Cultural Awareness (or Lack Thereof)

January 30, 2018 Tom Dills 4 Comments

Views of uptown Charlotte from the Seventh Street Station parking garage, Charlotte, North Carolina

One of the many advantages of not being a television watcher is that I don’t have to put up with all the commercials and mindless programming, including the so-called news. One of the disadvantages of not being a television watcher is that I miss out on a lot of the sayings and expressions that come from both the commercials and the programs themselves.

Views of uptown Charlotte around the Imaginon Children’s Library in Charlotte, North Carolina

Case in point – last week I sent an email to a co-worker about something good that had happened, and he replied, “dilly dilly.” I was puzzled but figured if he wasn’t making some obscure reference to my name that it was probably something I missed from television. I get pretty good at recognizing things like that. 😉

Charlotte Transit Lynx Light Rail at the Seventh Street Station in Charlotte, North Carolina

Just today I came across an article about a guy with Charlotte roots who had found recent fame by being the “dilly dilly” guy, and it turns out he is the actor that plays the king in a series of Budweiser commercials where he replies “dilly dilly” whenever someone brings him beer. Little did I know, but “dilly dilly” is this year’s version of “WHASSSUP?” 🙂

The things I miss. Sigh….

The photos – by the way – are more from 2012. I took this during an outing with a digital point & shoot class I was teaching. Although it appears I “cheated” and was using my then-new Canon 5D Mark III. 😉

Photography

Looking Back – January 2012

January 25, 2018 Tom Dills 2 Comments

As part of my project to recover drive space by deleting photos that didn’t make the cut, I get to go through those folders again, looking for photos that made the cut but that I had never processed. The year I’ve been looking at most recently is 2012. These photos were from a trip to Hilton Head Island that year. It’s interesting to see that I used three different cameras at that time.

Beach at Sunset, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – Canon 5D

Beach at Sunset, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – Fuji X10

Beach at Sunset, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – Canon G12

Random Thoughts

Snow Day

January 17, 2018 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Doo, doo, doo, lookin’ out my back door….

Today we’re having a pretty rare occurrence here in NC – a snow day! I won’t get into all the hyperbole about how we’re a bunch of weather wimps that don’t know how to drive in the snow, because everyone else has that covered. For me, I’m just glad I have a job that allows me to stay home and watch it out the window. There are few things more frustrating than having to make a decision about going to work. Although one of them would be being at work and having to make a decision about when to leave! Fortunately, Kathy & I both have computers that allow us to work from just about anywhere, and managers that are willing to let us. We have about 5 inches of snow on the ground here, and although the road in front of our house was plowed earlier, it’s going to be dicey going for a few days.

I seldom feel inclined to get out and take pictures in the snow, although once it is finished and the sun comes back out, I might decide to get out for a walk. I’ll admit to being a wimp when it comes to snow…why freeze my a$$ when I don’t have to! 🙂

Photography

Spoiled For Choice

January 9, 2018 Tom Dills 2 Comments

If someone put a motor on an ofo, would that make it a mofo?

A recent Charlotte phenomenon is the proliferation of something called “dockless bike-sharing programs.” By using an app on your phone (of course) you can pick up one of these bikes, ride it wherever you want, and leave it there. It unlocks automagically using the app, then presumably locks itself when you are finished.

It’s kind of an interesting concept, and I kind of hope it catches on, but I have to wonder just how many people are actually going to ride these things. A recent news article indicated the city council had authorized four different companies to have up to 2,000 bikes in town. That seems like a lot.

Maybe on the first 70 degree day we should have a Bike-In, and everyone head out at lunch time, ride a bike to some central location and leave them all in one place. Seems like a lot of trouble but what the heck.

Photography

Friday Afternoon

January 6, 2018 Tom Dills 4 Comments

There’s an office on the floor where I work that gets nice night in the afternoon. This past Friday the office was unoccupied and was getting nice light, so I took this photo with my phone. I posted it on Instagram but not too many people see it there, so I decided it might make a nice blog post.

As a bonus, here is a detail shot I made of the shadow from the blind cords.

Photography

Seventeen for Seventeen

December 30, 2017 Tom Dills 10 Comments

Eilean Donan Castle, Dornie, Kyle of Lochalsh, Scotland

I haven’t typically jumped on the “Best of….” bandwagon, but as my buddy Paul says, “My blog, my rules!” Or something to that effect. 😉

I picked these photos as much for the quality of the memory as for the quality of the photograph, but criterias is criterias, right? Many if not most have been posted previously, but again…. Your money back if not completely satisfied!

We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeves for 2018, so stay tuned! 🙂

Shoreline near the Tarbat Ness Lighthouse on the Dornock Firth near Wilkhaven, Scotland

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle

View from the A87 on the Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Royal Cottage on the shore of Loch Katrine, Scotland

View across the Cromartie Firth on the A9 north of Inverness

View from the A87 on the Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Nature cruise around the harbor in St. Augustine Florida

Morning on Pantego Creek, Belhaven North Carolina

Not a bad view to wake up to. View from our villa at Half Moon Resort, Montego Bay, Jamaica

Sunset at the Sunset Gazebo. Half Moon Resort, Montego Bay, Jamaica

Ogon’ki Ensemble from Russia performing at the Mountain Street Dance in downtown Waynesville NC

Random street scene in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota

Aboard Norwegian Epic on our cruise from Tortola back to Port Canaveral

Photography

Clutter Update

December 23, 2017 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Nickel & Nickel Winery in Rutherford, near Napa, California

Back in February 2016 I wrote this post titled Storage and Clutter, about my quest to delete files and free up space on my hard drives. At that point I was through 2008 and had deleted 23,000 files worth 236GB. I’ve working slowly but steadily on that project and today I finished 2012. At this point I have jettisoned 56,000 files and reclaimed about 478 GB. Not a bad effort so far, and the farther I go the more confident I become in my previous editing. I’ll need to go a little further with my more recent years because I’m not sure I’ve been doing as good a job lately. We’ll see!

Fisher Vineyards near Santa Rosa, California

These photos are from our 2012 cruise to Alaska from San Francisco, hence the diverse geography. 🙂 They are previously unprocessed files that I discovered while I was reviewing photos, but are not ones that had been scheduled for deletion. 😉

The Golden Gate Bridge viewed from our harbor tour aboard Blue & Gold Fleet

Aboard the White Pass & Yukon Railway in Skagway, Alaska

Whale watching cruise in Auke Bay near Juneau Alaska with Harv & Marv’s Outback Alaska aboard the M/V “Alaskan” with Captain Shawn

Photography

Tourists in Our Own Town

December 14, 2017 Tom Dills 6 Comments

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte NC

As much as Kathy & I love to travel, we often talk about the fact that there are a lot of interesting things to do right here in Charlotte. Things that people come from all over the country – and even the world – to experience, and we have never been. So a few weeks ago we decided to try something new – to be tourists in our own town and start checking out some of the things we take for granted.

After a nice breakfast we headed to the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for an exhibit of photography that includes work by Paul Strand and of contemporary Mexican photographers. The office where I work is directly across the street from the Bechtler, and our bank gives us free admission once a month, but we had never been!

Next we rode the light rail out to visit Doc Porter’s Distillery, where we took a tour and sampled their products. This little distillery is cranking out bourbon, rye whisky, rum, gin, vodka and soon, malt whisky. Nice people and a good story, and well worth the effort to get there.

Doc Porter’s Distillery in Charlotte, NC

So a day of photography and booze – how hard is that?!

Photography

Christmas Wallpaper

December 7, 2017 Tom Dills 2 Comments

Christmas Tree on the waterfront in Belhaven, NC

I don’t usually go looking for Christmas-themed photos, but sometimes they just manage to find me. 😉 This was shot in Belhaven, NC last year. And when I shot it I commented that it would be my Christmas wallpaper for this year. And so it is!

We’re headed for Belhaven again this coming weekend. There’s no telling what photographs might find me while we’re there. Might even be another Christmas scene. 😉

Travel

Mary From Minnie

December 2, 2017 Tom Dills 2 Comments

Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota

Kathy travels to Minneapolis regularly for work – her company is headquartered there. A few weeks ago she went and allowed me to tag along. A group of folks that I support at work are located there, so it gave me an opportunity to meet people that otherwise I would only know by phone and email.

While we were there we took some time to get out and explore. It was my first time there, and my first time to see the Mississippi River from somewhere other than an airplane. Here is a baker’s dozen of my photos from that adventure.