Dear Blog,
First things first. I am back. Damn, there's lots to tell.
I regret having put you on the rear burner for so long, but when you hear of some of my parochial goings-on, you might understand the crunch.
In any event, I have returned. In some ways, I am a changed man by the "transpirings" of the past month. I have learned a great deal about myself, and with the devotion and support of my partner and son, I have come to realize that middle-age ain't so bad. You never stop learning. You never stop trying. You never stop crying. And you never stop laughing. Nope, not so bad at all.
I know there challenges and hardships directly ahead of me, the foremost being the reality of an extremely ill father and the separation from partner and son (again) for months at a time. There are also happy challenges, such as taking up the post of music director for a wonderful chamber choir in Sydney, about which you will hear much more in the near future.
During my retransition into the wonderful world of weblogging, I think it's fitting to return to my blog-roots and engage in some camera play.
The gibbous moon of recent nights has provided ample opportunity to play with my Canon Ixus's shutter settings. I am by no means a photographer, and to be honest, the manual makes my head spin. Armed with very general principles in mind, I tend to futz with the settings and experiment. The problem is that I usually don't remember what was effective or had any real artistic merit. Serendipity as art.
While playing with the shutter settings, I set the camera with a 15" shutter and no flash, mounted it on my new bendy tripod and assumed a silly position by the pool. Martha, intent on stealing the spotlight, came over and hammed for the camera. I shooed her away, but the images still made their way through the lens, something you don't notice until the Auto-Enhance feature is used to turn night into day.
Now I know how hoaxes are constructed.
