Where in the world?

The fun thing about these pictures is that they were not taken in Europe. They were taken in a city settled by Europeans, however, and you can tell. It is a great heritage and it is great to have benefited from their architectural and cultural traditions as we've developed our own.

Any guessses on where these sights were seen?

The ice cream man

One of the absolute delights of working as a newspaper reporter, is the chance to meet people from all walks of life with all kinds of stories to tell:

The teacher who just graduated and got a job teaching first grade at the school where she went to first grade, with her first-grade teacher just down the hall.

The farmer who turned his farm over for a conservation easement and opens his corn rows and turkey pens up to schools so city kids can see where their food comes from.

The young man who wanted to be on the city council since he was seven and earned the spot over more experienced competition and works 26 hours a week to help his city.

The woman who turned a pile of rubble at the end of a parking lot in her apartment complex into a garden with the help of kids in the complex (and then got evicted -- but that's another story).

But today I want to tell you about Gordon Christensen.

I first met Gordon when I sat next to him at a Veterans' Day event last November. First he handed me a poem typed on blue paper and cut with serated edges that said something like, "it isn't the journalist who gives you freedom of speech, it's the soldier..." I thought to myself, he doesn't know I'm a journalist.

But that wouldn't have mattered.

Then he gave me a clothespin with a tiny washer glued on it and told me it was a washer and dryer. Then he told me about the ice cream social he does every year to celebrate the creation of the ice cream cone and how it started in his yard but now is a city-wide event. And when he found out my daughter was born on the same day as his ice cream social, he gave me an envelope filled with poems and stories and a $2 bill and told me to give it to my daughter. Then he gave me a quarter with something of significance stuck on it, which sad to say I've both lost and forgotten. (I tried once to throw away the washer and dryer thinking I would never see this man again, but while it was still in the garbage can I got assigned to do a story on a young man that turned out to be his son and since I had to call Gordon up for a couple color questions, I thought I'd better be able to report that I still had it -- so I pulled it back out. It's safe in my drawer again.)

The next time I saw the older gentleman -- a proud veteran -- was at a Memorial Day event, when he told me he liked the story I'd done about his son, but wished I'd included his daughter-in-law's maiden name in it so her family could get some credit too. And he reminded me about the ice cream social.

So I was thrilled to be assigned the ice cream social just last month, where I saw him in action -- seated on a chair off to the side of the event that now included live music and a car show, as well as his traditional free ice cream. Kids got their cones and then wandered over to where he told them about how cones started.

Here's Gordon in action:















When I talked to Gordon between readings, he pulled a copy of the story I'd written about his son out of his shirt pocket. He told me how he liked to show it to people, but he'd have liked it better if I'd included his daughter-in-law's maiden name. It was cut with serated edges.
And then he gave me a dime with a pin glued on to it. "It's a dime-and pin," he said, making it sound like "diamond pin."

I still have it.

From the air

I promise one of these days I'll have more time to write. For now, a look at Syracuse, Utah and the Black Island Farm Corn Maze and the Wasatch Range ... from ... you guessed it ... a helicopter. A helicopter with no door on the side. Yes.

Another day at the office

Do I have the best job or what?

Mini miracles

As if it isn't miraculous enough to be able to fit 1,000 pictures on a little one-by-one memory card and put them on your computer in seconds and have little tiny pictures of each photo for you to pick from and tweak if you're a tweaker and send out to friends and print for mementos -- but then you can get word that someone on the other side of the world is enjoying them too.

This is a miracle beyond words.

It's a new miracle. One that wasn't around 20 years ago and that makes those of us who were around 20 years ago drop our jaws at the wonder of it all.

So to celebrate I'm putting more pictures from my little one-by-one memory card that are now one of thousands and thousands on my little-bit-bigger-but-still-surprisingly small computer, and I'm disseminating them to the other side of the world.

These are pictures that I took on the other side of the world. In greeting and as thanks.

Good to the last shot

My faithful friend finally gave out on me. We've been together for exactly four years. It was in August of 2006 that I took the first shots with my digital SLR Canon, after trying out a digital point-and-shoot Kodak for eight months and after being one of the last to admit I had to switch over from film.

The life expectancy of these early SLRs is 40,000 to 50,000 shots and we made it to 58,464, the last 10,000 without autofocus, but still making great automatic exposures of everything from flowers to oceanscapes, from people to fireworks.

I'm fiercely loyal to something that's served me so well, and it still sits on my desk with the black finish worn in spots and the dust showing in a few corners. Though it won't turn on anymore, it never let me down. Even the last shots before the error message came up and the LCD blanked out for the last time, were keepers. Shown above, a few of my last thousand-or-so pictures. Below, just out my bedroom window on an August morning, picture number 58,452.

Walking at night

It's just about impossible to get a good picture of people walking at night. Even my fellow gallery photographer who just bought a many-thousand-dollar camera that can reach ISO (sensitivity to light) numbers of 100,000 or something astronomical says so.

Still, I had to try.

I tried with a flash, without a flash, with a tripod, without a tripod, with a high shutter speed, on automatic, with close-ups, with distance shots, with a Nikon and with a Canon.

But the most important thing wasn't getting the picture. The most important thing was the walking at night. They were doing it, as others around the country have been doing it, to raise money to fight cancer. Many of them had friends with cancer, many of them had family members, some of them had survived the devastating disease themselves. The little votive candles in bags along the way honored those who couldn't be there and wouldn't.

But spirits were high and determination was evident as they walked and walked, doing something -- anything, to try and help win a war that's seen some victories and wants to see more.

I honor those who are fighting the fight. Those who raise money for it and those who fight it with everything medicine has to offer and every hope faith can bring.

Keep walking.