Hello. My Name is Sandy.

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.

Comments

[Erik Rubright]

Welcome back....

[Jim]

Life is just full of little surprises, isn't it? And you're right, middle-age ain't bad at all. Good to see you're back. Congrats on your music director post :)

[Kevin-Andrew]

Yay, welcome back!

[John]

Another post from you finally! Yay!

[mykel]

hello mister! thinkin of you. xx and hugs to you on your travels.