More Windows

What's in and what's out? What if every reflection was a glimpse into an alternate universe?

A Study in Windows

Since today's picture (technically yesterday's since I'm usually the next morning posting them) is a window, I thought I'd post a few more from the archives on the theme.

Some you can see right through.

Others are just pretty too look at, like this one in downtown Pittsburgh.

Another Saturday at the Pinwheel

What? You've never seen a yard spinner before? This is what happens when you have a slow exposure. Neat, eh? (Pinwheel)

From the Archives

Since I've posted pictures of Scrappy, I thought it only fair to dig up a picture of my big boy Monroe, who died last August at the age of 12. He was a nosy, people cat, and was always hanging around. I miss him.

I dreamt about him the other night, so I thought it only fitting to mention him here.

Take A Picture, It'll Last Longer

How is this for coolness? My photo (that you'll see below on this blog) actually on the front page of the newspaper in this newspaper box that's outside the post office?! Obviously, I knew my photo was on the front page, I submitted it anyway. But it was still cool to happen by the P.O. and see it shining from the box! Right where everyone can see it!

I'm not sure how else a newspaper box could be photogenic! This one does a halfway decent job!

Roadtrippin'

I took a trip to Floyd, Virginia (www.floydvirginia.com). It's a few miles off the Parkway in the mountains. There is a thriving arts & crafts, and music community there. Local art, pottery, jewelry are featured in almost every store. There are coffee shops, art galleries, book stores. It's quite impressive for a small, mountain, hilltop town. It's location on the Crooked Road Music Trail doesn't hurt.

The Floyd Country Store features a weekly Friday Night Jamboree of local country and bluegrass musicians (check out the video on YouTube). I'm not even into bluegrass, but you can't deny the draw of a bunch of musicians on the street in front of an old country store.
And if the galleries and stores didn't have enough locally made art, there was this old tree stump in someone's yard that just was just screaming, "Take my picture!"

I'll definately be going back to Floyd.

Lettin' It Snow

It almost looks like cherry blossoms blooming! But no, it's our first significant snow of the season, or of several seasons! And it arrived last night! Woohoo!

Smoke on the Water

It looks remarkably like fog drifting in over the lake. Doesn't smell like fog, though. No, it's smoke, and lots of it. Covering the whole county. It has to be left over from Sunday when half the counties in the state reported brush fires. I guess the smoke rose into the clouds and just today started passing over us. And since it was raining, too, the clouds were down near the ground. I'm no meteorologist or anything, but if a cloud of toxic gas from Chernobyl can float around the globe, I guess some smoke from some mountain brush fires can float across Virginia!

Changes is a Song by David Bowie

Hey, all I did was change the name of the blog. Let's face it, even I couldn't spell the old one right, and I never even tried to pronounce it. Live and learn.

So where did Shuttermouse come from? Well, I'm hardly a shutterbug. There are lots of those. I think I'm more unique than that. So I'm a shuttermouse!

From My Front Porch Looking In

I always thought it would be cool to have a home decorated like a Cracker Barrel restaurant. And I've certainly always wanted a general store like the store in those places. Oh, and lets not forget the huge front porch filled with rocking chairs. But for the time being, I have to be content to eat there and peruse the walls (like above) looking for cool, old stuff.

Home, Home on the Range

And then, there are just the crazy-ass things you see on the side of the road. I might expect to see a herd of buffalo grazing along the roadside if I were tooling down roads in the Great Plains. But southern Virginia? We're strictly domesticated cow territory. And that's only in addition to everyone's tobacco fields. But let's not forget my real connection... they are my alma mater's mascot! So no one was more surprised than me to find my very own "thundering herd" just a few miles up the road from where I live.

Bright Lights Big City

Here is another photo from the Archives. It combines two of my favorite things in photograpy: night shots and city scapes. This is the Hyatt in Indianapolis. Or at least it was the Hyatt at the time this picture was taken. I guess I could try to convince you I took this picture when the UFO landed on the roof, but that's really a revolving restaurant. We were taught in photography class to look for angles and patterns. This shot has both.

Scrappy Do Where Are You?

No, there probably won't end up being huge amounts of Scrappy pictures on the blog. He's not really around enough to be a photo victim very often. Although the past few days, he's come around more than usual. Here I caught him guarding the porch, which is something his predecessor Monroe used to do. I found Scrappy as a kitten at the dumpster about a year and a half ago. He bore such a striking resemblence to Monroe that I just HAD to bring him home. The two co-existed, not so peacefully, until last August, when Monroe died (he was 12 and it was probably the hottest day of the year. I miss that cat!) Now it's just Scrappy and he doesn't understand he has to be buds with me like Monroe was. He's very skittish and doesn't like people, isn't curious like Monroe was, doesn't realize he "belongs" to someone like Monroe did! And he totally REFUSES to pose for pictures like Monroe would. Oh well... what can ya do?

I Saw Red

Trekked to Raleigh and tried a new restaurant. The bathroom, the artwork, the name... all pretty cool. The food... not so much. It was the Twisted Fork at Triangle Town Centre and the restroom was seriously cool (see pic!) They had a weird citrus-sy sauce for their seared tuna (I've been trying every restaurant's seared tuna lately. So far, Outback is winning!) and their asian cole slaw was a little heavy on the peanut oil. Plus the booths were funky. Probably won't go back.

And then there's the Scrapster, who showed up on the porch yesterday morning sopping wet. I thought cats were smart enough to get out of the rain. He's highly photogenic if you do it while he's awaiting food. Otherwise, eh, he can take it or leave it. He usually leaves it! As my friend Becky pointed out, he doesn't hang around much because he knows he'll get his balls cut off! ha! So maybe he's smarter than he looks!