Imaginary Landscape

It is one of those memories that sticks in one's mind, a snapshot of a brief moment in time, meaningless in its triviality, yet it hangs about like a stranger who looks slightly suspicious, a tiny bit menacing, but who also never does anything to support those fears or allay them. So this morning, in the depths of one of my ‘episodes’, after a night of restless sleeping, it pops into consciousness once again, leaving both an unsecured longing and a spark of joy. When we were children, under the age where one could leave us safely at home, we always went shopping with Mommy. She did not drive, never drove in my recollection, except that one fateful evening when she propelled the neighbour’s car up our driveway, into my father’s Buick, our garage and any number of framed Kaiser shade window screens, leaning against the walls so their framing’s new coat of paint could dry. Oddly enough, I do not recall taking the bus to town, nor returning home on it; I recall only waiting for it af...

I am presently reading a book by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything . It’s too bad I didn’t have this book in primary and secondary school. It answers many questions I have had about science since then. It also draws connections that would have made my life (and learning) a lot simpler. Oh well, I have the book now, and that is sufficient. So what if Sister Mary Frances will die thinking I am an idiot? However, there are other questions and conundrums I have that swirl about in my head from time to time, or pop up uninvited to distract me from something I’m supposed to be doing, like defrosting the refrigerator. I used to know a woman in Virginia Beach, Virginia, who was very religious. When confronted with a mystery or question she could not answer, she would respond by saying, “That’s one of the first things I’m going to ask God when I get to heaven.” I always thought it terribly presumptuous of her to expect that she would ever get an audience to enquire about things...

RADAR Originally uploaded by sailor5116 . From one of my contacts, sailor5116, who makes these incredible circles with Adobe Photoshop, and this is one of my favourites. Check out his other photos, and those of my other contacts, too.

During the time I lived in Eucla, Western Australia (population: 40-something; 1429 km from Perth; 1222 km from Adelaide), I edited a little newsletter, The Eucla Telegraph, w ith a distribution between Nullarbor, SA, and Perth. I often included a feature story on a local resident, event or happening. One day, after having worked at the Eucla Motor Hotel from 6 AM to 1 PM, I was at home when someone phoned saying a chap with four camels and a dog had just arrived at the roadhouse. I picked up my pen, notebook and camera and headed over there—just a few 100 metres. This story, which has been edited for inclusion here, is what appeared in the June 2001 newsletter. Chris Richards has been trekking the past three months through the Western Australian outback, ‘learning heaps’, raising a little money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and heading toward Fowler’s Bay. There, he hopes to acquire more camels and begin a trek up to and along the Dog Fence with paying customers who want to se...

tiny swimmer feet Originally uploaded by Shutterhugs .

I referred in my last blog entry about a photography site called Flickr . I don’t exactly recall how I first encountered Flickr (I have slept since then), but I suspect I stumbled across it (literally, through Firefox’s extension, Stumble , which is a neat little tool for systematically wandering the Internet, directed by preferences you can change at will). Now two years old, Flickr is one of the newest internet communities. At first blush, it looks like a good place to store prized photographs off-site. It is also a chance to share photography tips and issues with like-minded photographers – there are amateur and professional photographers alike there. However, it has grown into its own little community, as it has its own blog and various ‘pools’ sorted according to the latest computer sorting scheme using ‘tags’ and people’s interests – Pink Think, Picturing the Male, Your Dog Nose , I Love My Cat (with nearly 3500 members!), Purple Flowers, Anything and Everything, to name just a...