Author: WmX

I stumbled off the track to success in 1968, started chasing shadows that summer. Since then, In addition to farm-laborer and newspaper photographer my occupational incarnations include dishwasher, janitor, retail photo clerk, plumber, HVAC repairman, auto mechanic, CAT scan technologist, computer worker and politico (whatever it takes to buy a camera.) I am on the road to understanding black and white photography.

chairs


this the time of year when smart folk leave town and even smarter ones stay behind to rewrite laws and approve development projects.
These are random empty chairs. Once upon a time there was a guideline at UVA hospital discouraging paintings/photographs from being displayed in the hospital that depicted empty chairs.

closing in

UVA chiller
I briefly worked at UVA hospital. I loved the view. After a 14 hour shift, what was left of me would emerge onto Lee Street. I could look down Lee Street, 120 degrees SE and see Monticello Mountain 3 miles away.

Psalm 121. Levavi oculos. 
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills; from whence cometh my help? 
2 My help cometh even from the LORD, who hath made heaven and earth.

Now, looking down Lee is the 36.5 million dollar chiller approved by UVA’s Board of Visitors three years ago, currently under construction.


This is a work in progress. Once it is all finished the landscape and architecture magicians on UVA’s staff will possibly render it beautiful.

quercus macrocarpa

The leaves are 7–15 cm (3–6 in) long and 5–13 cm (2–5 in) broad, variable in shape, with a lobed margin. Most often, the basal 60% is narrower and deeply lobed, while the apical 40% is wider and has shallow lobes or large teeth. The flowers are greenish-yellow catkins, produced in the spring. The acorns are very large, 2–5 cm (0.8–2 in) long and 2–4 cm (0.8-1.5 in) broad, having a large cup that wraps much of the way around the nut, with large overlapping scales and often a fringe at the edge of the cup.–Wikipedia

Bur oaks bear seed up to an age of 400 years, older than reported for any other American oak. The minimum seed-bearing age is about 35 years, and the optimum is 75 to 150 years (5,16). Silvics Manual Volume 2. Hardwoods. USDA

defying expectations.

art thievery


Potential source of injury, 1/2″ emt, capped with protective doll heads.


Doll heads were judged too valuable, replaced with tennis balls.
Tennis balls were stolen by pedestrians, the very class of people they were intended to protect.

nineteen

albemarle square lone shade tree
It was a Republican president who drove the largest expansion of parkland ever (YAY! TR! Teddy!). It was a Republican who started up the EPA.

How many Republicans can you fit under a single tree in a parking lot? At least nineteen.

When did it become a bad thing in the Republican mind to be an environmentalist?

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the U.S. federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.– Wikipedia

80% chance of politics


Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Thomas Cuccinelli II is the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia.


The Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Earl Walker Jackson Sr


Senator Ralph Shearer Northam, MD, a candidate for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary June 11
The democrats met at the Vinegar Hill Cafe in the rehabilitated Jefferson School in Charlottesville. The republicans met in a parking lot on the east side of their Albemarle County HQ, a building that appears to have formerly been a bank.