Dad, The Family Man

Yesterday, I sent out two pleas to my family... read my blog and send me pictures.

Early on, I said I'd be getting back to my dad later... I know there will be many laters.

One of my brothers sent me this photo... which pretty well defines Dad (and there isn't even a car in it!)

Thanks Bro...

Omegadotter Sunday Brunch

A day or two ago, Omegamom and Omegadotter purchased a mini-waffle maker.  At the time, I thought "Wow, cute".

A little while ago, Omegadotter made all of us waffles, bacon, and eggs...

I assembled mine into a sandwich... and it is better than any tomato sandwich I've ever had.  I'm currently thinking "WOW... awesome!"

You done good, Kid.

Oh brother....

When I graduated from high school, my little brother, though he was approaching fast, was still shorter than me.

Soon after, he surpassed me in height, and became (another) one of my taller brothers.

So we learned to adjust...

It took us a few years, but we still adjusted.

Family is that way... we morph... we change... we drift apart, come together, drift apart, then come together again.

In the end, we find ourselves right back where we started from... we're family.

Pretty cool, huh?

... 

In a related effort, I ask that my family send me school pictures of ourselves and our sons and daughters and nieces and nephews.  While school pictures don't necessarily capture the essence of who we were at the time, they do capture some of our changes throughout the years, and they bring back memories.  (And yeah, this blog is all about memories.)

Halloween a Decade Ago

Since Halloween is upon us and I have yet to flounder through my boxes for good Halloween pics, I surfed the web to find some of Omegamom's Halloween pics from a decade ago...

Enjoy...

This is America???

I apologize that this one is off-topic...

And I will warn my readers that this short post may offend folks on either end of the political extreme (so sign off now if you are.)

I'm recovering from a flu bug, so I followed the news and learned that on the same day Albuquerque Public Schools prevented a socialist candidate for president from speaking at a local high school while the Bundy's and their kin were let off scott free for occupying a federal institution.

Really?

I am not a Socialist.  Yet I do believe that every American has a constitutional right to speak.

As for the Bundy Bro's, if they had occupied a county courthouse, a state capitol, or (God forbid) the White House, they would have been convicted at the least, shot dead at the worst.

Both instances leave me confused.  I am an American.  I believe that our constitution should bring us together for a common good.

There is a reason that we've been given one mouth and two ears...

Bubbles

Not long after we moved to the Land of Enchantment, Omegamom and Omegadotter took a week off to visit relatives.  I took that time to approach "The Room".  The room contained boxes of books, boxes of old bills, and boxes of assorted keepsakes.  Scattered within these boxes were folders of photos.

I shelved the books.  I looked at each old bill and wandered why we needed decades old electricity stubs. (They got trashed.)  And the photos... well I threw the photos into new boxes without any sort of order.

As I plow through my scanning project, I scan photos in the same order as I boxed them.  None.

I think it's kinda fun... in a single day I can download current photos from my camera then scan pics from long ago.  The surprises are wonderful (and it keeps me from focusing on those damn blue birds.)

These photos are from 2001.  We were visiting Omegamom's brother and family, and we were having fun with kids.  I was shooting with a convenient instamatic, but memories are more important than photographic quality.

As I said, we were having fun...

Forgive me for chopping off my niece's head, but I got her smile and a bubble in action.

Smiles and bubbles can go a long way in life.

I Can Take Good Bird Pictures... Really!

My 'Blue Period" continues to be blue.  No Bluebirds.  No Blue Jays.  And my pics of other birds within our mountaintop community have been less than desirable.

But when I wander away from home, I take pictures like this:

No, I was not way out in the wilds.  I was at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge which is within the confines of the Duke City.  

VdO is one of the nation's first urban wildlife refuges.  A large part of their mission is to teach Urban Folk that Nature Matters!!!

How cool is that?

So this is my shout out to VdO,  Check out their website, and if you're in the area, check out the refuge.

Birds on a Wire

In the old days of exploration and colonization, so called 'naturalists' used a shotgun or a rifle to capture (kill) specimens for museum collection (and their own funding.)  At times, killing off the last bird of a species was a prize.  Extinction didn't matter.  Funding and fame did.

As I continue my hunt for Pinon Jays with a camera, I wish that these folks had put down their guns and done the same.  While I do not claim ethical superiority to these naturalists, many of whom changed our understanding of the natural world, I do wish that they had cameras instead of guns.

My desire to photograph Pinon Jays have continued to be fruitless.  To no avail, I've added Mountain Blue Birds.  I seem to be in my 'blue period'.

Still, I have captured pixels of these common (yet wonderful) birds...

Like this this broad winged hawk:

this junco:

and this pigeon:

Granted, they are 'common' birds.  In the past, Dodos, Passenger Pigeons, Carolina Parakeets and Imperial Woodpeckers were also common.

While I'm not willing to accept the birds that are gone, I am happy to have the birds that are left.

And someday, I'll bag a Pinon Jay with my Nikon.

Time Traveler 2

So my little girl has grown up, and here is a picture from her Freshman Homecoming...

I remember being in High School.  I remember not asking girls to dances because they were out of my league.

These chicks would have been out of any high school boy's league.  I can imagine high school boys wanting to ask them out but stepping back from fear of rejection.

Omegadaughter is smart.  She is beautiful.  She is funny beyond belief.

And I'm sure she's feeling disappointed because she did not have a date for Homecoming.

Forget about it Girl.

Chicks rule, Boys drool.

If you didn't have a date because you are way too totally awesome, then wait. Someday, you will meet someone else who is way too totally awesome.

Then the dance will go on forever.

Community Wise

In the past, Omegamom and I had sworn we'd never live in a gated community with an HOA.

Now we do.

But to put it in perspective, anyone who wanted to drive through our gate could, and all our roads are a dirt-gravel mix.  It isn't exactly you're stereotypical gated community.

Our community consists of retired folks, some of us who wish to be, and a few younger people who just plain like it here.  We are dominantly Republican, equaled out by a good share of people (like us) who are either Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or of other political or non-political affiliations.  We have an email group where we come together with common information, cuss and discuss, fight like hell then come together to help our neighbors.

During a snow storm last winter, our roads and driveways were clogged, and three of us ran out of propane.  The community came together to clear the drifts and driveways.  The community came together to find a propane company willing to brave our icy avenue.  The community was... well... a community.

Currently, we are facing a fall fire season.  This is unusual for us.  Normally, our wildfires come in the spring.  We live in one of the highest wildfire danger areas in the Southwest.

Still, we live in a Fire Wise Community.

We clear brush...

We have a 'fire truck'...

In addition to our email and phone rings, we have a community information system...

We have our version of hydrants...

And, if worse should come to worse, we have an escape route...

These things may not seem like much to people on the outside, but people on the outside would not see the most important thing we have... we have a community. We have people... people that are willing to work past our differences when life matters.

Given our current national and global political differences, I wish that the rest of the world could see that sometimes, the old cliche is true...

It takes a village.

Time Traveller

Tomorrow night, this little girl goes to her Freshman Homecoming Dance:

Tomorrow night, this big girl goes to her Freshman Homecoming Dance:
 

    

I feel like I took the first picture seconds ago, though it has been many years.

I took the second picture last weekend.

Time is weird.  Time is twisted and funky and odd.  How did my beautiful little girl turn into my beautiful big girl?

A Girl and Her Dog

All of my photos are in boxes, neither the boxes nor their contents are in any way organized.  Still, as I go through boxes for my scanning project, I come up with strings of jewels...

These photos are from 2002, about the same time that Omegadaughter entered our lives.

Originally, I had thought of Omegadog as being my dog.  Omegamom was a cat person; I was a dog (and pig and chicken and horse and frog and turtle) person.  I had underestimated both my wife and our dog.

I didn't realize the connection between Omegamom and Omegadog until we lost him. He wasn't my dog. He was her dog, and in a lesser sense my dog.  When we had to have him put down, it broke my heart on many levels.

I miss him, I love her, and I still have boxes of memories to scan through.