course the main reason for additional processing is my own lack of experience. It’s over twenty-five years since I worked weekends as a studio wedding photographer and I’m a bit rusty. I obviously need to try harder to get it right, in camera, first time. Working fast I deliberately decided to de-risk it and shot wide so I could crop later.
Of course I ignored any self-portrait opportunities I may have had during the day, so once again we have a hurried just before bedtime capture.
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Easter Eggs (365:115)
Saturday and Sunday Lanie made coloured Easter Eggs.
I was going to take a picture of them yesterday, but that would have involved moving the van out of the garage which doubles as my workshop and a sort of studio when needed.
It’s been raining almost non-stop for two days, we’ve had over five inches of rain and Ginger’s parents have had over ten inches. I was alerted to the backyard flooding by the sound of water pouring into the crawlspace under the house. By that time it was several inches deep, and while I did the school run Ginger sorted out the pump. On getting home I donned my waterproofs and cut a short channel down the side of the house by the back gate which let some of the water out, we’ll have to see how it goes.
I spent most of the day working at the computer; the church website is up to date, and I’ve cleared a couple of other items off of my to do list. None of which was worthy of a picture. I was tempted to get out my kayak and set it in the backyard for today’s picture. However, (1) it was quite dark outside (2) I’ve already broken a camera by getting water in it, and I didn’t fancy going through that again, and (3) that would not have been a documentary picture. So instead I set up a backcloth on my work bench, enlisted Lanie’s help to arrange her eggs and hold the diffuser while I took a picture of the ‘Camo egg’ she made for me.
I’m not too happy with the lighting on this shot, I’ll have to work out what’s wrong. I suspect I’ve used too much diffused light, even though I tried putting some direct light in from the left to bring up some shadows.
Today’s extras
Lanie’s Easter Eggs 
The backyard slips silently beneath the waves -
Dirty Martini (365:114)
Easter Sunday.
Up early, church, home, long afternoon nap, computer, and finally, dirty martinis.
A sloppy picture deserves a faux Lomo effect.
