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Antibiotic (365:143)
Antibiotic (365:143) Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. The wonders of hindsight enable me to declare this ‘the week of the digit’. It also enables me to declare this the week of extreme photographic, and probably documentary apathy. There’s a chance it might end up being only four days of digits and not a week. We’ll see.
Today we had lunch with Jim and Carol (missed Photo op). This evening I took the last of my antibiotics. Hardly an event worthy of a picture, but that’s all I’ve got.
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Sunday night movie (365:142)
Sunday night movie (365:142). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. It was another day of missed photo opportunities and a sobering reminder of the fragility of our existence.
I left Ginger and Katie at home, fast asleep and went to the 9 am service. With the children’s choir away I figured attendance would be low. I was right, it was so low there were no ushers, so my friend Edna and I stepped up to the plate (so to speak) with the ushing. This constituted my first missed photo opportunity of the day. I’m sure I could have snuck a quick picture of the pair of us stuck at the back of the church without attracting too much attention.
Back home after church, Ginger took the stitches out of my thumb and finger (another potential picture). It wasn’t quite the success I was hoping for, as within minutes my thumb was bleeding and the wound started to gape a bit. Butterfly closures pulled it back together again though I think we’ve managed to increase any scarring.
I was back at church just after twelve to collect Lanie on her return from the choir trip. That was another picture opportunity missed.
Later in the afternoon I took Katie to the mall parking lot to drive around, yet another chance for a photograph lost. Katie drove around the lot for over an hour. I then took her to try some of the quieter roads near our house, returning home just before six.
By the time we got home there was a tornado watch in place, and the sky was getting really dark. We spent a lot of time watching the radar as a big storm moved in towards Springfield from the west. Outside you could hear the constant rumble and roar of it even though it was over forty miles away. It wasn’t long before we started to see messages on Facebook and Twitter reporting a tornado devastating Joplin some sixty miles to the west. As I write this (Monday pm) the death toll is up to 116, and I fear that may not be the end of it.
In the UK sixty miles is a long way away. From where I lived, sixty miles would see you in France. Something happening that far away would not have the relevance and impact it does here in the midwest, where sixty miles is just down the road; you feel connected with the people affected. You know people with friends and family there. There’s even a chance that some debris from such a storm will end up in your backyard. There are already sites set up to try and reunite people with the missing documents, letters, and photographs scattered in the wind.
A combination of the topography of the Ozark hills and the rotation of the weather system took the worst of the storm to the south of us. Which was good as we don’t have a shelter – just the hall closet which is reserved for the cats and Lanie’s closet which is reserved for us people. Looking at how the buildings were flattened in Joplin it looks like it’d be pretty hard to survive a hit like that in a closet, which naturally makes one stop and think.
As the storm cleared over Springfield we were treated to a spectacular rainbow, some very strange yellow light, similar to the light we encountered on our last brush with a tornado while backpacking back in December. Another chance for a picture missed.
We ended the day watching the movie Thank you for Smoking, which contrary to our expectations was good. That’s when I finally got my act together and took today’s self-portrait.
As for the weather, it’s going to be very unstable for the next few days. Lots of storms and rain. Let’s hope that the conditions for tornadoes are unfavorable.
Today’s extras
Yellow light. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. 
So ends a fair day in wrath. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Muddy feet (365:141)
Muddy feet (365:141). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. After yesterday’s rain it was a bit muddy on the Sac River trail today.
But I revel in squelching through mud and splashing through creeks so I had great fun. Ginger and Lanie on the other hand had to dodge the mud and puddles. The colors, especially the greens were very vibrant today. We got back home from a quick four-mile hike just in time for Lanie to grab a shower before I took her down to church to go on an overnight choir trip.
In the evening we booked tickets for our visit to the UK in June, only to find another darned volcano has started spewing forth smoke and such in Iceland. This time last year there was total chaos with the trans-Atlantic flights, let’s hope that it doesn’t become an issue again.
We now need to plan all the people we want to see and the visits we want to make while we’re away. We’re planning on backpacking too which can be a challenge in the UK.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
More muddy feet. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Ginger and Lanie. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Little Sac RiverCopyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Sac River Trail. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Sock puppet (365:140)
Sock puppet (365:140) It was late and I was running out of ideas, so here’s me and the sock I’ve been wearing on my hand at night to stop my stitches getting caught.
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Ginger was out for the day with Rebbie and I spent most of the day idling. However, I did clear a couple of items off of my to-do list. It rained a lot, which here means 1-2 inches in an hour or so, and it kept on raining for quite some time. We are planning on going hiking tomorrow, so that might prove interesting.
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Gary and Ginger being nauseating in the hall (365:139)
Today was the last EFM class for this academic year.
I spent most of the day reading notes and working on the exercise for tonight’s class. I thought I’d take a picture at tonight’s class to mark the end of the year, but we ate dinner first thing and then sat in the parish hall talking and going through this week’s exercise. I was so engrossed in what we were doing I forgot all about the picture. So it’s another ‘late night back against the wall’ effort today.
Ginger tried and succeeded in livening things up a bit for me and I’ve decided to go with the picture of us being nauseating over the more formal pose. I love my wonderful wife.
Alternate shot: Just me -
Clearing up the workshop (365:138)
Clearing up the workshop (365:138) It’s time to clear up the workshop, I had been holding off doing this. Not because I now have an aversion to the workshop, but because clearing up and putting everything away is an admission that my lack of care Sunday means I can’t finish the Backpacking stove project I started. Facing ones own stupidity can be hard at times.
At least the van can now be kept in the garage again. Besides clearing up and putting stuff away, I read some, but not all of the course notes, so I will have to finish them tomorrow.
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This morning my watch stopped. It’s a perpetual mechanical divers’ watch, which relies on movement to wind it up. Obviously, I’ve been keeping my injured arm too still to wind it. I’ve moved my watch over to my right hand where it feels most odd, but it is still going.
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Studying in the back yard (365:137)
Studying in the back yard (365:137) The yard needs to be mowed, we’ll have to get a kid on to it. I had a quiet day studying. It’s my final class for this academic year on Thursday. Lots of reading has been done, just the course notes to read and exercise to get out of the way and I’m finished.
After the recent rain the grass really is that green, stunning. That’s it for today.
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Remain Calm – This is only a drill… (365:136)
Remain Calm – This is only a drill… Copyright © 2010 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This is not today’s picture, it’s a picture I took back in December 2010. But it is very representative, as this is the tee shirt I just had to wear today. Anyway, it amused me. My actual picture for today is at the bottom of this post and shows my cut hand without bandages. It may be gross, but as this is my daily journal I wanted some record of it. You never know it might make me think twice before I do something stupid in the workshop again (I doubt it).
I’ve been very lucky. In fifty-five years, I’ve only been to the emergency room twice and spent one night in a hospital. I managed to avoid the broken bones and major scrapes that often dog childhood. Ginger on the other hand broke an arm and had seventy-two (yes, 72) stitches in her leg. I’ve worked with power tools for over thirty years, and this was my first nasty accident, though I have had a few near misses.
This accident has come as quite a shock. The injury isn’t that bad – it looks a bit gross, yes, and it is dammed inconvenient, but it’s not too bad. However, because this is my first major injury it seems to have been taking a disproportional prominence in my thinking. The fact that it was my own stupidity, rather than an unpredictable accident makes it worse for me. Especially as it didn’t even cross my mind at the time that what I was doing was unsafe. D’oh! As soon as I have enough dexterity back I need to get back out in the workshop and finish off making my burner. Not before I’ve bought some new, even tougher, gloves though. And I’m sure I’ll be clamping down everything in sight before I start work for quite a while to come.
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I spent a lot of the day uploading pictures and I’ve started reading for my final class of this academic year. The final lesson is a double, plus we’ve been given an exercise to do so I’m going to be putting in a lot of hours this week studying.
Come the evening it was time for me to reluctantly remove and replace my bandages. I say me, but I couldn’t do it single-handed, so Ginger had to do most of the fiddling. It didn’t help that I’d bled through the gauze and that had glued the bandage on. It took a long time to soak and pick it off. Today’s picture shows the top of my thumb, where my thumb was sliced through. I didn’t think I’d cut my thumbnail, but a closer look at the picture shows how I’ve very neatly sliced right through it. It doesn’t look too bad until you realize that this is the back of the wound. I cut it all the way through from the front of the thumb. Yuck! This is shown in the second picture, which Ginger took for me.
That’s it. Hopefully, I can get my focus back onto other things now.
I didn’t notice until later that they’d put a stitch through my thumbnail. Makes sense though. 
What makes this really gross is realising that the cut goes all the way through. I was lucky to miss the bone. Photo by Ginger. -
Three x-rays, one tetanus shot and twelve stitches later (365:135)
Three x-rays, one tetanus shot and twelve stitches later (365:135). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Do not try this at home.
It was a fairly normal Sunday, church from 8.30am until around midday. Back at home, I finished processing the outstanding wedding pictures, and then for a break, I decided to work on my Mark III backpacking stove.
Everything was going fine until I decided to drill out the center of the plate that will form the gas burner air jets. I broke a fundamental workshop rule, and instead of clamping down the workpiece, I held it down with my hand. The step drill bit jammed in the workpiece and it proceeded to rotate at 2,000 rpm, I was wearing gloves but they provided no protection from the sharp tin of the plate which sliced into my thumb and middle finger.
Removing my glove it looked pretty bad, so I went to the bathroom to clean things up. Before I could even turn the tap on I’d collected a handful of blood in my spare hand, and I decided this was a hospital job. I wrapped my hand in a small cloth, applied pressure and waited for Ginger to take me to the emergency unit.
I had the presence of mind to try and prevent my getting blood all over the upholstery of the van, so I took a second rag which I used to catch the excess blood dripping from the first rag. Ginger is normally very good with medical emergencies. Not so this time. When we got to the hospital she left me in the van while she went and talked to her cousin who happened to be passing by – she’d forgotten I was unable to open the door. I thought it was funny.
Assuming everything heals as it should, I’ve had a lucky escape. I cut right through my thumb – including the nail, but the cut had gone length-wise, missing the bone (hence the x-rays; to check for bone damage). Ginger took a brief look while the wound was being cleaned, and described me as having a ‘forked thumb’. The most painful part of the whole thing – including slicing my hand was the injection of the pain killers, once they took effect I didn’t feel a thing. I laughed when they stuck a sticking plaster on the spot where they gave me my tetanus shot, it seemed a bit silly while I was dripping blood.
I totally forgot to take a camera to the hospital, and Ginger’s camera decided to die on us (that’s two cameras and one laptop FUBAR at the moment), so I ventured back into the workshop to take today’s picture. In it we have my bandaged fingers, the sliced glove, and sitting innocently in the background the plate I was drilling when the accident happened.
Once the hospital bill comes in, this could end up being one of the most expensive tin-can backpacking stoves ever built. Moral of the story? Always clamp down your workpiece.
Footnote: On the way back from school Monday, Katie told the story of another pupil who had been in the emergency unit for some stitches. She asked the guy sewing her up what was the worst thing he’d seen that day. He went on to tell her about my thumb…
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Late-night Saturday (365:134)
Late-night Saturday (365:134). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Another day processing pictures.
While everyone else went about doing family stuff I stayed put at the computer processing more of the outstanding pictures. I did fairly well, and I ought to be able to finish them tomorrow.
In the morning the kids went to the opticians for eye tests. Two pairs of glasses are now needed, and Lanie went off on a book signing in the afternoon. She, along with some other Springfield children had poems selected to be published. I thought that was pretty neat. Only five kids from her school had their poem picked.
Being busy at the computer all day no real opportunites for a picture arose, so it’s another boring self portrait.
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Walmart veggies section (365:133)
Walmart veggies section (365:133) We started the day with a few yard sales. There wasn’t a lot of useful stuff, but we did find someone with a reasonable taste in DVDs, so we bought a few.
Last night we had a fairly big storm. Big enough to bring down a couple of trees in the area, including our neighbor’s. He was lucky. The tree fell in his yard, taking out his power, but it missed his house.
Tonight before sitting back and watching one of our ‘new’ movies we went shopping in Wal-Mart. High on my list were the essential ingredients for White Russians, which we enjoyed later with the movie Catch me if you can.
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Broken Nikon Lens Mount (365:132)
Broken Nikon Lens Mount (365:132) The good news is that we are spared another ‘Gary studying for EFM’ picture this week. Further good news: when I set up for this picture I decided to show the Nikon’s jammed mirror. I couldn’t get the shutter to fire at first because the battery was too low. After swapping the battery I tried again, and the mirror worked. I can only guess that a bit of plastic from the broken-off lens mount (which can be clearly seen in this picture) had got caught in the mechanism and somehow I’ve dislodged it. I did a thorough check inside but couldn’t find anything.
My day wasn’t a brilliant success though. Earlier on I tried installing Linux on my Netbook. A misunderstanding on my part meant I put Linux on the wrong drive. In trying to format the drive and install the OS on the other drive something has gone wrong and the Linux refuses to install with an obscure error message. The Netbook is currently doing service as a rather large paperweight until I can figure the problem out.
I’m now looking over my shoulder for the third thing to go wrong.
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Gary and a milling machine (365:131)
Gary and a milling machine (365:131).Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today I visited an engineer’s playground.
But not until after I’d spent most of the morning processing pictures. It’s at a time like this I sometimes regret only shooting Raw images. I’m getting there, though another couple of days’ work and it’ll be done.
Ginger’s parents were back in town again today, and they took us for lunch to celebrate Carol’s birthday. After lunch, they had things to do, and I ought to have got some more pictures done, but instead, I fell asleep. They were back later in the afternoon, and Jim and I went off to a fantastic place. It was like an engineer’s yard sale; full of lathes, milling machines, drill presses, drill bits, gears, belts, bearings, motors, hydraulic actuators, compressors, welding equipment and lots of useful metal offcuts. I am very glad my wallet is empty, my workshop is tiny and I stick (generally) to our wanted list because there were loads of cool things to buy. Fortunately, we came away empty-handed. I couldn’t even find a small off-cut of sheet aluminium to make a lid for my backpacking cooking pot, which was the only thing on my list I might have found there.
I may not look that enthused in the picture, but I’d probably just wiped the drool off my chin, and I was most likely trying not to look too pleased with all the wonderful goodies scattered around the place.
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Processing (365:130)
Processing (365:130) I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of a crash, with kitties in the house you get used to it, and I turned over and went back to sleep. I didn’t give it a second thought until Ginger came into the bedroom this morning saying how sorry she was. In her hand was the Nikon, in two pieces. A cat had knocked it over and the lens mount broke off. I had hoped that it was just the lens that got broken, but unfortunately, when I checked the camera body, the mirror is jamming too. Oh well, there’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll have to see if it’s economic to repair.
I spent all day processing wedding pictures there are over two hundred pictures worthy of processing; and a few I think are really nice candid shots.
To round the day off we watched the movie L.A. Confidential.
Had I not checked Facebook before going to bed I would have forgotten to take a picture today, so this is a late night re-enactment of my day spent processing pictures.
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Saké (365:129)
Saké (365:129). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This might be one of the last pictures taken on my Nikon.
More about that tomorrow. Today was a photography day, but not an ‘I went out taking lots of pictures’ day, though lots were taken. I spent most of the day sifting through the recent wedding pictures, then this evening we did a baby shoot to immortalize the latest family addition wearing the family christening gown, which is over one hundred and twenty years old. I now have another 150 pictures to sort through, looking for the 4-5 really good shots that is all I need in among all the duplicates. Babies are such wriggly critters it takes a load of pictures to catch them just right, or maybe it’s just because I’ve not done many baby pictures. More probably it’s because I frighten them.
Had I planned ahead I’d have taken a picture of me taking the baby pictures, I didn’t so I thought of I’d take a picture of Ginger and I enjoying the warmer weather and some end of the evening Saké that Ginger’s parents left with us when they popped in earlier in the day.
This isn’t bad for a three-second exposure.
Today’s extra
A sneak preview – one of today’s shots of Natalie Anne in the 124 year old family Christening gown. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Lighting test (365:128)
One word adequately summarizes my day – Meh.
Church in the morning, where Lanie and other kids received recognition for their service. In Lanie’s case a silver cross for five years in the choir and a certificate of thanks for her work as an Acolyte.
After church I went home and worked for a while; some web development for a customer, and I gave myself an update of the UK’s VAT rules which have changed significantly, with knock-on effects to online purchase processing. It looks like I’ll have to brush up on my php scripting too.
Tomorrow I have a family photoshoot to do, so I set up the lighting & backdrop rig in advance and ran a few test shots – today’s picture numbers among those. We tried to get a picture of the shorn Blue Kitty, but unlike Getzger who was very obliging and sat fairly still, Madame kept running around. I managed to salvage one very poor picture.
Today’s extras
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EFM Retreat (365:127)
Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This week’s EFM class was held on a Saturday
so we got out of the classroom and spent the day in a cabin by the river. It was very nice to sit in the screened porch going through the lessons and exercises; a day of good company, conversation, discussions, food, and coffee. I have really enjoyed this class throughout the year. It’s been challenging, hard work, engaging, highly informative, and we’ve also had some great fun. Thursday nights have become a great anchor point for my week. Unfortunately, we’ve only two more sessions before we break for the summer. I’ll miss the class, my classmates and mentors.
During our mid-morning break I noticed something move out of the corner of my eye and heard a small knock on the front door. On investigating further I discovered a small bird had flown into the door and was laying stunned on the mat. Checking the bird books at home, we found it was a migrant – a Male Wilson’s Warbler. After about twenty minutes it recovered and flew off.Before we finished for the day I explained about my 365 Days project and asked if anyone was willing to be in my daily picture. Everyone was, and this is the result. Thanks Guys!
To get the best out of this picture I would have needed to use a diffuse fill-in flash. I didn’t have the flash gun and diffuser with me (the weight of EFM books was quite enough), so I had to settle for an over exposed background. Had I been thinking I’d have taken a separate background shot with no one in it and merged the two – there’s hindsight for you.
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While I was out being educated Lanie spent the day working the parking lot at Arts Fest with the Youth Group and Katie went with Ginger and they enjoyed some time out in the Kayaks on Lake Springfield. However, the home highlight of the day had to be Ginger, Katie and Lanie shaving Blue Kitty to give her a lion cut. When Blue Kitty eventually comes out of hiding I might try and get a picture.
Today’s extra
Male Wilson’s Warbler -
Studying with cats (365:126)
Studying with cats (365:126). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. This week I did my studying on a Friday.
That’s because the class has been moved from Thursday night to Saturday so we could have a mini-retreat. I had two (long) chapters to get through today so I set aside most of the day to get it done. I started off working in the lounge, when Lanie came home from school she wanted to watch a DVD so I moved to the peace and quiet of the bedroom to finish my studies. The cats also thought this a good idea as shortly afterward they came and joined me. Today’s picture features me (obviously), Tubby, Getzger and Blue Kitty, who was being unnaturally social and at the same time a pain; she was constantly trying to sit on my books.
Earlier in the week while working out ideas for my next backpacking wood stove I thought up a couple of ideas that might improve the current one. When I’d finished preparing for class, I went out and made a couple of modifications and set the stove aside for testing. After dinner we tried it out with great success, bringing a pot containing just under a litre of water to a rolling boil in around fifteen minutes. Result.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
First, two cats turned up… 
With a couple of modifications, the stove now works well. -
At the High School Orchestra concert (365:125)
I give up, I forget what I did today.
I know what I should have been doing, but I can’t remember what it was I did. School run; check. Go to Katie’s concert; check. And very good it was too. I’ve not been to any this year as the concerts always take place on a Thursday when I’m at class. That’s all.
Oh and never try to take pictures with Ginger while children are around. That explains my expression in this picture.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
I was trying to get a picture with Ginger, but somehow the irrepressable Lanie managed to get herself into the shot. 
High School Orchestra concert 
A rather blurry Katie leaves the stage during Hadyn’s Farewell -
Crossing Camp Creek (365:124)
Gary Crossing Camp Creek Today we hiked the white and orange trails at Busiek, only this time we did them backward, starting with the Orange trail and then the White trail. This had the advantage of getting the most of the creek crossings out of the way on the way out instead of on our return. The hike started with an unexpected extra crossing because the bridge across the creek to the shooting range was washed out.
If was a bit cold at first, but the weather was glorious and now everything is starting to go green the colours were wonderful. The trail was very muddy in places, and I had great fun slopping through all the mud in my bare feet while Ginger struggled to keep her shoes dry. I took today’s picture while I was standing in Camp creek washing some of the mud off. We did the six odd miles of the two trails in plenty of time to pick up the big kids from school.
We had an early start at Church this evening. Ginger because she and Lanie are singing with some other mothers and daughters on Mother’s day, and myself for a meeting. Alek helped out in the kitchen. While the kids had youth group the parents spent their time chatting.
We finished the day with Gin and Tonics and the last of the Star Wars prequels – Revenge of the Sith. Thank goodness, now we can watch the good movies in the series.
Today’s extras
