PotD – Dammit
May 31st, 2008 ryan
Swift point-and-shoot capture while waiting at a stoplight.
Swift point-and-shoot capture while waiting at a stoplight.
Beware of This and That
PotD – Earth Measurer
May 30th, 2008 ryan
Relocated from my pants.
No, really. Little thing was marching across my knee as I was lifting, tiny verdant contortions easy to spot against the black adidas. Always get a kick out of these things‘ locomotion despite the crippling grade school nickname of “Bug-Man.”
Beat Bug-Boy I guess.
PotD – Friends don’t let Friends
May 29th, 2008 ryan…cruise e-bay.
Comic-con cosplay countdown commencing.
PotD – Tropism
May 28th, 2008 ryan
While I can claim the largest office on the floor I can not gloat from on high at those below as it, the office, is decidedly lacking in windows. Each quadrant of note runs the perimeter and the interior wall is the frosted stuff shown above.
Of those with a south western exposure there is but one with plants. Smug ones.
PotD – woodgeBEE
May 26th, 2008 ryan
So! Many moons ago an acquaintance by the name of Ama/Sefira/Karen started the BEE cat naming convention and it spread like an airborne contagion to my own feline accomplice.
Today in a bout of cleaning glee I, Bar Keeper’s Friend in hand, felt a chill as the Woodge teleported to my side. His attention ascended to the skylight and there it remained until, out of curiosity, I also gazed heavensward only to see a kaiser-roll sized striped insectoid thrumming vengefully.
Primary instinct to document prevailed, thus the pictures, then both I and companion struck with confidence, slaying our winged enemy. Usually I glassjar such invaders but I literally had to tear the little killer (cat) from the thing to avoid him getting stuck.
If Woodge were a WW2 ace his vessel would have countless victory tick-marks, from wasps to birds to mice his predatory stylings have not been stifled by the fact that he is almost never allowed out of doors. He is my tiny hunter.
Memorial Day
May 26th, 2008 ryanSo it’s Memorial Day here in the states. A federal holiday that most people have off from work, it marks the unofficial start of the grilling season, costly DUIs, and time spent watching the potato salad sweat in the summer’s heat at the inevitable family barbecue.
Meanwhile the furious staccato of automatic fire ricochets off crumbling time-stained walls, high pitched whines terminating in dull wet thumps that turn muted camo BDUs patriotic. The pulse stitches a little weaker each time it vents through holes that don’t belong, hard to make it up to 13 stripes at this rate.
Across town a routine run between firm bases is interrupted by the makeshift symphony of an ingenious conductor, one time performance a cacophony of sound and force. Welded up-armor melts like butter and a piece of comm gear flowers like a piece of popcorn. Only the driver is hit. He pulls through.
A stack of body armor with red mouths pursing from green kevlar, neatly stacked awaiting inventory. Acronyms take over as ice to numb the swelling. Two more blocks. Four. Twelve. I am Modern Real-Time Communications: I tell you of the fallen before they reach room temperature.
My unit had lost 23 guys by the close of 2004 in support of a somewhat publicized op out in Iraq. We lost another 8 in non-combat related incidents, one of which involved 4 guys from my company being in a HMMWV when it flipped in to a canal I’d passed dozens of times on routine troubleshooting runs. It’s not something that’s really addressed at the time, impedes the mission you know?
There’s a saying that every person you ask Why they joined the Marines has two answers; one they tell you and then the truth. I’m not a patriotic person, I joined up for selfish reasons – hoping to pick and choose what I would take with me after 4 years of service. Without flexing my atrophying military muscles too much I just wanted to spout some badly worded thoughts here on how the blood-stained roots of this holiday pop up for me. Smarter and better men than I have stated more accurately and appropriately more on the subject than I ever could so I can only point to the words of the best leader I’ve ever had the pleasure to serve under. A different setting than this to be sure but just as fitting.
As David Hackett Fisher so ably describes in his book “Washington’s Crossing”, but for the patriotism, valor and sacrifice of a few, we might not have had a United States of America.
From President George Washington’s time to the present, as we are vividly reminded by these awesome bronze statues here today, the cost of freedom has been high.
President Washington called this loss the “debt of honor”, and on this Veterans” Day, and at this beautiful, fitting and hallowed memorial park, let us remember that we are indebted to no one more than to the men and women who serve…and, all too often, sacrifice… to protect and defend our Nation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, today we honor and remember fallen sons, absent heroes, those who cannot be with us physically to share this sunshine, this fresh clean wind upon our faces and the beautiful vista of our marvelous land. We are forever in their debt and they are with us yet, as we will never, ever forget them.
(from LtCol Willard A. Buhl’s remarks at the Pflugerville Fallen Warrior Memorial Dedication Ceremony)
(Oct 9 2004: from 3/1 WPNS Co. by Cpl Rintamaki)
PotD – Vogue
May 24th, 2008 ryan
Tank cleaning led to freedom tonight, I swear he poses on whatever surface is at hand.
Some day I’ll take some proper pictures instead of the normal spur of the moment drivel. This is a reoccurring theme/mantra, is it not?
Had some other shots of him on my hand but the hair mixed with the flash was… unsettling.
PotD – And I Ran
May 21st, 2008 ryan
I wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and it hit me again, bass line causing drops of shower water to fall loose in unison from my puzzled face.
BOW BOW
The hell!? Where is that coming from? It’s still dark-thirty and my suburban pod dwelling is amongst the yuppiest of the middle class, a system like the one at the source of this mystery twang doesn’t even exist in the zip code.
CHICKA CHIC-KA
Wait a minute, this sounds familiar.
OH YEAHHHHH
That’s, that’s the fucking Ferris Bueller music…
PotD – Blutt
May 20th, 2008 ryan
Seen this guy’s work here and there in my wanderings. Interview over at Chicagoist here.
This city is full of this stuff. There’s a great write up over at the Gaper’s Block which aggregates some of the heavy hitters, history, and impact of street art in Chicago.
I love stickers like these. Attached almost exclusively to public property they pop out from scaffolding, boarded up buildings, and road signs. Their canvas is the mundane, the functional. Their gallery goers the general public. While you can find them they generally find you.
