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 catches my attention, what I’ve been thinking, doing, or piques my interest. Currently that’s mainly backpacking and clearing some of the backlog on my ‘honey-do’ list.
Popular pages
Trending longer content.
My favorite pictures and posts
A dozen pictures, picked at random from all my favorite pictures and posts. You can see my top favorites here.
Curtain — Netherwood Hotel & Spa
Waiting for the trash man (365:292)
Still Life
Bell Mountain. View to the east
Ginger and Gary’s Wedding day
Blessing of the Animals #1
A fleeting burst of sunshine
Sunset – Cedar Ridge, Stockton Lake, Missouri
Thanksgiving day with the family (365:328)
Eleven Point River view from my campsite — looking north
Day Four — Misty, damp morning
Reflections in the pool below the shut-ins
Recent Posts
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Final preparations (365:077)
Final preparations (365:077). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today we did a lot of running around.
Tomorrow we take the the kids to St Louis and put them on the train to Chicago to spend spring break with their father. We, on the other hand, are going backpacking and camping for the week. With temperatures predicted from 30°F-80°F we have lots of different options to cater for. Earlier I made a new pair of huaraches for the hike, this time with a textured foot-bed, it’ll be interesting to see if this pair work better in the wet.
My last task before turning in was to fit new lanyards to my knife and compass.
Today’s alternate shot
18 March 2011. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Gary checking the tyre pressure (365:076)
Gary checking the tyre pressure (365:076). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I had a busy day planned,
and so it turned out. It started with preparing the accounts paperwork for posting to the UK. We then went shopping to get food for tonight’s EFM class; it’s my turn to provide the evening meal. My original idea was to make a proper English shepherds’ pie, but the time spent struggling with the accounts yesterday had prevented me from doing my reading for tonight. Ginger was very nice and volunteered to make chicken soup while I did my reading. Before settling down to do the afore-mentioned reading I checked the air pressure in the van’s tyres, That’s the second tyre pressure checking picture I’ve taken this year.
Taking today’s shot took much longer than I anticipated because the Nikon gave up focusing again. I got round the problem by switching over to manual focus, totally un-focusing it, and then putting it back to autofocus. This worked, but of course I didn’t find out it wasn’t focusing until after I took my first set of shots, had removed the camera from the scene and chimped the pictures.
My plan was to take a ‘honest shot’ with the remote in full view as my shot for today, but I decided to go with this picture instead.
The rest of the afternoon was spent studying, and at five I went off to class. I got in shortly after nine, having stopped on the way home to fill up with exorbitantly priced fuel ($3.23 per US gallon). We watched a movie – The other Man. It’s now horribly late and I ought to stop typing and go to bed.
Today’s alternate shot
Gary checking the tyre pressure. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Petting Sprinky (365:075)
Petting Sprinky (365:075) Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today was a little frustrating.
I got my feedback on the business accounts, just a couple of simple changes to make, and then they’ll be ready to submit. That was the theory. The practice was different. Six hours later I was still struggling with the accounts software, unable to bend it to my will. I had trouble keeping track of all the different ways I tried to get the accounts package to do what it is supposed to do, and after each failed attempt I reloaded a back-up and started again.
Checking on the Internet I discovered I wasn’t alone in hitting this problem, though the solutions offered were perfunctory and used unfathomable accounting jargon that was way beyond my ken. Finally the year end figures are correct in the accounting software, though I had to resort to spreadsheets to make the changes to the figures for the submitted accounts.
Once I’d finished and sent off the amended documents for a final check back in the UK we settled down for a glass of wine, conversation, and cat petting, which is where today’s picture comes in.
Sprinky, featured in today’s picture, is one of our two Maine Coons, while a very scaredy cat she is also very friendly. Often too friendly, asking me to pet her while I’m busy with other things. Most mornings she comes and says hello before settling down to sleep the morning away at the foot of the bed.
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Something Spicy at Mama Jean’s (365:074)
Something Spicy at Mama Jean’s (365:074). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. The black caterpillar thing must go.
I bought a seat belt protector for my messenger bag. The idea is to spread the load and stop the strap from sliding off my shoulder. Seeing it in this picture I think I’ll ask Ginger if she can make something a little more restrained and less conspicuous from it.
This morning I finished the business accounts and e-mailed them to the company secretary in the UK for checking. Hopefully everything is fine and I’ll be able to submit them this week in plenty of time.
After the school run Ginger and I dropped Katie off to work out at the gym while we went off and exercised my wallet in what I normally refer to as ‘Norma Jean’s’ the local grains, organic veggies and health food shop – their official moniker is ‘Mama Jean’s’ but I really can’t get on with the American ‘mama’ and ‘mom’ thing. The latter remains a word I can’t get my Brit lips around to the extent that when referring to Ginger with the kids, I resort to calling her ‘your mother’.
We must have bought at least 40lbs of various grains and dried fruits. The majority of which will go into our home made breakfast cereal, though some of it will be used for backpacking meals. Having virtually emptied the grain bins and my sneaking in a quick SP among the spices, we left Norma’s, collected Katie from the gym and finished our excursion out with shopping at Walmart.
I ought to mention that Carol gave us a dehydrator Sunday. It’s been going almost 24×7 ever since; drying out various foods to produce nutritious but light grub for our backpacks. This going to be so much better than lugging around tins or sachets of chicken and tuna.
Looking at this picture, and considering the only post-processing required was a tiny bit of brightening (my fault I’d left the EV set at -1/3) and a small amount of sharpening, I am once more impressed at how well (and frequently better) my little Fuji FinePix compares to my Nikon DSLR. The battery lasts a lot longer too – Which was why I didn’t have the Nikon with me. A single charge is currently lasting about 100 shots on the Nikon.
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Annual Accounts (365:073)
Annual Accounts (365:073). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today the procrastination ended.
After a slowish start, I spent most of the day working on my business accounts. Once I had started I stopped only for the school run and dinner. By ten pm I’d almost slain this particular dragon. I’ll only need a couple of hours tomorrow to iron out a couple of wrinkles.
Four years ago
Annual Returns, Accounts and Invoicing – Oh My! (365: 85) – Some things never change – Annual Accounts 2007. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Self Portrait at Natalie Anne’s Christening (365:072)
This morning I was temporarily a Lutheran.
The only thing on the agenda today was to go to Natalie Anne’s Christening, and afterwards, take some pictures, and enjoy a get to together with Betsy, Matt, and the family.
When we got home I crammed in my Sunday nap, and since dinner I’ve been processing pictures. I think I have enough nice ones to keep me happy. There are lots more still to process, but they will have to wait for another day.
Today’s extras
Betsy and Natalie 
Natalie Anne’s Christening 
Susan and Natalie 
Katie and Natalie -
Drinking a beer at Tom & Rebbie’s (365:071)
Tonight I drank a beer or two (365:071) Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Tonight I drank a beer or two.
I spent most of the day variously doing my accounts and studiously avoiding doing my accounts. Fortunately, I had an even better distraction this evening, as we’d been invited to spend the evening with Tom, Rebbie, Dash and Leslie. Much to Tom and Dash’s relief I managed to get my self-portrait taken without involving them in the process.
I left the camera’s remote shutter release at home so this was the only picture I took, I couldn’t be bothered to get up and reset the timer for a second shot.
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New tent (365:70)
New Tent. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today, we set up our latest tent in the backyard. We’ve bought a Sierra Designs Lightning XT 1 one man tent to take one of the kids backpacking with us. It also allows one of us to go solo backpacking if we want, and I have a trip planned, hopefully later this month.
Ginger and I set it up this morning before Ginger went off with fellow Flickrite Rebbie for a girls’ day out. Once they’d gone, I re-set the tent and fixed a few problems we’d encountered, though the top of the fly at the back was still floppy. Having done that, I retrieved my pack, sleeping bag, and pad from the shed, tried the tent out for size, and took today’s picture.
The rest of the day was disappointingly unproductive. I spent a lot of time with Internet searches to try and see if there was any solution to the tent’s floppy flysheet and drew a blank. I then spent my time processing pictures and getting them ready to upload. Now I just need to finish that job and go to bed.
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Gary testing the new tent
Gary testing the new tent. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Gary crossing Woods Fork at Busiek (365:069)
Gary crossing Woods Fork at Busiek (365:069). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Time for another hike.
We’re getting ready for a longer backpacking trip, so we need to get in as much hiking as we can in preparation for several days of carrying our packs. We did a fairly short four and a half mile hike in the morning around the yellow and red trails at Busiek State Park and Wildlife Area. We used the south trail head, which appears to see very little traffic.
After the problems I had with my huaraches on Monday, I tried lacing them more tightly and they stayed in place with less slipping, again the trail was wet and very muddy in places, though this time we only had to cross the creek (Woods Fork) twice. Today’s picture shows me re-enacting my valiant first crossing of the creek. We heard the sound of falling water and left the trail to investigate, finding a very nice set of small waterfalls on a ephemeral creek about 100 feet off the trail. From there we had to do a bit of back tracking to retrieve my sunglasses, which I’d left at the creek when I took them off to set up the camera for today’s shot.
We stopped for a bite of lunch and a short rest on a lovely gravel bank near our second Wood’s Fork crossing, where Ginger looked for fossils.
Once back to the car, we had to dash into Springfield, pick-up kids, return the rental car, pick up the van, and I went off to my class. It would have been an excellent night at class only partway through I realised that I’d read the wrong lesson the previous night. That’ll teach me to do my work late in the evening, though the van breaking down did throw me out a bit I should have double-checked the lesson.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
The trails at Busiek are typical of the rough trails that can be found in the Ozarks, lots of loose sharp rocks. As horses use the trails at Busiek they are rougher than they’d be if there was foot traffic only. It’s not a problem, but it certainly makes the trails more challenging. 
Ephemeral creek and falls at Busiek 
Ginger checking out the creek 
Woods Fork, Busiek State Park and Wildlife Area
