Humor

Yellow snow

Posted by Paul on March 11, 2011
Posted in: Humor. Tagged: , .

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I know that it’s not fair, but why else would you have a dog, other than to blame it for something? :) Hobbs Did It!

Well, actually, he didn’t. Here’s the story. After our school visit, we had dropped Tony off at his school. We were heading back to Connecticut, but first, I needed to take care of some personal business. I had to ‘go’ bad! and I mean, bad! So, naturally, I thought: I’ll stop at a gas station. I stopped and asked:

Where’s the restroom? The lady said: We don’t have one but we’re working on it. Damn! OK, back into the car. Over across the street, another gas station. I drive across, pull in, ask: Nope. We don’t have one. Something a little stronger than Damn, starting with the letter “F”, but we’ won’t go there right now. Now, I start looking for secluded areas, willing to take it back to nature. My teeth are starting to float and eyes are getting yellow. I’m full up to the top! The lady in the store was helpful and told me that there was a McDonald’s a couple of minutes down the road. I had no time to talk. Seconds mattered.

I took off down the street, trying to drive at a reasonable speed, looking for any restaurant. Any! I didn’t see any. I pulled off on a side street. Time to take it back to nature, baby! By now, my foot was tapping, my kidneys were hurting and I was in danger of imminent loss of control. I had to go NOW! I pulled in a parking lot. Damn, again! A middle school! NO! NO! NO! Forget it. I parked, ran across the street, into a field, out of eyesight of the school, and pretended to be looking for something, back to the school and down the road. Fortunately, school had already let out and everyone was gone, but I was taking no chances. I didn’t want to be seen at all, but there were precious few trees around and fortunately, a very deserted road.

So, I took it back to nature and what a relief it was. Unbelievably, I had to go a couple of more times on the way home and we encountered two more gas stations without facilities. C’mon New Hampshire, get your act together!!! Get some restrooms!

It’s funny now, but it sure was not funny then! As for that yellow snow that was left behind … Hobbs did it!!! Even though he’s never been to New Hampshire … He did it!

I must be getting older

Posted by Paul on March 10, 2011
Posted in: Humor, Personal.

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Wait! That is not the runway!!!

I must admit that I used to have a great deal of ‘hateration’ for those folks who could fall asleep on plane, like this young lady here or even my two boys who could fall asleep as soon as their butts hit the seat. I remember way back when, I had a flight to Brazil that left at night. It was 10 1/2 hour flight. I was awake for each and every hour. I couldn’t sleep sitting up. I saw the sun go down. I saw the sun come up. I saw all the darkness in between. Sigh …

However, today I realized that I may have left that behind. Admittedly, right now, I am exceptionally tired. Here’s what my day looked like yesterday:

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Up at 7:00 AM. Left the hotel at 8:00. Drove from Connecticut to New Hampshire, about 200 miles, or 3 hours. Visited a college and hung out there for about 3 or 4 hours, dropped Tony off at school, 40 minutes north of there, drove back to CT and arrived at around 6:45 PM. All told, about 460 miles and 11 hours later. Went to dinner, came back to the hotel, worked until 11:00 PM. Slept. Got up at 4:00 AM. Caught a couple of flights back and landed in CLT at 10:50. Picked up Hobbs, dropped him off at home, went to work. Worked until 5:30. Came home. Resumed work. Just finished at 8:30.

Now, back the plane. When I got onto my second leg of the journey back, Cincinnati, OH to Charlotte, NC. I thought that I’d just rest my eyes for a few seconds while waiting to taxi to the runway. Some time later, when I woke up, we were in the clouds! WTF? How did I get here? I imagine that about 15 minutes had elapsed and I was very much asleep. Takeoff? Hell, as far as I knew, we had just ‘appeared’ at that altitude. LOL.

It was a nice feeling. Now I just need to hone those skills so that I don’t wake up until I feel the wheels make contact with the ground. Man! I’m tired. Time to go to bed. It was a long day yesterday, but I did get to drive through 4 cute, little states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Interactions

Posted by Paul on February 21, 2011
Posted in: Humor, Photography. Tagged: .

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As I walked by, she laughed and said: No pictures, please!!! I said, OK. Snap! She had a good laugh and we went on our way, Tim and I. Some time later, we were walking near the river, observing an old carriage house and photographing the shadows. Here she came again, saying; No, don’t take my picture, laughing all the way. Snap! I took another one. Here, my friends, is the big advantage of hyperfocal, or zone focusing. Truly, just point and shoot. No worries about focusing or autofocus lock or any of that other nonsense. Just shoot. :)
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Sometime later, about 30 minutes or so, Tim and I are standing on the suspension bridge overlooking the water falls and here something like: Hey! Are you guys following us? This, followed by a hearty gale of laughter. We looked down to the path below and, you guessed it, the same people. Snap.

I have no idea who this lady was, as we didn’t exchange names, but we were all having fun and just enjoying the weather. Sunshine tends to do that to people and it tends to do it even more to people who are already pretty happy, as this lady seemed to be.

I guess that’s one of the reasons that I love being in the street with a camera. It seems to open up dialog, or perhaps gives people a reason to talk, or the courage to say hello. A camera is a good icebreaker.
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Out of the mouth of babes

Posted by Paul on February 7, 2011
Posted in: Humor, Personal.

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Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

First, a little background. As you know, this blog primarily revolves around whatever is going on in my life. Sure, the name is Paul Lester Photography, but I just happen to talk about life with a camera in my hand. :) Add a photo … Shazam! It’s about photography. So there! ;)

Two names that you will surely hear again and again are Tim and Shilpa. I can generally be found in the company of one or both of these wonderful folks at any given time. It gives me much pleasure to be around them. We have such a good time, even it’s just getting together to walk around the mall, which we do sometimes.

I met Shilpa back in August of last year. It seems, though, that I’ve known her a lifetime. I mean that in good way, though. LOL. We get to spend a lot of time together. We were in one of the same classes at The Peaceful Dragon, now two because I added another class so that I can be in a class with Tim and Shilpa. I now have 4 classes. Tim keeps trying to get me to come on Wednesday, but 5 days in a row… not ready for that yet. In addition to being in the same classes, Shilpa and I work together. Same company, same building, same floor, just a few steps from each other. So, we eat lunch together most every day, too.

As you can imagine, we have lots of conversations, which is were this is headed. One day she asked me to remind her to do something when we got back from lunch. I promptly forgot. She didn’t forget that I forgot, either. The next time she wanted to be reminded of something, she started: Paul, can you remind me to … never, mind, you’ll forget. I assured her that I would not forget and I didn’t. I’ve reminded her of several other things that she needed to remember as well. After the first, and only incident of forgetting, she told me that I needed to eat some almonds to enhance my memory. Odd. Isn’t she the one asking to be reminded of stuff?

So, yesterday, we were talking on the phone and we got to talking about memory and she said, and I quote:

Somebody told me that I have a good memory, but I can’t remember who it was!
~Shilpa Jindal – Feb 6, 2011

pause …

I stopped … I broke out into a laugh, a good laugh. She said: what are you laughing about? I said: did you just hear what you said? “Someone told me that I have a good memory, but I can’t remember who it was!”. She broke out into a laugh, too.

I said: Now, I know why you are in my life. Comic relief! I shook my head, had another laugh, and we carried on with our conversation. If I ever become a comedian, I have to remember to keep her close. She would provide hours and hours of material.

Now, as for the photo above, I’ll let you spin your own story about that. Beware, friends! I have a blog and a camera. I’m dangerous!

Please take this test…

Posted by Paul on January 22, 2011
Posted in: Humor. Tagged: .

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OK. Here is the test question. Pay careful attention: Is there anything in the above depiction that would indicate that you might not get the expected results when taking this photograph?

If you said yes, well bully for you! LOL! If you said no, well, then you answered the same way that I did this morning. It’s all good! 5 x 5. All coming up green. All systems are go! Now for the story:

The morning started of kind of gray and cold, but we were walking nonetheless. About half way through our walk, I noticed to my right, reddish orange light filtering through the vertical slats of a fence. The beautiful curves of the top of the fence, in silhouette, running horizontally, and the light leaking through the slats would make a nice photo indeed. Hobbs and I crossed the street. Click. Image captured … or so I thought.

We rounded the corner, heading east. I looked into the sky. Beautiful bands of orange and gray as the rays from the sunrise skipped across the various cloud layers, highlighting the bottoms of some of the clouds, turning them a brilliant yellowish-orange, missing others leaving them gray. Absolutely gorgeous. Click! This will be the post of today, for sure. I’m all smiles until I look at the top of the display! Awwww, man! No memory card.

I put my camera back into my pocket, put my glove back on, continued the walk, and enjoyed the sunrise. I didn’t have another camera with me, so that shot will have to stay in biological memory! It made me wish that cameras had backup memory, even a small amount, say 250 megabytes or something … enough to capture a few images if you forgot to put your card back in. When I returned home, there was the memory card in the reader, mocking me: Did you forget something?

I would like to tell you that this is the first time that it’s happened, but, it isn’t. :) I’ve done it with film camera’s too. However, it is still funny and I got something good out of it: I got another blog post AND got to flex a little of my Photoshop skills that are extremely rusty and were never that skillful in the first place! LOL

The indignities of a snowman

Posted by Paul on January 14, 2011
Posted in: Humor. Tagged: .

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Well, I had another post all lined up, but it will have to wait. As i rounded the corner for the final leg of my walk this morning, I saw this woeful snowman and could do nothing but laugh. I noticed his drooping posture, the head hung low, and the drooping arms. Life is just not fair. Well, he will probably not suffer this public indignity for long. Today should be a warm day and, as some of us want to do when we are very much embarrassed, he will be able to melt into the ground. Damned dogs! LOL

Authentic NC Snowmen!

Posted by Paul on December 28, 2010
Posted in: Humor, Photography.

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Get ‘em while they’re … ummm, cold! Yeah, that’s it! Prior to this morning, during my walks, I had seen several snowmen. All artificial blowup ones. In the second photo, you can see one of these lesser snowmen deflated on the ground. You know, snowmen migrate north for the winter, unlike birds who come here to the south. There are lots of snowmen who just moved to New England!
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Well, this morning was a right proper picnic-like morning for a proper snowman. It was 19 degrees F. As you know, snowmen like it a bit on the chilly side. They have little need for sunscreen, or perhaps major need for it! They prefer overcast days, too. Today, however, was not overcast with promises of highs near 50, I figured that I’d better snap a few shots while the snapping was good!

As we walked, we saw 3 snowmen. I figured that I’d see more, but we saw only three. Perhaps the others had moved north, but these three hardy, or perhaps foolhardy souls stayed around.

One was quite dapper guarding the door. The second one that I saw seemed to be a bit in need of some eyes and a serious bath. The third, well, he wasn’t fairing so well. He looked, shall we say, a bit confused, dazed, amorphous?

It was nice getting to see these temporary guests. I guess that they’ve all ‘run off’ now. Gosh! I’m such a punster!
LOL

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