Out With the Old, In With the Older

This one is long, long overdue, but the thought didn’t occur to me until today, so, here it is.

Anyone who was reading when I was out and about last Fall will recall my home away from home, The Mighty Kia.  (Here’s a recap for those just joining us)

As I was starting my westward sojourn, I expressed more than a little trepidation about executing such a trip with such questionable transportation. Nine years old. Over 100K. Kia. Not an ideal choice of equipment for traversing a continent. My concerns were both totally unjustified and completely justified. They were unjustified in that despite some issues, the crazy thing did get me there and back.   But as it turns out, doing so was basically the car’s last full measure of devotion.  It got me back, but only just.   Before the trip, it was in pretty rough shape.  Afterwards, it was waddling on last tentacle.

The muffler had developed a hole and was being held on in large part with  a 99¢ U-bracket bought at an Idaho hardware store. The front bumper  was being held on with zip ties.  The four wheel drive stopped working at some point. It kind of smelled bad.  But most troublesomely, after wheezing and convulsing up and down mountain highways in Montana and British Columbia, not to mention getting stuck in the sand on a Northern California beach, the transmission was starting to slip badly.

This last was a major problem, because without four wheel drive and snow coming… Well.  Before long, I found myself with a car that was something decidedly less than mighty. After getting stuck in the snow several times, the transmission was burned up completely could only engage in reverse.  (This made for an interesting trip home that night.)

So, with a car not worth fixing in one hand and extremely tight finances in the other, I did the only thing I could do.  I junked the car, opened up Firefox, sashayed over to Craigslist, set the max price to $500, clicked “Search”, and ended up with this:

A Belated Recap

So way back in back in April, I headed down to Columbus for the 2009 Creekside Blues and Jazz festival.  I’d never been to a blues and jazz festival, and my dad had decided to foot the bill, so good times had by all (except my dad’s pocket book). Unfortunately, I have little to know knowledge of or experience in music, so I can’t comment much on the aural particulars.  I did however take the camera along for the ride, and got out of the old folding chair for a handful of acts to bone up on my action photography skills.

So here, in reverse-chronological order (’cause sometimes I roll that way), are some of the photos from the day:

First (last) up is Jimi Vincent of The Jimi Vincent Band. This guy is so photogenic that I probably could have hit the shutter button sneezing and got a pretty decent shot.

He was, how do you say?...ROCKING OUT!

A Quick Buzz Through Yellow Springs

This one’s a quickie.

A while back, I had occasion to drive down to Dayton.  Because of my vehicular situation (the subject of a later post),  I basically can’t drive on the interstate for an extended length of time with any confidence that it won’t end in tears.  As such, a drive to Dayton no longer means a seamless jaunt down 75, but rather a slog down the backroads and byways.  This means that I end up driving through the village of Yellow Springs.

I’m not sure what I can say about Yellow Springs that hasn’t already been said.  Some people are described as “being their own person.”  Yellow Springs is like that.  As a town, it has a certain affinity for a certain free wheeling decade, a certain summer of love.  It’s kind of like The Land that Time Forgot, only with hippies instead of dinosaurs.

There’s an entire store devoted to Tie-Dye.  The local theater was at one point showing Monty Python and the Search for the Holly Grail.  According to legend, one of the restaurants once used a certain easy going herb as a pizza topping.  Hemp is everywhere.  Shoes are purely optional.  Basically, there is no shortage if things to titillate my appreciation of the ridiculous.

At some point, I’m going to have to head down there and make a day of it.  Alas, this is not that post.  Rather, I was expecting to just pass through quietly.  However, on that particular day, there was some manner of street fair/festival going on.  I’m not entirely sure if this was an annual event type of thing or just something they all decided to do that weekend.  Either way, I parked the truck and snapped a few pictures.

Ha Ha Pizza, made somewhat famous in Dave Chappelle's Block Party

My Life in Purgatory

Right.  Well.  It’s been a while since I last posted anything.  I haven’t been dead, but I haven’t been all that lively either.  That fact that I’ve been doing so little of interest day-to-day lately may be part of the reason I haven’t been champing at the bit to post anything.  However, I have to admit that at the base of it, I’ve been being That Guy. You know the one.   The one with a readership-of-one blog that almost never posts, and when he does, it’s to apologize for the lack of posts.  I hate that guy.  And that guy is me.

Time to try and hate myself a bit less.

I’ve got a couple of hopefully worthwhile posts simmering, but for now, all I’ve got is a smattering of Random Ohioishness:

First off, while wandering around Odd Lots a while back, I spotted a most unfortunately named product:

Because sometimes I just need to get my hands on a nice milky muffin top.

For those  (blissfully) unaware of why this is funny, (which apparently includes the team of crack brand managers at Malt-O-Meal), I’ve drawn up the following diagram for clarification:

You are what you eat?

About the Hinterland

Early last month, I got on the bike and wandered around the county a bit.  If you wander around Wood County for more than a few minutes, you’ll soon find yourself neck deep in a thick swill of rural expanse.  There are interesting things to look at here and there, more than you might expect at any rate.

Railroad crossing on Ridge Line Road

I Got Winter Wonderland in Your Early Spring

In late January, we got our last dollop of snow for the season.  A few days later the sun came out and photojinks ensued.

Snowforms in and around town:

Around the House a Bit

With little of photographic interest going on outside, my focuse started wandering around the house over the course of a couple days.

There are two street lamps across the street from my bedroom. During the night, they shine through the window and create a nice set of anti-shadows* on the far wall.

Creepyliscious

Around Town a Bit

On a sunny day in January, I took my camera with me as I went to pay rent.   I found a few photos laying around.

I have a continuing fascination with shadows.

Ice Storm

Once or twice a year, we have a decent ice storm in these parts.  This year’s came mid-late December.  I had been waiting for a sunny day for maximum shenanigans, but it never came, so I had to make due.

More Hand Service

Right, well, the whole “post a day” thing didn’t exactly pan out.  Like the man said, there’s no time like the present to put off for tomorro what you could do today.  Or something like that.  At any rate, I’m going to see how many posts I can crank out tonight.

There is a cluster of dirt roads just Northeast of town that I’ve found have a bit of a gravitational pull on me.  I’ve often ended up running or biking in this general direction when I haven’t had a route in mind.   I think it’s because there is no quicker route to the middle of nowhere I’ve ever found.  It only takes a few minutes to get there, but once in the area’s desolate bosom, you may as well be in purgatory.  I find something fascinating in such rapid changeovers.

I had been meaning to see if I could find a few photos over there for a while, so back in December, I fished out my camera, fired up the Mighty Kia, and wandered over.