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.

Lagerstroemia

pruned
Lagerstroemia, commonly known as crape myrtle or crepe myrtle, is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia and parts of Oceania, cultivated in warmer climates around the world.–wikipedia
30 x1028 px box
March 18, Adrian Higgins at the Washington Post published a column “How to avoid hacking at your crape myrtle this spring“,

The crape myrtle has always brought out the inner butcher in certain people —
there is something about those smooth, sinewy branches that screams “amputate me”.–A. Higgins

q. phellos

willow oak
easing into spring, silhouette of a willow oak leafing out. Sometimes juvenile leaves look like miniature versions of the full grown leaf, that is not the case with the willow oak.

dollar dollar dollar

near Futenma, hiway 81
Dollar General DG, Family Dollar FDO, Dollar Tree DLTR.
Will Dollar Tree be able to fix Family Dollar?
Family Dollar shareholders approved a merger with Dollar Tree instead of rival suitor Dollar General.
Watch out you dollar people, roaring out of the east, the House of 66 cent!
I looked for an SNL skit where a customer complains about his less than a dollar purchase.
Old skit, from the eighties. Search turned up the more recent 39 cent

thunderstorm

grayed out
First rollicking thunderstorm of 2015. Trees stayed connected to the ground but the world more than 15 yards away disappeared behind the rain.
Electricity went away for twelve hours. Can of tuna for dinner.


electric danger sign
Walked the power line for a distance, couldn’t find where it was downed.

where is the light switch?

CHO Mayor Huja silhouette
The City of Charlottesville is a quarter finalist in the Georgetown University Energy Prize, a nationwide competition for small-to-medium sized
communities to compete to win a $5 million grand prize by saving energy.
The Council meets tomorrow afternoon for a budget work session.

While operating 6016 streetlights, the City doesn’t appear to have an IES certified individual (Illuminating Engineering Society) on staff.
Who is in charge of the lighting? Who directs spending in this arena to make sure we get best lighting for dollars spent?
Who knows how many dollars are spent on lighting?
There are forms available to request the addition of streetlights, drop lens, highway-style fixtures, but
no one knows where the light switch is, where the form is to request the removal of lighting.
We submitted a dark-skies petition in 2000 trying to reclaim the night..
Someday…
(read Janis Jaquith’s essay “Turn Off The Lights”)