Another Day

I took some pictures at a junkyard early in the morning as the sun was coming up. This image with the sun shining through the window of the truck struck me and I had to take a picture of it. I don't know what it is about this shot that I like so much, but I keep looking at it and thinking how every day is a chance to start over again and do things right.

Harvest Moon

Last night was the harvest moon, which is just a term for the full moon as it appears near the autumnal equinox. It looked brighter this year than it did before, so I took some pictures of it. The sky was mostly clear, although I did have to wait a bit for the clouds to move away from it before taking a shot.

It took me quite a few tries to get the focus right. I tried using an aperture setting of f22, but that didn't help. In the end, I shot with the aperture wide open (f2.8) and took quite a few shots in an attempt to nail the focus manually. I kept the camera on a tripod and used a remote to trigger the shutter so that the camera would be perfectly still.

After all that, I only ended up with one picture that turned out well, but it was worth the trouble:

I didn't go out away from the city lights anywhere, I just stood in the driveway. Good enough!

Looking Back

Every year on December 7th, my Grandpa Brackin would refuse to allow us to turn on the TV. If someone turned it on when he was out of the living room, when he returned he would turn it off right away. He even unplugged the TV and kept the remote in his pocket one year.

I knew it was because he couldn't stand to watch all the old coverage from the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it was so long ago and he wasn't even there when it happened. It didn't make sense to me why he would be bothered by it so much. It was a tragedy, sure, but not one that affected him directly. He had lived a very eventful life and was not the kind of person to back down from anything or ever act weak. It baffled me that he couldn't handle to watch the grainy old footage from that day, and was so opposed to it that we couldn't even turn the TV on.

My grandpa was an orthopedic surgeon who joined the Navy around the time WWII broke out and even though he was not stationed at Pearl Harbor, he was greatly affected by the attack. That day was very real to him and was more than just old black and white clips of burning ships. It was a searing memory of something that shocked the entire country and deeply affected everyone in the Navy, especially him. He didn't have to be on one of those ships to feel the horror and the loss that had been inflicted that day. It left a lasting impression on him and one that apparently didn't fade with time.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, I began to realize how he felt. In the 21st century we are a little more jaded and cynical than most folks in 1941, but that was still a big shock to all of us. It didn't seem real and watching those buildings burn and then the second plane hit... the world wasn't working like it was supposed to. It was completely wrong. So horrible to watch. Then I understood how he must have felt.

Now when September 11th rolls around each year I can't wait for the day to end. I don't want to look online or watch TV. I don't want to see the footage of the planes, the burning buildings, the people jumping, everything crashing down... none of it. I'm not calloused and I am not trying to forget, but I don't want to see it over and over every year. It's too hard to watch and the more I see it, the more it affects me as I wonder what the victims went through in those last moments. I wonder about the families who had to deal with it then and still have to deal with it each year.

My grandpa wasn't a sissy and neither am I. He just understood that some things had to be turned off and now I understand that, too.

Microscope

I went into the attic and got out my grandpa Brackin's old microscope that he bought when he was a med student. He was an orthopedic surgeon at Cook County Hospital and worked rotations in the E.R. for much of his career.

When I was in high school, he gave me his old microscope which had a lot of sentimental value to him. He took good care of it and kept it in nearly new condition. I took a few pictures of it as I was showing it to the girls.

This is the original box that it lives in.

The front says Bausch & Lomb,

and on the back is stamped the date: Jan. 5, 1915.

A close-up of the optics.

The brass still shines, despite its age.

You can see the aperture beneath the tray reflected in the mirror. It's really cool to move the slider and watch it open and close so precisely. All of the small curved blades fit perfectly and allow very fine-tune control over how much light is allowed to reach the opening in the tray. There are so many interesting details and parts that make up this instrument and it is fascinating to see how they all work together. Everything fits and lines up so carefully and was obviously intended to last.

A light that can be attached beneath the tray in place of the mirror. Yeah, I'm not even gonna try to plug that in...

Inside the upper part of the wooden box are a couple of racks that slide out. This one holds all the individual containers for storing the optics as well as a bottle of some fluid that has long ago dried up. I think it is an adhesive of some kind, perhaps to glue specimens to the glass slides?

There's a whole box full of unused glass slides, too.

I think that the samples were put into cardboard sleeves like this and sent off to a lab. At least that's my best guess.

On the back of the cardboard sleeve...

In the other rack are a couple of optics that can be swapped out with the viewing piece at the top of the microscope. They are in varying strengths.

It brings back a lot of memories to look at all this. I remember the very cold December day when my grandpa got this out and showed me all of it and how everything works. I wish I could remember everything he said, but I do recall viewing lots of interesting things that he had on slides. I think this microscope was very important to him because he was very careful with it (even though it is steel and could probably stop bullets) and he talked about how he never wanted to sell it even long after he stopped using it. I imagine that it was a big investment at that time for a broke med student and he might have valued it like I do my guitars. It probably carried many memories for him, too.

Tomorrow I am going to gather up some leaves, hair, fabric, an cicada wing, and anything else of interest to show the girls under the microscope. There's a whole world under our noses that don't see!

Pinicon Ridge

Some photos from our trip to Pinicon Ridge on Labor Day.

Can you see Rose?

Emily had to stop part way up the stairs. It was a long way up there.

At the top! It was really windy and the observation deck swayed from side to side as we stood on it. The sun was nice, though, since it was still chilly out.

The view from the top:

Oh yeah, there were animals there, too. A very sad elk family was hiding in the brush.

We rented a boat and went out on the river, but decided not to bring my camera for that.