-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
You’ll always find me in the kitchen at lock-ins (365:113)
You’ll always find me in the kitchen at lock-ins (365:113). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I managed around three hour’s sleep,
which I guess isn’t too bad. I was up at seven fifteen and helping out with breakfast. Before the end of the lock-in we held a short service in the church, and left for home at ten am. Instead of getting a nap, we went shopping, I spent some time at the computer and we had a visit from Dash and Leslie.
At seven pm Lanie and I were back at church for the Easter vigil. Either we didn’t do these back in my days as a choir boy, or the choir never attended, as this was my first. It was a wonderful but long service; we didn’t get home until after nine. At one point I was concerned that Lanie would burn the church down with her candle. That, fortunately turned out to not be the case.
Once the kids were all in their rooms for the night Ginger and I settled down to watch Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. We’re slowly going through all the Star Wars movies in episodic order.
Tomorrow we have another early start for Church and hopefully I’ll get a chance for a nap.
Today’s extras
-
2.25am Youth group lock-in (365:112)
2.25am Youth group lock-in (365:112). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. I was foolish enough to volunteer to chaperon at tonight’s Youth Group lock-in.
I spent most of the day finishing off clearing my hard drive ready to process the wedding pictures I took last week.
At seven pm Lanie and I went to church for the Youth Group lock-in which started with Friday night’s Good Friday service. The lock-in that followed was an enjoyable, tiring, late night. Some of us watched the movie – The Passion of the Christ, there was a less challenging movie available for the others and I honed my dish washing skills; not that they need any honing. By the time I took this photograph I was thinking that maybe we should have brought bed time forward by a couple of hours.
Note: A lot of people taking part in the 365 Days project make sure they take their pictures before twelve midnight each day. I’ve always considered that my day isn’t over until I’ve gone to bed for the night. I have no problem posting this photograph taken after midnight as my previous day’s picture.
-
Slideshow (365:111)
Today I’ve been spring cleaning my PC.
Yesterday I discovered I didn’t have enough free disk space to defrag my hard drive. Today I decided to purge my old photo’ files. It was a bit traumatic and emotionally unsettling going through the pictures, some over forty years old. Having recovered over 20 Gigabytes of disk space, I decided that while I was in a bit of an emotional mess I’d get the projector out and look at some of my slides.
Setting it up was a trial, the screen we have is rather high, so boxes and things were needed to get the projector high enough. The projector also has to be operated by hand because the little rubber belt inside that provides the motive power to remotely change the slides has perished.
We persevered and got it all sorted out. I had a great time going through pictures I’ve probably not looked at in at least ten years, and certainly not since I’ve moved to the US. It was good to be able to share some of the pictures with Ginger and give her a glimpse of my previous life. All in all it was a good night, and I can’t wait to look at the rest of them.
The slides are starting to fade so I need to scan them all, and quite soon. That is going to be a huge job.
Today’s alternate & extra shots
Discussing the slides 
Slideshow 
Curious clouds seen on this afternoon’s school run -
Late night self portrait at the kitchen table (365:110)
Once again I had a plan. Once again, unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
Tonight I had a boys’ night out while the kids were at Youth Group. I was going to take advantage of this and grab my picture with the guys at Ebbets Bar. Unfortunately, there was an ‘event’ at Ebbets, so we went to the Springfield Micro Brewery instead. There were no tables near our booth to rest the camera on, so that idea didn’t work out. I had a great time with the lads. We ought to try and get out more often.
In the end I took this last minute self-portrait sitting at the kitchen table before going to bed. Ginger sort of helped. I say sort of helped because her idea of helping was to keep putting Getzger on the kitchen table in front of me.
Today’s alternate shot
-
Lunch break and ‘phone call – day hike at Busiek (365:109)
Ginger wanted to see the Dogwoods in bloom.
Today we went on a short, three-mile hike on the silver trail at Busiek. About halfway round, we stopped for lunch at a small creek, and I decided to try out my new lightweight hiking tripod. The tripod has a clever design where one of the legs has a ‘V’ profile, which, combined with a Velcro strap, allows the camera to be strapped to a post, pole, or, as in this case, an overhanging branch. It was a bit brave for a first test, with the Nikon left dangling over the creek, but it worked fine.
In the midst of setting the shot up I got a call from the UK, which amused us both, knowing that Stephen (the caller) had no idea that we were in the middle of a hike. Busiek is dissected by Highway 65 with cell ‘phone towers on top of the surrounding hills, so getting a signal here isn’t a problem.
After the hike we popped into a flea market in Ozark, hoping to find a suitable saucepan for the wood burner. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything. Maybe another trip to Bass Pro, or a tour of the local flea markets is called for.
After picking up the kids from school I filled the van with gas – $62! This is getting silly.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
-
Little Sac River, near Willard, Missouri
Little Sac River, near Willard, Missouri. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. You can read about today here.
-
Gary by the Little Sac River (365:108)
Today I went on a short hike,
it may have been short, but it made up for it with the need to bushwhack and climb over and under things.
The day started badly with a flat-ish tire, which delayed getting the kids to school, which meant I was delayed getting out of town to help Loyal check out the fence line on his father-in-law’s farm. There was no trail so we had to bushwhack our way through and negotiate some steep descents clambering over fallen trees along the way. When I got home I found my right leg was covered in blood from thorn scratches.
The north part of the farm ends in 90 foot bluffs down to the Little Sac River, we followed the fence line down a hollow to the river and stopped to take pictures along the way, and I suffered equipment envy at Loyal’s Hasselblad, but at least I don’t have to wet process my pictures. I took today’s self-portrait balancing on a downed tree.
We were accompanied by three dogs, two of which would have looked much more at home as pampered lap dogs, but they were very game and got very wet and muddy. One swam across the river which was running quite fast, and on swimming back got caught in a big pile of washed-up trees and limbs. We can only guess that in rescuing the dog Loyal got into a nest of ticks. He told me later he found over sixty. I only found two – both were having quite a feast though, one on my ankle and one on my backside!
I was treated to lunch and got back to Springfield just in time to pick up the kids from school.
Today’s alternate shot & extras
Little Sac River, near Willard, Missouri. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Little Sac River, near Willard, Missouri. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.
Little Sac River, near Willard, Missouri. Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. -
Gary and Loyal at Christ Episcopal Church (365:107)
Another long day at church.
Amazingly there was no sign of a hangover after all the Jack Daniels and Coke I managed to consume last night, which was just as well, as it was a big day at church today, with the new bishop visiting, Palm Sunday, and confirmations.
Alek and Lanie helped with the reading at the nine a.m. service, and then all the family except for yours truly was stood down for a well-earned rest. I stayed for the eleven O’clock service to sponsor Loyal in his confirmation. Today’s picture was a quick Arm’s length self-portrait with Loyal after the service. I should have anticipated that he was going to wear uniform, so I was a rather shabbily dressed sponsor with no tie and wearing flip-flops. At least it was my ‘dress’ flip-flops.
I also cheated on this picture – which is a composite of two images, I hope you can’t see the join. Loyal’s pose in the this shot was great, but mine was marred by a huge reflection in one of the lenses of my glasses. I was going to try cloning it out, but I noticed I’d hardly moved between the two shots I’d taken, so I was able to composite my face back into this shot. Oh the wonders of Photoshop.
I spent a lazy afternoon, the highlight of which was testing my latest wood-burning stove for the first time. Initial results are promising, though I’m having a bit of trouble getting it to start evenly. An adjustment to the air jets (that is sticking in a screwdriver in the holes and bending them) helped the wood gas burn, and I got around thirty minutes of burn time from one load. The burner might benefit from larger air intake holes. More experimentation is required.
-
Beauty and the (out of focus) beast (365:106)
I had a self-portrait planned for today.
It involved putting the camera on the tripod, gathering the family, and taking a picture with Dash and Leslie. The plan was fine, the execution impossible, I was just too busy taking the wedding pictures to fit it in. I’m lucky I got one at all, as I took two shots and this is the fairly heavily edited best of the pair.
Not to worry though, the day wasn’t about my project, and I got some superb pictures though this is probably the only sneak preview I’ll show. With over 500 pictures it’s going to take a while to do the processing. The F2.8 70mm-200mm lens was an absolute godsend and made all the difference on the shots of the ceremony.
Unbeknown to me the architect of the church sat in on the wedding – I even got a picture of him. I wish I’d known as I would have asked who designed the sanctuary lighting and hopefully prevented the future use of sodium lights in up-lighters in an area where ambient light photography is required.
Lanie, Katie and Alek all did a super job, and Ginger was great, pointing out shots I might otherwise have missed, holding and directing the flashgun, positioning the reflector and passing equipment to me. It was a long and tiring day, and I promptly fell asleep once we got home. Not for too long though, as a barbecue and several Jack Daniels and Coke with the parents of the groom, Tom and Rebbie beckoned.
-
Batch-loaded, inverted down-draft gassifier wood stove (365:105)
I spent some more time in the workshop today.
First thing today we ran a load of errands, then I settled down to work on my Mark II wood stove for backpacking. I can’t wait to give it a try, though I’m busy for a few days so it’ll have to keep.
In the evening we went to the wedding rehearsal for Saturday’s wedding. I had to re-think my planned shots of the ceremony as Leslie (the bride), as is her right, has had the altar moved and a couple of huge candelabras brought in. She is also having all the groomsmen and bridesmaids arranged around her during the ceremony, which cut off all my pre-planned sight-lines. It didn’t take long to work out some new positions for the pictures, though the sodium lighting is still a problem, and will require that I convert most of the shots to black and white (I can’t use the flash during the ceremony). The (huge) 70mm-200mm F2.8 lens with stabilizer I’m picking up tomorrow is really going to make a difference over my F3.5-F5.6 kit lens which really can’t cope with these conditions. After the rehearsal, we were treated to dinner (thanks Tom & Rebbie!).
We have a busy weekend ahead for all of us. Saturday at the wedding Lanie is a flower girl, Alek is looking after the parking lot and Katie is a ‘greeter’; I’m taking pictures and Ginger is acting as photographer’s assistant. Once the wedding is over we have a barbecue at Tom and Rebbie’s to look forward to. Sunday is Palm Sunday, and the new bishop is making his first visit to Christ Episcopal Church. Lanie and Alek are taking part in the reading, and I’m supporting a friend who is being confirmed, which means I’ll be attending two services. I suspect Sunday afternoon and a nap will be very welcome when it comes around.
-
Hair cut (365:104)
Hair cut (365:104). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. It’s Thursday and this isn’t a picture of me studying.
Just a quick picture of my cut hair on the floor, before I settled down studying for the day. At class this evening we took some time out to go down to the hospital to see our classmate John.
-
Laying down in my kayak isn’t too difficult (365:103)
Laying down in my kayak isn’t too difficult (365:103). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. On the other hand, getting up again is quite a struggle.
With the long open cockpit at least I can lay down and enjoy the sunshine, something I couldn’t do in a closed cockpit design. Not that it makes for a particularly good (or flattering) picture, but it sums up our day on Fellows lake quite nicely. In fact, thinking about it, this picture probably represents an all time low in this year’s 365. However, it is the only picture I’ve got for today.
We loaded up the kayaks before the school run, dropped the big kids off at school, grabbed an egg McMuffin, and were out on the lake by eight-thirty. Our plan, duly exercised, was to take advantage of the lake being relatively full and embark upon a ‘furthest South’ expedition. We managed to get a fair way up a small creek that feeds into south running arm of Fellows, far enough to be able to see traffic on the road that runs to the south of the lake. We had to do the water-based equivalent of bushwhacking to get out. In the process, I found a snagged lure, which is small recompense for the two I’ve lost over the past couple of days.
While fishing I was surprised when my cell ‘phone started ringing, this was totally unexpected, (a) because I was convinced I’d left it at home and (b) because it was sealed inside the ammo box. Obviously my ammo box while metal, doesn’t make for a very good Faraday Cage.
The fishing wasn’t a success, it seems that like the fish in Stockton yesterday, the fish here have turned vegetarian too. Unlike Stockton though, at least there were fish to be seen, even if they didn’t like the looks of all the various lures I threw at them. I finally gave up on the fishing and we spent the rest of our time at the lake paddling around and just sitting drifting on the wind in the sunshine.
Being a Wednesday in the evening we took the kids to church for Youth Group, and I attended the last of the Lent classes while Ginger joined the Moms’ Group.
The bad news from the guys at church was that my EFM classmate John who was taken into hospital on Sunday has had his diagnosis of cancer confirmed. Not good. It made me count the blessings of my day and my life, in general, all the more.
Today’s extras
Ginger Exploring a creek at Fellows Lake 
The kayaking equivalent of bushwhacking on Fellows Lake -
Running repairs (365:102)
Running repairs (365:102). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved. Today Tom and I went fishing on Stockton Lake.
It was a return match picking up from yesterday on Table Rock Lake. The weather was great and the lake as flat as a millpond. It was surprising how far behind Table Rock Lake spring is at Stockton. The weather might have been glorious, the fishing though was a repeat of last Friday on Fellow’s lake. Not a sausage. The fish at Stockton must have turned vegetarian over the winter. Well, that’s my excuse. Tom did manage catch one fish – just to bring our two day total to a draw of five fish each. The going was so poor we gave up early and came home.
This afternoon Ginger and I cleared up all the bags of leaves with a couple of runs to the recycling center. We’re taking the Kayaks out tomorrow – Fellows Lake again, our last visit before our registration expires, so I did a bit of fishing tackle maintenance, which is where today’s picture comes in. I thought I’d taken enough pictures of lakes and such for a while, so will have to do.
On a more somber note, I checked my e-mail for the first time in a few days tonight and discovered that one of my EFM classmates, John, was taken into hospital on Sunday, with a possible diagnosis of cancer. I like John a lot, he’s a very thoughtful and kind person. Here’s hoping for the best for him and his family.
